The thread regarding the new datasheets for Plague Marines and Blightlord Terminators got locked, and I'd like to get a feel for the Dakka community opinions on this issue.

The TLDR for that thread is that the datasheets in the new codex for those two units (one of which being the main unit in the army) are significantly different than the 8E versions. No longer is there any squad level limitation on special or heavy weapons, the limitation is what can be built in a specific box of minis, while following the enclosed instructions. GW seems to be assuming players will only have access to this one box (and are incapable of using different arm combinations not in the instructions!), despite huge amounts of Plague Marine figures being released in 3 different starter sets just a few years ago, the new Heroes set, and the older legacy models.

So I think it is fair to consider what would happen if this becomes a trend. Chaos Havoks come with instructions to build two shoulder fired weapons (AT) and two hip fired weapons (General Purpose or Anti Infantry). SoB Retributors are similar, but restricted by the guns in the box rather than poses. Tau Commanders, DE Scourges, Skitarii, Scions, and any number of other units come with one of each gun upgrade in the box. Chaos Marines, IG Infantry, and other kits don't include all of their 8E options at all. And if you follow that logic, quite a few units that were merely "OK" become unplayable even in a casual game in 2021.

So, I'm interested in hearing your opinion on this. Please stay on topic. If you want to talk about 3D printing, piracy, other wargames, or the latest boogeyman, by all means start another thread to do so.

I don't understand the logic. My friends and I bought 2 boxes of havocs each so we could have 2 squads of 4 of the same weapon (with one of them being 4 chainguns). Thats 220 dollars worth of models. If anything they are losing out on a lot of money by making the rules like this.

If its a 'help new players be less confused' thing then that is doing a newbie a disservice because a '1 of everything' build is awful advice and putting yourself at a disadvantage. Also GW needs to stop kidding themselves with their playerbase. The nerds interested in plastic sci-fi miniatures can handle a meaty ruleset.

Is it a balance thing? I'd say no. Not only is the rest of the Death Guard book strong I've had 5 combi-melta blightlords throughout all of 8th and they're only ok. Its easy to screen their 12 inch range and they still have 5 shots wounding leman russes on 4+s. I guess combi-plasma was really bad or something? Why can't that just warrant a point change?

It seems like every time GW takes a step forward they also step on a rake. I honestly cannot believe that Age of Sigmar had a 'make your own hero' creator with POINTS VALUES and 40k is doing stuff that is anti-hobby. I've already had my mega armor warboss moved to legends because they don't sell any models and conversions are a no-no for orks apparently? (lol wtf thats why we play orks). Someone has their head up their rear in the 40k team.

Jesus, I drop out of the hobby for a year or two and this is what happens?

Back to 2nd Ed. it is, then.

Other: Your poll is a mess of conflicting and unrelated options.

Also 'No instructions, no rules' isn't what's going on in any way.


The DG 'options checklist' is problematic on many levels:
its a textual mess.
it doesn't address balance
it randomly invalidates existing squads for no apparent reason (but lets people build stronger squads)
its limiting on a hobby level, but not a game level, which is a baffling concept.

going forward, it has the potential to absolutely ruin armies.
if its a 'paradigm shift,' its an act of pure spite to start it here after the first two factions of the edition.

It sucks, and makes me feel bad and my eyes rain.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
It sucks, and makes me feel bad and my eyes rain.

Echoing this. It's... It's bad. Real bad.

I think Voss nailed it really. If it ends here, w/DG it’s bad enough. If it gets carried to the other books it’s just awful. Would be enough to finally put me out of GW for good. Especially since the “GW Favorite Son” got to skip it ...

 Don Savik wrote:

If its a 'help new players be less confused' thing

have you SEEN the ungodly hell that is the Plague Marine wargear listing in the codex?

if I were a new player I'd nope out the instant I read that gak.

I will not stand for it. Its fething horrible and IMO just second to destroying Fantasy.

I will be writing them regularly until this changes.

I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. Customization in 40k has been dying a slow death as long as I've been playing. In five years they'll probably have removed options entirely so they can print Sigmar-style stat cards (only three times the size so they can fit the paragraphs of special rule required to explain how your Intercessors' three different gun models actually all do the same thing).

I'm indifferent to the change. I do wish there was something similar to firstborn with this.

Changes like this, which limit building to the box (and certain wargear), makes the game easier to be adapted to Power Level instead of points, and for army building I'd love if power level was the standard for the game.

Right now, with all the options, and with certain weapons being better than others, leads to pl not being as well suited for matched play games.

If GW wants me to built the models with the exact weapons they give me, in the exact ways they give me, with the exact parts they give me... just sell me the dam models prebuilded and prepainted.

I have more freedom building Ikea's furniture.

Quite an embarrassment if such restrictions are how little they think the consumer can understand/manage when trying to play a frankly a very basic wargame.

Putting aside the threat to creativity and choice, what this will do is put more balance ramifications into the hands of the model/sprue designers who are probably quite divorced from the rules writing and game balance process (or what passes for such at GW).

Changes like this, which limit building to the box (and certain wargear), makes the game easier to be adapted to Power Level instead of points, and for army building I'd love if power level was the standard for the game.

Right now, with all the options, and with certain weapons being better than others, leads to pl not being as well suited for matched play games.

Barely anyone plays with Power Levels. And if one option is better than another option, their points values should be indicative of that. Hence why nobody plays with power levels, because it's a terrible way to balance a game.

AoS is a terrible game, and GW needs to stop trying to shoehorn 40K into that awful system.

This almost feels like a Deckard Voiceover situation. Some suit in PR at GW came down to the game designers offices one day, and said

"WHEW, it STINKS down here, this is why I never come down here. RIGHT, YOU LOT, THE NERDS!

I have received no less than ninteen letters from Constance Shibboleth in Crumpetham-upon-Statfordshire that her son Nesbit constructed his boxes of plague marines with all the fancy weaponry just as the instructions said, and now he's inconsolably crying and threatening to bomb his elementary school because YOUR RULES made HIS KIT, "Illegal" or somesuch. I demand you re-write the rules for these Deathed Guards to allow for all the available optionery to be playable! GOOD DAY SIRRAHS"

and then the game designers looked at one another and said

"But if we do that bruv the rules are gonna be unreadable"

"I don't know old chap let's just write them out and they'll surely see that it's a completely crazy mess and they'll never publish it."

In the case of Blightlords, the rules don't even correspond to the contents of the box. The basic loadout is 5 combi-bolters + 5 swords, but the box only contains the parts for 4 combi-bolters and 3 swords. This rule is arbitrary, bad, and discourages both customization of equipment and conversions. It needs to be changed. Even if it's only for Death Guard, that's too much.

Voss wrote:
Other: You're poll is a mess of conflicting and unrelated options.
Also 'No instructions, no rules' isn't what's going on in any way.

Fair enough. I agree that it doesn't seem to be a balance issue. I disagree about the instructions because it fits almost perfect.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerInstructions/comments/7eb0rj/death_guard_plague_marines_imgur/

Outside of the Champ who has no Plasma Gun option in the kit, every single entry seems dictated by a variant in these instructions.

In 8E you could take any 2 plasma/melta/belcher/spewer/launcher. Now its 1 plasma/melta/belcher, 1 spewer, 1 launcher for 3 total, but split up because those are separate variants.

In 8E you could have any 2 flail/cleaver, now one of each because there is one variant build for each in the instructions.

In 8E you could have any number of axes (just the axe). Now you cannot have a second axe unless you also take the mace, despite having multiple knife arms leftover depending on how you built the others. And you can only have one dual knife guy because theres only instructions for one.

I think they did the datasheet based on the instructions, then added the champ plasma gun after a proofread. I could be wrong, but it seems more likely than improbable ballistics on a Carcano rifle, 5G mind control or what have you. Is it just a coincidence?

 Brutus_Apex wrote:


AoS is a terrible game, and GW needs to stop trying to shoehorn 40K into that awful system.

To each their own. Myself, and lot of folks really enjoy Age of Sigmar. I prefer it over 40k, personally and I know a lot of folks who think the same.


It'd be good for 40k, if all the options were equal in value, instead of certain weapons being better than others.

Gw is just trying to wrong more money out of players, that's all they do. They have zero respect for players and simple see them the way a leech sees people: Things to such every drop of blood you can out of.

 jaredb wrote:
...To each their own. Myself, and lot of folks really enjoy Age of Sigmar. I prefer it over 40k, personally and I know a lot of folks who think the same.

The thing that baffles me is that we have AoS. People who like AoS can play it, have a good time, it's great. People who like 40k and don't like AoS should have a game they like that they can play and have a good time. Turning 40k into AoS is great for people who like AoS, yay, woo, good for them, but it's terrible for people who don't like AoS.

 jaredb wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:


AoS is a terrible game, and GW needs to stop trying to shoehorn 40K into that awful system.

To each their own. Myself, and lot of folks really enjoy Age of Sigmar. I prefer it over 40k, personally and I know a lot of folks who think the same.


It'd be good for 40k, if all the options were equal in value, instead of certain weapons being better than others.

Then those folks should play AoS. To each their own.

It's perfectly fine if some weapons are better than others, as long as you have to pay the appropriate points for them. It should be possible to create a barebones squad with basic weapons, or one with some weapons with more "punch", as long as that punch has the right price.

Customizable weapons loadouts have been a thing in 40k for as long as I've been playing (since 3rd), and it's one of the things a lot of us find fun about it. There's no reason to change that just to make it more like another game that someone else likes more. Not when that game is still there for those that prefer it.

Any thing from GW along the lines of "no model no rules" is simply ridiculous.

Here is why:

The most powerful rules available to most factions currently all come from traits and relics. Which for the most part dont have corresponding models. So any notion that modelling somehow is related to rules writing is just ridiculous at this point.

Whether or not this is anti-player, it feels anti-player. Converting has been part of the hobby and this is actively discouraging said part. Moreover, if a new kit was designed along side the rules it might feel appropriate, but writing new rules to lock in an existing kit feels short sighted. After all, the contents of the box are not the fluffiest build possible so restricting options undermines another pillar of the hobby.

As for making 40k AoS in Space, I fine with alternate flavor, but do not want a replacement. If GW offers stock 40k and a Space General's Handbook with free data sheets, that would be cool, but no 40k proper would be disappointing. Does GW not want to bother with 2 games and just wants the one GW game in fantasy and space editions?

 jaredb wrote:

It'd be good for 40k, if all the options were equal in value, instead of certain weapons being better than others.

But they aren't equal in value. Treating them as if they were makes no sense whatsoever. And the game can't function if they were, as you'd have to stat anti-tank weapons as equal to anti-infantry weapons, which would make them wildly less effective at taking out tanks and monsters.

It also has nothing at all to do with the problem at hand, which is the incoherent list of restrictions for Death Guard, which doesn't at all make them less powerful. It just makes a weird Tetris minigame out of assembling models.

The poll has as many superflous lines for options as the Plague Marine wargear list.

I hate the change, but I adapted before and will do so again. It just sucks for any CC squad. "Dude, the game takes long enough, did you really had to give every Plague Marine a different weapon?" "Yeah, I had to." :/

Grubsnik wrote:
Jesus, I drop out of the hobby for a year or two and this is what happens?

Back to 2nd Ed. it is, then.

You could have stayed and seen it coming.
Horror show mismanagement...

I ignore GW ... like most all “leadership” in the contemporary world, GW’s is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
GW rules will become a sad meme.
Nice enough models but increasingly less reason to care.

In the poll, I voted other.
Where is the option for worried, don’t play deathguard, and will continue as before ignoring GW IP-protecting nonsense “rules”?


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 Brutus_Apex wrote:
I will not stand for it. Its fething horrible and IMO just second to destroying Fantasy.

I will be writing them regularly until this changes.

Exalted in advance.

It's hilarious how this poll exclusively assumes that DG are the first army to be affected by this and that other armies aren't.

[x] It does affect me, I don't like it, and my orks have been affected by this exact treatment since 2014.

Welcome to xenos land my dear chaos friends.


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Voss wrote:
It also has nothing at all to do with the problem at hand, which is the incoherent list of restrictions for Death Guard, which doesn't at all make them less powerful. It just makes a weird Tetris minigame out of assembling models.

Without excusing the mess of a rule they created, this is the one thing which is absolutely not true. If you assemble plague marines or blight lords according to their instructions, no matter which options you pick, you will end up with a legal unit. This was not the case with the previous codex, where you could build either box in away that fielding it was illegal without additional models.

I don't think this IS a thing going forward, and THAT as much as anything else is what should annoy us. Ever since we started seeing this trend in 8th edition GW has been incrediably inconsistant.

Let's compare this to the codex space marines. I'm going to focus on the space wolf pack kit here for a moment as I've recently assmbled one eneugh to remember it's special weapons options. the kit itself includes 2 plasma guns as the only special weapons, if GW was treating grey hunters like plague marines, then grey hunters would ONLY be able to take special weapons. but that's not the case. and in 8th edition we saw this as well, it seemed almost RANDOM if your codex would get hit with the "only whats in the box" or not. (case in point, GW clawed common conversions back, but gave grey knights rules for a grandmaster in a dread knight) so yeah thats what irritates me how inconsistant GW is about this. meanwhile some armies get hit by this worse then others. as some armies have a lot of specialist troops (eldar and primaris marines for example) so have few options at a squad level anyway. meanwhile others have tons of options and that inevitably leads to messy situations

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
It also has nothing at all to do with the problem at hand, which is the incoherent list of restrictions for Death Guard, which doesn't at all make them less powerful. It just makes a weird Tetris minigame out of assembling models.

Without excusing the mess of a rule they created, this is the one thing which is absolutely not true. If you assemble plague marines or blight lords according to their instructions, no matter which options you pick, you will end up with a legal unit. This was not the case with the previous codex, where you could build either box in away that fielding it was illegal without additional models.

Well, people could hardly be blamed for that when GW themselves put an illegal unit of BLTs (not so now) on the cover of the box...

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
It also has nothing at all to do with the problem at hand, which is the incoherent list of restrictions for Death Guard, which doesn't at all make them less powerful. It just makes a weird Tetris minigame out of assembling models.

Without excusing the mess of a rule they created, this is the one thing which is absolutely not true. If you assemble plague marines or blight lords according to their instructions, no matter which options you pick, you will end up with a legal unit. This was not the case with the previous codex, where you could build either box in away that fielding it was illegal without additional models.

Well, people could hardly be blamed for that when GW themselves put an illegal unit of BLTs (not so now) on the cover of the box...

Your point being... ?

Voss claimed that assembling the models properly is harder now, which is objectively false.

it's outright nonsense, is what it is...
also , it's basically as Brian states, inconsistent to no end.

And it doesn't bode well for other armies imo.
I don't want to imagine Havocs with such stipulations in place OR CSM, because feth you you ain't having enough boltguns / melee equipment...

 Jidmah wrote:


Your point being... ?

Voss claimed that assembling the models properly is harder now, which is objectively false.

My point being if GW truly thinks its customers have gak for brains and cannot work out that not all options can be used at the same time then maybe, just maybe they should put legal squad loadouts on the box. The BLT one is legal now, but that exact same box cover, with 5 guys and two heavy weapons was not legal in 8th. It's not the only box either, the Eldar Start Collecting has a War Walker (or Wraithlord. I forget which without seeing the sprues) that cannot be built in such a way without the other kit existing in the same box as the kit only includes one of each weapon.

GW talk out of both side of their mouths with this anyway as evidenced by the BLT entry alone, if you buy one box it is impossible to give the whole squad axes or swords, yet that remains an option. I despise the direction this is going as converting and kitbashing are just a much a learned skill as painting is, yet GW seemingly want to stamp it out. GW's entire empire is built on it being "your guys" with parts being interchangeable (Jes Goodwin being a particular champion of this as seen by older SM kits and the revamped DE line to name but two) across multiple kits, but apparently that is now too hard for people to suss out, but it isn't if you play certain armies. Pick a lane GW.

So, you are just ranting about random things that are not related to either mine nor Voss' posts?

For what it's worth, they could have made all those new load-outs legal without limiting combi-weapons, plague knives and axes.

It's simply another step in the wrong direction. Isn't the first, won't be the last.
I, for myself, know that I have zero interest in any model which is not poseable or that I can't convert a little. Without the hobby and the huge options in term of models, why should I play 40k?
Yeah it's easier to find a game but the rules are a mess and when covid will end we will have to rebuilt our game scene from all but scratch anyway... It's a good chance to have less WH centric

I think I'll probably focus on Mordheim, BFG and maybe the occasional game of Apocalypse.

I assume the list of poll options is some sort of meta commentary on the PM wargear options?

The way they've done the PM and BLT options doesn't seem to benefit anyone. It's a confusing mess of text on the datasheet that makes understanding the options harder than before. GW seem to assume their own players are incapable of reading the rules before assembling the unit in the box, which seems to be the main driver behind this change. I don't think I've seen that from new players very often. In most cases they're pretty interested in all the various options their Codex provides and don't have any trouble understanding the really basic concept of a box containing multiple options that may be mutually exclusive.

Maybe GW could fix this supposed problem by not gating these unit options in a Codex and providing a proper list of restrictions in the box instructions? Maybe GW needs to focus more on the creative side of modelling?

Hard to provide input if one states you can't discuss one of the primary factors of why it is going in this direction.

Slipspace wrote:
I assume the list of poll options is some sort of meta commentary on the PM wargear options?

The way they've done the PM and BLT options doesn't seem to benefit anyone. It's a confusing mess of text on the datasheet that makes understanding the options harder than before. GW seem to assume their own players are incapable of reading the rules before assembling the unit in the box, which seems to be the main driver behind this change. I don't think I've seen that from new players very often. In most cases they're pretty interested in all the various options their Codex provides and don't have any trouble understanding the really basic concept of a box containing multiple options that may be mutually exclusive.

Maybe GW could fix this supposed problem by not gating these unit options in a Codex and providing a proper list of restrictions in the box instructions? Maybe GW needs to focus more on the creative side of modelling?

okey, but what is worse assembling a unit the wrong way, and then having to buy those 4 extra plasma parts for your combi bolters, or buying a unit and finding out that not only is there a way to build a basic load out unit with the parts which are in the box, on top of finding out that a combination of 1 melta, 1 plasma, 1 flamer is not a good one. It just sets up more traps for new players, and really hurts anyone who doesn't care about painting that much.

In fact I think that the whole play what you like is one of the worse illusions GW and part of the community give new players. Only worse one is the , next CA or FAQ will fix your bad stuff.

 Cybtroll wrote:
It's simply another step in the wrong direction. Isn't the first, won't be the last.
I, for myself, know that I have zero interest in any model which is not poseable or that I can't convert a little. Without the hobby and the huge options in term of models, why should I play 40k?
Yeah it's easier to find a game but the rules are a mess and when covid will end we will have to rebuilt our game scene from all but scratch anyway... It's a good chance to have less WH centric

I think I'll probably focus on Mordheim, BFG and maybe the occasional game of Apocalypse.

It's not even that. It's extremely easy to pose Plague Marines differently, I've magnetized most of them(luckily) and it's easy to change the arms between them. Which makes GWs decision even harder to understand. I just don't know why someone in 8th said, oh let's write knives and axes in there for every Marine and someone in 9th said, nah, let's instead do.... This... Whatever can describe the 9th edition PM datasheet.

It isn't even a consistent standard across - or within - units in the list.

For example, Cultists require a model which hasn't been available for about five years now.

Blightlords can only take one of each combi-weapon, but every model in the unit can take an axe, despite the kit only coming with three of them.

Slipspace wrote:
I assume the list of poll options is some sort of meta commentary on the PM wargear options?

That would have been clever. I just took the opinions from the other thread and ranked them from those that seemed to like the change most, to those that disliked it the most. I like the granularity although a simple number rank would have been more clear.

With 92 votes in it looks to me like:

15% View it mostly positively
18% Are mostly indifferent
56% View it negatively
10% Other (seems mostly negative?)

So less negative than I'd have expected, but still a large majority. And lots of good discussion so far.

There, I fixed it:

(Champion options unchanged)
If this unit contains 6 or less models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list or 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltgun can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
All Plague Marines in the unit can have their boltgun replaced by 1 option from the Melee Weapons list.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun or a pair of plague knives can have an icon of despair. That boltgun cannot be replaced.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun can have a sigil of corruption. That boltgun cannot be replaced.

Heavy Weapon List:
Plague Spitter
Blight Launcher

Special Weapon List:
Plasma gun
Plague belcher
Meltagun

Melee Weapon List:
Bubotic axe
Plague knife
Mace of contagion and Bubotic axe*
Plague cleaver*
Flail of corruption*

*no more than two of these weapons can be in a unit

Ta-da, everyone is happy.


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 Slowroll wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I assume the list of poll options is some sort of meta commentary on the PM wargear options?

That would have been clever. I just took the opinions from the other thread and ranked them from those that seemed to like the change most, to those that disliked it the most. I like the granularity although a simple number rank would have been more clear.

With 92 votes in it looks to me like:

15% View it mostly positively
18% Are mostly indifferent
56% View it negatively
10% Other (seems mostly negative?)

So less negative than I'd have expected, but still a large majority. And lots of good discussion so far.

Sadly, you ticked the "multiple answers" checkbox for the poll, so someone could just check all the negative answers and distort your numbers

 Jidmah wrote:
It's hilarious how this poll exclusively assumes that DG are the first army to be affected by this and that other armies aren't.

[x] It does affect me, I don't like it, and my orks have been affected by this exact treatment since 2014.

Welcome to xenos land my dear chaos friends.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
It also has nothing at all to do with the problem at hand, which is the incoherent list of restrictions for Death Guard, which doesn't at all make them less powerful. It just makes a weird Tetris minigame out of assembling models.

Without excusing the mess of a rule they created, this is the one thing which is absolutely not true. If you assemble plague marines or blight lords according to their instructions, no matter which options you pick, you will end up with a legal unit. This was not the case with the previous codex, where you could build either box in away that fielding it was illegal without additional models.

Considering I've done it, it's entirely true. If you use the icon of despair, and went for two plague knives (which was an option in the old book) that model is now entirely invalid. He must have a bolt gun. You can also put together multiple restricted special weapons, which you can only have 1 of in a 7 man squad (in addition to the blight launcher and the plague whichever).

Even with two boxes of plague marines, I somehow ended up with multiple invalid models, regardless of whether I use them a 2 7 man squads, or a 10 man and toss in a random chaos marine with bolter to round out a 5 man.

It's an utter mess of restrictions without purpose.

Voss wrote:
Considering I've done it, it's entirely true. If you use the icon of despair, and went for two plague knives (which was an option in the old book) that model is now entirely invalid. He must have a bolt gun. You can also put together multiple restricted special weapons, which you can only have 1 of in a 7 man squad (in addition to the blight launcher and the plague whichever).

The instructions tell you to not put a knife on the sigil guy.

There also is no combination of special weapon that is illegal under the current rules. If you assemble all 7 guys according to the instructions, no matter which variant you pick for each of them, there no way to end up with an illegal load-out.

The only way to make illegal models or units under the new rules is by not following the instructions, which isn't that surprising. If I glue two pistols on Mortarion, he is an awesome, but illegal model as well.

I feel like this attitude towards trying to coral people out of using a bunch of creatively asembled models in actual games has been a trend for a while. This is just the latest and most stifling.

From a tournament gaming standpoint, I guess it helps make balancing easier and makes sense. But for casual games and people wit older units or stuff, it just kills the mood.

As someone who just builds and collects and not games, it makes no real difference to me since I build for me and not really to play, but as someone who still does like to see the state of actually playing, it is deterring me from wanting to actually play. I don't like this attitude where everything is shifting away from lets pick some options to did A build his squads exactly as the box suggests.

I think it is awful and it is clearly a trend because they did it in a less complicated, but still highly restrictive way with the new variants of Necron Destroyers too

Unless they plan to release another $80 book where they tell people all the specific and unnecessarily detailed ways they an bring in custom-nonconforming units, I see them just boxing out a big portion of their community.

I'm just going to ignore the error messages that Battlescribe gives me when i fill my blightlords with axes and combi flamers. It sucks but i don't actually give a feth about what GW has to say in that specific situation. I'll also send them emails to let them know that its a stupid decision.

It's bad.

It has to stop.

I eagerly await the new Dark Eldar codex. That will tell us how far this cancer has spread.

 Jidmah wrote:
The only way to make illegal models or units under the new rules is by not following the instructions, which isn't that surprising. If I glue two pistols on Mortarion, he is an awesome, but illegal model as well.

Like that's in any way the same thing...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's bad.

It has to stop.

I eagerly await the new Dark Eldar codex. That will tell us how far this cancer has spread.

 Jidmah wrote:
The only way to make illegal models or units under the new rules is by not following the instructions, which isn't that surprising. If I glue two pistols on Mortarion, he is an awesome, but illegal model as well.

Like that's in any way the same thing...

Do DE have anything left for this to spread to?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's bad.

It has to stop.

I eagerly await the new Dark Eldar codex. That will tell us how far this cancer has spread.

 Jidmah wrote:
The only way to make illegal models or units under the new rules is by not following the instructions, which isn't that surprising. If I glue two pistols on Mortarion, he is an awesome, but illegal model as well.

Like that's in any way the same thing...

Do DE have anything left for this to spread to?

Scourges are the canary in the coal mine mostly.

If they're limited to one splinter cannon, one dark lance, one shredder, one blaser, one haywire, one heat lance per squad, then we'll know.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
The only way to make illegal models or units under the new rules is by not following the instructions, which isn't that surprising. If I glue two pistols on Mortarion, he is an awesome, but illegal model as well.

Like that's in any way the same thing...

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but claiming that assembling the models according to the instruction manual leads to illegal models or units is just false.

There is plenty reason to hate this course of action, and there is absolutely no need to invent alternative facts.

As has been mentioned upthread, this feels like the latest in a line of ever clearer signs that GW wants nothing to do with the 'hobby' side of the...well, hobby. I can sympathize with the logic of "no model, no rules updates" and I'm not going to blame GW for removing kits/molds from active production, but this combined with the continued neglect of the Eldar/IG sculpts and the general bleeding of options from multiple factions leaves me uninterested in purchasing more GW products.

To be charitable, I could see this being a test-run of a fix to the long-running gripes about needing to buy multiple kits to make an otherwise legal loadout for a squad, but if so we can still condemn GW for choosing one of the dumbest possible means of fixing that (and, more egregiously, they've already chosen the best option: sell upgrade sprues containing extra gear/weapons/gubbins or small boxes of snapfit/ETB troops to fill the ranks).

It was in both the Marine and Sisters dexes - one of the few complaints about the Sisters dex was the godawful weapons chart for the Cannoness.

 waefre_1 wrote:
As has been mentioned upthread, this feels like the latest in a line of ever clearer signs that GW wants nothing to do with the 'hobby' side of the...well, hobby.

Was it Kirby that said something like the hobby was about purchasing their products? Also they said that they aren't a games company but a model company.

the_scotsman wrote:
Scourges are the canary in the coal mine mostly.
If they're limited to one splinter cannon, one dark lance, one shredder, one blaser, one haywire, one heat lance per squad, then we'll know.

Ugh, not looking forward to that. My feather-winged Scourges are anti-infantry with two splinter cannons while my bat-wing Scourges (which have a completely different paint scheme & heads, BTW) are anti-armor with two heat lances, a haywire cannon, and a blaster.

I'm still miffed that my Trueborn with all those shard carbines went illegal within one codex. Then again, Trueborn likely won't exist in the new codex unless they get a new name & kit. Drukhari Vileblade Trueborn Splintergunners anyone?

 Vankraken wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
As has been mentioned upthread, this feels like the latest in a line of ever clearer signs that GW wants nothing to do with the 'hobby' side of the...well, hobby.

Was it Kirby that said something like the hobby was about purchasing their products? Also they said that they aren't a games company but a model company.

"Objects of jewel-like wonder" is a direct quote from a Kirby-era preamble. So, yes.

 Vankraken wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
As has been mentioned upthread, this feels like the latest in a line of ever clearer signs that GW wants nothing to do with the 'hobby' side of the...well, hobby.

Was it Kirby that said something like the hobby was about purchasing their products? Also they said that they aren't a games company but a model company.

I think so, yeah. Looks like he might not've been the only C-level person at GW to think that way

 Jidmah wrote:

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but claiming that assembling the models according to the instruction manual leads to illegal models or units is just false.

There is plenty reason to hate this course of action, and there is absolutely no need to invent alternative facts.

well there is that thing where there isn't enough bolters and basic weapons for a unit of termintors in a single box, practicaly making taking of upgrades obligatory.

I wonder how this was playtested though. Someone set down with multiple army set ups of nurgle termintors, running one plasma, one flamer and one melta, played a few dozen games with them, and then the conclusion was that it is okey enough of a load out? Because the randomness of a single weapon vs running 5 of the same in a unit is huge.

ngl if they are wanting objects along the lines of "jewel-like wonder"........they have quite a ways to go. while it is a different industry, they might want to look at a level of detail akin to AutoArt's car models with working pistons, etc. THAT is an "object of jewel-like wonder."

It could just be me, but plastic sprues kits like these will likely never reach that level. I find it laughable that these could be "objects of jewel like wonder." FW resin models sure; I am seeing it on some of their models like their titans. however, I do not personally feel that GW products live up to the phrase of "jewel-like wonder". it literaly takes peoples hobbying abilities to make their products an object of jewel-like wonder." There's a severe disconnect somewhere if that's what they are insisting we view their products as.

Them: we provide you products of supreme value and detail.

us: you give us plastic sprues and WE use our HOBBYING SKILLS to make these look great

them: that doesn't matter we don't care about your hobbying skills. the real hobby here is purchasing our products.

us: im sorry what.

them: we are not a games company. we are a MODEL company

us: but Warhammer 40k IS A GAME

them: alright restrict what they can build to use in game. then be super critical of exactly what the models are holding so they must build exactly according to what they use and if the combo isnt legal according to our rules, dont let them use it or play.

mfw they want to turn a warGAMING hobby into a model hobby. I don't necessarily hate GW. they make an interesting universe and game, but they seem to have severely misinterpreted something. I almost find it odd they want to hold their products in such high regard yet expect us to do all the work to turn it into something worth enshrining and not want anything to do with the hobby side of things. This is the exact reason I dont really play 40k anymore. They just seem look down on, almost to completely look with disdain on, people's creative abilities with their game. And it's gettin worse. Scratchbuilt items were already hard to bring to use, unless you played orks, but now they are determining how you can build your characters. and apparently the instructions dont always provide a playable combination.

I know I deviated from the main topic of this discussion, but GW and their vision of how they seem to enshrine their products to a level they simply arent realistic in a hobby space that their products sit in.

i think i remember this: "We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants." - Kirby. CLEARLY explains the disconnect between them and the customer that desperately want to support them.

Personally I'm a fan of fewer bespoke rules in general. I really enjoy the modeling and customization, but so often it turns into a mess of trying to acquire enough of whatever weapon winds up on top to load out a squad based on efficiency.

I'd rather just have generic rules like "power weapons" and if I want to make them swords, and maces, or claws or whatever. I want models with cool bits and all, I just don't need them locked down by the rules.

Karol wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but claiming that assembling the models according to the instruction manual leads to illegal models or units is just false.

There is plenty reason to hate this course of action, and there is absolutely no need to invent alternative facts.

well there is that thing where there isn't enough bolters and basic weapons for a unit of termintors in a single box, practicaly making taking of upgrades obligatory.

I wonder how this was playtested though. Someone set down with multiple army set ups of nurgle termintors, running one plasma, one flamer and one melta, played a few dozen games with them, and then the conclusion was that it is okey enough of a load out? Because the randomness of a single weapon vs running 5 of the same in a unit is huge.

I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

 Jidmah wrote:


I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

See and this shows how stupid I am, I didn't even imagine such a possibility. Well I hope the army is strong enough to be run even with those odd set ups. At worse 3ed party and recasters are going to be having a field day making combi bolters.

I Just realized that this also forces you to longer games. One of the thing I like in my army is to keep things consistent to be faster in rolling dices, choosing targets and such... Having 4 different weapons profile in the same squad is bordering a nightmare scenario.

Hope they take a hint from the backlash and don't to that with future codexes

 Jidmah wrote:
There, I fixed it:

Spoiler:

(Champion options unchanged)
If this unit contains 6 or less models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list or 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltgun can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
All Plague Marines in the unit can have their boltgun replaced by 1 option from the Melee Weapons list.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun or a pair of plague knives can have an icon of despair. That boltgun cannot be replaced.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun can have a sigil of corruption. That boltgun cannot be replaced.

Heavy Weapon List:
Plague Spitter
Blight Launcher

Special Weapon List:
Plasma gun
Plague belcher
Meltagun

Melee Weapon List:
Bubotic axe
Plague knife
Mace of contagion and Bubotic axe*
Plague cleaver*
Flail of corruption*

*no more than two of these weapons can be in a unit

Ta-da, everyone is happy.

That isn't any clearer than GW's rules.

Karol wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

See and this shows how stupid I am, I didn't even imagine such a possibility. Well I hope the army is strong enough to be run even with those odd set ups. At worse 3ed party and recasters are going to be having a field day making combi bolters.

Push comes to shove I'm sure the units will still work fine but lack focused drive. Other armies not held to such conditions, will have an edge at the top levels because they can get all the third party bits to their hearts content for army set up. There is no way around it, these dumb set up limitations are just bad. I get that it sucks to feel like you need extra bits to run certain set ups but I'd rather have the options and work to getting them as opposed to having them just stripped away or set up strangely. Like would it really kill them to have 2 plasmas in a less than 10 man squad on the troops ? Two blight launchers ? Either way you need to buy two boxes, but having versatility of choice in army set up lets you use all the models you bought, being forced to do that only in 10 man squads means you waste some models no matter what, it's just dumb. As for terminators it's not impossible to find or make combis for them.

In casual games these changes won't much matter, in competitive, it still mostly benefits those with the most cash to make the min maxed squad set ups by just buying more and more boxes to make it possible or maybe just force people out of using the old squads which didn't come with blight launchers.

The 7 model sized box is really not a fun thing to have, with the price and with the rules set not being based around 7, but 5 models.I don't envy DG players about that.

I'm going to ignore them. When the rules basically say:

"You can have an axe by itself, but not a mace by itself. If you want a mace, you have to take an axe as well!"

... I just give up. I can't combat that level of inane insanity, so I'll make my Plague Marines however the feth I want.

As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling. However, when it's introduced in the middle of an edition into game with totally inconsistent rules and model ranges, I can totally understand the gakstorm. It works fine in Age of Sigmar because the whole system is built upon hard reset and half of the armies are brand new but 40k is too big and bloated for similar paradigm shift to be introduced or it will end up in players burning their Dark Eldar armies on Reddit.

Plague Marine unit entry is a beautiful mess caused by several separate smaller issues. Seven model box size, too many unique weapon options and GW's attempt to write clear and precise rules which makes them more difficult to read instead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm going to ignore them. When the rules basically say:

"You can have an axe by itself, but not a mace by itself. If you want a mace, you have to take an axe as well!"

... I just give up. I can't combat that level of inane insanity, so I'll make my Plague Marines however the feth I want.

Exactly. GW rules are becoming “suggestions” like the recipe on the side of a bag of rice. “You might prepare your rice this way....”. I have had enough of idiots in high places making rules for their benefit at the expense of everyone else in every walk of life on this festering planet. GW aren’t the highest of idiots, but are to be ignored just the same. Homegrown rules. Repulsors are ugly land raiders, restartes are tall marines without the lower back pain, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jullevi wrote:
As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling. However, when it's introduced in the middle of an edition into game with totally inconsistent rules and model ranges, I can totally understand the gakstorm. It works fine in Age of Sigmar because the whole system is built upon hard reset and half of the armies are brand new but 40k is too big and bloated for similar paradigm shift to be introduced or it will end up in players burning their Dark Eldar armies on Reddit..

Why not play the card game? Is Ao$ that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

 jeff white wrote:
Is AoS that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

No, it is more like WHFB was
eg: all models in you unit take either Hammer+Shield, 2 Hammers, Sword+Shield or 2 Swords, up to 1 model per 5 can take a special Hammer or Special Sword, the Unit Leader can take a Special Hammer or Special Sword

not as free as 40k once was, but also not as strict as DG now and you also have all the weapons needed for the unit in the box

some special Equipment is there as well limited to a special loadout (but more like replacing a hand weapon and therefore cannot be taken with a 2-handed weapon)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. Customization in 40k has been dying a slow death as long as I've been playing. In five years they'll probably have removed options entirely so they can print Sigmar-style stat cards (only three times the size so they can fit the paragraphs of special rule required to explain how your Intercessors' three different gun models actually all do the same thing).

Nah, they'll just change it to:

Bolt Weapon: 30 Inches Rend 1 Hits on 3+ Wounds on 4+ Damage 1.

What is a "Bolt Weapon?" Well, it's anything with the word Bolt in it! Flee the hobby while you still can! There are lots of other interesting competing games out there.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Hope they take a hint from the backlash and don't to that with future codexes

Even if they do 1-1.5 year of codexes in meantime means most codexes would be affected before 10th ed

jullevi wrote:
As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling.

And why shouldn't they gain an "advantage"? A new player won't complain that their more experienced opponent's army is better painted than theirs, will they? Kitbashing and converting are just as much learned skills as painting is, why should I now be penalised for being able to do the fairly simple task of swapping out weapons? Even, so it is a trivial thing to do- Let's take the BLT kit for example, every single gun is half and half. All you need to do to get multiples of the same combi weapon is to either trade with someone or, say you want two units? Well you can just put two combi plasmas in one and two combi meltas in the other.

Even then, it is such a trivial thing to do. Why does GW think that slapping a readily available from multiple kits plasma/melta/flamer bit on a bolter is difficult? It isn't, and it hasn't ever been. Nowadays, it is even easier given GW's wealth of plastic bits but for whatever reason they don't want people to delve deeper into this side of the hobby.

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

...and this should be a problem... Why? Because following GW logic they should have bought another box instead?

 Grimtuff wrote:

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

I guess this isn't a problem for parts in the world where people advocate to start a collection by getting double the avarge game size. It is a problem though in places where people get 2000pts or 2250pts, and that is it. I have nothing against convering, and some people are super talented at it, but units realy shouldn't be build around the idea of either, this is a bad load out we are selling in the box you are now stuck with it, or go buy recasts or get 4 boxs to get one unit.

 Jidmah wrote:
Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

And the Assault Marines kit doesn't come with multiple plasma pistols. Oh wait, it does. If you (and several other kits where they are super cheap plasma in abundance) cannot figure out how to put those pistols on the other half of the bolter then you're in the wrong hobby.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

I guess this isn't a problem for parts in the world where people advocate to start a collection by getting double the avarge game size. It is a problem though in places where people get 2000pts or 2250pts, and that is it. I have nothing against convering, and some people are super talented at it, but units realy shouldn't be build around the idea of either, this is a bad load out we are selling in the box you are now stuck with it, or go buy recasts or get 4 boxs to get one unit.

Dude, if you bought an army like a normal person did you will have a ton of bits left over. This is quite common.

 kodos wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Is AoS that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

No, it is more like WHFB was
eg: all models in you unit take either Hammer+Shield, 2 Hammers, Sword+Shield or 2 Swords, up to 1 model per 5 can take a special Hammer or Special Sword, the Unit Leader can take a Special Hammer or Special Sword

Wasn't there whole armies that were build around taking of one specific weapon, and then GW changed it so the squads have to have one of each, exactly the way it is on the cover of box, and people got stuck with armies that lost power and were illegal at the same time. And as a bonus had ton of money spent on recasts and bits?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

And the Assault Marines kit doesn't come with multiple plasma pistols. Oh wait, it does. If you (and several other kits where they are super cheap plasma in abundance) cannot figure out how to put those pistols on the other half of the bolter then you're in the wrong hobby.

That's not how DG plasma looks. Might as well slap the melta on it and paint it blue.

Even if it did, this is still a pistol and not a gun. That is like saying that a tentacle guy has a thunder hammer or powerfist.

Karol wrote:
Wasn't there whole armies that were build around taking of one specific weapon, and then GW changed it so the squads have to have one of each, exactly the way it is on the cover of box, and people got stuck with armies that lost power and were illegal at the same time. And as a bonus had ton of money spent on recasts and bits?

Kharadron Overlords Grundstok Thunderers. They have a basic weapon and a choice of 4 upgrade weapons to replace it - originally you could have them all with the same upgrade weapon but GW changed it to match what's in the box (link).

Karol wrote:
Even if it did, this is still a pistol and not a gun. That is like saying that a tentacle guy has a thunder hammer or powerfist.

Not really though?

You'd cut off the parts that make it a pistol to build a combi-bolter. It's more like using an ork big choppa as a chainaxe for your chaos lord. If you like it that way, run wild, but it's definitely a different style.

TBF to GW that situation was different--it was only months after the kit released for one, and it was immediately clear there were balance issues with weapons being stacked like that. There wasn't much surprise when the change happened.

Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

I understand why GW would want to only provide rules for what they sell. But I also think removing rules is a lot worse than adding bits, especially on units that already existed for some time.

 LunarSol wrote:
Personally I'm a fan of fewer bespoke rules in general. I really enjoy the modeling and customization, but so often it turns into a mess of trying to acquire enough of whatever weapon winds up on top to load out a squad based on efficiency.

I'd rather just have generic rules like "power weapons" and if I want to make them swords, and maces, or claws or whatever. I want models with cool bits and all, I just don't need them locked down by the rules.

I fully agree, and really, with the scale 40k works at the difference between all the slightly different bolt or power weapons would be far too small to be represented by different weapons. It would be so much easier to just have a 'power weapon' (sword, mace, spear, spoon) and 'heavy power weapon' (fist, thunder hammer, two-handed weapons in general) profile. That not only gives much more freedom, but also helps with making it much easier to know what's going on. And yes, it would make the different kinds of intercessors the same, but then again, for most purposes, they already are. There is very little difference between the different bolters. Just things to forget.

And don't get me started on the mountains of special rules for everything. Every little pouch on the models doesn't need rules. For special/heavy weapons it might be a bit harder because the differences are greater, but there you also see that very few are actually taken. I mean, has anyone ever even seen a grenade launcher in the flesh (or plastic)?

Grubsnik wrote:Jesus, I drop out of the hobby for a year or two and this is what happens?

Back to 2nd Ed. it is, then.

d

Welcome to the team, our group went back to playing 5th a couple years ago, and we are back to thoroughly enjoying the game again. although we do use index 8th for playing epic scale and it seems to work fine.

I agree that I'd like more consistency in weapons.
We really don't need 18 distinct types of bolter or whatever it is nowadays. It doesn't really add a whole lot other than complexity to the game.
Especially when you're talking about something as simple as a boltgun. Let people make their own differences, without the shackles of worrying about hindering themselves or making illegal units or whatever.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

I understand why GW would want to only provide rules for what they sell. But I also think removing rules is a lot worse than adding bits, especially on units that already existed for some time.

I get this, when I started in 3rd edition I played orks and half units/loadout in their codex was only available thorugh conversions or even scratch building. 12yo me loved to convert and kitbash stuff and it was one of the main reasons why I started orks but it was a real pain to field an optimized army back then, in fact I never played without proxying during that edition. It was also a period in which second hand armies weren't common, let alone sites that sold bitz. We didn't even have internet at home in 2000.

But now current kits, and I mean even the older ones, already come with most of the possible legal combinations and everything else can be kitbashed quite easily. I don't get why being able to convert shouldn't be a required skill while painting is. Heck there's even a rule that penalizes those who aren't be able to paint properly as "battle ready" level is definitely harder to achieve for a 12yo kid than kitbashing a few combi weapons.

Kitbashing also incentivized buying more kits. When I wanted to add Scourges to my Drukhari no way I was going to buy 4 boxes of them, and now way I was going to buy a single box with messed up weapons. I ended up buying multiple different kits from the same faction in order to kitbash properly. If Scourges had a datasheet like the one Plague marines currently have I would probably never have bought them, and if I did I would never have bought other kits at the same time unless I really wanted those specific units in that moment anyway.

kitbashing and conversions were the main reason I started 40k in the first place
as without that I would have gone the historical route (but there are not many conversions to be done in those settings)

and I spend way more money on metal bits and single sprues from the GW mail order than on actual kits for that army

 Dolnikan wrote:

I fully agree, and really, with the scale 40k works at the difference between all the slightly different bolt or power weapons would be far too small to be represented by different weapons. It would be so much easier to just have a 'power weapon' (sword, mace, spear, spoon) and 'heavy power weapon' (fist, thunder hammer, two-handed weapons in general) profile. That not only gives much more freedom, but also helps with making it much easier to know what's going on.

the funny thing here is that we already had this, but during a time were the standard 2000 point 40k game was half the size it is now and were those details would have made much more sense

but GW thought it is a good idea to add more rules and small differences to the equipment (so the Bolter with the Scope has a different profile than the Bolder with the silencer) at the same time they went from Patrol size to Company size games as "standard"

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

No, but if you want those weapons, you have to convert. This is the way it was for several years. So what if they don't "look" like the rest of the DG plasma? CSMs scavenge and repurpose gear all the time. Break out some putty and blend them together (I mentioned plasma pistols as a PG is far too large to be mated up with a bolter. I would have thought that was obvious, but clearly not...). Want the exact one? Then that's a you problem, and not a GW one. They gave you the options, same goes for any other kit in the past, it is up to you, the person who wants to make the army "your guys" to work out that solution.

Games are a community driven thing. I guarantee there will always be a "converter guy" and/or a guy with a large bits box in any given group. We had three such in our group (I am one of them) and one now works for Forgeworld, so yeah. It IS kinda a learned skill in this hobby. Ask them to convert them for you if you cannot. Buy me a can of coke from the shop across the road and I'll do it quite happily. Like, what I mean when I say community- back in 5th edition I had needed some Wulfen conversions for my SWs, though to do it I needed some Beastmen Gor heads, I've never played Beastmen, ever so I asked the guy who played them if he had any spare heads and we traded some bits. You're never on your own in this hoby, yet this site makes you think you are and have to scrounge every bit yourself.

You could get creative. One player round here (personally, I thought this was a bit janky, but whatever...), when the 4th ed CSM dex simply said "combi weapon" and did not specify which exact type, used the vehicle gargoyles slung under the guns as the combi part; so he, if he so wished could choose each game. Not one I would use, but it was a solution.

Push comes to shove, if you are that desperate for them to be "exact" then green stuff casts are a thing, as are Thermoworx and blue stuff. GW themselves have shown you in the past how to do green stuff casts of small items. It is not hard to do.

The solution to the problem of a new player not being able to build all the options with the basic kit was to... maybe have less options but have all of them in the box instead of making this mess of units without any kind of gameplay purpose.


Instead of having your plague marines having 5 different meele weapons and 8 different ranged weapons give them the option of 1-2 meele weapons and 2-3 ranged ones. And leave more freedom to the unit champion, as always. Nobody complaints that assault terminators have just only two meele options. Two clearly defined meele options with totally different rules that make for a (historically quite bad in rules) but thematically solid unit.

If anything, your post is a rather strong argument for GW to continue down that road.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

It can be a good look, depending on the skill of the builder. And you're not required to be a converter in this case. Combi-plasma bits exist so you can also just buy enough of those parts, either separately or through complete kits, to build the models you want. Or GW could provide those bits in the first place.

Their current "solution" seems to be the worst of all worlds.

I do not think this is a new trend, just for the essentially monopose kits e.g. body 42 goes with leg 43 and back 44 and you can't mix them without extensive conversion work. The death guard have the unfortunate circumstance of being designed like that while CSM are more multi-part.

What's the next book to come out? That will help reveal if this is the typical GW one off or a paradigm shift. Similar to how inexplicably death guard subfactions don't get special rules, just WLT/Relic/Stratagems whine necron dynasties get actually rules.

Maybe I'm just imbued in GW nuspeak, but I don't really struggle with reading the rules. They are logically laid out to me. Its undoubtedly somewhat arbitrary that you can have say 1 plasma gun guy and 1 blight launcher guy but not two of each (or one plasma, one melta etc) - but I don't find it complicated to understand.

I can understand annoyance if you've traded or converted 5 Terminators all with combi-plas and now you can't run them WYSIWYG. But to some extent, I'm hostile to such anyway.

Admittedly I don't know where this leaves things like scourges - because a unit which can only take one dark lance, splinter cannon, heat lance etc would seem even more useless than scourge already appear. But maybe they could be pointed - or get rules - such that it works. I guess we'll see.

I certainly don't like there being element of pay to win elements in unit construction - looking especially at say Tau Commanders/Crisis Suits. But I'd have thought GW could just sell "Battle Suit weapon sprues" which have 3-6 of each weapon. Rather than getting say 1 cyclic ion blaster and 1 airburst frag projector in the commander box. But I suspect there just wouldn't be enough sales to bother with. Other options are to just remove such weapons from the game - but I can't see GW doing that, and the outcry would be louder.

Wayniac wrote:
What's the next book to come out?

Dark Eldar is most likely, but SoB is a possibility - we've seen the 'Piety and Pain' battlebox with the new Lelith and the Palatine, and the Paragon Warsuit was shown at the weekend.

beast_gts wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
What's the next book to come out?

Dark Eldar is most likely, but SoB is a possibility - we've seen the 'Piety and Pain' battlebox with the new Lelith and the Palatine, and the Paragon Warsuit was shown at the weekend.

I'll be rather annoyed if Retributor squads get changed to 0-2 of each heavy weapon to match the box. Should know within a couple months. In the meantime, I'm holding off on buying another squad of MM Rets until their next Codex is out.

beast_gts wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
What's the next book to come out?

Dark Eldar is most likely, but SoB is a possibility - we've seen the 'Piety and Pain' battlebox with the new Lelith and the Palatine, and the Paragon Warsuit was shown at the weekend.

Dark eldar is certainly next, that's been explicitly said.

Sisters, Orks and Ad Mech are contenders for after DE, as we've seen models (or bits of models) for all 3.

And therefore we need to keep the emails up and stop purchasing codices until they rectify their mistake. I don't CARE if Death Guard was the only army hit. They shouldn't have been hit to begin with.

There is a difference between being *required* to convert a unit, being required to convert certain options for a unit, and needing to convert certain loadouts for a unit.

For large portions of Warhammer history there were units with rules and no model at all. X on a bike/mount was pretty common. A lot of what third parties sold was stuff like that. This is being required to convert to play a unit, and it is well gone. There have also been units, usually characters, with options that required converting. A certain weapon or piece of visual wargear that was not included in the kit and generally needed to be taken from another unit. This is also gone.

Finally, there is needing to convert certain loadouts. The blightlord terminator kit comes with one of each option, but to have a unit with multiples of that option kitbashing/converting is required. Buying a bunch of kits also works but is varying degrees of impractical depending on the unit. However, this is only for someone who wants to up how many of an option they have within a unit. No converting is required to use any of the options, at all. Saying such is extremely disingenuous at best. Now maybe spamming a certain option is really good, but that can and does change with points/weapon profile updates or even just shifting meta. If a unit is not viable without spamming a certain option that is a balance problem and not even addressed by limiting the options.

However, there is something to be said about being able to build any version of a unit from its kit and ideally every kit would come with enough options to do that. But it is impractical. A devestator kit with 5 of every weapon option would result in ridiculous amounts of wasted sprue space, for example, and that will always be true. I find the approach of limiting units strictly to the numbers in the box to be a flawed solution, but when it comes to the launch of new kits it is what it is. What it not cool is changing an existing unit from the previous paradigm to the new one, and invalidating a ton of people's existing collections when they do.

Things change over time and options are invalidated, people get that. There will be grumbling but it is what it is. When there is a new kit. Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

and still happened before

those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit
most people just don't recognise those changes as the majority also gets new models with the new Codex or the rules change in a way that the old layout is crap anyway and people don't want to keep it

but forcing the change with a new Codex without giving people a new kit or making the new loadout better happens with each new Edition
but now it happens with a more popular army on a basic unit

This.
KFF big mek with a KMB, PK or any other wargear? Saga of the Beast put and end to that, even purged the option to field those models through legends.

If you built your deff dread with four klaws back in 2010 just to make it look nice, congratulations, 8th editon's ork codex has made that model illegal to field.

Did you buy the official rokkit upgrade sprue to put rokkits on your battlewagons and trukks? Guess what, those models are illegal now.

Your nob with waaagh! banner you build between 4th and 7th had any gear besides a PK or kustom shoota? Or you gave that Waaagh! banner to a nob on warbike, which was a really common thing to do? 8th edition index made sure you can never field that model again unless you break it appart.

Did your kanz have two shooting weapons or two melee weapons? 7th edition's codex made that illegal.

I could go on and on with examples like this, and I've not even touched conversions where you would just take gear from one kit and attach it to another, like KMB kanz or PKs for tankbusta nobz.

People have willingly tolerated that trend for years now and told players to suck it up when they were affected.
I fail to see why it has suddenly become such a huge issue, when it clearly was tolerated before.

It's not the same thing.

The Killa Kan rules don't say "One model per three must have a Big Shoota, one model per three must have a Rokkit Launcher and one model per three must have a Skorcha".

It's the very same thing. Rules change, legal options get curbed for no apparent reason outside of kit limitations, models become illegal.

The only reason why a quad-klaw dread is illegal now because the box doesn't have four klaws.

The only reason why kans can't double up on weapons anymore is because the box doesn't have enough arms to do so.

Every time there's a new (non-space marine) codex it seems there's a post pointing out a unit has lost options and decrying the end times of creativity in the hobby.
Then people forget about it because it only actually affects a small number of people in the hobby, relative to those throwing money at moar Space Marines.
And then we repeat the process with the next codex.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Every time there's a new (non-space marine) codex it seems there's a post pointing out a unit has lost options and decrying the end times of creativity in the hobby.
Then people forget about it because it only actually affects a small number of people in the hobby, relative to those throwing money at moar Space Marines.
And then we repeat the process with the next codex.

....As long as that codex is not another space marine codex.

Then we typically see Vaporware units added on to try and convince people to buy in like the Fangs of Merkel.

the_scotsman 795635 11041889 wrote:

Then we typically see Vaporware units added on to try and convince people to buy in like the Fangs of Merkel.

I so hope this was a joke, because I laughed durning classes.

It's not the same thing.

The Killa Kan rules don't say "One model per three must have a Big Shoota, one model per three must have a Rokkit Launcher and one model per three must have a Skorcha".

Yet. They don't say that yet, because orks don't have a 9th ed codex. Who knows what is going to happen if they get one. In fact why would any army, other then marines, be exempt from this limitations to be honest.

 kodos wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

and still happened before

those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit
most people just don't recognise those changes as the majority also gets new models with the new Codex or the rules change in a way that the old layout is crap anyway and people don't want to keep it

but forcing the change with a new Codex without giving people a new kit or making the new loadout better happens with each new Edition
but now it happens with a more popular army on a basic unit

Can you provide some examples? There were attempts made above but none of them are analogous to what happened with DG.

 kodos wrote:
...those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit...

...No, usually with a new kit. GK got five different kinds of Nemesis weapon, Psilencers, and Purifiers with 2 heavy weapons per five when they got new kits in 5e, the only change to the loadout that's happened since is taking away the ability to put Nemesis staves on every model in 7th, which came back in 8th. Windriders got scatter lasers and the ability to put a heavy weapon on every model with the new kit in 7th, hasn't changed since. Harlequins got new weapons added and the fusion pistol limit raised from 2/squad to anyone in their 7e Codex, and the loadout's remained constant since.

so you tell me GK got a kit in 5e but their loadout changed in 5th, 7th and 8th

so 3 times with Rules/Codex VS 1 time with the kit is "usually with a new kit"

 kodos wrote:
so you tell me GK got a kit in 5e but their loadout changed in 5th, 7th and 8th

so 3 times with Rules/Codex VS 1 time with the kit is "usually with a new kit"

I tell you that the loadout changed dramatically with a new kit and very slightly with a new Codex, yes. Usually when there isn't a new kit a unit might get one item shuffled around a bit, when there is a new kit what the options are and how they work will change dramatically.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

and still happened before

those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit
most people just don't recognise those changes as the majority also gets new models with the new Codex or the rules change in a way that the old layout is crap anyway and people don't want to keep it

but forcing the change with a new Codex without giving people a new kit or making the new loadout better happens with each new Edition
but now it happens with a more popular army on a basic unit

Can you provide some examples? There were attempts made above but none of them are analogous to what happened with DG.

Nice handwaving. If anything, DG got off easy.

Time for an unpopular point of view (which seems to be my specialty on Dakka).

Many are the comments in threads of all stripes about the lethality of the game. And perhaps one of the reasons for that is that it was possible to design a squad with enough identical weapons to vaporize a knight in one turn, or decimate large infantry squads in one turn.

Forcing a unit to diversify it's load out minimizes this effect. On the plus side though, it would help ensure that every unit has the capacity to deal with anything, rather than "This is a pure antitank unit that is useless against infantry."

Now before you jump on this, please understand that I don't like this fixed load out stuff any more than you guys do; I prefer to have the option of building that anti-tank unit that sucks against infantry if I want to, and I am prepared to accept all of the blame for it when my opponent brings 200 boys and not a single tank.

All I'm trying to do is provide a more realistic rationale for GW's decisions than the "They hate us, and want to ruin the game" rationale that seems to be going around.

I also feel like the previous customizability also incentivized buying extra boxes in order to make sure you had the load out you wanted. So the greed rationale for this decision doesn't work either; if anything, this is something they may have done to REDUCE accusations of being greedy.

I still, however, do fall into the camp that believes the decision is a bad one. Just pointing out that the motive for this bad decision may have been more player centric than some people are willing to admit.

Also trying to chip away at the complaint faction: complain for five years that the game is to lethal, you're likely to get solutions that limit lethality. Complain for decades that you have to buy multiple boxes of devastators to field four identical heavy weapons in a devastator squad, you're likely to get solutions that prevent you from having to do that.

Most posters, even those who complain constantly, do tend to propose solutions to the problems they identify, and I think those proposed solutions are the most valuable parts of their posts.

Anyway, just my two cents. Like I said, I still feel that the change is a bad one, even though I can see how GW may have thought they may have been doing the right thing.

They literally want you to buy an extra kit this has ZERO to do with balance.

PenitentJake wrote:
...All I'm trying to do is provide a more realistic rationale for GW's decisions than the "They hate us, and want to ruin the game" rationale that seems to be going around...

"Forcing mixed loadouts is necessary to tone down the lethality of the game!" isn't really any more rational than "They hate us, and want to ruin the game!". The one gives GW too much credit, the other doesn't give GW enough credit.

From a rational standpoint I don't think this loadout change has anything to do with the game at all; it's there because GW's finally going "enough is enough" at the secondary bits market (where you can pay $25 for a single authentic Reaper Chaincannon bit with no Havoc attached). They're not trying to ruin the game, they're trying to produce a game where you can buy one box from them and then you're done, you don't have to buy a bunch of extra stuff to get the loadout you want. It makes their prices seem more reasonable and makes the game more accessible for new players who buy a box and build all the cool stuff in it without digging around on the Internet to discover that their box would be so much better if they spent a bunch more money on aftermarket bits.

It's not how I'd build the game (I've covered how I'd reorganize SM sprues to give you more stuff for less effort in other threads), but it's absolutely a rational thing for a minis company to want to do that has nothing to do with either game balance or hating customers and wanting to ruin the game.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so you tell me GK got a kit in 5e but their loadout changed in 5th, 7th and 8th

so 3 times with Rules/Codex VS 1 time with the kit is "usually with a new kit"

I tell you that the loadout changed dramatically with a new kit and very slightly with a new Codex, yes. Usually when there isn't a new kit a unit might get one item shuffled around a bit, when there is a new kit what the options are and how they work will change dramatically.

so the same as with DG, got a new kit and there were big changes
now with the new Codex, just some items were shuffeld around

same as always and change is always there

I would be totally OK with the "Buy one box and every option for the kit is in the box"philosophy but if they want to do that, they SHOUL design the kits with that idea in mind. (Theres many kits that work like that, specially for Fantasy/AoS)

What they are doing now is applying that backwards for kits designed with other gameplay ethos and thats stupid.

Karol wrote:


I so hope this was a joke, because I laughed durning classes.

Dude. You should not be reading dakka in class.

 Jidmah wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

and still happened before

those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit
most people just don't recognise those changes as the majority also gets new models with the new Codex or the rules change in a way that the old layout is crap anyway and people don't want to keep it

but forcing the change with a new Codex without giving people a new kit or making the new loadout better happens with each new Edition
but now it happens with a more popular army on a basic unit

Can you provide some examples? There were attempts made above but none of them are analogous to what happened with DG.

Nice handwaving. If anything, DG got off easy.

The other examples were not the same thing. That is it, there is no hand waving. The GK one is closest, but it is still just one weapon option out of many in the kit and the second change was simply reversing the first one. I explained very clearly the different situations before, if you are unwilling or unable to comprehend them I can accept that, but it frustrates me that you would accuse my point of being invalid to cover.

 jeff white wrote:

Karol wrote:


I so hope this was a joke, because I laughed durning classes.

Dude. You should not be reading dakka in class.

Eh, sometimes I read at work if I have a small amount of down time. Nothing wrong with a destresser. That said I don't really get destressed here sooooo...

 jeff white wrote:

Karol wrote:


I so hope this was a joke, because I laughed durning classes.

Dude. You should not be reading dakka in class.

I don't like polish literature. It is boring, and I don't understand it most of the time.

"Forcing mixed loadouts is necessary to tone down the lethality of the game!" isn't really any more rational than "They hate us, and want to ruin the game!". The one gives GW too much credit, the other doesn't give GW enough credit.

The thing is, they are neither do it for all factions, nor even do it for all units within one faction. Because DG has some really killy powerful units, they are just units most DG players probably didn't own, if they started in 8th ed.


Post 2021/01/28 17:57:06 Subject: How do you feel about "No Instructions, No Rules" going forward?
Time for an unpopular point of view (which seems to be my specialty on Dakka).

Many are the comments in threads of all stripes about the lethality of the game. And perhaps one of the reasons for that is that it was possible to design a squad with enough identical weapons to vaporize a knight in one turn, or decimate large infantry squads in one turn.

Forcing a unit to diversify it's load out minimizes this effect. On the plus side though, it would help ensure that every unit has the capacity to deal with anything, rather than "This is a pure antitank unit that is useless against infantry."

A unit with one meltagun, one plasma, one flamer and one heavy weapon isn't good vs any target. Plus there are options like the new blender drone, that are super killy and good vs practicaly everything, plus has good synergy with DG contagion rules. It is just making specific units , which people bought before, worse just to make them worse. I would get the change if GW decided that all DG termis are to run around with combi flamers, and max one melta or plasma. But not one of each. That is just design that makes a DG player want to take a unit which is good instead.

so you tell me GK got a kit in 5e but their loadout changed in 5th, 7th and 8th

I am not sure about prior edition other then 8th. but In 8th you wanted only falchions on your models, and in 9th you want everything, but not falchions on your models. Also I know that in older rules GK could take termintors with storm shields and hammers, but now they no longer can do that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

and still happened before

those things change usually with a new Codex, not with a new kit
most people just don't recognise those changes as the majority also gets new models with the new Codex or the rules change in a way that the old layout is crap anyway and people don't want to keep it

but forcing the change with a new Codex without giving people a new kit or making the new loadout better happens with each new Edition
but now it happens with a more popular army on a basic unit

Can you provide some examples? There were attempts made above but none of them are analogous to what happened with DG.

Nice handwaving. If anything, DG got off easy.

The other examples were not the same thing. That is it, there is no hand waving. The GK one is closest, but it is still just one weapon option out of many in the kit and the second change was simply reversing the first one. I explained very clearly the different situations before, if you are unwilling or unable to comprehend them I can accept that, but it frustrates me that you would accuse my point of being invalid to cover.

I just provided seven separate examples of instances where ork models were invalidated for no other reason but matching the exact contents of a box set/character blister more closely, and the only response to that is "noooo, it's not the same" without any further explanation.

That is, by it's very definition, hand-waving an argument.

Karol wrote:
...

so you tell me GK got a kit in 5e but their loadout changed in 5th, 7th and 8th

I am not sure about prior edition other then 8th. but In 8th you wanted only falchions on your models, and in 9th you want everything, but not falchions on your models. Also I know that in older rules GK could take termintors with storm shields and hammers, but now they no longer can do that.

Legal loadouts didn't change. Good loadouts changed a lot. SS/hammers on GK Terminators hasn't existed since 2e, before there was any wargear standardization of any kind.

If you don’t understand then you really should not be reading dakka during class.

And GK is a great army to collect. GW rules are for the birds. I have a mix of imp guard, stormtroopers, sisters, OG marines, inquisition, and I will always think of them as the same “army” as they are allies, really. If I needed 2000points then I would need to use two or three of them. If someone wanted a game of 5th at 1000 using different units from different armies, I would encourage it especially if it would help to “forge the narrative” about that person’s collection. After, she or he might decide to add ogryn or transports, who knows, but this is what moves us to grow our “armies” or at least some of us when we do not buy spam armies for a meta, all at once. If you wanted to use shields and hammers, I would see no problem with it.

Forcing units that can take multiple weapons to now take a single one of each weapon will simply make those units basically always inferior to competing units that don't have to make that choice.

I can take a trip lance ravager.

In what universe is a 1 haywire 1 DL 1 blaster 1 Heat Lance scourge unit going to be competitive with that?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Nice handwaving. If anything, DG got off easy.

The other examples were not the same thing. That is it, there is no hand waving. The GK one is closest, but it is still just one weapon option out of many in the kit and the second change was simply reversing the first one. I explained very clearly the different situations before, if you are unwilling or unable to comprehend them I can accept that, but it frustrates me that you would accuse my point of being invalid to cover.

the_scotsman wrote:
Forcing units that can take multiple weapons to now take a single one of each weapon will simply make those units basically always inferior to competing units that don't have to make that choice.

I can take a trip lance ravager.

In what universe is a 1 haywire 1 DL 1 blaster 1 Heat Lance scourge unit going to be competitive with that?

"JusT AdJUsT ThE PoInTs"!!!!

But yeah, scourges are already bad, changing their options to match the box would just make them terrible. Its all about them right now. If they do get their loadout changed, we'll know that GW has a new approach mid-edition once again.

Doesnt matter to me, i'll keep my single weapon profile squads even if GW tells me i can't. I'm not gonna mess around with 1 combiflamer, 1 combiplas, 1 combimelta and 2 combibolters on my blightlords.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Forcing units that can take multiple weapons to now take a single one of each weapon will simply make those units basically always inferior to competing units that don't have to make that choice.

I can take a trip lance ravager.

In what universe is a 1 haywire 1 DL 1 blaster 1 Heat Lance scourge unit going to be competitive with that?

"JusT AdJUsT ThE PoInTs"!!!!

But yeah, scourges are already bad, changing their options to match the box would just make them terrible. Its all about them right now. If they do get their loadout changed, we'll know that GW has a new approach mid-edition once again.

Doesnt matter to me, i'll keep my single weapon profile squads even if GW tells me i can't. I'm not gonna mess around with 1 combiflamer, 1 combiplas, 1 combimelta and 2 combibolters on my blightlords.

If the points were made such that that scourge unit and that ravager were identically efficient, I would still choose to use the trip lance ravager because the sequence would be

-roll 3 dice
-roll the hits
-my opponent saves
-roll damage

and the attack sequence for the scourges woudl be that X4.

That is something I think GW doesn't realise makes a difference to player's. Like seriously who actually doesn't die a little everytime someone tries to remeber all the random weapons on a repulsor. Also that they spend 10 minuits shooting 1 vehicals weapons.

It's also super convenient that this is happening just as marines go to being the new aspect warriors with every model equipped with a specialist weapon.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There is a difference between being *required* to convert a unit, being required to convert certain options for a unit, and needing to convert certain loadouts for a unit.

For large portions of Warhammer history there were units with rules and no model at all. X on a bike/mount was pretty common. A lot of what third parties sold was stuff like that. This is being required to convert to play a unit, and it is well gone. There have also been units, usually characters, with options that required converting. A certain weapon or piece of visual wargear that was not included in the kit and generally needed to be taken from another unit. This is also gone.

Finally, there is needing to convert certain loadouts. The blightlord terminator kit comes with one of each option, but to have a unit with multiples of that option kitbashing/converting is required. Buying a bunch of kits also works but is varying degrees of impractical depending on the unit. However, this is only for someone who wants to up how many of an option they have within a unit. No converting is required to use any of the options, at all. Saying such is extremely disingenuous at best. Now maybe spamming a certain option is really good, but that can and does change with points/weapon profile updates or even just shifting meta. If a unit is not viable without spamming a certain option that is a balance problem and not even addressed by limiting the options.

However, there is something to be said about being able to build any version of a unit from its kit and ideally every kit would come with enough options to do that. But it is impractical. A devestator kit with 5 of every weapon option would result in ridiculous amounts of wasted sprue space, for example, and that will always be true. I find the approach of limiting units strictly to the numbers in the box to be a flawed solution, but when it comes to the launch of new kits it is what it is. What it not cool is changing an existing unit from the previous paradigm to the new one, and invalidating a ton of people's existing collections when they do.

Things change over time and options are invalidated, people get that. There will be grumbling but it is what it is. When there is a new kit. Forcing that change out of the blue on a unit that has had it's current kit for years is a far cry from that.

Quoting myself from the previous page.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's not the same thing.

The Killa Kan rules don't say "One model per three must have a Big Shoota, one model per three must have a Rokkit Launcher and one model per three must have a Skorcha".

Also quoting a more straightforward response to be extra clear.

I guess if you define it narrowly enough, it surely feels like a completely unprecedented change.

However, GW curbing options because the aren't in the box is the same GW curbing options because the aren't in the box.

Kanz no longer being able to take additional ranged arms from a second kanz box is the same as blightlords no longer being able to take combi-weapons from a second blightlords box. Same goes for the dread which is now forced into two klaws only. Except DG players got off easy because the kitbashed blightlords or plague marines can still be fielded as a blightlord, while the dual rokkit kan or the quad klaw dread needs to be broken apart.

All of the changes I listed were forced out of the blue on a unit that has had their respective kit for year.

If you think those ork changes are within reason, you have absolutely no right to complain about any of the DG changes, because the only two models actually invalidated are the winged daemon prince with spitter and the icon bearer with dual knives.

First off, if it cannot be assembled using just it's kit that is notably different as the model is now a conversion option which cannot be assembled with the official instructions.

Compare to, say, a 5-man plague marine unit. The kit assembles one model with X weapon, but the rules say that a 5-man squad can take two of the same special weapon. That person can buy another kit, assemble both following official instructions, then achieve the 2-per-5 by swapping two models between units. The combination can be fielded without converting, and only ever using the official instructions.

Is that a really dumb distinction? I certainly think so, but I am also quite sure GW thinks it is an important distinction. That's something players are generally aware of, so there was a certain line within which players felt safe--that being they were only using loadouts that could be made using nothing outside official instructions, even if it did require multiples of the same kit. GW crossed that line with DG, making it such that even non-converting customization is restricted.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
so there was a certain line within which players felt safe--that being they were only using loadouts that could be made using nothing outside official instructions, even if it did require multiples of the same kit

now there is a picture
so people thought they are safe from changes if they don't convert their models but still mix models from different boxes?

well, looking at my Wolves, if you really thought that people must be new to GW because building as in the instructions and than swap models from other boxes in, was as safe in the past as was a full conversion with 3rd party bits for units that had no model at all

so people really believed GW won't act like GW and are now angry because GW did exactly what GW is always doing

It might be because you are not familiar with the kits, but all kan arms fit in either socket with no more "converting" required but gluing them in.
Same for the dread, the type of close close combat weapon is decided by clicking a different ball-jointed saw/klaw/drill into a socket. You create quad-klaw dreads by taking two klaws from one dread and putting them on another in addition to the two klaws it already has.

If we are talking about just swapping models, nothing prevents you from just un-swapping them. If we are talking about people putting into effort into getting extra bits to build certain load-outs, all ork examples apply.

PenitentJake wrote:

Many are the comments in threads of all stripes about the lethality of the game. And perhaps one of the reasons for that is that it was possible to design a squad with enough identical weapons to vaporize a knight in one turn, or decimate large infantry squads in one turn.

Forcing a unit to diversify it's load out minimizes this effect. On the plus side though, it would help ensure that every unit has the capacity to deal with anything, rather than "This is a pure antitank unit that is useless against infantry."

On the flip sides it also increased dice rolling and time spent to resolve all different attacks separately. Reducing dice rolling is a complaint as popular as asking to reduce lethality. I'm not even that sure what amount of lethality is actually reduced this way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:


Kanz no longer being able to take additional ranged arms from a second kanz box is the same as blightlords no longer being able to take combi-weapons from a second blightlords box.

Kanz also lost the possibility of being equipped with a KMB because it's not in the box. Now I may understand removing the option of giving them two ranged weapons or two CC arms because someone can argue that the unit could be designed to have both shooting and CC output anyway, but removing the KMB (just like the additional klaws for dreads) definitely falls in the same pool of killing options just because the kit doesn't come with them. Ironically I magnetized all my 6 KMB from the dreads kits to be possible loadouts for the Kanz (and not compatible with dreads anymore) as they were a decent option in past editions but completely useless for dreads; now they're illegal on Kanz and one of the best options for dreads .

 kodos wrote:
now there is a picture
so people thought they are safe from changes if they don't convert their models but still mix models from different boxes?

Yes. Because it's been that way for literal decades.

The most simple example is the Devastator squad.

There were three that GW sold originally:

1. Generic - Heavy Bolter x2, Lascannon x1, Missile Launcher x1
2. Blood Angel - Heavy Bolter x1, Lascannon x1, Missile Launcher x1, Plasma Cannon x1
3. Long Fang - Heavy Bolter x1, Lascannon x1, Missile Launcher x2

Multi-Melta Marines were like hen's teeth, and if you found one in a blister it was great. Ditto for Devastator Marines with Plasma Cannons in blisters. I only ever found one. If you wanted 4 of the same gun, you had to buy either multiple boxes, or hunt for specific blisters.

Then GW went to plastic/metal hybrids, and the Dev squad was one each of HB, LC, ML and Plasma Cannon. Wanted more weapons? Buy more boxes or find 'em in blisters. Then when GW switched to all plastic, and things got a bit better with included duplicates of each gun type, and some only had 1 of any gun type. Now the current Devastator kit has, I believe, 2 of everything (including the new Grav weapon). I know people who have parts ordered the heavy weapons they were missing, or simply bought multiple kits.

I doubt there's a single one of them who thought "Man, I really believe GW is going to limit a Dev Squad's heavy weapons to 2 of each specific type per squad because that's all that comes in the current kit!". And I'll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that no Death Guard player ever thought the same thing up until a week or so ago.

 kodos wrote:
so people really believed GW won't act like GW and are now angry because GW did exactly what GW is always doing

Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

We've seen pics of upcoming AdMech re-boxes today. How do you think Ad-Mech players will feel when they go from 0-3 special weapons in a unit of 10 to one transuranic arquebus, one arc rifle and one plasma caliver per squad, because that's all the box has?

This crap started in Age of Sigmar with Kharadron and Stormfiends and is very sad to see it applied in 40k.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so people really believed GW won't act like GW and are now angry because GW did exactly what GW is always doing

Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

and what is with Wolve Scouts?

Original Models were with Pistol+Knife and Pistol+Power Axe, Pistol+Power Sword and Melter

first Wolve themed plastic ones came with Melter, Power Sword, Power Axe, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Plasma Pistol, Knife Chainsword, Rocket Launcher, Heavy Bolter (the regular Scout Box with the old SW uprade frame)

the new SW box added Plasma Pistols
and now, we the list onyl allows Bolter, Bolt Pistol+Knife and 1 Special Weapon instead of the heavy weapon

so everyone that thought that just because there is an official model or the bits in the box allow to build it witout doing any conversions, was already proven wrong
but they just don't cared because a niche unit a niche army going backing from
"use the Scouts bits that come with the regular Space Wolves Pack" to "only use what is in the Scout Box"
was nothing to worry about and those who liked Scouts should get along because SW are going to be strong anyway

DG are not the first one, just that most people don't care but there are more people playing DG now because it was a budget army in 8th

*sigh* look at the response to this. It is OBVIOUS this is different than one came before. At this point I believe you and Jidmah simply will not understand because you do not want to. It seems to me that you would rather delegitimize the feelings of people upset by this than accept that GW crossed a new line. I cannot fathom why, beyond reasons that would be impolite to articulate.

Once more, why do we continue to care what GW tells us to do? Lots of ways to get past this. How about a Dakka approved rules thread? When GW makes these changes, we ask for suggestions and run a poll, yada... peeps can read and adapt these Dakkabrewed rules as they see fit. In this case, a simple poll might reveal that no one wants to.honor this change, so anyone going for a pick up game might expect that others will agree, and if not then counts as is possible, as is playing different units or with someone else.

 jeff white wrote:
Once more, why do we continue to care what GW tells us to do?

Because GW are charging us for the rules.

Because the vast majority of randos you meet won't be following your house rules.

Because I don't want to have to confusingly counts-as a bunch of my dudes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

We've seen pics of upcoming AdMech re-boxes today. How do you think Ad-Mech players will feel when they go from 0-3 special weapons in a unit of 10 to one transuranic arquebus, one arc rifle and one plasma caliver per squad, because that's all the box has?

The entirety of the Havoc special weapon selection was wiped out. You used to be able to get 10 guys and 4 plasma guns. We didn't have this many pages of complaints, because it seemed no one really cared.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

We've seen pics of upcoming AdMech re-boxes today. How do you think Ad-Mech players will feel when they go from 0-3 special weapons in a unit of 10 to one transuranic arquebus, one arc rifle and one plasma caliver per squad, because that's all the box has?

The entirety of the Havoc special weapon selection was wiped out. You used to be able to get 10 guys and 4 plasma guns. We didn't have this many pages of complaints, because it seemed no one really cared.

Again, different problem.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
*sigh* look at the response to this. It is OBVIOUS this is different than one came before. At this point I believe you and Jidmah simply will not understand because you do not want to. It seems to me that you would rather delegitimize the feelings of people upset by this than accept that GW crossed a new line. I cannot fathom why, beyond reasons that would be impolite to articulate.

yes, I don't understand the difference between the 2 problems

GW changed DG units from make options as you like by taking bits from other boxes, to build exactly as on the instructions
and you also said that you just needed to by 2 boxes and exchange the models to get a unit with a different loadout, so no conversion needed

and you say GW crossed a new line with DG, while I see no difference to the line crossed with other units at the end of 8th/ start of 9th

what exactly is the difference between your illegal DG unit and my illegal Sout unit
we both did no conversion but used the parts provided with the box or several of the same boxes (in my case as I bought the old combat box, all parts I used were in the same box and build according to instructions)

and my problem was that actually no one cared about it and I was told to stop and get along as SW are stronger now and Scouts were already bad anyway
and now that a not-niche unit is hit the same, it is something new and people have the right to be upset

yes, I really don't understand the difference here between 2 units made illegal by GW by changing the option of the unit to "only what's in 1 box"

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

We've seen pics of upcoming AdMech re-boxes today. How do you think Ad-Mech players will feel when they go from 0-3 special weapons in a unit of 10 to one transuranic arquebus, one arc rifle and one plasma caliver per squad, because that's all the box has?

The entirety of the Havoc special weapon selection was wiped out. You used to be able to get 10 guys and 4 plasma guns. We didn't have this many pages of complaints, because it seemed no one really cared.

The old Havoc entry was absolutely a snore fest that was uncreative and had to be redone, as well as being a far cry from what happened to Plague Marines and Blight Lords.

 kodos wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so people really believed GW won't act like GW and are now angry because GW did exactly what GW is always doing

Because, despite Jidmah's (frankly terrible) examples, GW haven't done something like this before, and people are (correctly) afraid of this bull gak being applied to other armies.

and what is with Wolve Scouts?

Original Models were with Pistol+Knife and Pistol+Power Axe, Pistol+Power Sword and Melter

first Wolve themed plastic ones came with Melter, Power Sword, Power Axe, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, Plasma Pistol, Knife Chainsword, Rocket Launcher, Heavy Bolter (the regular Scout Box with the old SW uprade frame)

the new SW box added Plasma Pistols
and now, we the list onyl allows Bolter, Bolt Pistol+Knife and 1 Special Weapon instead of the heavy weapon

so everyone that thought that just because there is an official model or the bits in the box allow to build it witout doing any conversions, was already proven wrong
but they just don't cared because a niche unit a niche army going backing from
"use the Scouts bits that come with the regular Space Wolves Pack" to "only use what is in the Scout Box"
was nothing to worry about and those who liked Scouts should get along because SW are going to be strong anyway

DG are not the first one, just that most people don't care but there are more people playing DG now because it was a budget army in 8th

Er, you might want to look at the Scout datasheet again.
It has a bunch of 'If Space Woofs' entries.
It gets full access to the special weapons list instead of HB or ML if SW
In addition, one model can have power axe, power sword or plasma pistol, again, if SW
The only thing that's missing from the 8e codex is the Sgt (pack leader) can't sneak in a storm shield anymore. Other than that, they didn't lose squat. Which is exactly the kind of thing that's hacking people off. New paradigm doesn't apply to loyalist marines.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Once more, why do we continue to care what GW tells us to do?

Because GW are charging us for the rules.

Because the vast majority of randos you meet won't be following your house rules.

Because I don't want to have to confusingly counts-as a bunch of my dudes.

Why do you pay them for bad rules made only to increase their profits at your expense?

Randos? Wtf? You game at a nightclub for NPCs?

Nobody wants counts as... which is why we should ignore GW on this and all future bs manipulations.

Wallstreetbets is a community of small investors making big changes by acting together. GW should be similarly vulnerable.

Voss wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Er, you might want to look at the Scout datasheet again.
It has a bunch of 'If Space Woofs' entries.
It gets full access to the special weapons list instead of HB or ML if SW
In addition, one model can have power axe, power sword or plasma pistol, again, if SW
The only thing that's missing from the 8e codex is the Sgt (pack leader) can't sneak in a storm shield anymore. Other than that, they didn't lose squat. Which is exactly the kind of thing that's hacking people off. New paradigm doesn't apply to loyalist marines.

yep, so the 1 Melter, 2 Power Swords (1 from the unit, 1 from the leader), 1 Plasmapistol 7 model unit that was legal over several editions is illegal now
you also can look at the DG Datasheet, all those options are still there, just not interchangeable as they once were

but I see, Scouts did not lose anything as I just need to remove those 2 models and have a legal 5 model unit now, the same that DG players can do as well