I've decided to get back into painting and thought I might as well try to get back into playing again now that I've got a couple of mates in the hobby too. Been reading through almost every Codex and watching a ton of battle reports, and main rule changes aside which I don't really have an issue with, the game seems completely dominated by an absurd amount of re-rolls in every phase.

I haven't had first-hand experience yet, but doesn't this completely detract from the tension of rolling dice in crucial moments when so much stuff gets re-rolled and you've got CP re-rolls to fall back on? When I stopped playing in 5th, it was such a comparitive rarity, with stuff like the twin-linked rule and Eldar doom/guide/fortune being the most common ways to get them. The big blobby auras of re-rolls are an odd design choice.

Stratagem use seems a bit weird to me too. I don't mind the idea that much, but it seems like there's just so many and it feels like the emphasis is more on playing some OP stratagem card at the right time, rather than on the models and their own rules/statlines themselves. Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

Finally it seems from Youtube battle reports I've watched, that stuff dies insanely quickly now thanks to powercreep + rerolls + stratagems. Obviously there were some offenders back in 5th ed. too, but most games still felt like there were a decent amount of units left by turn 4, whereas in the videos I've watched, one or both armies have almost nothing left by this time and tabling seems very common.
--------------------

Is this how is actually plays out in-game? I was really looking forward to getting back onto the table playing again, but after watching some battle reports, I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm.

Some of this issue is caused by GW having pulled a "Eh, feth it, it's the end of the edition let's puke a gak ton of untested trash into the game" and then unlike with 7th they didn't have the decency to quietly delete it going into 9th. So we're still dealing with most of the horsegak from marine 2.5dex and all of it from Psychic Awakening.

They're slowly dialing back the absurdity of the rerolls and stratagems in the new codexes - limiting the worst offenders of double-attack stratagems, double-shoot stratagems, and 100pt characters being able to grant their rerolls to everything up to and including 500+ point superheavies.

But unfortunately they're doing it "GWfully" meaning you pay for that gak and it goes one faction at a time. Everyone but loyalist marines, DG, and Necrons are just sitting around on their hands waiting for a 'dex or abusing the absolutely busted trash rules GW shoveled into the game with psychic awakening if they got them.

Older editions tended to limit the crazy abilities to just a unit joined by various characters, which led to the game being dominated by crazy deathstar units. Now, it's just kind of been spread out to aura-ball armies.

I would say tabling is much more common in 9th than in the other older editions I've played. Somewhat less common than in late 8th, but still ridiculously common.

Ah ok, I'm glad to hear they're (slowly) trying to pull the game away from re-roll/strat spam rather than keep going even deeper into that hole!

Yea - re-rolls are definitely reduced and that will only increase with more books.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
I would say tabling is much more common in 9th than in the other older editions I've played. Somewhat less common than in late 8th, but still ridiculously common.

I have the opposite experience, but I guess it depends on who or what you get to play these days.

This does seem to be the consensus.

RE: Lethality:

Some (though not all) of the issue is that right now, 7 factions have 9th ed dexes (5 of which are marines) and the rest of the factions don't. Some of those books that don't have 9th ed dexes are playing with older stat lines.

8th ed cover rules were terrible, and while 9th ed's cover rules are better, they aren't quite what everyone wanted.

Personally, I use a TON of LoS blocking scenery; it's why I make my own. Every GW terrain is full of holes, so it provides bonuses to saves, but it doesn't block LoS.

RE: Rerolls:

Yeah... Lots of those. I never use CP for rerolls, because there are enough auras that I shouldn't have to- and that's one of the reasons why I don't mind auras. Almost anything you can do with a command point is more interesting than a reroll.

RE: Strats

Some people hate them, some people love'em. You are correct that they are a game changer though, and they take a lot of getting used to. I tend to think of strats in the same way I think of data sheet rules; I write out the strats I like the most on index cards and I think about which one fits which unit the best and from that point on, it essentially IS a data sheet rule.

I like Strats, well the idea of them anyway. The issue becomes a few things:
1. Some of them are just straight up offensive and defensive buffs with exactly zero effort
2. Some of them scale hella weird
3. Some of them make little sense in the context of an army where only one unit is doing it....because.

PenitentJake wrote:
7 factions have 9th ed dexes (5 of which are marines)

Oh man, this sort of lopsided SM favouritism is still the norm then? :(

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Some of them are just straight up offensive and defensive buffs with exactly zero effort

Agreed, but then it becomes a resource management thing.

2. Some of them scale hella weird

Scaling has gotten a bit better.

3. Some of them make little sense in the context of an army where only one unit is doing it....because.

Right, a lot of people would prefer some of these things to be wargear. I think its a valid point, but it has the potential effect of either being an auto-take or completely worthless. A stratagem allows a little more flex in how it gets implemented.

Take SMOKESCREEN. Vehicles used to be able to pop smoke at the cost of shooting. Almost no one ever did this, because they likely wanted to shoot instead. Now SMOKESCREEN allows them to shoot and also benefit at a cost, but not everyone can do it at the same time. I really prefer this setup than the old one.

nemesis464 wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
7 factions have 9th ed dexes (5 of which are marines)

Oh man, this sort of lopsided SM favouritism is still the norm then? :(

It's about four times as bad

I don't like strategems either.
Some of them do way too much, albeit GW has toned it down slightly.
But also they've been used to reduce a lot of special rules to be strategems. Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

That seems weird to me. I'd rather hthe complexity of the rules made up in the wargear and unit entry, rather than on stratagem cards.

My own frame is playing 40K between 2nd Ed and 6th Ed inclusive, returning for 8th Ed. Re-rolls have been reigned-in somewhat for 9th Edition. The Core mechanic has been used, along with the very welcome restricting of what you could use a re-roll for. So the truly dramatic/episodic stuff like vehicles Exploding cannot be re-rolled.

Stratagems have been expanded, and I think they are here for a while. I quite enjoy them. Others clearly do not. While they last into 10th Edition? I guess it will depend how successful 9th Edition turns out to be.

I find tablings less common in 9th Edition compared to 8th Edition. Once again, people's mileage may vary. If you have five pieces of Obscuring Terrain placed in a manner suggested by the MRB then you cut down on 1st Turn lethality. In my last tourney at 1000 points (which is a dangerous level), over four games I had one "tabling" and two "near mutual tablings." The near-mutual tablings were fun, tightly contested matches then went the whole 5 turns. We both still had models left on the board - nothing wrong with that from my perspective.

nemesis464 wrote:
Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

This is my main dislike with Stratagems, but fortunately I think it's the only one of your complaints that isn't being addressed in some way in 9th- lethality is being reduced somewhat as more armies pick up damage reduction and things like shoot-twice abilities go away, and re-rolls are getting toned down as well. For what it's worth the Stratagem list is also being culled as new codices take the 'best of' the old codices and Psychic Awakening and ditch a bunch of the cruft. They're also making an attempt to distinguish Stratagems by type, which makes them a bit easier to keep track of.

That said, beyond the creep of Stratagems replacing things that really ought to be wargear (smokescreens, meltabombs), I miss being able to look at a unit's stats and being able to gauge its capabilities. Now you need to check what stratagems are relevant to it, what subfaction traits might amp it up, what buff abilities elsewhere in the codex apply. Having a complete understanding of all the armies isn't really practical and you'll probably get blindsided by stratagems every now and then.

Not sure if you've noticed, but probably the biggest difference I see compared to old editions is mobility. The table is smaller, nothing has to forgo shooting if it moves its full speed, anything can purchase outflank, and deep strike is 100% reliable in both positioning and timing.

nemesis464 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

That seems weird to me. I'd rather hthe complexity of the rules made up in the wargear and unit entry, rather than on stratagem cards.

Instead of having Smoke Launchers on every vehicle, you now have to spend points from a small pool of Command Points to use a stratagem that can be used only once a phase. That requires putting a bit more thought into the decision to use the stratagem than it did when Smoke Launcher were just wargear.

 catbarf wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:
Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

This is my main dislike with Stratagems, but fortunately I think it's the only one of your complaints that isn't being addressed in some way in 9th- lethality is being reduced somewhat as more armies pick up damage reduction and things like shoot-twice abilities go away, and re-rolls are getting toned down as well. For what it's worth the Stratagem list is also being culled as new codices take the 'best of' the old codices and Psychic Awakening and ditch a bunch of the cruft. They're also making an attempt to distinguish Stratagems by type, which makes them a bit easier to keep track of.

That said, beyond the creep of Stratagems replacing things that really ought to be wargear (smokescreens, meltabombs), I miss being able to look at a unit's stats and being able to gauge its capabilities. Now you need to check what stratagems are relevant to it, what subfaction traits might amp it up, what buff abilities elsewhere in the codex apply. Having a complete understanding of all the armies isn't really practical and you'll probably get blindsided by stratagems every now and then.

Not sure if you've noticed, but probably the biggest difference I see compared to old editions is mobility. The table is smaller, nothing has to forgo shooting if it moves its full speed, anything can purchase outflank, and deep strike is 100% reliable in both positioning and timing.

I'm almost done rebooting my tool to help with understanding an opponent's army.

This is just the data model. The goal will be to let someone pick a unit, keyword, etc and find out what the unit can take for relics or traits, what they benefit from, in what phase the ability has to be activated, etc.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Some of them are just straight up offensive and defensive buffs with exactly zero effort

Agreed, but then it becomes a resource management thing.

2. Some of them scale hella weird

Scaling has gotten a bit better.

3. Some of them make little sense in the context of an army where only one unit is doing it....because.

Right, a lot of people would prefer some of these things to be wargear. I think its a valid point, but it has the potential effect of either being an auto-take or completely worthless. A stratagem allows a little more flex in how it gets implemented.

Take SMOKESCREEN. Vehicles used to be able to pop smoke at the cost of shooting. Almost no one ever did this, because they likely wanted to shoot instead. Now SMOKESCREEN allows them to shoot and also benefit at a cost, but not everyone can do it at the same time. I really prefer this setup than the old one.

Honestly there's many thay bug me for the third one, but the biggest offender to me was True Grit for Space Wolves. Just one squad, whether it was 5 dudes or 10 dudes, somehow remembered they can shoot in melee while all the other dudes of the same type of squad are doing nothing. It's just so...weird.

 kirotheavenger wrote:


I don't like strategems either.
Some of them do way too much, albeit GW has toned it down slightly.
But also they've been used to reduce a lot of special rules to be strategems. Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

Okey lets imagine this. It is corona times, having good sells is important GW starts the edition with 7 books, out of which 5 are some sort of xeno armies, and the rest is one SM codex and one DG codex. All the BA, SW, DW etc marines are left skeleton rules. Now the minority of all players are having fun with their xeno books, while the majority of all players that are marines not so much. You think it would be wise for GW to do something like that? And we talking about it here, just after the goon report shown that marines aren't even the top armies in the game right now, and that a ton of non marines armies are doing well or very well. And that is without 9th books.

They displayed the ability to issue Indexes to help factions get by early edition issues.

Unfortunately they only used it on their favourite sons to offset a several month wait instead of the books waiting far longer.

Karol wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:


I don't like strategems either.
Some of them do way too much, albeit GW has toned it down slightly.
But also they've been used to reduce a lot of special rules to be strategems. Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

Okey lets imagine this. It is corona times, having good sells is important GW starts the edition with 7 books, out of which 5 are some sort of xeno armies, and the rest is one SM codex and one DG codex. All the BA, SW, DW etc marines are left skeleton rules. Now the minority of all players are having fun with their xeno books, while the majority of all players that are marines not so much. You think it would be wise for GW to do something like that? And we talking about it here, just after the goon report shown that marines aren't even the top armies in the game right now, and that a ton of non marines armies are doing well or very well. And that is without 9th books.

BA, SW and DW were playable before getting their supplements.... if the energy used for these supplements had been given to Chaos or Xenos or even just another non-marine Imperium army, it wouldve been a better move for the players.

That's a bit unfair.

Those supplements were pushed out mainly because BA, DA and SW had LOST their models.

There were literally no rules available anymore, the 9th edition SM codex invalidates the previous SM codici.

There were no rules for Thunderwolf cavalry, Sanguinary guard, DW Knights... snowflake marines had lost about half of their datasheets and about 100% of what defined them.
It is quite obvious that you can't leave a faction hanging like that while waiting for the codex to come out.

It would be an unacceptable treatment even by xenos standards.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Honestly there's many thay bug me for the third one, but the biggest offender to me was True Grit for Space Wolves. Just one squad, whether it was 5 dudes or 10 dudes, somehow remembered they can shoot in melee while all the other dudes of the same type of squad are doing nothing. It's just so...weird.

You may be happy to learn that the new book killed that one dead.

As a veteran of 40K since 2nd edition, I find the current state of the game nearly impenetrable. Or maybe I'm just getting older and my patience for navigating minute is wearing thin.

But the amount modifiers and die-rolls applied by way of auras, stratagems, relics, faction traits, etc, in combination with the same special rule being called something different on each unit/army, leads to an incredibly fiddly situation. Much less is baked into a unit's stat line or unique special rules (which are comparatively easy to parse), and far more is handled by external elements (stratagems, etc.). The game is vastly more complex and clunky now, as you have to nerd-out hard to think through how all these disconnected elements intersect and interact.

The consequence is that the game feels even more about puzzling through this dizzying array of modifiers/re-rolls/special-rules to build an army list than it ever has been. Meanwhile, the core gameplay rules have been dumbed down and missions homogenized to the point that one wonders, cynically, why we are even playing a miniature game at all.

Thank the emperor for Old Hammer.

 Mezmorki wrote:
But the amount modifiers and die-rolls applied by way of auras, stratagems, relics, faction traits, etc, in combination with the same special rule being called something different on each unit/army, leads to an incredibly fiddly situation. Much less is baked into a unit's stat line or unique special rules (which are comparatively easy to parse), and far more is handled by external elements (stratagems, etc.).

I agree with you there.

I want my units to be the ones that feel uniquely special, not the ever-increasing horde of stratagem cards and power-ups being the deciding factor.

 Mezmorki wrote:
As a veteran of 40K since 2nd edition, I find the current state of the game nearly impenetrable. Or maybe I'm just getting older and my patience for navigating minute is wearing thin.

But the amount modifiers and die-rolls applied by way of auras, stratagems, relics, faction traits, etc, in combination with the same special rule being called something different on each unit/army, leads to an incredibly fiddly situation. Much less is baked into a unit's stat line or unique special rules (which are comparatively easy to parse), and far more is handled by external elements (stratagems, etc.). The game is vastly more complex and clunky now, as you have to nerd-out hard to think through how all these disconnected elements intersect and interact.

The consequence is that the game feels even more about puzzling through this dizzying array of modifiers/re-rolls/special-rules to build an army list than it ever has been. Meanwhile, the core gameplay rules have been dumbed down and missions homogenized to the point that one wonders, cynically, why we are even playing a miniature game at all.

Thank the emperor for Old Hammer.

I agree with you 100%.

To the OP, why not ask your mates to stick with 5th edition or another earlier edition you all may prefer? It will cost a lot less money in the long run and you won't have to ride the never-ending rollercoaster of GW's rules updates. If you want to use newer models not available back then, it is not that difficult too convert the stats, abilities and points into old rulesets.

On topic @ OP:

Yeah man preper to eat the gotcha samich from time to time and also stuff just get deleted if a some unit juiced to the gills with strats looks at it...
Welcome to modern 40k.

Some units were able to throw out like 60+ dice all reroll able.. ZzzzzZZZ....
In one of their marketing / blah blah article GW even said that "Great tactical acumen of this unit is naturally represented by all of the rerolls..."
Some people at GW seem to be semi self aware but mostly its a crapshow...

Spoletta wrote:
That's a bit unfair.

Those supplements were pushed out mainly because BA, DA and SW had LOST their models.

There were literally no rules available anymore, the 9th edition SM codex invalidates the previous SM codici.

There were no rules for Thunderwolf cavalry, Sanguinary guard, DW Knights... snowflake marines had lost about half of their datasheets and about 100% of what defined them.
It is quite obvious that you can't leave a faction hanging like that while waiting for the codex to come out.

It would be an unacceptable treatment even by xenos standards.

Lets all take a moment of silence for how poorly space marines have been treated and all the units they lost.
*bugle plays in the background as silence falls*

Your posts are the funniest cringe friend.
Never change.

 Argive wrote:
On topic @ OP:

Yeah man preper to eat the gotcha samich from time to time and also stuff just get deleted if a some unit juiced to the gills with strats looks at it...
Welcome to modern 40k.

Some units were able to throw out like 60+ dice all reroll able.. ZzzzzZZZ....
In one of their marketing / blah blah article GW even said that "Great tactical acumen of this unit is naturally represented by all of the rerolls..."
Some people at GW seem to be semi self aware but mostly its a crapshow...

Spoletta wrote:
That's a bit unfair.

Those supplements were pushed out mainly because BA, DA and SW had LOST their models.

There were literally no rules available anymore, the 9th edition SM codex invalidates the previous SM codici.

There were no rules for Thunderwolf cavalry, Sanguinary guard, DW Knights... snowflake marines had lost about half of their datasheets and about 100% of what defined them.
It is quite obvious that you can't leave a faction hanging like that while waiting for the codex to come out.

It would be an unacceptable treatment even by xenos standards.

Lets all take a moment of silence for how poorly space marines have been treated and all the units they lost.
*bugle plays in the background as silence falls*

Your posts are the funniest cringe friend.
Never change.

Ahh, the sweet aroma of black knights who think that losing dozens of datasheets is fine.

Dakka wouldn't be the same without people like you.

Dozens?

I

Spoletta wrote:
That's a bit unfair.

Those supplements were pushed out mainly because BA, DA and SW had LOST their models.

There were literally no rules available anymore, the 9th edition SM codex invalidates the previous SM codici.

There were no rules for Thunderwolf cavalry, Sanguinary guard, DW Knights... snowflake marines had lost about half of their datasheets and about 100% of what defined them.
It is quite obvious that you can't leave a faction hanging like that while waiting for the codex to come out.

It would be an unacceptable treatment even by xenos standards.

Like, what, their unique units might have had to struggle along with one less wound for two or three months?

It is absolutely fair. A few FAQs would have been all that were required for Snowflake chapters to make those models usable; even without statline updates, they wouldn't in any position that isn't being occupied by several other armies now - which is apparently considered acceptable treatment if you're not playing Space Marines.

Yeah, I've banged this drum before, but to quote Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw: "If you're still showing symptoms, then keep taking your medicine, mother******."

It kind of sticks in my throat; those armies got full indexes, some of which had completely new rules that presumably took time and effort, and that were only going to be needed for a few months, while other armies may languish for years without updates that make them function playably (Tau) or with farcical rules disparities (Chaos Marines having 1 wound) or not having weapons updated to new standards(Eldar and Tau meltas, TS warpflamers). Combine that with the excruciating 7-month-long Marine commercial 9th edition has been (They're still releasing Marine units!) and what conclusion can I come to other than that if you're not playing Loyalist Space Marines specifically, GW considers you a second class citizen?

Which... uh, yeah. Happened.

There totally were Day 1 FAQs for the snowflake chapters to get their special treatment for the couple weeks they had to 'suffer.'
They lost nothing for any amount of time.

The product release schedule is vastly different now than late 5th edition (I assume that is when you stopped playing). Back then, it was much easier, and cheaper, to have all the material and keep up to date on all the armies. Content now comes out much faster and with multiple books available to build a single army, the number of in game variables dramatically increased as opposed to 5th edition.

I can not keep up with all the other armies' rules, but I've learned to ask my opponent a lot more questions during the game. I don't want them to provide me their strategies, but I will ask questions such as ways to increase movement of units, things that can improve stats and so forth. One of the benefits is that it actually gives my opponent more open dialogue during the game when it used to be fairly inactive for the other player. I play on a weekly basis, but that is not nearly enough to keep up with all the material. I found if I don't ask, the likelihood of that "gotcha" moment is much higher and tended to break the backbone of an army fast. I also offer up the information to my opponents as well. My games have become much more interesting, enjoyable, and challenging for myself and my opponent. I've yet to encounter a person not willing to provide the information I've asked for.

Terrain rules are better than in several past editions. The shooting is deadly and requires larger LOS blocking terrain. However, the concept of deadly shooting is not new. If I recall correctly, an IG build in either 4th or 5th edition was nicknamed "Leafblower" as it pretty much removed armies from shooting. Iron Warriors with Basilisks and Obliterators had a similar reputation. NOVA back in 5th edition developed terrain layouts to mitigate these kinds of issues as well as other tourney venues. Terrain has been very important in 40K and games continue to end quickly by lack of a proper terrain layout. "Proper" is subjective so I recommend working that out with your local area for a consensus.

Lastly, enjoy. I find the game much more complex now than in 5th, but each edition has had its positives and negatives. I've played through every edition and find 9th to be a lot of fun to the point of buying, building, and painting a new army.

 Eldarain wrote:
Dozens?

Totally. Remember how Dark Angels needed a separate entry for Terminators even though there were three types already in the main codex? OH and remember how Blood Angels got two extra variations of the Apothecary? Must be so hard for them.

Oh and don't forget those poor Space Wolves that suffered when they didn't have their Not-Tactical Marine! My heart weeps for the injustice suffered!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Dozens?

Totally. Remember how Dark Angels needed a separate entry for Terminators even though there were three types already in the main codex? OH and remember how Blood Angels got two extra variations of the Apothecary? Must be so hard for them.

Oh and don't forget those poor Space Wolves that suffered when they didn't have their Not-Tactical Marine! My heart weeps for the injustice suffered!

Cmon guys.. have some god damn respect! The bugle is still playing... Respect the moment of silence please. Those poor poor marine datasheets..

 Argive wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Dozens?

Totally. Remember how Dark Angels needed a separate entry for Terminators even though there were three types already in the main codex? OH and remember how Blood Angels got two extra variations of the Apothecary? Must be so hard for them.

Oh and don't forget those poor Space Wolves that suffered when they didn't have their Not-Tactical Marine! My heart weeps for the injustice suffered!

Cmon guys.. have some god damn respect! The bugle is still playing... Respect the moment of silence please. Those poor poor marine datasheets..

Oh no, that poor Dark Angels fighter that had basically the same loadout as the Stormtalon...but it got a bonus to hit one target compared to ghe Talon hitting another target better :(

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Dozens?

Totally. Remember how Dark Angels needed a separate entry for Terminators even though there were three types already in the main codex? OH and remember how Blood Angels got two extra variations of the Apothecary? Must be so hard for them.

Oh and don't forget those poor Space Wolves that suffered when they didn't have their Not-Tactical Marine! My heart weeps for the injustice suffered!

Yeah Space Marines had a lot of extra probably unnecessary codexes for all the flavors of marines but I will say that the Wolves played considerably different than Vanilla Marines back before GW started merging them back together. It does suck for the people who actually play those factions because they gave a different gameplay experience. Much more than just some stupid chapter tactic, doctrine, or whatever other stapled on additional rules they give marines these days.

Spoletta wrote:

 Argive wrote:
On topic @ OP:

Yeah man preper to eat the gotcha samich from time to time and also stuff just get deleted if a some unit juiced to the gills with strats looks at it...
Welcome to modern 40k.

Some units were able to throw out like 60+ dice all reroll able.. ZzzzzZZZ....
In one of their marketing / blah blah article GW even said that "Great tactical acumen of this unit is naturally represented by all of the rerolls..."
Some people at GW seem to be semi self aware but mostly its a crapshow...

Spoletta wrote:
That's a bit unfair.

Those supplements were pushed out mainly because BA, DA and SW had LOST their models.

There were literally no rules available anymore, the 9th edition SM codex invalidates the previous SM codici.

There were no rules for Thunderwolf cavalry, Sanguinary guard, DW Knights... snowflake marines had lost about half of their datasheets and about 100% of what defined them.
It is quite obvious that you can't leave a faction hanging like that while waiting for the codex to come out.

It would be an unacceptable treatment even by xenos standards.

Lets all take a moment of silence for how poorly space marines have been treated and all the units they lost.
*bugle plays in the background as silence falls*

Your posts are the funniest cringe friend.
Never change.

Ahh, the sweet aroma of black knights who think that losing dozens of datasheets is fine.

Dakka wouldn't be the same without people like you.

As a SW player I wouldn't have lost anything. I'd have just played 9th for a few months with my 8e Wolf Codex like every other faction save Necrons & generic Marines.
What's a GK player do? Uses 8e codex + changes to melta weapons
What's a SoB player do? Uses 8e codex + changes to melta weapons.
What's a Guard player do? Uses 8e codex + changes to melta weapons.
What's Ork/Tau/Eldar/Chaos/etc etc etc do? Uses 8e codex.
I sense a pattern forming....


And as a SW player I certainly wouldn't be waiting very long for my codex.

But in the end as I also play Necrons I didn't have to worry about it at all.

Ghaz wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

That seems weird to me. I'd rather hthe complexity of the rules made up in the wargear and unit entry, rather than on stratagem cards.

Instead of having Smoke Launchers on every vehicle, you now have to spend points from a small pool of Command Points to use a stratagem that can be used only once a phase. That requires putting a bit more thought into the decision to use the stratagem than it did when Smoke Launcher were just wargear.

Which limits it to once per phase.

Now I can't move all my rhinos and pop smoke on each one. Stupid. It removes an actual real life tactic in favor of stupid cp expenditure. Which is the exact reason they've doubled down on swapping rules on datasheet to dumb strats. The entire shift in design structure in favour of a resource pool over pregame spending and then adapting that cost into action on table makes it more MTG than 40k.
They want you to spend CP, on stuff to give you more and more rerolls or more betterer shooting/melee.

But the game boils down to Soooooo many rerolls. Reroll for the reroll God! Reroll for the reroll throne.

The reading comprension of this board has gone lower than my expectations, but what can you expect from Dakka after all.

For the last time:

The 9th SM dex had left 65 datasheet without rules.
No I don't mean, with outdated rules, I mean full out squatted.

There were no rules at all for them, they were completely invalidated as models on the table. 65 datasheets with respective models which had no legal way to be put on the table.

I like how marine haters in here seems to think that since they are SM that would have been fine, but it would have been not.

I don't own any SM models, I'm a Nid/Ts/Sister player and that would have unacceptable under any standard.

If GW tomorrow came out and said "The haemonculus sub faction, all CWE wraith units, the Ynnari HQs and the harlequins can no longer be legally played until next notice in a few months" would you really agree with that?

No, you wouldn't, and some of the black knights in this thread would be the first ones to jump on GWs throath for that... followed by me.

Does GW love her favorite SM childs? Yeah, obviously. SM favouritism is all over the place.
Were the FAQs born of that? Not at all. I can concede that they were a bit too generous since they gave a page of stratagems and relics/traits which were not strictly needed. But 90% of those FAQs were absolutely needed.

But...you're wrong.
I play Blood Angels, at no point were any of my units illegal.
Why? Because GW released small PDF supplement indexes (freely available) for those factions which contained the updated rules.
I lost most unique strategems and relics (they needed to ensure I still bought the actual supplement) but no actual units.

I totally agree with Mezmorki's earlier comment that building and playing is a totally different to how it used to be.
It's all about building synergies into units and allocating CPs.
I'm sure we're all familiar with that meme of the crazy guy pointing at a cork board with pictures and string everywhere? That's what it feels like now.
That's not the 40k I fell in love with. Unfortunately I've found no traction for Oldhammer so I've effectively been forced out of the game to find alternatives I enjoy.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
But...you're wrong.
I play Blood Angels, at no point were any of my units illegal.
Why? Because GW released small PDF supplement indexes (freely available) for those factions which contained the updated rules.
I lost most unique strategems and relics (they needed to ensure I still bought the actual supplement) but no actual units.

I totally agree with Mezmorki's earlier comment that building and playing is a totally different to how it used to be.
It's all about building synergies into units and allocating CPs.
I'm sure we're all familiar with that meme of the crazy guy pointing at a cork board with pictures and string everywhere? That's what it feels like now.
That's not the 40k I fell in love with. Unfortunately I've found no traction for Oldhammer so I've effectively been forced out of the game to find alternatives I enjoy.

Reread the answers.

They have been saying that those same small PDFs that you referencing shouldn't have existed, because it was "SM favoritism". Yes, the discussion is THAT dumb.

I'm defending those PDFs not the codici.

Maybe that's the strawman you've constructed.
I'd recommend you reread the comments - they said that the supplements shouldn't have been released, as in the books.
Space Marines would have been fine on those mini indexes for a while, just like Guard and Sisters and others are having to survive on FAQs updating their wargear.
There was no need for GW to rush through Space Marine supplements.

But this is entirely off topic, this topic is about 9th edition's overall gameplay as a result of rerolls and strategems.
Not every topic needs to be dragged into "GW favours Space Marines" within the first page!

9th edition does not embody the general gameplay that I enjoy, nor did 8th.

 Eldarain wrote:
They displayed the ability to issue Indexes to help factions get by early edition issues.
Unfortunately they only used it on their favourite sons to offset a several month wait instead of the books waiting far longer.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
...It kind of sticks in my throat; those armies got full indexes, some of which had completely new rules that presumably took time and effort, ...

Voss wrote:
Which... uh, yeah. Happened.
There totally were Day 1 FAQs for the snowflake chapters to get their special treatment for the couple weeks they had to 'suffer.'
They lost nothing for any amount of time.

@kirotheavenger
The discussion was about the Index.

When playing the new DG codex, they have exactly one re-roll aura that effectively does anything plague marines and blightlords, and if you have a second one it's usually from Mortarion himself who wastes little time buffing slow shooting units. Stratagems no longer play a central role in my strategy, but are used to react to certain situations during the game.

I think Necrons only get re-roll auras on destroyer lords, and while I'm no expert on their army, most strategies seem to be revolving around what units you bring, not about which stratagems combo you use.

Are we sure that the problem isn't (as usual) marines, rather than 9th edition codices?

Nice cherry picking.
I can tell by the comments you skipped over, and your feeble attempt to pass off comments as meaning exactly the opposite of what they did within their proper context that you're not actually interested in being honest about this.
Let's just leave this part of the conversation behind because as I said, if there's one thing this forum needs it sure as hell isn't another thread about marine favouritism.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

BA, SW and DW were playable before getting their supplements.... if the energy used for these supplements had been given to Chaos or Xenos or even just another non-marine Imperium army, it wouldve been a better move for the players.

And so are eldar right now, yet eldar players seem to be dead on this mind set of marine favorism and them being the perescuted ones. As if someone mind sweeped 8th ed, and all the editions before it for them.

It was easier for GW to make and put out all the books at the same, and they did want to do it, because it would be kind of a hard to explain the spliting of BA/DA/DW/etc books in to two, if the other half of the book didn't drop soon after the core sm codex. And it wouldn't have been better for "the players" marines are the most numerous group of players. If something is done by GW to make marine players happy, it automaticaly becomes the thing that makes the majority of w40k happy. And the reverse is true as well. In fact, considering what was going on in 8th with marines, it is suprising that it took GW nine editions to realise that.

Karol, can't you just stop trolling the eldar players? It's getting old.

I ain't trolling. I am not a smart person, but I find it insane to hear from eldar players that they were somehow done wrong by GW. I only know 8th and 9th. 8th ed eldar were crazy comparing to marines, and for much longer time. most marine didn't even get to play with the cool 2.0 rules, because when they arrived in stores and people got to recast tall the models they needed lock downs started. I got to play with my 2.0 GK PA rules 3 times. got them in february, and on the 10th the country locked won. Eldar were a top army all through out 8th ed, and when they became "bad". They were bad in way of , they are better then anything, but castellan tournament lists are generally just as good or later one, you need to play a specific list to get those over 50% win rates.

In the same time if someone played Deathwing or IF, in 8th there often no build that good get you anywhere near eldar lists.

And what really blows my mind is that 8th was considered by people that played prior editions to be less crazy, rules wise. When I hear about eldar mega units getting hit on +6 tanking shots on ++2, running around with weapons that had stats of if I hit I kill, getting warlord units undercosted by 200-250pts.
And then GW does not nerf the eldar units, but just balanced this for marines with their free 500pts,as long as they spend the money on those 5-6 vehicles boxs. I am mind blow to.

Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

Marines 2.0 broke the game in ways we haven't seen before.

Nothing in the history of the game since the 1980s remotely compared to the insane win percentages and top tournament representation of Marines 2.0.

Not Mat Ward Grey Knights, not 6th Edition Riptide Wings allied with Wraithknights, not 7th Edition Screamer Stars, not Ynnari or Castellan, nothing even came close.


(non-Ynnari) Eldar in 8th Edition was for the most part a sub-par Codex with no depth and little variety. Early on, it could be abused to ally in Doom/Jinx into other armies, and like most bad Codexes, you could usually still mine it for skew-builds. In the case of 8th Ed. Eldar, it was Flyers. In the case of 8th Ed. Necrons, it was Doom-6. In the case of 8th Ed. (pre-PA) Daemons, it was Plaguebearer spam. Etc.. Those lists saw some success by building for the extremes and hoping your opponent doesn't have the tools. But they are generally a sign (or last resort) of working with a poor Codex, not a sign of a healthy book with lots of tools and valid options.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
you could usually still mine it for skew-builds.

No, no. Even skew can't be suffered. He's like the avatar of this game's forums collective mind, but with a bias.
As such, Eldars being able to win at all is bad because his regular opponents bullied him with their Ynnari armies and the internet says they are always OP, so they must be.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Marines 2.0 broke the game in ways we haven't seen before.

Nothing in the history of the game since the 1980s remotely compared to the insane win percentages and top tournament representation of Marines 2.0.

Not Mat Ward Grey Knights, not 6th Edition Riptide Wings allied with Wraithknights, not 7th Edition Screamer Stars, not Ynnari or Castellan, nothing even came close.


(non-Ynnari) Eldar in 8th Edition was for the most part a sub-par Codex with no depth and little variety. Early on, it could be abused to ally in Doom/Jinx into other armies, and like most bad Codexes, you could usually still mine it for skew-builds. In the case of 8th Ed. Eldar, it was Flyers. In the case of 8th Ed. Necrons, it was Doom-6. In the case of 8th Ed. (pre-PA) Daemons, it was Plaguebearer spam. Etc.. Those lists saw some success by building for the extremes and hoping your opponent doesn't have the tools. But they are generally a sign (or last resort) of working with a poor Codex, not a sign of a healthy book with lots of tools and valid options.

I'm not sure I agree with this.

7th was more broke than 8th has ever been at any point.

You didn't have the same win percentages in 7th because there was more than one utterly broken list, so they shared the wins.

If in the SM 2.0 era the difference between a competitive list and a non competitive one was 2 to 1, in the end of 7th it was around 10 to 1. The "competitive" lists simply played a different game than the more standard ones, while during SM 2.0 the competitive lists still played the same game, just much more efficiently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Maybe that's the strawman you've constructed.
I'd recommend you reread the comments - they said that the supplements shouldn't have been released, as in the books.
Space Marines would have been fine on those mini indexes for a while, just like Guard and Sisters and others are having to survive on FAQs updating their wargear.
There was no need for GW to rush through Space Marine supplements.

But this is entirely off topic, this topic is about 9th edition's overall gameplay as a result of rerolls and strategems.
Not every topic needs to be dragged into "GW favours Space Marines" within the first page!

9th edition does not embody the general gameplay that I enjoy, nor did 8th.

No strawman here.
Reread what you want but my answer has been clearly aimed at the FAQs, I never mentioned the supplements.
By the way, you agree with me, so let's just drop this.

Karol wrote:
I ain't trolling. I am not a smart person, but I find it insane to hear from eldar players that they were somehow done wrong by GW. I only know 8th and 9th. 8th ed eldar were crazy comparing to marines, and for much longer time. most marine didn't even get to play with the cool 2.0 rules, because when they arrived in stores and people got to recast tall the models they needed lock downs started. I got to play with my 2.0 GK PA rules 3 times. got them in february, and on the 10th the country locked won. Eldar were a top army all through out 8th ed, and when they became "bad". They were bad in way of , they are better then anything, but castellan tournament lists are generally just as good or later one, you need to play a specific list to get those over 50% win rates.

Every codex should be equally playable, irrespective of history.
You were the one person regularly complaining about how GK shouldn't suffer during 8th because they were insanely OP in editions past.

If you now ask that eldar should be treated in the same way that you explicitly didn't want your army to be treated in past, you are being a hypocrite.

This has nothing to do with being smart. If eldar should not get any help, neither should GK.

Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

Ok, since you aren't smart, I'll spell it out for you.
No one. Absolutely. No. One. Thinks of Grey Knights when they say or read "Marines". This isn't even up for discussion. Stop jumping on this crap.

Now that you have been educated, you can no longer pull the "I ain't smart" excuse.

Karol wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:


I don't like strategems either.
Some of them do way too much, albeit GW has toned it down slightly.
But also they've been used to reduce a lot of special rules to be strategems. Smoke launchers? Now a strategem for example.

Okey lets imagine this. It is corona times, having good sells is important GW starts the edition with 7 books, out of which 5 are some sort of xeno armies, and the rest is one SM codex and one DG codex. All the BA, SW, DW etc marines are left skeleton rules. Now the minority of all players are having fun with their xeno books, while the majority of all players that are marines not so much. You think it would be wise for GW to do something like that? And we talking about it here, just after the goon report shown that marines aren't even the top armies in the game right now, and that a ton of non marines armies are doing well or very well. And that is without 9th books.

Wasnt there a recent report, maybe even the one you yourself just referred to, stating that space marines make up 33% of the player base in total?

Majority....generally not a word used to describe 33% of a population....

Which report would that? Because I've not seen such a finding, and doubt that any report can provide a single number to such a nuanced question.

I'm not sure there is an official report - but if you look at the data in things like the ITC Battles App - and really any significant tournament - Marines usually make up 30-35% of the lists. You can see this in Goonhammer articles, and in the Warhammer Community Article (but I think that's esssentially a re-print of the Goonhammer stats, so not really surprising.)

Factoring in the inclusion of DA/SW/BA/DW this has been fairly stable since Marines 2.0.

I'm suspect though that player population can be concluded flat though, as it inevitably waxes and wanes with performance. Losing repeatedly gets old fast.

Karol wrote:
I ain't trolling. I am not a smart person, but I find it insane to hear from eldar players that they were somehow done wrong by GW. I only know 8th and 9th. 8th ed eldar were crazy comparing to marines, and for much longer time. most marine didn't even get to play with the cool 2.0 rules, because when they arrived in stores and people got to recast tall the models they needed lock downs started. I got to play with my 2.0 GK PA rules 3 times. got them in february, and on the 10th the country locked won. Eldar were a top army all through out 8th ed, and when they became "bad". They were bad in way of , they are better then anything, but castellan tournament lists are generally just as good or later one, you need to play a specific list to get those over 50% win rates.

In the same time if someone played Deathwing or IF, in 8th there often no build that good get you anywhere near eldar lists.

And what really blows my mind is that 8th was considered by people that played prior editions to be less crazy, rules wise. When I hear about eldar mega units getting hit on +6 tanking shots on ++2, running around with weapons that had stats of if I hit I kill, getting warlord units undercosted by 200-250pts.
And then GW does not nerf the eldar units, but just balanced this for marines with their free 500pts,as long as they spend the money on those 5-6 vehicles boxs. I am mind blow to.

Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

The average age of eldar models is 15 years. Meanwhile marines are getting an update to the updated range of miniatures... Its not about their performance, its about their old ass finecast miniatures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:


I'm not sure I agree with this.

7th was more broke than 8th has ever been at any point.

You didn't have the same win percentages in 7th because there was more than one utterly broken list, so they shared the wins.

If in the SM 2.0 era the difference between a competitive list and a non competitive one was 2 to 1, in the end of 7th it was around 10 to 1. The "competitive" lists simply played a different game than the more standard ones, while during SM 2.0 the competitive lists still played the same game, just much more efficiently.

SM 2.0 (mainly ironhands) sat at a higher winrate than Ynnari/Castellans/Scatterbikes ever did tho. And considering that SM is one of the most popular armies (at least more popular than Ynnari, Knights or eldar), it made for a truly broken game and even marines that werent IH could play as this chapter since they have the same units.

 Jidmah wrote:
When playing the new DG codex, they have exactly one re-roll aura that effectively does anything plague marines and blightlords, and if you have a second one it's usually from Mortarion himself who wastes little time buffing slow shooting units. Stratagems no longer play a central role in my strategy, but are used to react to certain situations during the game.

I think Necrons only get re-roll auras on destroyer lords, and while I'm no expert on their army, most strategies seem to be revolving around what units you bring, not about which stratagems combo you use.

Are we sure that the problem isn't (as usual) marines, rather than 9th edition codices?

Even marines aren't that bad. It's the armies that don't have the CORE setup and full reroll changes.

You can specifically build a reroll marine army, but that's with Bobby and even then he can only be in one place at a time since he can't sit back and buff vehicles. People are WAY more likely to be running Chaplains and Librarians. People rarely pay the 25 for a CM, because it just isn't worth having full rerolls for just one unit when there are other more interesting synergies.

Especially because chapter master is 40

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
When playing the new DG codex, they have exactly one re-roll aura that effectively does anything plague marines and blightlords, and if you have a second one it's usually from Mortarion himself who wastes little time buffing slow shooting units. Stratagems no longer play a central role in my strategy, but are used to react to certain situations during the game.

I think Necrons only get re-roll auras on destroyer lords, and while I'm no expert on their army, most strategies seem to be revolving around what units you bring, not about which stratagems combo you use.

Are we sure that the problem isn't (as usual) marines, rather than 9th edition codices?

Even marines aren't that bad. It's the armies that don't have the CORE setup and full reroll changes.

You can specifically build a reroll marine army, but that's with Bobby and even then he can only be in one place at a time since he can't sit back and buff vehicles. People are WAY more likely to be running Chaplains and Librarians. People rarely pay the 25 for a CM, because it just isn't worth having full rerolls for just one unit when there are other more interesting synergies.

Due to certain limitations on who can play me in person, I really only face DA and they seem to have re-rolls everywhere due to the tripple wing setup. But glad to hear that other marines have moved in the same direction as DG where specialized support characters have more impact that a blob cuddling to their bosses for re-rolls.

Spoletta wrote:
Especially because chapter master is 40

Well, even worse!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

Due to certain limitations on who can play me in person, I really only face DA and they seem to have re-rolls everywhere due to the tripple wing setup. But glad to hear that other marines have moved in the same direction as DG where specialized support characters have more impact that a blob cuddling to their bosses for re-rolls.

Yea DA might be one of the few armies willing to spring for 3 detachments and carrying more HQs as a result. It would be hard to pack in much in the way of full rerolls and unless they also spend more on LTs the overall rerolls should be less than previous. I imagine as things develop that DA will lean more into Apothecaries over reroll auras.

Tyel wrote:
I'm not sure there is an official report - but if you look at the data in things like the ITC Battles App - and really any significant tournament - Marines usually make up 30-35% of the lists. You can see this in Goonhammer articles, and in the Warhammer Community Article (but I think that's esssentially a re-print of the Goonhammer stats, so not really surprising.)

Factoring in the inclusion of DA/SW/BA/DW this has been fairly stable since Marines 2.0.

I'm suspect though that player population can be concluded flat though, as it inevitably waxes and wanes with performance. Losing repeatedly gets old fast.

That's tournament data though, not representative of thr game as a whole.

Just as my informal observations over the years, a lot of people have multiple armies. When people do have multiple armies, one or more of them is almost always Marines.
With new players it's an even higher percentage. Most people start out with a core set, immediately that's 50% marines if they're sharing with another player. But they see marines get more attention, in everything from models to lore to rules, and so people are more likely to adopt marines.

lulz Spoleta. Just ... lulz ...Most other factions would have had to get by with either literally nothing until their codex came out, or would have had to make-due with a "get you by" FAQ download, or simply using their old codex until their new "official" supplement went out. You know this. I'm not sure why it offends you so much. For example, I'm STILL WAITING on my Crimson Slaughter update ...

What? A Blood Angel player may have to go a few months without using Sang Guard, or possibly using them but in a less-than-convenient way? How sad. Tell it to the Tau/GSC/Tsons players who's entire armies are nearly essentially useless with their 8th ed books ... Also, while I'm not one to throw stones given how many typos I frequently have, I've also never beat someone up so badly for "reading comprehension". You may want to go back and do some heavy editing to that rant if you want to also keep the reading comprehension part.

As far as the thread topic - If you're just coming back from an older edition, I can see where it's pretty weird! It takes some getting used to, but I think 9th is going to be a good edition. They just need to get some issues fixed w/the missions imo, but over-all things are in good shape.

As far as re-rolls and all that - I do have to agree that the 9th ed dexes have toned that down a lot from what we had in 8th. Especially the marine dex. Marines can actually miss shots now. This was, without exaggeration, almost unheard of in the previous dex. This has also (thankfully) been mostly kept in the supplements and other codexes. While it's a little annoying that IH get to keep the 6+ FNP roll and DG lost the 5+ (just a personal pet peeve), I think they really have done a great job of cutting it back down. This was one of my biggest crits of the 9th rules. They wanted a "faster" game, but created a rule set that would only make games LONGER while not addressing the real issues of strats and rerolls. I will say that they still haven't quite hit that "faster" mark, but yeah, the rerolls are WAY better imo.

The strats are better now too than they were imo. You have situationally good strats in each book so far, and a few minor combos, but nothing like what was happening before, and each book appears to have better strats over-all combined with similar quality and quantity. For example, the 8th ed DG book was pretty much a bad joke when it came to strats. Basically, it was just - "how many times will I be able to use Cloud of Flies". I think they've addressed this well.

Genestealer Cults are paying for the sins of how God awful broken that 7th edition codex was. First time I ever starting spamming Combi-Flamers on a Sarge when I could.

Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

...and .... That's coming from someone who used marines as their primary from the start btw ... it is just silly at this point. But yes. Let's "not go there" ....

Tycho wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

...and .... That's coming from someone who used marines as their primary from the start btw ... it is just silly at this point. But yes. Let's "not go there" ....

I wasn't asking for your pity or sympathy (I was only making full disclosure for my stake in the matter), but thanks for the concerto. Are you disagreeing with the Indexes being released with the SM Codex? My point was that they enabled units to be played - which is different than units being updated.

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

Worse? I don't want it to be worse, but I do want my army to not be unfun to play, the way it was unfun to play in 8th ed.
In small fault because of Inari, Tau and Eldar rules. What favours did my IH playing friend had all through 8th ed? first his army sucked, and then when it got good all the people that were beating him with their eldar and tau lists, decied that they are not going to play him, because IH are too OP. Or Crimson Fist dude that started at the same time as me. Primaris were a bad choice all through out 8th, till they changed at the very end of 8th ed, and then most people didn't even get to play with those rules for that much. Eldar players on the other hand got almost all the 8th ed of fun. And from what I understand about other editions, it is not like they were punished for playing their faction in prior editions either
.

Or am I not getting something here? Is somehow assumed that eldar should always be the faction which is better then others, and the unfair treatment comes from the fact that they model lines aren't updated? Is that, because if it is, it is even crazier. Because old models which are fun to play sill beat out, new models you don't want to buy, because they are bad?


But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

Karol wrote:


Worse? I don't want it to be worse, but I do want my army to not be unfun to play, the way it was unfun to play in 8th ed.
In small fault because of Inari, Tau and Eldar rules. What favours did my IH playing friend had all through 8th ed? first his army sucked, and then when it got good all the people that were beating him with their eldar and tau lists, decied that they are not going to play him, because IH are too OP. Or Crimson Fist dude that started at the same time as me. Primaris were a bad choice all through out 8th, till they changed at the very end of 8th ed, and then most people didn't even get to play with those rules for that much. Eldar players on the other hand got almost all the 8th ed of fun. And from what I understand about other editions, it is not like they were punished for playing their faction in prior editions either
.

Or am I not getting something here? Is somehow assumed that eldar should always be the faction which is better then others, and the unfair treatment comes from the fact that they model lines aren't updated? Is that, because if it is, it is even crazier. Because old models which are fun to play sill beat out, new models you don't want to buy, because they are bad?


But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

You keep bitching about Eldar/Ynnari/Castellans when its the exact same thing that happened with Iron Hands, except Iron Hands were even more broken than any of these armies.
You crying about these armies is the exact same as your "friend" being told by people that they didnt want to play against his IH.

And no, eldar got spammy cheese lists that were boring as feth to play and 90% of the codex was unplayable. Eldar is NOT fun to play with because the army as it should function does not work.

Spamming flyers is boring, spamming starcannons is boring, Ynnari was fun to play because it required a little bit of planning but the powerlevel made it unfun to play. Its not expected that specifically eldar be at the top of every edition, its expected that every army be decent and offer various build options in every edition.

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

Spoletta wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

I don't know what you're talking about here. At no point in 9th edition were any Space Marine datasheets illegal. Except for those which had been formally moved to Legends, where they continue to remain.

Tycho wrote:
lulz Spoleta. Just ... lulz ...Most other factions would have had to get by with either literally nothing until their codex came out, or would have had to make-due with a "get you by" FAQ download, or simply using their old codex until their new "official" supplement went out. You know this. I'm not sure why it offends you so much. For example, I'm STILL WAITING on my Crimson Slaughter update ...

What? A Blood Angel player may have to go a few months without using Sang Guard, or possibly using them but in a less-than-convenient way? How sad. Tell it to the Tau/GSC/Tsons players who's entire armies are nearly essentially useless with their 8th ed books ... Also, while I'm not one to throw stones given how many typos I frequently have, I've also never beat someone up so badly for "reading comprehension". You may want to go back and do some heavy editing to that rant if you want to also keep the reading comprehension part.

Oh come on, now you are disappointing me.

You can black knight harder than that, I know that you have it in you!

I'm sure you can at least make it look like you know what is being discussed! Make an effort!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

I don't know what you're talking about here. At no point in 9th edition were any Space Marine datasheets illegal. Except for those which had been formally moved to Legends, where they continue to remain.

They were not, because we had those PDFs. Without them, they would have been.

But apparantly being able to field your models is "SM favoritism".

Karol wrote:
But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

I think you shouldn't worry about re-litigating the past and who said or did what.

You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

GW could just have told you to ignored the SM codex until you got your supplement. The 8th edition DA codex is playable on its own, just like every other non-marine codex.

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

GW could just have told you to ignored the SM codex until you got your supplement. The 8th edition DA codex is playable on its own, just like every other non-marine codex.

I would call that a "throw-away course of action." Since they were rolling the DA into the SM codex and made plenty of little adjustments to datasheets, stratagems etc it would have been very unsatisfying for everyone trying to have a Matched Play game. So instead, they did all the design work at once and rolled them out. Given the tears of rage of how OP the Space Marines were with the 8.5 Codex, I think this was the plan that generated the greatest amount of positive change while minimizing the harm.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

They're not tho, that's part of the problem.

Karol plays in quite possibly the most cutthroat, WAAC, (insert negative pejorative here) meta ever! as far as they have seen 1st hand, how it's supposed to be. They also got conned into a GK secondhand and had to play redonkulous Eldar spam in 8th. I am not defending them, just pointing out some background. Oh, they're also in high school...

The rerolls are a problem and the easiest way to not have a problem is to not use them.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

It is objectively true, no matter how you want to slice it.
Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

You said it yourself that those models were playable only thanks to those PDFs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

Troll identified.

No more feeding from me.

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

Well, I'm sure the OP is getting a lovely taste of all of our thoughts on 9th edition and the state of things. Might be time to run for the hills....

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

Those codici were no longer being sold, so no, those options were not feasible.

Are you next going to say that GW could have just kept selling those books? Yeah, it just means that you have 4 more books that you have to keep on your shelves next to your shining new codex. It also means that you have to explain to new players coming in that you have to buy both books, but you have to ignore all rules from one of the books, except for a few pages. Oh and some more rules are in that other PA book over there! Yeah, nice launch of a new edition!

It would have been a mess, even by GW standards.

I don't remember something like that ever happening to my nids, so it's not a marine thing.

If they really did something like that, we would have had a 150 page thread on this board on how bad GW marketing plots are (and that troll over there would be responsible for at least 30 of those pages )

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

It is objectively true, no matter how you want to slice it.
Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

You said it yourself that those models were playable only thanks to those PDFs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

Troll identified.

No more feeding from me.

Guilty. I was definitely trolling you.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

GW could have done this, but they decided those were not the solutions they wanted. I presume because they: a) didn't want the 9th Editions rules and the 8th Edition rules for the same army mixed on the battlefield; b) wanted all Space Marine players converted over to the New Codex Space Marines at one time.

So while you may not like that GW spent time on the Space Marine Indexes, they decided it was worth their time. Given how few changes there were between those Indexes and the Supplements, it looks like it was a couple days of Copy, Paste, Clean Up.

The issue isn't that gw made PDFs to tide loyalists over until they got their new books, it's that they didnt do it for anyone else. What stopped them from creating PDFs for some of the factions currently suffering the most from the change to 9th edition? Or from just fixing the easy ones? CSM, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights: Add 1 wound, increase points by X. How hard is that?

Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

nemesis464 wrote:
I've decided to get back into painting and thought I might as well try to get back into playing again now that I've got a couple of mates in the hobby too. Been reading through almost every Codex and watching a ton of battle reports, and main rule changes aside which I don't really have an issue with, the game seems completely dominated by an absurd amount of re-rolls in every phase.

I haven't had first-hand experience yet, but doesn't this completely detract from the tension of rolling dice in crucial moments when so much stuff gets re-rolled and you've got CP re-rolls to fall back on? When I stopped playing in 5th, it was such a comparitive rarity, with stuff like the twin-linked rule and Eldar doom/guide/fortune being the most common ways to get them. The big blobby auras of re-rolls are an odd design choice.

Stratagem use seems a bit weird to me too. I don't mind the idea that much, but it seems like there's just so many and it feels like the emphasis is more on playing some OP stratagem card at the right time, rather than on the models and their own rules/statlines themselves. Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

Finally it seems from Youtube battle reports I've watched, that stuff dies insanely quickly now thanks to powercreep + rerolls + stratagems. Obviously there were some offenders back in 5th ed. too, but most games still felt like there were a decent amount of units left by turn 4, whereas in the videos I've watched, one or both armies have almost nothing left by this time and tabling seems very common.
--------------------

Is this how is actually plays out in-game? I was really looking forward to getting back onto the table playing again, but after watching some battle reports, I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm.

I played extensively in 4th and 5th edition and played a few games in 6th/7th/8th to try it out before really coming back for the game in 9th. Through the years, I've played a lot of different minis games. I believe 9th edition is the best edition of 40K that I've played. That said, I think you brought up some reasonable complaints.

The lethality of the game is a lot higher than in older 40K, for sure. The positive to that is that the game can be finished in 5 turns pretty decisively. I think that lethality has found a nice balance point in 9th edition codex design with a little less lethality than in 8th and a pulling back of reliability and rerolls. Games playing out in less time definitely makes it easier to schedule a game or even play a round robin of 4 players out of someone's garage on a weekend.

I think your issue with Strategems and complexity has merit. One thing you might be missing is that most stratagems are linked to a specific unit type, and those strategems are really just an extension of their datasheet that are fairly easy to account for. Each army typically has some more powerful and versatile generic stratagems that they can use as well; those typically need to be thought of like an extension to the special army traits that make things distinct. Hopefully, the GW app will eventually get to a point where it's easy to see what strats a unit has access to when looking them up. I think GW needs to do a better job organizing strats for players to consume.

The Space Marine complaint has been valid since Primaris in 8th. They essentially wrote a new army with primaris, so it needed a lot of iteration to get to a reasonable place. I think that's pretty much done at this point, but we'll have to see if GW thinks so as well. Necrons and Deathguard, the non-SM 9th edition books, are both very well done. 9th edition codex design seems to be in a good place that will hopefully permeate through the rest of the factions before too long.

Stormcast releases did slow considerably down after completing the last chamber, so the same could happen here... but I'm not that sure of it.

SM releases bring just too much money to GW, so we are probably going to see a semi regular release of new models for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nemesis464 wrote:
I've decided to get back into painting and thought I might as well try to get back into playing again now that I've got a couple of mates in the hobby too. Been reading through almost every Codex and watching a ton of battle reports, and main rule changes aside which I don't really have an issue with, the game seems completely dominated by an absurd amount of re-rolls in every phase.

I haven't had first-hand experience yet, but doesn't this completely detract from the tension of rolling dice in crucial moments when so much stuff gets re-rolled and you've got CP re-rolls to fall back on? When I stopped playing in 5th, it was such a comparitive rarity, with stuff like the twin-linked rule and Eldar doom/guide/fortune being the most common ways to get them. The big blobby auras of re-rolls are an odd design choice.

Stratagem use seems a bit weird to me too. I don't mind the idea that much, but it seems like there's just so many and it feels like the emphasis is more on playing some OP stratagem card at the right time, rather than on the models and their own rules/statlines themselves. Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

Finally it seems from Youtube battle reports I've watched, that stuff dies insanely quickly now thanks to powercreep + rerolls + stratagems. Obviously there were some offenders back in 5th ed. too, but most games still felt like there were a decent amount of units left by turn 4, whereas in the videos I've watched, one or both armies have almost nothing left by this time and tabling seems very common.
--------------------

Is this how is actually plays out in-game? I was really looking forward to getting back onto the table playing again, but after watching some battle reports, I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm.

Tabling in 8th was indeed quite common, to the point where GW introduced a rule that tabling didn't give an automatic win.

In 9th that problem is less felt, especially for the new codici.

The 8th edition codici design was affected by 7th edition issues, which is to say invulnerable death stars. For that reason, the design of 8th edition codici was really shy on durability buffs and durable units, focusing on the lethality aspects. The first thing to be killed were save rerolls of any kind. They completely disappeared. We only briefly had one with magnus aura, but even that was taken away before long.

This created a game situation which was surely better and more enjoyable than 7th, but it did show a lot of different issues. Tabling being really common was one of those. It also took the edition more than 2 years of updates to solve the alpha strike issues given by all that lethality

The 9th edition design is now correcting the aim. So far, the codici released have seen their lethality mostly tuned down, but at the same time the durability has went up.
Battle reports between 2 9th edition codici much more rarely end up in a tabling.
It's interesting the way they choose to go for durability. Save rerolls are still a taboo, and invul saves are being reduced. This means that they want hits to be effective. What they did though, is provide every faction with very durable melee footslogging models (termies, BGV, Lichguards...) which are meant to be able to withstand the enemy offensive and contest the points. Those kind of models enjoy a really good durability/cost ratio. They didn't do much for the other models, and this has created an RPG-like meta of Tank and DPS roles. There are units meant to take the punishment and units meant to provide it.

It is quite indicative of this that the unit currently considered most broken, the ponies, has really bad offensive. It is just cheap, fast and though.
Yet it is defining the meta (that little meta we can currently have at least...).

the_scotsman wrote:
Some of this issue is caused by GW having pulled a "Eh, feth it, it's the end of the edition let's puke a gak ton of untested trash into the game" and then unlike with 7th they didn't have the decency to quietly delete it going into 9th. So we're still dealing with most of the horsegak from marine 2.5dex and all of it from Psychic Awakening.

They're slowly dialing back the absurdity of the rerolls and stratagems in the new codexes - limiting the worst offenders of double-attack stratagems, double-shoot stratagems, and 100pt characters being able to grant their rerolls to everything up to and including 500+ point superheavies.

But unfortunately they're doing it "GWfully" meaning you pay for that gak and it goes one faction at a time. Everyone but loyalist marines, DG, and Necrons are just sitting around on their hands waiting for a 'dex or abusing the absolutely busted trash rules GW shoveled into the game with psychic awakening if they got them.

Older editions tended to limit the crazy abilities to just a unit joined by various characters, which led to the game being dominated by crazy deathstar units. Now, it's just kind of been spread out to aura-ball armies.

I would say tabling is much more common in 9th than in the other older editions I've played. Somewhat less common than in late 8th, but still ridiculously common.

That last sentence is BS. The only time 7th edition games didn't end in a tabling was if you had a deathstar slapfight stall out.

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Gadzilla gave you the full extent of the index that wouldve been needed for CSM/TS/DG

Add stuff like "fusion weapons now do D6+2 at half range, increase cost by x" for all the equivalent weapons and it wouldve been much better. As it is, the only army that got an index was the one that got their books the earliest.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The issue isn't that gw made PDFs to tide loyalists over until they got their new books, it's that they didnt do it for anyone else. What stopped them from creating PDFs for some of the factions currently suffering the most from the change to 9th edition? Or from just fixing the easy ones? CSM, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights: Add 1 wound, increase points by X. How hard is that?

They do such kind of updates only in a new codex? when was the last time GW made an update like an WD list or CA list that brought the army up, and now down? I think it was DW veterans becoming really good for short time in 8th, and that is more or less it.

Tau for example had their annoying drone armies, and GW never fixed their other units, to make them want to play something else. And then 9th fixed the tau in a way probably no one would have wanted, unless they really hated tau as a faction.

Karol wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The issue isn't that gw made PDFs to tide loyalists over until they got their new books, it's that they didnt do it for anyone else. What stopped them from creating PDFs for some of the factions currently suffering the most from the change to 9th edition? Or from just fixing the easy ones? CSM, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights: Add 1 wound, increase points by X. How hard is that?

They do such kind of updates only in a new codex? when was the last time GW made an update like an WD list or CA list that brought the army up, and now down? I think it was DW veterans becoming really good for short time in 8th, and that is more or less it.

Tau for example had their annoying drone armies, and GW never fixed their other units, to make them want to play something else. And then 9th fixed the tau in a way probably no one would have wanted, unless they really hated tau as a faction.

I don't get your point here. Do you think that GW cannot change how they do things?

Regardless of that, IIRC instances like this, with massive army/game-wide profile changes across codex-compatible editions and a GW who regularly puts out balance changes and FAQs are fairly rare. I can't really think of a precedent.

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Who said anything about "overhauling entire armies"? Just give CSM, Thousand Sons, and Grey Knights their additional wound and increase their cost accordingly. Done. No new rules, strategems, faction traits, etc. Just the extra wound. Then give the same adjustments to Xenos weapons that their Imperial/Chaos counterparts received. They already know what they're going to do, they could have given everyone a "get you by" PDF just like they did loyalists, or how they fixed For The Greater Good for Tau. And there would still be all those faction traits, strategems, etc left to sell the new codexes when they eventually come.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Who said anything about "overhauling entire armies"? Just give CSM, Thousand Sons, and Grey Knights their additional wound and increase their cost accordingly. Done. No new rules, strategems, faction traits, etc. Just the extra wound. Then give the same adjustments to Xenos weapons that their Imperial/Chaos counterparts received. They already know what they're going to do, they could have given everyone a "get you by" PDF just like they did loyalists, or how they fixed For The Greater Good for Tau. And there would still be all those faction traits, strategems, etc left to sell the new codexes when they eventually come.

But that would require input from GW into something that is not space marine related.. It ain't happening.. Busy writing those chapter X in the next WD rules as well as making new limited-run SM characters.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Who said anything about "overhauling entire armies"? Just give CSM, Thousand Sons, and Grey Knights their additional wound and increase their cost accordingly. Done. No new rules, strategems, faction traits, etc. Just the extra wound. Then give the same adjustments to Xenos weapons that their Imperial/Chaos counterparts received. They already know what they're going to do, they could have given everyone a "get you by" PDF just like they did loyalists, or how they fixed For The Greater Good for Tau. And there would still be all those faction traits, strategems, etc left to sell the new codexes when they eventually come.

They did half of what you wanted in the FAQ. You just have to wait for the codex for the other half

 alextroy wrote:
They did half of what you wanted in the FAQ. You just have to wait for the codex for the other half

Why?

Because you already have the point cost of the new models, without the new stats

(No, we aren't serious... 14 points 2 Wound CSM would be a nightmare.)

 alextroy wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Who said anything about "overhauling entire armies"? Just give CSM, Thousand Sons, and Grey Knights their additional wound and increase their cost accordingly. Done. No new rules, strategems, faction traits, etc. Just the extra wound. Then give the same adjustments to Xenos weapons that their Imperial/Chaos counterparts received. They already know what they're going to do, they could have given everyone a "get you by" PDF just like they did loyalists, or how they fixed For The Greater Good for Tau. And there would still be all those faction traits, strategems, etc left to sell the new codexes when they eventually come.

They did half of what you wanted in the FAQ. You just have to wait for the codex for the other half

There is no reason to update PFs but not PKs
There also is no reason to update deathwing terminators but not chaos terminators.

The index pdfs were nothing but space marine favoritism.

Here's my view, having last played in 2nd edition, and now returning to the hobby, building army and learning the rules for 9th edition, until lock-down ends and I can play a game.

Firstly I was unimpressed with the core rulebook's readability. The rules section is very dry, and there is no index. the rules themselves are fine with a couple of exceptions, and I like they have codified three different ways to play the game. My main complaint is that a lot of rules are written with no explanations of why are what they seek to represent, and very few examples of how they are used.
The artwork, photos of minis and fluff is great, if a little too slick sometimes. The aesthetic is far better than cartoony 2nd ed but doesn't have the feel of 1st.

So then I moved on to reading the rules for the army I want to play and at first was a little overwhelmed. I made a list of all the sources of special rules to remind me what to consider and it is excessive:

Datacards and Wargear*
Psychic powers
Regimental Doctrines
Warlord Traits
Relics
Orders
Tank Aces
Strategems

However, once I had a handle on it, I found it was fun list building and coming up with combos and things. I would never attempt to learn more than one codex though, that seems a route to madness. I found an enjoyable way to look at other armies is just to watch battle reports as codexes are released.

I am not bothered about 'gotchas', it's all part of the fun. Plus each trick is only new once, and unless you are lucky enough to be playing different opponents every time the disadvantage will be finite. Yes I'd like to go to tournaments and be competative, but not super-competative. I don't actually want to win a prize except for 'biggest bar tab'.

*there are so many weapons now! I remember when different armies had to share. Everyone had bolters or lasguns. A particularly elegent solution for Tyranids in Rogue Trader, to save writing more rules for their weapons, was to say that they had grown 'count as' weapons that were the equivalents of the basic weapons, just modelled differently.

 Jidmah wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

Who said anything about "overhauling entire armies"? Just give CSM, Thousand Sons, and Grey Knights their additional wound and increase their cost accordingly. Done. No new rules, strategems, faction traits, etc. Just the extra wound. Then give the same adjustments to Xenos weapons that their Imperial/Chaos counterparts received. They already know what they're going to do, they could have given everyone a "get you by" PDF just like they did loyalists, or how they fixed For The Greater Good for Tau. And there would still be all those faction traits, strategems, etc left to sell the new codexes when they eventually come.

They did half of what you wanted in the FAQ. You just have to wait for the codex for the other half

There is no reason to update PFs but not PKs
There also is no reason to update deathwing terminators but not chaos terminators.

The index pdfs were nothing but space marine favoritism.

The DA/BA/SW/DW supplements were 100% SM favoritism. Those things could have come 2 years later and no one would have had any issues. Actually, this will gain them a double blame. One now for flooding us with too many SM releases, and one toward the end of the edition when all SM factions will suck (again), because we all know what it competitively means to get your books at the start of the edition.

The PDFs though were a necessary step in order to consolidate all marine flavors in a single common book. Again, leaving a model with old rules is one thing. Leaving it with no rules is another.

A FAQ to update a few weapons and profiles would have been nice, and GW is to blame for not providing it.

That FAQ would have been nice to have... so nice that considering the price we pay for the models, we should have got it.

The PDFs though were structurally necessary. There were parts of the game (4 factions) that simply didn't exist without them. 65 datasheets left undefined.

I mean, we have no shortage of options to bare our fangs at GW. Customer's satisfaction is clearly not their focus.

No need to blame them also for the few things that they actually do decently.

It's not that I think that they shouldn't have done it for space marines.

I'm just saying that just updating all the equivalents of flamers, meltas, plasma weapons, powerfists and chainfists, power swords, power axes, chainswords and whatever things I've missed across all codices would have been really low hanging fruits.
Thousand sons would have required all of two datasheets to get up two speed, CSM would have required 9 (including fallen), two of those being rubrics and plague marines.

How many datasheets did index for SW and DA have again?

Instead of filling a PDF with warlord traits, stratagems and relics for an army that already gets piles of that from Codex: Space Marines, they could just have spend a bare minimum of effort on all the other codices.

In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

Then that's something that GW needs to fix.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Don't settle for gruel when you're paying for stew just because you could've gotten an empty bowl instead.

 alextroy wrote:
In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

When you go above and beyond what was necessary for some armies and completely ignore others at the same time, I don't consider that good.

 waefre_1 wrote:

Don't settle for gruel when you're paying for stew just because you could've gotten an empty bowl instead.

I love that GW whole shtick is serving up empty bowls..
All the while the community goes "nom nom nom* delicious sir. Please can I have some more?"

 alextroy wrote:
In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The perfect? Them supporting armies other than muhreens should be the basic standard.
The "Perfect" would be them doing a large 8e index style change across all faction to get everyone up to standard.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The perfect? Them supporting armies other than muhreens should be the basic standard.
The "Perfect" would be them doing a large 8e index style change across all faction to get everyone up to standard.

Then you'd be forcing the to do a half-assed job like last time instead of spending the time they need on real books.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The perfect? Them supporting armies other than muhreens should be the basic standard.
The "Perfect" would be them doing a large 8e index style change across all faction to get everyone up to standard.

Then you'd be forcing the to do a half-assed job like last time instead of spending the time they need on real books.

Half assed? I think the index era was probably the best balance the game had. Or at least, was the most interesting as *All* players were trying new things every game.
Now it's just timmy with his mehreen codex trying things, and maybe in 2 years someone else can.

I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Now it's just timmy with his mehreen codex trying things

This is objectively not correct. And the index wasn't a magically balanced time. It was rife with issues from flyers, spam, and Bobby. Remember when people were taking almost nothing but Razowing Flocks or Flyrants? Lists today are ridiculously more balance and varied today than they were back then.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
In your perfect world, they would have. In this real world they didn't and never have.

They did step up their game from the bad old days when two different Space Marine armies had different rules for the same wargear (4th/5th Edition) or the same wargear for Marines and Imperial Guard (for a time in late 8th).

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The perfect? Them supporting armies other than muhreens should be the basic standard.
The "Perfect" would be them doing a large 8e index style change across all faction to get everyone up to standard.

Then you'd be forcing the to do a half-assed job like last time instead of spending the time they need on real books.

Half assed? I think the index era was probably the best balance the game had. Or at least, was the most interesting as *All* players were trying new things every game.
Now it's just timmy with his mehreen codex trying things, and maybe in 2 years someone else can.

Given you're so busy hating marines, I suppose it was fairly easy to miss that we Necron players have been busy trying new things for the past 6 months or so.
And the Death Guard for the last month.
You've also missed the memo that the Dark Eldar are coming. Next month I think. Definitely sooner than 2 years though.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Now it's just timmy with his mehreen codex trying things

This is objectively not correct. And the index wasn't a magically balanced time. It was rife with issues from flyers, spam, and Bobby. Remember when people were taking almost nothing but Razowing Flocks or Flyrants? Lists today are ridiculously more balance and varied today than they were back then.

Which is why I said "... or at least ...". Don't forget that outside of dakka there is still the casual scene and the index was pretty great for that.

I also really feel like Stratgems (late stage 8e and now 9) are basically an attack against casual players. A lot of them don't care, want or use the Stratagems

8th index was nuts and people like to forget that. Wild wild west.

Does anyone remember malefic lords????? just cuz it was better than SM2.0 IH, castellan, etc doesn't make it balanced or better. The problems were just shifted around.

ccs wrote:

Given you're so busy hating marines, I suppose it was fairly easy to miss that we Necron players have been busy trying new things for the past 6 months or so.
And the Death Guard for the last month.
You've also missed the memo that the Dark Eldar are coming. Next month I think. Definitely sooner than 2 years though.

Right, sorry. Sometimes I forget that 1/5th of the codexes released are non power armor.
Anyway - my original point had no hate on marines, just that there's too much sitting around and disinterest in the new edition for everyone else.

I'm adamant that index was the best way the company could have handled it. Not to mention they could do things like bundle it in with their "Battlescribe" and more.

 Eonfuzz wrote:

Which is why I said "... or at least ...". Don't forget that outside of dakka there is still the casual scene and the index was pretty great for that.

I also really feel like Stratgems (late stage 8e and now 9) are basically an attack against casual players. A lot of them don't care, want or use the Stratagems

It becomes hard to square experiences when people are essentially playing to different games. I would doubt that a majority of casual players prefer not to use stratagems though. You could certainly make a case for simplicity, but I think the people in that bucket are old hammer anyway.

Racerguy180 wrote:
8th index was nuts and people like to forget that. Wild wild west.

Does anyone remember malefic lords????? just cuz it was better than SM2.0 IH, castellan, etc doesn't make it balanced or better. The problems were just shifted around.

Ideally the company would learn from their mistakes and "balance" it from the outset. A simple copy pasting of 8e data sheets with the new weapon statlines could probably be enough.

You would need to update their point costs at the very least.

Spoletta wrote:
You would need to update their point costs at the very least.

It is hard to balance that, when the company policy is same gear units should cost the same points, for different armies.
A regular blade guard is a good unit, a DA blade guard is something much better. Or when something is deemed to be worth specific number of points, because a certain unit interaction or core rules like aura re-rolls, but one faction doesn't have the re-rolls or doesn't have the access to those specific units , but very much does have the first thing.

There is also what I like to think as lore point costs. Some things are costed as elites or chaff, because in the lore they are one of those two, but within the game and played armies structure they are nothing like that.

There is no reason for some elite ork units to cost as much as they do. If they are rare the numbers should be limited by the number of units one can take, or be locked by specific formation set ups. Otherwise GW just keep producing units that are never taken , up until GW decides to lower their point cost so much they are suddenly spamed in every slot possible.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. Some of them are just straight up offensive and defensive buffs with exactly zero effort

Agreed, but then it becomes a resource management thing.

2. Some of them scale hella weird

Scaling has gotten a bit better.

3. Some of them make little sense in the context of an army where only one unit is doing it....because.

Right, a lot of people would prefer some of these things to be wargear. I think its a valid point, but it has the potential effect of either being an auto-take or completely worthless. A stratagem allows a little more flex in how it gets implemented.

Take SMOKESCREEN. Vehicles used to be able to pop smoke at the cost of shooting. Almost no one ever did this, because they likely wanted to shoot instead. Now SMOKESCREEN allows them to shoot and also benefit at a cost, but not everyone can do it at the same time. I really prefer this setup than the old one.

Only one vehicle at a time may fire smoke, because more than that is bad for morale. Makes the men weak and cowardly. Hiding in their smoke, like worms. I think it's beyond silly only one unit can smoke but hey maybe they still haven't found the smoke sweet spot. Perhaps, one day they'll put smoke in the game in a compelling way to make it have depth.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
Only one vehicle at a time may fire smoke, because more than that is bad for morale. Makes the men weak and cowardly. Hiding in their smoke, like worms. I think it's beyond silly only one unit can smoke but hey maybe they still haven't found the smoke sweet spot. Perhaps, one day they'll put smoke in the game in a compelling way to make it have depth.

And yet no one worries about how only one eldar unit can have lightning fast reflexes at a time

Strats are the best tool GW introduced to kill spam along with the Rule of Three. Because only 1 unit can benefit from a strat, the first copy of any unit usually has more value than any subsequent copy. It's often better to take 2 different units with similar rules rather than keep spamming the same unit if they are balanced around a strat. For example, the first unit of Lychguard is probably the most efficient melee option in Necrons with the +1 attack strat, but the second unit is probably better off as Skorpekh Destroyers, Praetorians, or Flayed Ones because they have access to their own strats.

Lightning Reflexes is a great strat that would be very hard to balance printed directly onto a unit.

Smoke launchers could have been wargear that worked by forfeiting shooting with a strat for 1 unit to both smoke and shoot. I think the current implementation for smoke is an overzealous use of the new design paradigm.

LiMunPai wrote:
Smoke launchers could have been wargear that worked by forfeiting shooting with a strat for 1 unit to both smoke and shoot. I think the current implementation for smoke is an overzealous use of the new design paradigm.

A fine solution, but I don't think it would get people to use smoke unless in otherwise rare situations as they weren't using it much before.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

LiMunPai wrote:
Smoke launchers could have been wargear that worked by forfeiting shooting with a strat for 1 unit to both smoke and shoot. I think the current implementation for smoke is an overzealous use of the new design paradigm.

A fine solution, but I don't think it would get people to use smoke unless in otherwise rare situations as they weren't using it much before.

Smokescreen basically gives Strike and Shroud! to non-AM vehicles, at the cost of 1CP instead of a TC. It's bad for things like Rhinos, which no one minded losing a turn of shooting, but great for a unit with actual shooting. Smoke launchers were always superfluous on things like Predators or Sicarans, because if they weren't shooting they weren't doing their job. What many seem to miss is that it adds some durability to vehicles in an edition where everyone keeps saying "vehicles are too brittle". I'll gladly pay 1CP a turn to keep my tanks alive and contributing to the fight. Finally, both my infantry and vehicles know how to use the shadows.

 Eonfuzz wrote:


I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.

Love this comment so much I added it to my sig.
Have an exalt sir.