So the latest Chaos Codex is getting roasted for many reasons, one of which is it can't decide from unit to unit how detailed rules should be. Which is an across the board issue in 40k and worth discussing.

For me, I like to model, I like to convert, I like to give all my Adeptus Arbites (count as IG) shock mauls rather than swords. I think it axes/swords/maces should just be an aesthetic choice.

But these days there are different rules for power swords/axes/mauls and IG can't take Mauls, only swords. Not a big deal but over an army these fudges add up. And when it's actually time to play... a game where several guys in a unit may have different weapons with slightly different rules is just an annoyance.

8th edition did away with templates and scatter die, and I think that was an improvement overall but then added dozens of weapons with different profiles.

I liked how 3rd edition did it. A power weapon is a power weapon, whether it's an axe, sword, mace, glave, nunchucks, or a board with a power nail through it. Except when it was a fist... Or lightning claws... Or a thunder hammer... OK nobody's perfect.

So... If it was up to me....

Divide melee weapons into 3 bands - normal (no special rules), power (-3 to save), and heavy (2xStrength, -3 to save, always goes last). For some armies maybe change the bands, maybe have Dark Eldar with poison (wound on 4+), sharp (-3 to save), agonizing (-3 to save, wound infantry on 2+, tanks and monsters on 4+).

Similarly divide most weapon types into a pistol (12" range, +1 attack in melee), rifle (24" range), heavy (48" range, -2 to hit if you move). Dispense with variants, a plasma gun is a plasma gun for all factions. Try and bring Adeptus Mech weapons into line with the rest of the Imperium, with no more than 1 or 2 unique weapon types.

Eliminate the Primaris/Firstborn split. It's just a new armor mark.

No more subfactions. Use warlord traits and choice of units to differentiate sub factions. or make a new codex. The color you paint your models should not affect their rules.

One area where I wish there was more granularity is vehicles/monsters/giant robots. Maybe not go back to 4 facings but just offer +1 strength and/or -1 save if shot from behind. Otherwise there's no need to maneuver.

Specifics aside, that's the level I would like to see. With most differences being just cosmetic rather than rules based.

I think that that is too much consolidation-but I do think current 40k is too granular for it’s own good.

Removing everything related to stratagems and Command Points would be a great start. This is an important, clean the Vaseline from the lens to clarify what we are looking at step.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So the latest Chaos Codex is getting roasted for many reasons, one of which is it can't decide from unit to unit how detailed rules should be. Which is an across the board issue in 40k and worth discussing.

For me, I like to model, I like to convert, I like to give all my Adeptus Arbites (count as IG) shock mauls rather than swords. I think it axes/swords/maces should just be an aesthetic choice.

But these days there are different rules for power swords/axes/mauls and IG can't take Mauls, only swords. Not a big deal but over an army these fudges add up. And when it's actually time to play... a game where several guys in a unit may have different weapons with slightly different rules is just an annoyance.

8th edition did away with templates and scatter die, and I think that was an improvement overall but then added dozens of weapons with different profiles.

I liked how 3rd edition did it. A power weapon is a power weapon, whether it's an axe, sword, mace, glave, nunchucks, or a board with a power nail through it. Except when it was a fist... Or lightning claws... Or a thunder hammer... OK nobody's perfect.

So... If it was up to me....

Divide melee weapons into 3 bands - normal (no special rules), power (-3 to save), and heavy (2xStrength, -3 to save, always goes last). For some armies maybe change the bands, maybe have Dark Eldar with poison (wound on 4+), sharp (-3 to save), agonizing (-3 to save, wound infantry on 2+, tanks and monsters on 4+).

Similarly divide most weapon types into a pistol (12" range, +1 attack in melee), rifle (24" range), heavy (48" range, -2 to hit if you move). Dispense with variants, a plasma gun is a plasma gun for all factions. Try and bring Adeptus Mech weapons into line with the rest of the Imperium, with no more than 1 or 2 unique weapon types.

Eliminate the Primaris/Firstborn split. It's just a new armor mark.

No more subfactions. Use warlord traits and choice of units to differentiate sub factions. or make a new codex. The color you paint your models should not affect their rules.

One area where I wish there was more granularity is vehicles/monsters/giant robots. Maybe not go back to 4 facings but just offer +1 strength and/or -1 save if shot from behind. Otherwise there's no need to maneuver.

Specifics aside, that's the level I would like to see. With most differences being just cosmetic rather than rules based.

For the record, the color you paint your models DOESN'T effect their rules. With armies no longer being allowed to mix subfactions, there's no gameplay reason to have anything be a specific color.

There was never any reason to maneuver. Every vehicle's side armor is visible from half the board at any given time and rear armor is only ever an option for deepstrikers unless the guy with the tank is an idiot. There were a lot of reasons armor facings never mattered but 'rear armor was basically impossible to get to unless you deepstrike or your opponent was a total numpty' is one that gets forgotten. (Oh, but what if they get close to the middle of the board? Oh yeah, that thing that's worthless in melee is really itching to mix it up with dreadnought CQC and Primarchs in the midboard. Do these people even play these games?)

The more granularity, the better imo, but not the cluttered unfocused mess we have now. In a vast setting like 40k you need differentiation between factions and you need differentiation between units within those factions...current 40k is not that good at achieving this in my opinion and GW tries to compeneate/hide it by tacking on a gazillion special rules to achieve said differentiation.

In comparison the new heresy edition has done a decent job in that department in my opinion.

Bring back initiative, weapon skill comparison, make relics and warlord traits cost points. This would provide more levers to balance and differentiate units. This way you could also dial back the overabundance of stratagems and it could help in reducing the problem of extreme lethality in some aspects.

So yeah, I remain that the "streamlining" they did from 7th to 8th didn't really streamline anything in the long run and it didn't make the game more accessible either because nobody can seriously tell me that it is easier to learn the rules in 9th than is was in 7th all things considered.

Nothing should be free and everything should cost points. I don't understand why(even as a PL person) GW has a perfectly balancing equation that they then feth up with ways around it.

 Tokhuah wrote:
Removing everything related to stratagems and Command Points would be a great start. This is an important, clean the Vaseline from the lens to clarify what we are looking at step.

This. It's a terrible mechanic which never should have been added, get rid of it and then we can see what else needs to be simplified.

I'd want a morale system that is actually a morale system, not a simplified "Lose More" mechanic where the player is punished for losing models by rolling to see if they lose more models.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
No more subfactions. Use warlord traits and choice of units to differentiate sub factions. or make a new codex. The color you paint your models should not affect their rules.

No. Never in a million years. Factions should matter. Factions should play differently. Factions sure as hell should not just be a warlord trait and some unit variance. Might as well go back to 5th Ed Codices (IIRC) and make it so Ultramarines armies are always led by Sicarius, and White Scar armies are always led by the Khan, otherwise they're just vanilla.

My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

ERJAK wrote:

There was never any reason to maneuver. Every vehicle's side armor is visible from half the board at any given time and rear armor is only ever an option for deepstrikers unless the guy with the tank is an idiot. There were a lot of reasons armor facings never mattered but 'rear armor was basically impossible to get to unless you deepstrike or your opponent was a total numpty' is one that gets forgotten. (Oh, but what if they get close to the middle of the board? Oh yeah, that thing that's worthless in melee is really itching to mix it up with dreadnought CQC and Primarchs in the midboard. Do these people even play these games?)

^Everything about the above post is wrong. Meaningful LoS blocking terrain does wonders for the value of maneuvering and positioning vehicles with armor facing. Above post also seems to forget the existence of transport vehicles, or other armored units that are used with more aggressive positioning.

I think the first question that matters is what size of a game you want in order to determine the level of detail for the rules. As more and more models get put on the table, I want less and less detailed rules. For example, at what point does it matter exactly what heavy weapons a squad has with individual attacks for each weapon versus just being a heavy weapons squad firing as one profile regardless of the weapons they're modeled with? Where do we transition from skirmish-level, to battle-level, to mass-battle/apocalypse?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

Every attempt at streamlining 40k has been followed be the re-crunch-ification of the game. 40k player are fluff fans and most of them want the models fluff accurately portrayed via rules , stats and special rules Even if it results in unwieldy gameplay.

Changes will be made, but I don't believe 40k can ever be truly streamlined for long.

For myself, the finer details that set my units apart are in the painting, modeling, and in the stories in my head. On the Tabletop, I'm fine with a level of abstraction that sacrifices RPG'ish level of detail in exchange for ease and speed of play and I won't find that in 40k.

Tannhauser42 wrote:I think the first question that matters is what size of a game you want in order to determine the level of detail for the rules. As more and more models get put on the table, I want less and less detailed rules. For example, at what point does it matter exactly what heavy weapons a squad has with individual attacks for each weapon versus just being a heavy weapons squad firing as one profile regardless of the weapons they're modeled with? Where do we transition from skirmish-level, to battle-level, to mass-battle/apocalypse?

Pretty much this. The smaller the game, the more detail/customization I want. If I'm playing Combat Patrol, give me things like Challenges/Duels, purchasable special rules for each squad and squad leader, etc. If we're playing 2k points, we might be better off just playing Apoc so we don't have a thousand little rules to resolve each turn. I feel like 40k's current rules work pretty well for games of ~1000 - ~1500 provided no one brings a knight or a skew list.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

The key here, I think, is that chapter tactic style rules should have been "army theme" rules rather than being married to subfaction. It's just that GW tied them to chapters when marines stole the concept from corsairs, and then every other codex followed suit. So maybe White Scar and Salamander tactical squads shouldn't necessarily be different, but maybe tactical marines in a Mounted Assault list could have a special rule that lets them disembark after a transport moves while tactical marines in a Stalwart Defense army might get bolter discipline and tactical marines in a Shadow Strike list get to deploy as GSC-style blips or whatever.

Or bringing it back to your example, it probably shouldn't matter whether you're cadian or vostroyan. But it maybe should matter that you're infantry in an armored company vs infantry in a meatgrinder wave of dudes company vs infantry in a sneaky jungle fighter company.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

Wyldhunt pretty much nailed it, but more than that something Unit (IIRC) said in a different thread in reference specifically to Guard and how factions used to work with that army.

You had a Doctrine system* that let you build custom types of regiments. The various types of Guard that we know - Cadians, Catachans, Steel Legion, etc. - had Doctrines assigned to them, but they weren't mandatory. So if you wanted to play Cadians you didn't pick "Cadians", you picked the Doctrines that were recommended for that type of Guard, but were well within your rights to throw that out the window and do what you want.

GW has tried to replicate that somewhat in modern Codices, but they still tie too much to individual factions (be they Legions, Craftworlds, and so on). If they made it a bit more free form, and made the custom systems more robust, rather than as an adjunct to the current faction listings, then it would be better.

But just making all Marines one thing and one thing only? That's boring. Who wants that?



*Which had its own failings, which I can discuss at length but aren't strictly relevant in this context.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If they made it a bit more free form, and made the custom systems more robust, rather than as an adjunct to the current faction listings, then it would be better.

Better, yes, but I still don't see how it's necessary in a game at the scale of 40k. Your choice of units and upgrades should be enough to represent your army, if you need to layer on special sub-faction rules to represent customizing a force then it's time to go back and look at the core rules and figure out why they aren't getting the job done.

But just making all Marines one thing and one thing only? That's boring. Who wants that?

People who want marines to be just one faction among many, not 75% of the game with each color of marine getting its own special snowflake rules.

You don't believe that 40k is at the scale where different regiments or types of armies can or should be represented. Basically you want a really sterile game. There's no convincing you otherwise, so I'm not going to try.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You don't believe that 40k is at the scale where different regiments or types of armies can or should be represented.

Please do not build straw man arguments. Different regiments and different types of armies can absolutely be represented by taking the appropriate units. An armored regiment takes tanks, an infantry regiment takes lots of infantry, etc. The game worked just fine before 8th added explicit rules saying This Is Your Faction, it will work just fine with the rules bloat removed.

While the IG Doctrine system and the 4th edition Marine Wheel of Chapters rules were not perfect, that's the sort of thing I would like to see.

Rather than tying rules to how your IG are dressed, or which color your marines are, tie them to the player/warlord.

Should Soviet-style Valhallans be waves or expendable conscripts, or a small band of hardy Stalingrad survivors? Let the player decide!

Most marine chapters have scout companies, bike companies etc, let the player pick which company this army is.

And plant these rules in one place. Right now there warlord traits, stragams, army rules and sub faction rules. ENOUGH.

 Eilif wrote:
Every attempt at streamlining 40k has been followed be the re-crunch-ification of the game. 40k player are fluff fans and most of them want the models fluff accurately portrayed via rules , stats and special rules Even if it results in unwieldy gameplay.
.

Rather people want more free rules to find the next op combo. Resulting in armies like all bike ws armies when rules reward that despite it not being fluffy ignoring main combat units of white scars.

Chapter etc bonuses also either needs to be freely appliable unit by unit inside army or cost points unit by unit basis depending on unit in question. Blood angel hellblaster isn't worth same as say ultramarine so them costing same is bad balance. And leads to armies not representing armies in fluff.

I love granularity so I hope we get even more in the future.
But then again, I loved 7th ed where you had formations, special rules and a ton more stuff so I'm definitely not the kind of player who wants less complexity in 40k.

I'd love consolidations of profiles and wargear, not the removal of rules (subfactions, relics, stratagems, etc....).

Halve the number of weapons and halve the units' rosters. I still can't understand why orks have to have 5 datasheets for buggies, 4 for planes, 5 for battlewagons, etc... lots of units could be merged into a single datasheet. Also among infantries, there's no need of having beastnagga boyz and boyz, just make them all boyz. Or intercessors and tactical squads, make them the same basic marine dudes.

Stratagems can be reduced to a handful of options (10-15 at most) and some of them, those that are locked to specific units, can just be special rules listed in the datasheet of such units maybe with a once per game use.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
If they made it a bit more free form, and made the custom systems more robust, rather than as an adjunct to the current faction listings, then it would be better.

Better, yes, but I still don't see how it's necessary in a game at the scale of 40k. Your choice of units and upgrades should be enough to represent your army, if you need to layer on special sub-faction rules to represent customizing a force then it's time to go back and look at the core rules and figure out why they aren't getting the job done.

See, I think there's room for giving armies a bit more complexity than just unit/wargear selection without necessarily squeezing that complexity into the core rules.

The half-baked idea rattling around between my ears at the moment is something like:
* Ditch chapter tactics, stratagems, and doctrines.
* Make warlord traits and and relics purchasable wargear with 0-1 restrictions.
* Let armies pick from a list of themes available to their codex.

And then those themes would give you access to a reasonably complex special mechanic and/or unique wargear options. So marines might have access to themes like...

MOUNTED ASSAULT
* Gives you a Velocity mechanic that gives bikes and vehicles bonuses to defense and hammer of wrath style damage on the charge based on how far they move, but you can only "turn" so much much when moving at high speeds.
* Lets tacticals and intercessors disembark after their transport moved (but they can't charge afterwards).

STALWART DEFENSE
* Gives units the Bolter Discipline rule (they wouldn't have it without this theme).
* Grants access to the "Ready... Aim..." action that lets a unit shoot at the end of the enemy Shooting phase. (Sort of like oldschool overwatch, but your opponent gets a chance to hide or kill your units before the Stalwart marines get their shots in.)

SHADOW STRIKE
* All units deploy as GSC blips.
* Models that hold still can use a Heavy 1 bolter profile that ignores Look Out Sir (ala the old Raptors chapter tactics.)

I wouldn't want marines to have all those mechanics in effect at the same time, but I kind of love the idea of being able to play my army in radically different ways that aren't necessarily supported by just fielding a bunch of bikes or whatever.

But just making all Marines one thing and one thing only? That's boring. Who wants that?

People who want marines to be just one faction among many, not 75% of the game with each color of marine getting its own special snowflake rules.

Something like what I pitched above doesn't have to be a marine-centric thing. The same basic idea could apply to any codex. If anything, it might be an opportunity to consolidate some of the marines together. Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard don't necessarily need to be extra special datasheets when an army theme can just unlock the option to upgrade your sergeant to wear terminator armor.

 Blackie wrote:
I'd love consolidations of profiles and wargear, not the removal of rules (subfactions, relics, stratagems, etc....).

Halve the number of weapons and halve the units' rosters. I still can't understand why orks have to have 5 datasheets for buggies, 4 for planes, 5 for battlewagons, etc... lots of units could be merged into a single datasheet. Also among infantries, there's no need of having beastnagga boyz and boyz, just make them all boyz. Or intercessors and tactical squads, make them the same basic marine dudes.

Stratagems can be reduced to a handful of options (10-15 at most) and some of them, those that are locked to specific units, can just be special rules listed in the datasheet of such units maybe with a once per game use.

How much less complex buggies would be with 1 entry with weapon options though? Apart from cutting # of buggies you can field to 1/5(rule of 3) what would it accomplish?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So... If it was up to me....

Divide melee weapons into 3 bands - normal (no special rules), power (-3 to save), and heavy (2xStrength, -3 to save, always goes last). For some armies maybe change the bands, maybe have Dark Eldar with poison (wound on 4+), sharp (-3 to save), agonizing (-3 to save, wound infantry on 2+, tanks and monsters on 4+).

Well, yes and no. While I agree that there are too many weapons which are too similar to each other, cutting them down to three is probably a bit too much. At the very least you need to differentiate between TH/DCCW and PF/PK now because there is quite a big difference game-wise between them. The "normal" type also needs to do something, otherwise you might as well just delete those profiles completely. +1 attack and/or -1AP comes to mind.
Taking Death Guard as an example, there are good arguments for keeping Manreapers and Flails as separate weapons because they actually do something unique. Plague cleavers, plague reapers and maces and can be rolled into one thunderhammer-esque profile, all the swords and axes could be rolled into your "power" profile. The codex wouldn't play different at all, but the rules would be much cleaner.
In the end, special melee weapons do have a place when they actually do something different and aren't just different for the sake of being different.

Similarly divide most weapon types into a pistol (12" range, +1 attack in melee), rifle (24" range), heavy (48" range, -2 to hit if you move). Dispense with variants, a plasma gun is a plasma gun for all factions. Try and bring Adeptus Mech weapons into line with the rest of the Imperium, with no more than 1 or 2 unique weapon types.

Disagree. I see no reason why unique factions should not have unique weapons. The big problem right now is that every unit has unique weapons and that needs to stop. In 4th orks had 20 different ranged weapons, and these included unique stuff like the SAG and snazz guns. Make all the marines shoot the same bolters again, give all the dreads the same plasma cannon and have the big mek and the wazzbom shoot the same tellyporta blasta.
As with melee weapons, if you don't have a good reason to stray from the stock option, don't. Unique primary gun for a tank? Sure. Unique weapon for a unique unit? Sure. Yet another bolter variant for yet another primaris unit starting with I? Feth off.
Once again, implementing these changes would probably have minor impact on how a faction plays, but would take a lot of mental load of players.

Eliminate the Primaris/Firstborn split. It's just a new armor mark.

Also do the beastsnagge/ork split while you're at it, thankyouverymuch.

No more subfactions. Use warlord traits and choice of units to differentiate sub factions. or make a new codex. The color you paint your models should not affect their rules.

I agree, but for a different reason. While everyone was crying to get chapter tactics for their armies and was happy when they got them, I think the experiment has failed.
None of the subfaction bonusses actually make the corresponding faction feel like they should, so at this point it's just free rules for the sake of free rules.
No matter whether you play eldar, orks or sisters, you always have the shooty faction, the choppy faction, somethingsomething objective secured faction and so on.
Death Guard don't actually have any sub-faction rules, you basically just pick a plague(= warlord trait) and a stratagem+relic to go along with it. And that works perfectly fine to differentiate the sorcerer faction from the "we ain't going nowhere" terminator faction and the poxwalker horde faction.

At this point, I feel like they should just drop them for everyone, because they have clearly failed at what they are supposed to do.

One area where I wish there was more granularity is vehicles/monsters/giant robots. Maybe not go back to 4 facings but just offer +1 strength and/or -1 save if shot from behind. Otherwise there's no need to maneuver.

I'm not sure whether I really want that. Those kind of rules fall apart when not dealing with traditional tanks, and 40k has plenty of those. I've never understood why a battlewagon should be more vulnerable from behind than from the sides (both engine and fuel is located in the middle) and monsters like the Haruspex seem more durable from behind than from the front.
While I have blown up plenty of vehicles by hitting their rear armor with rokkits, I think it feels better that there isn't an easy way to get rid of vehicles anymore.

Essentially the granularity I want to see in 40k is "unit" not "model". What a unit does, sees and where it moves should matter, not what single models do.
Right now there are still way too many rules bothering with single models, like picking who rolls saves, determining cover, LoS and range.
Right now, if a tire of a battlewagon can "see" the enemy model, the ork gunner looking the other direction can still shoot him. I'm fine with that, it's an abstraction - it's not like the BW will move exactly 12 yards, hit the breaks, have every gun shoot exactly three times and then hit the gas to drive another 12 yards.
However, what then defies this logic is that when a unit of lootas has the same footprint as the battlewagon unit, only that one loota which can draw LoS is allowed to shoot. In my book, all kinds of units should follow the same level of abstraction.

And while we're at it, I also want TLoS to go. Just draw a 2D line as long as your weapon's range is and anything which has its hull or base on that line can be shot. If there is any terrain on that line, you have to apply that terrain's properties to the shot. Simple, no more shooting from and to banners/wings/antennas, no more laserpointers, no more people gluing windows shut to hide knights.

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'd love consolidations of profiles and wargear, not the removal of rules (subfactions, relics, stratagems, etc....).

Halve the number of weapons and halve the units' rosters. I still can't understand why orks have to have 5 datasheets for buggies, 4 for planes, 5 for battlewagons, etc... lots of units could be merged into a single datasheet. Also among infantries, there's no need of having beastnagga boyz and boyz, just make them all boyz. Or intercessors and tactical squads, make them the same basic marine dudes.

Stratagems can be reduced to a handful of options (10-15 at most) and some of them, those that are locked to specific units, can just be special rules listed in the datasheet of such units maybe with a once per game use.

How much less complex buggies would be with 1 entry with weapon options though? Apart from cutting # of buggies you can field to 1/5(rule of 3) what would it accomplish?

They already have the almost exact same profile and only the shokkjump dragsta has a dedicated unique special rule. They can simply be merged into a single profile with 5 different sets of weapons to choose in order to represent the official models.

Same with all the other stuff that I listed. The kill rig for example is a battlewagon with different weapons than the older kit, nothing more. And beastnaggas are boyz.

What would it accomplish? First there would be no more silly rules about just one unit of each buggy. The datasheets section would be much shorter and simpler to consult, rules and profiles would be easier to remember. There's no need of giving +2''M, +1W, +1S, +1 to hit for one of the big shootas, -1 to hit, etc... to only one or two of the buggies, different abilities to cause mortal wounds on the charge etc.... those are all differentiations that aren't needed and add a lot of confusion. At the moment it's extremely hard to field multiple kinds of buggies and perfectly remember all their stats, rules and wargear. Heck it's actually hard to remember correctly their profile even fielding a single kind of buggies.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd want a morale system that is actually a morale system, not a simplified "Lose More" mechanic where the player is punished for losing models by rolling to see if they lose more models.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
No more subfactions. Use warlord traits and choice of units to differentiate sub factions. or make a new codex. The color you paint your models should not affect their rules.

No. Never in a million years. Factions should matter. Factions should play differently. Factions sure as hell should not just be a warlord trait and some unit variance. Might as well go back to 5th Ed Codices (IIRC) and make it so Ultramarines armies are always led by Sicarius, and White Scar armies are always led by the Khan, otherwise they're just vanilla.

My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

In an optimal world you'd not need blatant unbalanceable traits and instead would get the option in the army building phase, depending upon specialisation for which you'd pay points and unlock slots....
alas ... 30k ruleswriters seem entirely in another world than 40k ruleswriters.

I am in the camp of thinking Kid_Kyoto's suggestions go a bit too far on the standardization side but the current game could definitely be improved by heading in that direction. Certainly I always preferred when a power weapon was a power weapon, and there was more standardization of weapon stats across factions when there wasn't a pressing need to distinguish them. Let Kill Team be the place for bespoke weapon rules, where different types of power weapon have different stats and so on.

I do with Primaris had been introduced from the onset as a new set of equipment rather than that AND biological improvements, but that ship has sailed and IIMO we're too far along for going back and retconning things that much to be worth it.

 Blackie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'd love consolidations of profiles and wargear, not the removal of rules (subfactions, relics, stratagems, etc....).

Halve the number of weapons and halve the units' rosters. I still can't understand why orks have to have 5 datasheets for buggies, 4 for planes, 5 for battlewagons, etc... lots of units could be merged into a single datasheet. Also among infantries, there's no need of having beastnagga boyz and boyz, just make them all boyz. Or intercessors and tactical squads, make them the same basic marine dudes.

Stratagems can be reduced to a handful of options (10-15 at most) and some of them, those that are locked to specific units, can just be special rules listed in the datasheet of such units maybe with a once per game use.

How much less complex buggies would be with 1 entry with weapon options though? Apart from cutting # of buggies you can field to 1/5(rule of 3) what would it accomplish?

They already have the almost exact same profile and only the shokkjump dragsta has a dedicated unique special rule. They can simply be merged into a single profile with 5 different sets of weapons to choose in order to represent the official models.

Same with all the other stuff that I listed. The kill rig for example is a battlewagon with different weapons than the older kit, nothing more. And beastnaggas are boyz.

What would it accomplish? First there would be no more silly rules about just one unit of each buggy. The datasheets section would be much shorter and simpler to consult, rules and profiles would be easier to remember. There's no need of giving +2''M, +1W, +1S, +1 to hit for one of the big shootas, -1 to hit, etc... to only one or two of the buggies, different abilities to cause mortal wounds on the charge etc.... those are all differentiations that aren't needed and add a lot of confusion. At the moment it's extremely hard to field multiple kinds of buggies and perfectly remember all their stats, rules and wargear. Heck it's actually hard to remember correctly their profile even fielding a single kind of buggies.

I don't think your suggestion would solve any problems though.

However, you could change the buggies to not have unique weapons - especially since their weapons aren't that unique to begin with.
Snazzwagon essentially has a quad snazzgun
KBB has a tripple deff gun and burnas
SJD has a twin KMB
Scrapjet has a quad rokkits
Squig buggy actually is unique
Wartrike could have dakka guns instead of boomstikks, PK instead of snagga claw

Boom, 8 profiles gone that no one would miss for one second.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You don't believe that 40k is at the scale where different regiments or types of armies can or should be represented. Basically you want a really sterile game. There's no convincing you otherwise, so I'm not going to try.

it is more about that it should be the same for all

if marines have multiple book to represent the "true to the Codex" Marines, not having a Codex Slaanesh a Codex Emperors Children, a book for each Eldar Ship and each Guard Regiment is not good for the game

because the Marines, that are by the Background just a different paint job, get a book while factions that are actually very different are a fluff note inside the book of another faction with "just pretend that the different paint job matters"

that said, we already had that point were the different colours already were more than just a paint job for everyone, but somehow all but Marines lost it
and either Marines lose it too or everyone else get it back

 Jidmah wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'd love consolidations of profiles and wargear, not the removal of rules (subfactions, relics, stratagems, etc....).

Halve the number of weapons and halve the units' rosters. I still can't understand why orks have to have 5 datasheets for buggies, 4 for planes, 5 for battlewagons, etc... lots of units could be merged into a single datasheet. Also among infantries, there's no need of having beastnagga boyz and boyz, just make them all boyz. Or intercessors and tactical squads, make them the same basic marine dudes.

Stratagems can be reduced to a handful of options (10-15 at most) and some of them, those that are locked to specific units, can just be special rules listed in the datasheet of such units maybe with a once per game use.

How much less complex buggies would be with 1 entry with weapon options though? Apart from cutting # of buggies you can field to 1/5(rule of 3) what would it accomplish?

They already have the almost exact same profile and only the shokkjump dragsta has a dedicated unique special rule. They can simply be merged into a single profile with 5 different sets of weapons to choose in order to represent the official models.

Same with all the other stuff that I listed. The kill rig for example is a battlewagon with different weapons than the older kit, nothing more. And beastnaggas are boyz.

What would it accomplish? First there would be no more silly rules about just one unit of each buggy. The datasheets section would be much shorter and simpler to consult, rules and profiles would be easier to remember. There's no need of giving +2''M, +1W, +1S, +1 to hit for one of the big shootas, -1 to hit, etc... to only one or two of the buggies, different abilities to cause mortal wounds on the charge etc.... those are all differentiations that aren't needed and add a lot of confusion. At the moment it's extremely hard to field multiple kinds of buggies and perfectly remember all their stats, rules and wargear. Heck it's actually hard to remember correctly their profile even fielding a single kind of buggies.

I don't think your suggestion would solve any problems though.

However, you could change the buggies to not have unique weapons - especially since their weapons aren't that unique to begin with.
Snazzwagon essentially has a quad snazzgun
KBB has a tripple deff gun and burnas
SJD has a twin KMB
Scrapjet has a quad rokkits
Squig buggy actually is unique
Wartrike could have dakka guns instead of boomstikks, PK instead of snagga claw

Boom, 8 profiles gone that no one would miss for one second.

It would solve the issue that a couple of buggies have one more wound and/or +1S, that a couple of buggies have a different M stat, that some buggies have +1 to hit on some weapons (grot gunners), that some buggy can cause mortal wounds on the charge, etc... I'd just make a single profile with all those stats and abilities that are the same for each buggy. Only the set of weapons should be different.

I can't really play them without constantly looking at their profiles and that annoys me terribly . With a single unique profile and set of rules I'd only need to remember the weapons' profiles. My main goal would be about reducing the bloat rather than increasing balance, to try to remember everything by heart, like I used to do in older editions. I hate constantly flipping pages more than facing OP units .

I'd keep the wartrike as a separate unit of course since it's an HQ and not a FA. Then I agree with you that lots of weapons can be merged together.

Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

 Jidmah wrote:
Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

the fact that there are 5 standardised diffrent buggy profiles for the ork dex is testament enough for how stupid NMNR is.

One Datasheet with the options for the kit and some consolidation as stated would allow for a far more intersting buggy build than 5 standardised variants.

I think the OP's suggestions go a bit too far with regards to ranged weapons. The melee weapons I can get behind, though. Scrapping CP/strats would also be a good change, even if some ended up shifted to datasheets as a once-per-game ability.

Subfaction traits are something I think should probably stay, but not in the form they are right now. I'd rather see broad archetypes than this prescriptive, railroaded approach we have now. Do we really need 4 slightly different takes on choppy Marines, for example? Why are all IF siege specialists, but the UM devastator company can't be? I'd prefer a system where you pick the units that fit your theme, then apply a fairly minor bonus that supports that theme.

I'm not sure I'm following.

It's rather clear that a consolidated datasheet would look like the primaris HQ datasheets:
"Pick one of the following options:
- rokkit cannon, wing missle, nose drill, spiked ram and four big shootas
- mek speshul, burna bottles and one big shoota
- saw blades, shokk rifle and rokkit launcha
- etc..."

One datasheet allowing all options to be mixed at will would just lead to a single, optimal load-out being played and none of the other buggies every being seen play at all, just like for every other unit that has that kind of customization.
Implementing six completely different buggies with unique strengths was absolutely the right decision, they just need to be more streamlined to remove the differences which were made just for the sake of being different.

And for anyone jumping in on this - please don't give me the "if all options would be properly balanced..." crap. That is a beautiful wish akin to world peace, but will never happen in reality.

Yes, I'd like a primaris HQ equivalent.

But possibly also with the option to choose wargear/buggy type for each model separately, so that in the same squadron vehicles with different loadout might coexist. Just like dreads, which can have different loadaouts, and several other squadrons of vehicles that cost 80+ points each.

Of course different sets of weapons would cost differently, so it's not like only one kind of buggy would overshine all the others; on the contrary, with the chance of mixing up the types of buggies into the same squadron diversity would actually be quite encouraged, especially in the upcoming age of limited units' slots available. In fact it's with the upcoming loss of CPs that people would simply max out the most effective buggy squadron and skip the rest.

In practise even with just one datasheet we'd have what we have now but with less bloat and more oppurtunities to take different kinds of buggies. The only difference would be the end of lists that are extremely heavy on buggies, that max them out at 15 models in total. They'd be capped at 9 at most with rule of three instead. But I don't think it's something that would have an impact on many players, and actually those who own 4+ of the same buggy, legacy of previous edition, could play all their models again.

Merging five simple datasheets into one just means you're writing down the same rules in a more confusing manner though - that does nothing to reduce bloat.

One datasheet also means just one buggy in combat patrol and two for incursion - which is not a good idea at all. It also messes up stratagems and kustom jobs.

To archive what you want, you could just implement a rule akin to the DG's Foetid Virion rules - allow people to put as many buggies as they like into one FA slot as long as all the buggies have a different name.

On sub-faction and army rules, I don't want to see them gone completely, I just want them in one place and not tied to modelling/paint scheme/special characters.

Warlord traits seems the obvious place.

Make your warlord a combat guy, your whole army gets +1 attack (or whatever)
Take the shooty one and your army is rerolling 1s.
Take the speedy one and you get 6 fast attack slots.
Take the siege one and get +1 to cover saves.

Specifics aside it should be something significant, something easy to explain, and balanced. If they can't all be balanced then charge points according to army size (ie 50 points for a 1500 army, 75 points for 2000 point army etc) and of course limit it to one warlord per army.

This is vice the current system where someone might pile an army trait on a warlord trait on a stragem, on a relic to get some ungodly bonus.

Idk man. I miss the days when "this is an iron hands army, you can tell because of the number of Tech Marines" or "I play white scars because I like to be mobile and flexible in play style, so I bring lots of transports and bikes"
rather than
"You can tell the difference between Iron Hands and White Scars because White Scars Assault Intercessors are 250% more effective for the same points"

 Jidmah wrote:
Merging five simple datasheets into one just means you're writing down the same rules in a more confusing manner though - that does nothing to reduce bloat.

There would be no confusion. All buggies would have the same stats and the same rules, just possible different loadouts. Like dreads or kanz. Eventually only the shokkjump dragsta version can keep the bespoke special rule to teleport itself.

 Jidmah wrote:

One datasheet also means just one buggy in combat patrol and two for incursion - which is not a good idea at all. It also messes up stratagems and kustom jobs.

Of course buggies wouldn't lose their squadron ability. One datasheet doesn't mean one model unit. Unit's size would still be 1-3.

One datasheet means up to 9 buggies (3x3) with rule of three. But also the chance to mix up buggies in the same squad, like dreads of kanz. A patrol detachment could still have 6 buggies, exactly as now. It would simply be much easier to field multiple kinds of buggies since they'd be part of the same squadron, but also 4+ of the same kind which is currently illegal. In a current patrol detachment it's impossible to field more than 2 different kinds of buggy, even if the player takes 6 buggies in total. That's absurd and pushes for maxing out the best variant.

Bespoke stratagems would go the way of the dodo of course and that's something I wish about all units' locked stratagems to be honest. Kustom jobs are points that are paid per model, so I don't see any issue here.

No sorry, I prefer spending 5 slots on 5 buggies that can go in 5 directions.

Squadrons are dumb for anything that isn't supposed to stick together.

 Jidmah wrote:
No sorry, I prefer spending 5 slots on 5 buggies that can go in 5 directions.

Squadrons are dumb for anything that isn't supposed to stick together.

I don't see the issue here, either. Dreads can already act as separate units once they are deployed and stats/points wise they're just slower and punchier/less shootier buggies, while the very same buggies had this rule in 8th.

But as a matter of preference I'd still love squadrons of different buggy variants even if they couldn't split up after deployment. It's still much better than maxing out one or two kinds of buggies just because I don't have the slots to field the other ones.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Personally, I like having subfaction differentiation, but I dislike the way GW has done it.

The way 40K currently does it:

Army-wide freebie trait: Discourages using 'incompatible' units and makes the optimal ones significantly more difficult to balance.
Warlord traits and relics: Provides a single stereotypical option for each subfaction. You either take the one associated with your subfaction, or you take generic ones.
Unique stratagems: This is at least thematic and leverages existing systems well, but tied to the messy stratagem system.

So in practice, the differences between a Cadian army and a Vostroyan army are that one shoots marginally better stationary and the other can shoot in melee, and beyond that it's pretty much all just listbuilding choices that you could make with or without that subfaction bonus.

I'd rather see a system like:

Catachans
-Catachan Devils available as a unique Elites choice.
-Infantry units can take Heavy Flamers as a heavy weapon.
-Any infantry unit can be upgraded to Deathworld Veterans, which costs X points and provides Y benefit.
-1-2 Catachan-specific stratagems.

Notice how there are no free benefits, just additional options. If you want to do Catachan heavy armor you are free to do so and won't lose out on anything. If you want to lean into the rough-and-ready jungle fighters theme, then you have relevant upgrades, with appropriately balanced points costs. You don't get penalized for not sticking to the flanderised depiction of the regiment, and it doesn't throw the game balance out of whack with some units getting very relevant upgrades for free.

I feel that would work well for the more famous subfactions, and kinda break down when you are trying to differentiate the more obscure ones.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

So sometime in the early RT days? Because as RT rolled along the orks got clan stuff, Harliquins appeared, and at the tale end Space Wolves got their own list. And I've probably forgotten some others.

 Tyran wrote:
I feel that would work well for the more famous subfactions, and kinda break down when you are trying to differentiate the more obscure ones.

indeed, now if there were a bunch of specialisations you'd could buy which would grant and limit access and some exemples like catachan which would'e bought say deathworld regiment and light infantry and then explained how to use those and equipment unlocks.. now that would be a system shame gw didn't prodice something like that.... oh wait IA13 was a thing.

 Tyran wrote:
I feel that would work well for the more famous subfactions, and kinda break down when you are trying to differentiate the more obscure ones.

I think that any of the subfactions that GW has named and given fluff to should have enough material to work with. Or at the very least, it's an opportunity to flesh them out.

More importantly, I really don't think it takes a lot to significantly differentiate subfactions if you approach them this way. Let's take Harakoni Warhawks, as they've been mentioned off and on in the fluff for a long while but never had official rules after their appearance in the 3.5Ed Guard codex. All I know about them is that they're heavily armored drop troops from a low-gravity world where they hunt local beasts with gliders.

Harakoni Warhawks
-Any infantry unit may upgrade its save to 4+ for X points per model.
-Any infantry unit may purchase deep strike for Y points per model.
-Any Aircraft model may be upgraded to a Veteran Crew (BS3+) for Z points per model.
-1-2 Harakoni-specific stratagems.

So yeah, no fun unique fluffy units. Just a couple of upgrades that convey similar mechanical effect to a subfaction bonus, with an inherent balance mechanism (cost) that allows the bonuses to be both more impactful and tweaked as needed, but are optional so that an army isn't railroaded into that particular theme.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if something like that ever existed for the Harakoni Warhawks...


Weird. Almost like they pay a 20 points per squad cost for a couple of upgrades that convey similar mechanical effects to sub-faction bonuses, which heavily impact their playstyle but are ultimately optional...

Wait no that can't be right, 9th edition is the most narrative edition ever, silly me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Now that you mention it, I wonder if something like that ever existed for the Harakoni Warhawks...


Weird. Almost like they pay a 20 points per squad cost for a couple of upgrades that convey similar mechanical effects to sub-faction bonuses, which heavily impact their playstyle but are ultimately optional...

Wait no that can't be right, 9th edition is the most narrative edition ever, silly me.

Full disclosure, I had that open on my lap while I was writing, so I'm not going to pretend it was a coincidence- but also, that paragraph of fluff is literally all I have to go on for the Warhawks. Any subfaction that GW has given rules to already has far more content than that.

The same codex also has rules for regiments like Kanak Skull-Takers, Terrax Guard, Savlar Chem-Dogs, and Tanith First & Only. It's really not all that hard to come up with these sorts of mechanics, and probably a lot easier to balance when you can just slap a points cost on them versus trying to keep free bonuses all in line.

Yeah, full disclosure I am agreeing with you.

GW has done it right in the past for a few books. Now, finally, they are applying sub-faction rules across all the books...

...except it is the crappy, awkward version of sub-faction traits.

ccs wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

So sometime in the early RT days? Because as RT rolled along the orks got clan stuff, Harliquins appeared, and at the tale end Space Wolves got their own list. And I've probably forgotten some others.

Leaning on Rogue trader or 2nd Edition as comparisons is tough because regardless of presence or lack of sub factions, they give far more customization options to their players, and are scoped for a very different size of game.

 catbarf wrote:

-Any infantry unit may purchase deep strike for Y points per model.

How would you balance this between conscripts, veterans or even ogryns?

Or going to another faction, how are you going to balance suchs upgrades bewteen termagants, Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard and everything else in between?

Having a list of costs for each subfaction upgrade for each unit is likely going to exponentially get out of control.

 Tyran wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

-Any infantry unit may purchase deep strike for Y points per model.

How would you balance this between conscripts, veterans or even ogryns?

Or going to another faction, how are you going to balance suchs upgrades bewteen termagants, Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard and everything else in between?

Having a list of costs for each subfaction upgrade for each unit is likely going to exponentially get out of control.

It literally happened in the 3.5e IG book. If you took Drop Troops as a doctrine, you were locked out of taking Ogryns (as they were a Rare Troops doctrine) and Conscripts (as they are a separate organizational doctrine from Drop Troops).

Veterans were balanced with Drop Troops because they were a 0-1 choice, unless you spent ANOTHER doctrine slot on the Hardened Veterans regimental upgrades, which has a whole set of opportunity costs itself.

There was a page of rules around what doctrines did what to whom. You really should read them as they were pretty balanced for their time.

The only problem was that locking out units wasn't really a sacrifice, as if I never intended to take Ogryns or Conscripts in the first place, I wasn't really giving anything up to get Drop Troops.

But that comes down to the whole GW is great at ideas but terrible at executing those ideas thing that they've had going on for literal decades now. Thing is they seem to be getting worse...

 Tyran wrote:

How would you balance this between conscripts, veterans or even ogryns?

Or going to another faction, how are you going to balance suchs upgrades bewteen termagants, Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard and everything else in between?

Having a list of costs for each subfaction upgrade for each unit is likely going to exponentially get out of control.

Because unlike what GW does very often, the Y shouldn't be the same for the different units. Deep striking a squadron of sentinals would cost different then dropping down a unit with 4 plasma or melta. Same way a powerfist on a sgt level character shouldn't cost the same as on a unit from the same codex that can get 6A or more.

Karol wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

How would you balance this between conscripts, veterans or even ogryns?

Or going to another faction, how are you going to balance suchs upgrades bewteen termagants, Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard and everything else in between?

Having a list of costs for each subfaction upgrade for each unit is likely going to exponentially get out of control.

Because unlike what GW does very often, the Y shouldn't be the same for the different units. Deep striking a squadron of sentinals would cost different then dropping down a unit with 4 plasma or melta. Same way a powerfist on a sgt level character shouldn't cost the same as on a unit from the same codex that can get 6A or more.

Ding ding ding.
Thus the truth was stated.

Tyran wrote:How would you balance this between conscripts, veterans or even ogryns?

It probably wouldn't be strictly balanced across all units. Fundamentally, a Veterans squad is going to benefit more from a fixed-price upgrade than an Infantry squad, though I wouldn't see it being hard to say 'X cost for infantry, Y for Ogryns'. Or for 'Nids, divide them into Gaunt-sized, mid-sized, and monstrous creatures, so maybe getting +1T for Ouroboris costs 2/5/25pts respectively.

But given that the current situation is having abilities handed out for free to all units, having a cost, even if it's coarse and imperfect, would be a step in the right direction. I mean, if you want balance, the ideal resolution there is to strip out subfaction abilities entirely (because as you point out, their utility is very unit-dependent), but I think we can strike a middle ground.

 Eilif wrote:

ccs wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Why not? Why do the tiny differences between two tactical squads from different chapters need to be represented in an army-scale game where a titan can kill either of them in one shot? Why does what planet a regiment is from matter, but whether a unit is part of a Cadian armored regiment or Cadian infantry regiment is irrelevant? The game worked just fine when sub-factions didn't exist and we need to go back to that.

So sometime in the early RT days? Because as RT rolled along the orks got clan stuff, Harliquins appeared, and at the tale end Space Wolves got their own list. And I've probably forgotten some others.

Leaning on Rogue trader or 2nd Edition as comparisons is tough because regardless of presence or lack of sub factions, they give far more customization options to their players, and are scoped for a very different size of game.

Also worth pointing out, Space wolves, as released in WD157 were absolutely 100% busted compared to the vanilla space marine army, and was probably where the 'special rules' creep originated. Up until Space wolves, Space marines armies had been different solely based on their equipment choices, vehicle choices and so forth, rather than having special rules. The same went for Orks in Freebootas and Ere'we'go. units were differentiated by their equipment, not their layers of rules. Harlequins were introduced at a time when the eldar 'army' was 1 entry in the RT book, and they were far from broken, more of a meme army in 1988 (before memes even existed)
In 1st edition, and to a slightly lesser extent in 2nd, It was army composition that made the biggest difference between armies.
I remember lots of players running Ravenwing (or dark angels 7th Company) forces in 1988, when there were no rules to make them special, just some back ground in a white dwarf. And death wing, well they did have a special unit, but everyone i remember just used it instead of the entry for terminators, mostly because you didn't have to pay to teleport them in to the battle if you didn't want to, otherwise, Deathwing terminators were pretty much identical to terminators.

Putting in my support for the 3.5 era Doctrine style system that Unit and catbarf are supporting.

Also I'm supportive of MASSIVE reductions to weapons and bespoke abilities. (looking at Bolter-bloat specifically).

 Insectum7 wrote:
Putting in my support for the 3.5 era Doctrine style system that Unit and catbarf are supporting.

Also I'm supportive of MASSIVE reductions to weapons and bespoke abilities. (looking at Bolter-bloat specifically).

Funny thing about bolter bloat, despite being marine centric 30k has less bolter profiles than codex sm by a mile.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Putting in my support for the 3.5 era Doctrine style system that Unit and catbarf are supporting.

Also I'm supportive of MASSIVE reductions to weapons and bespoke abilities. (looking at Bolter-bloat specifically).

Funny thing about bolter bloat, despite being marine centric 30k has less bolter profiles than codex sm by a mile.

Oh I believe it, Primaris are a HUGE source of bloat. They gave every unit of Primaris it's own specific guns, rather than the true/real/firstborn style where everyone uses the same equipment but in different ratios.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Putting in my support for the 3.5 era Doctrine style system that Unit and catbarf are supporting.

Also I'm supportive of MASSIVE reductions to weapons and bespoke abilities. (looking at Bolter-bloat specifically).

Funny thing about bolter bloat, despite being marine centric 30k has less bolter profiles than codex sm by a mile.

Oh I believe it, Primaris are a HUGE source of bloat. They gave every unit of Primaris it's own specific guns, rather than the true/real/firstborn style where everyone uses the same equipment but in different ratios.

And Space Marines are supposed to be the army for new players. Having a million different variants of bolters and plasma rifles is madness. I just don't get it. They want 40k to be huge and bombastic and then bog it down with so much unnecessary bloat.

 Jidmah wrote:
Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

And means just 3 squadrons period. Can't have 4 types of buggies 3 each. Even if you　had points.

Wyldhunt wrote:
{army type buffs}

I will admit that this is a much more reasonable system, especially if it does replace all of the WLT/stratagem/etc bloat. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but I do like that it's at least trying to represent specialist army types with new capabilities instead of just "red marines get +1 to hit, blue marines get +1 to wound" buffs to dice math. Although I'd take it one step further and do it like 40k rites of war, where taking one buffs your specialist strategy but comes at the expense of things you don't get to have. Take a sneaky detachment, no non-stealth models can start the game on the table. Take a bike army, no heavy support units. Etc. Make specialist armies a choice, not an automatic buff, and make sure there's always an argument for just taking the basic army with no modifications.

 Gargantuan wrote:


And Space Marines are supposed to be the army for new players. Having a million different variants of bolters and plasma rifles is madness. I just don't get it. They want 40k to be huge and bombastic and then bog it down with so much unnecessary bloat.

It can be the army of a new player, but I never heard anyone from GW ever say that marines are ment as an army for new players only and that the army should be there for simple, and easy to ditch for the "real" thing as soon as someone stops being a new player.
There is a rapid fire, heavy and assault version of every weapon. What is there to not understand. Under the old marine rules, before the reaction of non marine players to the 2.0 rules, led to the nerfing of marine doctrines, each of the special bolters, plasma etc Had a home in different armies. IF wanted rapid fire weapons, WS wanted assault and static armies like IH worked nice with the heavy weapon versions of marine weapons.

And if that is too complicated for w40k players, then how are they going to deal with playing vs or with something like Ad Mecha or any of the chaos factions or Eldar etc ?

tneva82 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

And means just 3 squadrons period. Can't have 4 types of buggies 3 each. Even if you　had points.

Max 9 in total, yes, non counting the wartrike which in an HQ. Still an insane amount of buggies IMHO, definitely skew territory. But much more versatile than the current system that allows up to 15 models.

Have you ever fielded 15 buggies? That system very much regulates itself unless 9 of those are ignoring LoS.

You are trying to fix something that isn't broken and are making it worse in the process. Just have every buggy have a datasheet and have one buggy per slot.

Giving them all the same statline and removing those unnecessary grot gunners can be done without rolling everything into one datasheet.

Or are you also suggesting rolling burnas boyz, lootas, tank bustas, kommadoz and boyz into one datasheet as well? It's just unnecessary bloat to have them separated, right?

 Jidmah wrote:
Have you ever fielded 15 buggies? That system very much regulates itself unless 9 of those are ignoring LoS.

Absolutely, that's why reducing to 9 total, with the chance of mixing up the squadrons with multiple types of buggies that all act as standalone units after deployment, shouldn't be a big deal but actually a massive improvement in every possible way.

Maybe try spelling out what problem you are trying to fix.

Because so far you are merely promoting a solution that is lacking a problem to fix.

 Jidmah wrote:
Maybe try spelling out what problem you are trying to fix.

Because so far you are merely promoting a solution that is lacking a problem to fix.

Easy, it's what's the thread is about. What kind of detail/granularity would you like to see?

I'd like to reduce bloat. Plain and simple. And by bloat I also (mostly?) mean the number of datasheets.

So, merging five buggies into one datasheet, and consolidating their profiles, is the kind of detail/granularity I'd like to see. And a solution that wouldn't invalidate people's collections, like putting several units into legends or remove them completely, outside maybe those who really are into skew territory.

That's why I also wish Battlewagons or ork planes had a single profile for example. Or something like Kill/Hunta rig (which by the way I wouldn't even mind to merge into Battlewagons as well), boyz/beastnaggas, warboss/beastboss, weirdboy/wurrboy, etc... To me it doesn't make any sense that duplicates of the very same units, or of the very same weapons, that only differ for one or few details exist.

What does reducing five datasheets to one archive in your opinion?

Because you aren't reducing bloat when you have five buggies before your change and then have five buggies after your change. You just have the same amount of bloat written in a more complicated manner.

I think it's fine if all the variants of Dakka Jets/Battlewagons/Buggies (or Lemans Russ/Baneblades/Valkyries) have the same profile it doesn't matter if the weapon-based variants are one sheet or many.

AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE SAME PROFILE.

What I care about is if someone has a tank or buggy that I know it has this toughness and that speed just different weapons.

It's when each one has slightly different stats despite looking essentially the same that it adds too much granularity.

Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I think it's fine if all the variants of Dakka Jets/Battlewagons/Buggies (or Lemans Russ/Baneblades/Valkyries) have the same profile it doesn't matter if the weapon-based variants are one sheet or many.

AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE SAME PROFILE.

Agree 100%

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Amen.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

That's not a good analogy for what's he's saying. More like a M16 with a drum magazine or a M16 with a scope shouldn't be treated as two completely different weapons.
Maybe a M16 with a grenade launcher, because that would basically be a combi-weapon.

Karol wrote:
Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Depending on the scale of the game, yeah they are practically the same gun. In Epic they would have all been considered "small arms" and modern 40k is closer to Epic than to its skirmish-scale origins.

On a 40k scale, I'm not sure I'd draw the distinction between an AK-47 and an AR-15 or a Super Ruger Redhawk and a .44 Magnum. On an RPG scale, sure. But for 40k, even the vast differences between lasguns all end up being the same until you get to scions.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But one that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Aren't all those lumped under "autogun" or something similar?

 Blndmage wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Aren't all those lumped under "autogun" or something similar?

In 40k ?

Mp's tend to be thrown into autopistol, with the stubcarbine being special assault for the cultist leader of bsf whilest autoguns are stgw equivalents.

Mechanically that is distinct enough, for units imo but not overly granular, unlike primaris boltguns which are far too many.

Optimal case imo would be:
Pistol equivalent.
Assault equivalent for cqc units.
Rapidfire equivalent for line units.
And a potential heavy equivalent.

Those 4 brackets are good enough, no need to have 2-3 Different assault versions like primaris boltguns.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Yes, such things would be important in a kursk level game. An assault formation, equipped for the most part with fully automatic weapons, should be different to the line soldiers with bolt-action rifles. But what about the difference between that assault formation and a US GI formation with M1-Garands and carbines with a couple of Thompsons and a 2 man belt-fed machine gun team? Suddenly that difference is shrinking as the effective fire rate of the semi-automatic rifles of the US soldiers is much higher than that of the bolt-action rifles under most conditions.

And 40K is a game where no basic trooper is carrying around a bolt action rifle. They are all semi-automatic at the very least, and most of them have fully-automatic capabilities if we go by the rules in other published material (the 40K RPGs etc.).

What is the difference between a lasgun and a pulse carbine which makes one assault and the other rapid fire? Especially when the lasgun profile is an abstract of countless variants including bullpup rifles, carbines etc.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

This is the heart of the question!

I believe that 40k where you have 100+ figures on the board, along with tanks, monsters, robots and whatever else, works best when generally alike things have the same rules. It frees up modelers to go with what looks cool, and keeps the game flowing.

If I was doing a modern game at that size I would say all SMGs are SMGs, with the other categories being assault rifles, rifles, shotguns and pistols (with exotics like grenade launchers and sniper rifles as special weapons).

For a games with 100+ models I would not differentiate between an UZI and an MP5, both for modelling and rule of cool reasons, and because at that scale it makes no difference.

So for 40k, where you have .75 cal mini grenade launchers and guns shooting monofiliment shurikens and whatever you have keep things even more streamlines.

A lasgun is a autogun, is a stub gun.

Let Necromunda and Kill Team players worry about the differences.

Let RPG players worry about the differences between Mars pattern lasguns and triplex pattern.

 Jidmah wrote:
What does reducing five datasheets to one archive in your opinion?

Because you aren't reducing bloat when you have five buggies before your change and then have five buggies after your change. You just have the same amount of bloat written in a more complicated manner.

First, they'd all have the same stats and the same special rules which is not what we have now. Then yeah, you may have 5 different datasheets with almost identical units in them, I think it's much less complicated to have a single profile and 5 possible combinations of wargear. It's basically one datasheet that is just 5ish cmq taller instead of 5 slightly smaller ones, pretty much identical to each other. It's at least one less page to print and to look at.

I honestly don't see any difference in taking two dreads with 4 CCWs and a dread with 2 KMBs as part of the same squad, an old buggy with skorcha and a two buggies with TL rokkit launchas as part of the same squad, or a scrapjet, a KBB and a snazzwagon as part of the same squad.

It would also help to field multiple kinds of buggies, especially now that slots are about to become more precious. To me it's absurd that in a battallion detachment someone can take 9 of the same buggies, but not 4 different ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

Exactly. One datsheet would be perfectly fine. Merge everything in one page instead of keeping 8 pages of almost the same stuff.

 Blackie wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

Exactly. One datsheet would be perfectly fine. Merge everything in one page instead of keeping 8 pages of almost the same stuff.

I really don't care if BBs fit on 1 piece of paper or 8, I just want all of them to have the same stats with varying guns.

Since some have transport and some don't I'd say you need at least 2, maybe 3 to separate the ones with a single gun from the multigun tanks.

But what I would want gone is things like the Storm Lord's ability to fire twice by diverting power. It's dumb, how does diverting power shoot bullets faster? I could see it for the Shadow Sword but better to lose it. Presumably everyone on the battlefield is shooting as fast as they can and we don't need special rules for that.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Yes, such things would be important in a kursk level game. An assault formation, equipped for the most part with fully automatic weapons, should be different to the line soldiers with bolt-action rifles. But what about the difference between that assault formation and a US GI formation with M1-Garands and carbines with a couple of Thompsons and a 2 man belt-fed machine gun team? Suddenly that difference is shrinking as the effective fire rate of the semi-automatic rifles of the US soldiers is much higher than that of the bolt-action rifles under most conditions.

Inter factional differences in equipment are interesting in regards to asymetry of games. There is no point in comparing an hypotethical german assault formation with a US line formation. The difference that in that regard should matter is the difference between an US-Lineformation and an US Assault formation.
Mechanically these and their weapon classes should be distinct to differ the unit types within the faction.

And 40K is a game where no basic trooper is carrying around a bolt action rifle. They are all semi-automatic at the very least, and most of them have fully-automatic capabilities if we go by the rules in other published material (the 40K RPGs etc.).

just because something can switch firing modes doesn't mean you should do it, parade exemple is the STGw 90 of the swiss army, sure you can fold in the stock and it has an salvo AND full automode, it still however doesn't make it a good weapon for CQC and assaulting positions in such terrain. You can do it, don't get me wrong but it will come at performance loss compared to MP's and SMG's and especially carbine weaponry, over all of which it has a distinct range and accuracy advantage.

What is the difference between a lasgun and a pulse carbine which makes one assault and the other rapid fire? Especially when the lasgun profile is an abstract of countless variants including bullpup rifles, carbines etc.

Again with the 1st exemple. The difference is not and should not be between the Tau and the imperial weaponry, the weaponry should within a faction differ enough to dedicate units into roles.

a better exemple is the autogun family:
with the pistol, the Stubcarbine as an assault equivalent, and the Autogun as the mainline weapon, with the heavy stubber (and somewhat the AC) the heavy weapons.
indeed in regards to the imperial army and PDF's you can argue that despite the lore you can't make actual assault squads and CQC squads due to a lack of access to laspistols and CQW aswell as lascarbines.

The tau exemple releates to the main Tau pulse rifle, to which the carbine is the assault option.

The problem with over granularity comes into play, when you have something like the primaris bolt weaponry, which has now x versions of the gun that is supposed to be the mainline, x versions of the gun for assault, x heavy versions, etc.

Generally I think the game would benefit to being more model centric than pages of rules centric, and to incentivise creativity modelling.

Which means I'd generally move towards wargear profiles being more consistent between armies, units being differentiated more by stat lines even if the stat lines had to expand and move to a wider numerical range, and fewer if any stratagems/

Models should generally show *what they do* without having to know pages of other armies rules. But the counter to that is to enable gamers to modify those models with wide ranges of options and for that variety to feel relatively internally consistent, rather than Space Marines get a million options and nobody else does.

To be honest, I'd probably move more stats to base 100 rather than base 10, to give more space to move around the profile. Or shift the ruleset to allow monsters or creatures or characters to reach bigger numbers. The big, fundamental problem to me is that too many stats in 40k are bunched around the same value for everyone, and there's not enough space there to give any differentiation in stats, so the designers end up grafting on special non-stat rules to compensate.

An awful lot of differentiation could still exist if you say that (for example) Blood Angels various characteristics are taken care of by their stat lines giving them +5% to hit in combat at the cost of say, -5% to leadership as their bloodlust leads them astray. But fundamentally they'd still feel like Space Marines. At base 10 where almost every base troop has a WS 3+ or 4+ and a leadership of 7 - 8 there's just not enough room to make everyone feel different without wild overswings.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.

In those games, an MP40 is the same as a PPSh, PPS-43, Thompson, M3, Riesing, Sten, Blyskawica, ZB26, Type 100, et cetera, they're all submachine guns. An M1 Garand is the same as a FG42, Johnson, or G43, they're all semi-auto rifles. A Springfield '03 is the same as a Lee-Enfield, Kar98K, Arisaka, Lebel, K31, or Mosin-Nagant, they're all bolt-action rifles. Really the only oddball is the MP44/StG-44 and that is just the sole exemplar of assault rifles, a category that becomes substantially more common if you advance to a post-war setting.

So yeah, bolter or lasgun is fine; trying to delineate specific patterns of bolter or lasgun is too much for a mass-battle game. The game already treats all lasguns the same (and even considers autoguns functionally identical), it's just bolters that have three million variants.

Edit: And just to be explicitly clear- yes, from a commander's perspective, an MP40 and a PPSh are exactly the same. No German company commander at Stalingrad ever said 'I'm going to specifically pick the squad with Beutewaffen to attack Pavlov's House, because the PPSh is 8.33% more effective in close quarters'. What mattered for CQB was that they had submachine guns instead bolt-action rifles- that's the sort of distinction a company commander might care about.

There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Yeah, functionally a MP40 and a PPsh are the same. I guess you could nitpick and say "well, the PPsh has a drum and, higher muzzle velocity, a more powerful round and more rof, so it should have better stats", but really, I don't think there's that much a different in performance to warrant a change in stats in a mass battle game.

They're still both submachine guns that are intended to be used in close quarters and they're still going to chew up unarmoured infantry.

The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour, etc.

But taking a step back and looking at the game as a whole, you have to squeeze a lot more than SMs into a very limited range of dice results and stat ranges, and from that perspective there is exactly zero reason to differentiate PPSh and MP40. It is squeezed only to satisfy one particular group of vocal players, who unfortunately were nurtured enough to become a majority. This problem of system capacity is especially true when you got rid of comparable WS and your implementation of AP vs SV is utterly disfunctional because of AP proliferation. The capability of 40k system has been artificially expanded by bolting on Stratagem mechanic, but everybody can clearly see, that modern 40k is bursting on the seams already.

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

Karol wrote:
Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

Why insult marine players

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%.

What's the policy for Magic the Gathering?

Something like only the last 3 editions can be used in tournaments?

Would that be a good guideline for 40k, they only feel obliged to support options and armies that got models within 1 or 2 editions back?

So no need to worry about Rough Riders (who've not gotten new models since 1994) or medics on bikes any more.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Something like only the last 3 editions can be used in tournaments?

In the most popular format. WOTC does support other formats that do not rotate but they're less popular.

Would that be a good guideline for 40k, they only feel obliged to support options and armies that got models within 1 or 2 editions back?

Not really. Having all of the stuff you buy get invalidated every few months is one of the big reasons why people don't play the game. And that's in a CCG where the cost is purely financial, all you have to do to buy the next deck is swipe your credit card and wait a couple days for shipping. It's far worse in a game like 40k, where you spend tons of time and energy on building and painting a model and it becomes part of your army's lore. GW needs to continue supporting stuff permanently, especially when the only reason to drop that support is idiotic "no model no rules" policies and the model is still easily converted even if it can't be built that way directly from a single box.

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Marines definitely had months of domination in the early 9th before everyone else got their codexes.

It is important to remember the first instances of lethality creep were the multi-meltas and eradicators.

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

I'd vastly prefer they zoom the minutia of the game back out to something that matches the scale of the conflict the model count has ballooned up to.

It should be far closer to Epic than Kill Team given the size of battle and breadth of unit type they are trying to represent.

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

BrainFireBob wrote:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

Go and read some posts prior to and even around the last "huge Eldar release" to see for yourself how many players never started collecting Eldar because of how neglected the range is, and how many players choose SM instead of any xenos faction because of model range and support, not because it is their favourite. To this day more Aspects are in resin than in plastic and Warp Spiders are still the original '90s sculpt.

And of course you can steer the demand with advertising and IP building, this has been done for more than a century, since modern advertising was invented.

nou wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

Go and read some posts prior to and even around the last "huge Eldar release" to see for yourself how many players never started collecting Eldar because of how neglected the range is, and how many players choose SM instead of any xenos faction because of model range and support, not because it is their favourite. To this day more Aspects are in resin than in plastic and Warp Spiders are still the original '90s sculpt.

And of course you can steer the demand with advertising and IP building, this has been done for more than a century, since modern advertising was invented.

You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork. The premise Marine support is the sole reason for their dominance is unsupported. The extant of their dominance being furthered by support is, but that is not the same. GW didn't just anoint Marines as their flagship, they doubled down on what people were already buying to grow the brand.

Other faction's R&D is essentially supplemented by Marines- they pay the bills so there's freedom for other things. Denigrating Marines out of healousy is denigrating other players- who are the ones buying Marines over other things

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'm familiar. Also try potatos in France.

In both cases, it was more introduction for most people, and it took time to create demand. Beef was never dethroned.

Eldar- an arrogant race looking down on humans- were never going to dominate like Marines. Nor were undead robots or fungal football hooligans, with super soldiers created to fight them right there.

Edit: Guard are the one maybe I can see.

It's D&D 101: Parties tend to default Good.

Weren't chaos one of the most played factions in Warhammer Fantasy?

BrainFireBob wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'm familiar. Also try potatos in France.

In both cases, it was more introduction for most people, and it took time to create demand. Beef was never dethroned.

Eldar- an arrogant race looking down on humans- were never going to dominate like Marines. Nor were undead robots or fungal football hooligans, with super soldiers created to fight them right there.

Edit: Guard are the one maybe I can see.

It's D&D 101: Parties tend to default Good.

I don't know how long do you play, but Eldar depiction was changed to arrogant in 3rd and "good" in context of Marines exists only since Primaris. For the most part of 40k existence there were no good guys, all factions were horrible one way or the other, with Imperium proudly leading the way.

And you do realise, that advertisement is not simply "ads", but entire years/decades long market strategies? Entire luxury goods segment is driven by artificial creation of perceived value and channeling a vague desire of higher status into specific desire for a given product. FMCG segment is dominated by products that won the advertisement wars, not by products that are inherently better or desired more. I know this first hand - I worked in advertising for a decade and was directly responsible for creating/channeling this demand/desire. SMs are a main focus in 40k, because GW decided to make them poster boys, not the other way around - it wasn't so in 2nd and 3rd. Of course nowadays it has so much inertia already, that GW would have to invest disproportional amount of money to "level the field" for all major factions, so it won't happen.

23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

nou wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

^Well said.

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

I thought T8 was good, and that str 1-16 was a wide enough range to give every weapon their own character.

Toughness sure, Strength values are fine.

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

I thought T8 was good, and that str 1-16 is a wide enough range to give every weapon their own character.

At the start of 8th, I would've liked MEQ to go to S/T 6, and humans and similar to be S/T 4. Everything else adjusted to match that.

That way, there's space for "Stronger than a human, not as strong as a Marine," and similar.

Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

 Eldarain wrote:
I'd vastly prefer they zoom the minutia of the game back out to something that matches the scale of the conflict the model count has ballooned up to.

It should be far closer to Epic than Kill Team given the size of battle and breadth of unit type they are trying to represent.

Epic rules were really great. Elements of that game were in the early editions iirc E.g. 2nd. Ok, but 40k was supposed to be a different game. I wish that the granularity would be there but voluntary, so players choose to play at different levels of granularity… GW has the resources. Hard to chase the plastic crack through six layers of books and updates to books when all the answers are given well up front, so I guess that GW makes a decision not to support such a way to play.

 Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

read my mind.

 Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

scale up instead of down

Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

 Tyran wrote:
Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

sorry I had to.

 catbarf wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Exactly. Competitive crowd will go to whatever the strongest builds are, you can easily steer that to your liking. Narrative players need enough fluff and background to work with, and here you can also easily steer demand by publishing enough stories/campaigns/warzones, regardless of factions involved (when looking at playerbase as a whole, not any particular player specifically). And collectors tend to be attracted to vast model ranges more than to tiny sets of just a couple of models. If Space Elves range would have 100 units and SMs had just a couple, obsolete resin models in an antiquated scale, and continued to have a relatable, tragic fluff GW themselves have a 100% control over while SMs were still depicted as fascist, genocidal, trigger happy tyrants, you would see exactly same disparity in sales volume, but in the opposite proportions.

It has been 30 years of feeding this SM focus by any and all means. Yes, currently the popularity of SM is "natural" in that sense, but it most definitely didn't have to be so if GW attention was divided more evenly. It is not even surprising, that GW had them ported into fantasy in the form of Sigmarines, since it is now so easy to milk that cow.

And in all seriousness, GW seems to realise that in a way and this is why we have all those recently resurrected factions. They had to re-release Marines once already, because they run out of units possible for a single faction. They can't simply release "Secondaries Marines" in a few years to keep increasing sales and revenue.

Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

 Tyran wrote:
Senseless scaling up is just power creep.

40k barely uses S/T stats below 3 so they are basically free real state for increased granularity.

it's not really POWERcreep, no.

It gives more room to differentiate between units.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

And nothing with BS/WS should get to reroll

nou wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

This is called a "moving goalpost."

"Way more equal" does not mean "equal". They are different things.

You claimed Marines weren't favored in 2nd and 3rd. That is demonstrably false. You are now backpedalling, and claiming they weren't as favored.

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Did you not tead my remarks? GW is aggravating the situation, but Marines have always been the flagship faction. Claiming that's purely a marketing invention and not just seizing on momentum is a denial of agency on behalf of the public and assigning way more competence to GW than is merited


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

Exactly. Competitive crowd will go to whatever the strongest builds are, you can easily steer that to your liking. Narrative players need enough fluff and background to work with, and here you can also easily steer demand by publishing enough stories/campaigns/warzones, regardless of factions involved (when looking at playerbase as a whole, not any particular player specifically). And collectors tend to be attracted to vast model ranges more than to tiny sets of just a couple of models. If Space Elves range would have 100 units and SMs had just a couple, obsolete resin models in an antiquated scale, and continued to have a relatable, tragic fluff GW themselves have a 100% control over while SMs were still depicted as fascist, genocidal, trigger happy tyrants, you would see exactly same disparity in sales volume, but in the opposite proportions.

It has been 30 years of feeding this SM focus by any and all means. Yes, currently the popularity of SM is "natural" in that sense, but it most definitely didn't have to be so if GW attention was divided more evenly. It is not even surprising, that GW had them ported into fantasy in the form of Sigmarines, since it is now so easy to milk that cow.

And in all seriousness, GW seems to realise that in a way and this is why we have all those recently resurrected factions. They had to re-release Marines once already, because they run out of units possible for a single faction. They can't simply release "Secondaries Marines" in a few years to keep increasing sales and revenue.

I disagree with this. Eldar don't have the mass market appeal of engineered super soldiers. You might have Eldar dominating the playerbase, but it would not be the big fish wargame.

And again, in 2nd-3rd: Marines did not have so much more or so much younger model support. Yet still were more popular. GW has just kept using marines as a cash cow, because demand was already there.

WHFB was a pretty big fish and the last data I saw indicated that High Elves were the most played faction by a small margin. Granted it didn't have power-fantasy supersoldiers for them to compete against.

Keep in mind that in 2nd and 3rd, Marines were coming in the core box, and they were all over the marketing and branding in White Dwarf. GW has never actually had all the factions on a level playing field so all we can do is speculate.

 catbarf wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
My Chapters/Legions are not just paint jobs, and never should be treated as such.

Personally, I like having subfaction differentiation, but I dislike the way GW has done it.

The way 40K currently does it:

Army-wide freebie trait: Discourages using 'incompatible' units and makes the optimal ones significantly more difficult to balance.
Warlord traits and relics: Provides a single stereotypical option for each subfaction. You either take the one associated with your subfaction, or you take generic ones.
Unique stratagems: This is at least thematic and leverages existing systems well, but tied to the messy stratagem system.

So in practice, the differences between a Cadian army and a Vostroyan army are that one shoots marginally better stationary and the other can shoot in melee, and beyond that it's pretty much all just listbuilding choices that you could make with or without that subfaction bonus.

I'd rather see a system like:

Catachans
-Catachan Devils available as a unique Elites choice.
-Infantry units can take Heavy Flamers as a heavy weapon.
-Any infantry unit can be upgraded to Deathworld Veterans, which costs X points and provides Y benefit.
-1-2 Catachan-specific stratagems.

Notice how there are no free benefits, just additional options. If you want to do Catachan heavy armor you are free to do so and won't lose out on anything. If you want to lean into the rough-and-ready jungle fighters theme, then you have relevant upgrades, with appropriately balanced points costs. You don't get penalized for not sticking to the flanderised depiction of the regiment, and it doesn't throw the game balance out of whack with some units getting very relevant upgrades for free.

Late to the party but I just want to say that this is absolutely how I'd like to see subfactions handled, with the exception that I'd much prefer Stratagems be deleted entirely. They're an awful mechanic that are used as a justification to remove options and wargear, while adding many more awful mechanics into the game. Get. Rid. Of. Them.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Needless to say I think no troops should have WS2 or higher. I can tolerate the mechanic on a few heroes and giant monsters but that's it. Certainly not on the most common infantry in the same.

Using IG as a baseline I'd make Marines S5, T5 instead.

Typo, that should be W2 or higher, not Weapon Skill

Looking at Marines and IG I would go with W1 for all troops, W3 for HQs, W5-10 for vehicles. And adjust damage for weapons accordingly.

How would we feel about W10 tanks and d2d6 for lascannons, bringing back the small possibility of the 1 shot kill?

I half agree and half disagree. I like that there is a mechanic meant to represent tactical intelligence as there are units whose entire thing is their ability to mess around with tactical information: The Space Marine's and Tyranid's tendency to eat brains to gain their foes' knowledge, and tactical geniuses like Zhandrekh or Creed just to give a few examples.

Before CP, those abilities were quite boring as a simple "gain Preferred Enemy" or random buffs. Only Creed had a fun rule and even then it was mostly used as a meme.
Of course, the current Stratagem system doesn't work, but I would like to keep CPs around even without Stratagems. Maybe they could be used for a HH's reaction style rules?

 catbarf wrote:
WHFB was a pretty big fish and the last data I saw indicated that High Elves were the most played faction by a small margin. Granted it didn't have power-fantasy supersoldiers for them to compete against.

Keep in mind that in 2nd and 3rd, Marines were coming in the core box, and they were all over the marketing and branding in White Dwarf. GW has never actually had all the factions on a level playing field so all we can do is speculate.

Wasn't big enough to not axe, nor am I sure it would have become as bog as it was without 40k behind it.

Largely, though, that's what started me down this path. In settings like D&D, elves and half elves are more common. Why? Humans plus. When you have literal humans plus, no need for uber refined humans for wish-fulfillment.

I always idly speculate the increased relative popularity of Chaos in Fantasy is they're not traitors- they're loyal to their own culture.

BrainFireBob wrote:
Eldar don't have the mass market appeal of engineered super soldiers.

Given the popularity and sales numbers it's clear that genetically engineered super soldiers don't have the mass market appeal of giant anime robots, therefore Tau should be the face of the game instead of space marines.

 Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

Correlation, yes, but not solely causal. Other factions would sell better with more support. No one is denying that. I am pushing back against the idea that the *sole* reason Marines are more popular is that they had a product-agnostic advertising push. I'm asserting that Marines were selected for that push when the company had more limited resources (zero sum support options) because they already were the best seller.

Marines went plastic first because they had the best ROI. They didn't have the best ROI because they went plastic first. That's a feedback effect, not a primary driver

Edit: You're arguing with me arguing against a guy who claims that GW marketing is the only reason Marines are a popular faction, and any faction would be just as big with the same resource. My stance is they were chosen to promote because they were already more popular with the same level of support

BrainFireBob wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.

Well back in the day those other Daemons were T4, with the exception of Plaguebearers which were T5. It's the Daemons who have taken the hit through the years, and should be pushed back up again (and Space Marines brought back down.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

Correlation, yes, but not solely causal. Other factions would sell better with more support. No one is denying that. I am pushing back against the idea that the *sole* reason Marines are more popular is that they had a product-agnostic advertising push. I'm asserting that Marines were selected for that push when the company had more limited resources (zero sum support options) because they already were the best seller.

Marines went plastic first because they had the best ROI. They didn't have the best ROI because they went plastic first. That's a feedback effect, not a primary driver

Edit: You're arguing with me arguing against a guy who claims that GW marketing is the only reason Marines are a popular faction, and any faction would be just as big with the same resource. My stance is they were chosen to promote because they were already more popular with the same level of support

You do know, that there was a clear faction focus in GWs marketing since RT, right? The disparity wasn't so huge in 2nd, but the clear focus was already there at the very introduction of 40k and it only got worse along the way. There was never "same level of support", only less disparity, and SM were not chosen to be poster boys because they were already popular, they were engineered to be so since inception.

nou wrote:


It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have.

This is my point of dispute.

BrainFireBob wrote:

nou wrote:


It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have.

This is my point of dispute.

Go over to T3 or any other tournament aggregate, note down faction popularity numbers (T3 goes back nearly two decades) and then go to GW website and compare those numbers to model range sizes.

All major xenos armies are more popular than snowflake chapters and Eldar come third despite all those years of neglect. So I stay by that quote - xenos would pay equal share with equal model ranges. We simply do not have anything new to give our money to GW for after a relatively short time of collecting our chosen factions.

Tyran wrote:I half agree and half disagree. I like that there is a mechanic meant to represent tactical intelligence as there are units whose entire thing is their ability to mess around with tactical information: The Space Marine's and Tyranid's tendency to eat brains to gain their foes' knowledge, and tactical geniuses like Zhandrekh or Creed just to give a few examples.

Before CP, those abilities were quite boring as a simple "gain Preferred Enemy" or random buffs. Only Creed had a fun rule and even then it was mostly used as a meme.
Of course, the current Stratagem system doesn't work, but I would like to keep CPs around even without Stratagems. Maybe they could be used for a HH's reaction style rules?

Not to go off on a tangent, but an activation system other than basic boring IGOUGO provides an inherent mechanism to model command and control, and then you have lots of ways to implement those concepts.

I find stratagems to be just as clunky at that purpose, because so many boil down to 'spend points, gain Preferred Enemy for a turn'.

Just_Breathe wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

Major human factions include Imperial Guard, Sisters, Space Marines, Custodes, CSM, AdMech, Knights, and Chaos Knights. That's plenty of human factions to go around. If GW were to throw their marketing weight behind grizzled Guardsmen- with Space Marines relegated to surgically enhanced turbofascist child soldiers, not noble self-insert space knights- how sure are we that Guard as a concept would be any less popular than Marines are now? I mean, it's easy to say 'no, they're not superhuman like Marines are', but Marines aren't superhuman like Custodes are and still seem to be doing fine, and elements like Scions tap into the massive popularity of tacticool aesthetic that GW was clearly angling for with Phobos.

From a meta standpoint, Marines are a good entry point for newcomers because they're easy to paint, don't need a ton of models to play, and offer a lot of opportunity for personalization. But I can't help but feel like that logical start point for newbies has snowballed into them dominating the franchise.

Just_Breathe wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:

My point is that there is no evidence- none- that pushing Marines caused them being the biggest seller, and that GW was reacting to player demand, not creating it. Your response is to go from claiming things were equal in 2nd/3rd to "well, more equal." That's not in dispute, but Marines were favored even then. Hell, Codex: Armageddon, signature Guard-Ork conflict, was released alongside rules for 2 new Marine factions which both received specialty character blisters and splash release custom Tac squads.

It seems extremely silly to suggest that there wouldn't be a correlation between the amount a product is shown/advertised, and the sales of that product. Would marines still be the most popular faction if the imagery and advertising was more equally distributed? Probably. Would other factions sell more if they didn't take such a back seat to marines? Yes.

I think maybe the fact that us here on Earth, right now, are humans, drives the pointer in that direction, if not by a little bit.

Major human factions include Imperial Guard, Sisters, Space Marines, Custodes, CSM, AdMech, Knights, and Chaos Knights.

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

That’s a weird way to spell Chaos Knights or Ad Mech

 Just_Breathe wrote:

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

It's possible you think that because of the sheer amount of air time.

I don’t need a lot of detail or granularity, but I do wish vehicles would top out at T10 or 12 and a rule stating if a T value is more than double an S value that the weapon cannot cause damage to that unit.
This would end things like lasguns and flamers wounding the super heavies, while allowing for more distinctions between vehicles, and weapons.

 Just_Breathe wrote:

I think this supports what I thought.
Which of all the human factions is the *coolest* ?
Spess Marines.

[Citation needed.]

Coolest human faction is Admech. The sheer customization you should be able to do with a single tech priest alone is enough to out customize most factions. The Mechanicus video game, were you choose mechadendrites and armor pieces and guns, is only a small taste of the customization.

But, for my friend, Imperial Guard are the coolest. They're mere mortals facing the cosmic powers that be. They fight until they win, or die holding the line. Guardsmen should be another extremely customizable human faction.

For my other friend, the coolest are Space Marines, as they are barely even human, storming into the dangers of the galaxy, bolters in hand, ready to fight unimaginable power.

For my other other friend, it's the Inquisition, who keep track of wrongdoings and guide the Imperium gently, or forcefully if required. They can be anything from a lone man in the politics game, looking for criminals, to a psyker in terminator armor with a power hammer, seeking to destroy the foes of the Imperium.

I could go on, but I don't view Marines as the coolest faction for Humans. They are cool, and I don't think anyone would deny their mass appeal, but other factions, given similar marketing, would probably compete with Space Marines, though probably not beat.

I have a friend who only knew about Space Marines for 40k, but after being exposed to more factions, came to prefer T'au and Tyranids.

Coolest human faction is sisters.

I'm never going to play them or buy a single model, but if someone asked my what fully painted army they should gift me for my display case, it would be them.

SM are not the coolest (which is an entirely subjective concept), just the easiest to play and paint.

Guard, sisters, ad mech require way more models on average than marines, and both mech and sisters are quite harder to paint. They're also all much more unforgiving compared to SM in terms of gameplay.

Knights are also as easy as marines but they're an extreme army concept and models wise, which doesn't appeal many people.

Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

If wenare properly going back in time they were released because people loved fantasy chaos warrriors and they wanted a sci fi plate mail knight alternative. They did push space marines from 2nd onwards certainly and i believe that was genuinely about the demand. These days it has become ridiculous though

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

The one thing that could make Marines actually be cool is for them to stop being the bestest Mary Sues they are now. Make them actually struggle with their tiny numbers, make them aware of the absolute certainty of ultimate defeat to all those horrors of 41st millenium. As they are now, they are mindless, ignorant, trigger happy zealots in shiny armour. Especially since all this Primaris „imperium is no longer technologically stagnant” change of paradigm to tacticool, advanced tech.

As to the coolest human faction - the gradual loss of humanity of AdMech is a way, way better suited for a grimdark setting than indestructible zealots, that somehow can beat literal gods because they are 3m high and have two hearts. As far as zealots go, SoB are also way more interesting, if only for the caricatural scale of their devoted ways and the whole failure, punishment and repentance theme. They are actually the most human of all human factions. IG is not my cup of tea, but DKoK are a great idea of having I WW level of tech clash against all sorts of cosmic foes.

So no, SMs are not the coolest human faction, they are only the most shoved down the collective throat human faction.

Any details that create an opportunity for an interesting, impactful in-game decision are welcome.

Details that are there just as memory load and increase the game's already unacceptable upkeep, but do not affect outcomes and player decisions in any meaningful way are just fat to be removed with zero hesitation. Lean and elegant WH40K rules...one can only dream!

40k tries to group all its players into too small a box. A single set of rules shouldn't have to represent gretchin and warlord titans. It's butter scraped over too much bread.

If you want to use the same models for a company-level game as you do an army-level game, cool, but the rules shouldn't have to cover that spread.

So my answer to the original question is there should be different rulesets to cover the different levels of granularity. Kill Team (i.e., the patrol-level game) can have that design space for all the different CCWs, vastly expanded stat lines, and 40+ versions of the bolter (or not). But it shouldn't cover things like Leman Russes, Storm Ravens, or even high-level characters (except maybe in a very specific scenario). Here you get a vast difference between infantry characters. That Grot may be WS2 and 1 wound, but a Guardsman is WS4 with 6 wounds, and a Marine is WS6, but with 12 wounds and each attack causes 8 wounds. You ever see an Space Marine in the old Inquisitor game? He could throw a rock and do more damage than shooting his bolter. But you know what? In this level of game, you might only get 4 of him. But because you're not dealing with 6 squads of dudes, you can have that granularity for their weapons and stats without it turning into a bookkeeping mire. I think Kill Team has the basis of this. Instead of just playing a low point game of 40k, you're playing something else, with more detail per model. I've not played, so I don't know how much it does wrong.

The company-level game, which I think should be "normal" 40k, would drop some of that granularity, but in return have a wider spread of unit types, including vehicles, heroes, and the like. Nothing like flyers or titans or even super-heavies at this level, but you'd get most of the rest. The result would probably compress the stat lines for infantry, as if you're dealing with tanks, there's only so much that would differentiate a normal human from a Custode. This would also compress weapon stats, too. At this scale, there's not much difference between a hellstorm bolt rifle and a godwyn pattern bolter, and there shouldn't need to be. I think Kyoto's CCW reduction goes a little too far at this scale, but not drastically. Add modifiers to a base set of weapons and you get a wide variety of shooties and stabbies, suitable for a wide variety of armies. Restrict poison-types to the Dark Eldar and Nurgle. Let Ork guns shoot out a terrible amount of bullets since they're only hitting 1/3 of the time at best. Give all the Grey Knights insta-kill force weapons. Specialize.

Further up the chain you get Apocalypse-style army-level stuff, and you get to include all your wacky huge things. Stompas, Mantas, go nuts. But most infantry at this level is going to be basically the same. And probably die in droves. There wouldn't even really be space for different CCWs. Probably just basic weapons, heavy weapons, and choppy weapons. Knights don't care if you're hitting them with a plague sword or a chainsword. It would kind of be like the abstraction you get with Power Level in current 40k. It doesn't really matter what you arm your regular dudes with at this scale, they're worth the same amount. Also, why is your close combat squad attacking that Titan? They lose, and probably all die immediately. Also, you're going to need more space to play this game, but if you've got the armies to cover it, you've probably got access to a big enough space.

As for what we have, I'm okay with Marines having a lot of different versions of themselves because otherwise everyone would be playing against the same marine army in the same way. Would that force other players into other armies? Maybe, but Marines are overwhelmingly popular for a reason, and GW pushing them so hard is the result of them being popular, not the cause. The market can support 10+ Marine codices, so why try to force them into 1 book? It's similar to trying to force grots and titans into one ruleset. Aside, the devs might not be able to properly support that many Marine armies, but that's a different issue.

But if you shift the granularity level, different Marine chapters become really important at the patrol level, a little important at the company level, and almost identical at the army level. At that middle level, there is enough to distinguish different modes of warfare, but I don't think we need full books to describe them all. Slight modifications to a "standard" Marine layout should be enough, while also allowing for more radical disruptions for established armies (looking at you Wolves).

Also, don't make chaos marines follow the codex astartes. They should, at most, be organized like the legions were. But that's an argument for another thread.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

^This is the thing. Although I'd argue that the spits-acid and eating brains are some of the cool part. The part where they keep getting biggerer and tougher and blah blah blah is the garbage thing.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Space Marines are that kid who has to be the best at literally everything in any game of make-believe.

"I'm really tough, so I can take a hit and keep going!"
"Yeah, well, I'm even tougher. I can take a bajillion hits and it doesn't even weaken me!"
"I'm really strong!"
"But I'm stronger and my armour makes me even strongerer!"
"I'm fast, like can snatch an arrow out of the air!"
"Well, my super speed and reflexes allows me to run up to the archer and kill them before they even finish drawing the arrow!"
"I am super sneaky, I can hide in the shadows and sneak past people!"
"I'm so sneaky that I can basically turn invisible!"
"How come you have all our powers?"
"Oh! And I can spit acid! And I can learn things by eating them! And..."

That kid has never been cool.

This.

nou wrote:

The one thing that could make Marines actually be cool is for them to stop being the bestest Mary Sues they are now. Make them actually struggle with their tiny numbers, make them aware of the absolute certainty of ultimate defeat to all those horrors of 41st millenium. As they are now, they are mindless, ignorant, trigger happy zealots in shiny armour. Especially since all this Primaris „imperium is no longer technologically stagnant” change of paradigm to tacticool, advanced tech.

I think an interesting angle could be a contrast between the Imperial propaganda about Marines (where they're the most powerful soldiers in existence and are completely invincible, able to take down enemies of any size or number), and the reality - Marines are strong and skilled but are still outclassed by many of their foes. e.g. Tyranid Warriors can tear them apart, Necrons can atomise them from afar etc.. This isn't to say that Marines lose these fights - just that they cannot stroll invincibly into battle and must instead constantly search for every possible edge (be it strategic, tactical, using terrain/cover, using stealth, etc.) in order to emerge triumphant.

As it stands, I think there's a bit of an issue wherein reality and (what used to be) propaganda have effectively merged such that there's no difference between the hype about Marines and their true capabilities.

Looking back the other original question, I'm thinking the game could be better at half the level of current granularity. Not half of everything, but a lot less in some areas that would allow consolidation of a lot of rules to prevent overall confusion.

Wargear is a great area to reduce the level of granularity. As often pointed out, there are way too many variants of the same weapons that seem to exist only to justify different units. We do not need all the following weapons to exist in Codex Space Marines when they are all R24" S4 AP0 D1 with slight modifications along the way:

Bolt Carbine: Assault 2

Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1

Instigator Bolt Carbine: Assault 1, AP -1, D2, and Ignores Look Out, Sir

Marksman Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1 and Automatically Wounds on Hit Roll of unmodified 6

Master-crafted Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1, AP -1, D2

Master-crafted Instigator Bolt Carbine: Assault 1, AP -2, D3, and Ignores Look Out, Sir

Master-crafted Occulus Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1, D2, and Target does not receive the benefits of Cover

Occulus Bolt Carbine: Rapid Fire 1 and Target does not receive the benefits of Cover

Special Issue Bolt Carbine: Assault 2, AP -2, D2

Special Issue Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1, AP -2

Would it kill us to have one Boltgun/Bolt Carbine stat line (Assault 2, 24", S4, AP-, D1) and include special rules on the units as needed to fill their special rule instead of a whole new gun? Incursers already have the Multi-Spectum Array ability, so put "Each time an attack is made with this weapon the target does not receive the benefits of cover against that attack" as part of that ability rather than on the Occulus bolt carbine (which is oddly Rapid Fire instead of Assault like the normal bolt carbine).
Would the game implode if we removed the special character weapons and instead let them make a number of shooting attacks equal to their Attacks Characteristic (i.e. Assault A)?

After dealing with weapon bloat, get rid of the unnecessary datasheets that represent simple weapon changes. We don't need Predator Destructor and Predator Annihilator datasheets when a single Predator datasheet will get the job done with the option to change the turret weapon. It's not like the Leman Russ doesn't have 7 different turret options on one datasheet.

Finally, work on the Stratagems to reduce them overall. Personally, I'd rather the vast majority of Stratagems became pre-game Stratagems with at just a handful still usable during the game (mostly the standard rulebook stratagems with maybe 1 faction stratagem and 1 sub-faction stratagem). That would speed up game play and be much easier to balance.