So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

Because apparently gunboats and multiple deployment drops are a problem, and in true GW fashion they fixed it with the elegance and finesse of a epileptic rhino in shop full of fine china.

It seems now that in the grim darkness of the far future, every transport vehicle driver, be they Human, Eldar, Tau, Ork or Necron, now has abandonment issues and will detonate their transport in a fit of panic if they don't have a buddy holding their hand when the battle starts.

I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

If only there was a way of having it so that a DEDICATED transport was bought for a specific unit, and not just any old ransoms.
Hmmm...

 Lord Damocles wrote:
If only there was a way of having it so that a DEDICATED transport was bought for a specific unit, and not just any old ransoms.
Hmmm...

You know it makes sense somehow.

It's a bit orthogonal to the point though -even in earlier editions, a unit that bought a DT wasn't FORCED to employ it if game conditions were not conducive.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
If only there was a way of having it so that a DEDICATED transport was bought for a specific unit, and not just any old ransoms.
Hmmm...

Yeah, the "dedicated" in dedicated transport used to have meaning. Now it's just a holdover from earlier editions.
It should really just be called "transport" these days.
It should probably belong to a slot type of its own instead of that silly convention of "you can have one for each unit of infantry. Including characters. You know, the guys that come in a unit size of 1."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

The basic Matched stuff is what I used to do. Refund the core (not that I took more than one detachment anyway), whatever the starting CP is then +1 or whatever for each turn. Remember that the Tournament packs are not how you have to play Matched, we never used them.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

Nope.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

I'd say it depends upon the mission being played. Afterall, it's the mission pack that tells you to muster a Matched Play/Crusade/etc type force.
Your matched play forces will automatically fit in Crusade. Nothings stopping you from following Ro3, flyer limitations, etc.... Just don't assume the Crusade player feels bound by them.
Some Crusade forces might have problems if forced to deploy under Matched Play restrictions though.

Since that sledgehammer of a rule arrived I've had people tell me with a straight face that:

1. There is no other reason to bring transports than to move troops up the table to objectives, so if you're not doing that you don't need transports.

2. That having empty transports is "abusing the rules".

3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

4. That fixing the rules for specific problematic transports would be like playing "whack a mole" and that, as a result, it is just far easier to apply this rule to all transports.

Apparently this massive epidemic of killer abusive empty transports got by all of us!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

To the first question, no- like many of the other problematic "For Balance" rules (Aircraft limit, no mixing subfactions, Ro3] these are matched play only.

The second question is harder, and will require conversation. Generally, I'd say it goes with the mission you are using, but you could flip for it or hybridize depending on your opponent.

This is another flaw with Crusade that you have identified in the past with which I actually agree- it doesn't integrate as smoothly into other modes of play as GW claims it does. Another area for improvement.

wait, thats a thing? What were the problematic datasheet?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Since that sledgehammer of a rule arrived I've had people tell me with a straight face that:

1. There is no other reason to bring transports than to move troops up the table to objectives, so if you're not doing that you don't need transports.

2. That having empty transports is "abusing the rules".

3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

4. That fixing the rules for specific problematic transports would be like playing "whack a mole" and that, as a result, it is just far easier to apply this rule to all transports.

Apparently this massive epidemic of killer abusive empty transports got by all of us!

I hope you laughed in their faces.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

*Laughs in Bradley*

ccs wrote:
I hope you laughed in their faces.

Some of them post here, and to do so would break Rule #1, so sadly no.

I know lots of folks have been taking empty Land Speeder storms (without scouts in their army), as they are cheap and fast, but I've not really seen anyone else taking transports without troops to go in them.

I'd be fine with each transport needing to belong to a unit in the army which can ride in it, but being destroyed if not actively transporting a unit pre-game is a bit much.

PenitentJake wrote:

The second question is harder, and will require conversation. Generally, I'd say it goes with the mission you are using, but you could flip for it or hybridize depending on your opponent.

This is another flaw with Crusade that you have identified in the past with which I actually agree- it doesn't integrate as smoothly into other modes of play as GW claims it does. Another area for improvement.

Other than occasionally the Ro3 it did mesh fairly smoothly. Until they started mucking around with Matched play that is...

I just hope modern IFV crews are aware that if they drop their troops off more than a hundred yards from the enemy, their vehicle will break down.

It's in the Matched Play rules, you see.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I just hope modern IFV crews are aware that if they drop their troops off more than a hundred yards from the enemy, their vehicle will break down.

Umm, Unit, don't you know that 40k is an abstraction and not a simulation! (/nonsensical argument)

 jaredb wrote:
I know lots of folks have been taking empty Land Speeder storms (without scouts in their army), as they are cheap and fast, but I've not really seen anyone else taking transports without troops to go in them.

I am trying to think of any other examples and struggling. Why would you take a Wave Serpent over a Falcon if you don't need the extra transport capacity? I guess there might be some armies that run out of slots before they run out of points and that is going to increase now that we get fewer CPs to buy detachments with.

I sometimes used to take TLAC Razorbacks in 8th and not bother putting anyone inside as they were cheap and provided a lot of dakka but Redemptors are better value for the same job in 9th and can hit hard in melee is necessary.

 Gert wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

*Laughs in Bradley*

i am so tempted to just start posting pics of IFV's... or pointing out that it IS often considered in mobile warfare doctrine as the main weapon of mechanized infantry (what with normally it having large calibre autoguns (cough f.e. chimera) and antitank launcher capabilities (cough f.e. chimera and seeker missiles..))..

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

It's the exact type of "narrative" change you've been advocating for for a while now; transports being forced to be used as transports and all. I kind of assumed you wrote the rule considering it fits your 'real wargame' shtick perfectly.

But hey, someone at GW is listening to you! That's great right? Next they'll add back that whole 'small shrubs kill tanks' rule you're so fond of.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

*Laughs in Bradley*

i am so tempted to just start posting pics of IFV's... or pointing out that it IS often considered in mobile warfare doctrine as the main weapon of mechanized infantry (what with normally it having large calibre autoguns (cough f.e. chimera) and antitank launcher capabilities (cough f.e. chimera and seeker missiles..))..

Yeah, the IFV stands for "Infantry FIGHTING Vehicle".
It doesn't stand for "taxi." IFVs fight too.

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

It's the exact type of "narrative" change you've been advocating for for a while now; transports being forced to be used as transports and all. I kind of assumed you wrote the rule considering it fits your 'real wargame' shtick perfectly.

But hey, someone at GW is listening to you! That's great right? Next they'll add back that whole 'small shrubs kill tanks' rule you're so fond of.

What?

This is nonsense. Forcing troops to begin the game embarked on their transport is not a rule made for narrative reasons.

Furthermore, I certainly don't support it (obviously). Because it isn't narratively supportable.

Neither is 'small shrubs kill tanks', despite your attempted straw man of my position. I would protest strongly against a gaming group calling a small shrub difficult terrain for a tank. I do think that tanks should have a chance to bog down in terrain that is actually difficult for them to traverse though.

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

It's the exact type of "narrative" change you've been advocating for for a while now; transports being forced to be used as transports and all. I kind of assumed you wrote the rule considering it fits your 'real wargame' shtick perfectly.

But hey, someone at GW is listening to you! That's great right? Next they'll add back that whole 'small shrubs kill tanks' rule you're so fond of.

Explain how a vehicle spontaneously exploding if it has no passengers when the battle starts, which is also assuming that the soldiers are always in their transport instead of outside of it when the fighting starts, either because they're taken by surprise or getting in position to engage the enemy, is "narrative".

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

It's the exact type of "narrative" change you've been advocating for for a while now; transports being forced to be used as transports and all. I kind of assumed you wrote the rule considering it fits your 'real wargame' shtick perfectly.

But hey, someone at GW is listening to you! That's great right? Next they'll add back that whole 'small shrubs kill tanks' rule you're so fond of.

What?

This is nonsense. Forcing troops to begin the game embarked on their transport is not a rule made for narrative reasons.

Furthermore, I certainly don't support it (obviously). Because it isn't narratively supportable.

Neither is 'small shrubs kill tanks', despite your attempted straw man of my position. I would protest strongly against a gaming group calling a small shrub difficult terrain for a tank. I do think that tanks should have a chance to bog down in terrain that is actually difficult for them to traverse though.

Yeah, isn't it marshland, forests or mud that can stop tanks? I don't think a tank is going to care about a shrubbery. Maybe if we're talking about the bocage from ww2, and those were about 5 meters tall.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Explain how a vehicle spontaneously exploding if it has no passengers when the battle starts, which is also assuming that the soldiers are always in their transport instead of outside of it when the fighting starts, either because they're taken by surprise or getting in position to engage the enemy, is "narrative".

He won't be able to. He just came in here to have a go at Unit.

 Karhedron wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I know lots of folks have been taking empty Land Speeder storms (without scouts in their army), as they are cheap and fast, but I've not really seen anyone else taking transports without troops to go in them.

I am trying to think of any other examples and struggling. Why would you take a Wave Serpent over a Falcon if you don't need the extra transport capacity? I guess there might be some armies that run out of slots before they run out of points and that is going to increase now that we get fewer CPs to buy detachments with.

I sometimes used to take TLAC Razorbacks in 8th and not bother putting anyone inside as they were cheap and provided a lot of dakka but Redemptors are better value for the same job in 9th and can hit hard in melee is necessary.

wave serpents are better than falcons, thats why

It is because GW is a student of the war in Ukraine and BTGs deploying short staffed with only enough men in a squad to crew the BMP with no dismounts have been somewhat ineffective. So same situation must apply here

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

wave serpents are better than falcons, thats why

In 8th, sure. In 9th edition, not so much. Wave Serpents may be tougher but Falcons carry more guns and can Deep Strike in like Drop Pods. I only bring Wave Serpents for my Wraithguard these days. If I want a gunboat, I would sooner take a Falcon.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
It is because GW is a student of the war in Ukraine and BTGs deploying short staffed with only enough men in a squad to crew the BMP with no dismounts have been somewhat ineffective. So same situation must apply here

Doesn't the DT rule at launch force you to have infantry for the tank? Even if it is just one character...

...which this rule doesn't fix. Now that character just has to start embarked.

 Karhedron wrote:

 jaredb wrote:
I know lots of folks have been taking empty Land Speeder storms (without scouts in their army), as they are cheap and fast, but I've not really seen anyone else taking transports without troops to go in them.

I am trying to think of any other examples and struggling. Why would you take a Wave Serpent over a Falcon if you don't need the extra transport capacity? I guess there might be some armies that run out of slots before they run out of points and that is going to increase now that we get fewer CPs to buy detachments with.

For the argument of Wave Serpent over Falcons, the Wave Serpent is equal to troop choices whereas the Falcon is limited to the Heavy Slots(which tends to be less. F.ex. last GT I ran 4 Wave Serpent Gunboats whereas I only would have 3 Heavy Slots in a battalion. For the record I was also running 2x10 people Howling Banshees in 2 serpents so they get an extra 3" deployment range from the transport.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Doesn't the DT rule at launch force you to have infantry for the tank? Even if it is just one character...

...which this rule doesn't fix. Now that character just has to start embarked.

It's traditional for Mechanised Infantry Battalions to be unable to receive commands from their COs at the start of combat, as they all have to stay in their transports right until the moment the enemy is sighted, at which point they can rush to fill the positions they presumably set up earlier before returning to their transport (which are only ever used for transportation, and nothing else! Ever!).

This is because in the 41st Millennium, every tank is a radio-signal-destroying Faraday cage + explosive with a pressure plate that must be kept down until the battle starts!

It makes perfect sense. Abstraction. Not a simulation. So there!

The Falcon is a heavy choice now? That's silly. Wasn't it a dedicated transport option?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Falcon is a heavy choice now? That's silly. Wasn't it a dedicated transport option?

Falcon has been heavy since at least 8th
Wave serpent has been a transport since.. .forever?

Nah it's been a heavy since 3rd.

It's just now they're also Drop Pods because umm... because... uhh... well just because!

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Falcon is a heavy choice now? That's silly. Wasn't it a dedicated transport option?

Falcon has been heavy since at least 8th
Wave serpent has been a transport since.. .forever?

8th ed is relatively recent though. Wasn't the Wave Serpent introduced in 5th ed too? I don't remember seeing Wave Serpents in 4th ed. I did see Falcons though.
Why is a Falcon a heavy choice anyway? Doesn't only have like, a scatter laser and maybe a bright lance?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The Falcon is a heavy choice now? That's silly. Wasn't it a dedicated transport option?

Falcon has been heavy since at least 8th
Wave serpent has been a transport since.. .forever?

8th ed is relatively recent though. Wasn't the Wave Serpent introduced in 5th ed too? I don't remember seeing Wave Serpents in 4th ed. I did see Falcons though.
Why is a Falcon a heavy choice anyway? Doesn't only have like, a scatter laser and maybe a bright lance?

Falcon get a bigger brightlance + any heavy weapon + shuricannon/twin shuricatapult

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

People that take Land Raiders as dedicated transports for their termintors sometimes put the termintors in deep strike.

Karol wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

People that take Land Raiders as dedicated transports for their termintors sometimes put the termintors in deep strike.

Ok now that does sound kind of cheesy. Again though, that should not require a blanket instant kill rule to fix.

Karol wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I didn't know that was a problem.

Next question: do the army construction rules (6CP starting +2 CP per turn, free SHA detachments, and this weird DT thing) apply to Crusade?

If not, whose Army Construction rules do you use when playing a Matched Play army against a Crusade army?

People that take Land Raiders as dedicated transports for their termintors sometimes put the termintors in deep strike.

Land raiders arent dedicated transport, theyre Heavy support.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Falcon get a bigger brightlance + any heavy weapon + shuricannon/twin shuricatapult

Fair enough, but isn't that kind of what a Razorback gets? Aren't Razorbacks DTs?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Ok now that does sound kind of cheesy. Again though, that should not require a blanket instant kill rule to fix.

Someone bringing a land raider is already gimping themselves, no need to add 200pts in it to make it an even bigger % of your list.

And land raiders won't be affected by the new rule anyway, theyre Heavy supports, not Dedicated Transports

The Falcon, at least in 40k scale, first came about in 2nd Ed, before there even were "Heavy Support" slots. Ditto for the Fire Prism.

I suppose you could argue that the Wave Serpent in 40k scale also showed up in 2nd Ed, but that was a niche Armorcast kit. The proper GW Wave Serpent kit arrived a number of years later during 3rd... I think? Maybe 4th. It's been a while.

Karol wrote:
People that take Land Raiders as dedicated transports for their termintors sometimes put the termintors in deep strike.

Oh no! Such abuse! Quick better make the Land Raiders explode them. That'll show those unscrupulous players who have the temerity to use their transports as anything other than a transport!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Falcon get a bigger brightlance + any heavy weapon + shuricannon/twin shuricatapult

Fair enough, but isn't that kind of what a Razorback gets? Aren't Razorbacks DTs?

yeah razorbacks are DTs


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Oh no! Such abuse! Quick better make the Land Raiders explode them. That'll show those unscrupulous players who have the temerity to use their transports as anything other than a transport!

again, no land raider will blow up if empty with the new rules

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nah it's been a heavy since 3rd.

It's just now they're also Drop Pods because umm... because... uhh... well just because!

It gives them a niche job. Falcons have been playing second fiddle to WSs since the serpents got a kit.

And I’d rather see the ability baked into their profile/dataslate instead of back as the cloudstrike strategem. I think they’ve been pulling the DS trick since the first apoc book, might be wrong there.

Maybe it is because no new transport kits have been released lately outside of Heresy, so GW doesn't need to sell many?

Ah yes, a rule to fix Eldar (who arguably aren't broken - I haven't heard of Wave Serpents being egregiously bad the way some units are) has instead blown a leg off of mechanized lists everywhere...

I rate this 10 GWs out of 10.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum:

I can't wait for the Armageddon Steel Legion doctrine:

"The renowned Armageddon mechanized regiments are such experts in mobile warfare that they can start the game dismounted and the transport doesn't break down!"

Such experts, wow, ooh, no one can rival their skill.

Well Guard wound everything they hit on 6's automatically and their hand-fired tube mortars and hand-winched artillery cannons are more accurate than Tau guided seeking missile launchers, so why shouldn't their transports also be immune from (literally) crippling abandonment issues like all other transports apparently now have?

Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

It's clear as day.

A dedicated transport that starts the game without troops embarked is automatically destroyed.

Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

Yey for units automatically self-destroying for simply existing. Are we still in the best edition ever?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

wait, really?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

wait, really?

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

wait, really?

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

You call it broken , i call it the ingame point Handicap mechanic

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

wait, really?

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

Well as long as its under the table it should be fine

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

oh, FW stuff with a weird deployment rule already on the datasheet. I think crying about it right now is a bit early, i expect GW will FAQ "Subterranean Assault" to not blow it up

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Don't get me started on the fact that there are units which exist in the dedicated transport slots that don't even have a transport capacity.

wait, really?

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

So….deploy, then…

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

oh, FW stuff with a weird deployment rule already on the datasheet. I think crying about it right now is a bit early, i expect GW will FAQ "Subterranean Assault" to not blow it up

Right but the DT rule in the first place is in a FAQ core rules update.

Are we at the point of FAQing the FAQ? Are we still in the best edition ever?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

oh, FW stuff with a weird deployment rule already on the datasheet. I think crying about it right now is a bit early, i expect GW will FAQ "Subterranean Assault" to not blow it up

Right but the DT rule in the first place is in a FAQ core rules update.

Are we at the point of FAQing the FAQ? Are we still in the best edition ever?

where is the DT rules change exactly? I thought it was with the new GT pack?

40k just feels real surreal this week.

There's just layers upon layers of weird things that I never knew were concerns and even they don't seem to know what their rules are for chaos.

I feel like I wandered into a conference call where people are seriously planning the colonization of the Hollow Earth and debating the Werewolf Defense Act, and I'm just having a normal day, wondering what I'm doing for dinner.

Now now.

Have you seen any Werewolves recently?

See. It’s working perfectly.

In that situation you should be worried about what the Werewolves (over there) want for dinner.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Check out the Hades Breaching Drill sometime, it'll be a hoot to play with these new rules.

oh, FW stuff with a weird deployment rule already on the datasheet. I think crying about it right now is a bit early, i expect GW will FAQ "Subterranean Assault" to not blow it up

Right but the DT rule in the first place is in a FAQ core rules update.

Are we at the point of FAQing the FAQ? Are we still in the best edition ever?

where is the DT rules change exactly? I thought it was with the new GT pack?

It is in the new GT pack which also includes an errata'd and updated Core Rules document.

Make of that what you will.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

The rule is very clear.

However, I don't think GW is intending for this to be some balancing rule, but as a "how they believe you should play the game" rule. Ie. if people aren't using transports as transports then GW feels like it isn't in the "spirit of the game".

That is at least only reason I can see for this rule. Sadly we will never know as GW isn't upfront about why they do these changes.

It's another kick for Chaos.

Take a heavy weapon to take advantage of doctrines, the transport is toast.

Regular SMs can combat squad their heavy.

Increases value of hybrid vehicles- Stormraven, Falcon, Land Raiders.

That's all I can see. It's a weird rule. Unless they want to penalize movement on smaller boards- phase out the Rhino?

Ooh, getting rid of blocking LoS to foster taking terrain, maybe?

I don't know. Reeks of a Dev's pet peeve.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

The rule is very clear.

However, I don't think GW is intending for this to be some balancing rule, but as a "how they believe you should play the game" rule. Ie. if people aren't using transports as transports then GW feels like it isn't in the "spirit of the game".

That is at least only reason I can see for this rule. Sadly we will never know as GW isn't upfront about why they do these changes.

Unfortunately, part of a mechanized company's tactical utility is it's flexibility. Need tanks? Well, we have some firepower that is armored. Need infantry? Well, we have a few men who are heavily armed.

Do you know what vehicles are called where the troops stay mounted for fighting?
Tanks. (The 'you' in this paragraph isn't referring to anyone specifically. Just a turn of phrase to build the rhetorical question).

GW's opinion of the spirit of the game is clearly not narrative, and that is why I am so infuriated with people who claim 9th is the most narrative edition ever.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

That's unbelievably stupid.

Or, sadly, starting to get believable at this point.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

The rule is very clear.

However, I don't think GW is intending for this to be some balancing rule, but as a "how they believe you should play the game" rule. Ie. if people aren't using transports as transports then GW feels like it isn't in the "spirit of the game".

That is at least only reason I can see for this rule. Sadly we will never know as GW isn't upfront about why they do these changes.

Unfortunately, part of a mechanized company's tactical utility is it's flexibility. Need tanks? Well, we have some firepower that is armored. Need infantry? Well, we have a few men who are heavily armed.

Do you know what vehicles are called where the troops stay mounted for fighting?
Tanks. (The 'you' in this paragraph isn't referring to anyone specifically. Just a turn of phrase to build the rhetorical question).

GW's opinion of the spirit of the game is clearly not narrative, and that is why I am so infuriated with people who claim 9th is the most narrative edition ever.

It's clearly 100% narrative. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not a narrative rule designed with narrative intent to force narrative accommodating play.

'Transports should be transporting stuff because they're transports', is the exact type of argument narrative players have been making since the dawn of 40k.

It's the EXACT type of rule you've been advocating for the entire time you've been on the forum, you just don't like this SPECIFIC one. Which is a bit hypocritical coming from someone who likes Heresy. Yeah, it's weird that some vehicles blow up if they don't have troops in them; but at least EVERY vehicle doesn't blow up when they touch grass.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

That's unbelievably stupid.

Or, sadly, starting to get believable at this point.

Narrative players screwing up the game again. SMH.

Yeah, i'm gonna stick to OnePageRules for a while. (or exclusively tempest of war for actual 40k games)

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

Because apparently gunboats and multiple deployment drops are a problem, and in true GW fashion they fixed it with the elegance and finesse of a epileptic rhino in shop full of fine china.

It seems now that in the grim darkness of the far future, every transport vehicle driver, be they Human, Eldar, Tau, Ork or Necron, now has abandonment issues and will detonate their transport in a fit of panic if they don't have a buddy holding their hand when the battle starts.

Too bad about dt's that can't start with unit embarked and thus dying by default

ERJAK wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

That's unbelievably stupid.

Or, sadly, starting to get believable at this point.

Narrative players screwing up the game again. SMH.

Yeah. . . no. Narrative players are not at fault for GWs idiocy.

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Are we sure folk haven’t mix-read this rule?

Because it’s really daft. And whilst far from having my finger on the game’s modern pulse, I’ve not really read complaints about people exploiting DTs?

The rule is very clear.

However, I don't think GW is intending for this to be some balancing rule, but as a "how they believe you should play the game" rule. Ie. if people aren't using transports as transports then GW feels like it isn't in the "spirit of the game".

That is at least only reason I can see for this rule. Sadly we will never know as GW isn't upfront about why they do these changes.

Unfortunately, part of a mechanized company's tactical utility is it's flexibility. Need tanks? Well, we have some firepower that is armored. Need infantry? Well, we have a few men who are heavily armed.

Do you know what vehicles are called where the troops stay mounted for fighting?
Tanks. (The 'you' in this paragraph isn't referring to anyone specifically. Just a turn of phrase to build the rhetorical question).

GW's opinion of the spirit of the game is clearly not narrative, and that is why I am so infuriated with people who claim 9th is the most narrative edition ever.

It's clearly 100% narrative. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not a narrative rule designed with narrative intent to force narrative accommodating play.

'Transports should be transporting stuff because they're transports', is the exact type of argument narrative players have been making since the dawn of 40k.

It's the EXACT type of rule you've been advocating for the entire time you've been on the forum, you just don't like this SPECIFIC one. Which is a bit hypocritical coming from someone who likes Heresy. Yeah, it's weird that some vehicles blow up if they don't have troops in them; but at least EVERY vehicle doesn't blow up when they touch grass.

I think you are either deliberately misreading my arguments to make a point (i.e. strawmanning) or you are incapable of reading.

Either way, I can take to PMs why this isn't a narrative rule (and why tanks touching grass and then exploding isn't my argument) to avoid cluttering up the thread, if you like. Otherwise, I refer you to my first reply to you here, which neatly refutes both of your tired and frankly mistaken points. I am embarrassed on your behalf, since you lack the self awareness to do so yourself evidently.

Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

Feel free to use the yellow triangle. I recommend it

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

I wasn't participating in that thread, otherwise you'd have at least one narrative player AGAINST the whole "if you're transporting use transports" thing. Do you mind linking it to me so I can participate, if there was an existing discussion? It sounds like someone doesn't really understand what "narrative" means - or, rather, has a very very narrow view of "narrative" that's unreasonable, imo.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

I wasn't participating in that thread, otherwise you'd have at least one narrative player AGAINST the whole "if you're transporting use transports" thing. Do you mind linking it to me so I can participate, if there was an existing discussion? It sounds like someone doesn't really understand what "narrative" means - or, rather, has a very very narrow view of "narrative" that's unreasonable, imo.

It's in the news and rumors section. I'm not saying all narrative/casual players are defending this rule, but the only ones defending it ARE said players.

Daed (The local source for Tournament Statistics) is a narrative player now?

Voss wrote:
Daed (The local source for Tournament Statistics) is a narrative player now?

I mean look how he uses the Ghost Ark and defended said change. He's pure casual and narrative.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Voss wrote:
Daed (The local source for Tournament Statistics) is a narrative player now?

I mean look how he uses the Ghost Ark and defended said change. He's pure casual and narrative.

Yeah. He told people who were quoting the unit fluff to him that they were using it wrong. Very narrative.

Honestly, the number of people defending the change were very small. And those few were going on about objective grabbing in tournaments by land speeder storms with no scout squads.

Voss wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Voss wrote:
Daed (The local source for Tournament Statistics) is a narrative player now?

I mean look how he uses the Ghost Ark and defended said change. He's pure casual and narrative.

Yeah. He told people who were quoting the unit fluff to him that they were using it wrong. Very narrative.

Well, that and the rules kind of encourages you to use it as a support vehicle for big blobs of warriors.
It's not open topped so using it as a taxi is kind of pointless, and 20 warriors + ark + techno is a pretty tanky combo.

For the record, I don't think he's a narrative player nor I think the change is aimed at narrative players. The rule was released in a book that is apparently for tournament play.
It's just that even from a competitive / game design standpoint, it's a silly and heavy handed rule that makes no sense from either a "narrative" / simulation perspective or from a game design perspective.

If they really wanted to fix gunboat spam, they should have changed how the dedicated transport rules work. Like, have an actual slot limit for transports.
If they wanted to fix drop numbers, all they had to do was make it so that you had to deploy an infantry unit and a vehicle at the same time.

The rule as is doesn't actually fix either; gunboat spam will still be a thing because you can still take a transport for each unit of infantry.
Whilst drop numbers are reduced, they chose an inelegant way of going about it that could probably be circumvented by using characters anyway instead of actual infantry squads.

I wouldn't consider Daedalus a narrative player, personally, as he seems more interested in how the game supports competitive play than how the game supports narrative play.

I think he's also a casual player (maybe a tournament player? I shouldn't presume), but we must be careful not to confuse "narrative" and "casual", because casual players often DGAF about narrative - or at least, only give a little F.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Have you seen any Werewolves recently?

No - because they're all in the Hollow Earth! Come on people: we have to take the fight to them!

Sorry, going to have to agree with the idea that this was driven by narrative players. AFAIK there hasn't been a problem list abusing the option to use empty transports, this is purely a "I don't like it" reaction from someone at GW. And it's exactly the kind of rule I would have expected to see in older editions, right next to the requirement that dedicated transports are assigned to a specific unit and only that unit can begin the game in them.

PS: and that ghost ark thing in past editions? Forget it, if a unit had a size of 10-20 models and its transport could only hold 10 buying the transport would only be an option for a 10-model unit.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Yeah. . . no. Narrative players are not at fault for GWs idiocy.

Each time someone from GW says that a rule or entire codex ended up the way it did, because of their focus on the narrative and then we found it to be be either a scourge on playfield or an unplayable mess, I blame it on narrative players.
Design wise a non narrative player cares and plays with and within the rules he is being give, a narrative player doesn't care what the rules are, because the core, from what I understand about narrative play, of the way of playing is breaking and modifying the rules. A narrative player is not going to care that army X is borderline unplayable or makes the game unfun for everyone else, because his goal is to have a few last stand or destroy the fortress games. A ton of problems with w40k come from the fact that GW instead of making a fun and playable game, tries to do the narrative thing. And then we end up with super narrative books with a ton of narrative rules, which are super internaly balanced, but end up either as any eldar or worse, for the players, something like the last GSC book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Sorry, going to have to agree with the idea that this was driven by narrative players. AFAIK there hasn't been a problem list abusing the option to use empty transports, this is purely a "I don't like it" reaction from someone at GW

Ton of other abritary rules like that too. Lets say relics are optional and you don't have to take them. But you have to take a warlord. When CP drop from 12 to 6, losing 1 obligatory is a big thing. Unless of course you have a good special character that can be your warlord, even better if it is a suprem commander. Because then you not only, not lose 1CP, you actually can gain extra CPs.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Sorry, going to have to agree with the idea that this was driven by narrative players. AFAIK there hasn't been a problem list abusing the option to use empty transports, this is purely a "I don't like it" reaction from someone at GW. And it's exactly the kind of rule I would have expected to see in older editions, right next to the requirement that dedicated transports are assigned to a specific unit and only that unit can begin the game in them.

PS: and that ghost ark thing in past editions? Forget it, if a unit had a size of 10-20 models and its transport could only hold 10 buying the transport would only be an option for a 10-model unit.

Well, that person who "doesn't like it" is either not narratively-minded, or has an overly narrow understanding of narrative and what the role of infantry fighting vehicles is on the battlefield. They're wrong, either way, and I'd happily say so to their face.

It's also exactly the kind of rule that was ABSENT from earlier editions, so if you expected to see it then clearly you're badly misinformed about something.(or well-informed but drawing incorrect conclusions, I suppose).

The rule isn't narrative at all though. How is spontaneously combustion narrative?
Wouldn't it be more narrative to not require the units be in the transport, to reflect them getting caught out by a enemy force while scouting or getting ready for an ambush of their own?

With the change there's only one narrative option; the passengers are in the vehicle, because otherwise it'll fething explode. That's not "narrative". That's just being a gak, railroading GM.
That's like, rocks fall, everyone dies level of nonsense.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
How is spontaneously combustion narrative?

It's not "spontaneous combustion". It's "you couldn't take this unit in the first place so it doesn't exist", handled in the only way the 40k rules can accommodate it. It's just like how fortifications that can't be deployed or units that don't arrive from reserve before turn 4 are removed as casualties and counted as destroyed. The bastion didn't land on the battlefield and spontaneously combust, it never existed at all.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
How is spontaneously combustion narrative?

It's not "spontaneous combustion". It's "you couldn't take this unit in the first place so it doesn't exist", handled in the only way the 40k rules can accommodate it. It's just like how fortifications that can't be deployed or units that don't arrive from reserve before turn 4 are removed as casualties and counted as destroyed. The bastion didn't land on the battlefield and spontaneously combust, it never existed at all.

Well, I paid for it and could take it in my army, so I clearly could take it in the first place. Furthermore, the idea that a unit cannot dismount from its transport at all ever in the entire universe until it is within a hundred yards of the enemy is just laughable.

The other rules are equally dumb, though they exist to address practical problems (terrain placement / people not putting units on the board until late in the game as a gimmick) that this one doesn't address (unless you count "people not being embarked on a transport" as a gimmick).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well, that person who "doesn't like it" is either not narratively-minded, or has an overly narrow understanding of narrative and what the role of infantry fighting vehicles is on the battlefield.

This is news? GW has always had narrow views about what the narrative is and expected things to go along with their personal interpretations of the fluff.

(Not like they have a monopoly on that, I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen self-identified narrative players complaining about how someone else's narrative ideas were "not fluffy" because they didn't follow that person's unwritten rules about how the game should be played.)

It's also exactly the kind of rule that was ABSENT from earlier editions, so if you expected to see it then clearly you're badly misinformed about something.(or well-informed but drawing incorrect conclusions, I suppose).

That's odd, because in previous editions you could not take a transport without a legal unit for it to carry and it was assigned to that specific unit. So "if the Rhino isn't carrying something then it was left behind and not participating in this part of the battle" is entirely in line with previous transport rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Furthermore, the idea that a unit cannot dismount from its transport at all ever in the entire universe until it is within a hundred yards of the enemy is just laughable.

You can dismount earlier. By doing so you decide that the transport has already done its job and is somewhere off the table.

(unless you count "people not being embarked on a transport" as a gimmick).

"People taking transports purely as efficient gun platforms or cheap mobile cover without ever using them as transports."

RIP "take a bunch of empty gatling Taurox Primes to sit in the 5++ bubble", you will not be missed.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well, that person who "doesn't like it" is either not narratively-minded, or has an overly narrow understanding of narrative and what the role of infantry fighting vehicles is on the battlefield.

This is news? GW has always had narrow views about what the narrative is and expected things to go along with their personal interpretations of the fluff.

(Not like they have a monopoly on that, I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen self-identified narrative players complaining about how someone else's narrative ideas were "not fluffy" because they didn't follow that person's unwritten rules about how the game should be played.)

GW didn't used to have such a narrow view. This is a recent thing. Want to deploy your guys disembarked from a transport in 4th edition? Go nuts! Want Guardsmen in carapace armor army-wide? Go nuts! Want Eldar tanks to get experience in the edition's campaign system? Go nuts! All of those things (and more!) are absent from 9th.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

It's also exactly the kind of rule that was ABSENT from earlier editions, so if you expected to see it then clearly you're badly misinformed about something.(or well-informed but drawing incorrect conclusions, I suppose).

That's odd, because in previous editions you could not take a transport without a legal unit for it to carry and it was assigned to that specific unit. So "if the Rhino isn't carrying something then it was left behind and not participating in this part of the battle" is entirely in line with previous transport rules.

Yes, I am playing 4th edition as we speak. Dedicated transports exist. However, they aren't left behind because that's nonsensical; IFVs are designed to go forwards with their infantry and support them in the fight. One could argue that the Rhino isn't an IFV, but if the player wants to use it as one, who is GW to force them not to? Strap a second Storm Bolter and an HK missile on it and it's practically a BTR.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Furthermore, the idea that a unit cannot dismount from its transport at all ever in the entire universe until it is within a hundred yards of the enemy is just laughable.

You can dismount earlier. By doing so you decide that the transport has already done its job and is somewhere off the table.

An IFV has not done its job simply by disgorging its passengers. It's job is also to support them in battle, even while they are dismounted and in fighting positions. That's what sets IFVs apart from APCs. So, no, this is wrong.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

(unless you count "people not being embarked on a transport" as a gimmick).

"People taking transports purely as efficient gun platforms or cheap mobile cover without ever using them as transports."

RIP "take a bunch of empty gatling Taurox Primes to sit in the 5++ bubble", you will not be missed.

Ah, so it's not a narrative problem, it's a balance problem.

weird how we ended up back here.

Yeah, transports just don't bugger off when they drop off units. They'll stay on the battlefield either to provide fire support or evac.
Then we have more esoteric units like the Ghost Ark which is basically an ambulance.

Not being able to share transports was a 5th-7th ed thing, wasn't it?

The change doesn't even stop the gunboat problem, because you can either just put a character in it or, you know, leave the vehicle on the first turn? There's still going to be gunboat spam.
Getting destroyed first turn isn't even that much of a drawback, because the player is only taking the infantry for the transport anyway, and it's a 1/6 chance for a model to be slain by the destroyed vehicle.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
wait, thats a thing? What were the problematic datasheet?

I believe the following have been considered problematic in that you would take them even without ever seeking to put anything in them:

- Wave Serpents
- Venoms
- Raiders

While none of these are exactly an issue at the moment, these three have consistently been problematic.

Wave Serpents - Tougher than most main line tanks, and able to mount serious firepower all their own. Most players would be happy with this unit even if it didn't have any kind of transport feature. Indeed, in 7th edition, their Serpent Shield was also one of their main weapons, giving them firepower that often even exceeded the Falcon Grav Tank. Add to that impressive speed and their ability to get places due to being a hovering vehicle model, and they have spent a long time as the perfect transport in the game.

Venoms - For all intents and purposes, this guy has the EXACT same problem Wave Serpent, just expressed very differently. For their cost, these little guys have usually been a challenge to kill due to some intrinsic defensive buff, carry a potent weapon, are very quick, and can hover. Again, it's a unit most armies would be happy to play with, even if it didn't also have the ability to carry units.

Raiders - Similar problems again, except they've only more recently acquired the Rhombus of Ruin's sinister 4th side. They are fast, they hover, they carry a potent gun, and in their most recent iteration they also received a toughness boost. For their points, they were very strong. Even more recently, their costs were adjusted so you couldn't take quite as many of them.


Honestly, I think this decision is fine, just changes a bit of how things play around, and isn't that big a deal. If the fluff of it matters to you, then don't play competitive games. Casual gamers can just ignore this and play the game they'd like to anyways. That said, I don't think this rule is as required as just being cognizant of the Rhombus of Ruin. You've never seen Chimeras being complained about, because they don't Hover, nor do Land Raiders. Their inability to really traverse the field is a huge limiting factor. Devilfish and Impulsors don't have the firepower to really get people peeved off. Monoliths are slow as molasses. Until Raiders had some defensive survivability, they were pretty much never even seen. There are some exceptions to the rule (like Kill Rigs), but even those usually are in support of a very specific build, rather than a uniquitous selection that just makes your army better.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Sorry, going to have to agree with the idea that this was driven by narrative players. AFAIK there hasn't been a problem list abusing the option to use empty transports, this is purely a "I don't like it" reaction from someone at GW. And it's exactly the kind of rule I would have expected to see in older editions, right next to the requirement that dedicated transports are assigned to a specific unit and only that unit can begin the game in them.

Yup. And the GW design team seems idiosyncratic enough to be saying "I don't like it" when players of certain factions are having fun, or when certain factions start winning games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, ironically, as a matched play change.... this doesn't affect narrative play.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
GW didn't used to have such a narrow view.

They didn't have such a narrow view on this one topic. They certainly had narrow views on other things. Remember having to take an entire platoon if you wanted a single infantry squad, because only veterans are capable of being present without an officer and command squad and a second squad to keep them company? Remember Baneblades being Apocalypse-only and de facto banned? Remember only troops being able to score, including the weird situation where a heavy weapon squad in a troops slot platoon could score but a heavy weapon squad in a heavy support slot couldn't?

You can talk all you like about real-world doctrine but the reality is that this is exactly the kind of rule you get when someone at GW decides that a particular thing is against their personal opinion of how things work in the 40k universe and bans it.

 Yarium wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
wait, thats a thing? What were the problematic datasheet?

I believe the following have been considered problematic in that you would take them even without ever seeking to put anything in them:

- Wave Serpents
- Venoms
- Raiders

While none of these are exactly an issue at the moment, these three have consistently been problematic.

Wave Serpents - Tougher than most main line tanks, and able to mount serious firepower all their own. Most players would be happy with this unit even if it didn't have any kind of transport feature. Indeed, in 7th edition, their Serpent Shield was also one of their main weapons, giving them firepower that often even exceeded the Falcon Grav Tank. Add to that impressive speed and their ability to get places due to being a hovering vehicle model, and they have spent a long time as the perfect transport in the game.

Venoms - For all intents and purposes, this guy has the EXACT same problem Wave Serpent, just expressed very differently. For their cost, these little guys have usually been a challenge to kill due to some intrinsic defensive buff, carry a potent weapon, are very quick, and can hover. Again, it's a unit most armies would be happy to play with, even if it didn't also have the ability to carry units.

Raiders - Similar problems again, except they've only more recently acquired the Rhombus of Ruin's sinister 4th side. They are fast, they hover, they carry a potent gun, and in their most recent iteration they also received a toughness boost. For their points, they were very strong. Even more recently, their costs were adjusted so you couldn't take quite as many of them.


Honestly, I think this decision is fine, just changes a bit of how things play around, and isn't that big a deal. If the fluff of it matters to you, then don't play competitive games. Casual gamers can just ignore this and play the game they'd like to anyways. That said, I don't think this rule is as required as just being cognizant of the Rhombus of Ruin. You've never seen Chimeras being complained about, because they don't Hover, nor do Land Raiders. Their inability to really traverse the field is a huge limiting factor. Devilfish and Impulsors don't have the firepower to really get people peeved off. Monoliths are slow as molasses. Until Raiders had some defensive survivability, they were pretty much never even seen. There are some exceptions to the rule (like Kill Rigs), but even those usually are in support of a very specific build, rather than a uniquitous selection that just makes your army better.

Then why not change those units instead of introducing a rule that affects everything?
Sounds like it's a specific problem that demands a specific solution. Also, if the issue is the vehicle itself, does this change even affect anything? Those vehicles will still be strong, its just that a unit has to get out of it first. I'm pretty sure transports aren't affected by units leaving it, just the unit disembarking is affected.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
GW didn't used to have such a narrow view.

They didn't have such a narrow view on this one topic. They certainly had narrow views on other things. Remember having to take an entire platoon if you wanted a single infantry squad, because only veterans are capable of being present without an officer and command squad and a second squad to keep them company?

No; I remember the Imperial Guard being a rigid organization that follows doctrine to the letter, including attempting to follow the mandated force structure. In some ways, this "narrow view" is actually quite narratively focused, as a single infantry squad operating on its own outside of a platoon is either attached to a different element for some special duty (i.e. Armored Fist squads outside of mechanized regiments) or is called a "kill team" and has its own game.

Forcing infantry squads into platoons in a company-scale game is 100% narrative, especially since there were ways around it if you wanted to field other, more esoteric regimental organizations - but they came with costs (e.g. Stormtroopers doctrine).

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Remember Baneblades being Apocalypse-only and de facto banned?

No, and I played Baneblades back then. They had rules to play in regular 40k games since their inception and steadily through every edition. The fact that they were "de facto" banned by the players is irrelevant, given that we're discussing GW's view of the narrative. Allowing them in regular games (indeed, allowing a company in regular games should the points permit) has always been the case. Indeed, I just played one in the climax of a 4th edition campaign with a buddy - a normal 2500 point 4th edition 40k game.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Remember only troops being able to score, including the weird situation where a heavy weapon squad in a troops slot platoon could score but a heavy weapon squad in a heavy support slot couldn't?

I do remember that weird situation, and it's why 4th is my favorite rather than 5th. This was one of many very strange changes made in the 4th-5th changeover that imho were changes for the worst.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
You can talk all you like about real-world doctrine but the reality is that this is exactly the kind of rule you get when someone at GW decides that a particular thing is against their personal opinion of how things work in the 40k universe and bans it.

*shrug* I agree? I mean, like I said, that's probably the case. But I have a problem with this decision and will explain my reasoning to their face - and I bet the reply won't be "well, we carefully considered it from a narrative perspective." They will say something like "armies didn't look the way we wanted" or "we felt people were abusing dedicated transports." Which slaps right back to my original point: this isn't the fault of "narrative" players. It's the fault, at best, of casual players (army aesthetics / "how they should look") or competitive players ("abusing X").

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No; I remember the Imperial Guard being a rigid organization that follows doctrine to the letter, including attempting to follow the mandated force structure. In some ways, this "narrow view" is actually quite narratively focused, as a single infantry squad operating on its own outside of a platoon is either attached to a different element for some special duty (i.e. Armored Fist squads outside of mechanized regiments) or is called a "kill team" and has its own game.

This is exactly my point. You were fine with rigid rules because they aligned with your personal view of how things work in the narrative. Now someone at GW has done the same thing and made a rigid rule that aligns with their version of the narrative.

a normal 2500 point 4th edition 40k game

2500 points is hardly a "normal 4th edition 40k game" when the standard game size was 1500 or 1750 points and GW running their tournaments at 2000 points was seen as a ridiculous cash grab to convince people to buy 250 more points of stuff at the expense of having an enjoyable game. Finding some obscure 3rd edition rule about taking LoW detachments in large games, a rule which most people didn't even know existed, is also not a normal game. And by 5th edition those rules were gone and Baneblades were Apocalypse-only.

They will say something like "armies didn't look the way we wanted" or "we felt people were abusing dedicated transports."

Both of which are statements by narrative players. They don't have to directly say the word "narrative" for it to be coming from that point of view.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No; I remember the Imperial Guard being a rigid organization that follows doctrine to the letter, including attempting to follow the mandated force structure. In some ways, this "narrow view" is actually quite narratively focused, as a single infantry squad operating on its own outside of a platoon is either attached to a different element for some special duty (i.e. Armored Fist squads outside of mechanized regiments) or is called a "kill team" and has its own game.

This is exactly my point. You were fine with rigid rules because they aligned with your personal view of how things work in the narrative. Now someone at GW has done the same thing and made a rigid rule that aligns with their version of the narrative.

The difference is that I can back up my argument with how things work in the universe (with some anchors in IRL because the universe is meant to be fairly close in certain aspects, esp. the Imperial Guard), and this particular decision is indefensible through a narrative lense.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

a normal 2500 point 4th edition 40k game

2500 points is hardly a "normal 4th edition 40k game" when the standard game size was 1500 or 1750 points and GW running their tournaments at 2000 points was seen as a ridiculous cash grab to convince people to buy 250 more points of stuff at the expense of having an enjoyable game. Finding some obscure 3rd edition rule about taking LoW detachments in large games, a rule which most people didn't even know existed, is also not a normal game.

What defines a "normal game" then? Especially given that the points cost is one of the things the players just decide, rather than being mandated by the rules. Again, if you're just saying "the players' choices when building the game precluded including baneblades" that's different from "The rules banned Baneblades".

And I do recall that in 5th, actually, come to think of it. Another reason to throw on the "why I don't like 5th" pile.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

They will say something like "armies didn't look the way we wanted" or "we felt people were abusing dedicated transports."

Both of which are statements by narrative players. They don't have to directly say the word "narrative" for it to be coming from that point of view.

No?

What is narrative about armies "looking" right? If my paint scheme is badly executed and someone disagrees with my aesthetic choices, have I made a narrative mistake?
And "abusing X" isn't a narrative argument at all. At this point you're just bending over backwards to prove "it's those dirty narrative players". If someone uses a greatsword because it does 2d6 while a greataxe does d12 in DnD, they're not playing narratively. Similarly, someone using a transport because of its good rules relative to other choices is not making the choice because of narrative.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The difference is that I can back up my argument with how things work in the universe (with some anchors in IRL because the universe is meant to be fairly close in certain aspects, esp. the Imperial Guard), and this particular decision is indefensible through a narrative lense.

I've already given you defenses from a narrative point of view, you just don't like them because they don't align with your version of the narrative.

What defines a "normal game" then?

The game most commonly played. It's silly to mention 2500 point games when the vast majority of games are at 1750 points or less.

Again, if you're just saying "the players' choices when building the game precluded including baneblades" that's different from "The rules banned Baneblades".

Again, if you're just saying "the players' choices when building the game precluded including empty transports" that's different from "The rules banned empty transports".

If you don't like the current rules you can always play Open Play where no such restriction exists.

What is narrative about armies "looking" right?

Because "looking right" in this context is defined according to the viewer's version of the narrative.

And "abusing X" isn't a narrative argument at all. At this point you're just bending over backwards to prove "it's those dirty narrative players". If someone uses a greatsword because it does 2d6 while a greataxe does d12 in DnD, they're not playing narratively. Similarly, someone using a transport because of its good rules (the equivalent case) is not making the choice because of narrative.

It's absolutely a narrative argument because the abuse in question is against the narrative concept of the game. A bunch of empty transports blobbed up around a buff officer while the units that those transports are supposedly carrying go in Valkyries instead is not a plausible narrative scenario, it's breaking the narrative for a rules benefit.

(Remember that the list in question still sucks at winning games.)

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The difference is that I can back up my argument with how things work in the universe (with some anchors in IRL because the universe is meant to be fairly close in certain aspects, esp. the Imperial Guard), and this particular decision is indefensible through a narrative lense.

I've already given you defenses from a narrative point of view, you just don't like them because they don't align with your version of the narrative.

No, you just haven't bothered to back them up aside from "that's like, your opinion, man". Which is exactly what I mean by "indefensible."

CadianSgtBob wrote:

What defines a "normal game" then?

The game most commonly played. It's silly to mention 2500 point games when the vast majority of games are at 1750 points or less.

Again, if you're just saying "the players' choices when building the game precluded including baneblades" that's different from "The rules banned Baneblades".

Again, if you're just saying "the players' choices when building the game precluded including empty transports" that's different from "The rules banned empty transports".

If you don't like the current rules you can always play Open Play where no such restriction exists.

True, though I'm arguing the rule makes no sense in Matched Play, as well. Interestingly enough - and there's probably no room for this commentary here - but earlier editions didn't need this awkward split between play modes. I wonder if we should speculate about why...

CadianSgtBob wrote:

What is narrative about armies "looking" right?

Because "looking right" in this context is defined according to the viewer's version of the narrative.

Is it? I'd be curious to hear the argument beyond "that's like, your opinion, man" when someone says an army doesn't look right, and I say it does.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

And "abusing X" isn't a narrative argument at all. At this point you're just bending over backwards to prove "it's those dirty narrative players". If someone uses a greatsword because it does 2d6 while a greataxe does d12 in DnD, they're not playing narratively. Similarly, someone using a transport because of its good rules (the equivalent case) is not making the choice because of narrative.

It's absolutely a narrative argument because the abuse in question is against the narrative concept of the game. A bunch of empty transports blobbed up around a buff officer while the units that those transports are supposedly carrying go in Valkyries instead is not a plausible narrative scenario, it's breaking the narrative for a rules benefit.

Except that the only reason this occurs is a balance failure - empty transports shouldn't be so effective when executing that tactic. If the rule was changed because empty transports were overly effective in a competitive setting, then the rule was changed for competitive reasons. If someone is running that without it being a balance problem, then that person is running an uncommon and silly gimmick list, I'll bet. The only reason to run a list like that if it isn't winning well is to be silly, which clearly isn't a good basis for balance decision - because as you yourself say, it's not a narrative list.

Though again, that particular example sounds more like a failure of the Taurox Prime specifically rather than an example that requires the wholesale tearing apart of the dedicated transport rules in 40k.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
No, you just haven't bothered to back them up aside from "that's like, your opinion, man". Which is exactly what I mean by "indefensible."

You haven't either. You've just declared that it's your opinion that things should follow modern IFV doctrine. And you're ignoring the point here: it's not about whether or not a particular change aligns with your narrative, it's that this kind of change comes directly from the narrative mindset where "does this match my vision of how things work in the fluff" is the priority and not balance concerns.

Is it? I'd be curious to hear the argument beyond "that's like, your opinion, man" when someone says an army doesn't look right, and I say it does.

I'm not sure why you don't get the idea that narrative is exactly that: personal opinion.

If the rule was changed because empty transports were overly effective in a competitive setting, then the rule was changed for competitive reasons.

But it wasn't, and that's the point I keep trying to get you to understand. There was no balance issue here, empty transports weren't winning at a disproportionate rate. Someone at GW just didn't like it from a narrative point of view and now they banned it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

probably for people like me? i've been using a T.Prime sort of like a light tank, though i typically put at least one commissar in it...often all my commissars, just because it's fun.

I am OK with the rule.

In real life Company Commanders don't get to pick their forces and min-max things in a balanced setting with their opponent. This is a game with balance being at least a consideration. Dedicated Transports let players take vehicles without taking up a force org slot that a similar vehicle would have to take in either Fast Attack or Heavy Support. The changes to starting CPs and its effect on extra detachments highlights the value of free slots.

Taking DTs expressly to send around the board empty to move block/screen/hold objectives may be one reason why the change was made. Some DTs being particularly powerful like Raiders/Wave Serpents is likely another. So if you are going to take DTs they want you to at least start with them in their intended game role. Nothing stopping you debussing Turn 1 and then sending your DTs off as you please.

Would folks be happier if Raiders/Wave Serpents/Chimeras were assigned the Heavy Support role but could be used as you wish? I get that Chimeras right now seem like collateral damage, but we will see what the future brings.

For a real-life mechanized combat team in a meeting engagement or offensive operation it would be odd to start the operation with the infantry dismounted. You are usually advancing mounted, although of course you can dismount for certain areas or situations. During an attack upon dismount we used to send the "Zulu" M113s off to a "Zulu Harbour" until the attack was over. With LAVs they are often left in the assault, but the infantry certainly started the attack mounted. Since most Matched Play games look like a meeting engagement my verisimilitude is more or less intact if DTs need to start the game with infantry mounted.

In the defence then yes, the infantry would be dug-in and the disposition of the LAVs can vary (many options). For a deliberate attack you might see infantry dismount before the battle and infiltrate through close country while the vehicles support from another axis. I think in those scenarios, though, we are well away from Matched Play games and are instead seeking to "recreate" certain battles or types of battles without as much concern to balance. In which case players can do as they please!

But if you are rocking up to an event using GT 2022 Nephilim be ready to play by those rules.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:


Taking DTs expressly to send around the board empty to move block/screen/hold objectives may be one reason why the change was made. Some DTs being particularly powerful like Raiders/Wave Serpents is likely another. So if you are going to take DTs they want you to at least start with them in their intended game role. Nothing stopping you debussing Turn 1 and then sending your DTs off as you please.

Then what was even the point of the change then? You're still going to use an empty transport to do that, even with the first turn disembarking. All it does is add more busy work to the game, with the added effect of affecting transports that had certain esoteric rules or roles, such as ghost arks or hades drills.
How is getting out of a transport vehicle on the first turn before it even moved it's "intended role"? Isn't the point of a transport to move personnel from point A to B? If it doesn't move and just drops off a unit that would have been there otherwise, then has it really fulfilled it's role? That's not even getting into Ghost Arks, which are less APCs and more ambulances.

And it prevents mechanized companies from starting behind prepared positions (e.g. aegis line segments or ruins).

EviscerationPlague wrote:
He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

Yeah he is. Dumb rules are dumb rules regardless of how you play.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
Sorry, going to have to agree with the idea that this was driven by narrative players.

Which is why it showed up in GW's bi-yearly tournament update that doesn't impact narrative play.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Which is why it showed up in GW's bi-yearly tournament update that doesn't impact narrative play.

Exactly what we'd expect from a company that is only grudgingly acknowledging tournament play. It's just like how we used to see all kinds of comp rules before ITC and GW standardized things, "competitive" players would add rules about spamming "too much" of units they didn't personally like and banning armies that "weren't fluffy" even when those things weren't even close to being balance issues. It may be in the tournament update but it's driven by the narrative mindset.

This rule was clearly intended as a balance decision because it appears only in a Matched Play book, and not only does it only apply to Matched play games, it specifically only applies to Nephilim Matched Play games.

If it had been intended for narrative reasons, it would instead have appeared in the first Crusade Mission pack, which will probably start previewing in about two weeks. It's theoretically possible for the rule to appear in BOTH mission packs, but it's unlikely.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:


Taking DTs expressly to send around the board empty to move block/screen/hold objectives may be one reason why the change was made. Some DTs being particularly powerful like Raiders/Wave Serpents is likely another. So if you are going to take DTs they want you to at least start with them in their intended game role. Nothing stopping you debussing Turn 1 and then sending your DTs off as you please.

Then what was even the point of the change then? You're still going to use an empty transport to do that, even with the first turn disembarking. All it does is add more busy work to the game, with the added effect of affecting transports that had certain esoteric rules or roles, such as ghost arks or hades drills.
How is getting out of a transport vehicle on the first turn before it even moved it's "intended role"? Isn't the point of a transport to move personnel from point A to B? If it doesn't move and just drops off a unit that would have been there otherwise, then has it really fulfilled it's role? That's not even getting into Ghost Arks, which are less APCs and more ambulances.

Well, with this rule the Dedicated Transport actually has to transport something for a portion of the game, even if it doesn't move before the infantry disembark. From a practical game balance perspective it is making the non-transport roles a little less optimal by tying the DT to the infantry to which it is supposedly dedicated.

I'm confused. How is this silly rule the fault of narrative players?

A DT being forced to remain within 3-6” of the unit it was bought for seems like a better fix as most transports are IFVs (though some like the rhino are an exception)

johnpjones1775 wrote:
A DT being forced to remain within 3-6” of the unit it was bought for seems like a better fix as most transports are IFVs (though some like the rhino are an exception)

Yeah, that would have been a more elegant solution.

 kurhanik wrote:
I'm confused. How is this silly rule the fault of narrative players?

It isn't. Its an overcompensation change for a tournament exploit that most people weren't even aware of.
A couple people are misrepresenting the discussion in another thread to blame 'narrative players' as some sort of hivemind (or in one case a specific narrative player) responsible for the game state.

If you're baffled by this, you probably should be. Its quite bizarre.

Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

What does that matter? Stupid rules are stupid rules whether they impact me directly or not.

Voss wrote:

 kurhanik wrote:
I'm confused. How is this silly rule the fault of narrative players?

It isn't. Its an overcompensation change for a tournament exploit that most people weren't even aware of.
A couple people are misrepresenting the discussion in another thread to blame 'narrative players' as some sort of hivemind (or in one case a specific narrative player) responsible for the game state.

If you're baffled by this, you probably should be. Its quite bizarre.

There was no exploit though....

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

I'm sure it WILL affect me the next time I play Matched.
Because offensively stupid rules like this degrade my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Doesn't even matter if they apply to what I'm running.

And come August, when I pack an army to take with me to GenCon, it's going to affect what I choose to take.

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

It was pretty common that I'd run Razorbacks but not necessarily deploy units in them. That would effect me.

But also this:

ccs wrote:
Because offensively stupid rules like this degrade my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Doesn't even matter if they apply to what I'm running.

^This rings true.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the kind of rule tournament try hards want.

As is rule enforces playing transports in illogical non-narrative way...

tneva82 wrote:
Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the polar opposite of your narrative. It's exactly in line with what "narrative" TOs used to do with comp rules and banning/penalizing a bunch of stuff that wasn't a balance issue in true competitive play but went against their idea of how things are "supposed to be done" in the 40k setting.

tneva82 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the kind of rule tournament try hards want.

As is rule enforces playing transports in illogical non-narrative way...

Not all narrative/casual players defend the rule, but its only defenders ARE those players.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Really a mod just needs to get ERJAK to can it. It's an incredibly stupid and unreasonable line of argumentation.

He's not wrong though. Notice the defenders have mostly been narrative players that didn't like the "abuse of rules" in the thread we got going for the Nephilim rules.

Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the kind of rule tournament try hards want.

As is rule enforces playing transports in illogical non-narrative way...

Not all narrative/casual players defend the rule, but its only defenders ARE those players.

I've not read the other thread but are the defenders the same people that defend almost everything GW does?

As for the rule itself I'm beginning to wonder if anyone on the design team has ever taken any sort of game design course or even really thought about how games work beyond a surface level of thinking "We have X problem so we'll just staple on Rule Y to fix it". I know GW likes to promote from within the company and it really feels like they have a team of people who don't understand much about how games work or that they've never played any game EXCEPT GW games. Now in fairness I don't have an official qualification in game design either but I have played a lot of games and I enjoy analysing and breaking down games to see how all the parts fit together, why the designer chose to do what they did, what does and doesn't work for me etc and even with my limited knowledge I can see how cumbersome, awkward and unthematic these recent "fixes" are.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

They will say something like "armies didn't look the way we wanted" or "we felt people were abusing dedicated transports."

Both of which are statements by narrative players. They don't have to directly say the word "narrative" for it to be coming from that point of view.

If you didn't try and pare quotes back so far as to lose their context - which could be seen as arguing in bad faith - perhaps you wouldn't miss the woods of the context for the trees of individual sentences.

Let's take the full quote from Unit's post, along with the comment of yours he was replying to:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:
You can talk all you like about real-world doctrine but the reality is that this is exactly the kind of rule you get when someone at GW decides that a particular thing is against their personal opinion of how things work in the 40k universe and bans it.

*shrug* I agree? I mean, like I said, that's probably the case. But I have a problem with this decision and will explain my reasoning to their face - and I bet the reply won't be "well, we carefully considered it from a narrative perspective." They will say something like "armies didn't look the way we wanted" or "we felt people were abusing dedicated transports." Which slaps right back to my original point: this isn't the fault of "narrative" players. It's the fault, at best, of casual players (army aesthetics / "how they should look") or competitive players ("abusing X").

Bold added for emphasis.

GW Design staff does not automatically mean narrative players. Some of them will be, while other will fall into the baskets Unit used of "casual" and "competitive".

For all we know at this point, having not had the chance to question anyone there about why this change was made, one of the design team got pissed by someone fielding Land Speeder Storms without fielding Scouts, especially after losing a game to them at an event thanks to late game objective grabs by these less-than-dedicated transports.

 Dysartes wrote:
GW Design staff does not automatically mean narrative players. Some of them will be, while other will fall into the baskets Unit used of "casual" and "competitive".

No, but that's not the point. They are statements by narrative players because they match what narrative players, especially narrative players in charge of writing tournament rules, often say. The argument is absolutely not "GW design staff said it therefore narrative". So no, adding the context back doesn't change one bit of the point I was making.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:
As for the rule itself I'm beginning to wonder if anyone on the design team has ever taken any sort of game design course or even really thought about how games work beyond a surface level of thinking "We have X problem so we'll just staple on Rule Y to fix it". I know GW likes to promote from within the company and it really feels like they have a team of people who don't understand much about how games work or that they've never played any game EXCEPT GW games. Now in fairness I don't have an official qualification in game design either but I have played a lot of games and I enjoy analysing and breaking down games to see how all the parts fit together, why the designer chose to do what they did, what does and doesn't work for me etc and even with my limited knowledge I can see how cumbersome, awkward and unthematic these recent "fixes" are.

I think you're absolutely correct. 40k's design is completely disjointed and inconsistent and it's very clear that there's no overall plan for what they want the game to be. Whether it's edition to edition changes or balance dataslates it's just someone's first impulsive thought at solving a problem without any apparent thought given to the consequences. It's why we get AP creep followed by ignore AP rules. We get multi-damage weapons followed by damage reduction followed by "ignore damage limit" abilities. We get "this edition has lots more CP" followed by "actually, let's have less CP than 8th". And on a higher level it's how we get still have IGOUGO despite even the people writing GW's other games figuring out that it's a terrible system, or obsessing over the precise details of which melee weapon a sergeant is armed with in the same game as titans that can kill the entire unit in one shot.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:


Taking DTs expressly to send around the board empty to move block/screen/hold objectives may be one reason why the change was made. Some DTs being particularly powerful like Raiders/Wave Serpents is likely another. So if you are going to take DTs they want you to at least start with them in their intended game role. Nothing stopping you debussing Turn 1 and then sending your DTs off as you please.

Then what was even the point of the change then? You're still going to use an empty transport to do that, even with the first turn disembarking. All it does is add more busy work to the game, with the added effect of affecting transports that had certain esoteric rules or roles, such as ghost arks or hades drills.
How is getting out of a transport vehicle on the first turn before it even moved it's "intended role"? Isn't the point of a transport to move personnel from point A to B? If it doesn't move and just drops off a unit that would have been there otherwise, then has it really fulfilled it's role? That's not even getting into Ghost Arks, which are less APCs and more ambulances.

Well, with this rule the Dedicated Transport actually has to transport something for a portion of the game, even if it doesn't move before the infantry disembark. From a practical game balance perspective it is making the non-transport roles a little less optimal by tying the DT to the infantry to which it is supposedly dedicated.

If it doesn't move though, then it's not actually transporting anything now is it?
If I leave a building, is the building a transport? After all, I was "embarked" in the building, and then I "disembarked."

Except it won't have an effect on balance. Venoms and wave serpents will still be strong units. Forcing a player to have a unit in it which they are then allowed to disembark and proceed to use the vehicle as they would have done otherwise changes nothing. It will, however, render Hades drills unusable and limit deployment options for arbitrary reasons.

What other silly "as intended" rules will GW introduce, I wonder?
I can see it now :
- Units that have a move characteristic are intended to move. If they remain stationary it is an abuse of the spirit of the game. As such a unit that remains stationary will suffer a fatal heart attack from lack of exercise.
- Units that have an attack characteristic of greater than 1 and melee weapons are intended for melee. As such, if they aren't always in combat, they will get really mad and cut off their own heads.
- Flyers are intended to fly. During their movement phase, they must be thrown across the table.

I don't know what is worse

GW making stupid rules because they ran out of ideas for the 6 month changes to shake up the meta

GW trying to argument this by "it is for balance reason"

people actually defending the changes

people saying it is the fault of other people instead of GW

those who welcome the idea of "season" coming up that tournaments should just house rules the season rules they don't like for official tournaments (main argument on Reddit) from people who think that the tournament season is the best idea GW ever had (what is the point of using the Season rules for a tournament in the first place if you replace anything anyway)

CadianSgtBob wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the polar opposite of your narrative. It's exactly in line with what "narrative" TOs used to do with comp rules and banning/penalizing a bunch of stuff that wasn't a balance issue in true competitive play but went against their idea of how things are "supposed to be done" in the 40k setting.

Transports are used to transport over long distances. Not short where they are death traps.

Claiming MATCHED PLAY rule is narrative rule just shows you have zero clue what's narratlve rule. Since you have missed it this isn't used in narrative games. Just matched play.

Its matched play rule. Not narrative.

tneva82 wrote:
Transports are used to transport over long distances. Not short where they are death traps.

Again you are missing the point. That is your narrative, that doesn't make it GW's narrative.

Claiming MATCHED PLAY rule is narrative rule just shows you have zero clue what's narratlve rule. Since you have missed it this isn't used in narrative games. Just matched play.

Its matched play rule. Not narrative.

Sigh. Once again: this is exactly the kind of rule you get when narrative players try to write tournament rules. They see something that "isn't how it works in 40k" and ban it, even if (as in this case) the thing in question isn't a balance problem. We saw it over and over again with comp scoring in previous editions and this rule would be perfectly at home in a 4th-6th edition comp document.

So which is more believable here: that a narrative player something that fits the clearly established history of what narrative players do when put in charge of tournament rules, or that an actual competitive player decided to ban something out of nowhere despite nobody in the actual competitive community considering it a problem.

Then wouldn't the problem be with GW's narrow view of what the narrative should be (effectively making GW into a gak GM that railroads you into playing how HE wants you to play) rather than with narrative players as a whole?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Then wouldn't the problem be with GW's narrow view of what the narrative should be (effectively making GW into a gak GM that railroads you into playing how HE wants you to play) rather than with narrative players as a whole?

Yep. That's absolutely the problem. It's very poor design but it's still coming from a narrative point of view rather than a competitive balance point of view. It's why comp scoring sucked in previous editions, every "narrative" TO with a massively inflated ego had their own personal rules banning all the stuff they thought was "not fluffy" no matter how accurately those lists aligned with established background fiction.

If something is "not fluffy" it isn't an option in a codex.

Using your line of logic, couldn't I just say that the Rule of 3 is narrative? Because it aligns to GW's narrative?

That is a really weird way to determine what is a narrative rule. I could list any rule and say it's narrative.

Armor of Contempt is extremely narrative, because Terminators being more resistant to small arms AP than Custodes matches GW's narrative, it just doesn't match yours.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Then wouldn't the problem be with GW's narrow view of what the narrative should be (effectively making GW into a gak GM that railroads you into playing how HE wants you to play) rather than with narrative players as a whole?

Huh yeah, that sounds like basically the exact opposite of a narrative campaign/group than what I would ever refer to it. In my small circle narrative ends up more inclusive than exclusive if anything. Something like "oh, yeah sure, you want to take a single tac squad with your Guard to show that a small contingent of Space Marines has come to support the operations in the region? Sure, why not seems cool."

Meanwhile this...is just saying that transports can only ever be used if they are occupied at the beginning of the match, which is amusing to me considering outside of some specific instances, transports just aren't that fun to use since the shift from 7th to 8th.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Using your line of logic, couldn't I just say that the Rule of 3 is narrative? Because it aligns to GW's narrative?

No, because rule of 3 was a direct response to spam lists that were a massive balance problem in the early days of 8th. AoC is a direct response to marine factions having very poor win rates in competitive play. This change to transports isn't a response to anything, there was no balance issue with people taking empty transports and winning at a disproportionate rate. The only plausible explanation for its origins is that someone at GW decided that empty transports didn't fit their narrative concept of how things should work and banned them.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Using your line of logic, couldn't I just say that the Rule of 3 is narrative? Because it aligns to GW's narrative?

No, because rule of 3 was a direct response to spam lists that were a massive balance problem in the early days of 8th. AoC is a direct response to marine factions having very poor win rates in competitive play. This change to transports isn't a response to anything, there was no balance issue with people taking empty transports and winning at a disproportionate rate. The only plausible explanation for its origins is that someone at GW decided that empty transports didn't fit their narrative concept of how things should work and banned them.

That's just, like, your narrative, man...

Ro3 was created due to the Supreme Commander Detachment allowing people to bring multiple Winged Hive Tyrants. It is an archaic rule that serves no purpose anymore as it does nothing to stop people bringing multiples of units and it doesn't scale (I can't bring more than 3 Vindicators in a list, but it's totally cool if I bring 11 Leman Russes or 27 Carnifexes). Worse, Hive Tyrants have been paying for that brief moment in 8th ever since.

Arguing that this exploding transports has anything to do with narrative is absolute nonsense because...

1. It doesn't make sense form a narrative perspective, as there are many ways transports are used and just "having people inside at the start of every battle" isn't one of them.

... and, most importantly...

2. They put this rule into a competitive tournament rules update pack!!!

I don't know how point number two can be under or overstated any more than it already has.

This rule simply fits the GW designers' idea of transports: aka vehicles that are taken to support a unit, basically just like any other unit's upgrades.

It's like when they said that flyers were designed as supporting units, rather than models that could be taken in large numbers.

GW simply wants transports as specific options/upgrades to specific units.

It has nothing to do with balance, they just disliked that something that is called "dedicated transport" is taken in association of a unit that would never embark in that vehicle.

An example from an infamous 8th edition build: Guilliman, 2 squads of tacs, one squad of devastators and 3 squads of scouts can unlock 6 razorbacks but just 2 or maybe 3 of such units would actually need the transport. GW didn't support that kind of concept. Now you take transports for units that need a transport.

But on the other hand they wanted to keep the flexibility to allow other units to eventually embark in those transports in later turns, so they didn't lock the transport capacity to the single unit that selects them as dedicated transport. Which is certainly a good thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Using your line of logic, couldn't I just say that the Rule of 3 is narrative? Because it aligns to GW's narrative?

No, because rule of 3 was a direct response to spam lists that were a massive balance problem in the early days of 8th. AoC is a direct response to marine factions having very poor win rates in competitive play. This change to transports isn't a response to anything, there was no balance issue with people taking empty transports and winning at a disproportionate rate. The only plausible explanation for its origins is that someone at GW decided that empty transports didn't fit their narrative concept of how things should work and banned them.

Exactly that.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
You can talk all you like about real-world doctrine but the reality is that this is exactly the kind of rule you get when someone at GW decides that a particular thing is against their personal opinion of how things work in the 40k universe and bans it.

Newsflash: every rule in 40K since its inception is this. I mean, that's literally what happens when a specific person or group of people design and publish a set of game rules for others to use.

 Blackie wrote:
GW didn't support that kind of concept.

And used a nonsensical and inelegant blanket measure to fix a extremely niche problem that could be solved in a half dozen other nowhere-near-as-blatantly-stupid ways.

Just like the flyer thing.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

It's the exact type of "narrative" change you've been advocating for for a while now; transports being forced to be used as transports and all. I kind of assumed you wrote the rule considering it fits your 'real wargame' shtick perfectly.

But hey, someone at GW is listening to you! That's great right? Next they'll add back that whole 'small shrubs kill tanks' rule you're so fond of.

Explain how a vehicle spontaneously exploding if it has no passengers when the battle starts, which is also assuming that the soldiers are always in their transport instead of outside of it when the fighting starts, either because they're taken by surprise or getting in position to engage the enemy, is "narrative".

I'm going to guess that he's misconstruing an argument I've seen Unit and others make in the past about how if units have transport vehicles they should be required to utilize it because "narrative"/"realism", instead of what players have been doing of buying the transport but using it as a fully independent gunboat/unit that feths off and does its own thing.

This is a heavy handed solution though, they could have just said that the unit + transport together are a single deployment drop and a unit needs to start the game in the transport or the unit and the transport need to be deployed within 4" coherency of eachother to start the game, etc. Would have fixed the problem adequately without the silliness of the self-destruction clause.

Yeah, transports just don't bugger off when they drop off units. They'll stay on the battlefield either to provide fire support or evac.

That depends on the transport. IFV's (think: Bradley), correct. APCs (think: M113)/IMVs (think: Humvee)/trucks etc - generally no, typically they are meant to ferry troops to the edge of the battlespace and disembark them there while the vehicles stay to the rear and unengaged as they lack the protection to survive anything more than light small arms fire while rarely packing substantial enough firepower to make it worth the risk OR they disembark troops upon contact and then withdraw to the rear while the infantry continue on foot.

As for the rule itself I'm beginning to wonder if anyone on the design team has ever taken any sort of game design course or even really thought about how games work beyond a surface level of thinking "We have X problem so we'll just staple on Rule Y to fix it". I know GW likes to promote from within the company and it really feels like they have a team of people who don't understand much about how games work or that they've never played any game EXCEPT GW games. Now in fairness I don't have an official qualification in game design either but I have played a lot of games and I enjoy analysing and breaking down games to see how all the parts fit together, why the designer chose to do what they did, what does and doesn't work for me etc and even with my limited knowledge I can see how cumbersome, awkward and unthematic these recent "fixes" are.

My current theory as to why GW fails so hard is because nobody left on the design team understands the "system logic" of 40ks underlying game design philosophy. I.E. the "why" that underlies the "how" of the rules. At this point they just view the mechanics and points values as a bunch of levers that they can push and pull and make changes with freely without consideration for how those levers impact balance or interact with other elements of the game design. Example - lascannons used to be 20 point upgrades but could destroy any vehicle in the game in a single lucky shot - hence the fact that they only fired one shot and weren't necessarily widely available was counterbalanced by the fact that they could do massive damage. They changed the way vehicles take damage etc. but lascannons are still mostly 20 point upgrades even though you now need 3-5 lucky shots to destroy the typical vehicle - but you still don't have access to them in greater quantity than you did before and they still only fire a single shot. Its like they changed the vehicle system without consideration for how it might impact other aspects of the game. Thats just the tip of the iceberg really, as you have more obvious things like the vicious cycle between AP/Damage creep and AP ignore AP/Damage rules, etc. which are more wide-ranging and impactful which speak to a core lack of understanding of how any of this gak works. Over the past two editions there have been lots of changes like this in the same vein, where on the surface you might not even consider it but once you think about it you realize that certain changes "broke" certain mechanical fundamentals that have not been otherwise addressed or that more recent changes fly in the face of what seem to be like near-scriptural fundamentals of the way the game was configured to operate previously. I can't wait to see how the new T9 (10 w/ strategem) land raiders break gameplay, personally. Its good GW is breaking the taboo on toughnesses greater than 8 but after going a few whole editions where T7/8 was recognized as the cap, and the entire points system, weapon interaction, game balance, etc. being built around that idea you can't just suddenly go "okay, things are T9 now" without ramifications to other areas of the game. One unit at T9 probably won't break things too much but there are still going to be aspects of the game that are going to suffer as a result of it.

Another major point of failure of course is that modern comphammer 40k is still built on the bones of an old overgrown narrative skirmish game. 8th/9th probably should have been clean-sheet designed, instead they were built on the shaky foundation of an old rules system designed to do something completely different from what GW is trying to do today. Likewise GW tries hard to make the new competitively focused ruleset to feel like the older narrative ruleset in style, if not in substance, which causes its competitiveness to suffer. GWs rules writing is very poor - you can see where they attempted to modernize the rules in a manner similar to other competitively focused games like warmachine, etc. where they pay more attention to timing and sequence and clearly defined terminology, etc. but GWs implementation is often incomplete and inconsistent with often unclear phrasing/terminology (anything that involves the concept of "wounds" or "wounding" gets messy as similar terminology is used to refer both to a mechanical rules interaction as well as an element of a models statline) that prevents the game from getting out of its own way.

 Blackie wrote:
This rule simply fits the GW designers' idea of transports: aka vehicles that are taken to support a unit, basically just like any other unit's upgrades.

It's like when they said that flyers were designed as supporting units, rather than models that could be taken in large numbers.

GW simply wants transports as specific options/upgrades to specific units.

It has nothing to do with balance, they just disliked that something that is called "dedicated transport" is taken in association of a unit that would never embark in that vehicle.

So...why, exactly, does it affect so many DTs where that isn't true? If what GW 'simply wants' is to stop (I guess) land speeder storms taken without scouts, why does it affect wave serpents taken for dire avengers, or chimeras taken for infantry squads, or... well, the entire span of transports that don't have any such restriction?

Your argument seems shakey, at best. Or baseless speculation on what you think the entire company's nebulous motives are.

Aye, it would've been simple to add a special rule to LSS that modified the general Dedicated Transport rule for them (and any other transport in a similar position) which required you to take a unit of SCOUT INFANTRY per LSS.

If you wanted to make a general modification, you could've modified the DT rule so that it was non-CHARACTER (if it isn't already; I haven't looked).

Making them deploy in the same slot as an eligible transportable unit would also have been a reasonable change, even if you just declared the unit was in the transport.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't know how point number two can be under or overstated any more than it already has.

It's like I've already answered this before:

Sigh. Once again: this is exactly the kind of rule you get when narrative players try to write tournament rules. They see something that "isn't how it works in 40k" and ban it, even if (as in this case) the thing in question isn't a balance problem. We saw it over and over again with comp scoring in previous editions and this rule would be perfectly at home in a 4th-6th edition comp document.

So which is more believable here: that a narrative player something that fits the clearly established history of what narrative players do when put in charge of tournament rules, or that an actual competitive player decided to ban something out of nowhere despite nobody in the actual competitive community considering it a problem.

That isn't an answer, though. That's a random personal opinion on who you believe is making the change and, frankly, looking for a scapegoat. (in the big bad narrative players, of all places. The ones most likely to play in their garage and not interact with a larger community)

Its worth noting that the name on the points doc (and therefor probably associated with the GT pack) is Robin Cruddace, Mr 'CORE is just a mechanical lever, it doesn't mean anything.' That's as far from narrative as you can get.

 Dysartes wrote:


GW Design staff does not automatically mean narrative players. Some of them will be, while other will fall into the baskets Unit used of "casual" and "competitive".

For all we know at this point, having not had the chance to question anyone there about why this change was made, one of the design team got pissed by someone fielding Land Speeder Storms without fielding Scouts, especially after losing a game to them at an event thanks to late game objective grabs by these less-than-dedicated transports.

then they shouldn't have designed the scouts with bad rules and primaris unable to use non primaris transports. Plus in the end it doesn't matter what GW designers think they are, as long as their wierd idea of how the game is being played by the avarge player looks more like the that of narrative games and worse they use it to explain any error they made durning design steps. "We weren't fully happy with how army X played under prior book" which they wrote to not work in a given edition, because of some directories we never get to know. Besides the stupid ones like we wanted people to have fun playing the army. God knows why they give some armies unfun rules then.

Voss wrote:
That isn't an answer, though. That's a random personal opinion on who you believe is making the change and, frankly, looking for a scapegoat. (in the big bad narrative players, of all places. The ones most likely to play in their garage and not interact with a larger community)

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck then it's a narrative player writing comp scoring rules again. Personal opinion may be all we'll ever have on this unless GW decides to talk about their intent directly but it's a personal opinion that aligns precisely with the well established pattern of what it looks like when narrative players write tournament rules.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Voss wrote:
That isn't an answer, though. That's a random personal opinion on who you believe is making the change and, frankly, looking for a scapegoat. (in the big bad narrative players, of all places. The ones most likely to play in their garage and not interact with a larger community)

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck then it's a narrative player writing comp scoring rules again. Personal opinion may be all we'll ever have on this unless GW decides to talk about their intent directly but it's a personal opinion that aligns precisely with the well established pattern of what it looks like when narrative players write tournament rules.

No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty. Because that A) eliminates any # of narratives of what was going on as the game began, B) eliminates any # of narratives that might develop as the game progresses.

No, someone somewhere got but-hurt by something that happened to them/they saw/they feared happening in competitive play.

Of course it's also possible that with these "Seasons" that they're just selecting random effects to be in play for the next few months. Or using these changes to playtest possible future changes (10th is coming you know)....
Basically throwing poo at the wall & seeing what sticks.

ccs wrote:
No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty.

As I keep having to tell you: narrative players did exactly that kind of thing with comp scoring in previous editions.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

ccs wrote:
No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty.

As I keep having to tell you: narrative players did exactly that kind of thing with comp scoring in previous editions.

Also it's only casual/narrative players defending the actual change. I haven't seen a competitive/tournament player support the change ANYWHERE.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

ccs wrote:
No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty.

As I keep having to tell you: narrative players did exactly that kind of thing with comp scoring in previous editions.

Also it's only casual/narrative players defending the actual change. I haven't seen a competitive/tournament player support the change ANYWHERE.

i am nowadays hardly called competitive, but i fail to see how the feth anyone can defend this rule at all in the vein of the game.

Dedicating a tank specifically to a unit, fine by me (not HQ an actual unit), but deciding how i have to field said unit initially?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

ccs wrote:
No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty.

As I keep having to tell you: narrative players did exactly that kind of thing with comp scoring in previous editions.

Also it's only casual/narrative players defending the actual change. I haven't seen a competitive/tournament player support the change ANYWHERE.

I think you're mixing up your labels (or simply misjudging people), because the News/Rumor thread looks entirely different to me. The handful of people defending it (from the absolute wave of condemnation) were doing so for tournament reasons.

Voss wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

ccs wrote:
No narrative player would write a rule that just auto-destroys a transport if it were to be deployed empty.

As I keep having to tell you: narrative players did exactly that kind of thing with comp scoring in previous editions.

Also it's only casual/narrative players defending the actual change. I haven't seen a competitive/tournament player support the change ANYWHERE.

I think you're mixing up your labels (or simply misjudging people), because the News/Rumor thread looks entirely different to me. The handful of people defending it (from the absolute wave of condemnation) were doing so for tournament reasons.

I haven't seen a single tournament reason listed in that thread.

Since you aren't looking...

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
So, taking a step back on the Dedicated Transports thing, a couple of questions...

A, What was the issue that was being seen that merited a fix of some form?
2, Was it a significant enough issue within GT play that a fix was required?
iii, If a fix was needed, did it need to be as broad as this, or was it specific units that needed looking at?

δ) There was a small problem with people spamming gunboat transports without any intention of using them as transportsthat could have been fixed with a scalpel, but GW opted for the vortex grenade instead.

Less gunboat transports (although I'm sure those are a factor as well), more using Land Speeder Storms as a cheap objective holder/grabber in armies with no scouts. It showed up in a lot of top table Space Marine lists. Basically it sits safely out of line of sight on a backfield objective for most of the game, then hops on a safe objective in the mid to late using its 18+1d6" movement. Not quite as cheap of a backfield objective holder as Cyberwolves or Servitors, but a lot more durable against non-LoS shooting and more capable of actually hopping out and doing something.

there you go. 'Top tables' and 'spamming.'

Narrative players:

Being blamed for ruining the game.

The 'rules' for which were originally designed to be used as interpretive source material to fight funky battles with your diddy Space Bros.

The corrupted heart of 40k is firmly for the narrative play camp.

What the current exterior is is killing both Comp and narrative play.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Since that sledgehammer of a rule arrived I've had people tell me with a straight face that:

1. There is no other reason to bring transports than to move troops up the table to objectives, so if you're not doing that you don't need transports.

2. That having empty transports is "abusing the rules".

3. IFVs do not support infantry lines, they only transport troops, and its proper tanks that support infantry.

4. That fixing the rules for specific problematic transports would be like playing "whack a mole" and that, as a result, it is just far easier to apply this rule to all transports.

Apparently this massive epidemic of killer abusive empty transports got by all of us!

Those people will do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to convince themselves that GW did a wonderful job with the rules changes.

Voss wrote:
Since you aren't looking...

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
So, taking a step back on the Dedicated Transports thing, a couple of questions...

A, What was the issue that was being seen that merited a fix of some form?
2, Was it a significant enough issue within GT play that a fix was required?
iii, If a fix was needed, did it need to be as broad as this, or was it specific units that needed looking at?

δ) There was a small problem with people spamming gunboat transports without any intention of using them as transportsthat could have been fixed with a scalpel, but GW opted for the vortex grenade instead.

Less gunboat transports (although I'm sure those are a factor as well), more using Land Speeder Storms as a cheap objective holder/grabber in armies with no scouts. It showed up in a lot of top table Space Marine lists. Basically it sits safely out of line of sight on a backfield objective for most of the game, then hops on a safe objective in the mid to late using its 18+1d6" movement. Not quite as cheap of a backfield objective holder as Cyberwolves or Servitors, but a lot more durable against non-LoS shooting and more capable of actually hopping out and doing something.

there you go. 'Top tables' and 'spamming.'

That's not support for it though, which is what I was asking for originally.

ccs wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

I'm sure it WILL affect me the next time I play Matched.
Because offensively stupid rules like this degrade my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Doesn't even matter if they apply to what I'm running.

And come August, when I pack an army to take with me to GenCon, it's going to affect what I choose to take.

There are other games to play at GenCon...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the polar opposite of your narrative. It's exactly in line with what "narrative" TOs used to do with comp rules and banning/penalizing a bunch of stuff that wasn't a balance issue in true competitive play but went against their idea of how things are "supposed to be done" in the 40k setting.

So it's the "badwrongfun" crowd, not narrative players.

And again, this was an update made in a tournament rules pack. It has nothing to do with narrative gaming.

Why is this even a discussion?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And again, this was an update made in a tournament rules pack. It has nothing to do with narrative gaming.

Why is this even a discussion?

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't know how point number two can be under or overstated any more than it already has.

It's like I've already answered this before:

Sigh. Once again: this is exactly the kind of rule you get when narrative players try to write tournament rules. They see something that "isn't how it works in 40k" and ban it, even if (as in this case) the thing in question isn't a balance problem. We saw it over and over again with comp scoring in previous editions and this rule would be perfectly at home in a 4th-6th edition comp document.

So which is more believable here: that a narrative player something that fits the clearly established history of what narrative players do when put in charge of tournament rules, or that an actual competitive player decided to ban something out of nowhere despite nobody in the actual competitive community considering it a problem.

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

I'm sure it WILL affect me the next time I play Matched.
Because offensively stupid rules like this degrade my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Doesn't even matter if they apply to what I'm running.

And come August, when I pack an army to take with me to GenCon, it's going to affect what I choose to take.

There are other games to play at GenCon...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Except narrative players don't want this anti-narrative rule. It's polar opposite of narrative. On whole different galaxy.

It's the polar opposite of your narrative. It's exactly in line with what "narrative" TOs used to do with comp rules and banning/penalizing a bunch of stuff that wasn't a balance issue in true competitive play but went against their idea of how things are "supposed to be done" in the 40k setting.

So it's the "badwrongfun" crowd, not narrative players.

Do narrative players NOT fit in that crowd typically?

Sheesh, kids these days and their ridiculous online witch hunts. Burn the narrative player, ruining tabletop war gaming, the well know non narrative and competitvely balanced hobby experience!

Hecaton wrote:

ccs wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
Did this actually effect anyone posting here? Has anyone had to change their main list they are playing for this?

I'm sure it WILL affect me the next time I play Matched.
Because offensively stupid rules like this degrade my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Doesn't even matter if they apply to what I'm running.

And come August, when I pack an army to take with me to GenCon, it's going to affect what I choose to take.

There are other games to play at GenCon...

Yes and every now & then I sign up for a 40k game. What of it?

Why is there actually even a discussion about who to blame when we all know GW just saw empty transports at tournaments and hit the giant red NO button without thinking about how it effects anything at all besides stopping people from fielding empty transport or why it might just be a per model issue. Its easier to just punish everyone rather than apply any sort of measured response or look into whether or not there's a problem in the base rules that could fix it.

The assumption (I assume, I l'm not reading 6 pages of bickering) that GW thinks about the game in terms of narritive/competitive is probably misguided. All they do is squeeze models rules into the 40k framework until they kinda sorta fit, the concept of narrative or competitive never enters the equation because that would require too much effort. As long as models aren't obnoxiously broken in a 2000pts game they think their job is done until the tournament beta testing results come back.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Do narrative players NOT fit in that crowd typically?

Not really.

They may (i have atleast) an issue with singular charachters picking transports on their own, but certainly they don't expect mechanised infantry to start IN their vehicles.
Afterall not every battle with mechanised forces is an all out armored spearhead, and mechanized forces are often first to dig in in a key area ergo they would need to be able to leave their tanks in deployment.

ALAS GW probably saw something it didn't like, cue storm speeders, and instead of rechecking their dedicated transport rules and access to that for specific datasheets or even in general, decided to pull a GW.

10 / 10 GW's


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Why is there actually even a discussion about who to blame when we all know GW just saw empty transports at tournaments and hit the giant red NO button without thinking about how it effects anything at all besides stopping people from fielding empty transport or why it might just be a per model issue. Its easier to just punish everyone rather than appl

The assumption (I assume, I l'm not reading 6 pages of bickering) that GW thinks about the game in terms of narritive/competitive is probably misguided. All they do is squeeze models rules into the 40k framework until they kinda sorta fit, the concept of narrative or competitive never enters the equation because that would require too much effort. As long as models aren't obnoxiously broken in a 2000pts game they think their job is done until the tournament beta testing results come back.

This.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
GW didn't support that kind of concept.

And used a nonsensical and inelegant blanket measure to fix a extremely niche problem that could be solved in a half dozen other nowhere-near-as-blatantly-stupid ways.

Just like the flyer thing.

Yeah, we should be familiar with this way of handling things at this point .

 Blackie wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
GW didn't support that kind of concept.

And used a nonsensical and inelegant blanket measure to fix a extremely niche problem that could be solved in a half dozen other nowhere-near-as-blatantly-stupid ways.

Just like the flyer thing.

Yeah, we should be familiar with this way of handling things at this point .

Considering CSM player bought after 4th edition codices all the following.. no we are the definition of insanity.

some of us just get lucid moments and decide that enough is enough.

Voss wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
This rule simply fits the GW designers' idea of transports: aka vehicles that are taken to support a unit, basically just like any other unit's upgrades.

It's like when they said that flyers were designed as supporting units, rather than models that could be taken in large numbers.

GW simply wants transports as specific options/upgrades to specific units.

It has nothing to do with balance, they just disliked that something that is called "dedicated transport" is taken in association of a unit that would never embark in that vehicle.

So...why, exactly, does it affect so many DTs where that isn't true? If what GW 'simply wants' is to stop (I guess) land speeder storms taken without scouts, why does it affect wave serpents taken for dire avengers, or chimeras taken for infantry squads, or... well, the entire span of transports that don't have any such restriction?

Your argument seems shakey, at best. Or baseless speculation on what you think the entire company's nebulous motives are.

Because it's easier to say "every dedicated transport now does...." instead of "Vehicle X, Y and Z now have to....". And for the majority of players this new rule doesn't change anything anyway.

Every argument is shakey and baseless speculation here, no one spoke to the game designers to ask the reason behind this change. It's just my opinion about those nebulous motives, I can't think of any other logical reason.

 Blackie wrote:
Because it's easier to say "every dedicated transport now does...." instead of "Vehicle X, Y and Z now have to....". And for the majority of players this new rule doesn't change anything anyway.

I'm morbidly curious - why do you think the majority of players won't be affected by this - because they'll not be using the pack, because they weren't using DTs anyway, or because they were deploying troops in DTs already?

I mean when I play I usually have my transports full, even though it's strictly worse then having my troops as a screening line for my army.

But this is a silly ass ruling

 Dysartes wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Because it's easier to say "every dedicated transport now does...." instead of "Vehicle X, Y and Z now have to....". And for the majority of players this new rule doesn't change anything anyway.

I'm morbidly curious - why do you think the majority of players won't be affected by this - because they'll not be using the pack, because they weren't using DTs anyway, or because they were deploying troops in DTs already?

Because I believe only a very small number of players field empty transports. The ghost arks are probably the only real exceptions here, those I think they were played empty more often than with something inside. But it's a vehicle that was taken for something that's kinda unique.

 Blackie wrote:
Because I believe only a very small number of players field empty transports. The ghost arks are probably the only real exceptions here, those I think they were played empty more often than with something inside. But it's a vehicle that was taken for something that's kinda unique.

My Chimera sometimes start empty, depending on what I need the infantry to do.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So war zone Nephilim says that if you deploy a Dedicated Transport without anyone in it, the dedicated transport is destroyed.

Can someone explain why this is? The whole point of a mechanized company is to be flexible - embarked upon the transports when necessary (say, when conducting a mobile defense or in the offense in open ground) and dismounted when necessary (basically everything infantry is useful for).

What is the logic of this rules change? Have empty transports been a problem?

The only thing I'm aware of was some people using the scout transport landspeeder. That's it.

The rule itself is very annoying for Scions. Taurox Primes are the closest thing they have to "Tanks" and now you can't even keep one back for firesupport unless it starts with a unit inside it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And again, this was an update made in a tournament rules pack. It has nothing to do with narrative gaming.

Why is this even a discussion?

Because lots of people (like me) go to clubs where all the 40k players play tourney rules in preparation of the 2-3 tourneys they attend a year (mostly locally). So it is in effect tourney rules or bust if you want a game.

Probably one of the reasons so much BFG has been played in the last month, necro before that, Blood Bowl before that and it seems with the May the 4th buys Star Wars is next then heresy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jarms48 wrote:


The only thing I'm aware of was some people using the scout transport landspeeder. That's it.

The rule itself is very annoying for Scions. Taurox Primes are the closest thing they have to "Tanks" and now you can't even keep one back for firesupport unless it starts with a unit inside it.

Well at least its consistent. Scions seem to be getting the short end of every Guard bonus stick currently.

Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Because lots of people (like me) go to clubs where all the 40k players play tourney rules in preparation of the 2-3 tourneys they attend a year (mostly locally). So it is in effect tourney rules or bust if you want a game.

Ok then... sure... . Not totally sure why you're quoting me, but ok then!

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

If the LSS is such an issue... amend the LSS to require a SCOUT INFANTRY squad to be taken per LSS, then review the situation.

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for Knight players complaining that people are using cheap vehicles to block their movement.

That is complaining that your skew list can be countered by a basic movement tactic. It comes across as "You should just let our massive stompy robots walk wherever we want them to and shoot whatever we want to!" No gak your opponent is going to use cheap units to block you off.

How dare a player uses tactics to counter his opponents' oversized warmachines that should have stayed in Apocalypse.

The_Real_Chris wrote:


Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

Sounds like you're describing a feature there, and not a bug...

This is what we get when modern 40k has just descended into "Guns go brrrrr!" and these tourney tryhards are thinking this change of removing a tactical element against them is a good thing.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Do narrative players NOT fit in that crowd typically?

"badwrongfun" is a behavior pattern typical to designers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:


Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

Sounds like you're describing a feature there, and not a bug...

This is what we get when modern 40k has just descended into "Guns go brrrrr!" and these tourney tryhards are thinking this change of removing a tactical element against them is a good thing.

Yup. People got outplayed and are salty about it.

Hecaton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Do narrative players NOT fit in that crowd typically?

"badwrongfun" is a behavior pattern typical to designers.

GW designers maybe. Most other designers are competent enough to not design a system with more holes in it than a particularly holey wall and the only way they know how to fix it is to take a sledgehammer and knock down the entire wall.

 Grimtuff wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:


Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

Sounds like you're describing a feature there, and not a bug...

This is what we get when modern 40k has just descended into "Guns go brrrrr!" and these tourney tryhards are thinking this change of removing a tactical element against them is a good thing.

I mean that great but has no bearing on deploying empty transports. Knights would be impacted the same even if the transports were deployed with contents?

This is really a "one of those things" change with no wider reasoning or impact but people are bending over backwards to be angry about something they seemingly doesn't matter that much.

It prevents:
- creating extra deployment drops
- getting the cheapest option for blocking/capping/gunboats
- fluff based players doing what they want using tournament rules

The real problem is that it is symptomatic of 40k being a warGAME and not a WARgame.

The rules are becoming less and less concerned with being a depiction/reflection of warfare in this fun setting, and are instead becoming more and more concerned with being gamey and weird for inscrutable reasons.

But I wouldn't expect the "40k isn't a wargame, doofus" crowd to understand why that is a problem, because they have a more fundamental disagreement with me about what 40k even is.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, today the 'bad dataslate' is the tournament players' fault.

Good times. Its probably the same team with the same lead, but bad book is because narrative players exist, and bad pdf is because tournament players exist.
According to those in the know, of course.

Ah yes well the bad state of 40k is the players' fault, after all.

If only 40k didn't have any players it would be the perfect game.

Honestly even in tournaments where people would take 1 or 2 LSS's without scouts.

Is that really a problem worth fixing? Its not adding all that much to the game other than letting people take a unit they normally would never take. Now people are just not going to play with the LSS's and move onto something else, you know like a NORMAL Land Speeder for 5pts more. This is not fixing any issues just making the game less fun for people that didn't abuse it to save 5pts or a slot that is normally not even being used lol.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

Talking to the tourney players at club they like the rule, apparently Knight players hated cheap vehicles being used to block their movement, especially drop pods, and scout landspeeders had 'popped up' as an issue as no scouts were bought to go with them.

Ok, so now they'll just be blocked by slightly more expensive cheap vehicles....

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The real problem is that it is symptomatic of 40k being a warGAME and not a WARgame.

The rules are becoming less and less concerned with being a depiction/reflection of warfare in this fun setting, and are instead becoming more and more concerned with being gamey and weird for inscrutable reasons.

But I wouldn't expect the "40k isn't a wargame, doofus" crowd to understand why that is a problem, because they have a more fundamental disagreement with me about what 40k even is.

Flames of War has a rule called "Send Transports to the Rear." When you dismount transported units from a Transport they leave the battlefield. They can come back later (Bring Transports Forward). They have exceptions for "armed" transports like 250s/251s, but then they must remain in command distance.

40K Dedicated Transports are "free chicken" from a force organization perspective. Comparable vehicles take potentially scare Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots. So now the designers are imposing some restrictions on the free chicken. I can live with it.

I also think that the designers try to incorporate competitive and narrative elements. I think they are doing the opposite of what you say. They are trying to remove "gamey" elements like taking Dedicated Transports for reasons other than transporting infantry.

How many transports in Flames of War are similar to, say, Chimeras or Wave Serpents?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
How many transports in Flames of War are similar to, say, Chimeras or Wave Serpents?

They have very few Aeldari DTs in FOW. As my post said, they allow some "armed" Half Tracks to remain on the table after dismount but they must then remain in command distance. Team Yankee allows BMPs to operate separately.

If this rule upsets you lets try simply classifying Wave Serpents and Chimeras as Heavy Support. Job's done. Do what you want with them on the table, but no free chicken.

Alternatively, let DTs start empty but they count as part of the unit they are bought for and must remain in coherency. Job's done.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
How many transports in Flames of War are similar to, say, Chimeras or Wave Serpents?

They have very few Aeldari DTs in FOW. As my post said, they allow some "armed" Half Tracks to remain on the table after dismount but they must then remain in command distance. Team Yankee allows BMPs to operate separately.

If this rule upsets you lets try simply classifying Wave Serpents and Chimeras as Heavy Support. Job's done. Do what you want with them on the table, but no free chicken.

Alternatively, let DTs start empty but they count as part of the unit they are bought for and must remain in coherency. Job's done.

"Free chicken"?

This is the most permissible and flexible FOC paradigm we've ever seen, and even back with strict 3rd Ed FOCs tranports could be deployed without troops in them.

This rule is gak, plain and simple.

I get that people get mad when their free chicken gets taken away.

So start your Dedicated Transports with infantry on board and keep your free chicken.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They have very few Aeldari DTs in FOW.

That's cute.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
As my post said, they allow some "armed" Half Tracks to remain on the table after dismount but they must then remain in command distance. Team Yankee allows BMPs to operate separately.

So, you mean to say, that you can have transports operating without the need to have people inside them? How novel...

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
If this rule upsets you lets try simply classifying Wave Serpents and Chimeras as Heavy Support. Job's done.

Where they would be outclassed and ignored in favour of actual Heavy Support choices. Why don't we fix the 'Dedicated' part of 'Dedicated Transports' instead, as that seems to me it would solve far more problems.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Do what you want with them on the table, but no free chicken.

What "free chicken" were they exploiting prior to this sudden and inexplicable rule change?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Alternatively, let DTs start empty but they count as part of the unit they are bought for and must remain in coherency.

That makes even less sense than making them HS slots.

We have units that have to deploy together. Why can't that be expanded? 'A transport must be placed within X" of its transported unit, or begin the game embarked. Once deployed they may act independently.'. Not hard.

So you are OK with Flames of War having the empty armed transports having to stay in coherency with their dismounted platoon but not in 40K?

The free chicken is having vehicles that do not take a FA or Hvy Sp slot. With the Nephilim changes to starting CP those slots suddenly become valuable.

I get that some folks are upset that they have to use their Dedicated Transports as a Dedicated Transport at the start of the game.

I just saw your edit. So I don't think we are all that far apart. I could get behind starting dismounted but within 3". Which wouldn't be functionally all that different than the new rule but could ease some edge cases with certain terrain set-ups.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I get that people get mad when their free chicken gets taken away.

So start your Dedicated Transports with infantry on board and keep your free chicken.

The "free chicken" that one still pays points for, and hasn't taken any FOC spot for . . . 23 years? Why now all of a sudden? Are you so threatened by the "free chicken"?

If you want to do anything, make the transports require units that can actually embark in them. At the moment I think you can take a Primaris transport even when you only have First/true/real/born infantry. I think you can take Rhinos for Terminators. That's the fix, not transport destroyed if troops aren't embarked, ffs.

Flames of War is set in World War II and doesn't have IFVs - it is doctrinally appropriate that the transports do not remain and fight with the troops.

Conversely, the Chimera is designed to fight alongside the troops it carries (and the troops are designed to fight alongside them in some cases, e.g. Armageddon Steel Legion). Chimeras are also similar in look and relative armament to a BMP, which is an IFV (the BMP-1 was the first IFV in the world). Most of the transports in 40k are IFVs, not APCs. Flames of War does not have IFVs.

In other words, saying "world war 2 half-tracks have to go home when their infantry dismount, therefore infantry cannot start dismounted in 40k" is basically as helpful as saying "well, canvas wagons didn't see front line combat in the 1200s so infantry can't start dismounted in 40k"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Flames of War is set in World War II and doesn't have IFVs - it is doctrinally appropriate that the transports do not remain and fight with the troops.

Conversely, the Chimera is designed to fight alongside the troops it carries (and the troops are designed to fight alongside them in some cases, e.g. Armageddon Steel Legion). Chimeras are also similar in look and relative armament to a BMP, which is an IFV (the BMP-1 was the first IFV in the world). Most of the transports in 40k are IFVs, not APCs. Flames of War does not have IFVs.

In other words, saying "world war 2 half-tracks have to go home when their infantry dismount, therefore infantry cannot start dismounted in 40k" is basically as helpful as saying "well, canvas wagons didn't see front line combat in the 1200s so infantry can't start dismounted in 40k"

I offer the FOW rules to show similar design in other wargames. Thanks for the hot tip on the BMP 1 being the first IFV - did you read my post where I mentioned them? I'm an Armour officer in real life for what its worth. Maybe a future Codex will grant dispensation for certain DTs from certain armies in certain situations?

Cool. So have your infantry fight alongside your Chimeras - in squad coherency with them. Or just start them in their Dedicated Transports at the start of a GT Nephilim game? Those scenarios all look like meeting engagements, so it is appropriate that the mech infantry start mounted. See - verisimilitude preserved.

If you are an armor officer in real life, would you force your dismounts to stay within about 15 ft of the vehicle?

And I can buy that sometimes infantry are mounted for a meeting engagement. I can also see cases where they would be dismounted (a meeting engagement in urban terrain would probably be much more collaborative between the track and it's dismounts than just the track going forward with everyone mounted and hoping for the best).

Forcing infantry to stay embarked on their track at the beginning of any battle in any warzone is nonsensical, whether on Earth or on Nephilim.

I hope no real-life armor officer would ever say "wait for the enemy to get roughly within rifle range before dismounting" to mechanized infantry.

"Captain!"
"Sergeant?"
"We've reached the edge of the city. There are no enemy in sight yet."
"No enemy... then what are you doing out of your transport?"
"Sir...? We were setting a defensive position. The men have moved the heavy weapons into elevated position-"
"The men? You're all out of your transports?"
"Well... of course we are sir. We're waiting for-"
"You just said the enemy have not yet been sighted!"
"Yes sir, I did, but-"
"Then get back in your transports until we see them."
"I'm sorry... sir that doesn't make any-"
*distant explosions*
"Damn it! I knew this would happen."
"Are we under attack, Captain?"
"No, you fool! All our transports just exploded! All because you and your foolish men couldn't stay inside until we had seen the whites of the enemy's eyes!"
"I'm so confused..."
"The Commissar will have my head for this!"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I hope no real-life armor officer would ever say "wait for the enemy to get roughly within rifle range before dismounting" to mechanized infantry.

"We've heard reports that the enemy is operating with a sizeable force in this location. It is imperative that nobody gets out of the truck until we are in said enemy's anti-materiel weapon range. Infantry will not do any forward scouting of their vehicles to identify and eliminate ambushes."

It's like the GW rules team looked at the tactics of the Russian forces in Ukraine, where you drive blindly into killzones to be picked off by artillery, aircraft and portable anti-tank weaponry, and decided that was how they wanted their armies to operate.

Flames of War is on a different scale than 40k and a bad comparison therefore

Bolt Action would fit better, but there Transport can do whatever they want

TangoTwoBravo wrote:


I get that some folks are upset that they have to use their Dedicated Transports as a Dedicated Transport at the start of the game.

That's not what they're upset about. They're upset because this rule is a kneejerk reaction to...nothing as far as anyone can tell. It represents nothing from a realism POV and doesn't deal with an in-game problem. It's the very definition of a rule for its own sake. Even if we accept there is a genuine reason to make DT act more like real life there are a whole bunch of ways to do it that make more sense and aren't as stupidly punishing. You could force DT to only be allowed to be bought by units that can actually use them, for example. Or you could make a DT's parent unit have to deploy within a certain distance of their transport. You could give the DT some small buff when it's within a certain range of its parent unit. All of these either provide incentives or actually line up with the background. Instantly exploding vehicles don't.

The DT issue seems like it could be resolved with a few lines added to each book.

1. A DT is purchased as part of an infantry unit, and thus must be deployed at the same time. The infantry either start deployed or in unit coherency with the DT. One game starts, DT can go do what it wants separate from the infantry. It is no longer a separate entity when building the list and is included as an option on the infantry's datasheet. This gives the DT "unlock requirements" like squad size and unit type. So you couldn't buy a Trukk for a mob of 20 Boys, but you can buy a Speeder Storm if you take a unit of scouts.

2. A model with the "dedicated transport" tag can't hold objectives unless it has infantry embarked. It can only contest objectives if it has more wounds remaining than the opposing unit.


The "gunboat" issue seems to be something entirely different that needs a unit-to-unit rework if it even needs one.

I also don't know how Ghost Arks work, but it sounds like they shouldn't be DT's anyway from what I'm reading. Maybe GA's can have a little "I'm the exception" rule or something.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I get that people get mad when their free chicken gets taken away.

So start your Dedicated Transports with infantry on board and keep your free chicken.

Ah yes. The most unfluffy solution. With transports destroyed automatically because they literally cannot avoid it.

Gw white knights are funny. "gw can do no wrong, all is good". And then when gw reverts suddenly the　rule they defended was always bad :lol:

And free chicken. You have point therb when dt cost 0 and doesn't require infantry taken. Until then your claim is　non-sense.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
The DT issue seems like it could be resolved with a few lines added to each book.

1. A DT is purchased as part of an infantry unit, and thus must be deployed at the same time. The infantry either start deployed or in unit coherency with the DT. One game starts, DT can go do what it wants separate from the infantry. It is no longer a separate entity when building the list and is included as an option on the infantry's datasheet. This gives the DT "unlock requirements" like squad size and unit type. So you couldn't buy a Trukk for a mob of 20 Boys, but you can buy a Speeder Storm if you take a unit of scouts.

2. A model with the "dedicated transport" tag can't hold objectives unless it has infantry embarked. It can only contest objectives if it has more wounds remaining than the opposing unit.


The "gunboat" issue seems to be something entirely different that needs a unit-to-unit rework if it even needs one.

I also don't know how Ghost Arks work, but it sounds like they shouldn't be DT's anyway from what I'm reading. Maybe GA's can have a little "I'm the exception" rule or something.

I for the most part agree with these changes.
And yeah, Ghost Arks really shouldn't be a Dedicated Transport option. It doesn't fit the fluff nor reflect their role as healing support for warrior hordes.
You can't even shoot out of them anymore as they aren't open topped, so you can't use that old drive by tactic. Which is probably for the best, really.
They should really just be an upgrade choice for warriors (with limitations) or have their own FOC rules to reflect their idiosyncrasies.

If they weren't DT options, then using them as a support choice for a warrior blob woulnd't instantly kill them, like what is happening with the Nihilim rules.

It's just that as is, you either have to buy an extra squad of warriors or do the cheesy thing and put a single character in it.
Which is fairly ironic, really; in an attempt to get rid of "cheese", GW just encouraged a new form of cheese where you put a single character in a transport and disembark.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
The DT issue....
[...]
The "gunboat" issue seems to be something entirely different....

the problem is, there is no DT issue but only a Gunboat issue and while it is something different it was tried to be solved with something that was not an issue in the first place

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I get that people get mad when their free chicken gets taken away.

When all bar, what, three armies* in the game can do something, it isn't "free chicken" - it's "standard operating procedure".

* - I make it as Chaos Daemons, Imperial Knights and Chaos Knights with no DT at this time, with Tyranids being limited to their Drop Pod equivalent.

Yeah I don't fully understand the free chicken comment. Like if GW published a rule saying "Infantry without a Heavy weapon cannot shoot" people would turn around and say "yeah serves you right, all you people wanting free chicken by not putting Heavy weapons in your squads"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you are an armor officer in real life, would you force your dismounts to stay within about 15 ft of the vehicle?

And I can buy that sometimes infantry are mounted for a meeting engagement. I can also see cases where they would be dismounted (a meeting engagement in urban terrain would probably be much more collaborative between the track and it's dismounts than just the track going forward with everyone mounted and hoping for the best).

Forcing infantry to stay embarked on their track at the beginning of any battle in any warzone is nonsensical, whether on Earth or on Nephilim.

I hope no real-life armor officer would ever say "wait for the enemy to get roughly within rifle range before dismounting" to mechanized infantry.

I suppose this in the internet and you are free to doubt that I am an armour officer in real life. The decision to dismount in real life is made on an estimate of the situation. In a hasty attack the infantry commander will give the order to debus over the radio or give the conditions to debus as part of the radio orders. If you are assaulting a platoon position, for instance, the infantry might dismount their LAVs short of the objective but almost assuredly within rifle range in that case -this could be quite close to the enemy trenches/positions. This is the most common in my experience. Its a combined arms fight with the panzers up front, perhaps with a troop of tanks in intimate support to the infantry with other tanks in a fire base and still others having breached the obstacle belt. The infantry might dismount right on top of the position - this is awkward at the moment of dismount but it could be course of action based on how the enemy is laid out/equipped. They might even go through/past the position mounted and then dismount. This last one would be quite rare. Perhaps the enemy have a weak obstacle plan and by dismounting past the objective the infantry can assault the fighting positions from an angle the enemy is not prepared for, but it is an option.

As I said a few pages ago there are certainly tactical situations where the infantry would start the engagement dismounted. A defence, for instance, or a deliberate attack with infantry assaulting on a converging axis that is impassible to vehicles. This would involve a dismounted approach and the disposition of their vehicles would again depend on the situation. In those cases the Zulu Vehicles (infantry carriers without infantry) may well be cut away for other tasks. I would call a defence or deliberate attack a narrative play game, though, where you are free to use such rules as you see fit to bring your story to life. Match play scenarios, on the other hand, certainly look like meeting engagements to me.

In a meeting engagement both sides are usually advancing, and I am trying to imagine a mechanized combat team advancing with the infantry dismounted (I've been a mechanized combat team commander). Platoons might dismount episodically to clear chokepoints/defiles, but as a rule they will be in the LAVs at least a couple of bounds behind the panzers. So all this to say I am comfortable with Dedicated Transports having to begin the game with infantry embarked. Contact is made (Turn 1) and the commander can then dispose of his forces as he sees fit to include dismounted all or some of the infantry and sending the Zulu vehicles off to do things like fire support, flank security etc.

I am not saying that the infantry unit should stay within a certain distance of its Dedicated Transport. I was simply offering that as another route at the rules writers could have gone, and pointing out that Flames of War has its armed halftracks that stay on the board after dismount need to stay in command distance of their platoon that they were transporting.

So if we are playing a Nephilim game we need to use our DTs can were free slots as DTs at the start of the game. I'm OK with it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah I don't fully understand the free chicken comment. Like if GW published a rule saying "Infantry without a Heavy weapon cannot shoot" people would turn around and say "yeah serves you right, all you people wanting free chicken by not putting Heavy weapons in your squads"

DTs are free force organization slots. That is why I referred to them as free chicken. Your analogy doesn't really compare.

Now the DTs have a restriction linked to their battlefield role. So they are not quite as free anymore from an FOC perspective.

 Insectum7 wrote:
This is the most permissible and flexible FOC paradigm we've ever seen, and even back with strict 3rd Ed FOCs tranports could be deployed without troops in them.

True but in 3rd edition, no one else could embark on a dedicated transport. If you bought a Transport for Squad A, then no one else was allowed in it, even if Squad A was dead.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah I don't fully understand the free chicken comment. Like if GW published a rule saying "Infantry without a Heavy weapon cannot shoot" people would turn around and say "yeah serves you right, all you people wanting free chicken by not putting Heavy weapons in your squads"

DTs are free force organization slots. That is why I referred to them as free chicken. Your analogy doesn't really compare.

Now the DTs have a restriction linked to their battlefield role. So they are not quite as free anymore from an FOC perspective.

Well, no. They're still entirely free from a FOC perspective. FOC isn't really an issue for most armies, and this doesn't change the amount or restrictions when it comes to dumping DTs onto the battlefield
The restriction is on deployment, and it affects the unit (well, a unit or model somewhere in the army) far more than it affects the transport.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I suppose this in the internet and you are free to doubt that I am an armour officer in real life. The decision to dismount in real life is made on an estimate of the situation.

In my somewhat more limited experience, the amount of buildings on the average 40k board would be the outskirts of a town/village and the troops would be out as I assume these urban areas we are entering/fighting over aren't already belonging to one side or the other. Being ambushed while riding through an urban area seems more like the narrative stuff you are espousing. Unless you have a force which has a doctrine of disembarking only under contact, are poorly manned (witness Russian BTGs and their inability to have both crew and dismounts for a vehicle), or are simply poorly disciplined and no one really wants to walk if they can avoid it, especially if they have a false sense of security from the (thin) metal walls around them. British troops are kicked out with regularity, especially when approaching a built up area that is assumed to be hostile.

Saying all that it would be neat if some scenarios stipulated whether troops have to be mounted or not in line with the scenario to add to the narrative of the actual games.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

I suppose this in the internet and you are free to doubt that I am an armour officer in real life. The decision to dismount in real life is made on an estimate of the situation. In a hasty attack the infantry commander will give the order to debus over the radio or give the conditions to debus as part of the radio orders. If you are assaulting a platoon position, for instance, the infantry might dismount their LAVs short of the objective but almost assuredly within rifle range in that case -this could be quite close to the enemy trenches/positions. This is the most common in my experience. Its a combined arms fight with the panzers up front, perhaps with a troop of tanks in intimate support to the infantry with other tanks in a fire base and still others having breached the obstacle belt. The infantry might dismount right on top of the position - this is awkward at the moment of dismount but it could be course of action based on how the enemy is laid out/equipped. They might even go through/past the position mounted and then dismount. This last one would be quite rare. Perhaps the enemy have a weak obstacle plan and by dismounting past the objective the infantry can assault the fighting positions from an angle the enemy is not prepared for, but it is an option.

As I said a few pages ago there are certainly tactical situations where the infantry would start the engagement dismounted. A defence, for instance, or a deliberate attack with infantry assaulting on a converging axis that is impassible to vehicles. This would involve a dismounted approach and the disposition of their vehicles would again depend on the situation. In those cases the Zulu Vehicles (infantry carriers without infantry) may well be cut away for other tasks. I would call a defence or deliberate attack a narrative play game, though, where you are free to use such rules as you see fit to bring your story to life. Match play scenarios, on the other hand, certainly look like meeting engagements to me.

In a meeting engagement both sides are usually advancing, and I am trying to imagine a mechanized combat team advancing with the infantry dismounted (I've been a mechanized combat team commander). Platoons might dismount episodically to clear chokepoints/defiles, but as a rule they will be in the LAVs at least a couple of bounds behind the panzers. So all this to say I am comfortable with Dedicated Transports having to begin the game with infantry embarked. Contact is made (Turn 1) and the commander can then dispose of his forces as he sees fit to include dismounted all or some of the infantry and sending the Zulu vehicles off to do things like fire support, flank security etc.

I am not saying that the infantry unit should stay within a certain distance of its Dedicated Transport. I was simply offering that as another route at the rules writers could have gone, and pointing out that Flames of War has its armed halftracks that stay on the board after dismount need to stay in command distance of their platoon that they were transporting.

This is fine and dandy and all. It may be reflective of actual "Canadian Reality" ^TM ( debus- so cute), but down here in Merica, in the US Army the motto is "Death before Dismount." Those boys will literally do everything except taking a dump mounted.

Well, I'm just going to say that's a huge change in training discipline.

Last century, officers didn't want their troops turned into canned chutney, and the troops didn't want to be in them.

A dud RPG round passing through a transport without exploding is only reason my father lived long enough to have kids.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
In a meeting engagement both sides are usually advancing, and I am trying to imagine a mechanized combat team advancing with the infantry dismounted (I've been a mechanized combat team commander). Platoons might dismount episodically to clear chokepoints/defiles, but as a rule they will be in the LAVs at least a couple of bounds behind the panzers. So all this to say I am comfortable with Dedicated Transports having to begin the game with infantry embarked. Contact is made (Turn 1) and the commander can then dispose of his forces as he sees fit to include dismounted all or some of the infantry and sending the Zulu vehicles off to do things like fire support, flank security etc.

I think we all recognize that close-range dismount is a legitimate thing. The problem is a rule that forces you to start buttoned-up, because 40K starting you on the board in close contact means there are cases where your infantry should have dismounted a long ways back. Urban environments are a pretty straightforward example; I've been present for COIN operations in which Stryker teams dismounted before contact, and Russian ground forces have been rightfully criticized in the past few months for trying to operate mechanized and armor forces in urban areas without infantry support. Soviet doctrine emphasized infantry staying mounted for rapid assaults in deep battle, but when assaulting a prepared position would dismount before contact.

More importantly, turn 1 of 40K shouldn't realistically represent contact and the decision point to dismount- having zero indication of enemy presence until suddenly the entirety of both forces are staring each other down 200yds away is not particularly typical of modern combat. You might be starting in the LAVs behind the panzers, but if your infantry are still in there when suddenly the IFVs are getting hit by man-portable short-range anti-tank weapons, that's not a meeting engagement, that's an ambush.

A better representation of a meeting engagement in 40K would be that your armor is up front and deployed on the table, and the LAVs start coming in after initial contact- with the choice of infantry having either dismounted or staying mounted before they even reach the table.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
DTs are free force organization slots. That is why I referred to them as free chicken.

Given the value of force organization slots in 9th it's less free chicken and more free hotel counter mints or complimentary toothpicks. Is anyone actually spamming DTs as fire support platforms because they're full up on slots?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
Well, I'm just going to say that's a huge change in training discipline.

Last century, officers didn't want their troops turned into canned chutney, and the troops didn't want to be in them.

A dud RPG round passing through a transport without exploding is only reason my father lived long enough to have kids.

There's a pretty big doctrinal difference between armored personnel carriers (APCs) and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). Basically Cold War planners recognized that on a modern battlefield, infantry were going to need to be operationally mobile, and dismounting from thin-skinned transports (wheeled trucks or tracked APCs) long before contact would limit their mobility. So the IFV was developed as a vehicle with enough armor to stand up to small arms, and a decent enough weapon to provide direct fire support, that could operate offensively, with infantry dismounting for close assault or defensive operations.

Different countries have different implementations of both APC and IFV doctrine, and it ranges the gamut from transports that never see the battlefield to quasi-tanks where infantry fire from specialized ports and are never realistically expected to dismount.

And perhaps more importantly, why would armed forces, including alien races, in a fantastical future dystopia be constrained by 21st century canadian doctrine?

Canadian
Caadian
Cadian

 Insectum7 wrote:
And perhaps more importantly, why would armed forces, including alien races, in a fantastical future dystopia be constrained by 21st century canadian doctrine?

They are not and I am not asking them to be. For what its worth, though, Canadian mechanized doctrine/TTPs at sub-unit and unit level are not all that different from US and UK. I have been on three exchanges with the US military and took the US Army course for company commanders. There are some differences but there is more in common. I brought up modern doctrine in response to some here complaining about the new rule and making reference to realism and modern IFVs/etc. I am saying that as a professional military officer my verisimilitude is intact with this rule. To me its not that the DT blew up - it was retasked by higher since it wasn't being employed.

There is no ground scale in 40K - a common feature of miniatures games. In Matched Play, though, you usually start 24" apart, give or take. If folks think that it us unrealistic for mechanized infantry to be mounted at that distance on the game table, how do they handle the presence of Brigade, Division and even higher artillery resources being pretty much that far from the enemy as well? The player also has amazing situational awareness of both the enemy and his own forces. Nobody gets lost. Comms work perfectly and people move exactly where the OC wants them.

I also think some here are not reading my posts? Mech infantry absolutely dismount - I have said that and pointed out three methods in an attack following an advance to contact (to me what a typical 40K Matched Play scenario most closely resembles. Mech infantry can also leave their vehicles behind and operate completely dismounted. I have been on fighting patrols in the mountains north of Kandahar on foot with the vehicles left at a patrol base/platoon house.

As an aside, who thinks you should stop and dismount in an ambush? Its the last thing you should do unless you are immobilized - you try to fight through and get off the X. If folks are saying that you prevent ambushes by being dismounted then sure, but there are imperatives such as time at play. Anyhoo.

In terms of game and list building, would folks prefer that DTs were Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support? If not, why not?

I brought up FOW to show a system that is even more punishing in terms the results of the decision to dismount. Even with the change in Nephilim, you are free to use your DTs as you see fit after the game starts.

Ok, a few things:

1:"They are not and I am not asking them to be" Right off the bat this means the rules do not have to be commensurate to your experience.

2: But at the same time you mention being deployed without your transports IRL . . so if you can be deployed within your transport in IRL, and you can be deployed without your transport IRL, why would the middle case of being an engagement deployed outside a transport which is instead set aside some hundreds of meters away in a supporting role be so outlandish?

3: "As an aside, who thinks you should stop and dismount in an ambush? Its the last thing you should do unless you are immobilized - you try to fight through and get off the X" - Why not let the commander (the player) decide that? Especially, again, since we're talking about totally a different doctrinal context (chainswords and all).

4: And finally, ". . .if DTs were Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support? If not, why not?" - What is the problem you're trying to solve? The DT method as-is provides a way for armies to differentiate themselves by having an alternate method for introducing certain support vehicles into the army. This is a valuable method for defining factional differences, as factions intended to be mobile can stack up on these vehicles, and factions which are not intended to be as mobile can just be stuck using the 'ol FOC restrictions.

The new "transports destroyed" rule looks to be part of what is now the all-too-common "GW attempts to fix game with absolute head-in-sand absurdity" trend of adjustments these days.