I see a fair amount of post in here asking questions or speculating about 10th edition which at the minute is imaginary. Sure there will be another edition one day, maybe next year or maybe in 5 years. But we have what we have now and it doesn’t feel like we’ve had it that long considering the latest codexes are very new.
8th edition was announced 22nd april 1917, 9th was announced 23rd may 2020, and now warhammer fest is happening 29th april 2023. Do you see a pattern ?
mrFickle wrote: I see a fair amount of post in here asking questions or speculating about 10th edition which at the minute is imaginary. Sure there will be another edition one day, maybe next year or maybe in 5 years. But we have what we have now and it doesn’t feel like we’ve had it that long considering the latest codexes are very new.
So why give the unknown so much attention?
A couple reasons-
1. once again GW has turned an edition into a hot mess. they did it with formations in 7th then 8.5 and now 9th. some players want a complete reset to start fresh
2. there is a desire in the gaming community for the "new thing" most war games have had many editions that have made slight or large changes to keep attracting new players as well as giving old players something to buy. there are exceptions like classic battletech that basically has had the same rule set for 30+ years but even there they introduced alpha strike as a completely different and alternate rule set.
Sometimes sadly because of the need to drive sales they throw good things by the wayside. most veteran players have an edition they like best. for WHFBs the most often i have heard is either 6th or 8th, for 40K it tends to be the divide between 2nd, a combination of 3rd-5th and then 8th+. FOW are on what edition number 4 now? infinity is on N4 and i think it is nowhere near as good as N2 rules wise.
You don’t think the new boarding actions stuff is essentially going to be edition 9.5? Seems like a lot of new stuff is going to be introduced just before a new edition
mrFickle wrote: You don’t think the new boarding actions stuff is essentially going to be edition 9.5? Seems like a lot of new stuff is going to be introduced just before a new edition
A lot of people expected 8.1 Ed after the Psychic Awakening stuff but GW evidently don't want to do incremental adjustments with 40k. They just want to do whole new editions and make people buy more and more books.
Word around the campfire is that the insatiable bugs are going to be the big baddies of 10th edition. Necrons are cool but Tyranids are the bee's knees.
New editions at this stage isn't a brand new game, it's just refinements of the existing game (small tweaks). Great way to push the narrative and set the tone for the next few years. 9th core rules, fundamentally, isn't very different from 8th.
I don't expect anything which is going to fix balance/imbalance in the game. But, will probably shake the meta up one way or another.
Just looking forward to what the next Indomitus/dominion box will be.
I think just timing wise they are due for a new edition soon as it follows their typical schedule. The rumors I don't believe are a "full reset" edition. My guess is we are going to essentially see an edition which at its core is a small update. I just think if they were really doing a hard reset they would have held off world eaters for the new edition. Its not like it would have been a core rulebook going without an update
We are still missing a few Codexes, a lot of Space Marine supplements, filler campaign books and the obligatory Space Marines 2.0 codex, so I don't believe we are getting 10th in 2023, at least not earlier than Fall.
With the intervals of recent editions I think a new edition next summer is very likely. The only edition that has been rumored to be delayed so far is AoS 4.0, but that remains to be seen.
Regarding why? New editions make money and big edition boxes are good way to boost profits. Probably reason why we have the three year cadence going on with the edition(three years for 40k, three years for AoS, and then three years for whatever specialist game is big enough). It probably raises sales during a summer season that is probably not big on sales otherwise*.
Also, people enjoy new stuff and shaking things up can be fun, albeit a bit exhausting with the frequent releases.
* I work in live game development and summer is always our down season.
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Tyran wrote: We are still missing a few Codexes, a lot of Space Marine supplements, filler campaign books and the obligatory Space Marines 2.0 codex, so I don't believe we are getting 10th in 2023, at least not earlier than Fall.
A new edition is always a mid summer release. There hasn't been an exception to that for a long time now.
The codices we are missing are Votann, IG, and World Eaters. If 10th comes out next July then we have a 9 month release window for 3 books - 4 if we get a new Space Marine codex. Supplements are such low hanging fruits that they can easily be extra releases here and there. Also, we've only had one edition in recent memory that got two SM codexes(8th) so I wouldn't count on that to remain a pattern although I wouldn't rule it out.
In the last reveals they already revealed the new campaign series and it appears to be a much more limited series than Psychic Awakening. The impression that I got is that PA was just too many books and probably not enough sales to warrant doing the same all over again. I am at least not going to buy 9-10 campaign books over a span of 5 months that then get thrown in the garbage after less than a year.
So if we take into account that all this material can easily be pushed out in the next 9 months I highly doubt we're going to see 12 months of non-release for 40k until the summer of 2024 for the next edition.
Eldarsif wrote: With the intervals of recent editions I think a new edition next summer is very likely. The only edition that has been rumored to be delayed so far is AoS 4.0, but that remains to be seen.
Regarding why? New editions make money and big edition boxes are good way to boost profits. Probably reason why we have the three year cadence going on with the edition(three years for 40k, three years for AoS, and then three years for whatever specialist game is big enough). It probably raises sales during a summer season that is probably not big on sales otherwise*.
Also, people enjoy new stuff and shaking things up can be fun, albeit a bit exhausting with the frequent releases.
* I work in live game development and summer is always our down season.
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Tyran wrote: We are still missing a few Codexes, a lot of Space Marine supplements, filler campaign books and the obligatory Space Marines 2.0 codex, so I don't believe we are getting 10th in 2023, at least not earlier than Fall.
A new edition is always a mid summer release. There hasn't been an exception to that for a long time now.
The codices we are missing are Votann, IG, and World Eaters. If 10th comes out next July then we have a 9 month release window for 3 books - 4 if we get a new Space Marine codex. Supplements are such low hanging fruits that they can easily be extra releases here and there. Also, we've only had one edition in recent memory that got two SM codexes(8th) so I wouldn't count on that to remain a pattern although I wouldn't rule it out.
In the last reveals they already revealed the new campaign series and it appears to be a much more limited series than Psychic Awakening. The impression that I got is that PA was just too many books and probably not enough sales to warrant doing the same all over again. I am at least not going to buy 9-10 campaign books over a span of 5 months that then get thrown in the garbage after less than a year.
So if we take into account that all this material can easily be pushed out in the next 9 months I highly doubt we're going to see 12 months of non-release for 40k until the summer of 2024 for the next edition.
AOS 4 been delayed? AOS3 is only just out so there's hardly time for rumours for even delay. Even with GW's lead times likely just started working for AOS 4.
I can imagine, that if I were to be a marine player, and not have a great time, then with the full knowladge that each new edition means a rules rewrite for marines, then the idea of a 10th ed soon, wouldn't be a very adverse one.
On top of that there is suppose to be something big anounced in april 2023. Why not a new edition?
I'm not sure, aside from lackluster greed, what the rush is.
Editions used to have 5-6 years between drops. I remember the move from 6th to 7th was widely derided at the time as leaving 6th too early and making it an exceptionally short edition. Given the newer "seasonal" model they seem to be adopting, dropping a new edition this quickly seems rushed. Though, given how quickly they built up the bloat from 8th I can see the appeal. If 10th arrived with the intention of having a longer edition filled with yearly warzones/campaigns built around specific factions and seeing resculpts and new releases alongside those yearly campaigns, then that seems like a much better business model to me, sustainable and always bringing something fresh to the table.
My problem with rushing out these editions is the obvious lack of care given to other aspects of the business such as CODEX BALANCE and STICKING WITH A SINGLE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY through an entire edition. Which are aspects GW could certainly use some time to refine...
p5freak wrote: 8th edition was announced 22nd april 1917, 9th was announced 23rd may 2020, and now warhammer fest is happening 29th april 2023. Do you see a pattern ?
1917 dear lord. What pattern could there be with that sort of gap in time.
In all seriousness wake me up when they have a wider dispersion of stats and move to a d10-12
I hear d10 and I just think that's 4 more numbers for GW to screw up with. If there is a serious, sustained nailing down of game systems using d6s I could see d10s being a decent move. Ultimately don't see it happening, for reasons more real world than game mechanics.
mrFickle wrote: You don’t think the new boarding actions stuff is essentially going to be edition 9.5? Seems like a lot of new stuff is going to be introduced just before a new edition
Nope. Boarding actions is going to be like Cities of Death and all the other supplements that come out, get dropped and vanish utterly within 6 months.
End-of-edition experimental splatbooks aren't particularly noteworthy in the industry.
purplkrush wrote: I'm not sure, aside from lackluster greed, what the rush is.
In theory a new edition could get rid of the rules bloat, fix IGOUGO, and add meaningful gameplay depth beyond "identify the best unit and take lots of copies of it". Unfortunately this is GW we're talking about so it will be more shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic to invalidate all previous content and make you buy it again. And that's the real reason 10th is inevitable, every army has a new codex so GW needs a new edition to justify selling everyone a new copy of the books they just bought.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I hear d10 and I just think that's 4 more numbers for GW to screw up with. If there is a serious, sustained nailing down of game systems using d6s I could see d10s being a decent move. Ultimately don't see it happening, for reasons more real world than game mechanics.
"My guys are supposed to be good at X so they should still only need to hit on a 4+ at worst. I don't care that its a d10 now, they're meant to be skilled soldiers and at least as good as a marine" - logical outcome of adding more values, just more for people to want to ignore.
Dudeface wrote: "My guys are supposed to be good at X so they should still only need to hit on a 4+ at worst. I don't care that its a d10 now, they're meant to be skilled soldiers and at least as good as a marine" - logical outcome of adding more values, just more for people to want to ignore.
That's a valid point. We could probably get most of the benefits of a D10 system if we just acknowledged that marines aren't as good as the fanboys think and made them BS/WS 4+ like they should be, leaving room for elite units to get better stats without needing a bunch of rules bloat to add re-rolls and modifiers.
Dudeface wrote: "My guys are supposed to be good at X so they should still only need to hit on a 4+ at worst. I don't care that its a d10 now, they're meant to be skilled soldiers and at least as good as a marine" - logical outcome of adding more values, just more for people to want to ignore.
That's a valid point. We could probably get most of the benefits of a D10 system if we just acknowledged that marines aren't as good as the fanboys think and made them BS/WS 4+ like they should be, leaving room for elite units to get better stats without needing a bunch of rules bloat to add re-rolls and modifiers.
You'd still have everyone arguing that results 6-10 are worthless. The best case outcome is the absolute slew of 3+ units get split across 3+ and 4+ for the extra tiny variance.
Dudeface wrote: You'd still have everyone arguing that results 6-10 are worthless. The best case outcome is the absolute slew of 3+ units get split across 3+ and 4+ for the extra tiny variance.
Dudeface wrote: You'd still have everyone arguing that results 6-10 are worthless. The best case outcome is the absolute slew of 3+ units get split across 3+ and 4+ for the extra tiny variance.
I mean BS/WS 4+ on the current D6 system.
I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.
Dudeface wrote: "My guys are supposed to be good at X so they should still only need to hit on a 4+ at worst. I don't care that its a d10 now, they're meant to be skilled soldiers and at least as good as a marine" - logical outcome of adding more values, just more for people to want to ignore.
That's a valid point. We could probably get most of the benefits of a D10 system if we just acknowledged that marines aren't as good as the fanboys think and made them BS/WS 4+ like they should be, leaving room for elite units to get better stats without needing a bunch of rules bloat to add re-rolls and modifiers.
Wow it is almost like there should be a scaling comparative weapon skill stat/chart to represent differences between units CC abilities....
Perhaps in your version we use a D10 for a 1-10 spread instead of a D6.
Dudeface wrote: I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.
No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.
And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.
Dudeface wrote: I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.
No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.
And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.
But, marines are supposed to be "elite" compared to a base human, or if you prefer the alternative, guardsmen are cannon fodder compared to a marine. Being line infantry doesn't mean they're all equally capable. If you're suggesting a base human is as skilled a fighter as an ork boy I can't help.
Dudeface wrote: I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.
No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.
And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.
The idea that a basic Guardsman and a Space Marines are just as skilled has literally never been the case. I have no idea why you think you need to reduce every 3+ WS/BS in order to reset the balance of the game. That wasn't the case in previous editions and the difference between elites and non-elites felt meaningful.
The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.
To this day, I still haven't played a single game of 9th edition. If 10th edition drops next summer, it's concievable that I will never end up playing 9th. Which sounds kind of ridiculous to be honest.
But I suppose that's GW Modus Operandi. Just keep printing books that become useless in 3 years. What a joke
tauist wrote: To this day, I still haven't played a single game of 9th edition. If 10th edition drops next summer, it's concievable that I will never end up playing 9th. Which sounds kind of ridiculous to be honest.
But I suppose that's GW Modus Operandi. Just keep printing books that become useless in 3 years. What a joke
To be fair I got 5(?) Years out of my chaos marine codex. Good or bad as that may be.
One thing that GW could consider is giving elite units the same stats as normal units and the ability to reroll a single roll of a natural "1". That is to say that if you roll more than one "1" then you only get to reroll one die. Officers could grant the same benefit so that if an officer was in range of an elite unit you could reroll two of your "1"s. The super elite officers may grant the ability to reroll one die regardless of the value rolled.
That may lead to the use of more MSUs but then you're giving up slots and manpower.
I don't think a D10 system or a D100 system would add anything to 40k for the reasons outlined. Its very hard to see how a unit needing 7s or 8s to go the next step would be desirable to play.
The issue with "bad odds" is that you just end up having to push things from the other end if you aren't just going to end up with "bad unit".
Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.
Functionally it would change almost nothing to give them BS3+ and half the shots. Unless you think there's something especially fluffy about the physical act of Ork players rolling a KFC bargain bucket worth of dice every shooting phase. Or is Ork shooting "meant" to be especially vulnerable to -1 to hit? I don't think so, its just the way it falls out.
The same applies to assault. "We'll give this unit mediocre melee attack probability... but to get it to the acceptable level, we'll give each model 4+ attacks". I don't think its the greatest design decision.
==== If I was to push 10th in the spirit of 9th, it would be to add a lot more actions.
I feel with GW its basically impossible to know what (if any) design principles they have - but I feel actions were incorporated into 9th to give extra dimensionality. I.E. Your unit can do an action, which will hopefully get you objective points and so win the game, or give you an advantage next turn etc - or it can go kill stuff. But GW very quickly abandoned that, and now its basically considered inevitable that you should manage to do both.
But basically I'd look to reduce lethality and increase decision making. (Tbh I think this is sort of how Pro-games break out, but trying to push it down the skill tree.) But it may just not be possible to have a game of move and counter-move when its IGOUGO and wraps up in 5 turns.
Tyel wrote: I don't think a D10 system or a D100 system would add anything to 40k for the reasons outlined. Its very hard to see how a unit needing 7s or 8s to go the next step would be desirable to play.
The issue with "bad odds" is that you just end up having to push things from the other end if you aren't just going to end up with "bad unit".
Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.
Functionally it would change almost nothing to give them BS3+ and half the shots. Unless you think there's something especially fluffy about the physical act of Ork players rolling a KFC bargain bucket worth of dice every shooting phase. Or is Ork shooting "meant" to be especially vulnerable to -1 to hit? I don't think so, its just the way it falls out.
The same applies to assault. "We'll give this unit mediocre melee attack probability... but to get it to the acceptable level, we'll give each model 4+ attacks". I don't think its the greatest design decision.
This was actually discussed way back in the 3rd edition rulebook which explained that the number of shots a weapon had was not a direct representation of how many it fired at once. It used the example of the Assault Cannon (then Assault 4), which would obviously fire far more than 4 shots at any one time. However, the designers explained that it made far more sense to have 4 shots that hit on 3s than to have 16 shots that needed 6s to hit.
I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.
Dudeface wrote: I'm fine with that if guard etc also all take a knock down one to make the space. Bear in mind contemporary ork players are currently asking for base bs 4+.
No, they just get to be BS/WS 4+ like the average troops they are. Guardsmen are BS/WS 4+, marines are BS/WS 4+, basic eldar troops are BS/WS 4+, etc. Conscripts are BS/WS 5+, orks and tyranid hordes are BS 5+/WS 4+. Tau are BS 4+/WS 5+. Elite units like guard veterans, crisis suits, space marine captains, etc, get BS/WS 3+ as appropriate for their specialization. Setting basic troops back to BS/WS 4+ leaves room for both cannon fodder hordes at 5+ and elites at 3+ without needing a pile of rules bloat to give them modifiers and re-rolls.
And ork players can ask for BS 4+ all they want but it's still a really stupid request that they should not get.
Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.
I'm in the "making people play 7th edition is a war crime" camp - and tbh, after reasonable hype for HH 2.0, I was very quickly reminded of just how bad that ruleset was. So going back to that would - for me at least - be insane.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.
It sounds interesting - but my immediate un-tested view is... does it make a big difference?
I mean if I kill your unit on turn 2, you get to bring it on to the table turn 3. It can then try to get towards the objectives turn 4? I guess that's interesting in a way late game - but it just feels like the game is still probably decided by that point.
tneva82 wrote: Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.
Yes, average. Marines are elite relative to normal humans but so is everyone else in 40k. Guardsmen are special forces badasses with auto-hitting laser rifles. Eldar have hundreds of years of training for their basic troops. Tau have advanced technology and AI that lets them shoot like an aim botting and wall hacking COD player. Etc. Marines are average among the elites no matter how much their worst fanboys insist that they're the only elites and all those NPC factions are inferior, marines can have BS/WS 4+ like everyone else.
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Tyel wrote: Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.
But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.
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Slipspace wrote: The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.
Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army. And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.
OTOH if marines are BS/WS 4+ that means everyone else's basic troops can also be brought down to that level. Now you have 4+ as standard, 3+ as elite (veterans, crisis suits, etc), 5+ for cannon fodder (conscripts), and 2+ for a handful of super-elite special characters. You don't need rules bloat just to represent that a terminator squad is more elite than a tactical squad, you can do it purely by giving them WS 3+.
Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to
Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.
so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army.
Why does it? I'm on record stating that the entire game pushing for higher hit rates is a dumb idea.
And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.
Agreed, although I'm not sure that's entirely true or necessary. Especially if everyone could accept the entire game doesn't need to hit on a 3+.
OTOH if marines are BS/WS 4+ that means everyone else's basic troops can also be brought down to that level. Now you have 4+ as standard, 3+ as elite (veterans, crisis suits, etc), 5+ for cannon fodder (conscripts), and 2+ for a handful of super-elite special characters. You don't need rules bloat just to represent that a terminator squad is more elite than a tactical squad, you can do it purely by giving them WS 3+.
OK, why is a storm trooper bs 3+ compared to a guardsman at 4+? It's a combination of superior training and equipment. Who has the better training and equipment, the marine, the stormtropper, or the guardsman? As a hint, I wrote those in order.
I honestly get the impression your a guard player with an axe to grind at this point.
Tyel wrote: Hence "haha Ork shooting hits on 5s"/"okay then, for the same points, they have to have twice (or 3 times with a -1) as many shots as a faction hitting on 3s". So you inflict approximately the same "damage" for your points.
But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.
Orks have the Big Mek with SAG, Burna Boys, Snazzwagons, Boosta-Blastas, Scrapjets, Squigbuggies, all four fliers, Flash Gitz, Gunwagons, Lootas, Mek Guns, and one of the Nauts as shooty units.
A decent amount of them are mixed units-but some like Mek Guns and Lootas? Those are shooting units. Period. Why should an Orkish shooting unit be worse, point for point, than a Marine shooting unit?
tneva82 wrote: Lol. Average troops? Maybe in rt but fluff has "bit" evolved. Maybe read background from books younger than from 1990? No way in any fluff they are described as average. And fyi you saying they are average doesn't mean they are. Gw is authority and they consistently describe as elite so you are flat wrong.
Yes, average. Marines are elite relative to normal humans but so is everyone else in 40k. Guardsmen are special forces badasses with auto-hitting laser rifles. Eldar have hundreds of years of training for their basic troops. Tau have advanced technology and AI that lets them shoot like an aim botting and wall hacking COD player. Etc. Marines are average among the elites no matter how much their worst fanboys insist that they're the only elites and all those NPC factions are inferior, marines can have BS/WS 4+ like everyone else.
That's false in both lore and rules. Marines have consistently been described as superior to the basic troops of most of the other armies, most specifically Guard as a baseline human soldier is what they are usually compared to. Tau have consistently been described as having biological reasons for their poorer BS as another example.
Not sure what the utter rubbish about SM fanboys is all about either. Pretty sure most players, including SM ones, would acknowledge SM are often the equivalent of other army's actual elites (not the units you describe as being elite).
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Slipspace wrote: The biggest problem in the current ruleset is the sheer number of re-rolls and other bonuses every army can generate, which ends up making the difference between elite and non-elite much smaller than it should be, especially when combined with the absence of proper morale rules.
Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army. And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.
That's demonstrably false too. Previous editions show that you can have SM at WS/BS 3+ and still make them feel suitably elite.
I'd laugh so hard I'd cough blood if we go full circle back to 7th and people start praising it as "the best edition of 40k ever!"
Yeah, I'd laugh too......while doing cartwheels in my yard. Playing HH 2.0 reminded me just how much better those old-school rules are compared to the boring, gamey mess that 8th/9th edition has been. Time for 40k to go back to being an actual WARgame, instead of something attempting to pretend to be one.
Edit: Oh, and to answer the question in the OP: For a lot of people, it's a desire to see the end of 9th, and hopefully something better.
Racerguy180 wrote: D10 and adding a zero to all current points costs would do wonders....
No. D10's are not necessary, more granularity is not necessary. Better written rules are.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.
I'm a bigger fan of making aliens, traitors, etc as dangerous as they should be, even if Astartes are elite. The game shouldn't exist solely to support Astartes' players power fantasy.
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Aecus Decimus wrote: But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.
Orks seem to have a lot of fluff and codex space put into giving them interested guns. Far more than Tau have for melee weapons. Almost like they're not a melee army...
What it comes down to is orks should probably be 4+/4+. The problem, that you haven't acknowledged here, is that most orks don't point-for-point kill things in melee either.
Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to
Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.
Ah yes, because that one guardsman in one army definitely represents the average, whilst the Marines that outnumber them 500 to 1 are merely outliers.
Dudeface wrote: Odd, I remember the 3rd ed rulebook ousting that the game was based around the average human, who was 4+/4+ which represented an average professional soldier.
Maybe that was valid back in 3rd but that's ancient history now. In the current edition BS/WS 3+ is average and space marines are the textbook definition of the average faction.
Why does it? I'm on record stating that the entire game pushing for higher hit rates is a dumb idea.
Because pretty much every other faction has at least as much of an argument as marines for being elite and the game shouldn't pander to marine fanboys who want to treat every other faction as mere NPCs for marines to slaughter.
OK, why is a storm trooper bs 3+ compared to a guardsman at 4+? It's a combination of superior training and equipment. Who has the better training and equipment, the marine, the stormtropper, or the guardsman? As a hint, I wrote those in order.
Because storm troopers are the elite 1% of the elite 1%. Tactical marines and basic guardsmen are normal troops and get BS/WS 4+. Terminators are elite melee units and get WS 3+. Storm troopers are elite shooting units and get BS 3+.
And equipment is not BS/WS. A marine has BS/WS 4+ because he is an average trained soldier. His superior equipment is already represented by a bolter and power armor having better stats than a lasgun and flak armor, the marine shouldn't get double credit for those things.
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JNAProductions wrote: Why should an Orkish shooting unit be worse, point for point, than a Marine shooting unit?
For the same reason that a hypothetical Tau melee unit should be worse point for point than a khorne melee unit. Orks are a melee army and their fluff makes it very clear that they are poor shots that care more about making lots of noise and explosions than hitting a target.
If you want to say that an Ork shooting unit should have more melee capability than a Tau shooting unit, and therefore should pay more on the whole, I could get behind that. Orks, outside of Grots, love to fight in melee. Likewise, a Tau melee unit that has more shooting than an Orkish melee unit, should pay more for that. Take Kroot-they're decent in melee, but still have decent shooting. As compared to a Choppa/Slugga Boy, who has no shooting worth talking about. All else being equal, decent shooting plus decent melee should cost more than just decent melee.
But if you have two equal units, they should cost the same.
Why? The whole point of having factions with different strengths and weaknesses is that not all factions are capable of being good at every role. If every army covers every role with equal point efficiency then you reduce faction differences to mere aesthetics.
Why? The whole point of having factions with different strengths and weaknesses is that not all factions are capable of being good at every role. If every army covers every role with equal point efficiency then you reduce faction differences to mere aesthetics.
If all Tau units have decent shooting-even their melee units-as compared to Orks, where all units have decent melee-even their shooting units-you still have different faction playstyles.
Intentionally making units bad is not good game design.
Why? The point is that you have to work with your faction's weaknesses and overcome them, not have a guarantee that no matter what you pick you always have equal efficiency. A Tau player should have very poor melee options and have to choose between investing in inefficient options or going without melee entirely and hoping that weakness doesn't cost them the game. The option should be there if you really want it but you should be discouraged from taking it and certainly discouraged from ever spamming it. If a Tau melee unit is also decent at shooting and a point-efficient choice as a whole then you're encouraged to take it and you break the faction identity that Tau are supposed to be absolutely pathetic at melee.
Why? The point is that you have to work with your faction's weaknesses and overcome them, not have a guarantee that no matter what you pick you always have equal efficiency. A Tau player should have very poor melee options and have to choose between investing in inefficient options or going without melee entirely and hoping that weakness doesn't cost them the game. The option should be there if you really want it but you should be discouraged from taking it and certainly discouraged from ever spamming it. If a Tau melee unit is also decent at shooting and a point-efficient choice as a whole then you're encouraged to take it and you break the faction identity that Tau are supposed to be absolutely pathetic at melee.
So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?
Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?
JNAProductions wrote: So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?
But then you're still encouraged to take that unit because you can add melee capability to your list while still contributing to the shooting plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way this accomplishes the faction identity goal is to make the multi-role unit overpay for its multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit that is no better than just making a pure melee unit with poor efficiency.
Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?
Marines should be weak at specialization. Their units should all be reasonably good at most roles but never the best at anything. High floor, low ceiling.
JNAProductions wrote: So don't give Tau a good melee unit? Give them, at best, a platypus unit that's decent at melee, but also pays for good shooting or mobility or durability or multiples from that?
But then you're still encouraged to take that unit because you can add melee capability to your list while still contributing to the shooting plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way this accomplishes the faction identity goal is to make the multi-role unit overpay for its multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit that is no better than just making a pure melee unit with poor efficiency.
Related to that, what should Marines be weak at? What's their faction focus, and what's their weaknesses?
Marines should be weak at specialization. Their units should all be reasonably good at most roles but never the best at anything. High floor, low ceiling.
But then you're still encouraged to take Marines because you can add any capability to your list, while still contributing to the rest of your plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way to make them balanced is to make them overpay for their multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit.
For some reason GW customers are worse than Apple customers as far as their deification of the product and the cult like behavior of anticipation for the next release, whether it be substandard product or not.
My obsession with 10th stems from having played 24+ games of 9th and I've had zero fun. In my area they only play that excruciating matched play mode. There's also only 2 kinds of people who play here. Those who don't know the rules for their key models/terrain/the mission. So I end up the bad guy explaining to them how to play. Or tournament regulars that play it hard nose, strats used at the exact time regardless of expressed intent prior, etc. Most importantly can't use my favourite army all through 9th. Guard codex got wrecked by kids spilling milk, no new guard codex came out.
I've got a burning interest to see it all come crumbling down, player count for 40K is down here, really the sooner it's replaced the better for everyone.
JNAProductions wrote: But then you're still encouraged to take Marines because you can add any capability to your list, while still contributing to the rest of your plan and maintaining the overall point efficiency of your army. The only way to make them balanced is to make them overpay for their multiple abilities, at which point you have an inefficient unit.
Except that, unlike with adding a Tau melee unit to a Tau army, you can't just add marines to any army. If you want those marines you have to commit to your faction identity being a high floor low ceiling army of units that are decent at everything but exceptional at nothing and overpaying for anything that deviates from this identity.
And let's be honest here, most of the game is already marines so it's not like there's any shortage of encouragement as it is.
Racerguy180 wrote: D10 and adding a zero to all current points costs would do wonders....
No. D10's are not necessary, more granularity is not necessary. Better written rules are.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: I'm a big advocate for making swarmy units as impotent on the board as they are in the fluff, but with free respawns. A unit of guardsmen, termagants, etc that dies 'respawns' into reserves at full strength, no strings attached. I have played narrative scenarios with mechanics like that and they have always been quite enjoyable, at least in my experience.
I'm a bigger fan of making aliens, traitors, etc as dangerous as they should be, even if Astartes are elite. The game shouldn't exist solely to support Astartes' players power fantasy.
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Aecus Decimus wrote: But the premise of "must be equal" is wrong. Orks should suck at shooting, period. They should not get the same damage per points as other factions because they're a melee-focused faction. They should have the same number of shots as everyone else with a lower hit rate, just like Tau have a much lower hit rate on melee attacks.
Orks seem to have a lot of fluff and codex space put into giving them interested guns. Far more than Tau have for melee weapons. Almost like they're not a melee army...
What it comes down to is orks should probably be 4+/4+. The problem, that you haven't acknowledged here, is that most orks don't point-for-point kill things in melee either.
As a thought experiment, if 8th/9th is such a great system why didn't they port HH to this model instead of further refining the old classic system?
7th needed a little bit of streamlining and bloat reduction, which is basically what HH2.0 has done, in addition to making some needed and judicious refinements to the old system.
I mean, it's basically 40K with a proper reaction system in it.
JNAProductions wrote: What weakness? “Can do everything” isn’t a weakness, unless you want to overcost all Marine units.
High floor low ceiling is a weakness.
Just being bad at a large part of the game isn’t good design, it’s just being bad at a part of the game.
Even Tau should be able to interact with melee combat, they just shouldn’t be wining with it.
The same way orks should be able to supplement there melee strength with ranged, or khorne army’s having ranged support for there melee.
It just makes the setting worse, and the game more bland if players are left without choice and options.
But I think this is inherent to the current use of the mechanics of 40k. It’s a rather poor game with lots and lots tak on to it with no real changes in decades to support the game itself.
And tenth probably won’t change that, best we can hope is they strip it back so they can ad a bunch onto it again.
As a thought experiment, if 8th/9th is such a great system why didn't they port HH to this model instead of further refining the old classic system?
7th needed a little bit of streamlining and bloat reduction, which is basically what HH2.0 has done, in addition to making some needed and judicious refinements to the old system.
I mean, it's basically 40K with a proper reaction system in it.
Why? The point is that you have to work with your faction's weaknesses and overcome them, not have a guarantee that no matter what you pick you always have equal efficiency. A Tau player should have very poor melee options and have to choose between investing in inefficient options or going without melee entirely and hoping that weakness doesn't cost them the game. The option should be there if you really want it but you should be discouraged from taking it and certainly discouraged from ever spamming it. If a Tau melee unit is also decent at shooting and a point-efficient choice as a whole then you're encouraged to take it and you break the faction identity that Tau are supposed to be absolutely pathetic at melee.
A faction weakness should be having lack of options, not inefficient units.
E.g. Tau don't have anything truly comparable to heavy melee infantry and don't have a lot of ways to support the few melee units they have.
But those few units still should be good at melee, because otherwise they are not going to be taken. A melee unit that is bad at melee isn't a melee unit, it is a waste of points
Moreover Tau are unique, they actively disregard melee in their lore. Orks definitely do not disregard shooting, and there are dozens of Ork units that are entirely dedicated at shooting. Making Ork shooting bad on principle means making half of the Ork codex bad on principle, and that is extremely poor design.
The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
Ork shooting in 8th was pretty good, if you built your list around it. I'm okay with that, Codizes should allow for different themes, so Bad Moons can be the way to do shooty Orks as well as Dalyth can encourage CC heavy Tau (Kroot).
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Ork shooting in 8th was pretty good, if you built your list around it. I'm okay with that, Codizes should allow for different themes, so Bad Moons can be the way to do shooty Orks as well as Dalyth can encourage CC heavy Tau (Kroot).
Ork shooting in 8th was painful due to the dakka3 rule, it slowed the game down a lot imo and lead to some utterly weird moments.
Having BS/WS 3+ marines is the cause of all that bloat. Marines are the average army that everything is defined relative to so that means everyone else has to be at least BS/WS 3+ unless they're a pure horde army. And if everyone's basic troops are at 3+ then 2+ is the only remaining number, and you have to give that to the best characters. That means that if you want to have a unit be "more elite" the only way to do it is to add more re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and such. There's no room left to do those things purely by stat increases.
OTOH if marines are BS/WS 4+ that means everyone else's basic troops can also be brought down to that level. Now you have 4+ as standard, 3+ as elite (veterans, crisis suits, etc), 5+ for cannon fodder (conscripts), and 2+ for a handful of super-elite special characters. You don't need rules bloat just to represent that a terminator squad is more elite than a tactical squad, you can do it purely by giving them WS 3+.
This is kind of only true if all you care about is the simplicity of looking at a number and knowing that's all you have to do to get your end result. If you're into simplifying the dice rolls down and homogenizing the gak out of every unit in the game, and that's your only aim, then I can kind of see where you're coming from. Maybe.
But this game has a boatload of special rules that help nudge rolls different ways by varying amounts that aren't just a pip on the dice. It adds granularity even if you hate the number of them. A unit that hits on 3+ isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 3+ rerolling 1's, which in turn isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 2+, but the differences are in steps that span leaner gaps than just pips on a d6. It's why I do not understand the call for d10s to replace it. Is that entirely to remove these extra rules and build it into the roll instead?
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
I'd be game for that in honesty, make them immune to hit modifiers altogether, both positive and negative, but the more shots thing I think is actually the rest of the game needing fewer shots first.
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
So you want Orks to hit on 4+, but then have a specific special rule to have a -1 on the dice rolls, resulting in...... Orks hitting on 5s.
Wich is exactly what we have now sans us having to remember a special rule about it.
You're taking a 1 step process, turning it into a 2 step process, achieving exactly the same result, AND creating the possibilities of introducing errors & wonky rules interactions that'd then require errata....
Genius!
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
So you want Orks to hit on 4+, but then have a specific special rule to have a -1 on the dice rolls, resulting in...... Orks hitting on 5s.
Wich is exactly what we have now sans us having to remember a special rule about it.
You're taking a 1 step process, turning it into a 2 step process, achieving exactly the same result, AND creating the possibilities of introducing errors & wonky rules interactions that'd then require errata....
Genius!
You be misread, the intent is to stay at 5+ with more shots and ignore the first -1 to hit applied against them.
I think many people want a hard reset, because they don't like how the game currently plays. For me its the stats creep, and the deadliness of the game, one player gets tabled and the other one has a 1/8 to 1/4 is army left. And then there is the combos and rules layering that can triple the dmg output of units.
You be misread, the intent is to stay at 5+ with more shots and ignore the first -1 to hit applied against them.
Honestly; Ork shooting working on totally unmodified hit rolls in general seems like a decent fix. You can make the argument that their shooting is so wild and imprecise that they rely on pure luck anyway, and any attempts to dodge or evade aren't as effective against overwhelming numbers of bullets fired in all directions. This solves the issue where the existence of any hit debuffs reduces Ork damage by 50%.
Bring back Dakka Dakka Dakka as any armywide rule to ignore ranged to hit modifiers. Any Ork unit that currently gets a +1 to hit from grot gunners can be BS4+, but most units would remain BS5+.
To cap off my wishlist, the current Bad Moons Showin' Off strat for exploding 6's with Dakka weapons should be available as a general one for all clans. Bad Moons can have a version that works on all weapon and/or unit types as they're more likely to afford lots of extra rokkits.
Thread has moved on a bit - but I think the whole of "faction weakness" is nonsense.
If Lootas, Flashgitz, Tankbustas etc are "bad" because "Ork shooting should suck" - then people just don't take them. That's "resolving the weakness". But in practice it isn't "resolved" - it just ceases to be a function in the game.
In much the same way lets say there were "Storm Fire Warriors". That's a Tau armed with chainswords and pulse pistol for say 8 points. 2 attacks, WS 5+, S3, AP-1. Well... they suck. Am I "resolving Tau's weakness" by just not taking them?
Are Marines not meant to be a "tank" faction - which explains why their tanks have tended to be second rate?
I don't really get this "the spirit of the faction is to only have 5 datasheets". If someone wants to run a shooty Ork list - who loses by its rules being up to standard? If GW wanted to do a Tau Expansion and it was 4-5 assault focused Tau units that are up to standard, who loses? I don't understand who wins from this idea rosters should have a limited collection of "good" units that are "how that faction should be played" and a bunch of trap choices to be avoided. You only get to spend your points once - so having good shooting, good assault, good elite, good horde, good monsters all in the same list is not a problem. Its only a problem if you have stuff that's undercosted relative to everyone else.
Honestly; Ork shooting working on totally unmodified hit rolls in general seems like a decent fix. You can make the argument that their shooting is so wild and imprecise that they rely on pure luck anyway, and any attempts to dodge or evade aren't as effective against overwhelming numbers of bullets fired in all directions. This solves the issue where the existence of any hit debuffs reduces Ork damage by 50%.
Orks do hit on unmodified hit rolls of 6, like everyone else. Everyone can spray and pray, why should that only work for orks ?
As a thought experiment, if 8th/9th is such a great system why didn't they port HH to this model instead of further refining the old classic system?
It would look really bad when the fan version of that was done a year faster and it probably has better balance than what GW would have written.
The same way orks should be able to supplement there melee strength with ranged, or khorne army’s having ranged support for there melee. It just makes the setting worse, and the game more bland if players are left without choice and options.
But I think this is inherent to the current use of the mechanics of 40k. It’s a rather poor game with lots and lots tak on to it with no real changes in decades to support the game itself.
The reason why you don't want ranged support in a Khorne army is because the ranged elements are overcosted because of lack of free rules and extra Stratagems that Slaanesh and Tzeentch get, that's not a core rules problem, that's a codex problem.
A faction weakness should be having lack of options, not inefficient units.
The problem is sometimes the designers make models that don't fit into the military doctrine and thematic playstyle of the army. Things like Riptides and Ghost Arks. Ghost Arks could stop being transports if you changed their fluff and rules, but the Riptide just shouldn't have been a thing. Now Tau have a bunch of huge mechs to choose from and the only way to fix that is by overcosting them so you don't see them everywhere or just accept that the faction has been permanently ruined by bad miniature designs (more spirit mechs for Eldar would have been fitting).
Just Tony wrote: For some reason GW customers are worse than Apple customers as far as their deification of the product and the cult like behavior of anticipation for the next release, whether it be substandard product or not.
You can message someone with an Iphone 11 using an Iphone 6. You cannot play 10th edition using your 9th edition core rules.
Tyel wrote: I don't really get this "the spirit of the faction is to only have 5 datasheets".
It makes factions different. If everyone can do everything why pick one or the other? It's okay for Tau to have a few melee units that have some fundamental lacks (like maybe they're all slow or they lack AP or durability), but they shouldn't have 8 different melee units that flesh out the melee roster to be a rounded faction in itself.
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
So you want Orks to hit on 4+, but then have a specific special rule to have a -1 on the dice rolls, resulting in...... Orks hitting on 5s.
Wich is exactly what we have now sans us having to remember a special rule about it.
You're taking a 1 step process, turning it into a 2 step process, achieving exactly the same result, AND creating the possibilities of introducing errors & wonky rules interactions that'd then require errata....
Genius!
You be misread, the intent is to stay at 5+ with more shots and ignore the first -1 to hit applied against them.
If you go that route, I'd suggest that Orks hit on a 5+ but ignore all modifiers (both positive and negative).
Dudeface wrote: The issue with orks being bad at shooting so to speak is the 35 years of fluff saying they aim as well as my 3 year old does. This has been carried over to the unit profile, which in order to make the shooting work out mathematically had needed too many dice and irritating mechanics of late. Moving them to a higher BS is an easier way of making them better at shooting overall, but the issue is it divorces from that idea of over enthusiastic mushrooms firing wildly in excitement hitting as much by chance as intent.
I'm all for ork shooting actually doing something but unsure how to accomplish it within the mental space that currently occupies, unless it becomes entirely abstracted from their fluff.
Edit: thinking way back they always had more shots via being assault weapons more or less, maybe its that the rest of the game is now made of gun that leaves them feeling awkward.
I mean higher rate of fire is the easiest (and fluffiest) way to do this. Possibly also with something akin to AoC for to hit penalties, as otherwise -1 to hit removes 50% of their firepower, and it would represent "accuracy by volume" well enough.
So you want Orks to hit on 4+, but then have a specific special rule to have a -1 on the dice rolls, resulting in...... Orks hitting on 5s.
Wich is exactly what we have now sans us having to remember a special rule about it.
You're taking a 1 step process, turning it into a 2 step process, achieving exactly the same result, AND creating the possibilities of introducing errors & wonky rules interactions that'd then require errata....
Genius!
You be misread, the intent is to stay at 5+ with more shots and ignore the first -1 to hit applied against them.
If you go that route, I'd suggest that Orks hit on a 5+ but ignore all modifiers (both positive and negative).
You don’t even need to make it entirely faction wide. You could have the bulk of the 5+ army get the "Wild uncontrolled burst/Who needs to aim?" rule for no modifiers, but dedicated shooty units (flashgits, others) could hit on 4+ (or better) but still be subject to modifiers, as they DO aim (with the better BS baseline to go with it)
By not making it an army wide rule you have more wiggle room to differentiate units. Which is good to have in the d6 workspace.
Just make it Dakkadakka: Each time this model makes a ranged attack, an unmodified hit roll of 5+ is always successful.
Regarding a Horus Heresy ruleset, I have yet to see that it can be successfully expanded to incorporate all the different 40k factions instead of being a pure Marine game.
Moreover, Horus Heresy is meant to be a pseudo-historical game, I cannot even find a repository for Horus Heresy tournament lists and results and much less win rates, and the HH community seems aggressive against the idea of competitive HH play.
HH and 40k are meant to be very different games so I don't see 40k moving towards a HH ruleset.
Gibblets wrote: My obsession with 10th stems from having played 24+ games of 9th and I've had zero fun. In my area they only play that excruciating matched play mode. There's also only 2 kinds of people who play here. Those who don't know the rules for their key models/terrain/the mission. So I end up the bad guy explaining to them how to play. Or tournament regulars that play it hard nose, strats used at the exact time regardless of expressed intent prior, etc. Most importantly can't use my favourite army all through 9th. Guard codex got wrecked by kids spilling milk, no new guard codex came out.
I've got a burning interest to see it all come crumbling down, player count for 40K is down here, really the sooner it's replaced the better for everyone.
Wow, sorry you are having such a rough time of it. we play at a FLGS so we play all sorts of systems other than just 40K./GW fortunately we have a large group of regulars who play casual who enjoy playing silly stuff. a number of us went back to playing hybrid games of 5th ed 40K with a few house rules and we have been having a great time ever since.
Player count for 9th tanked quite a while ago, although we have seen a few new groups coming in of late doing some, most of the regular guys who were hard into it have been playing other games instead. avoiding 9th and GW games in general.
vict0988 wrote: It makes factions different. If everyone can do everything why pick one or the other? It's okay for Tau to have a few melee units that have some fundamental lacks (like maybe they're all slow or they lack AP or durability), but they shouldn't have 8 different melee units that flesh out the melee roster to be a rounded faction in itself.
Because you like the models? Because you like the fluff?
I just think its a false identity because it only really comes up with say Tau. "They can't have assault units, they need a weakness". Or they (and DE) can't have psykers "cos the flavour of just not being in one of the phases of the game".
By contrast Marines can do everything except I guess hordes. CSM can even do that by taking a bunch of cultist units.
Eldar can do everything. Orks can do everything. Tyranids can do everything. Necrons can do everything.
Are these factions bad - or boring - compared with Tau? Do they lack identity?
vict0988 wrote: It makes factions different. If everyone can do everything why pick one or the other? It's okay for Tau to have a few melee units that have some fundamental lacks (like maybe they're all slow or they lack AP or durability), but they shouldn't have 8 different melee units that flesh out the melee roster to be a rounded faction in itself.
Because you like the models? Because you like the fluff?
I just think its a false identity because it only really comes up with say Tau. "They can't have assault units, they need a weakness". Or they (and DE) can't have psykers "cos the flavour of just not being in one of the phases of the game".
By contrast Marines can do everything except I guess hordes. CSM can even do that by taking a bunch of cultist units.
Eldar can do everything. Orks can do everything. Tyranids can do everything. Necrons can do everything.
Are these factions bad - or boring - compared with Tau? Do they lack identity?
If every faction has every possible unit niche filled then what is the fluff of them really? Tau Assault Centurions are slightly more machine than man, the Drukhari chaplain speaks a different language instead of gothic when he inspires his followers, that sounds really garbage to me. The fluff should be borne out in the rules, part of the rules is the availability of different types of datasheets and the niches of those datasheets. That means Tau shouldn't have gotten huge mechs and Death Guard should not get 4 different types of bikes because Tau are meant to be efficient and rationally designed and Death Guard are meant to be a slow-moving durable threat. I didn't say Tau couldn't have melee units, I said they can't have every melee unit. Tau have melee units, but they're all mobile and squishy, that's fine. But if they get Assault Centurions then it stops being fine because then Tau become a little lot more like Space Marines. Primaris were a huge mistake because they are antithetical to everything the Imperium is about. The whole idea of Space Marines using their own unique brand of vehicles separate from the rest of humanity is pretty strange in the first place, because of it's long history 40k is very messy, but I don't think that's a reason to give up and give Tau Assault Centurions. Necrons shouldn't have a lot of long-ranged shooting, I have advocated for lowering most ranges down to 24" for example, it's not just a Tau thing. Chaos Space Marines are a bit more difficult to pin down, I think ideally perhaps they shouldn't have any reliable vehicles and monsters or any reliable ranged weapons or something like that, but I think it'd be hard to get people on board with giving Chaos Space Marines a flaw at this point.
Tyran wrote:Just make it Dakkadakka: Each time this model makes a ranged attack, an unmodified hit roll of 5+ is always successful.
Regarding a Horus Heresy ruleset, I have yet to see that it can be successfully expanded to incorporate all the different 40k factions instead of being a pure Marine game.
Moreover, Horus Heresy is meant to be a pseudo-historical game, I cannot even find a repository for Horus Heresy tournament lists and results and much less win rates, and the HH community seems aggressive against the idea of competitive HH play.
HH and 40k are meant to be very different games so I don't see 40k moving towards a HH ruleset.
I'm pretty sure that the best evidence that the HH ruleset can be expanded to incorporate all 40k factions is that it's just a further modification of the ruleset that was used to represent all 40k factions for, what was it, 17 years or so? It's just a further modification of the 7th edition ruleset in the same way that 4th edition was a modification of 3rd, and 5th was a modification of 4th, etc, etc.
And Solar Auxilia, Talons of the Emperor, Cults and Militia, Mechanicum, and Daemons of the Ruinstorm players might be confused about how the game is "pure Marines".
Finally, no tournament data only tells us that there isn't any tournament data that has been compiled. We definitely know that tournaments were played using the rules from 3rd-7th edition, which again, are essentially the same.
vict0988 wrote: It makes factions different. If everyone can do everything why pick one or the other? It's okay for Tau to have a few melee units that have some fundamental lacks (like maybe they're all slow or they lack AP or durability), but they shouldn't have 8 different melee units that flesh out the melee roster to be a rounded faction in itself.
Because you like the models? Because you like the fluff?
I just think its a false identity because it only really comes up with say Tau. "They can't have assault units, they need a weakness". Or they (and DE) can't have psykers "cos the flavour of just not being in one of the phases of the game".
By contrast Marines can do everything except I guess hordes. CSM can even do that by taking a bunch of cultist units.
Eldar can do everything. Orks can do everything. Tyranids can do everything. Necrons can do everything.
Are these factions bad - or boring - compared with Tau? Do they lack identity?
If every faction has every possible unit niche filled then what is the fluff of them really? Tau Assault Centurions are slightly more machine than man, the Drukhari chaplain speaks a different language instead of gothic when he inspires his followers, that sounds really garbage to me. The fluff should be borne out in the rules, part of the rules is the availability of different types of datasheets and the niches of those datasheets. That means Tau shouldn't have gotten huge mechs and Death Guard should not get 4 different types of bikes because Tau are meant to be efficient and rationally designed and Death Guard are meant to be a slow-moving durable threat. I didn't say Tau couldn't have melee units, I said they can't have every melee unit. Tau have melee units, but they're all mobile and squishy, that's fine. But if they get Assault Centurions then it stops being fine because then Tau become a little lot more like Space Marines. Primaris were a huge mistake because they are antithetical to everything the Imperium is about. The whole idea of Space Marines using their own unique brand of vehicles separate from the rest of humanity is pretty strange in the first place, because of it's long history 40k is very messy, but I don't think that's a reason to give up and give Tau Assault Centurions. Necrons shouldn't have a lot of long-ranged shooting, I have advocated for lowering most ranges down to 24" for example, it's not just a Tau thing. Chaos Space Marines are a bit more difficult to pin down, I think ideally perhaps they shouldn't have any reliable vehicles and monsters or any reliable ranged weapons or something like that, but I think it'd be hard to get people on board with giving Chaos Space Marines a flaw at this point.
Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?
I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?
I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.
Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.
I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.
I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.
I may be biased in this. I'd love "New DE units", since there hasn't seemingly been one since before the fall of the Roman Empire. And I mean "new" not "hey, Beastmasters, critters and Rakarth are still in Forgeworld, bet you'd love new kits of them".
Moreover, Horus Heresy is meant to be a pseudo-historical game, I cannot even find a repository for Horus Heresy tournament lists and results and much less win rates, and the HH community seems aggressive against the idea of competitive HH play.
HH and 40k are meant to be very different games so I don't see 40k moving towards a HH ruleset.
A local 30k tourney was posted in our discord and the first thing in the tourney pack was prize money...this immediately killed any interest in playing in it, as I have zero want to play the kind of donkey-caves that play wargames to win money.
I can understand a competitive player wanting to test themselves in 30k, but judging by the lack of interest from the local community, the few that want tourney 30k are extremely limited in number...
Tyel wrote: I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.
I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.
Which tells anyone around for the initial Tau release that you weren't.
The background at the time indicated that the Tau thought units such as Knights and Titans were inefficient uses of resources, as they tied a lot of resources up in a unit with a limited sphere of influence. Tau doctrine preferred to spread those resources out across more smaller units, as well as into airpower, which has a much larger area of a conflict it can get to and influence.
We also saw development of Tau air assets, leading to the Tiger Shark A-X-10 as an evolution of the Tiger Shark to counter Knights and Titans.
Unfortunately, some dipstick in the Studio had more of an anime fetish than we first thought, and we ended up with the Riptide and other silly mecha suits instead...
Tyel wrote: If GW wanted to do a Tau Expansion and it was 4-5 assault focused Tau units that are up to standard, who loses?
Everyone who cares about fluff loses. Even if GW is dumb enough to retcon the Tau fluff to embrace melee units it would still be a terrible change and suck to see Tau units regularly declaring charges and winning by melee. If Tau melee units exist at all they should be inefficient and you should be discouraged from taking more than 1-2 of them at most.
Same thing with orks. Everyone who cares about fluff loses when the ork player sets up a gunline and tries to win the game by shooting from a safe distance instead of yelling WAAAAAAAAAAGH and charging into combat.
Vilgeir wrote: This is kind of only true if all you care about is the simplicity of looking at a number and knowing that's all you have to do to get your end result. If you're into simplifying the dice rolls down and homogenizing the gak out of every unit in the game, and that's your only aim, then I can kind of see where you're coming from. Maybe.
But this game has a boatload of special rules that help nudge rolls different ways by varying amounts that aren't just a pip on the dice. It adds granularity even if you hate the number of them. A unit that hits on 3+ isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 3+ rerolling 1's, which in turn isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 2+, but the differences are in steps that span leaner gaps than just pips on a d6. It's why I do not understand the call for d10s to replace it. Is that entirely to remove these extra rules and build it into the roll instead?
The call for D10s is that you can represent the difference between 3+, 3+ re-rolling 1s, and 2+ without needing re-rolls and modifiers. More numbers = smaller interval between numbers = less need for special rules to produce small intervals. You just put a single number on the datasheet and cut the rules bloat. That's a win for everyone.
The problem is that it can't happen until GW fixes their obsession with stat creep that ruined the D6 system. If they aren't willing to make marines (and basic troops in general) BS/WS 4+ in the D6 system then all that will happen with a D10 system is that marines will start off elite, every other faction will get stat creep up to the same D10 value so GW can write preview articles showing off how elite and awesome they are, and eventually you're right back to having special characters hitting on 2+ and everyone but cannon fodder hitting on 3+. And then all the rules bloat will come right back as GW piles on re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and bonus AP in an attempt to make each book cooler and more elite than the last. Without firing everyone at GW and replacing them with competent game designers a D10 system would be a temporary pause in the problem at best.
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JNAProductions wrote: You have a very narrow view of Orks.
One that doesn’t line up with what’s actually printed.
Oh really? Where is the fluff of orks setting up a gunline and standing there shooting from a distance? Because as I recall every iconic image of orks is WAAAAAAAAGH into melee and guns are some extra noise and excitement to hype up the boyz as they charge into melee (where the real fun happens).
Also, remember that "orks are BS 5+" doesn't mean that every single ork unit must be BS 5+. An elite (by ork standards) shooting unit like lootas could be BS 4+ to represent their amazing accuracy, but those units should be the exception to the rule.
JNAProductions wrote: Do you also think that Marines HAVE to take a little bit of everything?
They should be strongly encouraged to. And they should have few, if any, eldar-style specialist units.
Or that Dark Eldar aren’t allowed any slow and/or tough units?
Correct. Those units shouldn't exist in the codex and if they do they should not be appealing choices.
This line is just weird. Yes, Tau fluff justified the models that existed. And then GW decided they would like to create new models, and created new fluff accordingly.
Bad moonz orks have a strong preference for guns, with some eventually becoming rich enough to become flash gitz.
IMO, giving Orks good shooting options is important for the faction as a whole. Dakka is so central to ork fighting that it’s the name of this forum. It’s also just more fun to have options when listbuilding.
Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.
As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.
Dudeface wrote: Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.
As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.
Depends on the severity of the design choice.
Whilst it took a couple of editions to properly manifest, Tau were eventually an excellent shooty army. Not just good guns galore, but a need to weave together a bunch of synergistic plays to really amp it up. As such, they remained largely devoid of competent combat troops. Kroot weren’t bad at fighting - but they weren’t good at surviving for long. From memory enough to tie up an objective, or force a non-combat oriented unit off the same, but not something you can build a list around. If you gave Tau a wider option of melee units? You lose the intended focus.
Because I'm British and as such crave disappointment
I suspect trying to shoehorn in Reactions over Strats will be the 10th foob of choice, in theory its a half decent odea, in practice not so much at the model count scale HH / 40k is
I kind of hope they do go the reaction route. A standard set of tactical options everyone has access to and can use to varying degrees. Then each faction gets a handful of one use per game ones that are powerful, but you have to choose when to use them wisely.
Stratagems feel a little braindead from time to time. Possibly because once upon a time they would have been abilities the units had in built, making many units feel a little bland unless they have the resources to run that one stratagem. Hell many of the blasted things are limited to one specific unit keyword. Meaning unless you're taking that unit you're book has one less stratagem to play with than your opponent.
10th could be a tweak, it could be another 8th edition style reset.
I'm pretty sure that the best evidence that the HH ruleset can be expanded to incorporate all 40k factions is that it's just a further modification of the ruleset that was used to represent all 40k factions for, what was it, 17 years or so? It's just a further modification of the 7th edition ruleset in the same way that 4th edition was a modification of 3rd, and 5th was a modification of 4th, etc, etc.
And Solar Auxilia, Talons of the Emperor, Cults and Militia, Mechanicum, and Daemons of the Ruinstorm players might be confused about how the game is "pure Marines".
Finally, no tournament data only tells us that there isn't any tournament data that has been compiled. We definitely know that tournaments were played using the rules from 3rd-7th edition, which again, are essentially the same.
From what I have heard about HH 2.0, the rules have changed enough that even though you can still find evidence of 3rd-7th in the bones, the game is fundamentally different from it.
And doesn't change the issue of way different playerbase with different expectations and priorites. At this point people that want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset are already playing Horus Heresy, while people that stuck to playing 40k are unlikely to want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset.
I'm pretty sure that the best evidence that the HH ruleset can be expanded to incorporate all 40k factions is that it's just a further modification of the ruleset that was used to represent all 40k factions for, what was it, 17 years or so? It's just a further modification of the 7th edition ruleset in the same way that 4th edition was a modification of 3rd, and 5th was a modification of 4th, etc, etc.
And Solar Auxilia, Talons of the Emperor, Cults and Militia, Mechanicum, and Daemons of the Ruinstorm players might be confused about how the game is "pure Marines".
Finally, no tournament data only tells us that there isn't any tournament data that has been compiled. We definitely know that tournaments were played using the rules from 3rd-7th edition, which again, are essentially the same.
From what I have heard about HH 2.0, the rules have changed enough that even though you can still find evidence of 3rd-7th in the bones, the game is fundamentally different from it.
And doesn't change the issue of way different playerbase with different expectations and priorites. At this point people that want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset are already playing Horus Heresy, while people that stuck to playing 40k are unlikely to want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset.
No, not really. It's just another iteration on the 3rd-7th rules. It definitely isn't "fundamentally different".
And you're imposing your own opinions on others, with no evidence to back it up. A lot of people only played 8th/9th because that's what was "current", and they could get games. That doesn't mean it's everyone's preference.
I guess fundamentally different may be the wrong term, but it has considerably changed from 3rd-7th ed in the same way 9th edition has considerably changed from Indexhammer.
I mean, I'm really trying to imagine what should the Tyranid monster profiles be in the same design environment in which a dreadnought is W6 T7 2+/5++ with inbuilt ID mitigation.
Tyran wrote: I guess fundamentally different may be the wrong term, but it has considerably changed from 3rd-7th ed in the same way 9th edition has considerably changed from Indexhammer.
I mean, I'm really trying to imagine what should be the Tyranid monster profiles in the same design environment in which a dreadnought is W6 T7 2+/5++ with inbuilt ID mitigation.
I'd start with the 3rd edition Carnifex profile with Extended Carapace as "standard" and start going "up" for the newer bigger beasties, myself. With the full Mutable Genus options, of course.
And dreads are WS5. The only one that has WS6 is the Word Bearers Possessed dreadnought.
Bear in mind that with things like the dread profile, that's partly a reflection of what the weapon stats are in HH as well. The core rules can be good and function well under different balance/stat/profile paradigms.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?
I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.
Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.
Because they're crazy.
Tyel wrote: I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.
I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.
I may be biased in this. I'd love "New DE units", since there hasn't seemingly been one since before the fall of the Roman Empire. And I mean "new" not "hey, Beastmasters, critters and Rakarth are still in Forgeworld, bet you'd love new kits of them".
This is basic faction design in pretty much every game, if everyone is special then no one is.
GW could have made the FW flyers into GW kits and produced a larger selection of different flyers and skimmers, like a stealthed Hammerhead instead of the Ghostkeel.
Tyel wrote: I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.
Why is it lame? The army was complete. New content for the sake of having new content is a stupid way of doing things and inevitably leads to poor quality as you keep having new releases despite not having any good design space left. Tau were complete in 2010 and the only thing they needed was for the FW units to stay in production. Since then GW has retconned in a bunch of ugly and anti-fluffy giant anime robots (complete with absurdly overpowered rules to sell them) and the only quality content they've added has been the aesthetic updates and mold re-cutting on the kits that already existed a decade ago.
Dudeface wrote: Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.
That's exactly what shouldn't happen. It's the end result that matters, not the exact sequence of dice math that gets there, so if the end result is the same that means an ork army would be able to set up a gunline across from a guard/tau gunline and expect a 50/50 chance to win. That's absurd and completely against their fluff.
As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.
A unit being uncommon in a game where your army only has room for a small subset of the units in the codex is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if only one unit in the codex is good at melee, you can still fill all of your fast attack slots with it and dedicate 25-50% of your points to that single unit. The only way to enforce rarity restrictions, outside of imposing a literal "no more than one copy of this" rule, is to make the rare units lower in power so they're only taken in niche situations.
Dudeface wrote: Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.
That's exactly what shouldn't happen. It's the end result that matters, not the exact sequence of dice math that gets there, so if the end result is the same that means an ork army would be able to set up a gunline across from a guard/tau gunline and expect a 50/50 chance to win. That's absurd and completely against their fluff.
If Orks lack the breadth of ranged options that Astra Militarum have then they will naturally have worse gunlines, without any individual Ork shooting unit being bad. So if someone wants to make a shooty Ork list they can, but they'll either have some serious weaknesses or will have to invest in a few melee units to round out their list.
There is a big difference in special snowflake and interesting design differences.
Tau already have units that could be used for melee, they just tend to suck and not work for synergy in there forces.
They don’t have to be a CC faction to utilise it, and I think so of that comes from design of 40k.
I still think breachers would make for a great Tau CC unit, and would offer a unique Tau style use of the systems.
It’s why I also think of khorne, the land raider I think of as iconic to there forces for CSM. Offering fire support, heavy armor and transport to there berserkers on a battlefield that was often dangerous to travel on foot.
They did ranged in support of there close combat troops.
It’s GW not really supporting that well in modern times, and often dumbing down a faction theme to fit into a small box.
If you got the 3rd where they first started to follow though on there combined forces theme.
Every faction interacts with all phases in some way, and I think it’s gotten worse now with faction theming.
I don’t think any other game is quite like 40k and has factions on theme to just ignore entire themes of the game they are supposed to be a part off.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?
I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.
Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.
Because they're crazy.
Really? That's the best you could come up with? Why do CSM Terminators use Reaper ACs instead of just stealing Assault Cannons from loyalists and using those? Because they're more reliable. Why don't they still have landspeeders? Because anti-grav tech breaks down in the Eye, and is unreliable. Why do they stick with the older, less flashy stuff like Rhinos, Land Raiders, and other ground based tanks? They're reliable. Easy for them to fix and maintain while reaving and raiding from home bases in literal hell. That's been the fluff for decades. That's why CSM prefer 10,000 year old equipment to less reliable newer tech. It's been one of the primary design elements that separate CSM from loyalists since the 2nd edition Chaos codex.
Tyel wrote: I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.
I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.
Which tells anyone around for the initial Tau release that you weren't.
The background at the time indicated that the Tau thought units such as Knights and Titans were inefficient uses of resources, as they tied a lot of resources up in a unit with a limited sphere of influence. Tau doctrine preferred to spread those resources out across more smaller units, as well as into airpower, which has a much larger area of a conflict it can get to and influence.
We also saw development of Tau air assets, leading to the Tiger Shark A-X-10 as an evolution of the Tiger Shark to counter Knights and Titans.
Unfortunately, some dipstick in the Studio had more of an anime fetish than we first thought, and we ended up with the Riptide and other silly mecha suits instead...
The 4th ed tau codex is still the best IMHO as far as how it portrayed the way tau fight. all the wargear options improved them as a move/shoot army that abhored CC. I never owned a riptide in my tau force, and it did just fine in the years i played. i have also killed plenty of riptides without needing my own giant thing to do the job.
Aecus Decimus wrote:
JNAProductions wrote: What’s a Tankbusta?
Or a Loota?
Squigbuggy?
Any of the fliers?
They’re not melee units. They’re shooting units.
And the fluff dictates that they should be a minor part of ork armies that you're discouraged from investing heavily in.
(Except tankbustas. Orks running into melee to blow up tanks with suicide bomb hammers is very fluffy.)
Hammers are great...in the 4th ed codex since they didn't kill the ork carrying them. the suicide squig bombs were much more thematic and entertaining especially when you rolled a 1.
It's really silly to talk down to someone when you're being a total fool. Daemon engines are more reliable than skimmers? That's the difference between SM and CSM.
Apple fox wrote: Tau already have units that could be used for melee, they just tend to suck and not work for synergy in there forces.
Kroot Hounds were meta in index 8th, it's just a question of pts. Having melee units to go and grab objectives or to block enemy melee units from engaging your shooty units is synergistic.
Racerguy180 wrote: Thats basically how I view CSM, they value reliability/repeatedly.
That's why it shows up all the time in CSM codexes right? /sarcasm. Which faction do you think actually uses those words to explain its hardware choices?
That's exactly what shouldn't happen. It's the end result that matters, not the exact sequence of dice math that gets there, so if the end result is the same that means an ork army would be able to set up a gunline across from a guard/tau gunline and expect a 50/50 chance to win. That's absurd and completely against their fluff.
How is it against their fluff? Orks culturally value firepower ("dakka") they have entire cultural groups that exult in it (Bad Moonz etc), they have lots of unique tech that exists in ranged weapons (shokk attack guns, etc)...
Now, I could see the argument for overall favoring a mobile firepower basis for them (like when all their weapons were assault) as opposed a gunline, but the idea that ork shooting should be bad or an inefficient option is just incorrect if you're arguing from a fluff basis.
If you want units to be rarer, have them take up things that are actually in short supply in list construction - heavy support slots, for example.
vict0988 wrote: This is basic faction design in pretty much every game, if everyone is special then no one is.
GW could have made the FW flyers into GW kits and produced a larger selection of different flyers and skimmers, like a stealthed Hammerhead instead of the Ghostkeel.
Do you want a Drukhari Land Raider?
The Tantalus already exists.
Are SM, CSM, Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons not special because they have units for just about every position? I'm afraid I don't see it.
Units that aren't typical for an army like anything melee for Tau or Guard are fine to exist. It is even fine to be good at what they do and they should be worth their points.
The easiest way to make sure those units don't warp the intented looks of a regular army composition is to limit the availability (for example by slots) and/or synergy and available buffs for them.
You should never be discouraged from taking them as their points or rules are lackluster on purpose because "yes, they are there but I really don't want you to take even one unit of them".
vict0988 wrote: This is basic faction design in pretty much every game, if everyone is special then no one is.
GW could have made the FW flyers into GW kits and produced a larger selection of different flyers and skimmers, like a stealthed Hammerhead instead of the Ghostkeel.
Do you want a Drukhari Land Raider?
The Tantalus already exists.
Are SM, CSM, Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons not special because they have units for just about every position? I'm afraid I don't see it.
When did the Tantalus lose fly? Get a 2+ Sv and T8? SM are not special, they are just a conflicted mishmash of every other army in the game because SM gotta have it all. Tyranids are special because they don't get vehicles or transports that move across the table. Squighog Riders made Orks a lot less special, all they need now is power-armoured Nobz with powah shields (4++). Necrons would certainly be less special if Destroyers were changed to range 36" and they would be more special if Flyers, Monoliths and Immortals had their ranges lowered again and if Necrons had to rely on teleportation instead of regular transports.
JNAProductions wrote: What’s a Tankbusta?
Or a Loota?
Squigbuggy?
Any of the fliers?
They’re not melee units. They’re shooting units.
And the fluff dictates that they should be a minor part of ork armies that you're discouraged from investing heavily in.
(Except tankbustas. Orks running into melee to blow up tanks with suicide bomb hammers is very fluffy.)
Which only newbies or lol bad game designers would translate to artificially bad for point units.
But hey you are claiming marines are average. You have proven beyond shadow of doubt a) you are bad at game designing b) you haven't even read gw's fluff.
tneva82 wrote: Which only newbies or lol bad game designers would translate to artificially bad for point units.
Then how exactly do you discourage those units if they are equally point efficient compared to the units the army should be taking? Do you think that people who care about winning will somehow refuse to use them because of the fluff?
But hey you are claiming marines are average. You have proven beyond shadow of doubt a) you are bad at game designing b) you haven't even read gw's fluff.
Marines are indisputably average in game design terms. They are by far the most common army in the game which makes them by definition average. They are the reference point by which everything else is judged. And because of stat creep they're even pretty average in relative terms, with entire armies being more elite than marines.
Marines are pretty clearly average in the fluff as well. They're elite relative to normal humans but normal humans don't exist in tabletop 40k. Even guard, the closest thing to normal humans, are badass special forces units selected from the elite of the elite in an entire planet's military. Tau troops have better guns and better tech. Eldar have basic troops that have hundreds of years of training. Necrons consider the laws of physics to be a mere annoyance that can be freely ignored and don't bother with such stupid ideas as "actually dying when shot". The only thing marines are better than everyone else at is being the protagonists and feeding the power fantasies of rabid marine fanboys.
vict0988 wrote: When did the Tantalus lose fly? Get a 2+ Sv and T8? SM are not special, they are just a conflicted mishmash of every other army in the game because SM gotta have it all. Tyranids are special because they don't get vehicles or transports that move across the table. Squighog Riders made Orks a lot less special, all they need now is power-armoured Nobz with powah shields (4++). Necrons would certainly be less special if Destroyers were changed to range 36" and they would be more special if Flyers, Monoliths and Immortals had their ranges lowered again and if Necrons had to rely on teleportation instead of regular transports.
I guess it depends whether you think a Land Raider is a square box that moves along the ground - or a large capacity transport with some guns costing around 250-300 points. To my mind a Ravager and a Predator are much the same thing - a vehicle with guns. I guess you could say "aha, don't Land Speeders - and now super Primaris Speeders - make your Ravager's less special?" Well... not really?
And this idea that what make's Necron's special is Destroyers having 24" range really feels like a reach.
Tyel wrote: I guess it depends whether you think a Land Raider is a square box that moves along the ground - or a large capacity transport with some guns costing around 250-300 points.
That's not what defines a Land Raider though. The core of the concept is the Land Raider's durability. It's a giant brick of armor that is supposed to be nearly impossible to kill before it gets into range and disembarks a terminator squad to wreck your army. It's not particularly subtle or elegant but it gets the job done. The Tantalus doesn't follow that concept at all. It's a fragile unit for its point cost, its typical cargo is entirely different because of the open topped rule, and its flying ability opens up a lot of options that normal tanks can't match.
(And yes, I know Land Raiders suck at doing those things. We're talking about concepts, not competitive balance.)
To my mind a Ravager and a Predator are much the same thing - a vehicle with guns. I guess you could say "aha, don't Land Speeders - and now super Primaris Speeders - make your Ravager's less special?" Well... not really?
And now you're broadening the concept well into uselessness. "A vehicle with guns" covers half the game, you're never going to get a useful analysis of unit concepts if you look at them in such general terms. And when you narrow it down enough to actually split units into different categories you see that the Predator is a straightforward efficient gun platform while the Ravager is a fast glass cannon. The Ravager has far more in common with the primaris speeders than a Predator, and TBH those primaris speeders are not a great design concept for that reason.
tneva82 wrote: Which only newbies or lol bad game designers would translate to artificially bad for point units.
Then how exactly do you discourage those units if they are equally point efficient compared to the units the army should be taking? Do you think that people who care about winning will somehow refuse to use them because of the fluff?
Availability, opportunity cost and synergy, really. If your "okay for the points, not more not less" melee unit has to compete with 1 of your 3 slots for a Leman Russ in a Guard army, you might want to think twice about spamming it.
There is btw nothing wrong with a "you might only take 1 of these units for every x" rule. Works just fine already with command squads for example. Last time I checked Guard wasn't as good as beefing up a unit or character for close combat like other factions could, either.
Instead of just talking about it in theory though, I can actually tell you what happens if every unit is roughly worth the points it costs without artificial buffs or nerfs: People will play around with different unit and wargear combinations and stick with whatever they like to play the most. Which is... not at all a problem for the fluff, as Guard (to stay with it as an example) still needs big guns or infantry (with big guns) to work well, as not every slot can be filled with a melee unit who could take on different targets like hordes, Terminators or tanks.
a_typical_hero wrote: Availability, opportunity cost and synergy, really. If your "okay for the points, not more not less" melee unit has to compete with 1 of your 3 slots for a Leman Russ in a Guard army, you might want to think twice about spamming it.
Then it isn't equally efficient. If the melee unit is equally efficient, including the effects of stratagem buffs and unit synergies, then I don't lose anything by sacrificing LRBTs to take it. That argument only works if the LRBT beats it in efficiency and is the only viable option of the two.
There is btw nothing wrong with a "you might only take 1 of these units for every x" rule.
In theory, yes. In practice people inevitably hate those limits and complain endlessly about them, which is why GW mostly stopped including them. It generates a lot fewer complaints if you soft ban an option by making it only desirable in niche situations.
Instead of just talking about it in theory though, I can actually tell you what happens if every unit is roughly worth the points it costs without artificial buffs or nerfs: People will play around with different unit and wargear combinations and stick with whatever they like to play the most. Which is... not at all a problem for the fluff, as Guard (to stay with it as an example) still needs big guns or infantry (with big guns) to work well, as not every slot can be filled with a melee unit who could take on different targets like hordes, Terminators or tanks.
It absolutely is a problem because you're creating armies that don't match the fluff. A Tau army should not have effective melee, period. It's against the explicit fluff that they hate the entire concept of melee and refuse to engage in it. The absolute most they should have is auxiliary units (like Kroot) but they should never be top-tier options that you'd want to invest heavily in, otherwise you end up with "Tau" armies that are a melee core with token ranged support being a viable option.
Then it isn't equally efficient. If the melee unit is equally efficient, including the effects of stratagem buffs and unit synergies, then I don't lose anything by sacrificing LRBTs to take it. That argument only works if the LRBT beats it in efficiency and is the only viable option of the two.
We don't have endless amounts of unit slots nor units have endless amounts of models.
If the hypothetical melee option maxes out at 150 points, you are losing heavy support slot efficiency because you could fit 600 points of Leman Russ in the same slot.
Moreover points efficiency depends on the situation. Kroot may be efficient at meleeing light infantry, but they lack melee anti-tank and thus will never be efficient at fighting harder targets. You can also trade points efficiency for synergy or stratagem support, meaning you can have extremely point efficient units that also are pretty much completely inflexible beyond their niche.
In theory, yes. In practice people inevitably hate those limits and complain endlessly about them, which is why GW mostly stopped including them. It generates a lot fewer complaints if you soft ban an option by making it only desirable in niche situations.
The rule of 3 is a thing, most heavy leader units are limited at 1 per detachment and chaos in particular has a lot of no more x than y limitations.
vict0988 wrote: It's really silly to talk down to someone when you're being a total fool. Daemon engines are more reliable than skimmers? That's the difference between SM and CSM.
IKR, so annoying to talk to someone that doesn't actually read what we say and make gak up by thinking we said demon engines were more reliable..... Gad mentionned Rhino chassis tanks, not demon engines.
Racerguy180 wrote: Thats basically how I view CSM, they value reliability/repeatedly.
That's why it shows up all the time in CSM codexes right? /sarcasm. Which faction do you think actually uses those words to explain its hardware choices?
the feth do you mean? It's all in the fluff lol. It DOES show up in codexes since CSM has reaper autocannons instead of assault cannon and all the other examples Gad listed....
When did the Tantalus lose fly? Get a 2+ Sv and T8?
oh i see, you're just trolling or dumb enough to think that a unit can only be represented by its stats, not just by its general role, gotcha.
A "land raider" is a transport with big guns thats tougher than the other options in the codex, its that simple. Having T7/8/9 doesnt change that.
Tantalus gets +1T, +1S over other drukhari options, therefore, its a "land raider" that was designed in the context of the army (it's even got the same playability as the land raider, they really stayed true to it)
Then how exactly do you discourage those units if they are equally point efficient compared to the units the army should be taking? Do you think that people who care about winning will somehow refuse to use them because of the fluff?
you don't. fluff shouldn't matter in the powerlevel of rules.
The ruleset would (in a perfect world) have every unit be as good as each other. Then you're free as a player to decide if you want to follow the fluff or make up your own. And then you're not shooting yourself in the foot by bringing something fluffy like you are right now.
a_typical_hero wrote: Availability, opportunity cost and synergy, really. If your "okay for the points, not more not less" melee unit has to compete with 1 of your 3 slots for a Leman Russ in a Guard army, you might want to think twice about spamming it.
Then it isn't equally efficient. If the melee unit is equally efficient, including the effects of stratagem buffs and unit synergies, then I don't lose anything by sacrificing LRBTs to take it. That argument only works if the LRBT beats it in efficiency and is the only viable option of the two.
The melee unit is efficient against the intented target. Ogryns might be good against light infantry for example, but they can't scratch a tank. A Leman Russ - while being able to be kitted for anti infantry - is the place where you can bring a big gun against vehicles. Your army won't be able to fight heavy armored targets with just Ogryns as it would be with some Ogryns and some LR.
a_typical_hero wrote: Instead of just talking about it in theory though, I can actually tell you what happens if every unit is roughly worth the points it costs without artificial buffs or nerfs: People will play around with different unit and wargear combinations and stick with whatever they like to play the most. Which is... not at all a problem for the fluff, as Guard (to stay with it as an example) still needs big guns or infantry (with big guns) to work well, as not every slot can be filled with a melee unit who could take on different targets like hordes, Terminators or tanks.
It absolutely is a problem because you're creating armies that don't match the fluff. A Tau army should not have effective melee, period. It's against the explicit fluff that they hate the entire concept of melee and refuse to engage in it. The absolute most they should have is auxiliary units (like Kroot) but they should never be top-tier options that you'd want to invest heavily in, otherwise you end up with "Tau" armies that are a melee core with token ranged support being a viable option.
I soft disagree. Tau should imho not have a melee unit for every slot to cover all bases you need to cover to win a "melee units only" game. The melee units they do have, however, should be efficient according to the points. If a Kroot costs 10 points, he should bring that to the table without any "your faction should not use melee"-tax baked into those 10p. Imho Tau fluff would already allow for melee centric forces via their auxiliaries. If you want to go that route, you can introduce new species with melee troops without having to resort to Gundams with power weapons. Actual Tau would stay true to their doctrine this way.
vict0988 wrote: When did the Tantalus lose fly? Get a 2+ Sv and T8? SM are not special, they are just a conflicted mishmash of every other army in the game because SM gotta have it all. Tyranids are special because they don't get vehicles or transports that move across the table. Squighog Riders made Orks a lot less special, all they need now is power-armoured Nobz with powah shields (4++). Necrons would certainly be less special if Destroyers were changed to range 36" and they would be more special if Flyers, Monoliths and Immortals had their ranges lowered again and if Necrons had to rely on teleportation instead of regular transports.
I guess it depends whether you think a Land Raider is a square box that moves along the ground - or a large capacity transport with some guns costing around 250-300 points. To my mind a Ravager and a Predator are much the same thing - a vehicle with guns. I guess you could say "aha, don't Land Speeders - and now super Primaris Speeders - make your Ravager's less special?" Well... not really?
And this idea that what make's Necron's special is Destroyers having 24" range really feels like a reach.
I said what I consider a Land Raider to be, a non-flying transport with T8 and 2+ Sv. Standard Land Raiders have a transport capacity of 10 and costs 245 pts, my definition fits the actual Land Raider and is therefore objectively better, your strawman was silly since that definition would include Rhinos and Predators. My definition does not include the non-transport variants of the Land Raider, but I think that's fair enough because the difference between a transport and a non-transport is rather huge. It'd be like a Honda Civic with the backseat replaced with a rocket engine, it's different enough that I am comfortable with not calling it the same thing. How can Ravagers be a special Drukhari unit if every faction in the game has one? You don't care whether every army has the same 300 datasheets if they all have different fluff and models, of course, you're not going to care if SM get copies of all your datasheets as long as they have new models and some kind of fluff to justify their Mandrakes for existing as long as you are getting back the models and datasheets you lost over time and more.
It's not just Destroyers as I said, it's also Immortals, Flyers and Monoliths. Players can notice if Necrons have a pattern like "no long-ranged anti-infantry" and "durable", such patterns deliver narrative through game mechanics.
a_typical_hero wrote: There is btw nothing wrong with a "you might only take 1 of these units for every x" rule.
In theory, yes. In practice people inevitably hate those limits and complain endlessly about them, which is why GW mostly stopped including them. It generates a lot fewer complaints if you soft ban an option by making it only desirable in niche situations.
Have you read the 9th ed Chaos codexes? They're riddled with this gak. GW couldn't balance their game if someone told them how to do it, which is why Rough Riders and Bullgryn were some of the best Astra Militarum units in 9th and why Orks strongest choices were shooting units in 8th.
vict0988 wrote: It's really silly to talk down to someone when you're being a total fool. Daemon engines are more reliable than skimmers? That's the difference between SM and CSM.
IKR, so annoying to talk to someone that doesn't actually read what we say and make gak up by thinking we said demon engines were more reliable..... Gad mentionned Rhino chassis tanks, not demon engines.
Try reading harder buddy. I said the difference between SM and CSM is skimmers vs Daemon engines, because news flash, SM used Rhinos for 10k years just like CSM.
Racerguy180 wrote: Thats basically how I view CSM, they value reliability/repeatedly.
That's why it shows up all the time in CSM codexes right? /sarcasm. Which faction do you think actually uses those words to explain its hardware choices?
the feth do you mean? It's all in the fluff lol. It DOES show up in codexes since CSM has reaper autocannons instead of assault cannon and all the other examples Gad listed....
It's not important enough to the CSM to be included in their most recent codices. The use of autocannons over assault cannons is not in fact evidence of a preference for reliability any more than their use of Daemon engines shows how Daemon engines are more reliable than skimmers because the always reliable (and never crazy BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD) CSM prefer Daemon engines. Assault cannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear. But if you think CSM's identity should be reliable weapons and tanks that's fine, I don't have any control over GW's decisions when writing rules or designing new CSM units, no reason to get mad at me because my off the cuff attempt at encapsulating CSM doesn't align with your own, long-held and carefully considered view of the faction's identity. I literally told you all that went into my thinking before I suggested CSM be known for having unreliable vehicles or ranged weapons, they're crazy. To some extent you can apply crazy to Space Marines as well with their belief in machine spirits and rituals to repair machines.
When did the Tantalus lose fly? Get a 2+ Sv and T8?
oh i see, you're just trolling or dumb enough to think that a unit can only be represented by its stats, not just by its general role, gotcha.
A "land raider" is a transport with big guns thats tougher than the other options in the codex, its that simple. Having T7/8/9 doesnt change that.
Tantalus gets +1T, +1S over other drukhari options, therefore, its a "land raider" that was designed in the context of the army (it's even got the same playability as the land raider, they really stayed true to it)
In the context of the army is the magical word, in the same vein the assault centurions of Tau should be relatively lightly armoured Kroot and I wouldn't have a problem with it. M5 2+ Sv melee units do not belong in the Tau codex.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The past 2 pages are all semantics and nuance about specific codex design... nothing to do with 10th edition core rules.
I hope for full reset and invalidate all the 9th codex's so we can have a small window of reprieve from codex complaints (other than lack-there-of)
And would you expect all the codexes to be released at once or over 3 years? GW essential maintaining 2 editions in parallel until all 10th Ed codexes are released?
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The past 2 pages are all semantics and nuance about specific codex design... nothing to do with 10th edition core rules.
I hope for full reset and invalidate all the 9th codex's so we can have a small window of reprieve from codex complaints (other than lack-there-of)
And would you expect all the codexes to be released at once or over 3 years? GW essential maintaining 2 editions in parallel until all 10th Ed codexes are released?
I think every single person on here would expect a get-you-by index and then codex over 3 years. It wouldn't be well received unless the temporary rules were functionally close to a full codex though. I.e. not missing stratagems and being forced to be, by default, less capable than a full book.
vict0988 wrote:Autocannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear.
Ummm, what?????
Tell me you don't know 30k without telling me you don't know 30k....
So that support weapon box that includes autocannons I just bought was developed after the heresy...man I've got some back to the future gak goin on for my 3rd & 18th legions. Must be warp trickery
Tittliewinks22 wrote: The past 2 pages are all semantics and nuance about specific codex design... nothing to do with 10th edition core rules.
I hope for full reset and invalidate all the 9th codex's so we can have a small window of reprieve from codex complaints (other than lack-there-of)
And would you expect all the codexes to be released at once or over 3 years? GW essential maintaining 2 editions in parallel until all 10th Ed codexes are released?
I think every single person on here would expect a get-you-by index and then codex over 3 years. It wouldn't be well received unless the temporary rules were functionally close to a full codex though. I.e. not missing stratagems and being forced to be, by default, less capable than a full book.
And even if it were close to a full codex, it likely wouldn't be well received by all the people that bought their codex in the last year or so.
vict0988 wrote: I said what I consider a Land Raider to be, a non-flying transport with T8 and 2+ Sv. Standard Land Raiders have a transport capacity of 10 and costs 245 pts, my definition fits the actual Land Raider and is therefore objectively better, your strawman was silly since that definition would include Rhinos and Predators. My definition does not include the non-transport variants of the Land Raider, but I think that's fair enough because the difference between a transport and a non-transport is rather huge. It'd be like a Honda Civic with the backseat replaced with a rocket engine, it's different enough that I am comfortable with not calling it the same thing. How can Ravagers be a special Drukhari unit if every faction in the game has one? You don't care whether every army has the same 300 datasheets if they all have different fluff and models, of course, you're not going to care if SM get copies of all your datasheets as long as they have new models and some kind of fluff to justify their Mandrakes for existing as long as you are getting back the models and datasheets you lost over time and more.
It's not just Destroyers as I said, it's also Immortals, Flyers and Monoliths. Players can notice if Necrons have a pattern like "no long-ranged anti-infantry" and "durable", such patterns deliver narrative through game mechanics.
For me at least its pretty obvious the Land Raider is a beefed up Rhino. More armour and wounds, more guns. Much like a Battlewagon is the step up from a Trukk. Or the new Squat space-box is a step up from the littler Squat space-box. As others have said, the Tantalus is effectively the DE equivalent to the Raider. The fact the DE one isn't T8 2+ but in exchange can fly instead is kind of that faction identity you've talked about.
In much the same way Rhinos, Chimeras, Raiders, Wave Serpents, Trukks, Devilfish, Duneriders, GSC trucks etc are all comparable. Some of them fly, some of them don't. Some of them are quite well armed, some of them barely carry weapons. Some of them are currently worth thinking about for the points, and others are not. But they are all transports. They are the various factions unit in that role.
Sure if every army had exactly the same units that would be a bit boring. But they don't. Any more than Howling Banshees, Ruststalkers, Possessed, Genestealers, Flayed Ones etc are all somehow the same unit, because they want to stab stuff. And I don't think having a "Tau" equivalent to this list (or another equivalent if you want to rope in Kroot Hounds) would somehow mess with the game or make anything less special.
vict0988 wrote:Autocannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear.
Ummm, what?????
Tell me you don't know 30k without telling me you don't know 30k....
So that support weapon box that includes autocannons I just bought was developed after the heresy...man I've got some back to the future gak goin on for my 3rd & 18th legions. Must be warp trickery
Assault cannon is what I meant. I'm sure that was tough to figure out even though I was responding to someone talking about CSM not using assault cannons because they are too unreliable. Derp.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Then how exactly do you discourage those units if they are equally point efficient compared to the units the army should be taking? Do you think that people who care about winning will somehow refuse to use them because of the fluff?
Make them take up more restricted slots in the FoC.
Okey, but then you create a situation where armies which have the fewest restriction do not get impacted, but the change. While others who more or less had to take a specific unit max times, get punished double. Because both their opponents don't get worse, but they do.
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a_typical_hero wrote: Who would want to wait 3 years for their army to receive the thing that GW introduces in the new edition?
Stratagems in 8th.
Crusade and purity bonus in 9th.
Three years is way too long.
I waited over 3 years for GK codex that was good. And then I had to wait a bit more for AoC actualy make stuff like termintors and paladins, not totaly bad. The fist players were bad all 8th, then they were okey under 2.0 and then they went to being very bad, and are still bad the entire 9th ed. And few people still do play them for some reason.
vict0988 wrote:It's really silly to talk down to someone when you're being a total fool. Daemon engines are more reliable than skimmers? That's the difference between SM and CSM.
Depends what you mean by reliable I guess.
Sure daemon engines require a bit of sacrifice to run and might eat your troops now and then, but they need minimal mechanical maintenance and the chassis can be fairly run down before you put the daemon in but when it’s up an running.
A skimmer by comparison requires lots of fiddly maintenance to keep running plus fancy components to service it.
Tbh ‘Maintainability’ may be the better word than ‘reliability’, but there’s definitely a focus on it.
vict0988 wrote:Autocannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear.
Ummm, what?????
Tell me you don't know 30k without telling me you don't know 30k....
So that support weapon box that includes autocannons I just bought was developed after the heresy...man I've got some back to the future gak goin on for my 3rd & 18th legions. Must be warp trickery
Assault cannon is what I meant. I'm sure that was tough to figure out even though I was responding to someone talking about CSM not using assault cannons because they are too unreliable. Derp.
Even in editions like 5th where the CSM book largely covered modern renegades (who would have originally had assault cannons and not autocannons), they’re all using the latter…
And 30k era Astartes had all sorts of proto-autocannons they no longer use and copious skimmers that were too fiddly for even the loyalists to keep running.
Even in editions like 5th where the CSM book largely covered modern renegades (who would have originally had assault cannons and not autocannons), they’re all using the latter…
Sure, but the motivation for the 5e CSM codex focusing on renegades seems to be making the faction less cool; they thought the 3.5e Chaos Codex was too fun and too many people were playing them compared to loyalist Astartes. So it was more like "cool off this faction, make them loyalist space marines with less options and less power."
I hope in vain that 10th will be an appropriate edition to decimlise. Not the dice - although i'd like more than just d6's used - but dropping the inches and going to just centimetres.
PaddyMick wrote: I hope in vain that 10th will be an appropriate edition to decimlise. Not the dice - although i'd like more than just d6's used - but dropping the inches and going to just centimetres.
I don't mean to be condescending when I type this, I mean it very earnestly and literally. I imagine a chunk of the American audience would strongly dislike this and likely cause enough impact to bother GWs bottom line.
PaddyMick wrote: I hope in vain that 10th will be an appropriate edition to decimlise. Not the dice - although i'd like more than just d6's used - but dropping the inches and going to just centimetres.
I don't mean to be condescending when I type this, I mean it very earnestly and literally. I imagine a chunk of the American audience would strongly dislike this and likely cause enough impact to bother GWs bottom line.
Perhaps, but they are already using centimetres for model base and battlefield sizes. I just assumed that america uses both systems like we do in the uk? and our inches just happen to be the same as theirs (their pints are a bit short measured, the poor buggers!).
Reckon everyone would swallow it after some gripes; but as I said it's a vain hope, much like my hope that we'll stop using both systems IRL.
Honestly I kinda like using inches in my wargame. Otherwise i'd have absolutely no reference with the silly measurements as Metric is used everywhere else, for me at least. Lets me know how those funny American's measure things.
PaddyMick wrote: I hope in vain that 10th will be an appropriate edition to decimlise. Not the dice - although i'd like more than just d6's used - but dropping the inches and going to just centimetres.
I don't mean to be condescending when I type this, I mean it very earnestly and literally. I imagine a chunk of the American audience would strongly dislike this and likely cause enough impact to bother GWs bottom line.
I'm American and I'd love it. Then again, I'm science so I'm used to metric.
There's two things that the US unequivocally does worse than the rest of the world, not using metric and not using bidets.
Just from a games design point of view, using both in one game is kind of dumb.
'The objective is 50mm in diameter and you are on it if you are 3'' away' is not a sentence that's actually in the core book but it's how it's played.
Automatically Appended Next Post: You are not alone on either there Hecaton; in the UK all the road signs are in miles, and first time I went on hols to spain, I took a crap in the bidet, thinking it was a toilet.
vict0988 wrote:Autocannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear.
Ummm, what?????
Tell me you don't know 30k without telling me you don't know 30k....
So that support weapon box that includes autocannons I just bought was developed after the heresy...man I've got some back to the future gak goin on for my 3rd & 18th legions. Must be warp trickery
Assault cannon is what I meant. I'm sure that was tough to figure out even though I was responding to someone talking about CSM not using assault cannons because they are too unreliable. Derp.
Racerguy may have been confused because Assault Cannons were also in use during the Heresy, though in limited quantities and generally in the hands of just a few Legions. So that isn't the reason CSM don't favor their use in current 40k. And they can steal them from the bodies of dead loyalists if they wanted, which we have in lore examples of (1st Claw says "Hi), or could be taken along with other Loyalist equipment by Renegades when they turn, but still aren't favored by them either.
As for your little post further up thread, both Vlad and Lord Zarkov have already basically said what I would have, so I see no reason to reiterate the same facts, as they've already refuted it just fine.
Even in editions like 5th where the CSM book largely covered modern renegades (who would have originally had assault cannons and not autocannons), they’re all using the latter…
Sure, but the motivation for the 5e CSM codex focusing on renegades seems to be making the faction less cool; they thought the 3.5e Chaos Codex was too fun and too many people were playing them compared to loyalist Astartes. So it was more like "cool off this faction, make them loyalist space marines with less options and less power."
Yeah, I'm sure that was PRECISELY their thinking...
vict0988 wrote:Autocannons were developed after the heresy, that sounds like a good reason for them not being standard CSM gear.
Ummm, what?????
Tell me you don't know 30k without telling me you don't know 30k....
So that support weapon box that includes autocannons I just bought was developed after the heresy...man I've got some back to the future gak goin on for my 3rd & 18th legions. Must be warp trickery
Assault cannon is what I meant. I'm sure that was tough to figure out even though I was responding to someone talking about CSM not using assault cannons because they are too unreliable. Derp.
Racerguy may have been confused because Assault Cannons were also in use during the Heresy, though in limited quantities and generally in the hands of just a few Legions. So that isn't the reason CSM don't favor their use in current 40k. And they can steal them from the bodies of dead loyalists if they wanted, which we have in lore examples of (1st Claw says "Hi), or could be taken along with other Loyalist equipment by Renegades when they turn, but still aren't favored by them either.
As for your little post further up thread, both Vlad and Lord Zarkov have already basically said what I would have, so I see no reason to reiterate the same facts, as they've already refuted it just fine.
Don't look at the Chaos Contemptor datasheet, that might reveal that the CSM still use the assault cannons that were in use at the time of the Horus Heresy. Of course, you'll be playing the lore friendly way by using volkites I bet /sarcasm. Why do you care if I got the identity of Chaos Space Marines wrong anyway? I'd be fine if GW identified CSM as the faction using rugged technology with easier maintenance requirements (like feeding Daemon engines cultists instead of lubricating their joints with oil. I still think factions should ideally have empty spots in their rosters, like Drukhari not having a 2+ Sv T8 non-FLY transport. I don't know what spots in the CSM roster should be left empty to represent their distaste for wargear that isn't rugged, perhaps they should just have a smaller variety of special and heavy weapons compared to SM.
vict0988 wrote: . . .
Don't look at the Chaos Contemptor datasheet, that might reveal that the CSM still use the assault cannons that were in use at the time of the Horus Heresy.
Well indeed that would be the Kheres Assault Cannon, which was indeed a thing at the time of the HH, unlike the standard Assault Cannon which came later.
As for technology:
"The Traitor Terminators, lacking the technology and equipment to maintain the notoriously fickle Assault Cannon, still make use of the Reaper with its simpler mechanisms and solid ammunition." Chaos Codex 2nd ed, pg. 73.
It's in the lore that Chaos tends to use more sturdy and reliable equipment because they don't have the same supporting infrastructure the loyalists do. It's a thing.
vict0988 wrote: . . .
Don't look at the Chaos Contemptor datasheet, that might reveal that the CSM still use the assault cannons that were in use at the time of the Horus Heresy.
Well indeed that would be the Kheres Assault Cannon, which was indeed a thing at the time of the HH, unlike the standard Assault Cannon which came later.
As for technology:
"The Traitor Terminators, lacking the technology and equipment to maintain the notoriously fickle Assault Cannon, still make use of the Reaper with its simpler mechanisms and solid ammunition." Chaos Codex 2nd ed, pg. 73.
It's in the lore that Chaos tends to use more sturdy and reliable equipment because they don't have the same supporting infrastructure the loyalists do. It's a thing.
I wasn't born when that book was released, I hope you'll give me a break
vict0988 wrote: . . .
Don't look at the Chaos Contemptor datasheet, that might reveal that the CSM still use the assault cannons that were in use at the time of the Horus Heresy.
Well indeed that would be the Kheres Assault Cannon, which was indeed a thing at the time of the HH, unlike the standard Assault Cannon which came later.
As for technology:
"The Traitor Terminators, lacking the technology and equipment to maintain the notoriously fickle Assault Cannon, still make use of the Reaper with its simpler mechanisms and solid ammunition." Chaos Codex 2nd ed, pg. 73.
It's in the lore that Chaos tends to use more sturdy and reliable equipment because they don't have the same supporting infrastructure the loyalists do. It's a thing.
Assault cannon on terminators was also around on heresy ;-)
And chaos has entire hive worlds with dark mechanicusm pumping out gear
PaddyMick wrote: Just from a games design point of view, using both in one game is kind of dumb.
'The objective is 50mm in diameter and you are on it if you are 3'' away' is not a sentence that's actually in the core book but it's how it's played.
Automatically Appended Next Post: You are not alone on either there Hecaton; in the UK all the road signs are in miles, and first time I went on hols to spain, I took a crap in the bidet, thinking it was a toilet.
In lotrGW used inch + cm next to each other. So you had every range given in both. In our group we always used the cm because that's what we knew. When we started 40K we were surprised to only see these strange inches everywhere and no cm. They took away the cm with the Hobbit IIRC. My gaming group is still catching up on the inch-values for lotr but that's more because we play lotr rarely these days.
So, since they did away with the metric system in lotr I don't think they'll introduce it for 40K. There's a long tradition of using inches in wargames I feel. Yes, GW sometimes does things differently like moving to their strange minimum table sizes when everybody else is okay with 6x4 tables since 30 years, but we know that's just because of GW's box sizes.
CSM use slaves to manage all lot of their production and maintenance from what I have read. Quality is assured because failure is a fate worse than death
Automatically Appended Next Post: And there must be some former tech marines knocking around, even if they have become warp smiths they still know how make and fox stuff and how to pass that info onto whomever had been pressed into service
PaddyMick wrote: I hope in vain that 10th will be an appropriate edition to decimlise. Not the dice - although i'd like more than just d6's used - but dropping the inches and going to just centimetres.
Interesting note but if I recall correctly the Batman Miniature Game started off using centimeters, but eventually moved to inches as it was just a more handy measurement for the size skirmish games are played on. So it appears it's something that has already been tried in the industry.
this has more to do with Spain being different, as even GW games were sold with metric for Spain (hence the original Warhammer dice set had 2 different artillery dice, one with inch, one with cm)
knightmodels going with Inch over Metric is simply because they made the step up from their local spanish market to international one, and if you want a game to sell in the english speaking world, it needs to be with inch (for whatever reason)
Inch being more handy is usually based on the unit stats being 1-10, so movement in inch fits those better (also with 25mm Base, 1 Base-Width = 1 Inch), while for games 1-20 or with fixed movements it does not matter
PS: the other GW game using metric instead of imperial was BFG and everyone was fine with it
Not really. As 25mm ISN'T inch it made so big difference between 25mm and 32mm base with 1" range being able to fight in 2 ranks with 25mm while 32mm couldn't. Because 25mm is UNDER inch.
I don't care what base sizes GW uses to piss on 3rd party products (if we are nit picking here, the bases GW sold were never the size they wrote on the package as their early 25mm were 23 or 24mm, their 60mm were 65mn etc)
Measuring in Base-Width was and is pretty much the standard to scale game sizes with miniature sizes
Hence you use movement stats from 1-10 ad depending on the scale 1-Movement means 1cm, 2cm, 2,5cm, 5cm, 6,25cm
And with the 25/28mm model scale and individual 25mm bases 1 Base-Width being 1 inch was the most practical one (but of course because wargaming is an exact science people have ordered special 25,4mm bases to replace the original 24mm bases from GW)
40k is too big to fail now. They should just rip the band-aid off and go full blown action economy system instead of the "full army" activation it's been forever.
Also if the game is intended to be played on the scale current 2k points are, then we need less micro-adjustments to list building. Fully embrace if this is a smaller scale skirmish game where each dude is unique, or an abstract full scale war game where individuality adds unnecessary time to the games.
Basically, just get the game scale:bloat ratio to a point where games fun:tedium ratio is healthy.
I personally don't think 10th is due next year, not with the big new boarding action announcement and WE to come. I think it'll be 2025.
I personally don't want it to come but not through a love for 9th, just so they can really go back to the drawing board a bit, take the lessons from 8th & 9th and give us a 10th that has the finesse and streamlined nature of early 8th but with a bit of the flavour brought about in 9th, that can possibly last a good 5 or so years with maybe incremental updates rather than whole new editions.
mrFickle wrote: CSM use slaves to manage all lot of their production and maintenance from what I have read. Quality is assured because failure is a fate worse than death
Tried in the real world and it did not improve the end quality of products, military or not.
Yeah, I'm sure that was PRECISELY their thinking...
I mean these are the same people who thought that it was a problem that Warriors of Chaos were the most played WHF army for a while.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
mrFickle wrote: CSM use slaves to manage all lot of their production and maintenance from what I have read. Quality is assured because failure is a fate worse than death
Automatically Appended Next Post: And there must be some former tech marines knocking around, even if they have become warp smiths they still know how make and fox stuff and how to pass that info onto whomever had been pressed into service
mrFickle wrote: CSM use slaves to manage all lot of their production and maintenance from what I have read. Quality is assured because failure is a fate worse than death
Tried in the real world and it did not improve the end quality of products, military or not.
Semper wrote: I personally don't think 10th is due next year, not with the big new boarding action announcement and WE to come. I think it'll be 2025.
I personally don't want it to come but not through a love for 9th, just so they can really go back to the drawing board a bit, take the lessons from 8th & 9th and give us a 10th that has the finesse and streamlined nature of early 8th but with a bit of the flavour brought about in 9th, that can possibly last a good 5 or so years with maybe incremental updates rather than whole new editions.
The boarding system thing is just psychic awakening mk2. At last half a year or so of old edition there's new campaign book system to tide you over without new codex every month or so.
A game should only take an hour if both players completely know their stuff, and aren't trying anything underhanded on eachother... All these rule changes, ablative "bonus conditions" and other mechanics, are further and further extending the time it should take to quickly hash out a turn... Hopefully 10E completely levels the playing field and gives everyone an Index to use...