One or the other, which will you be happier about?
1. 10th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 continues the trend we currently have, keeping the core rules and Codexes valid (until they are replaced with 10th ed codexes).
-May include the retention of command points and stratagems, even if they do change the mechanics of how they're used of generated.
or
2. 10th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 scraps ALL current books in favor of returning to Indexes, meaning even books that have come out shortly or that will come out soon will be invalidated (Votann, Militarum, World Eaters)
-Gives a greater change in rules, could see a complete removal of stratagems and command points in favor of some other system. All factions flattened and rebalanced.
There's pros and cons to either side, but which would you actually prefer to happen? Some rumors suggest that 10th ed may be a reset, but it might not be!
Let me know if there are any other pros/cons to either side below.
I hope they continue as they have been. I hope that the first release is a Chapter Approved book that bans all faction Stratagems, Secondaries and WL traits and replaces them with generic ones. I also want this chapter approved to ban all Chapter Tactics, Armies of Renown, Combat Doctrines and Super Doctrines and ban all old Relics and make a new suite of relics. No relics should be +1 swords.
Any other relics, WL traits and special rules GW releases should only be available in special missions, which would limit bloat.
As factions are updated Combat Doctrines that were not baked into the updated Relics, get added as army rules or used to spice up abilities. New codexes don't have re-roll 1 auras or multiplicative buffs. For example World Eaters should not both have Strength buffs and Attacks buffs since the extra Attacks would benefit from the extra Strength and you'd be getting more than what you payed for. Instead they'd get additional Attacks and additional Attacks, which would be additive instead of multiplicative.
Strength and +1 to wound are not multiplicative, BS and +1 to hit are not multiplicative, pretty much everything else is multiplicative. Getting +1 to wound with shooting and +1 to Attacks in melee is fine, since those would not multiply off each other. Getting +1 to wound against Monsters and +1 to hit against Infantry is okay, since those are mutually exclusive keywords.
After every codex has been released and points have been thoroughly balanced certain list concepts will turn out to be impossible to balance, unit A is balanced and unit B is balanced but only when in included in the same list and it'd be fluffy to make lists without B. Armies of Renown return, but only where strictly necessary for balance reasons or to add cool new rules.
I don't actually think factions should be updated via codexes, but rather via indexes. Codexes should not have datasheets or relics, but should have more lore and evergreen special missions and campaign stuff or other GW games.
I'm always of the opinion that you can salvage what's there if you just try to make things better, and don't do broard idiotic patches like AoC and HotE. But I don't trust GW to get that right.
I also don't trust them to reset everything.
I think they're just going to continue writing rules in line with whatever paradigm is in vogue this quarter before they heave the might pendulum to something else, all with the added bonus of making constant blanket changes based on a few tournament players.
I'm curious as to how they're going to shoe horn HH's reaction mechanics into an 8th/9th style rulebase, 'cause that seems like the obvious thing they'll fail at implementing next. Plus every sub-faction will get their own reaction, leaving some races without their own for months if not years (especially as they killed Chapter Approved and made it so tournament focused).
It'll be the same people writing the game with the same incentives.
Future sales are more important than backwards compatibility, complex rules are better than streamlined, pay to win will be a thing. There will be new codexes and new campaign supplements to sell.
So 10th will have all the issues of 8-9 and 3-7, and 2, and Rogue Trader just slightly different y'know.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: It'll be the same people writing the game with the same incentives.
Future sales are more important than backwards compatibility, complex rules are better than streamlined, pay to win will be a thing. There will be new codexes and new campaign supplements to sell.
So 10th will have all the issues of 8-9 and 3-7, and 2, and Rogue Trader just slightly different y'know.
GW screwing it all up and repeating mistakes is inevitable, but the topic was full reset or more of 9th.
I'd rather a full reset because current rules are just super bland and boring. When I played WHFB a few months ago I'd forgotten how swingy the game is because you don't have a dearth of rerolls available that make everything super reliable and it was great fun. 9th has very little in the way of surprises during a game and it makes things very rote which is absolutely not what 40k should be.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: It'll be the same people writing the game with the same incentives.
Future sales are more important than backwards compatibility, complex rules are better than streamlined, pay to win will be a thing. There will be new codexes and new campaign supplements to sell.
So 10th will have all the issues of 8-9 and 3-7, and 2, and Rogue Trader just slightly different y'know.
GW screwing it all up and repeating mistakes is inevitable, but the topic was full reset or more of 9th.
I'd rather a full reset because current rules are just super bland and boring. When I played WHFB a few months ago I'd forgotten how swingy the game is because you don't have a dearth of rerolls available that make everything super reliable and it was great fun. 9th has very little in the way of surprises during a game and it makes things very rote which is absolutely not what 40k should be.
I actually find that reliability kind of dreadful. There's no suspense if something succeeds or fails. Either you get the average roll that you're expecting, or you get slightly lower or slightly higher, and RARELY do you whiff completely.
But this also makes certain things, like overtuned Knight weapons and such, very oppressive, because you know whatever they shoot at they are going to destroy, and it just kinda feels bad as a defender.
But then, that's kind of another issue - being the defender and packing away the toys you want to play with is kind of lame. Part of it is inevitable, but there's definitely a threshold where losing models starts to overwhelm the feeling of fun you might get in a game... Which is part of why I'm in the camp of flattening AP and strength and all of that a lot more than we have so far. Closer to AoS where the highest armor is 2 with MAYBE a ward save of 6 and then the highest rend is like -2, with MAYBE a -3 on some super huge monster.
They should just put the writers of the Horus Heresy or Lord of the rings in charge and give them time.
HH writers were even able to make a proper game out of the aweful 7th edition rules, I wonder what they could do with 9th as a base. And lotr as been awesome all along and just gets refined every year, 40K needs that as well instead of unnecessary broad changes every 3 years.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: It'll be the same people writing the game with the same incentives.
Future sales are more important than backwards compatibility, complex rules are better than streamlined, pay to win will be a thing. There will be new codexes and new campaign supplements to sell.
So 10th will have all the issues of 8-9 and 3-7, and 2, and Rogue Trader just slightly different y'know.
Actually I get the feeling that GW has realised that whilst "no models no rules" means they don't want to put models into codex before they've models ready to go; expansion campaign books with 2-3 or even 1 new model profile inside them I think have stopped selling as they once did. I think GW has seen a slowdown in sales of expansion campaign books and I think we might see them keep them going as optional extras for campaigns, but we might see the annual/biannual generals handbook see more use as a means for model rule releases. Or something else. I think GW is looking to experiment again in this area because I think the magic of campaign books has blown itself out.
Full reset back to 3rd/HH/LotR rules style that's an actual wargame and not a simulation of a mobile game where the most important bit is double tapping your screen at just the right time to fire off a "gotcha" ability.
Considering how well rules changes treat my dudes, I should probably be for it to stay the same. For a lot of people 9th has be as fun as 8th was for me, so I think it would not be right to leave them hanging for another edition.
I'd be very concerned about a drift back to 3-7th/HH style rules.
But equally, I think the amount of power creep and content bloat in 9th edition books has become out of control, and so similar core rules but an index-wipe and start again would be my preference.
This could be done via a standard codex roll out - but I just can't see that being popular. No one wants to get a new book just to discover they are a lot weaker than they were last week. Someone somewhere will have a collection modelled to a very specific army of renown which is now no longer legal etc.
Arguably indexes do this - but if everyone is on the same page the games tend to be more fun.
Index era managed to be both bland and horribly unbalanced at the same time, so anything but that.
The current edition has the best balance ever found in the game, but that came at the cost of limiting effects with truly narrative feelings. I would for sure like to see a vast reduction of reroll effects, replacing them with something more fun. 9th edition is a very good basis for the game though. I have played since 5th and these core rules are likely the best yet, so no reset, just work on what is there.
8-9th Base with some improvements along with a updated codexes under the maxim, Less Is More. We don't need 4 layers of rules to make Codex A different from Codex B and sub-faction X different from sub-faction Y. We don't need 45 Stratagems, 12 Warlord Traits, and 20 Relics to allow us to make our guys, our guys. We just need solid rules with a few levers we can pull to move the base list in a few different directions.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm curious as to how they're going to shoe horn HH's reaction mechanics into an 8th/9th style rulebase, 'cause that seems like the obvious thing they'll fail at implementing next. Plus every sub-faction will get their own reaction, leaving some races without their own for months if not years (especially as they killed Chapter Approved and made it so tournament focused).
Well, we do have these Command Points and Stratagems...
Full reset. Get rid of stratagems, vastly reduce rerolls, numbers of attacks and shots and lethality in general. Give us meaningful morale rules, terrain and cover rules, and vehicle rules. Make things less "reliable", as others have stated. It doesn't have to be a return to the 3rd-7th rules, but something that's more of a WARgame, and less of the buff stacking boardgame that 8th/9th has been.
I would be fine with going back to indexes, but only if it stays that way. I’m done wasting money on stopgaps and bolt-ons. I’m fed up with rapidly evolving game rules. Publish and feth off.
I'd prefer a full re-set but only if it chucks out the 'no models no rules' policy. I would love to see a clearer separation between tournament and casual play.
PaddyMick wrote: I would love to see a clearer separation between tournament and casual play.
It's arguably not a clear distinction up front, but in application it has been very clear in my area that using a Chapter Approved War Zones (such as Nephium) matched play rules is for tournament play/practice. And pretty much everything else is casual, typically being Tempest of War and Open War card decks for my area. Since playing anything deviated from current CA matched play isn't supported by the tournament scene. I can't say if there are players using current War Zone matched played rules but not going tournament-play with them, as I don't like any aspect of those missions and rules add-ons anyway.
It works pretty well, as tournament play is highly restrictive and fairly foolproof to not accidentally schedule a game versus an optimized opposing army list. I don't know how standardized modern gaming is worldwide. But open _______ game night isn't a thing for 40k (even most of the smaller games don't do this) anymore where I live. No one just shows up to a store with an army looking for an opponent. Everywhere has their own Discord where players look for games and hash out the details with DMs with their opponents. Some places have players book their table times (usually the smaller places), others are on a first come, first served basis (though, most places have plenty of tables if there isn't a tournament happening).
And just wanting a game with Tempest, Open or even just a 4'x6' table instantly takes the game out of tournament play/practice. Even if it didn't, both players exchange lists online well before the game happens, and in theory; list tuning of either list could be done should either play feel they are mismatched. In practice, I tend to roll with whatever my opponent wants to bring (probably the same with most of my opponents). As well as Tempest and Open War seem to favor more TAC armies. As a result, most of my games have been close. There's still the occasional blow-out, but I feel it is rarer than typical casual gaming scenes, since there are a lot of variables that can go wrong in something like Tempest/Open War 9th ed 40k.
PaddyMick wrote: I'd prefer a full re-set but only if it chucks out the 'no models no rules' policy. I would love to see a clearer separation between tournament and casual play.
I'd very much prefer a clearer separation between tournament and narrative/casual play. You want stratagems? Go buy the tournament pack that GW prints out every 3 months to get the latest and greatest broken stratagems for your army, but leave the rest of us alone!
I also wouldn't mind a return to paperback codexes. Cheaper, easier to use in a game and transport, can be rebound by an office supply company so you can add/remove pages for gaming, or kept pristine for collection. Collector's Edition Codexes could remain hardback and such.
There's challenges to all the paper GW is pushing out, including worldwide shortages, printing slow-downs, and when something gets sold out faster than they anticipated, it takes that much longer for another shipment to come in, which creates big gaps in what players can do and what tournaments will even allow. Going digital at least with the datasheets of various units would be a big step in the right direction, but we've seen how GW has struggled to do that with their own list-building app, so...
Overall, less time reading the book in the middle of a game (ie searching for stratagems, double-checking rules interactions, looking up USRs or unique abilities) is better. The one advantage to pre 8th edition was that unit stats were relatively easy to memorize, and WYSIWYG was all you needed to worry about.
8th edition had 4 modes of play and it had zero effect.
There was: Open Play Narrative Play Matched Play Organized Play (i.e. tournament play / competitive play)
99% of players didn't know that Organized Play and Matched Play were two different modes of play and just lumped it all together. This is solely why 9th edition combined Matched and Organized.
Another issue was that 99% of players also didn't realize that the procedures for deployment and going first were mission specific and NOT a general game update from the annual Chapter Approved.
It was great that there was a separation, but it didn't matter because 99% of players worldwide were fething doing it wrong and had no clue they were doing it wrong. It frustrates me to this day that SOoo many people got it wrong.
Anyway, my point being, making Matched and Organized (i.e. tournament play / competitive play) separate will accomplish absolutely nothing.
oni wrote: 8th edition had 4 modes of play and it had zero effect.
There was:
Open Play
Narrative Play
Matched Play
Organized Play (i.e. tournament play / competitive play)
99% of players didn't know that Organized Play and Matched Play were two different modes of play and just lumped it all together. This is solely why 9th edition combined Matched and Organized.
Another issue was that 99% of players also didn't realize that the procedures for deployment and going first were mission specific and NOT a general game update from the annual Chapter Approved.
It was great that there was a separation, but it didn't matter because 99% of players worldwide were fething doing it wrong and had no clue they were doing it wrong. It frustrates me to this day that SOoo many people got it wrong.
Anyway, my point being, making Matched and Organized (i.e. tournament play / competitive play) separate will accomplish absolutely nothing.
I don't think people are asking for Matched and Organized to be different. They're asking for Casual and Tournament play to be separate.
The fact that people didn't understand the difference was on GW for not making that language and verbiage clearer, but the flip side of it is that many players, if they're going to bother playing 'matched play' want the most balanced experience possible, and tournament play is supposed to supply that, which is why we see it used more often than not.
On the flip side, I've seen more people have more fun with Crusade than trying to do matched play or tournament play. So, I'd love to see Crusade expanded upon and continue to be supported into the future. Not via expensive campaign books, but ideally through PDF mission updates that people can access easily, jump into, and play.
One thing I agree with Ash from GMG on is the idea that "GW does not make money per game played, they make money by selling models". Trying to cater to the tournament crowd and create a balanced game is something that ultimately may be a waste of time. On the other hand, things like creating ally rules, new types of detachments, different styles of missions give people more reasons to buy models. Supporting those things is what I'd like to see more of.
Tank-only battles. Hero-heavy battles. The new boarding actions that's all infantry is a great direction as well that we should see in the Arks of Omen books. Being more free to soup things like Chaos factions without losing a ton of rules or CP as a result is better because it lets people make thematic forces with larger collections.
If parts of those become horribly balanced, THAT'S what you limit when it comes to 'tournament play', but for CASUAL or narrative play, having those options open is more important.
The other issue is that many players view Open play as undesirable - unbalanced and without restriction it can be a mess to play a game like that, so people shy away from it. But Crusade is literally just Open play with a little more structure and some exp and growth mechanics. That's why it's so fun.
IMHO part of the issue is that there is no universal casual experience, it all depends on the local meta.
In some places, casual means people throw together thematic games without a lot of optimization. In other places casual is just disorganized competitive play with people using 2000pts optimized lists. And in a lot of places it is somewhere in the middle in which someone brought their first thematic 2k list and their opponent brought an optimized list with obvious results.
Tyran wrote: IMHO part of the issue is that there is no universal casual experience, it all depends on the local meta.
In some places, casual means people throw together thematic games without a lot of optimization. In other places casual is just disorganized competitive play with people using 2000pts optimized lists. And in a lot of places it is somewhere in the middle in which someone brought their first thematic 2k list and their opponent brought an optimized list with obvious results.
That's a good point. In a way, Casual can cover any of the gamemodes, while Competitive only really covers Matched and Tournament play.
I wouldn't mind it if they got rid of the Power Level system. It is a little more convenient when it comes to crusade, but it also means that Crusade armies can get horribly, horribly skewed.
But anyway, all the more reason to reset the entire system. I'd rather see them start fresh than try to 'fix' what's already here, because they'll have to remove whole swathes of rules in order to get any sort of 'fix' to work anyway.
I want to put a stop to widespread 2+ reroll 6s generate MWs that some factions get. It totally invalidates the stat line of the enemy, and turns the game into a just count the wounds mess.
The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
Power Level is like the Double turn in Age of Sigmar. GW are determined to keep both even though neither seems to really enhance the game experience and only really serve to highlight how GW as a company really doesn't get formal rules writing.
It's a mix of likely having no serious resources allocated to it like they do for model making and also having high level staff who have 35 years being top dog in the industry who basically are set in their ways - ways which are fairly casual rather than formal.
Heck you can see this alone in how GW chooses to lay out Codex and Battletomes with information scattered all over the place. Few standard terms with a lot of similar modifiers under their own name.
Often its not that the game is any more complex than it was in, say, 3rd edition; its that the information is so much more scattered around.
Eg points used to be on the unit profile with ugprade costs neatly shown there as well; now they are all held on various tables in the back along with weapon profiles and such. Yes those tables are helpful, but the information should be repeated on the unit card as well; but its not. Instead GW puts the power-level cost there because that's kind of what they'd really like us to use
It's the same as how its very easy to see that the double turn is a terrible mechanic for balance in an "I go, you go" game system and yet GW are determined to keep it for flavour/theming.
In the end this is our huge problem with any new edition. GW might have improved in terms of actually keeping up with rules now (no more 2 editions missed for a new codex/battletome for your army); and they do FAQ, Errata and annual balance passes too (heck I recall Tyranids getting an FAQ about a week or two before the edition ended).
These are all great things ,but if the core attitude is casual then all the addons on top won't "improve" the situation.
Tyran wrote: The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
That is a major con to a reset. We saw it with 8th, with so many factions waiting the full 3 years of an edition to finally get their 8th edition codex.
The only way I could see GW trying to relax that sort of struggle is to move more to digital, where things can be updated and balanced faster. We've seen them finally do points updates and balance dataslates as digital, which is good (versus paying 45+ dollars for the same content) but we need more of that infrastructure and longer-lasting rules.
With digital datasheets, whole statlines can be adjusted, new weapons could be added when they become available (like in a kill team kit) and other balances could be done aside from just adjusting point values.
But, we'll see what happens.
I think ultimately a lot of people are willing to tolerate (judging by the voting so far) the flattening/blandening of the factions if it means getting a better ruleset and less of the bloat that we've seen of 9th.
That is a major con to a reset. We saw it with 8th, with so many factions waiting the full 3 years of an edition to finally get their 8th edition codex.
The only way I could see GW trying to relax that sort of struggle is to move more to digital, where things can be updated and balanced faster. We've seen them finally do points updates and balance dataslates as digital, which is good (versus paying 45+ dollars for the same content) but we need more of that infrastructure and longer-lasting rules.
With digital datasheets, whole statlines can be adjusted, new weapons could be added when they become available (like in a kill team kit) and other balances could be done aside from just adjusting point values.
But, we'll see what happens.
I think ultimately a lot of people are willing to tolerate (judging by the voting so far) the flattening/blandening of the factions if it means getting a better ruleset and less of the bloat that we've seen of 9th.
I think people really over-estimate the ability of digital for balance.
Digital does let you change things fast, but do wargames benefit from superfast changes? Whenever I see a wargame that goes all in for digital I tend to hear a lot of complaints by people who don't want to be using an app on their phone/tablet with many finding them trickier to use than books; taking away from the experience and because many people choose to tabletop game because they want a physical hobby not a digital one.
The other thing is that fast digital is only as good as the core balance team; if you've still got GW's attitude and staff as they are now, then you can speed things up all you like, but it won't actually "improve" the situation. It will just make it change faster.
Personally I also think that GW has found that rules and lore/fluff together works - in moderation. Codex/battletomes work at both and so long as GW keeps that pattern its a huge draw for a wide range of gamers. As soon as they throw down into digital only there's the risk that they end up like Privateer Press did - lots of digital rules focus to the point where the lore gets forgotten and left to one side. Lore being optional means fewer people buy into it and if fewer people "have" to buy into part of it through a codex/battletome then very quickly people will stop engaging with the lore.
Lore and fluff and all is a huge draw for the game and one reason many keep coming back; keep doing wild conversions and all. So its very much as part of the hobby as converting, painting, building, playing etc...
I'm all for digital aids, but I think aids is what they should always be. Helping and aiding and providing an alternative resource, but not replacing nor dominating how the game is controlled.
As for balance "flattening/blanding" the factions. Honestly I think this is overblown. When you've massive swings and gains between factions its super hard to balance and whilst the factions might have flavour, there's no fun if the flavour doesn't actually work. Furthermore as armies have become larger they've lost some of that anyway. Most armies can do most things, some better than others, but most have access to most things now. It's an inevitable part of having larger armies and rosters of models. Having a flatter system means that smaller gains are the flavour and difference and they feel greater in comparison. Also its much more fun when your close combat army can actually have an even match against the ranged army and you both get the feeling that your army is working and doing what it should. Instead of a big swings system where one ends up trumping the other every time (either the ranged is winning before the close combat can ever get into combat; or the game winds up with a lot of movement tricks and the close combat army is in close combat by turn 2 with the majority of the enemy and the ranged army then can't perform).
Flatter and more even balance is more exciting, more engaging, puts more emphasis on the player; takes nothing away from army composition importance but does open up a LOT more options when building your army. It increases the potential to vary your force, increases the validity of more models.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW think that Open is casual. They think that casual means using the ass-backwards Power Level system to organise forces.
I would love to see them go completely PL.
Or just expand on what they're already doing with making various upgrades cost 0pts. Just a base cost for the unit & a list of options that could be taken. Like over in Age of Sigmar.
Heads would explode, people would rage quit.... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW think that Open is casual. They think that casual means using the ass-backwards Power Level system to organise forces.
I would love to see them go completely PL.
Or just expand on what they're already doing with making various upgrades cost 0pts. Just a base cost for the unit & a list of options that could be taken. Like over in Age of Sigmar.
Heads would explode, people would rage quit.... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
I'm not 100% sure I'm a fan of it in AoS honestly. In some ways its neat and makes it easier to get into; in another its kind of boring that your swordsmen and spearmen do the same thing so it doesn't matter which is which on the tabletop. It runs the risk of ending up going too far into the bland. I think it also ends up shutting down niches and specialist roles which in turn makes it harder to actually add models to armies. This works for AoS because a good few armies have tiny army rosters to work with right now - many armies have zero artillery options and AoS only has 4 unit types (leader, troop, monster, artillery).
40K has bigger army rosters in general, even new armies like Genestealer Cults, Custodes and the new Votaan are already bigger than a good few AoS armis with a good chance that the 40K ones will see faster additions.
I think GW is also simplifying AoS for 2 further reasons
1) To improve uptake of newbies
2) Potentially to try and give it some game distance from Old World. It will be super interesting to see how AoS and Old World compete with each other.
Horus Heresy kind of got away with competing with 40K because it started life as FW only and even as its expanded its your mirror-match marines and marines just sell at an insane rate and are a line unto themselves. So it kind of worked with a quirk. I'm honestly not sure how AoS and Old World are going to interact with each other. Sure base shape (round vs square) might be one divide, but movement trays don't care what your base shape is. So there's going to be loads of model cross over between them.
Tyran wrote: The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
Ehhh, I think it's more that they "will not" than they "cannot". I remain unconvinced that more pages = better rules. Especially since so many of those pages are wasted on stratagems and bespoke rules that could be better handled as USRs in the BRB, IMO.
IMHOUSRs should still be written on the datasheet. Last thing I want is being forced to cross-reference between codex and BRB.
If you are using USRs to save space then you are using them wrong. The point of USRs is standardization and facilitating rules interactions. Using them to save space only leads to their overuse and saturation.
Tyran wrote: IMHOUSRs should still be written on the datasheet. Last thing I want is being forced to cross-reference between codex and BRB.
If you are using USRs to save space then you are using them wrong. The point of USRs is standardization and facilitating rules interactions. Using them to save space only leads to their overuse and saturation.
Fine, put them on the datasheet. Still saves space if you skip the silly bespoke names and flavor text. Save those for the unit descriptions.
Frankly, I have several issues with current codexes that would be solved by a 'flattening'.
1. Stratagems - it takes far too long to search through stratagems to find the one you want, and there are many stratagems that only work in very specific situations or with very specific units. If they're so specific, take them out or add them to the unit they belong to.
2. Overblown 'superfaction' rules - Everything from Chaos Space Marines Wanton Soup to the new Votann Judgement Tokens and Harlequin 'Remove any Luck from the game' dice, these are all things that bloat the game. They may seem fun and thematic, but I'm not a fan of these extra game mechanics that rely on tracking dice or tokens or other things in order for an army to feel unique or fluffy.
3. Ineffectual subfaction rules - Too often GW make a special rule for every chapter, every order, every warband, and yet half of them rarely ever see use. They may seem fluffy, but often times it can be very frustrating for someone that likes a particular chapter/order/warband and have to find ways to work around a subpar subfaction rule, or count 'your guys' as some other subfaction in the interim, which spits in the face of the whole idea of 'your guys'.
You rip out those three things, focus in on making UNITS and their rules interesting and you'll have a much more interesting game. Does this mean that a lot of units across multiple codexes may share statlines? Yeah, that's the trouble with a d6 system, but at the same time it'll mean that the differences that DO exist will be all the more important between weapons, statlines, and what special rules a unit gets.
It also gets rid of a ton of the wombo-combos, gotcha moments, and other things that we see so often in 40k right now, which will always be a good thing. I don't want Warhammer to become a game like Magic the Gathering where you win based on your opening hand/action.
I want a soft reset, keep the codices but have relics FAQ all starting CP are for pre game stratagems, CP you get during game are what you spend in game. Fix some of the terrain issues and clean up all the crazy layers of rules.
drbored wrote: The fact that people didn't understand the difference was on GW for not making that language and verbiage clearer, but the flip side of it is that many players, if they're going to bother playing 'matched play' want the most balanced experience possible, and tournament play is supposed to supply that, which is why we see it used more often than not.
On the flip side, I've seen more people have more fun with Crusade than trying to do matched play or tournament play. So, I'd love to see Crusade expanded upon and continue to be supported into the future. Not via expensive campaign books, but ideally through PDF mission updates that people can access easily, jump into, and play.
When matched play fails in what it is supposed to do then it's not surprising that you see people having more fun with other forms of play. The PL hate is also overblown with how horribly pts have been handled in 9th, both systems have been complete garbage.
One thing I agree with Ash from GMG on is the idea that "GW does not make money per game played, they make money by selling models". Trying to cater to the tournament crowd and create a balanced game is something that ultimately may be a waste of time. On the other hand, things like creating ally rules, new types of detachments, different styles of missions give people more reasons to buy models. Supporting those things is what I'd like to see more of.
In a balanced game with an evolving meta melta Attack Bikes might be right one month and with a change in meta heavy bolter Devastators become the better option, but when pts are off (as they would be while GW has been focussing on printing a million Crusade supplements) people don't need heavy bolter Devastators because they are overpriced in so many scenarios and the meta only changes once every 3 months or whenever a new OP codex is released and changing your list might help you get a 40% instead of 30% win rate into that OP codex, but it'll hurt your overall win rate because the list building choices you made for what was popular and not just OP have to be taken out. Wouldn't it be amazing if nobody ever said "don't buy that unit it's overcosted and bad"? Wouldn't it be amazing if nobody was ever told after painting their army that they should rip it apart and repaint it to keep up with the meta?
Tyran wrote: The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
With codexes people have the stopgap of a previous edition and have to wait years to get the same level of attention. Codexes were just terribly handled with all the free bonus stuff they gave, the only army that actually lost power level was Daemons if I recall correctly and GW didn't release codexes in a sensible manner. Same thing in 9th, Tau and Astra Militarum were after Custodes and Drukhari, two factions that got completely shafted for many reasons had to wait longer than two factions that did great in the new edition. GW is just bad at their job.
Overread wrote: Personally I also think that GW has found that rules and lore/fluff together works - in moderation. Codex/battletomes work at both and so long as GW keeps that pattern its a huge draw for a wide range of gamers. As soon as they throw down into digital only there's the risk that they end up like Privateer Press did - lots of digital rules focus to the point where the lore gets forgotten and left to one side. Lore being optional means fewer people buy into it and if fewer people "have" to buy into part of it through a codex/battletome then very quickly people will stop engaging with the lore.
That's already happened with HotE and AoC.
drbored wrote: I think ultimately a lot of people are willing to tolerate (judging by the voting so far) the flattening/blandening of the factions if it means getting a better ruleset and less of the bloat that we've seen of 9th.
Removing Chapter Tactics from Blood Angels is not flattening them, you're far more likely to see more flavourful lists when your vehicles can actually be pointed for what they are worth to you rather than what they are worth to an Iron Hands player. As much as Chapter Tactics makes Blood Angels different from Iron Hands they also make every Blood Angels list a lot more similar. If you want GW to make your list for you then look at lists used in their White Dwarf or Twitch battle reports, otherwise let me make my own Blood Angels army with the minis and rules that I like without whipping me for having the gall to not play a purely aggressive jump pack army that makes optimal use of +1 to charge +1 to wound when the charge happens and +1 attack.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I also don't trust them to reset everything.
This. 40kneeds a full reset to cut the rules bloat, get rid of IGOUGO, and introduce meaningful strategic depth beyond buff stacking and adding up whose dice math is better. But as long as GW keeps employing the some of the industry's worst game designers long past the point where any sane company would have fired them there's no reason to believe a reboot of 40k would be anything other than a different dumpster fire.
Digital does let you change things fast, but do wargames benefit from superfast changes?
Why rule out the middle ground? If GW went full digital they could have a modest increase in update frequency but, more importantly, they could have a lot more options for what kind of rules updates they do. They wouldn't need to do awkward dataslate stuff as a workaround to not wanting to make significant changes to the printed books. Instead of AoC, HotE, etc, they could properly fix the codex rules with something better designed than "lol all your lasguns can wound a titan 1/3 of the time". Instead of making endless clumsy attempts at keeping CSM relevant they could just change the datasheets to have W2 infantry in the quarterly update.
As soon as they throw down into digital only there's the risk that they end up like Privateer Press did - lots of digital rules focus to the point where the lore gets forgotten and left to one side. Lore being optional means fewer people buy into it and if fewer people "have" to buy into part of it through a codex/battletome then very quickly people will stop engaging with the lore.
Is this really that much of a factor at this point? The lore and art sections of 9th edition books are already stripped down to a pathetic level compared to older books and you have to go elsewhere if you want to really engage with it beyond that one-page summary of the faction. We're already at the point where "just use wahapedia" is the standard advice to new players because the codex contains nothing of value so IMOGW might as well at least put out a viable digital product that can be a compelling alternative to piracy.
Now, I'd definitely agree with you if GW went back to producing codices with genuine lore and art sections again but I wouldn't bet anything on it. They've established a clear trend of including less and less of that with every new edition.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW think that Open is casual. They think that casual means using the ass-backwards Power Level system to organise forces.
I would love to see them go completely PL.
Or just expand on what they're already doing with making various upgrades cost 0pts. Just a base cost for the unit & a list of options that could be taken. Like over in Age of Sigmar.
Heads would explode, people would rage quit.... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
With your game that's balanced even more poorly? Why would you want that?
I continue to believe that 8th was built upon a weak foundation and that the escilation of rules bloat in 8th and 9th is because of that. Without a complete reset to a more fleshed out and comprehensive core ruleset, the game will never be any good and will continue to have this cycle of codex creep and bloat despite GW actively trying to balance the game (something they didn't do in past editions to their own detriment).
Personally I would like to see a refinement of something closer to what was the core rules of 4th to 7th (3rd edition was a bit too bare bones from what I read) but with a focus of keeping gameplay/mechanical depth without a ton of bloat and a better psychic system. I don't trust GW to design a game from scratch given the current leadership that they have but perhaps they could pick through the stuff that worked from past editions to slap together something that at least functions with more depth than a wading pool.
Option 3: I'd prefer they stop churning out editions so fast.
For the poll I think a reset is preferrable, I find the core rules of 9th fine for the most part but the codex bloat is unwieldy and gets pretty bad when you have multiple armies. If they want to level the playing field they need to do a reset instead of another edition where a handful of armies get new rules while the other half of languishing waiting on a codex that will at least put them on par with others.
ccs wrote: ... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
... a massively inferior and hamstrung game.
8th & 9th are already that wether the pts you tally up have 1/2/3/or 4 digits to them. And 10th will be no better. Different yes, better no.
Would you rather eat a sandwich made with moldy bread, or one made with moldy bread and full of shards of broken glass? Points are flawed because GW keeps making mistakes in evaluating units but PL has all those same unit evaluation mistakes plus inherent systemic errors which can not be eliminated. And since PL offers nothing in exchange for those additional systemic errors why would anyone want it as the only system? It only exists because GW's ego won't let them admit it was a mistake, it's long past time to dump PL and move on with the clearly better system.
I'd have hated it 5 years back, but GW could ditch points and move fully to PL and it wouldn't bother me today. It's just an alternate points system - which means alternate loadouts are optimal. These imbalances are however no different to those thrown up with points.
I'd argue in some ways its more in line with how "casuals" play the game. Because it means you build squads as they appear on the box art, rather than constantly going "oh, you took a fancy pistol and melee weapon on your squad sergeant? You took that special weapon? In 95% of cases that's a cast iron waste of X points." You can solve that by just making such gear 0 points (which is probably what it's worth in most cases) - but that seems to cause much complaining.
To echo others - I sometimes get the feeling people on this forum (and beyond) hate rolling dice. I don't. But I don't think it adds much to the game to resolve attacks with ever increasing steps - and half a dozen or more buffs/debuffs to take account of.
Hit, wound, save, done.
Not hit, reroll, wound, reroll, save, maybe a CP reroll, FNP rolls etc. All potentially with plusses and minuses, transhuman abilities and effects proccing on 6s etc. Having to put another layer of rules "you can't reroll wounds" is just adding to this noise. In a computer game this would be fine. On the table it just becomes increasingly annoying. (Over time perhaps it becomes second nature, but I am starting to sympathise with infrequent players who found ye olde 3rd-7th to hit/wound tables incomprehensible.)
I think some degree of reliability is desirable in a game. It's not that fun to have games swing wildly based on luck rather than decisions players made. But there must be a cleaner way of getting there than this.
Giving basically everything in the game +1 AP... only to then turn round and give half the game the ability to ignore 1 AP is clearly bad design. You shouldn't have given them it in the first place. Likewise, S5 has become the new S4 - which inevitably means T4 has to become T5 to match.
Indexes will inevitably have issues - and I don't want to pretend the 8th edition ones were a halcyon balanced time. But I don't know where GW goes from here without a power reset. Do we want Intercessors armed with rapid fire 2 S5 AP-2 bolternators?
Tyel wrote: I'd have hated it 5 years back, but GW could ditch points and move fully to PL and it wouldn't bother me today. It's just an alternate points system - which means alternate loadouts are optimal. These imbalances are however no different to those thrown up with points.
I'd argue in some ways its more in line with how "casuals" play the game. Because it means you build squads as they appear on the box art, rather than constantly going "oh, you took a fancy pistol and melee weapon on your squad sergeant? You took that special weapon? In 95% of cases that's a cast iron waste of X points." You can solve that by just making such gear 0 points (which is probably what it's worth in most cases) - but that seems to cause much complaining.
I mean you're not wrong, that is how some play the game. You can also just say "I know my guy has a bolter pistol but today its a plasma pistol" which works almost everywhere outside of competitive tournaments.
The problem with power level is it makes the imbalances even greater. When a unit with "bare bones" and no upgrades or special weapons or such costs exactly the same as one with every upgrade and every weapon choice they can take you have significant difference in performance of the two. And under power level you've no formal reason not to take every upgrade you can on every unit. The only reason you wouldn't is personal choice or agreement with your opponent. So the game becomes one where if both sides are taking everything it might even out kind of balance wise; but if one side is taking all and the other isn't then one side is way more powerful.
YES the core rules are imbalanced to start with, but this is rather like having an oil pan fire and deciding that the best thing to do is to just pour water on it.
I do agree power-level is a simpler set of numbers to add up and it is in the end just a different point based system. The problem with it is that it treats all upgrades as 0 cost which is childishly simple to work with yes and super easy to build armies with and yes you can throw models on the table super fast. BUT it relies heavily on you either not caring about the gameplay performance of armies (you just don't care who wins you want to roll dice and stuff) and that your opponent also agrees with this. Or that you both spend more pre-game time agreeing to what kind of game you'll play with power level - are you taking all upgades, are you taking some, or none - are you going to use the points system to perhaps have a rough idea how many of upgrades you should or might take each?
Power Level would work kind of better with AoS because most units don't have upgrades, they don't have extra armour or performance boosts; they don't have special weapons within teams to the extent that 40K does. Heck GW has tried simplifying in dafter ways to the point where some units technically take more command units than infantry!*
*Slaanesh Seeker Riders have 5 models to a box. 1 banner, 1 horn, 1 icon, 1 leader leaving room for 1 trooper. Technically for every 5 additional units you add you get the same, save the leader. So in theory the unit has more command than actual troops. Even though banners, horns and marks only count once whilst they are in the unit.
bullyboy wrote: Can do whatever but not buying into their $55 codexes anymore. Just too many too soon. You want to keep churning? Go full digital.
Well then you will pay 30+$/year to keep acccessing the rules Stop paying, stop losing access
Also lose access when:
Your phone/tablet stops updating its OS to the latest version
loses power
the 2 power plugs at the club that are within reach of a table are already in use
The app crashes
Your model is removed from sale and thus the rules are pulled (no model no rules).
Your edition is removed from sale (GW has already done this with rules in all their backaccess publications on Warhammer +)
Tyran wrote: The big problem with a reset is that indexes are inherently stopgag rules of lesser quality. GW simply cannot put the same level of attention on an Index compared to a codex.
So a reset would mean everyone would suffer barebones rules while waiting a year or two for their codex.
They could. Especially if they weren't fixated on having fixed 3 year release cycle.
oni wrote: I would be fine with going back to indexes, but only if it stays that way. I’m done wasting money on stopgaps and bolt-ons. I’m fed up with rapidly evolving game rules. Publish something decent enough which is complete and not cut to gak for more sales cut-content-dlc-style and feth off.
i just take that over with my green added bit.
Certainly not whatever this 9th has become.
Also, i would gladly get back equipment options for HQ etc.
I don't think it matters which route GW take. The core problem is the writers themselves, or the corporate culture they operate in.
I'd like to see a dramatic reduction in buffs and debuffs and a near-total removal of strats. In particular, any strats that are a straight up buff to a unit need to go. Not only are they nonsensical from a background POV, they're also impossible to balance properly. Why is it that one Primaris unit can decide it's going to wade through the strongest enemy fire, relying on the superiority of their transhuman physiology and that then stops the identical unit beside it from doing the same? The same is true of two Chaos Terminator units, both veterans of millennia of combat, infused with the power of the dark gods and spurred on by their twisted commanders. But if the one on the left wants to wound more easily, the one on the right has to wait their turn.
One thing 10th needs to bring is a more unified approach to the rules. They need a design document from the start, and they need to stick to it. No more sudden increase in anti-tank damage because one Codex halfway through an edition has started an arms race. Go and look at the sub-faction traits from the earlier Codices and compare them to the more recent ones. Or do the same for relics and WLTs. The difference is ridiculous and it's all because the designers don't have a plan from day one. Whoever's in charge of the rules for the edition needs to do a better job of pushing back against those types of rules when they first appear.
Completely agreed, I really dislike stratagems where only one units can benefit where clearly all of them should be able to instead of having to wait their turn till next round.
1. remove 90% of strats
2. remove BS wombo-combos (looking at you super-buffed Emp Children Terminators)
3. switch to d10'ss or d12's
4. I'd like to see an effort at implementing Apoc's damage at the end of the turn.
Having played Apoc and having to switch between d12s and d6s, you have to stick with all 1 type of dice.
Having multiple types of dice slows the game down immensely.
d6s are common, easy to balance, easy to find and buy, and the game has been based off of it for a long time.
As much as I'd love to see a move to a different kind of dice, there ARE ways to make the d6 system work, but it involves flattening the game stats.
The end result would be not a lot of difference between a Skitarii, a Guardsman, an Eldar Guardian, and a Sister of Battle except for one or two stats between each. But honestly, that's fine. Those types of models are the lowest rank of model, with the highest being things like Knights and Baneblades.
Frankly, lasguns and bolters shouldn't do anything to Knights and Baneblades. On the flip side, Knights and Baneblades should be able to delete squads of the smallest soldiers, but often times 1 shot weapons that do 6 damage kill only 1 guy. It's just a bit bonkers no matter how you slice it.
Full reset, as 9th edition felt more like "40K: 8.5 tournament edition". The Crusade rules were welcome but, speaking personally, there wasn't much else to get excited about save for multiple Eldar factions bundled into a single bumper codex. While there is always more tinkering to be done with any system, 9th edition has refined 8th edition as far as it can for the benefit of competitive players.
I'm all for D12s. The only reason to keep D6s is because its a bit like the other British-80s success story Fighting Fantasy, where D6s are very easy to come by and squares are easier to manufacture. But if GW is focusing so much on the competitive crowd then they might as well go that extra mile anyway.
One other thing is that the game is friggin huge in terms of factions, units, weapons and equipment. Its a huge undertaking to maintain a balance in difficulty and ensuring that a game remains playable. As it is, not every faction in 40K is best served by trying to keep up with the meta; Imperial Knights are best for going large(Apocalypse), or ideal opponents for solo-play( you're not playing them for long, and can get back to your side of the table sooner ). Harlequins are a fantastic choice for skirmish games such as Kill Team, while Gene-cults are a good budget option if wanting to play multiple systems( 40K, KT, Necro, Space Hulk ). Either we embrace what factions do best while still having a foot in 40K, or consider separating 40K into two separate games; one for military-might competitive factions( Marines, Guard, Tyranids, Craftworlds/Ynnari etc ) and another for more "background" narrative factions( Corsairs, Harlequins, Votaan, Imperial agents, Kroots etc ).
As a very casual, open player for Harlequins I was happy to stick with 8th edition rules, so if 9th is compatible with 10th due to "more of the same" then there is the possibility I could carry on using those 8th/PA rules for the next three years. I think GW will address that issue and make significant changes to the next edition, forcing me to finally keep up with the jones'.
SamusDrake wrote: Full reset, as 9th edition felt more like "40K: 8.5 tournament edition". The Crusade rules were welcome but, speaking personally, there wasn't much else to get excited about save for multiple Eldar factions bundled into a single bumper codex. While there is always more tinkering to be done with any system, 9th edition has refined 8th edition as far as it can for the benefit of competitive players.
I'm all for D12s. The only reason to keep D6s is because its a bit like the other British-80s success story Fighting Fantasy, where D6s are very easy to come by and squares are easier to manufacture. But if GW is focusing so much on the competitive crowd then they might as well go that extra mile anyway.
One other thing is that the game is friggin huge in terms of factions, units, weapons and equipment. Its a huge undertaking to maintain a balance in difficulty and ensuring that a game remains playable. As it is, not every faction in 40K is best served by trying to keep up with the meta; Imperial Knights are best for going large(Apocalypse), or ideal opponents for solo-play( you're not playing them for long, and can get back to your side of the table sooner ). Harlequins are a fantastic choice for skirmish games such as Kill Team, while Gene-cults are a good budget option if wanting to play multiple systems( 40K, KT, Necro, Space Hulk ). Either we embrace what factions do best while still having a foot in 40K, or consider separating 40K into two separate games; one for military-might competitive factions( Marines, Guard, Tyranids, Craftworlds/Ynnari etc ) and another for more "background" narrative factions( Corsairs, Harlequins, Votaan, Imperial agents, Kroots etc ).
As a very casual, open player for Harlequins I was happy to stick with 8th edition rules, so if 9th is compatible with 10th due to "more of the same" then there is the possibility I could carry on using those 8th/PA rules for the next three years. I think GW will address that issue and make significant changes to the next edition, forcing me to finally keep up with the jones'.
That's part of the reason I don't think they'll go to d12's, but also: if you think the game has an issue of too much variety, then going to a larger dice only exacerbates that problem. Keeping to a d6, base toughness 4 system is how you balance a lot of that out.
Funny enough, it's often not an individual weapon or gear choice that unbalances a unit (except for a handful of particularly egregious circumstances) it's usually the Superfaction or Subfaction bonuses that an army get that makes it ridiculously strong. Votann Judgement, Harlequin Light/Dark, Admech Mars, etc. It's the EXTRA stuff they add on that bloats the game that also breaks it.
Eh, I've long given up on keeping up with 40K now, but I'd rather they go back to 8th Index and work from there. Take the path not chosen and instead of going for creep, kept to the path of actually balancing & tightening the rules.
Though the double toughness could be dropped in a pit of acid for the old STR vs. Toughness table.
Maybe bring back facings, and keep templates.
In the meantime, I guess onepagerules is sufficient for me.
Tyran wrote: IMHOUSRs should still be written on the datasheet. Last thing I want is being forced to cross-reference between codex and BRB.
USRs should be printed in every Codex to avoid the need for cross-referencing.
If they're truly universal, this would be easy.
USRs needed by a codex is better space used than most strats, and a print of sheet for all USRs as a standard I think is good habit.
I don’t think you do need every USR a unit uses on every sheet, as the point of USRs is they are used enough you shouldn’t need to reference them often and are simple.
Or at least have print outs without for players that won’t need them so often.
Honestly I'd just be happy if codexes had proper INDEXES in the back, so you can quickly refer to certain special rules and figure out where they are.
They really need a format editor on their team that can organize codexes in a logical way and have rules reference and indexes in the back that aren't just weapon profiles.
Apple fox wrote: I don’t think you do need every USR a unit uses on every sheet, as the point of USRs is they are used enough you shouldn’t need to reference them often and are simple. Or at least have print outs without for players that won’t need them so often.
Printing out the USRs in full on every unit card somewhat defeats the purpose of a USR, as if you are printing it over and over again you're creating more and more opportunities to make a mistake.
You put 'em at the back of the book, along with all the army universal special rules that pertain to that book alone, and then the unit cards reference those rules rather than containing the rules.
Rules should be as centralised, as standardised, and as scalable as possible.
Apple fox wrote: as the point of USRs is they are used enough you shouldn’t need to reference them often and are simple.
Exactly. If you're avoiding rules bloat then having USRs only printed in the core rules isn't an issue. You'll quickly memorize them and you won't have any further need to look them up when you see them on a datasheet.
Apple fox wrote: as the point of USRs is they are used enough you shouldn’t need to reference them often and are simple.
Exactly. If you're avoiding rules bloat then having USRs only printed in the core rules isn't an issue. You'll quickly memorize them and you won't have any further need to look them up when you see them on a datasheet.
Having a rule appear by name in a book which doesn't tell you what the rule is sucks. It just feels like an incomplete product.
If every codex includes an appendix that contains every USR the army can use, fine. But if I read a the name of a rule in a dex that I then have to look up in a different book? Nope. I far prefer the 8th/9th bespoke system to that- even if it means that there are ten different names for deepstrike, at least my dexes feel complete. Again, just a preference; I see the other point of view, and it's valid- I just happen to disagree.
PenitentJake wrote: Having a rule appear by name in a book which doesn't tell you what the rule is sucks. It just feels like an incomplete product.
If every codex includes an appendix that contains every USR the army can use, fine. But if I read a the name of a rule in a dex that I then have to look up in a different book? Nope. I far prefer the 8th/9th bespoke system to that- even if it means that there are ten different names for deepstrike, at least my dexes feel complete. Again, just a preference; I see the other point of view, and it's valid- I just happen to disagree.
Have you played 5th edition and earlier? Codices never felt incomplete back then because the USR list was short and most people had them all memorized within a game or two. Seeing "deep strike" on a unit was no different from seeing "strength" on a unit, in either case you knew exactly what the rule was and never had to look it up.
Id like a good reset. Return the game to a wargame where things like facing and positioning are genuinely impactful and tactical.
Completely cut warlord traits, relics, sub faction rules and stratagems from the competitive side of gaming as they're all sources of imbalance. Keep all that customisation to the crusade/narrative side of things.
Hard reset with better, more wargame-like rules please. Pay Rick Preistly £1million to write them. Don't mind keeping the codex system though, as long as it's planned better.
I'd go hard reset, with a significant move to online / digital (maybe start with just army rules online and keep a physical core rulebook for the moment).
I'd want an online army builder tool that could generate a printable list for gaming with full rules attached.
I'd want it to be dynamic, with regular rules updates coming as and when, rather than saved up for a new codex.
I'd suggest actually that GW could potentially publish multiple versions - you could have the official current-release army rules, and then also a beta set with changes they are trying out. The userbase could then assist with playtesting, provide feedback and make suggestions. Beta rules could, once tested and approved, be moved in to the current release.
This would allow GW to update army rules, points costs etc without the expense and lead times of having to print and distribute physical books. The rules would also be all in one place, rather than needing codex plus errata plus chapter approved plus whatever other add-on books...
I'd also want the army rules to be free. GW have said repeatedly that they are first and foremost a model company. They should start removing the paywalls preventing people from buying more models. If I for example want to try fielding a chaos knight along with my CSMs, I'm more likely to do so if GW don't force me to buy a £30 book before I can buy the £100 model.
Apple fox wrote: I don’t think you do need every USR a unit uses on every sheet, as the point of USRs is they are used enough you shouldn’t need to reference them often and are simple. Or at least have print outs without for players that won’t need them so often.
Printing out the USRs in full on every unit card somewhat defeats the purpose of a USR, as if you are printing it over and over again you're creating more and more opportunities to make a mistake.
You put 'em at the back of the book, along with all the army universal special rules that pertain to that book alone, and then the unit cards reference those rules rather than containing the rules.
Rules should be as centralised, as standardised, and as scalable as possible.
nah, printing reminder text on the datasheet is fine and the way to go (MTG does this with their keywords and you end up knowing them pretty quick because of that). The thing is GW needs to make sure theyre copypasting the same text for every faction, like don't change a rule mid edition for only some codexes.
PenitentJake wrote: Having a rule appear by name in a book which doesn't tell you what the rule is sucks. It just feels like an incomplete product.
If every codex includes an appendix that contains every USR the army can use, fine. But if I read a the name of a rule in a dex that I then have to look up in a different book? Nope. I far prefer the 8th/9th bespoke system to that- even if it means that there are ten different names for deepstrike, at least my dexes feel complete. Again, just a preference; I see the other point of view, and it's valid- I just happen to disagree.
Have you played 5th edition and earlier? Codices never felt incomplete back then because the USR list was short and most people had them all memorized within a game or two. Seeing "deep strike" on a unit was no different from seeing "strength" on a unit, in either case you knew exactly what the rule was and never had to look it up.
I've played since Rogue Trader, though I skipped 6th and 7th.
Like I said, I may be an oddity (and it's okay- I'm not trying to change your mind about USRs), but for me, if a rule is named in book, I want the rule explained in that book. Cross referencing in one book? Not a problem. Cross referencing in two or more? Nope.
Now having said that, these days I make my own strat cards pre-game, and just draw the ones from the deck I'm most likely to use- usually 8-12. If I'm willing to do it for strats, I could just as easily do it for USRS. Not really a big deal. But the book still would feel incomplete to me if it mentioned a rule that it didn't define.
PenitentJake wrote: Like I said, I may be an oddity (and it's okay- I'm not trying to change your mind about USRs), but for me, if a rule is named in book, I want the rule explained in that book.
Is it a problem that the codex just says 'Ld' or 'Infantry' or 'Blast' without also printing out the full text of how leadership checks work, how Infantry interact with cover, and how Blast affects the firing sequence? Just saying, this seems kind of cherry-picked. The game already has a bunch of USRs, or at least mechanics that the codices implicitly reference.
I don't miss having 30+ USRs, some just referencing other USRs and many unintuitively named. But USRs as a concept never really went away, and I don't see players complaining about having to remember what the different weapon types do.
It all comes down to moderation and execution (and then sticking with it!), I think.
Although to be really pedantic, is Assault truly a USR (Universal Special Rule)? Seems more like a UR to me .
Anyway I think having reference for a number of things in the codex is the way to go. I like the idea of a separate reference card as well, but that might be antiquated.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually . . .
Given that the core rules of 8th were only a few pages, and the existence of OPR . . . Why NOT print the core rules in a codex. Imagine telling new players all they needed for a game was the codex for the army of their choice, game rules included.
Insectum7 wrote: It all comes down to moderation and execution (and then sticking with it!), I think.
Although to be really pedantic, is Assault truly a USR (Universal Special Rule)? Seems more like a UR to me .
Anyway I think having reference for a number of things in the codex is the way to go. I like the idea of a separate reference card as well, but that might be antiquated.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually . . .
Given that the core rules of 8th were only a few pages, and the existence of OPR . . . Why NOT print the core rules in a codex. Imagine telling new players all they needed for a game was the codex for the army of their choice, game rules included.
or you know... make the rules a free PDF online
especially with the whole "we're a miniatures company, not a game company" meme
^For sure, I think that's a good move too (perhaps ideally a default move, these days). But many of us will print them out anyways. However if your core rules are sufficiently minimal, I'd consider just sticking them in the army book too.
Clarification: Your $25-30 paperback army book.
Also "Not a game company" riiiiiight . . . . When they're trying to sell you multiple campaign books and charging what they do for rules, codexes etc.
Honestly, for a purely customer-friendly approach, GW should distribute its books like that :
Core rules : Free PDF that is kept up to date and is a few pages long at most.
Army rules : Free PDF + App
Fluff : expanded Hardback codex with all the cool art/stories and filler content
Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
I think that's more an issue with GWs coorperate tendencies, rather than an inherent issue with a small core rules set.
Though tbf, I don't know how "tight" my ideal rule set would be either. 3-7 seemed to require a lot of pages. As did 2nd.
I'd be interested in seeing how a 9th-style rewrite of 5th would end up looking - tighten up the way the rules are written, have keyword usage as required, clear summaries at the end of sections, etc.
Note - I'm not talking about including strats or anything like that, but more the style/layout of the 9th core book applied to 5th's engine.
^I think you're right. I bet you could condense the hell out of it. I feel like pre 7th rules had a lot more flourish to how they were written and included more of the associated imagery and implied reasoning behind the rules. The presentation of 9th feels a lot more dry, I think, but straightforward.
Insectum7 wrote: 5th ed didn't have Hull Points Those came on in 6th.
Wow... really? Man... tells you how much attention I paid in 5th.
*checks rulebook*
Ok, up Defensive Weapons to S5. The idea that sponson Heavy Bolters aren't a "defensive" weapon is silly. Either that or all "pintle" and "sponson" weapons count as defensive regardless of what the weapon is.
Insectum7 wrote: 5th ed didn't have Hull Points Those came on in 6th.
Wow... really? Man... tells you how much attention I paid in 5th.
*checks rulebook*
Ok, up Defensive Weapons to S5. The idea that sponson Heavy Bolters aren't a "defensive" weapon is silly. Either that or all "pintle" and "sponson" weapons count as defensive regardless of what the weapon is.
Except that Lascannons and Plasma Cannons can be sponson weapons...
Just Tony wrote: Except that Lascannons and Plasma Cannons can be sponson weapons...
Which is fine. The whole point of a sponson is that it's an independent gun, regardless of whether it has a heavy bolter or a plasma cannon. The sponson gunner on the left side of the tank isn't going to magically stop shooting at targets on the left side just because the turret gunner is engaging something on the right side.
Just Tony wrote: Except that Lascannons and Plasma Cannons can be sponson weapons...
Which is fine. The whole point of a sponson is that it's an independent gun, regardless of whether it has a heavy bolter or a plasma cannon. The sponson gunner on the left side of the tank isn't going to magically stop shooting at targets on the left side just because the turret gunner is engaging something on the right side.
It wasn't about whether gun on right shoots at target but how many guns can fire on the move. Unlike now vehicles couldn't move full speed without any penalties. Defensive weapons gave ability to move and shoot with more light weapons.
tneva82 wrote: It wasn't about whether gun on right shoots at target but how many guns can fire on the move. Unlike now vehicles couldn't move full speed without any penalties. Defensive weapons gave ability to move and shoot with more light weapons.
Oh right, splitting fire with the secondary guns was an upgrade on my Tau tanks in 5th, not a core rule. Still, it doesn't make a lot of sense that a secondary weapon with an independent gunner would care if the main turret has fired or not. The whole point of the sponson is that it acts independently from whatever the main gun is doing.
(TBH the whole mechanic didn't make much sense anyway and led to absurdities like a Vendetta only being able to fire one twin lascannon if it moved too fast despite all of them being fixed-mount guns that would fire simultaneously with one trigger pull.)
Just Tony wrote: Except that Lascannons and Plasma Cannons can be sponson weapons...
Yep. And?
Just seems counterintuitive to fairness or balance to include weapons capable of inflicting instant death as defensive weapons. Other than that, I totally agree with bringing back that mechanic.
Because they're sponson guns. They should be able to fire independently of the main guns. And a tank shouldn't have to fire all its guns at the same target, especially sponson weapons on the opposite side of the tank. Ditto for pintle weapons.
Anything "defensive" should be use as such - to defend the tank - and not be bound to fire at whatever the turret/main gun is dealing with.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
the current 40k core rules could probably fit on a single page if they weren't written in lawyer speech.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
the current 40k core rules could probably fit on a single page if they weren't written in lawyer speech.
If anything the last 5 years or so have reinforced they need to be in lawyer speak.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
the current 40k core rules could probably fit on a single page if they weren't written in lawyer speech.
If anything the last 5 years or so have reinforced they need to be in lawyer speak.
Amen, brother. 40K players will torture any rules ambiguity into the exact opposite of the designers intent.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Ehhh, I think that the "few pages of Core Rules" is a contributing factor to the current rules bloat mess, as the rules writers try to make up for the lack of substantial Core Rules by adding stuff into the codexes.
the current 40k core rules could probably fit on a single page if they weren't written in lawyer speech.
If anything the last 5 years or so have reinforced they need to be in lawyer speak.
Amen, brother. 40K players will torture any rules ambiguity into the exact opposite of the designers intent.
It's a twofold thing really. On the one hand you 100% have people trying to miss-interpret rules to gain advantage.
On the other hand GW has core rules, then they make a codex that changes some of those core rules, then they make another codex that also changes those core rules.
When those two codex meet the player ends up stuck trying to work out how to resolve things.
This is the whole layers of complexity thing. Because the information is often scattered around multiple pages and because its often breaking some rules and doing different things you end up in a muddle. Many times you can work it out, but its always open to interpretation and shifting around.
Regarding the number of weapons fired in 5th Ed, it also had that weird restrictions of MC only being able to fire 2 weapons, which was annoyingly restrictive on Tyranid MC which can have way more than 2 weapons.
While I understand the need for more complex core rules, I have been re-reading the 5th Ed core book and I have come to the conclusion that it is quite restrictive to armies that don't play the traditional Space Marine way.
E.g. the weapon rules are pretty much written with Imperial wargear on mind, specially the melee weapon rules which name drop power weapons and lightning claws and power firsts and chain fists. Maybe the weirdest examples with hindsight are poison rules which are only found in the melee weapons section and the complete lack of an armourbane rule even though melta rules are on the core book.
This has led me to doubt GW's ability to write a complex core rules without restricting and possibly crippling Xenos factions, or requiring Xenos books to break core rules to properly function.
"Breaking" core rules is fine so long as its done in one rule pass so that interactions cna be checked. Eg allowing Tryanid Monstrous creatures to fire more than 2 weapons is fine so long as its account for when the rule is made. Then they check to see if any abilities might counter that - eg some psychic power that only lets you fire 1 - and then review if that needs to change or not as its now more impactful to the Tyranid etc...
A lot of this comes from the fact that GW rebuilds their rules - now every 3 years - which means that they just don't have time to build the whole system in the background, test it, fix it, then test it in the wild and keep fixing.
In theory after 35 years they should have a super iron tight rules system. In reality they've a rules system that is only 3 years old and still teething before its all redone again.
Heck maybe the disjointed nature of how they publish rules in books (let alone between books) comes from staff who just don't care to streamline and organise the information because they will hardly have time to finish before they have to write it all out again.
Personally I wonder if GW might slow down and go to 5 year editions at some stage. I think the 3 year cycle (esp after 2 years of corona) is burning bridges with players new and old wanting to buy in all those rule books and codex and even on apps a 3 year cycle is insanely fast
It ought to be completely unnecessary to release a new edition every 3 years with all the balance dataslates and pts updates they are doing.
They should have at least made a beta rules thing for terrain, get that stuff tested on a wide scale before finalizing it for 10th. Scrap Stratagems for 6 months and try out the HH reactions or whatever crazy stuff they are planning for 10th. Reintroduce vehicle armour values for all I care.
They need to get that stuff out of their system with beta rules instead of dumping it into the edition update like 6th did with hull points, flyers and allies. Problems like "99% of factions have no way to deal with Flyers" or "haywire will kill a Land Raider in 5 hits" might have shown up on Dakka.
Hey, at least they aren't dumping the rules to entire factions on a WD article like they did with Inquisitors or The Fallen. I mean, imagine if LoV or Daemons dropped in a 1 page article in WD.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Hey, at least they aren't dumping the rules to entire factions on a WD article like they did with Inquisitors or The Fallen. I mean, imagine if LoV or Daemons dropped in a 1 page article in WD.
Ah yes, because entire factions with full line-ups of units are obviously directly comparable to a bunch of random traitor Marines who've only ever been a single unit and one character, and the equivalent of the Imperium's secret police /s
ccs wrote: ... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
... a massively inferior and hamstrung game.
8th & 9th are already that wether the pts you tally up have 1/2/3/or 4 digits to them. And 10th will be no better. Different yes, better no.
Compared to what? 7th?
I think what ccs is saying is that 9th's balance cannot get meaningfully worse and balance-concerned players are problematic. H.B.M.C. believes that balance could be meaningfully worse and that balance getting meaningfully worse would make the game less enjoyable.
ccs wrote: ... and those of us left could just get on with playing.
... a massively inferior and hamstrung game.
8th & 9th are already that wether the pts you tally up have 1/2/3/or 4 digits to them. And 10th will be no better. Different yes, better no.
Compared to what? 7th?
I think what ccs is saying is that 9th's balance cannot get meaningfully worse and balance-concerned players are problematic. H.B.M.C. believes that balance could be meaningfully worse and that balance getting meaningfully worse would make the game less enjoyable.
I'm also saying that 8th & 9th overall are just gak editions to begin with rules wise. Compare to whatever other edition or other game you prefer.
Better than previous editions in more limited ways, worse in more.
THEN you add in balanced obsessed players, constant errata & rules shifts, the tourney worship, etc....
So no, I don't think making upgrades free makes things any worse.
If GW suddenly decided to give eldar easy to do secondaries or cut the point costs of csm or SoB by 1/6 th, the game would become substentialy worse. Like in a visible way. Pre last rules update, stuff may have been good for some, bad for some and got worse for others over time. But since 8th we didn't have armies that played soliter.
I'm also saying that 8th & 9th overall are just gak editions to begin with rules wise. Compare to whatever other edition or other game you prefer.
Better than previous editions in more limited ways, worse in more.
THEN you add in balanced obsessed players, constant errata & rules shifts, the tourney worship, etc....
So no, I don't think making upgrades free makes things any worse.
Why do you have more fun playing an unbalanced game, i.e. one where one of the players has an unearned advantage?
I'm also saying that 8th & 9th overall are just gak editions to begin with rules wise. Compare to whatever other edition or other game you prefer.
Better than previous editions in more limited ways, worse in more.
THEN you add in balanced obsessed players, constant errata & rules shifts, the tourney worship, etc....
So no, I don't think making upgrades free makes things any worse.
Why do you have more fun playing an unbalanced game, i.e. one where one of the players has an unearned advantage?
I never said I have more fun.
I have said, or at least implied, that I have the same amount of fun.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Hey, at least they aren't dumping the rules to entire factions on a WD article like they did with Inquisitors or The Fallen. I mean, imagine if LoV or Daemons dropped in a 1 page article in WD.
Ah yes, because entire factions with full line-ups of units are obviously directly comparable to a bunch of random traitor Marines who've only ever been a single unit and one character, and the equivalent of the Imperium's secret police /s
The fallen were literally a good 3rd or so of the DA if I recall correctly, and personally I think worth putting in a supplement or subfaction. At least make the option available via the DA rules. Inquisition has had several codexes in the past. Two (and a planned third) back in 3rd ed, and the weird Hybrid book in 7th called Imperial Agents. Then they give Half-gaked rules in a WD that doesn't even have a troops option. It's been in this weird limbo of faction/not a faction ever since Grey Knights and Sisters were split off circa 5th.
My most enjoyable experience in the last 20 years was during the first six months of 8E when we all had an Index to work with... Everyone's rules came out at the same time, and there was no 'Flavor of the Month'...
Slayer6 wrote: My most enjoyable experience in the last 20 years was during the first six months of 8E when we all had an Index to work with... Everyone's rules came out at the same time, and there was no 'Flavor of the Month'...
There most certainly was and not all index rules were made equal. It was also incredibly bland imo.
I thought index-era was pretty fun - but this was undoubtedly partly the novelty after the issues of 7th.
Once people started to optimise their lists and abuse the various issues (i.e. certain overpowered units, soup so you could take them in almost any army, no rule of 3 so you could spam them, and first turn deep strike) it quickly deteriorated.
Slayer6 wrote: My most enjoyable experience in the last 20 years was during the first six months of 8E when we all had an Index to work with... Everyone's rules came out at the same time, and there was no 'Flavor of the Month'...
There most certainly was and not all index rules were made equal. It was also incredibly bland imo.
I'd still take a continuation of that paradigm over 9th era codexes.
Indexes don't have to be "bland", either. There's no reason that faction/ subfaction rules need to be: 1 page of special rules + 2 pages of stratagems + 1 page of relics + 1 page of Warlord traits. Most could be done in a page or less.
Slayer6 wrote: My most enjoyable experience in the last 20 years was during the first six months of 8E when we all had an Index to work with... Everyone's rules came out at the same time, and there was no 'Flavor of the Month'...
There most certainly was and not all index rules were made equal. It was also incredibly bland imo.
I'd still take a continuation of that paradigm over 9th era codexes.
That paradigm is what created Legends. No thank you.
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Gadzilla666 wrote: Indexes don't have to be "bland", either. There's no reason that faction/ subfaction rules need to be: 1 page of special rules + 2 pages of stratagems + 1 page of relics + 1 page of Warlord traits. Most could be done in a page or less.
Hence why I believe the Marine codex being 200 pages + 10 supplements is absolute insanity. It needs consolidation of Marine profiles, rules, Warlord Traits, and Relics. Why couldn't 12 Warlord Traits total just cover everyone's needs, ya know?
Slayer6 wrote: My most enjoyable experience in the last 20 years was during the first six months of 8E when we all had an Index to work with... Everyone's rules came out at the same time, and there was no 'Flavor of the Month'...
There most certainly was and not all index rules were made equal. It was also incredibly bland imo.
I'd still take a continuation of that paradigm over 9th era codexes.
That paradigm is what created Legends. No thank you.
PaddyMick wrote: Hard reset with better, more wargame-like rules please. Pay Rick Preistly £1million to write them. Don't mind keeping the codex system though, as long as it's planned better.
The Codex system exists, unfortunately, as I understand, because it's good business for players to have to buy a new 'dex every few years. Even with almost no experience, it's obviously a problem, because it's the method by which GW drives sales via constant OP dexes, and this creates an imbalanced and ever-shifting game-state, as well as leading to a constant stats-inflation, because no easy course-correction can be made. (what's the point of every attack in the game having AP?) The "obvious" solution, which I've read on here several times, would be to have datasheets updated a few times per year, and posted online. Army books could still be made, but would consist of background, information for painting and customizing (various insignia, and such), quick painting guides, scenarios and optional rules, and showcase galleries. Maybe crusade info, though I wouldn't trust that to go long without needing errata. I doubt this will happen.
For the rules, it's strange that there's so much complexity where it isn't needed at all, but grossly oversimplified where it is needed. Stratagems and command points are the biggest offender, and should be gotten rid of entirely. All the subfaction bonuses are also a major hassle. If people like them, make it an optional points buy-in. The areas where more complexity are needed are:
- Vehicles behaving nothing like vehicles, with no firing arcs (this is the worst) and being big bags of hit points.
- The almost total lack of command & control and morale rules. The combat attrition system is absurd.
Alternating activation would also be an immediate improvement. Other issues are more a matter of personal preference (too much lethality, tables too small with not enough room/time to maneuver, too much emphasis on big models, and hard time limits)
A full restart like when 8th rolled out would be major feels-bad for World Eaters/Astra Militarum players. Honestly I felt bad for all the GSC/Traitor Legions players at the end of 7th whose books were only valid for like 5 months before the whole thing was wiped.
That being said, in a lot of ways it was nice to reset to a more or less even playing field, although that's a bit misleading as some factions were stronger than others, even in the indexes. It's simply impossible to balance a game with as many factions and units as 40k perfectly. LotR works so well because so many of the troops and heroes are fairly similar, despite different stats. You don't have the huge variety of different types of units as you do in 40k. Now one thing that it would be possible to do when 10th rolls around is get rid of all the excess bloat. Basically restrict all the armies to just what's in their codexes; no White Dwarfs, campaign books, or anything. You wouldn't have to nuke the game like the 7th-8th transition. It's somewhat encouraging to see them releasing a new series of campaign books that are narrative-only; it gives nice new content for narrative players but doesn't add yet more bloat for all the tournament players to have to learn and that could possibly break the game yet again by introducing some busted rules interaction. For new tournament content, they already produce the tournament season books, and have switched to points updates being digital (yay!). That stuff isn't bloat, but rather keeping the meta from becoming too stale.
TL;DR: I want to see the current rules and books be continued into 10th, but with all the extra supplement crap taken out behind the shed and put out of its misery. It would also be nice to not see each new book be more busted than the last, but that's a fool's hope (this is GW we're talking about after all, they want to make every buck they possibly can from it).
Broadly speaking I'd like more of the same. Crusade is fun. Competitive balance has never been better.
Just bring back USR's for common rules like deep strike and infiltrate, and do something about the ridiculous number of useless stratagems. The best idea I've seen is to make players choose 5-6 stratagems to have available during the game while leaving the rest out. This reduces the mental load for your opponent and helps prevent gotchas.
Besides these two major pain points, 9e has largely been great. Most recent codexes have been excellent. Knights/chaos knights, chaos space marines, custodes, tyranids, and eldar all got books with fun mechanics and lots of depth. Give us more books like those and I'll be happy.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
How would that "fix it"? You'd still be able to strip off those last couple of wounds. You'd just have to remove a couple more before you did it.
0beron wrote: Even with almost no experience, it's obviously a problem, because it's the method by which GW drives sales via constant OP dexes, and this creates an imbalanced and ever-shifting game-state, as well as leading to a constant stats-inflation, because no easy course-correction can be made. (what's the point of every attack in the game having AP?) The "obvious" solution, which I've read on here several times, would be to have datasheets updated a few times per year, and posted online.
If the stats fit the fluff they don't need to be updated once a year. AP-1 is like a light vehicle weapon, and there is no reason it should apply to Flayed One scissor claws. It's not that course corrections need to be made, it's that designers forgot the course entirely. AP-1 was supposed to replace AP4 weapons. GW could have removed Drukhari blade artists (+1 AP on wound rolls of 6) as the very first nerf to them, but they didn't, because everything has to be good against Space Marines because they are popular, except Space Marines aren't meant to be weak to everything so now they need Armour of Contempt and all the things that deserve to be a good against Space Marines are less good than they are supposed to be.
For the rules, it's strange that there's so much complexity where it isn't needed at all, but grossly oversimplified where it is needed. Stratagems and command points are the biggest offender, and should be gotten rid of entirely. All the subfaction bonuses are also a major hassle. If people like them, make it an optional points buy-in.
The problem with a pts buy-in is that it'd take forever to balance, it is easier for GW to just let it be unbalanced and say it's intentional.
The areas where more complexity are needed are:
- Vehicles behaving nothing like vehicles, with no firing arcs (this is the worst) and being big bags of hit points.
- The almost total lack of command & control and morale rules. The combat attrition system is absurd.
Why should a vehicle have firing arcs but not heavy infantry or monsters? Firing arcs felt bad to me since many Xenos vehicles were designed to look cool instead of being designed to play within the parameters of firing arcs so many weapons went to waste, while the Imperium vehicles were designed in ways they usually got to leverage most of their guns.
Stratagems are meant to simulate command & control, there being so many of them could be an indication that GW thinks it's important. Combat Attrition is better than Sweeping Advance, but I don't love it.
See, I would support a return of the old wound table if I wasn't sure that people will demand that my monsters be nerfed to the worthless T6 Sv 3+ 4-6 wounds they had in 5th.
Adding a few extra wounds is just escalation, as now you've made the things that should be killing them less effective, meaning they have to get a boost, and on and on it goes...
If the stats fit the fluff they don't need to be updated once a year. AP-1 is like a light vehicle weapon, and there is no reason it should apply to Flayed One scissor claws. It's not that course corrections need to be made, it's that designers forgot the course entirely. AP-1 was supposed to replace AP4 weapons. GW could have removed Drukhari blade artists (+1 AP on wound rolls of 6) as the very first nerf to them, but they didn't, because everything has to be good against Space Marines because they are popular, except Space Marines aren't meant to be weak to everything so now they need Armour of Contempt and all the things that deserve to be a good against Space Marines are less good than they are supposed to be.
I agree. Ideally they would never need updating. I also intend this more as small points adjustments for things that are either rarely used, or auto-includes. Not constant stat-changing.
I was trying to avoid the Space Marine issue, because that's going to invite a whole different discussion... but I think the game would be much healthier if they weren't shown favoritism and made the "default army," but this isn't really the thread for it. (although I do think there are ways to make Marines have a better matchup against a meta set against them). (I also think that they definitely should be a very low model count army, but that so should Eldar and Necrons).
The problem with a pts buy-in is that it'd take forever to balance, it is easier for GW to just let it be unbalanced and say it's intentional.
If the subfac modifiers are very modest (i.e., more so than they are currently), I think a balanced state could be reached through gradual points adjustments.
Why should a vehicle have firing arcs but not heavy infantry or monsters? Firing arcs felt bad to me since many Xenos vehicles were designed to look cool instead of being designed to play within the parameters of firing arcs so many weapons went to waste, while the Imperium vehicles were designed in ways they usually got to leverage most of their guns.
Stratagems are meant to simulate command & control, there being so many of them could be an indication that GW thinks it's important. Combat Attrition is better than Sweeping Advance, but I don't love it.
An infantry squad or a monster (and to an extent, a bipedal walker) would have much greater situational awareness and ability to re-orient itself than a vehicle. Non-rectangular vehicles can still have reference points on their hull from which arcs are determined. I'm not opposed to rules for monster/infantry facings and firing arcs, though more for things like gaining advantages for firing at something from multiple directions. This would be a more radical implementation, so I'll avoid it for now. In short, being able to shoot "whatever, wherever" just feels completely wrong, like we may as well be playing make-believe with toys.
I understand stratagems are there for c&c*, but the execution of it is just pages and pages of text to read and keep track of, plus the peripheral physical component of cards, and tracking command points, and... it's just a mess. Completely inelegant design. Instead of combat attrition, you could just have units that take certain damage have to make a leadership test, and if they fail, they receive a penalty or fail to activate or something. (I'd also like to implement non-lethal damage, effectively suppression, but again, too much, too soon)
*and to add an extra component the GW can charge you for.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
How would that "fix it"? You'd still be able to strip off those last couple of wounds. You'd just have to remove a couple more before you did it.
The lasgun wielders will die before the tank does.
Let's say you have 2 chapter tactics, one that lets you do a 6" pre-game move on your entire army and ObSec on your entire army and another chapter tactic that gives you a 6" pre-game move and +1 to charge. How do you cost those, is it A/B pts for Flayed Ones and C/D pts for Necron Warriors or is it a flat number X/Y pts for the entire list? Is A=B and C=D?
H.B.M.C. wrote: Adding a few extra wounds is just escalation, as now you've made the things that should be killing them less effective, meaning they have to get a boost, and on and on it goes...
Or they could just... kill them less? Seems a fine solution to the constant cries of lethality creep.
Racerguy180 wrote: A shift to everyone back to index and work from there with a more reasonable stat spread/interaction.
I like how they did that with 8th and it took them exactly 1 edition to throw the baby out with the bathwater, stomp all over it, then go a completely opposite direction.
Hence why I believe the Marine codex being 200 pages + 10 supplements is absolute insanity. It needs consolidation of Marine profiles, rules, Warlord Traits, and Relics. Why couldn't 12 Warlord Traits total just cover everyone's needs, ya know?
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
Just straight-up double the wounds of every vehicles.
Give land raider equivalents a 1+ save
predator equivalent a 2+
land speeders equivalents a 3+
make any anti-tank weapon do a flat amount of damage instead of D6. If a Lascannon/Melta can penetrate a tank, it should also be able to vaporize some elite infantry
Why should a vehicle have firing arcs but not heavy infantry or monsters?
because infantry can easily rotate their bodies quickly, for a tank to be able to shoot its turret + hull + sponsons guns, it means it has to be doing a 360 spin....
Firing arcs felt bad to me since many Xenos vehicles were designed to look cool instead of being designed to play within the parameters of firing arcs so many weapons went to waste, while the Imperium vehicles were designed in ways they usually got to leverage most of their guns.
fixed by adding a small diagram on the side of their datasheet (same as facings)
Stratagems are meant to simulate command & control, there being so many of them could be an indication that GW thinks it's important. Combat Attrition is better than Sweeping Advance, but I don't love it.
Stratagems are cancer, i've been playing OPR and its so much more enjoyable, i'm not drained after a game of looking in the book/wahapedia to make sure i'm not forgetting a strat
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vict0988 wrote: Let's say you have 2 chapter tactics, one that lets you do a 6" pre-game move on your entire army and ObSec on your entire army and another chapter tactic that gives you a 6" pre-game move and +1 to charge. How do you cost those, is it A/B pts for Flayed Ones and C/D pts for Necron Warriors or is it a flat number X/Y pts for the entire list? Is A=B and C=D?
Controversial take but : You just don't need chapter tactics....
And NMNR is much older than 8th Ed. It started in 6th IIRC as result of the Chapterhouse fiasco, and because of that it isn't going away.
because infantry can easily rotate their bodies quickly, for a tank to be able to shoot its turret + hull + sponsons guns, it means it has to be doing a 360 spin....
That still leaves the middle point of monsters and walkers, in which some of them are infantry shaped and others do need to rotate their whole body (e.g. Exocrine).
Controversial take but : You just don't need chapter tactics....
We don't need them, but there is no denying that most want them.
honestly if they could just declutter the rules that would be great less stratagems, less rerolls, more roll the dice, accept the results and move to the next unit. I do hope having primary and faction secondaries they make balance a good bit easier.
Why should a vehicle have firing arcs but not heavy infantry or monsters? Firing arcs felt bad to me since many Xenos vehicles were designed to look cool instead of being designed to play within the parameters of firing arcs so many weapons went to waste, while the Imperium vehicles were designed in ways they usually got to leverage most of their guns.
Huh?
Imperial vehicles are famous for sponsons that engage on entirely different sides of the vehicle, making the vehicle only capable of bringing tbeir firepower to bear on a target if it's directly in front of the vehicle, and they give it low side armor after forcing it to point in certain directions. Then there's xenos vehicles such as the Eldar Falcon/Wave Serpent which have 90% of their firepower in the turret, and decent side armor. That seems better than the Imperial template.
vict0988 wrote: Let's say you have 2 chapter tactics, one that lets you do a 6" pre-game move on your entire army and ObSec on your entire army and another chapter tactic that gives you a 6" pre-game move and +1 to charge. How do you cost those, is it A/B pts for Flayed Ones and C/D pts for Necron Warriors or is it a flat number X/Y pts for the entire list? Is A=B and C=D?
Assuming you absolutely must have sub-faction traits, the correct approach is to make them all roughly equal in power level while enabling different types of play within the established styles of the army. In this instance, you don't create the ObSec/Pre-Game move combo in the first place because it is clearly vastly superior to every other combination in the book.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
And we go back to "enjoy not having enough mathematical units/weapons to kill my list". Better to let the lil guys have a chance at interacting rather than just being meatbags to sit on objectives while getting chewed up by any heavy armour.
Why should a vehicle have firing arcs but not heavy infantry or monsters?
because infantry can easily rotate their bodies quickly, for a tank to be able to shoot its turret + hull + sponsons guns, it means it has to be doing a 360 spin....
Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.
Stratagems are cancer, i've been playing OPR and its so much more enjoyable, i'm not drained after a game of looking in the book/wahapedia to make sure i'm not forgetting a strat.
I think it's just a bad implementation.
why can't 6 warlord traits be enough?
With more WL traits you can have something for everyone. It's really not a big deal whether you have 3 or 18. You pick the one you like and then your opponent can explain the one they picked at the start of the game. The problem with WL traits right now to me isn't that there are too many, it's that there is no difference between a lot of them and there is no reason why some factions don't get access to a fun WL trait. With 18 you can cover pretty much everything, you can't have a Flayed One WL trait or a Reanimation Protocols WL trait but those can just be Relics.
Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.
If the Venom is hovering at a standstill, maybe the Venom. But actually aligning a target with hull-mounted weapons is much more difficult than with a weapon you're holding. The pintle weapon should be able to fire in a wider arc (though it should still be difficult for a turret gunner on a moving vehicle to hit a target), but it would be impossible to fire backwards. None of this makes them "bad tanks," it just means they need to be maneuvered with some consideration rather than treated like vehicle-shaped infantry.
There are also benefits vehicles- Dark Eldar vehicles especially- could receive, such as defensive bonuses for rapid movement.
Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.
Being slow to turn should restrict movement.
*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
And we go back to "enjoy not having enough mathematical units/weapons to kill my list". Better to let the lil guys have a chance at interacting rather than just being meatbags to sit on objectives while getting chewed up by any heavy armour.
That's only a thing if you screw up writing codexes and rules.
For example, Knights wouldn't have been such a challenge for Orks in 7th if Ork Tankbustas could actually have used all their tankbusta bombs in combat like in prior editions. You just have to provide mechanical solutions in ways other than the lame "spray and pray" we have now.
Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.
Weren't venoms classed as skimmers, which didnt have facings? (i never played older edition so im genuinely asking)
Stratagems are cancer, i've been playing OPR and its so much more enjoyable, i'm not drained after a game of looking in the book/wahapedia to make sure i'm not forgetting a strat.
I think it's just a bad implementation.
true, if they were heavily trimmed and on the datasheet of HQs that unlocked them, it might be better
With more WL traits you can have something for everyone. It's really not a big deal whether you have 3 or 18. You pick the one you like and then your opponent can explain the one they picked at the start of the game. The problem with WL traits right now to me isn't that there are too many, it's that there is no difference between a lot of them and there is no reason why some factions don't get access to a fun WL trait. With 18 you can cover pretty much everything, you can't have a Flayed One WL trait or a Reanimation Protocols WL trait but those can just be Relics.
Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.
7th and early also had the additional issue that they were peak "forging the narrative with beer and pretzels", and the narrative was that horde xenos sucked to make protagonists factions feel better.
Tyran wrote: Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.
Being slow to turn should restrict movement.
*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.
This seems slightly backwards, depending on how your hovertank is actually propelled, and all the 40k hovervehicles use rear-facing thrusters for movement and either or a combination of thrust vectoring or aerodynamic surfaces for steering.
If anything, I'd evaluate them as more restricted in their ability to turn than tracked vehicles; and more like an airplane than a Rhino or Leman Russ.
Tracked vehicles are about as agile as it gets. Many can run one track backwards and one forward to turn on a dime, and all of them can at least turn about one stationary track. They can turn at speed only marginally less easily than wheeled vehicles, and can actually handbrake turn about a stopped track at unexpectedly high speeds.
Of the 40k hovertanks, the only one I would bet on to do so with any haste would be the Hammerhead chassis, and it would have to be very careful about it and it would be ill advisable for it to do so at speed.
This is not to say the hovertanks can't turn, they definitely can, just that a tracked tank can almost certainly turn tighter and more quickly to do something like wind around corners or follow an "S" path to present it's front the same direction at both ends of a move that appears lateral.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.
Tyran wrote: Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.
Being slow to turn should restrict movement.
*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.
Given the complete lack of definition of range on the board and time for a turn, does it really matter how quickly any unit or model can turn?
That's the thing about 40K. It is so abstract that allowing a tank to "shoot through itself" is not an actual thing since the unit's orientation is almost never actually relevant in the rules (Flyers as the exception).
Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.
If the Venom is hovering at a standstill, maybe the Venom. But actually aligning a target with hull-mounted weapons is much more difficult than with a weapon you're holding.
Let's agree to disagree, I've never operated a vehicle-mounted weapon and you've never done it for a Venom or Centurion suit, I'll accept the high likelihood that you might be more knowledgeable on the subject of hull-mounted weapons and I have no idea how I'd be convinced so me arguing further would not be in good faith.
Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.
Weren't venoms classed as skimmers, which didnt have facings? (i never played older edition so im genuinely asking)
With more WL traits you can have something for everyone. It's really not a big deal whether you have 3 or 18. You pick the one you like and then your opponent can explain the one they picked at the start of the game. The problem with WL traits right now to me isn't that there are too many, it's that there is no difference between a lot of them and there is no reason why some factions don't get access to a fun WL trait. With 18 you can cover pretty much everything, you can't have a Flayed One WL trait or a Reanimation Protocols WL trait but those can just be Relics.
Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.
Skimmers worked like other vehicles when it came to facings and firing arcs.
I'm not sure what you're saying is the problem, if we agree that WL traits are good for the game, the question then becomes should we have 3, 6, 12 or 18 generic ones and should we have 6+ faction WL traits per faction? I would argue we don't need faction WL traits, but I don't think they're as harmful as Stratagems because you get a tonne of Stratagems without making a choice. I don't see an argument for why having 18 generic WL traits is too much in a world where you are removing 500 Stratagems from the game and 200 WL traits. With 18 WL traits there can still be massive differences between them, enough to justify the number IMO.
Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.
That's the eternal tension of 40k. From the beginning of rogue trader you had a set of rules with many RPGish elements that were suited for engagements of a couple squads per side (a small platoon). But players always wanted bigger battles . GW obliged and the game is now around Company level but the unique character of 40k units was always a big attraction and players have never been willing to accept a corresponding level of abstraction in their rules.
Every attempt to simplify the rules has been followed by adding back in layers of special rules and exceptions to put that level of detail/flavor back in the game. That's a bad recipe that gives you the worst elements of simple and complex games.
I don't have a dog in the fight as I'll probably never come back to GW rules after discovering OPR. However, I do think 40k needs a brand new ruleset with some modern aspects (Alternating activations maybe?). Most importantly, a level of crunch that is more than 8th and less than what came before. Piling special rules on a simple ruleset is as silly as an over complicated ruleset for company level combat.
Put another way, 40k needs a ruleset that looks ahead to what the game will be in a couple years and can accommodate that experience. It does not need a basic ruleset whose character and play experience will be redefined by Codices and such adding layers of rules and exceptions.
I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)
To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.
I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules
In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.
It could happen. But against any but stupid/inexperienced players it generally wasn't. And when it was? In game effort/risk was required to achieve it + something greater than a lasgun. The exception being transports that had to end up exposed to drop their passengers.
But there was none of this silliness of shoot anything & everything from str 1+ & hope for a 5 or 6. What we have now is just stupid & designed to pander to children who'll feel bad if they can't succeed no matter what.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.
Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"
They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.
You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.
The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.
It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.
It could happen. But against any but stupid/inexperienced players it generally wasn't. And when it was? In game effort/risk was required to achieve it + something greater than a lasgun. The exception being transports that had to end up exposed to drop their passengers.
But there was none of this silliness of shoot anything & everything from str 1+ & hope for a 5 or 6. What we have now is just stupid & designed to pander to children who'll feel bad if they can't
succeed no matter what.
"Something greater than a Lasgun" so basically every other army besides one. Stellar argument.
Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.
Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.
yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"
Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.
yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"
I've used Deep Strike with Flamer units. The dangers of Deep Strike have always been incredibly overestimated.
Tyel wrote: I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)
To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.
I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules
In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.
Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?
Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.
yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"
I've used Deep Strike with Flamer units. The dangers of Deep Strike have always been incredibly overestimated.
Doesn't matter, getting to the rear armor of a vehicle to fish for 6s is still requiring you to actually move units to do so, making it infinitely superior to the current paradigm.
Tyel wrote: I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)
To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.
I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules
In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.
Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?
I'd wager we could afford to go to having "special weapon" rather than plasma gun, melta gun, flamer, grav gun etc. Which avoids a lot of the no model no rule shenanigans.
I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.
Is the definition between melta and plasma really so wide? High S, high ap, multiple damage ranged weapon. Taking the point on flamers, there could easily be a "anti-infantry" and "anti-heavy" special weapons. Go look through the guard release thread at the multiple pages over the fact people don't take grenade launchers and rarely flamers. Melta and plasma is decided mostly by points for an edition.
vict0988 wrote: Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?
Varies I guess. Taking out special weapons feels a bit of a leap. But equally I'm not overly bothered to see a big list of things consolidated down because there just aren't enough meaningful "niches" for them to exist. I think rolling out say "Accursed Weapons" beat having lightning claws, power axes, power mauls, power swords, chain swords all in the same unit etc.
Its kind of the same for characters. I like that characters provide buffs. I think it is a great way of making a bunch of characters viable beyond being "bad beat sticks". And WLT/Relics have been a key part of that process.
But I feel my point about the rule-stack still stands. I think its a major reason why people feel 40k has become complicated - and I'd therefore look at reducing it down in a new edition. I feel the stack wasn't this big at the outset of 8th - its grown up over time.
I played mainly guard and space Marines, consolidating flamer and grenade launcher into a support weapon (random amount of Auto-hits with a bit range), that could easily represent a heavy machine gun found in WW2 kits, and consolidating plasma, melta, grav into a special weapon (high energy, high AP, low shots), would at least mitigate the problem of one option always being worse.
The game has already little reason to have 5 different special weapons just from the amount of possible rules interaction, without one option just being a worse alternative.
Way more interesting to have a meaningful choice between taking a special weapon or not, then the choice between a good option and a lot of worse options.
All those different weapons get quite tedious at larger games, anyway.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.
Is the definition between melta and plasma really so wide? High S, high ap, multiple damage ranged weapon. Taking the point on flamers, there could easily be a "anti-infantry" and "anti-heavy" special weapons. Go look through the guard release thread at the multiple pages over the fact people don't take grenade launchers and rarely flamers. Melta and plasma is decided mostly by points for an edition.
Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
You know the"forgotten special"? The grav-gun.
The Grenade Launcher for Guard is interesting because it's Assault iirc. At least in prior editions it has been.
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Brickfix wrote: I played mainly guard and space Marines, consolidating flamer and grenade launcher into a support weapon (random amount of Auto-hits with a bit range), that could easily represent a heavy machine gun found in WW2 kits, and consolidating plasma, melta, grav into a special weapon (high energy, high AP, low shots), would at least mitigate the problem of one option always being worse.
The game has already little reason to have 5 different special weapons just from the amount of possible rules interaction, without one option just being a worse alternative.
Way more interesting to have a meaningful choice between taking a special weapon or not, then the choice between a good option and a lot of worse options.
All those different weapons get quite tedious at larger games, anyway.
You have a valid point, but it is also worth noting that if GW was decent at balancing this wouldn't be an issue. It is their lack of skill at writing rules for their own system, and balancing said rules, that creates the problem. The concept itself isn't inherently flawed.
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Although warlord titans do technically exist in 40k, that's clearly not the design space the game is built around. Far, far, far from typical.
It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer. Flamer for hordes, plasma for elite infantry, melta for heavy infantry/vehicles. No problem. And some crossover is fine.
Hell, make them good at taking on superheavies. I know I favored drop-Meltas when locals were occasiinally taking Gargants and Warhounds.
Insectum7 wrote: It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer.
History shows that it's a lot harder than you think. For an anti-elite weapon you need high strength to wound on 2s, good AP to get through their saves, D2 or better to kill a whole model with every shot, and decent volume of fire. And those things are also exactly what you need for an effective vehicle killer, with the only difference being the melta does its damage in one big shot vs. two smaller shots with the same total damage. Going back at least as far as 5th it's rarely been the case that both of them are viable choices at the same time. Usually one is the obvious winner and the other only has very circumstantial advantages. In 5th it was melta everywhere for killing tanks and elite infantry, now it has shifted to plasma almost exclusively (with a period of grav spam in the middle for anyone who had it).
If you want to differentiate them without making one the obvious choice you'd need to do a major overhaul of the core rules, introducing something like the split AP/AT profiles from Epic and Apocalypse to prevent the overlap by force. But as long as both targets have such similar ideal weapon profiles it's going to be very difficult.
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Maybe since 8th, but since 4th? You punch through a lot of AV14 with S7 plasma guns?
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Although warlord titans do technically exist in 40k, that's clearly not the design space the game is built around. Far, far, far from typical.
It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer. Flamer for hordes, plasma for elite infantry, melta for heavy infantry/vehicles. No problem. And some crossover is fine.
Hell, make them good at taking on superheavies. I know I favored drop-Meltas when locals were occasiinally taking Gargants and Warhounds.
Heh, I once nuked a Baneblade with a melta Raptor squad in one turn in 4th. Try doing that with plasma.
And yeah, Warlord Titans have rules in 40k. They're also 5500 PPM. I really don't think that they're much of an issue for most people.
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Maybe since 8th, but since 4th? You punch through a lot of AV14 with S7 plasma guns?
No, because what AV14 vehicle besides the 4th edition Necron Monolith has been worth that effort to kill or want to prepare for?
Insectum7 wrote: It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer.
History shows that it's a lot harder than you think. For an anti-elite weapon you need high strength to wound on 2s, good AP to get through their saves, D2 or better to kill a whole model with every shot, and decent volume of fire. And those things are also exactly what you need for an effective vehicle killer, with the only difference being the melta does its damage in one big shot vs. two smaller shots with the same total damage. Going back at least as far as 5th it's rarely been the case that both of them are viable choices at the same time. Usually one is the obvious winner and the other only has very circumstantial advantages. In 5th it was melta everywhere for killing tanks and elite infantry, now it has shifted to plasma almost exclusively (with a period of grav spam in the middle for anyone who had it).
If you want to differentiate them without making one the obvious choice you'd need to do a major overhaul of the core rules, introducing something like the split AP/AT profiles from Epic and Apocalypse to prevent the overlap by force. But as long as both targets have such similar ideal weapon profiles it's going to be very difficult.
"For an anti-elite weapon you need high strength to wound on 2s, good AP to get through their saves, D2 or better to kill a whole model with every shot, and decent volume of fire." Actually untrue. You really just need good AP and high volume of fire to get the job done. The Grav Cannon is a good example of this. The Grav Cannon also happens to be good at killing vehicles because the to-wound chart is dumb. You can see that if the to-wound chart were the 7th-prior paradigm, Grav Cannons would really struggle against high-T targets.
The current math for melta and plasma vs. elite and vehicles breaks down just fine, imo. (stripping to-hit out of calculations because it's unnecessary)
Plasma vs. MEQ (overcharging, naturally, but ignoring AoC because it complicates things) .83 x .83 x 2 x 2 = 2.7
Melta vs. "same" .83 x 2 (because it can only kill one) = 1.66
Plasma vs. LREQ (Leman Russ) = .5 x .666 x 2 x 2 = 1.3
Melta Vs "same" = .5 x .83 x 5.5 = 2.2
In each set, the more specialized weapon is nearing twice the effectiveness as its counterpart. And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
There's a further conversation here around how many elites these days have 3 or more wounds and invulnerable saves, which brings the weapons closer together in performance against those targets, but my response to that is
A: It's ok in the crazy 40k universe that there are models that straddle the line between infantry and vehicle.
B: I'm tired of the stat-creep to begin with, and I wish much of it would just get collapsed back down in most cases.
It's very clear to me that the design goal of meaningfully distinguishing anti-Elite and anti-vehicle/monster is pretty achievable.
No, because what AV14 vehicle besides the 4th edition Necron Monolith has been worth that effort to kill or want to prepare for?
Sometimes you gotta deal with multiple Leman Russes, and the side/rear is hard to get to, so you gotta go through the front. Also I faced Titans in local PUGs at times, so melta had a place there.
I recall Melta being better against Knights too, because of the bonus to the Damage Chart they brought with AP1, and the negative modifier only Glancing would give against Plasma. With the positive modifiers on Melta it was more likely to inflict multiple Hull Point hits with your shots, bringing things down easier.
Insectum7 wrote: Actually untrue. You really just need good AP and high volume of fire to get the job done.
Technically true, but if you make an anti-elite weapon that relies on volume of fire instead of wounding on 2s with D2+ you end up encroaching into the design space for anti-horde weapons and making a different class of weapons obsolete.
And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
Except it doesn't end up working out that way outside of math comparisons. Melta has a crippling drawback of needing to be within 6" to have a meaningful advantage in a game where deep strike and similar abilities can rarely get you that close, while plasma's drawback is easily mitigated with the re-rolls you want to be applying to your units anyway and/or ignored because the unit will die next turn anyway. The end result is that plasma is almost always the right choice for both roles, while melta is limited to a handful of specialist units that can deep strike within 6" or extend the range for bonus damage.
The current math for melta and plasma vs. elite and vehicles breaks down just fine, imo. (stripping to-hit out of calculations because it's unnecessary)
Plasma vs. MEQ (overcharging, naturally, but ignoring AoC because it complicates things) .83 x .83 x 2 x 2 = 2.7
Melta vs. "same" .83 x 2 (because it can only kill one) = 1.66
Plasma vs. LREQ (Leman Russ) = .5 x .666 x 2 x 2 = 1.3
Melta Vs "same" = .5 x .83 x 5.5 = 2.2
In each set, the more specialized weapon is nearing twice the effectiveness as its counterpart. And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
There's a further conversation here around how many elites these days have 3 or more wounds and invulnerable saves, which brings the weapons closer together in performance against those targets, but my response to that is
A: It's ok in the crazy 40k universe that there are models that straddle the line between infantry and vehicle.
B: I'm tired of the stat-creep to begin with, and I wish much of it would just get collapsed back down in most cases.
It's very clear to me that the design goal of meaningfully distinguishing anti-Elite and anti-vehicle/monster is pretty achievable.
Your maths is wrong or at the very least biased, as you mentioned there is plenty, if not more, elite units out there with 3+ wounds or t5+ now. Melta actually catches up and often outperforms against all of those.
You also gave the plasma gun the random benefit of firing twice, which they'd need to be inside 12" to do. I can understand that because you want to show the direct comparison to the meltagun, but it's main advantage is range.
Russ are t8 now so the wounding is off there and you've given melta the bonus damage which they only get within 6".
Without all the context the numbers are just numbers.
To humour me, imagine an:
Assault 4 24", with +2 auto hits within 12" s4 ap0 d1 gun
Assault 2 18" s6 ap-2 d2 gun
Assault 1 18" s8 ap-4 d d3+3 gun
Those could be generic base special weapons (heavy would likely be a similar set) you can apply to nearly every unit at that point, tweak slightly for a faction flavour and you've got clear definitions and can model them as you please.
The current math for melta and plasma vs. elite and vehicles breaks down just fine, imo. (stripping to-hit out of calculations because it's unnecessary)
Plasma vs. MEQ (overcharging, naturally, but ignoring AoC because it complicates things) .83 x .83 x 2 x 2 = 2.7
Melta vs. "same" .83 x 2 (because it can only kill one) = 1.66
Plasma vs. LREQ (Leman Russ) = .5 x .666 x 2 x 2 = 1.3
Melta Vs "same" = .5 x .83 x 5.5 = 2.2
In each set, the more specialized weapon is nearing twice the effectiveness as its counterpart. And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
There's a further conversation here around how many elites these days have 3 or more wounds and invulnerable saves, which brings the weapons closer together in performance against those targets, but my response to that is
A: It's ok in the crazy 40k universe that there are models that straddle the line between infantry and vehicle.
B: I'm tired of the stat-creep to begin with, and I wish much of it would just get collapsed back down in most cases.
It's very clear to me that the design goal of meaningfully distinguishing anti-Elite and anti-vehicle/monster is pretty achievable.
Your maths is wrong or at the very least biased, as you mentioned there is plenty, if not more, elite units out there with 3+ wounds or t5+ now. Melta actually catches up and often outperforms against all of those.
Addressed towards end of post. Reduce the spread of profiles significantly.
You also gave the plasma gun the random benefit of firing twice, which they'd need to be inside 12" to do. I can understand that because you want to show the direct comparison to the meltagun, but it's main advantage is range.
Went with both weapons max effectiveness. Brevity. Also I'd argue that it's advantage is multiple shots.
Russ are t8 now so the wounding is off there and you've given melta the bonus damage which they only get within 6".
Both weapons wound on 4+ (plasma is overcharged)
Without all the context the numbers are just numbers.
Context is that Gue'vesa Emmissary is suggesting that plasma and melta can be collapsed to one gun because they are "close enough" in effect. I argue that you can make them more differentiated from each other, but also that they're arguably different enough already.
To humour me, imagine an:
Assault 4 24", with +2 auto hits within 12" s4 ap0 d1 gun
Assault 2 18" s6 ap-2 d2 gun
Assault 1 18" s8 ap-4 d d3+3 gun
Those could be generic base special weapons (heavy would likely be a similar set) you can apply to nearly every unit at that point, tweak slightly for a faction flavour and you've got clear definitions and can model them as you please.
I don't see where the last bit is going and am out of time for math. It just sorta seems like a spread of special weapons attempting specific goals? Seems fine and I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. I mean it sorta seems like you're making part of my argument for me.
Insectum7 wrote: Actually untrue. You really just need good AP and high volume of fire to get the job done.
Technically true, but if you make an anti-elite weapon that relies on volume of fire instead of wounding on 2s with D2+ you end up encroaching into the design space for anti-horde weapons and making a different class of weapons obsolete. Flamers aren't exactly super great at their job these days (especially when compared to the days when they used an actual template). Make it better.
And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
Except it doesn't end up working out that way outside of math comparisons. Melta has a crippling drawback of needing to be within 6" to have a meaningful advantage in a game where deep strike and similar abilities can rarely get you that close, while plasma's drawback is easily mitigated with the re-rolls you want to be applying to your units anyway and/or ignored because the unit will die next turn anyway. The end result is that plasma is almost always the right choice for both roles, while melta is limited to a handful of specialist units that can deep strike within 6" or extend the range for bonus damage. Plasma would not be as good of an all-rounder if the old to-wound chart was brought back and it's Strength reduced. The point is that there is a solve. Range has obviously been less of an issue in the past using Drop Pods, and so another way that Melta can stand out in it's anti-armor role. Melta is also Assault, and so better able to get those close shots. Personally I play UM, so Melta can often be used after I fall back out of combat.
The current math for melta and plasma vs. elite and vehicles breaks down just fine, imo. (stripping to-hit out of calculations because it's unnecessary)
Plasma vs. MEQ (overcharging, naturally, but ignoring AoC because it complicates things) .83 x .83 x 2 x 2 = 2.7
Melta vs. "same" .83 x 2 (because it can only kill one) = 1.66
Plasma vs. LREQ (Leman Russ) = .5 x .666 x 2 x 2 = 1.3
Melta Vs "same" = .5 x .83 x 5.5 = 2.2
In each set, the more specialized weapon is nearing twice the effectiveness as its counterpart. And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
There's a further conversation here around how many elites these days have 3 or more wounds and invulnerable saves, which brings the weapons closer together in performance against those targets, but my response to that is
A: It's ok in the crazy 40k universe that there are models that straddle the line between infantry and vehicle.
B: I'm tired of the stat-creep to begin with, and I wish much of it would just get collapsed back down in most cases.
It's very clear to me that the design goal of meaningfully distinguishing anti-Elite and anti-vehicle/monster is pretty achievable.
Your maths is wrong or at the very least biased, as you mentioned there is plenty, if not more, elite units out there with 3+ wounds or t5+ now. Melta actually catches up and often outperforms against all of those.
Addressed towards end of post. Reduce the spread of profiles significantly.
You also gave the plasma gun the random benefit of firing twice, which they'd need to be inside 12" to do. I can understand that because you want to show the direct comparison to the meltagun, but it's main advantage is range.
Went with both weapons max effectiveness. Brevity. Also I'd argue that it's advantage is multiple shots.
Russ are t8 now so the wounding is off there and you've given melta the bonus damage which they only get within 6".
Both weapons wound on 4+ (plasma is overcharged)
Without all the context the numbers are just numbers.
Context is that Gue'vesa Emmissary is suggesting that plasma and melta can be collapsed to one gun because they are "close enough" in effect. I argue that you can make them more differentiated from each other, but also that they're arguably different enough already.
To humour me, imagine an:
Assault 4 24", with +2 auto hits within 12" s4 ap0 d1 gun
Assault 2 18" s6 ap-2 d2 gun
Assault 1 18" s8 ap-4 d d3+3 gun
Those could be generic base special weapons (heavy would likely be a similar set) you can apply to nearly every unit at that point, tweak slightly for a faction flavour and you've got clear definitions and can model them as you please.
I don't see where the last bit is going and am out of time for math. It just sorta seems like a spread of special weapons attempting specific goals? Seems fine and I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. I mean it sorta seems like you're making part of my argument for me.
Sorry I missed that you'd left off the hit roll on the russ, I assumed you'd gone with a bs 4+ unit firing, it is an extra relevant step mind as 2 shots increases the overall damage once accuracy is taken into account. Unless I've got lost here, you were saying the weapons are differentiated for their purpose enough? Your numbers show the output between plasma and melta is largely negligible, in fact it likely says that the majority of the time plasma is simply better (lower risk, greater range, similar output vs vehicles, kills multiple marines).
If so then no, it doesn't reinforce your stance that existing weapon profiles are fit for purpose, which is why I suggested generic profiles that have obvious and clear roles. If you need to do a spreadhseet of maths to prove that 2 weapon options are largely interchangeable in output but one has distinct advantages, then they're not unique enough.
Not really sure on "the plasma gets extra range". On paper yes - but in almost every game scenario this is an illusion. I've hardly ever seen someone fire an overcharged plasma gun outside of 12" except as some act of desperation. Its always been about jumping into 12", throwing out two overcharged shots - maybe dying which is a bit unfortunate, but since you are almost certainly getting taken off the table next turn, it doesn't matter. Its reasonable to say getting meltas into 6" is harder.
But the question I think is *how far* of a difference should there be between these guns. Because at 12" and when overcharging, a guard squad with a plasma gun "averages out" to doing 5 points more worth of damage shooting into intercessors (including AoC) than the same squad with a melta gun. And this feels a bit "so" on the tabletop. I guess if you bring 10 plasma guns over 10 melta guns and they are all shooting intercessors an expected 50 point swing in damage is reasonable - but is that really going to happen in game? And is that really going to be the reason you've won or lost?
I mean the plasma is only averaging out to about 6 points more than having a flamer. Its getting close to a wash if they pop Transhuman.
If this was all standardised its unclear the game would be dramatically different, or that list building would be dramatically affected.
The counter to this is hyperspecialising - but that makes for bad games. I.E. "Oh you brought termagants, well my double flamer squad insta-kills 10~ or so for a 100%+ points return, haha gg" isn't going to be fun to play. Even if the Termagant-using player has their own array of optimised weapons that give 100% returns into guard, marines, Leman Russ etc.
I guess the other approach is the reverse. So you somehow make pointing a melta gun/plasma gun/flamer at the wrong target do absolutely nothing. But I'm unclear that's much fun either.
Dysartes wrote: What do people think of the argument that Imperial/Chaos Plasma, at the very least, is one point of Strength too high on both settings?
then the only reason to overcharge would be for damage 2, right?
Dysartes wrote: What do people think of the argument that Imperial/Chaos Plasma, at the very least, is one point of Strength too high on both settings?
then the only reason to overcharge would be for damage 2, right?
The current math for melta and plasma vs. elite and vehicles breaks down just fine, imo. (stripping to-hit out of calculations because it's unnecessary)
Plasma vs. MEQ (overcharging, naturally, but ignoring AoC because it complicates things) .83 x .83 x 2 x 2 = 2.7
Melta vs. "same" .83 x 2 (because it can only kill one) = 1.66
Plasma vs. LREQ (Leman Russ) = .5 x .666 x 2 x 2 = 1.3
Melta Vs "same" = .5 x .83 x 5.5 = 2.2
In each set, the more specialized weapon is nearing twice the effectiveness as its counterpart. And each weapon has an additional downside. Melta is short ranged. Plasma can kill the user. This is a reasonable design balance.
There's a further conversation here around how many elites these days have 3 or more wounds and invulnerable saves, which brings the weapons closer together in performance against those targets, but my response to that is
A: It's ok in the crazy 40k universe that there are models that straddle the line between infantry and vehicle.
B: I'm tired of the stat-creep to begin with, and I wish much of it would just get collapsed back down in most cases.
It's very clear to me that the design goal of meaningfully distinguishing anti-Elite and anti-vehicle/monster is pretty achievable.
Your maths is wrong or at the very least biased, as you mentioned there is plenty, if not more, elite units out there with 3+ wounds or t5+ now. Melta actually catches up and often outperforms against all of those.
Addressed towards end of post. Reduce the spread of profiles significantly.
You also gave the plasma gun the random benefit of firing twice, which they'd need to be inside 12" to do. I can understand that because you want to show the direct comparison to the meltagun, but it's main advantage is range.
Went with both weapons max effectiveness. Brevity. Also I'd argue that it's advantage is multiple shots.
Russ are t8 now so the wounding is off there and you've given melta the bonus damage which they only get within 6".
Both weapons wound on 4+ (plasma is overcharged)
Without all the context the numbers are just numbers.
Context is that Gue'vesa Emmissary is suggesting that plasma and melta can be collapsed to one gun because they are "close enough" in effect. I argue that you can make them more differentiated from each other, but also that they're arguably different enough already.
To humour me, imagine an:
Assault 4 24", with +2 auto hits within 12" s4 ap0 d1 gun
Assault 2 18" s6 ap-2 d2 gun
Assault 1 18" s8 ap-4 d d3+3 gun
Those could be generic base special weapons (heavy would likely be a similar set) you can apply to nearly every unit at that point, tweak slightly for a faction flavour and you've got clear definitions and can model them as you please.
I don't see where the last bit is going and am out of time for math. It just sorta seems like a spread of special weapons attempting specific goals? Seems fine and I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is. I mean it sorta seems like you're making part of my argument for me.
Sorry I missed that you'd left off the hit roll on the russ, I assumed you'd gone with a bs 4+ unit firing, it is an extra relevant step mind as 2 shots increases the overall damage once accuracy is taken into account.
? The extra shot is taken into account already. The second 'x2' in each plasma equation is the number of shots.
Unless I've got lost here, you were saying the weapons are differentiated for their purpose enough? Your numbers show the output between plasma and melta is largely negligible, in fact it likely says that the majority of the time plasma is simply better (lower risk, greater range, similar output vs vehicles, kills multiple marines).
I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion when Melta gives average 80% increase in damage against the vehicle target when deployed for it. Melta also has a much higher max damage output, which can be useful at times. (Dreadnoughts particularly, as it stands. Ignoring a point of damage from each hit cuts the plasma effectiveness in half.)
If so then no, it doesn't reinforce your stance that existing weapon profiles are fit for purpose, which is why I suggested generic profiles that have obvious and clear roles. If you need to do a spreadhseet of maths to prove that 2 weapon options are largely interchangeable in output but one has distinct advantages, then they're not unique enough.
Again, I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion. Melta currently has a clear advantage against certain types of targets. This makes me conclude that bringing some of each is beneficial to a build. Plasma for all-rounder ability, but Melta to deploy advantageously to more quickly break specific target types.
Plus that wasn't even the original push of the argument. My entire argument is that Melta and Plasma shouldn't be consolidated because even if you feel they overlap in use case, there's still space to differentiate them further if desired, and your proposed weapons clearly show is true. I'm just pointing out thateven as they currently stand, there are reasons to consider one instead of the other. I know my builds use both.
I don't believe that 10th either needs to be either a full reboot or "more of the same".
If any of you truly remember the changes between older editions, there were many quite far reaching changes bewteen editions even if the basic rules were still mostly the same. The 4th to 5th edition change basically doubled vehicle durability only for 6th to nerf it to the ground, and basically each edition added USRs and had their own way of allocating wounds. Even 8th to 9th had significant changes to terrain rules, the introduction of the Aircraft keyword and the removal of the Maelstrom missions.
10th edition could radically change the game by changes to the wound table, by reintroducing USRs, by limiting or even removing stratagems and adding armor facings and yet still using the current 9th ed codexes.
Insectum7 wrote: Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).
Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.
Maybe since 8th, but since 4th? You punch through a lot of AV14 with S7 plasma guns?
No, because what AV14 vehicle besides the 4th edition Necron Monolith has been worth that effort to kill or want to prepare for?
Leman Russes, Baneblade chassis, Land Raiders, and Chaos Predators/Vindicators with Mutated Hull all spring to mind if we're just sticking to 4th. Obviously the list would grow if later editions are considered.
Dysartes wrote:What do people think of the argument that Imperial/Chaos Plasma, at the very least, is one point of Strength too high on both settings?
Probably. Overcharged plasma is probably too good at wounding heavy armour (T8), which was something plasma wasn't even capable of doing in previous editions, when that armour was AV14. Though I think that the squashed wounding table and removal of meaningful weapon restrictions (no charging after shooting Rapid Fire, for example) also contribute to the problem.
^One wonders why plasma can overcharge in the first place as well . . .
And then one remembers that the start of 8th ed also coincided with the release of Hellblasters, a unit that could ONLY take plasma weapons. And Guilliman, mr. Rerolls himself.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion when Melta gives average 80% increase in damage against the vehicle target when deployed for it.
Because the advantage only exists on paper. In real games the difficulty of getting within 6" compared to getting within 12" means that melta is usually firing at over half range, where it has a negligible advantage over plasma.
Hellblasters were good in early 8th. Guilliman, captain rerolls, UM Strat rerolls, etc etc. They always did work for me, assuming I could hide them appropriately. They were always a high priority target for my opponents.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion when Melta gives average 80% increase in damage against the vehicle target when deployed for it.
Because the advantage only exists on paper. In real games the difficulty of getting within 6" compared to getting within 12" means that melta is usually firing at over half range, where it has a negligible advantage over plasma.
Then you're not getting into the same proximities I am, I guess. I see a lot of gameplay at sub 6" because of how I use my units, and Melta has a clear advantage there.
If you don't like melta don't take it, but don't tell me it should be removed from the game because you can't use it.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion when Melta gives average 80% increase in damage against the vehicle target when deployed for it.
Because the advantage only exists on paper. In real games the difficulty of getting within 6" compared to getting within 12" means that melta is usually firing at over half range, where it has a negligible advantage over plasma.
Then you're not getting into the same proximities I am, I guess. I see a lot of gameplay at sub 6" because of how I use my units, and Melta has a clear advantage there.
If you don't like melta don't take it, but don't tell me it should be removed from the game because you can't use it.
I thought you didn't play contemporary 40k or am I confusing you with someone else? Apologies if so.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't see how you're coming to this conclusion when Melta gives average 80% increase in damage against the vehicle target when deployed for it.
Because the advantage only exists on paper. In real games the difficulty of getting within 6" compared to getting within 12" means that melta is usually firing at over half range, where it has a negligible advantage over plasma.
Then you're not getting into the same proximities I am, I guess. I see a lot of gameplay at sub 6" because of how I use my units, and Melta has a clear advantage there.
If you don't like melta don't take it, but don't tell me it should be removed from the game because you can't use it.
I thought you didn't play contemporary 40k or am I confusing you with someone else? Apologies if so.
Played a crapload of 8th. I played some of 9th in the beginning, but found it just unfun. I haven't had too much time to game since, but have dabbled with 2nd again, and I'd like to try OPR.
I'd like to try out more semi-competitive PUGs of 9th to bring out my SMs again and get a feel for things and try out my list though.
The thing is, in 8th, I was in very short ranged firefights all the time. Within 6" was a not-uncommon place to be. 9th is arguably even more localized through center-table objectives, smaller table sizes, and more effective LOS blocking terrain. Not to mention a -1 to-damage mechanic which neuters plasma effectiveness. Both Melta ans Plas feature in my builds.
I'm also saying that 8th & 9th overall are just gak editions to begin with rules wise. Compare to whatever other edition or other game you prefer.
Better than previous editions in more limited ways, worse in more.
THEN you add in balanced obsessed players, constant errata & rules shifts, the tourney worship, etc....
So no, I don't think making upgrades free makes things any worse.
Why do you have more fun playing an unbalanced game, i.e. one where one of the players has an unearned advantage?
I never said I have more fun.
I have said, or at least implied, that I have the same amount of fun.
Then why wouldn't you want a balanced game? You have the same amount of fun but those of us without dysfunctional mirror neurons also have fun.
Insectum7 wrote: It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer.
History shows that it's a lot harder than you think. For an anti-elite weapon you need high strength to wound on 2s, good AP to get through their saves, D2 or better to kill a whole model with every shot, and decent volume of fire. And those things are also exactly what you need for an effective vehicle killer, with the only difference being the melta does its damage in one big shot vs. two smaller shots with the same total damage. Going back at least as far as 5th it's rarely been the case that both of them are viable choices at the same time. Usually one is the obvious winner and the other only has very circumstantial advantages. In 5th it was melta everywhere for killing tanks and elite infantry, now it has shifted to plasma almost exclusively (with a period of grav spam in the middle for anyone who had it).
If you want to differentiate them without making one the obvious choice you'd need to do a major overhaul of the core rules, introducing something like the split AP/AT profiles from Epic and Apocalypse to prevent the overlap by force. But as long as both targets have such similar ideal weapon profiles it's going to be very difficult.
Or you could have the melta specifically gain bonuses to wound or damage vs. Vehicles. Honestly lascannons should have it too.
Dysartes wrote: What do people think of the argument that Imperial/Chaos Plasma, at the very least, is one point of Strength too high on both settings?
Not really. The extra strength is because you can kill yourself.
Dysartes wrote: What do people think of the argument that Imperial/Chaos Plasma, at the very least, is one point of Strength too high on both settings?
Not really. The extra strength is because you can kill yourself.
It would still have an extra point of strength and damage, but just be s6 base and s7 overcharged, which admittedly seems a lot healthier to diversify the weapons.
If plasma is supposed to be anti-infantry, going from S6 to S7 makes no difference against T3,4,5 in the current rules, if I remember correctly.
It would either require a good AP bonus to be worth it, or a special rule to make it more effective against infantry but not tanks.
Otherwise nobody would ever overcharge when not firing at a T7 vehicle, ironically.
Brickfix wrote: If plasma is supposed to be anti-infantry, going from S6 to S7 makes no difference against T3,4,5 in the current rules, if I remember correctly.
It would either require a good AP bonus to be worth it, or a special rule to make it more effective against infantry but not tanks.
Otherwise nobody would ever overcharge when not firing at a T7 vehicle, ironically.
I'd totally still be overcharging for the 2w a lot of the time.
But dropping Plasma to S6-7, and then bringing back the old to-wound chart would be great though. To which I also advocate that strength doubling toughness is auto-wound, the more I think about it. When your Lascannon fails to wound a guardsmen or whatever on a 1, that always sucks. Also, it'll reduce rolling in a minor way.
Edit: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
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Hecaton wrote: Or you could have the melta specifically gain bonuses to wound or damage vs. Vehicles. Honestly lascannons should have it too.
From a pure dice math point of view you could, but only at the expense of fluff problems. A melta gun isn't a subtle attack on a vehicle's systems like a haywire weapon, it's a brute force weapon that destroys vehicles by vaporizing large pieces of them. It doesn't make any sense that a melta gun would have a bonus to wounding vehicles but that bonus somehow wouldn't apply to a weaker target.
Yes, the state where marine players just get blown of the table and their characters feel as if they made from paper tissue, and feel bad, especialy if they can't be run with a bike or jump pack option is the best way to do it.
And how does it end? Custodes armies consisting of 2-4 tanks and 6-9 dreandoughts and maybe ~10 infantry models. Good for a faction with big robots though, and shield drones.
But okey lets not bring back marine resiliance. Lets give them what they really should have. Drop pod and transports out of which they can charge out of. Demons can already do that from 7-8" away, why not marines. It is in the lore. Pod drops and marines are in instant action. My GK teleport in to melee in their lore.
Insectum7 wrote: But dropping Plasma to S6-7, and then bringing back the old to-wound chart would be great though. To which I also advocate that strength doubling toughness is auto-wound, the more I think about it. When your Lascannon fails to wound a guardsmen or whatever on a 1, that always sucks. Also, it'll reduce rolling in a minor way.
I agree that it would help in the specific case of reducing the overlap between plasma and melta but at what cost? Changing the core mechanics of the wound table means re-balancing a ton of weapons across the entire game and probably creating other situations where X is the obvious choice for everything and Y is redundant.
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Karol wrote: Yes, the state where marine players just get blown of the table and their characters feel as if they made from paper tissue,
Sorry, but if a melta gun/railgun/etc hits your marine character that character is dead, period. It doesn't matter how much stubborn refusal to give up you have if you're a neat little pile of ash or bloody puddle sprayed across the surrounding terrain. Lore matters more than competitive balance in the hellscape of post-apocalyptic Poland.
Dudeface wrote: It would still have an extra point of strength and damage, but just be s6 base and s7 overcharged, which admittedly seems a lot healthier to diversify the weapons.
I don't think it needs the overcharge at all. It certainly didn't for 3rd-7th, and people use 'em just fine. S7 all the time.
Dudeface wrote: It would still have an extra point of strength and damage, but just be s6 base and s7 overcharged, which admittedly seems a lot healthier to diversify the weapons.
I don't think it needs the overcharge at all. It certainly didn't for 3rd-7th, and people use 'em just fine. S7 all the time.
Then what pray tell is the point of Auto-cannons? The 48" S7 D2 "Generalist anti-elite infantry" weapon? S7 is a completely useless S value the majority of the time. It's wasted against anything T3, and it's not as effective against T4 as other things, and it's worthless against T8.
Plasma and melta weapons I always felt were weapon solutions in search of a problem.
I never played before 7th, so maybe things were different in 3rd or something, but Melta at least has a range tradeoff. Where as Plasma is got the Range, the strength, and the wounding ability.
If 10th keeps plasma around I hope they do it in a manner befitting it's true nature. It should have S* (*auto-wounds infantry on a hit, and overcharge auto-wounds vehicles, but anything below a 3+ is a dead bearer.)
Range 24" RF1 S7 AP-3 D2 Gets Hot isn't much better than Range 48" Heavy 2 S7 AP-1 D2 assuming re-rolls aren't ubiquetos and tables and terrain don't completely invalidate long-ranged weapons and AP-1 isn't the same as AP- because of AoC. Autocannons were considered a problem at the beginning of 8th because they were too versatile.
Insectum7 wrote: But dropping Plasma to S6-7, and then bringing back the old to-wound chart would be great though. To which I also advocate that strength doubling toughness is auto-wound, the more I think about it. When your Lascannon fails to wound a guardsmen or whatever on a 1, that always sucks. Also, it'll reduce rolling in a minor way.
I agree that it would help in the specific case of reducing the overlap between plasma and melta but at what cost? Changing the core mechanics of the wound table means re-balancing a ton of weapons across the entire game and probably creating other situations where X is the obvious choice for everything and Y is redundant.
You mean like didn't really happen when the table shifted from 7th to 8th? Most weapons stayed the same Range, Strength and at least a similar shot count, and there was a rough guide between the two AP systems (AP4 to AP -1, then improve a step for a step). Damage is the wild card here, as pretty much everything only did D1 in the previous paradigm.
Care to define the "cost" that was experienced there?
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Dudeface wrote: It would still have an extra point of strength and damage, but just be s6 base and s7 overcharged, which admittedly seems a lot healthier to diversify the weapons.
I don't think it needs the overcharge at all. It certainly didn't for 3rd-7th, and people use 'em just fine. S7 all the time.
The point here being that, given the Gets Hot, the S7 was the overcharged mode in that edition. S6/1D for normal vs. S7/2D/Gets Hot for overcharged (I don't think the AP should change between the two, but I'd be open for a discussion) differentiates them from each other, and from Melta weapons. There's nothing saying you ever have to use the safe mode, but it is there should you see a use case for it.
If it's S6 as standard, there's no reason to use it. Overcharging it to just get S7 wouldn't be worth it compared to other guns.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Then what pray tell is the point of Auto-cannons? The 48" S7 D2 "Generalist anti-elite infantry" weapon? S7 is a completely useless S value the majority of the time. It's wasted against anything T3, and it's not as effective against T4 as other things, and it's worthless against T8.
It's not an "anti-elite infantry" weapon and never has been. It's an anti-light vehicle weapon, and once upon a time it was frickin' fantastic at it. The best weapon you could ever put in a Guard Squad, especially with that reach-out-and-touch-you 48" range.
The fact that GW turned vehicles into stupid big monsters that can shoot through themselves is not the fault of the Autocannon.
H.B.M.C. wrote: It's not an "anti-elite infantry" weapon and never has been. It's an anti-light vehicle weapon, and once upon a time it was frickin' fantastic at it. The best weapon you could ever put in a Guard Squad, especially with that reach-out-and-touch-you 48" range.
The fact that GW turned vehicles into stupid big monsters that can shoot through themselves is not the fault of the Autocannon.
Hmmm. I kind of remember them being bad. I guess respectable enough for popping rhinos (AV 11) but that's about it. Once you hit AV12 they dropped off considerably - and sufficient bolters could pop AV10 light vehicles (most of which were bad anyway from memory).
H.B.M.C. wrote: It's not an "anti-elite infantry" weapon and never has been. It's an anti-light vehicle weapon, and once upon a time it was frickin' fantastic at it. The best weapon you could ever put in a Guard Squad, especially with that reach-out-and-touch-you 48" range.
The fact that GW turned vehicles into stupid big monsters that can shoot through themselves is not the fault of the Autocannon.
Hmmm. I kind of remember them being bad. I guess respectable enough for popping rhinos (AV 11) but that's about it. Once you hit AV12 they dropped off considerably - and sufficient bolters could pop AV10 light vehicles (most of which were bad anyway from memory).
I seem to recall the hydra being a transport shredding menace for a while, but they've always been a little short on punch when the same units often get access to a missile launcher or las cannon. But yes, keywords seem a simple solution to the issue.
I actually think the core rules are really good. As always, we are hitting the limits of design space for a d6 differentiated game, but otherwise, the engine of 40k is realyly good, in my opinion.
the ecosystem of the codexs though... are a fantastic mess. Sprawling layers of rules upon rules, stacks of options were 80% are just garbage, and wildly inconsistent philosophies.
So, I'd like 10th to be, at most, a tweak to 9th edition. But I wouldn't cry at a complete nuke of the codices and a refresh.
Insectum7 wrote: But dropping Plasma to S6-7, and then bringing back the old to-wound chart would be great though. To which I also advocate that strength doubling toughness is auto-wound, the more I think about it. When your Lascannon fails to wound a guardsmen or whatever on a 1, that always sucks. Also, it'll reduce rolling in a minor way.
I agree that it would help in the specific case of reducing the overlap between plasma and melta but at what cost? Changing the core mechanics of the wound table means re-balancing a ton of weapons across the entire game and probably creating other situations where X is the obvious choice for everything and Y is redundant.
Hot take: GW has never been ever to make more than three options viable, and I doubt anybody could. Don't even bother with more than two to three options for any given slot.
Then what pray tell is the point of Auto-cannons? The 48" S7 D2 "Generalist anti-elite infantry" weapon? S7 is a completely useless S value the majority of the time. It's wasted against anything T3, and it's not as effective against T4 as other things, and it's worthless against T8.
Pretty sure Autocannons were also about being anti-light-vehicle. Also, while they don't have the AP of Plasma, they have a much, much longer range and don't kill their user.
If you want to look at why Autocannons currently such, there are two culprits and neither of them are plasma:
1) Heavy Bolters had their damage doubled in 9th and have 50% more shots. Because of the wounding chart, the Autocannon's +2 strength often makes little to no difference.
2) Armour of Contempt means that Autocannons had their damage blunted against all Marine units and vehicles. Almost as if AoC was a terrible idea.
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
FWIW, I don't think Eternal Warrior was an inherently bad rule. It makes a degree of sense that some creatures in the 40k universe (e.g. Daemons) can survive damage that would be lethal to 'normal' creatures of their size.
The issue is that (like many rules) it was implemented in a manner that heavily favoured certain factions, particularly Marines. There were dozens of Marine Characters with EW (and, in 7th, many ways to give even generic characters EW), whilst other factions had no units with EW at all.
This might not have been so bad . . . except that a lack of EW frequently correlated with a lack of other defences. The Tyranid codex was perhaps the most egregious example of this. They had a ton of multi-wound models but very few (if any?) had EW. Okay. But then they also had almost no models with invulnerable saves, even weak ones. So if the enemy had high-strength weapons or (worse still) Force Weapons, they had basically no defence at all.
This ended up creating some odd interactions. For example, Grey Knights are supposed to be an anti-Daemon army. And, to counter Daemons, they were equipped with Force Weapons that ignored armour saves and (with a psychic tst) inflicted Instant Death. However, Daemons all had invulnerable saves *and* all had Eternal Warrior - making both aspects of Force Weapons all but worthless against them. Contrast that with the above and you end up with Grey Knights being far more anti-Tyranid than anti-Daemon.
All that aside, I don't think Instant Death should return in its old form. Instead, it seems more logical to remove some/all of the randomness from damage rolls. For example, if a Melta inflicted a minimum of 5 damage, then it will be Instant Death against most normal characters (invulnerable saves notwithstanding).
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
It wasn't just Marine players complaining about Instant Death as a mechanic. Tyranids with their midsized critters, Daemon players with their greater Daemons and Princes, Orks with their Nobz, etc.
Instant Death was a garbage mechanic and the damage stat on weapons is one of the few things GW did correctly.
I do find it hilarous that GW introduced a USR in HH that is basically a damage stat instead of actually introducing a damage stat. Classic GW over-complication.
Yes, very few, if any, games benefit from representing toughness with making it harder to do any damage, rather than being able to absorb more damage. 40k obviously does both, but adding multi damage weapons really go rid of a lot of the goofiness inherent in the old system.
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
It wasn't just Marine players complaining about Instant Death as a mechanic. Tyranids with their midsized critters, Daemon players with their greater Daemons and Princes, Orks with their Nobz, etc.
Instant Death was a garbage mechanic and the damage stat on weapons is one of the few things GW did correctly.
ID was a great mechanic when used properly, such as when Synapse granted EW . . . And Marine commanders couldn't get it.
Damage stat is good too though.
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Tyran wrote: I do find it hilarous that GW introduced a USR in HH that is basically a damage stat instead of actually introducing a damage stat. Classic GW over-complication.
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
It wasn't just Marine players complaining about Instant Death as a mechanic. Tyranids with their midsized critters, Daemon players with their greater Daemons and Princes, Orks with their Nobz, etc.
Instant Death was a garbage mechanic and the damage stat on weapons is one of the few things GW did correctly.
ID was a great mechanic when used properly, such as when Synapse granted EW . . . And Marine commanders couldn't get it.
Damage stat is good too though.
They can both work, as long as gw shows some discipline. For example, say that they do what Vipoid suggested, and make melta weapons D5. Cool, basically Instant Death, until......gw starts making characters/units with 6W. Then suddenly it isn't. Something like that has to be used sparingly, same as EW. And we know that they had trouble doing that previously. They need to start with a plan and stick to it, whichever system that they use.
Tyel wrote: Really don't think instant death was a good mechanic - and the fact GW had to try and fix it with EW sort of says it all.
It's the sort of mechanic that makes sense: a small chance of one shotting a powerful model, that leads to all kinds of feel bad moments. It's very logical type of mechanic that people hate.
Tyel wrote: Really don't think instant death was a good mechanic - and the fact GW had to try and fix it with EW sort of says it all.
It's the sort of mechanic that makes sense: a small chance of one shotting a powerful model, that leads to all kinds of feel bad moments. It's very logical type of mechanic that people hate.
^Truth!
Also, the characters usually have invuln saves anyways. That's the protection against Lascannons vaporizing them.
Insectum7 wrote: In fact, tack Instant Death back on to that too. Make Big Guns Great Again.
Then Eternal Warrior makes a return, bringing back the bloat.
Or we don't bring back eternal warrior and marine players can just deal with the fact that their characters aren't near-immortal gods. It was a stupid and anti-fluffy rule that never should have existed.
It wasn't just Marine players complaining about Instant Death as a mechanic. Tyranids with their midsized critters, Daemon players with their greater Daemons and Princes, Orks with their Nobz, etc.
Instant Death was a garbage mechanic and the damage stat on weapons is one of the few things GW did correctly.
ID was a great mechanic when used properly, such as when Synapse granted EW . . . And Marine commanders couldn't get it.
Damage stat is good too though.
They can both work, as long as gw shows some discipline. For example, say that they do what Vipoid suggested, and make melta weapons D5. Cool, basically Instant Death, until......gw starts making characters/units with 6W. Then suddenly it isn't. Something like that has to be used sparingly, same as EW. And we know that they had trouble doing that previously. They need to start with a plan and stick to it, whichever system that they use.
Yah, it's having the discipline that's the key. I think they're just profit-motivated away from discipline.
The single most important thing to understand about GW, both in the models and rules studios, is that they work on what they like, and they create things they think are neat. And codex designers can only work in the ecosystem that's there, so they come up with their own rules to represent how they think the army or unit should operate.
Yes GW is motivated by money, and yes, they are trying harder lately to balance the game, but for the most part, they seem like a company that allows it's creative staff to work on what they want.
It's not that GW is completely uninterested in balance, they just don't consider it nearly as big a priority as having rules that evoke the army's lore.
FWIW, I don't think Eternal Warrior was an inherently bad rule. It makes a degree of sense that some creatures in the 40k universe (e.g. Daemons) can survive damage that would be lethal to 'normal' creatures of their size.
The issue is that (like many rules) it was implemented in a manner that heavily favoured certain factions, particularly Marines. There were dozens of Marine Characters with EW (and, in 7th, many ways to give even generic characters EW), whilst other factions had no units with EW at all.
Indeed. GW gonna GW.
I always harped on about this back in 5th. I have no idea why they never, ever seemed to use their USRs to their fullest. You know what EW would be a useful rule on? Swarms and IGHWTs (when combined with Vulnerable to Blasts), but nope. Can't be having that, now you get the bizarre situation (which we still have today, thanks to the damage stat) where a whole swarm can get deleted by a single shot weapon, despite there being loads of creatures to a single base. Same goes for HWTs, due to GW's design quirk, they are on a single base, but they're two separate guys. Does the other guy suddenly die of shock or grief after his mate got obliterated?
Or just give them both of the above USRs, then you can have the verisimilitude of them not dying as if a single thing to high strength weapons, but at the other end you have them take double hits from blast and template weapons for the same reason.
Polonius wrote: The single most important thing to understand about GW, both in the models and rules studios, is that they work on what they like, and they create things they think are neat. And codex designers can only work in the ecosystem that's there, so they come up with their own rules to represent how they think the army or unit should operate.
Yes GW is motivated by money, and yes, they are trying harder lately to balance the game, but for the most part, they seem like a company that allows it's creative staff to work on what they want.
It's not that GW is completely uninterested in balance, they just don't consider it nearly as big a priority as having rules that evoke the army's lore.
You can have rules that evoke army lore while retaining design discipline within a given paradigm. GW just doesn't care to have the qualified oversight they used to.
However they also appear to have clearly accepted churn and burn, and that's a profit driven thing.
From a pure dice math point of view you could, but only at the expense of fluff problems. A melta gun isn't a subtle attack on a vehicle's systems like a haywire weapon, it's a brute force weapon that destroys vehicles by vaporizing large pieces of them. It doesn't make any sense that a melta gun would have a bonus to wounding vehicles but that bonus somehow wouldn't apply to a weaker target.
Bull, don't try and claim there'd be fluff problems. If a Melta gun is beaming radio waves it'd be incredibly efficient at energizing metal, hence the bonus against vehicles.
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Polonius wrote: The single most important thing to understand about GW, both in the models and rules studios, is that they work on what they like, and they create things they think are neat. And codex designers can only work in the ecosystem that's there, so they come up with their own rules to represent how they think the army or unit should operate.
Yes GW is motivated by money, and yes, they are trying harder lately to balance the game, but for the most part, they seem like a company that allows it's creative staff to work on what they want.
It's not that GW is completely uninterested in balance, they just don't consider it nearly as big a priority as having rules that evoke the army's lore.
Hecaton wrote: Bull, don't try and claim there'd be fluff problems. If a Melta gun is beaming radio waves it'd be incredibly efficient at energizing metal, hence the bonus against vehicles.
So why doesn't it get a bonus against power armor, crisis suits, etc? Those are all made of metal too.
Hecaton wrote: Bull, don't try and claim there'd be fluff problems. If a Melta gun is beaming radio waves it'd be incredibly efficient at energizing metal, hence the bonus against vehicles.
So why doesn't it get a bonus against power armor, crisis suits, etc? Those are all made of metal too.
Hecaton wrote: Bull, don't try and claim there'd be fluff problems. If a Melta gun is beaming radio waves it'd be incredibly efficient at energizing metal, hence the bonus against vehicles.
So why doesn't it get a bonus against power armor, crisis suits, etc? Those are all made of metal too.
In 3rd-5th they did. It was called AP 1
Which, against non-vehicle targets, was exactly equivalent to the AP 2 of plasma.
Hecaton wrote: Bull, don't try and claim there'd be fluff problems. If a Melta gun is beaming radio waves it'd be incredibly efficient at energizing metal, hence the bonus against vehicles.
So why doesn't it get a bonus against power armor, crisis suits, etc? Those are all made of metal too.
In 3rd-5th they did. It was called AP 1
Which, against non-vehicle targets, was exactly equivalent to the AP 2 of plasma.
Yah, but incidentally it also caused Instant Death against T4 targets anyways, so suitably catastrophic.
Good Damage otherwise provides it's capability against monstrous creatures etc. Damage was really what the 3-7 eds missed, and it showed through the MCs.
Tyel wrote: Hmmm. I kind of remember them being bad. I guess respectable enough for popping rhinos (AV 11) but that's about it. Once you hit AV12 they dropped off considerably - and sufficient bolters could pop AV10 light vehicles (most of which were bad anyway from memory).
How many Guard armies had "sufficient bolters"?
As I said, the Autocannon was the best weapon for the Guard. It would take out incoming Rhinos, and eliminate all the various speedy AV10 vehicles out there, and because Guard squads were so cheap weight of firepower could help you with AV12 Eldar units. And, because they fired 2 shots, and Guard hit 50% of the time, they were remarkably consistent.
You have to factor in the context of the weapon. Autocannons were rare in Marine armies, but also not especially useful. In a Guard army? Absolutely wonderful. Paired with a Plasma Gun for when things got closer, you could rip incoming forces apart, leaving them exposed for your bigger guns.
Tyel wrote: Hmmm. I kind of remember them being bad. I guess respectable enough for popping rhinos (AV 11) but that's about it. Once you hit AV12 they dropped off considerably - and sufficient bolters could pop AV10 light vehicles (most of which were bad anyway from memory).
How many Guard armies had "sufficient bolters"?
As I said, the Autocannon was the best weapon for the Guard. It would take out incoming Rhinos, and eliminate all the various speedy AV10 vehicles out there, and because Guard squads were so cheap weight of firepower could help you with AV12 Eldar units. And, because they fired 2 shots, and Guard hit 50% of the time, they were remarkably consistent.
You have to factor in the context of the weapon. Autocannons were rare in Marine armies, but also not especially useful. In a Guard army? Absolutely wonderful. Paired with a Plasma Gun for when things got closer, you could rip incoming forces apart, leaving them exposed for your bigger guns.
Of course this was all before GW started pushing their idiotic pseudo-PL system and turned an emergency "how do we buff guard without a new codex" change into a permanent thing. Purely looking at the stat lines ACs were seldom a good choice, but the fact that they were cheaper than LCs made them a viable option.
Tyel wrote: Hmmm. I kind of remember them being bad. I guess respectable enough for popping rhinos (AV 11) but that's about it. Once you hit AV12 they dropped off considerably - and sufficient bolters could pop AV10 light vehicles (most of which were bad anyway from memory).
How many Guard armies had "sufficient bolters"?
As I said, the Autocannon was the best weapon for the Guard. It would take out incoming Rhinos, and eliminate all the various speedy AV10 vehicles out there, and because Guard squads were so cheap weight of firepower could help you with AV12 Eldar units. And, because they fired 2 shots, and Guard hit 50% of the time, they were remarkably consistent.
You have to factor in the context of the weapon. Autocannons were rare in Marine armies, but also not especially useful. In a Guard army? Absolutely wonderful. Paired with a Plasma Gun for when things got closer, you could rip incoming forces apart, leaving them exposed for your bigger guns.
Rare in loyalist marine armies. Autocannon + plasma gun was also a common combo for CSM squads back in the day, for the same reasons. Give those boys Stealth Adept and Infiltrate so that they could get straight up the board and into cover and start causing problems ASAP. Then let the Raptors and the Chosen go hunting. Oh yeah, good times.
Autocannons got a lot of use in my Chaos armies. I usually brought two Havoc squads, and sometimes I'd go 2 AC/2ML, and with Tank Hunters you're putting out 4 S8 and 2 S9 shots down range. At BS3.
Blndmage wrote: My Renegades and Heretics army has 6 Autocannon, 6 Missile Launchers, and 6 Mortar Heavy Weapon Teams.
Deliberately taking bad weapons for lore or aesthetic reasons doesn't address the question of what the best option is. We know you can take sub-optimal choices under any rule system, the question here is how to make them all viable or consolidate options under the assumption that everyone takes the best tool for the job.
Blndmage wrote: My Renegades and Heretics army has 6 Autocannon, 6 Missile Launchers, and 6 Mortar Heavy Weapon Teams.
Deliberately taking bad weapons for lore or aesthetic reasons doesn't address the question of what the best option is. We know you can take sub-optimal choices under any rule system, the question here is how to make them all viable or consolidate options under the assumption that everyone takes the best tool for the job.
Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
Insectum7 wrote: Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
I doubt it, given that R&H are a bottom-tier "army", autocannons are equal or worse than heavy bolters against virtually ever target type now that they're both D2, and frag missiles are horribly ineffective even against the things they're supposed to be good at killing. Those choices may be 100% appropriate based on lore or having models that look cool but there's no competitive argument for them regardless of meta.
Insectum7 wrote: Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
There was never a reason to take Missile Launchers in a Guard army. Autocannons were more effective than an S8 Krak against every target up to a certain point (because they fired 2 shots a turn to the Krak's 1 shot), equal to Kraks at one point, and then after that a Lascannon was better the Krak for what the AC couldn't hurt.
Literally a purposeless weapon in 3rd-7th-era Guard.
My competitive period was brief, but it focused mostly on Guard (and a bit of 3.5 Chaos), so I've put a lot of energy into this. I'm very strict when it comes to Guard weapons. Efficiency and fire order was very important, and the missile launcher played no role whatsoever.
If we start eliminating weapons just because they aren't currently "competitive", then we'll quickly be left with nothing, considering how quickly gw swings their "Balance Pendulum". Just because something isn't competitive now, doesn't mean it won't be in another edition (or even a few months), or vice-versa.
Gadzilla666 wrote: If we start eliminating weapons just because they aren't currently "competitive", then we'll quickly be left with nothing, considering how quickly gw swings their "Balance Pendulum". Just because something isn't competitive now, doesn't mean it won't be in another edition (or even a few months), or vice-versa.
We can only deal with the game as it exists now, not as it might in a hypothetical future edition. And under the current rules ACs are just worse HBs. There's a clear failure to make both weapons viable, no obvious path to fixing the problem, and therefore no real argument against consolidating them into a single weapon.
Gadzilla666 wrote: If we start eliminating weapons just because they aren't currently "competitive", then we'll quickly be left with nothing, considering how quickly gw swings their "Balance Pendulum". Just because something isn't competitive now, doesn't mean it won't be in another edition (or even a few months), or vice-versa.
We can only deal with the game as it exists now, not as it might in a hypothetical future edition. And under the current rules ACs are just worse HBs. There's a clear failure to make both weapons viable, no obvious path to fixing the problem, and therefore no real argument against consolidating them into a single weapon.
Fix the current wounding table. Done. Dang. That was hard.
Gadzilla666 wrote: If we start eliminating weapons just because they aren't currently "competitive", then we'll quickly be left with nothing, considering how quickly gw swings their "Balance Pendulum". Just because something isn't competitive now, doesn't mean it won't be in another edition (or even a few months), or vice-versa.
We can only deal with the game as it exists now, not as it might in a hypothetical future edition. And under the current rules ACs are just worse HBs. There's a clear failure to make both weapons viable, no obvious path to fixing the problem, and therefore no real argument against consolidating them into a single weapon.
Fix the current wounding table. Done. Dang. That was hard.
Ya know, a D12 would help with more granular wounding to give certain weapons defined roles again
Insectum7 wrote: Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
There was never a reason to take Missile Launchers in a Guard army. They were move effective than an S8 Krak against every target up to a certain point (because they fired 2 shots a turn to the Krak's 1 shot), equal to Kraks at one point, and then after that a Lascannon was better the Krak for what the AC couldn't hurt.
Literally a purposeless weapon in 3rd-7th-era Guard.
My competitive period was brief, but it focused mostly on Guard (and a bit of 3.5 Chaos), so I've put a lot of energy into this. I'm very strict when it comes to Guard weapons. Efficiency and fire order was very important, and the missile launcher played no role whatsoever.
I'd argue that the Missile Launcher could be useful especially in the 3-7 era because it's got the blast option (that used a real blast!), and the Heavy couldn't fire at a different target than the squad. Firing at a tank meant your squad Lasguns are wasted. But if your Infantry are on "kill-gaunts-duty", the frag has a place, and you still have a serviceable AT option. Depending on the foes you're facing, having that option could be really useful. Not every meta is marine-saturated.
For a time in 3rd I used more Flamers than the norm because I fought a lot of Orks, Guard, Nids and Dark Eldar, for example. The weapon met the opponents I was encountering. It was more optimal for me than the typical Las/Plas of the time.
Insectum7 wrote: Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
I doubt it, given that R&H are a bottom-tier "army", autocannons are equal or worse than heavy bolters against virtually ever target type now that they're both D2, and frag missiles are horribly ineffective even against the things they're supposed to be good at killing. Those choices may be 100% appropriate based on lore or having models that look cool but there's no competitive argument for them regardless of meta.
Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play. Nor do you know the opponents being fought against. There's probably a niche the MLs and ACs still fill. For example, if they're seeing a lot of action against hordes, having access to that Blast could be very useful.
For example, they vould be fighting against a lot of Harlequins and Daemons. Armies with lots of invulnerable saves but low toughness, even on vehicles. The usual advantages of Plasma and Lascannons are kinda wasted there.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play.
There is nothing about the rest of the army that can make ACs viable. GW failed at math and/or didn't care that the HB buff would make ACs obsolete, probably because space marines don't have any ACs, and now they're just worse HBs. Looking at it purely from a rules point of view, without considering any lore or aesthetic factors, you should never put any ACs in your list if you can take a HB instead.
Plus, like I said, R&H aren't even a real army. They're a legends-only pseudo-army with few units, no updates since early 9th, and no stratagems/WLTs/etc to keep up with real armies. By even putting a R&H army on the table at all you're conceding that you aren't interested in list optimization. Which is absolutely fine! Not all games need to be competitive matches where you try to win in the list building phase. But taking sub-optimal units and armies for lore or aesthetic reasons isn't relevant to the rule issues we're talking about.
Insectum7 wrote: I'd argue that the Missile Launcher could be useful especially in the 3-7 era because it's got the blast option (that used a real blast!), and the Heavy couldn't fire at a different target than the squad.
Frags? In what world did 3rd/4th/5th Guard need Frags? And wasting lasguns? Firing Lasguns was a waste of time. I spend most of my games never using my Lasguns. Guardsmen were ablative wounds for the Special/Heavy. Their weapons weren't ornamental like Officer weapons, but they certainly shouldn't be used if things were going well.
Insectum7 wrote: But if your Infantry are on "kill-gaunts-duty", the frag has a place...
Heavy Bolters were cheaper and better at it. Frag Missiles needed mass to work, it's why 4 Grenade Launchers was almost passable, and why 4 Missile Launchers was the de factor default for most Devastator squads at the time.
Insectum7 wrote: ... and you still have a serviceable AT option.
The point is it was a compromise - it was kinda ok at two things rather than being good at one thing. You had 6 turns to make your mark, meaning you would fail 3 of those turns, and weapons that were jack of all trades didn't really belong. You needed things that worked when they hit, or were consistent. Missile Launchers were neither of those things.
Insectum7 wrote: For a time in 3rd I used more Flamers than the norm because I fought a lot of Orks, Guard, Nids and Dark Eldar, for example. The weapon met the opponents I was encountering. It was more optimal for me than the typical Las/Plas of the time.
I used a lot of flamers as well. 4 of them. In 2 Command Squads. With Drop Troops. Eliminated far more than they were ever worth.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play.
There is nothing about the rest of the army that can make ACs viable.
A pts change will do it. A bolter being better than a lasgun is okay if the pts reflect it.
That's not the point. The claim was that ACs could be a viable choice (ignoring fluff or aesthetic factors) right now in Blindmage's existing army. You could fix the problem by changing point costs but right now they both have the same cost and hypothetical re-balancing of legends rules that do not get updates has nothing to do with the post you quoted.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play.
There is nothing about the rest of the army that can make ACs viable.
A pts change will do it. A bolter being better than a lasgun is okay if the pts reflect it.
That's not the point. The claim was that ACs could be a viable choice (ignoring fluff or aesthetic factors) right now in Blindmage's existing army. You could fix the problem by changing point costs but right now they both have the same cost and hypothetical re-balancing of legends rules that do not get updates has nothing to do with the post you quoted.
Autocannons are better vs t6 and the same vs t7, not saying it justifies their existence but if you play into a lot of t6 monsters/transports then autocannons are better (working on bs4+).
T5 hits, wound roll, converted
Hb 1.5 x 0.5 = 0.75
Ac 1 x 0.67 = 0.67
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play.
There is nothing about the rest of the army that can make ACs viable.
A pts change will do it. A bolter being better than a lasgun is okay if the pts reflect it.
That's not the point. The claim was that ACs could be a viable choice (ignoring fluff or aesthetic factors) right now in Blindmage's existing army. You could fix the problem by changing point costs but right now they both have the same cost and hypothetical re-balancing of legends rules that do not get updates has nothing to do with the post you quoted.
I was trying to comment on a broader level, we know that usually either plasma or melta is better, but how much better one is will be decided by pts. Instead of getting caught up in whether heavy bolters are too good against vehicles relative to autocannons the question should be does it feel good to shoot heavy bolters and does it feel good to shoot autocannons and do the stats adhere to the fluff? If they do then the stats don't need to be changed. All that needs to be changed is pts costs to make the autocannon more pts-efficient in some situations while the heavy bolter is more pts-efficient in other situations.
vict0988 wrote: the question should be does it feel good to shoot heavy bolters and does it feel good to shoot autocannons and do the stats adhere to the fluff?
Which fluff? Pick up 5 different lore pieces involving heavy bolters and/or autocannons and you get 5 different iterations (and 2 will completely oppose each other) of how they work.
vict0988 wrote: the question should be does it feel good to shoot heavy bolters and does it feel good to shoot autocannons and do the stats adhere to the fluff?
Which fluff? Pick up 5 different lore pieces involving heavy bolters and/or autocannons and you get 5 different iterations (and 2 will completely oppose each other) of how they work.
Larger versions of the boltgun, heavy bolters are deadly weapons that fire fist-sized bolts at the enemy. With a staggering rate of fire and shells even more lethal than the standard boltgun, heavy bolters put the fear of the Dark Gods into enemy infantry.
The heavy bolter is an effective anti-personnel cannon that fires hails of mass-reactive bolts into the enemy and blows them apart from within
...cutting down hordes of enemy infantry with a staggering rate of fire.
An enormous version of the bolter, the heavy bolter fires fist-sized bolts at the enemy with a staggering rate of fire.
Auto cannon are automatic, self-loading weapons that fire large calibre, high velocity explosive shells. A masterful unification of rate of fire and destructive power, autocannon rounds are most effectively used against light vehicles or particularly tough infantry.They are the weapon of choice when facing the larger of the Tyranid bioconstructs, as well as the ramshackle buggies utilised by the Ork tribes.
...The most common patterns of Predator are the anti-infantry Destructor – notable for its long-barrelled autocannon...
Autocannons fire large calibre, high velocity shells at a prodigious rate. They are the heavy weapon of choice for commanders facing large infantry formations and lightly armoured vehicles.
Insectum7 wrote: I'd argue that the Missile Launcher could be useful especially in the 3-7 era because it's got the blast option (that used a real blast!), and the Heavy couldn't fire at a different target than the squad.
Frags? In what world did 3rd/4th/5th Guard need Frags? And wasting lasguns? Firing Lasguns was a waste of time. I spend most of my games never using my Lasguns. Guardsmen were ablative wounds for the Special/Heavy. Their weapons weren't ornamental like Officer weapons, but they certainly shouldn't be used if things were going well.
The question isn't whether or not you should have been taking MLs or not in your meta, or firing your Lasguns, either. The question is whether or not there is some situations in which the ML is the right choice. In a meta that's heavy with swarms of light troops, the Frags can get more hits. If the opponent is bunching up in cover where the Blast hits more models and they're going to get a cover save anyways (making the AP of the HB useless), Frags can have an advantage. They also have more range, and occasionally 36" doesn't cut it and 48" will.
Insectum7 wrote: But if your Infantry are on "kill-gaunts-duty", the frag has a place...
Heavy Bolters were cheaper and better at it. Frag Missiles needed mass to work, it's why 4 Grenade Launchers was almost passable, and why 4 Missile Launchers was the de factor default for most Devastator squads at the time.
HBs might have been cheaper and often better at killing infantry, but HBs lack the option to go AT like the Missile Launcher.
Not sure what "4 Missile Launchers was the de factor default for most Devastator squads at the time" means then. . . are you saying that MLs are good?
Insectum7 wrote: ... and you still have a serviceable AT option.
The point is it was a compromise - it was kinda ok at two things rather than being good at one thing. You had 6 turns to make your mark, meaning you would fail 3 of those turns, and weapons that were jack of all trades didn't really belong. You needed things that worked when they hit, or were consistent. Missile Launchers were neither of those things.
I'll never agree with that premise. Switching roles via ammunition can be a valuable tool to have in the toolbox. Frags may not have been as good at killing light infantry as HBs, but they're certainly better at it than Lascannons. Kraks may not be as good as Lascannons for AT, but they're certainly better than HBs. Every time you optimize your choice you lose the ability to do the opposite role, and MLs are specifically balanced so that you always have something reasonable, even if not the best.
Insectum7 wrote: For a time in 3rd I used more Flamers than the norm because I fought a lot of Orks, Guard, Nids and Dark Eldar, for example. The weapon met the opponents I was encountering. It was more optimal for me than the typical Las/Plas of the time.
I used a lot of flamers as well. 4 of them. In 2 Command Squads. With Drop Troops. Eliminated far more than they were ever worth.
Right, well . . . "You were totally wrong to choose flamers. Everybody knows that Plasma is/was the optimal choice. Flamers have no role in 40K and the only reason you think that they do is because you're a filthy casual." right?
Here's a thought exercise. Say you have 8 Infantry Squads. You can give them HBs, Lascannons, or Missile Launchers. If you arms 4 with HBs (because they're specialized anti-infantry) and 4 Lascannons (specialized anti-tank), and you have one turn to inflict damage on a single target that presents itself (because sometimes you have to kill a specific unit in an emergency). Like, are there targets where 8 Krak missiles will outperform 4 Las and 4 HBs? Are there targets where 8 Frags will outperform 4 Las and 4 HB? Seems like there would be.
Edit: Some math (ignoring to-hit roll since it's doesn't change the comparative outcomes)
4 HBs and 4 Las against Gaunt blobs: (4x3x.666x.83)+(4x.83)=9.95
8 Frag Missiles against Gaunt blobs: (8x6x.666x.666)=21.2
4 HBs and 4 Las against a Dreadnought (AoC+-1Damage): (4x3x.333x.333)+(4x.666x.666x2.5)=5.7
8 Krak Missiles against a Dreadnought (AoC+-1Damage): (8x.666x.5x2.5)=6.66
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe, but you don't know how the rest of the army is outfitted and what roles they're expected to play.
There is nothing about the rest of the army that can make ACs viable.
A pts change will do it. A bolter being better than a lasgun is okay if the pts reflect it.
That's not the point. The claim was that ACs could be a viable choice (ignoring fluff or aesthetic factors) right now in Blindmage's existing army. You could fix the problem by changing point costs but right now they both have the same cost and hypothetical re-balancing of legends rules that do not get updates has nothing to do with the post you quoted.
Autocannons are better vs t6 and the same vs t7, not saying it justifies their existence but if you play into a lot of t6 monsters/transports then autocannons are better (working on bs4+).
T5 hits, wound roll, converted
Hb 1.5 x 0.5 = 0.75
Ac 1 x 0.67 = 0.67
T6
1.5 x 0.33 = 0.5
1 x 0.67 = 0.67
T7
1.5 x 0.33 = 0.5
1 x 0.5 = 0.5
Good job showing just how bad the current wounding table is. Now, let's see what happens if we revert to the old wounding table.
For those who are only familiar with 8th/9th edition, this changes the breakpoints for wounding on 2s/6s, so that instead of needing to "double out" Strength/Toughness to reach those points, you instead need to be +/- 2 or more. For example, a S3 weapon hitting a T5 target would need 6s to wound (instead of the current 5s), while a S7 weapon hitting the same T5 target would need 2s to wound (instead of the current 3s). Now, let's see how this changes the balance of heavy bolters and autocannons (working with BS4+, same as above):
T5 hits, wound roll, converted
Hb 1.5 x 0.5 = 0.75
Ac 1 x 0.83 = 0.83
T6 Same as current wounding table
T7
Hb 1.5 x 0.16 = 0.250
Ac 1 x 0.5 = 0.5
And for further comparison
T4
Hb 1.5 x 0.66 = 1
Ac 1 x .83 = 0.83
T3
Hb 1.5 x 0.83 = 1.245
Ac 1 x 0.83 = 0.83
So, with the old wounding table, heavy bolters are superior at dealing with light/medium infantry, while autocannons are superior at dealing with heavy infantry/light armour, which is exactly how they're supposed to work in lore, as shown by vict0988 on the previous page.
The current wounding table is garbage, and is a major contributor to the loss of clearly defined roles for many weapons. It needs to go.
The current wounding table is garbage, and is a major contributor to the loss of clearly defined roles for many weapons. It needs to go.
Very much so, yes.
Here's a fun observation. FRAG Missiles are actually BETTER against Dreadnoughts than Heavy Bolters. T7 means they have the same to-wound (5+), AoC means the HBsAP is ignored, and Duty Eternal means the HB only does one wound.
So the newest "version" of HBs was clearly a calculated choice to upgun the existing model in order to more easily deal with multi-wound infantry (Primaris). Now that everyone and their dog has two wounds, it's something of a banality. If you dropped it back to H3 S5 AP1 D1, it would even out the silly cast of characters that is the Space Marine Armory.
The current wounding table is garbage, and is a major contributor to the loss of clearly defined roles for many weapons. It needs to go.
Very much so, yes.
Here's a fun observation. FRAG Missiles are actually BETTER against Dreadnoughts than Heavy Bolters. T7 means they have the same to-wound (5+), AoC means the HBsAP is ignored, and Duty Eternal means the HB only does one wound.
The latter two are fixes that shouldn't have happened by competent rules writers though
^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
Plus, like I said, R&H aren't even a real army. They're a legends-only pseudo-army with few units, no updates since early 9th, and no stratagems/WLTs/etc to keep up with real armies. By even putting a R&H army on the table at all you're conceding that you aren't interested in list optimization. Which is absolutely fine! Not all games need to be competitive matches where you try to win in the list building phase. But taking sub-optimal units and armies for lore or aesthetic reasons isn't relevant to the rule issues we're talking about.
I enjoy the simplicity of the army, the lore and aesthetic are why I love the faction.
The army is perfectly legal and has rules. You have no cause to rip it down. It's not my fault they Legended it.
Yeah and right from the start of this I've been talking about the 3rd-7th era, so...
So was I, but I'm just also looking at the current interactions too.
The theory remains the same though, through those editions too. The math gets weirder though, because of the old AP system creating breakpoints, and how do you calculate blasts?
Although the dreadnought example is really easy, since Heavy Bolters can't even hurt a Dreadnoughts front armor. Are 8 Missile Launchers better than 4 Lascannons? That's an easy 'yes'.
Insectum7 wrote: ^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
I don't think -1D for a defense is a bad rule EVERYWHERE. Like, for Helbrutes, it's a neat rule, and I'd like to have seen it applied to Daemon Engines overall. However, it was stuck on EVERY Dread and Dread equivalent. That's a no-no.
Insectum7 wrote:^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
Right. They should have fixed what was causing the problems, instead of leaving it there, and just throwing more rules at it. Don't even get me started on the whole invulnerable saves, weapons that ignore those invulnerable saves, and "super" invulnerable saves that can't be ignored mess.
^I mean, the whole of the post in response to HBMC I was also talking 3-7. I just brought the last bit into the current edition to broaden the excercise, because not all of the conversation was limited to 3-7. Again, the principles remain the same. You can split your weapons into specialties, and that's what most people do. But sometimes it's advantageous to get rid of a single target more immediately, and being able to put more weapons on it even if individually less effective than specialists, can be a decent choice.
Blndmage wrote: I enjoy the simplicity of the army, the lore and aesthetic are why I love the faction.
The army is perfectly legal and has rules. You have no cause to rip it down. It's not my fault they Legended it.
Sure. It's legal. And I'm sure you have great fluff and amazingly painted models for it. But it's still a bottom-tier army from GW's dumping ground for stuff they don't want to support anymore, and once you get into deliberately taking bad options you're no longer dealing with the game design issues this conversation is about.
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Gadzilla666 wrote: Now, let's see what happens if we revert to the old wounding table.
Yep. We definitely need the old table back to have any hope of properly differentiating the various weapons, even if it means doing some major re-balancing to work with it. And TBHMEQs need to go back to having a single wound so we can scale back a bunch of the stat inflation.
Insectum7 wrote: ^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
I don't think -1D for a defense is a bad rule EVERYWHERE. Like, for Helbrutes, it's a neat rule, and I'd like to have seen it applied to Daemon Engines overall. However, it was stuck on EVERY Dread and Dread equivalent. That's a no-no.
Without it dreadnoughts would not be played. the -1D and stuff like the primaris dread was one of the few things keeping marines afloat for some time. And custodes entire army is based around the fact that they spam the living hell out of dreadnoughts with -1D. Without it and damage efficiency other armies have right now, playing the army right now would make no sense. And it is not like it makes the elite armies the best thing in the world. GK NDK were again an example where without the -1D and/or inv the unit loses a ton of its efficiency, can't be replaced by anything and the army drops in efficiency a lot.
Its the usual problem that GW can't be consistent - and just doesn't design rules in a holistic way.
So for example, while its arguably not the most eloquent design, -1 damage on Dreads (and potentially other things) could be entirely reasonable because it stops 2 damage being the auto-take into everything which was the accusation of 8th edition. Giving some variety of defensive stats is a good idea.
But since GW don't think on that basis, they just chucked it out as a buff to dreads who need it because dreads seemed to be collectively viewed as bad. As they would then go on to chuck buffs on about half the units in the game.
I feel the most bizarre example of this is Ork vehicles (sorry Orks) and Ramshackle. Especially with the new Buggies, koptas etc Orks have the potential to bring a significant number of light vehicles. I.E. exactly the sort of thing you should be pointing autocannons at. But the Ramshackle rule (-1 damage if below S8) makes them the worst thing to use. (You could even double down further with Snakebites...)
From a sensible gameplay design view point - it should be precisely the opposite - where they get a defensive buff versus big S8+ weapons. This means you are motivated to bring some Autocannons (or whatever your faction equivalent is) for a more TAC style list. Rather than "yes, the same weapons that will work into a T9 super-heavy are also the optimal weapons for blowing up trukks."
I'm sure someone would come in going "but but but the fluff, a melta gun should do more damage than an autocannon to any vehicle" - but I'm not sure that holds up, given the fluff has been - and will continue to be - cut and changed as needs require. I.E. "Ork vehicles are ramshackle affairs, with a great many parts that don't actually serve any useful purpose. As a result the single-target shots of Lascannons and Melta guns that punch straight through these elements are often less effective than a hail of shells from an autocannon that should find a critical component". Done.
I can't really get overly excited about the old to wound table - because much like the old AP system, I feel it had been solved, and people leaned on GW to include "solutions" in their codexes. The good factions (Eldar, Tau, Marines etc) got them. The suck factions mostly did not. I realise this always prompts a response of "3rd to 7th evolution didn't have to lead us to 7th" - but it did. It may have been a bit better really early on (i.e. 3rd) - but given I was about 12-18~ for that edition my play experience was probably less optimised than would be the case today. Everyone playing White Dwarf-esque soft-Highlander armies has always produced more balanced games than "here is my starcannon spam, enjoy."
Insectum7 wrote: Or maybe they're the right options for the army context in which they're deployed, because other people might make different composition decisions and play in different local metas?
I doubt it, given that R&H are a bottom-tier "army", autocannons are equal or worse than heavy bolters against virtually ever target type now that they're both D2, and frag missiles are horribly ineffective even against the things they're supposed to be good at killing. Those choices may be 100% appropriate based on lore or having models that look cool but there's no competitive argument for them regardless of meta.
oh boi. AC and ML were top choices in the past for R&H, for a multitude of reasons for Infantry support squads in small armies.
For one unlike guard squads R&H squads had worse BS and more members for cheaper, making the Krak actually a nice option.
Insectum7 wrote: ^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
I don't think -1D for a defense is a bad rule EVERYWHERE. Like, for Helbrutes, it's a neat rule, and I'd like to have seen it applied to Daemon Engines overall. However, it was stuck on EVERY Dread and Dread equivalent. That's a no-no.
Without it dreadnoughts would not be played. the -1D and stuff like the primaris dread was one of the few things keeping marines afloat for some time. And custodes entire army is based around the fact that they spam the living hell out of dreadnoughts with -1D. Without it and damage efficiency other armies have right now, playing the army right now would make no sense. And it is not like it makes the elite armies the best thing in the world. GK NDK were again an example where without the -1D and/or inv the unit loses a ton of its efficiency, can't be replaced by anything and the army drops in efficiency a lot.
That is untrue, if the pts were low enough they would be played. SM vehicles other than Dreadnoughts do see occasional play and they don't have -1D, that's the proof that you are wrong. There are teeny-tiny things that are viable in 40k and huge giant things that are viable, there are tiny things that are awful and huge things that are awful, it just comes down to points. Not whether a unit has X or Y super powerful ability or whether it's a horde unit that can capture objectives and deny board control which is super important in 9th, those are rationalisations made after it is discovered that a unit is pts-efficient enough to be viable. Brimstone Horrors aren't going to be killing much of anything, so obviously if they're viable it's because they're doing something else pts-efficiently. If multi melta Attack Bikes are viable then it's going to look like it's because they are mobile and deal lots of damage. If Brimstones are bad then you can point out how they don't do any damage and if Attack Bikes are bad then you can point how how they'll die to a single dark lance shot. It's like astrology calendars.
Insectum7 wrote: ^Agree. The weird, discordant math is a result of weird, discordant rules.
If they'd just gone with the old to-wound chart, knocked off an AP point off everything (rather than AoC), and dumped the -1 to Damage, the game would probably be in a better place.
I don't think -1D for a defense is a bad rule EVERYWHERE. Like, for Helbrutes, it's a neat rule, and I'd like to have seen it applied to Daemon Engines overall. However, it was stuck on EVERY Dread and Dread equivalent. That's a no-no.
Without it dreadnoughts would not be played. the -1D and stuff like the primaris dread was one of the few things keeping marines afloat for some time. And custodes entire army is based around the fact that they spam the living hell out of dreadnoughts with -1D. Without it and damage efficiency other armies have right now, playing the army right now would make no sense. And it is not like it makes the elite armies the best thing in the world. GK NDK were again an example where without the -1D and/or inv the unit loses a ton of its efficiency, can't be replaced by anything and the army drops in efficiency a lot.
That is untrue, if the pts were low enough they would be played. SM vehicles other than Dreadnoughts do see occasional play and they don't have -1D, that's the proof that you are wrong. There are teeny-tiny things that are viable in 40k and huge giant things that are viable, there are tiny things that are awful and huge things that are awful, it just comes down to points. Not whether a unit has X or Y super powerful ability or whether it's a horde unit that can capture objectives and deny board control which is super important in 9th, those are rationalisations made after it is discovered that a unit is pts-efficient enough to be viable. Brimstone Horrors aren't going to be killing much of anything, so obviously if they're viable it's because they're doing something else pts-efficiently. If multi melta Attack Bikes are viable then it's going to look like it's because they are mobile and deal lots of damage. If Brimstones are bad then you can point out how they don't do any damage and if Attack Bikes are bad then you can point how how they'll die to a single dark lance shot. It's like astrology calendars.
Sometimes pts/efficiency aren't even a consideration. For ex; I know multiple Ork players that'll happily use Morkanaughts/Gorkanaughts/stompas - simply because they like the idea of these things/like the models. People can do all the math they like "proving" how bad these things are play-wise & it won't deter these players.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Now, let's see what happens if we revert to the old wounding table.
Yep. We definitely need the old table back to have any hope of properly differentiating the various weapons, even if it means doing some major re-balancing to work with it. And TBHMEQs need to go back to having a single wound so we can scale back a bunch of the stat inflation.
I don't disagree with your latter point. But that really would require a "full reset", as there has been a lot of stat inflation to get everyone else caught up with Marines. Definitely not opposed to the idea though.
Tyel wrote:Its the usual problem that GW can't be consistent - and just doesn't design rules in a holistic way.
So for example, while its arguably not the most eloquent design, -1 damage on Dreads (and potentially other things) could be entirely reasonable because it stops 2 damage being the auto-take into everything which was the accusation of 8th edition. Giving some variety of defensive stats is a good idea.
But since GW don't think on that basis, they just chucked it out as a buff to dreads who need it because dreads seemed to be collectively viewed as bad. As they would then go on to chuck buffs on about half the units in the game.
I feel the most bizarre example of this is Ork vehicles (sorry Orks) and Ramshackle. Especially with the new Buggies, koptas etc Orks have the potential to bring a significant number of light vehicles. I.E. exactly the sort of thing you should be pointing autocannons at. But the Ramshackle rule (-1 damage if below S8) makes them the worst thing to use. (You could even double down further with Snakebites...)
From a sensible gameplay design view point - it should be precisely the opposite - where they get a defensive buff versus big S8+ weapons. This means you are motivated to bring some Autocannons (or whatever your faction equivalent is) for a more TAC style list. Rather than "yes, the same weapons that will work into a T9 super-heavy are also the optimal weapons for blowing up trukks."
I'm sure someone would come in going "but but but the fluff, a melta gun should do more damage than an autocannon to any vehicle" - but I'm not sure that holds up, given the fluff has been - and will continue to be - cut and changed as needs require. I.E. "Ork vehicles are ramshackle affairs, with a great many parts that don't actually serve any useful purpose. As a result the single-target shots of Lascannons and Melta guns that punch straight through these elements are often less effective than a hail of shells from an autocannon that should find a critical component". Done.
I can't really get overly excited about the old to wound table - because much like the old AP system, I feel it had been solved, and people leaned on GW to include "solutions" in their codexes. The good factions (Eldar, Tau, Marines etc) got them. The suck factions mostly did not. I realise this always prompts a response of "3rd to 7th evolution didn't have to lead us to 7th" - but it did. It may have been a bit better really early on (i.e. 3rd) - but given I was about 12-18~ for that edition my play experience was probably less optimised than would be the case today. Everyone playing White Dwarf-esque soft-Highlander armies has always produced more balanced games than "here is my starcannon spam, enjoy."
What exactly are the "solutions" to the old to-wound chart that your referring to? And do you think that similar solutions haven't been implemented for the current one? Do you find the current to-wound chart superior, and if so, how? Because I can't think of any way that it isn't inferior.
Gadzilla666 wrote: What exactly are the "solutions" to the old to-wound chart that your referring to? And do you think that similar solutions haven't been implemented for the current one? Do you find the current to-wound chart superior, and if so, how? Because I can't think of any way that it isn't inferior.
Well once you are S6 and up you are wounding T4 on 2s - which was a huge percentage of things in the game. You are also insta-deathing T3 characters - which is nice. This was part of the advantage of Scatbikes - whose S6 meant they could punch down Marines (sure no AP, but if they'd been AP4 it would have often been wasted), murder GEQ characters and also glance to death anything AV12 or lower. (So most things from some angle).
I don't know if the new system is superior exactly - I think GW broke it by offensive creep all through 2021 and has spent the last year trying to fix it with defensive creep. But I do think its theoretically a more balanced system, without all the tipping points of the old version.
Gadzilla666 wrote: I don't disagree with your latter point. But that really would require a "full reset", as there has been a lot of stat inflation to get everyone else caught up with Marines. Definitely not opposed to the idea though.
Yeah, that's the premise of this thread: a full reset. The game desperately needs one, it's just a question of whether GW has the ability to do it or not. And based on their record of incompetence so far the answer is almost certainly "no".
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Not Online!!! wrote: oh boi. AC and ML were top choices in the past for R&H, for a multitude of reasons for Infantry support squads in small armies.
For one unlike guard squads R&H squads had worse BS and more members for cheaper, making the Krak actually a nice option.
For two, same with AC.
BS is irrelevant when comparing weapon options. If the AC is pointless at BS 2+ it's exactly equally bad at BS 6+. And ACs and HBs have the same cost for R&H.
Gadzilla666 wrote: I don't disagree with your latter point. But that really would require a "full reset", as there has been a lot of stat inflation to get everyone else caught up with Marines. Definitely not opposed to the idea though.
Yeah, that's the premise of this thread: a full reset. The game desperately needs one, it's just a question of whether GW has the ability to do it or not. And based on their record of incompetence so far the answer is almost certainly "no".
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Not Online!!! wrote: oh boi. AC and ML were top choices in the past for R&H, for a multitude of reasons for Infantry support squads in small armies.
For one unlike guard squads R&H squads had worse BS and more members for cheaper, making the Krak actually a nice option.
For two, same with AC.
BS is irrelevant when comparing weapon options. If the AC is pointless at BS 2+ it's exactly equally bad at BS 6+. And ACs and HBs have the same cost for R&H.
They mean you can have more of the R&H troops therefore more of the heavy weapon and yes the BS does factor in, a BS 2+ anti armour weapon is reliable on the hit rate for a 1 shot weapon, at BS 6+ having multiple opportunities increases odds of success, even if the total theoretical damage output is the same on paper.
Dudeface wrote: They mean you can have more of the R&H troops therefore more of the heavy weapon and yes the BS does factor in, a BS 2+ anti armour weapon is reliable on the hit rate for a 1 shot weapon, at BS 6+ having multiple opportunities increases odds of success, even if the total theoretical damage output is the same on paper.
Neither of these things matter.
AC and HB have the same cost, whether it's 6 HBs vs 6 ACs or 1 HB vs 1 AC or 10 HBs vs 10 ACs the relative value of HBs and ACs is exactly the same and HBs are the clear winner.
BS is only relevant if you don't understand statistics and/or value the good feelings of "accomplishing something" by hitting even if you fail to do any damage. Hitting is not the goal, dead models is, and the higher hit rate of ACs is more than offset by the lower wound rate, failed save rate, and inflicted damage.
Dudeface wrote: They mean you can have more of the R&H troops therefore more of the heavy weapon and yes the BS does factor in, a BS 2+ anti armour weapon is reliable on the hit rate for a 1 shot weapon, at BS 6+ having multiple opportunities increases odds of success, even if the total theoretical damage output is the same on paper.
Neither of these things matter.
AC and HB have the same cost, whether it's 6 HBs vs 6 ACs or 1 HB vs 1 AC or 10 HBs vs 10 ACs the relative value of HBs and ACs is exactly the same and HBs are the clear winner.
BS is only relevant if you don't understand statistics and/or value the good feelings of "accomplishing something" by hitting even if you fail to do any damage. Hitting is not the goal, dead models is, and the higher hit rate of ACs is more than offset by the lower wound rate, failed save rate, and inflicted damage.
Bold statement chief, that i don't understand statistics whilest i clearly pointed to that being the case in the past and in the past the hb most definetly didn't cost the same as the ac and struggled severly due to AV and toughness working far better
There is the issue that different rules interact with different BS differently.
Poor BS is more affected by modifiers and full re-rolls (re-rolls of 1 have the same effect regardless of BS). And in 3rd-7th blasts were less affected by BS than non-blast weapons.
Gadzilla666 wrote: What exactly are the "solutions" to the old to-wound chart that your referring to? And do you think that similar solutions haven't been implemented for the current one? Do you find the current to-wound chart superior, and if so, how? Because I can't think of any way that it isn't inferior.
Well once you are S6 and up you are wounding T4 on 2s - which was a huge percentage of things in the game. You are also insta-deathing T3 characters - which is nice. This was part of the advantage of Scatbikes - whose S6 meant they could punch down Marines (sure no AP, but if they'd been AP4 it would have often been wasted), murder GEQ characters and also glance to death anything AV12 or lower. (So most things from some angle).
I don't know if the new system is superior exactly - I think GW broke it by offensive creep all through 2021 and has spent the last year trying to fix it with defensive creep. But I do think its theoretically a more balanced system, without all the tipping points of the old version.
The situation with Scatbikes that you're describing was exactly the same kind of "offensive creep" that you're referring to happening with the current system. I don't see how either wounding table avoids that if gw goes down that road, as they did in both 7th and now in 9th. In both cases it's a matter of gw lacking any discipline in the codex writing process.
And I don't understand how the current wounding table is more "balanced", as the way it flattens everything just leads to mid strength high RoF weapons with multi-damage being king, as they're "good enough" against most targets.
Yeah if you don't think that the potential or statistical average amount of hits you can get (ie. the Ballistic Skill) is important to working out the efficacy of weaponry, then really what are you trying to prove?
Yes, the idiotic 8th/9th To Wound chart skews things a bit, making weight of fire sometimes more important than relative strength/toughness values, but the amount of hits you get in the first place will always be important.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Yeah if you don't think that the potential or statistical average amount of hits you can get (ie. the Ballistic Skill) is important to working out the efficacy of weaponry, then really what are you trying to prove?
It isn't relevant at all, this is simple math. BS is multiplicative and multiplying two probabilities (AC and HB, for example) by the same number does not change their relative values. If a HB is 50% more effective than an AC against a given target at BS 2+ then it will be 50% more effective against that target at BS 6+. Obviously both weapons will be considerably less effective at the lower BS and the unit as a whole may be ineffective but the relative value of the two options remains constant.
[Yes, the idiotic 8th/9th To Wound chart skews things a bit, making weight of fire sometimes more important than relative strength/toughness values, but the amount of hits you get in the first place will always be important.
When comparing two weapons firing at the same BS the number of hits is determined by the number of shots fired, not by BS.
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no". 
