most of the rules are gone, and the wierdest part, is some releases of minis look amazing, but have bland rules like deathwing knights, thunder wolf calvalry for space wolves? and inner circle companions? they are very very mild. its rare for nerfs this extensive. why would gw make some of the best units rather tame? because people were using them too much? trying to get people to switch?
Nobody is really sure, and while that opinion is divisive, I 100% agree that it feels sanitized. A lot of things have bland rules to me. "Sterile" is how I describe it to friends. It feels so different to what came before, even 9th edition, that it hardly feels like 40k.
It's very hard to pinpoint a single thing, but it feels like something else wearing 40k's skin to me. It's telling that I enjoyed 8th and, to a lesser extent, 9th, but 10th I played a few games of and just can't bring myself to bother with it, as it feels so hollow and unsatisfying to play (again, YMMV)
Which rules? A lot of the nitty gritty (read: mostly a waste of time) rules got dropped in the transition from 7th to 8th. From 9th to 10th, we lost subfaction rules and some of the generic strats, but we gained a bunch of unit-specific rules plus some USRs.
and the wierdest part, is some releases of minis look amazing, but have bland rules like deathwing knights, thunder wolf calvalry for space wolves? and inner circle companions? they are very very mild. its rare for nerfs this extensive. why would gw make some of the best units rather tame? because people were using them too much? trying to get people to switch?
Did T-cav get a release recently? I thought we were still using the 5th edition models for them. In general, what's considered good or bad varies over time in 40k. What was good in one edition may be less good in the next and vice versa. Especially in the case of units that were considered too good in recent years.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wayniac wrote: Nobody is really sure, and while that opinion is divisive, I 100% agree that it feels sanitized. A lot of things have bland rules to me. "Sterile" is how I describe it to friends. It feels so different to what came before, even 9th edition, that it hardly feels like 40k.
It's very hard to pinpoint a single thing, but it feels like something else wearing 40k's skin to me. It's telling that I enjoyed 8th and, to a lesser extent, 9th, but 10th I played a few games of and just can't bring myself to bother with it, as it feels so hollow and unsatisfying to play (again, YMMV)
Can you elaborate on that a bit? Words like "sterile" and "sanitized" make me think of either removing contraversial rules or else updating content to be less "offensive" to the faint of heart. I'm not sure 10th really did either of those things to a notable degree. Perhaps there's a more accurate word we should be using?
well for example all the psycic rules are gone, grey knights feel like an empty shell they have movement, but dont feel like grey knights, all thier psycic abilities, are weaker versions other armies get all the time. Hammer hands for example is onley lethal hits on the charge, grandmaster is lackluster, with once per game stratagem, no wargear at all, they really needed the hammers and halberds, and even less shooting untill recently the dreadnight was crap, and couldnt hit the broad side of a barn with sub par wepons at a 4+ even with super elite status, other mosters got upgraded, and the dreadnight got alot worse. but its slightly better now, playable. oh and many factions have anti psycic rules, so if you are psycic and grey knights are, its more of a debuff then a buff. they had 8 brotherhoods and each one was amazing and fun to play, i didnt even get to try them all. now you have one way to play and no differences, its ether dreadnight and librarians, or nothing much like riptide lists. well i guess you could use tanks but it feels so bland, no legends of titan, you have to run away hide and deny scoring, and too many toughness 7 units witn -1 to wound, so you have to wound wraith stuff, squig riders and others on a 6 with extremely exp terminators thier some of the most expensive super elites in the game and they cant take on squig riders? or wraithgaurd? or other units? wth? normal terminators dont have this problem and when i compare a grandmaster or brother captain to thier equivalent space marine heros they just feel ... tacky. space marine detachments, and others were amazing on release, they removed some small things, but other armies are more empty then others. and yes thunder wolf calvary used to be amazing im sure the space wolves would groan about it more but they have lost thier teeth, they used to have some amazing wepons. • Astartes chainsword
• Lightning claw
• Power axe
• Power fist+5
• Power maul
• Power sword
• Thunder hammer+10
now they just have ap1, and a few attacks.
Automatically Appended Next Post: the grey knight index is full of convoluted rules, very holow, even thier descriptions are empty, the soul of the grey knight is purity and thier purity is sacrosant? wth? as oposed to the space marine intro: There is no combat theatre in which the Space Marines cannot excel, no foe they cannot overcome, and no danger they fear to face. They are the elite shock troops of the Imperium, whose lightning-fast campaigns are conducted with such spectacular brutality that they have come to be known as the Angels of Death. fantastic! amazing! but for grey knights well.. psycic space marines that are not psycic, and 0 hype, like they want them dead.
Automatically Appended Next Post: oh and a ton of armies aparently have anti psycic what do psycic wepons do? they count as a psycic attack.. nothing.. absolutely noting. the abilities come from heros or strats thats it. the nemisis wepon is not a special wepon anymore.
I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
yea some rules are cut and paste, grey knights terminators? well them and paladins are basically watered down custodes for the same cost similar abilities. they even gave a massive points cut to custodes and restored thier best rules from 9th and tripled thier power. grey knights? 90% nerf and conditional rules. oh well. wish my rules were unique, theres very little unique about them. but whatever it is what it is. i do wish they had left all the wepons in, having just one wepon for everything doesent work at st 6.
8th, 9th, and 10th are all bad, with each edition out to perform that it can be worse than the edition before it. It started long before that when the tournament shifted from playing base 40k and continued to run their own scenarios.
- 8th edition was the result of them giving GW the finger for 3 editions (maybe more), and finally implementing their version of 40k into the rules. This is where 'Competitive 40k' was born, and it created a separate ruleset from 'Tournament 40k'. This alienated those who were avoiding those events and looking for 40k Tournaments. Needing separate lists to play 7th, and compete in 7th carried over into the actual rules for 8th, and limited Tournaments to players who agreed with the restrictions to be 'Competitive'.
- 9th Edition only made things worse, but those who hadn't already left, simply didn't find any fun in 9th, including myself. It's like they took a look at how bad 8th was and said 'Hold my beer, we can wreck it even more'. It simply wasn't worth the time and effort to learn to play, paint up the miniatures to not enjoy the game, or hobby in general anymore. We could play the armies that we wanted OR we could play the armies to win.
- After seeing how bad 9th was, 10th came in like a best friend, put a comforting arm around 9th, and declared 'Don't worry, I'll make sure you're not the worst'. Those of us who haven't been included in 8th or 9th, but still held on to our stuff, are trying to return to the hobby. I still love the lore, find painting relaxing, but simply struggle to even bother learning to play the game. I'm only a handful of games in, and I'm simply trying to learn how to play my army and I'm even ignoring the objectives just to roll some dice and it's not relaxing or even fun.
The stupid thing is that GW at least took a snapshot and a better rules set exists. Horus Heresy/AoD has provided a far superior rules set to 10th. The outcome is the same though since HH is limited to the armies available. So we have to invest in an army we don't want to play to enjoy a game we used to. 10th we have the armies we want to play, but 'Competitive 40k' has become so restrictive, that we have to run a list that we love and will have fun OR run a list that we don't enjoy to be able to succeed. Every faction will have players telling them that their lists are competitive or not. If a list isn't considered competitive, there doesn't appear to be any attempt to make them competitive, which 10th is a beacon of limiting what is or isn't competitive.
The solution is pretty simple. Release missing faction rules to open up Horus Heresy to the rest of the 40k players. This is what is probably going to need to happen before they realize how bad 8th, 9th, and 10th is, since there is little hope that anything is going to improve for 11th at this stage. That, or someone will create a system and give GW the finger all over again and push this crap out. We already know this works because that's how we got to 10th in the first place.
Well, your experience is your own, and your point of view is valid, but don't make the mistake of believing that opinion is universal or objective.
For me, 9th was the best edition, and I've played them all except 6th and 7th. I think a lot of folks who like RPGs would really like 25PL Crusade in 9th... Which was all I ever played- though one of my forces did grow to 35PL.
I'm not sure how I feel about 10th- I think I can have fun playing it, but I don't think I'll find it as good as previous versions. A lot of how much I can do with 10th will depend on the Sisters and Drukhari dexes- specifically the Crusade content.
lordstarhawk wrote:well for example all the psycic rules are gone
Well, no. Most (all?) of the GK stratagems are psychic abilities being put to use in one way or another, plus at a quick glance, it seems like most of the GK units (if not all) have some sort of psychic ability. Admittedly, Strike Squads' Purifying Ritual isn't a very flashy "psychic" power, but it seems inaccurate to say that "psychic rules are gone." Is it fair to say that what you're trying to identify is that you don't like how psychic abilities are handled (ex: no psychic test) or that you don't like the specific powers that GK *do* have rather than that psychic powers aren't present?
, grey knights feel like an empty shell they have movement, but dont feel like grey knights, all thier psycic abilities, are weaker versions other armies get all the time. Hammer hands for example is onley lethal hits on the charge, grandmaster is lackluster, with once per game stratagem, no wargear at all, they really needed the hammers and halberds, and even less shooting untill recently the dreadnight was crap, and couldnt hit the broad side of a barn with sub par wepons at a 4+ even with super elite status, other mosters got upgraded, and the dreadnight got alot worse. but its slightly better now, playable.., its ether dreadnight and librarians, or nothing much like riptide lists. well i guess you could use tanks but it feels so bland, no legends of titan, you have to run away hide and deny scoring, and too many toughness 7 units witn -1 to wound, so you have to wound wraith stuff, squig riders and others on a 6 with extremely exp terminators thier some of the most expensive super elites in the game and they cant take on squig riders? or wraithgaurd? or other units? wth? normal terminators dont have this problem and when i compare a grandmaster or brother captain to thier equivalent space marine heros they just feel ... tacky. space marine detachments, and others were amazing on release, they removed some small things, but other armies are more empty then others. and yes thunder wolf calvary used to be amazing im sure the space wolves would groan about it more but they have lost thier teeth, they used to have some amazing wepons. • Astartes chainsword
• Lightning claw
• Power axe
• Power fist+5
• Power maul
• Power sword
• Thunder hammer+10
now they just have ap1, and a few attacks.
Okay, so I'm gathering two main complaints here:
1.) You feel like the GK rules don't reflect their modus operandi in the fluff. Which, fair enough. That's probably true for lots of factions/units.
2.) You feel that GK are underpowered. Which again, fair enough. Although it's a little hard to sympathize with someone complaining that they can't one-shot multi-wound elite enemies. (Even if wraithguard are OP at the moment.) But last I heard, GK did in fact have a low win rate, and that stinks.
oh and many factions have anti psycic rules, so if you are psycic and grey knights are, its more of a debuff then a buff.
I had this argument in the thread I linked earlier, but this was sort of always the case. The advantage of having psychic abilities is that you *have* abilities that you otherwise wouldn't. Something being psychic has pretty much always just meant that there's a chance the power won't go off or that it can be shut down by your opponent in some way. That was true in 8-9th. That was true in 7th. It was probably even true in 5th if you ran into the right anti-psychic wargear, but I'm fuzzy on how GK powers interacted with others back then. An effect being psychic has never innately been advantageous. The advantageous part is that your unit can shoot magic fire and teleport around the table in ways that other units can't. What specifically would you be looking to be done differently in regards to this point?
they had 8 brotherhoods and each one was amazing and fun to play, i didnt even get to try them all. now you have one way to play and no differences
I mean, that's what tends to happen during an edition reset. Presumably your codex will include a few different detachments that let your army play in different ways. Criticisms of specific detachments or of how edition resets are handled in general are valid though. But yeah, all but like... 5(?) armies are in the same boat right now.
the grey knight index is full of convoluted rules, very holow, even thier descriptions are empty, the soul of the grey knight is purity and thier purity is sacrosant? wth? as oposed to the space marine intro: There is no combat theatre in which the Space Marines cannot excel, no foe they cannot overcome, and no danger they fear to face. They are the elite shock troops of the Imperium, whose lightning-fast campaigns are conducted with such spectacular brutality that they have come to be known as the Angels of Death. fantastic! amazing! but for grey knights well.. psycic space marines that are not psycic, and 0 hype, like they want them dead.
Well, if you're complaining about flavor text, you're entitled to your opinion. But personally I don't think the entry you're referring to sounds so bad if you quote the full thing:
The soul of the Grey Knights is sacrosanct, and their purity is incorruptible. The silvered armour of this
Chapter’s warriors is bound with incantations, engraved with sigils of warding. Their blades shine with the inner
light of their sanctity, for each of these Space Marines is a psychic warrior, in empyric communion with his
battle-brothers. Empowered by minds constantly on guard, they can cut steel with bare hands, their eyes blaze
with fire and even the power of their words flays the otherworldly skin of daemons. They are the Imperium’s
foremost sword and shield against the daemonic. Guided by the foresight and prophecies of the Chapter’s
Prognosticars, a Grey Knight can adapt to the most irrational of foes and, in a flare of teleportation energies,
emerge at exactly the right location to unleash their devastating power.
That sounds pretty cool, and it works as the elevator pitch for what makes these guys cool:
* Shiny incorruptible boys.
* Lots of psychic powers.
* Magic wargear.
* Strategic decisions made with the benefit of precognition.
Compared to the marine one basically going, "These guys win left and right because of how fast and elite they are," I might even prefer the GK text. Feels like GK actually have something specific to latch onto.
oh and a ton of armies aparently have anti psycic what do psycic wepons do? they count as a psycic attack.. nothing.. absolutely noting. the abilities come from heros or strats thats it. the nemisis wepon is not a special wepon anymore.
What they "do" is have better stats than generic power weapons. A nemesis force weapon is essentially a power sword that's strength 6 where it would be strength 4 for a normal marine and D2 where it would be D1 for a normal marine. Your benefits are just always-on rather than needing to pass a psychic test or what have you. I agree that rolling all the specific weapons together into one profile is kind of lame and that there are more flavorful ways to represent them, but pretending that the weapon's unusual nature isn't being represented in some way feels disingenuous.
EDIT: But if it helps, look at what they're doing with the Thousand Sons detachment rule. I'd be surprised if GK didn't get something similar in their codex.
PenitentJake wrote:Well, your experience is your own, and your point of view is valid, but don't make the mistake of believing that opinion is universal or objective.
For me, 9th was the best edition, and I've played them all except 6th and 7th. I think a lot of folks who like RPGs would really like 25PL Crusade in 9th... Which was all I ever played- though one of my forces did grow to 35PL.
I'm not sure how I feel about 10th- I think I can have fun playing it, but I don't think I'll find it as good as previous versions. A lot of how much I can do with 10th will depend on the Sisters and Drukhari dexes- specifically the Crusade content.
9th was just a bit too much to juggle for me; mostly because of the mission rules on top of the prevalence of strats. 8th was probably my favorite of the last 3. If you weren't fielding the flavor of the month wombo combos, it was pretty easy to have close games with flavorful armies and a fair bit of customization.
10th is functional, probably pretty accessible for newer players and relatively well balanced, but it is completely bland uninteresting beige slop.
They simplified not simple'd it into something totally boring. It's having at least a few wider knock-on effects too; multiple 40k content creators have been talking about how the 40k batrep scene is just collapsing at the moment with views plummeting.
well the thing is psycic abilities actually did work rather well in every edition, felt like psycic, and were a great advantage and wile there were things to counter them you could defend against or get around it, now however, its much worse, as you give your enemy better saves a feel no pain, or they do things to you. its completly backwards to how its supposed to work, as psycic, could be defended against never a major debuff for having it, and it always enhanced the warrior.
so heres the thing about psycic rules now, have you played grey knights from prior editions? thier psycic was very good, now though its not very good as an ability because other armies have it better, for example templar have lethal hits all the time, you can give it to other armies permanently, i onley get it on the charge. Nemisis wepons always did something, sometimes they caused more wounds, or a single mortal up to 6, but they always did something decent and nice, this bieng because they had raw warp energy pouring through them. The description of grey knights for the index does not reflect thier codexes, or thier stories, at all wearas the space marine one does all the hype. the one in the index, feels alot like the old 3rd ed dex, and a couple of rule book entries that just make them out to be normal psyker space marines, of wich they are not, thier alot closer to custodes, in power, and should at minimum reflect that status much like the space marines. I think perhaps you thought the lore needed changing? grey knights dont have to be overpowered to make sense, and even in thier insane battles they do in fact loose, they often loose to win, they just take a ton with them, and theres nothing wrong with that they rarely have survivors, and rarely a clean victory like space marines do, or other imperial armies, instead they strike like a malet, at the worst infestations of chaos, slaying it purging it like a cancer, so the rest of the imperium can survive. these and the bland rules are some of the reasons you onley see 2-5% grey knight players in tournaments, its about 3 players for every 100, thier just tacky, but you dont have to agree with me, heck you might even like how they sound now, but most grey knight players have switched to other space marines armies, as have I till they start adding detachments back to them. they are always some of the last to recieve updates, and sometimes get worse, instead of better, they did have a slight boost but lost most of thier stuff including critical wepons they needed like halberds and hammers. it doesent take alot to make grey knights players happy, a couple small quality of life upgrades would go a long way, and honoring thier lore in thier codexes from 5-9th, rather then this blah, entry ill tell you what ill give you a better example of what should have been put as the index introduction to grey knights : "The Grey Knights are the legendary Chapter 666 - and although nominally a Chapter of the Astartes, They are the chamber militant of the ordo malleus Each member of the chapter undergoes a gruelling and torturous selection process, and even once inducted, their harsh training regime is without equal. In battle, they move as an army of silver ghosts, surrounded by awe, and equipped to the teeth to deal with the worst foes that Chaos can raise to meet them."
lordstarhawk wrote: well the thing is psycic abilities actually did work rather well in every edition, felt like psycic, and were a great advantage and wile there were things to counter them you could defend against or get around it
If you liked the "feel" of psychic powers in previous editions better, that's fair enough. However, there was not always counterplay to psychic powers being shut down. In 5th edition, thing like psychic hoods and wolf tail talismans/runic weapons just had a flat percentage chance to negate your psychic powers, and you didn't really have any say in the matter. In 8th/9th there really wasn't much to counter someone passing a Deny the Witch test unless you happened to have a relic or stratagem or whatever to make your power undeniable. In 7th, there *was* some counterplay in the form of being able to dump all your psychic dice into a small number of powers to basically guarantee they went off, but your tastes are unconventional if you liked that approach.
, now however, its much worse, as you give your enemy better saves a feel no pain, or they do things to you. its completly backwards to how its supposed to work, as psycic, could be defended against never a major debuff for having it, and it always enhanced the warrior.
So I get that what you're trying to convey is that there are currently some rules that trigger off of the psychic keyword and that these are almost always rules that are advantageous to the psyker's enemies. However, what you're actually saying simply isn't true. Psychic powers did not always "enhance the warrior" (warrior here meaning the psyker?). There have been at least a few special rules that make enemies especially effective against psykers in any edition that had a condemnor boltgun, a culexus assassin, or a crucible of malediction. Plus the last couple editions where there have been secondaries that reward you for killing psykers. Furthermore, there has never been anything inherent to the psyker rules that make psychic abilities inherently advantageous just for being psychic abilities. I mean, obviously being able to buff yourself or shoot lightning is a plus, but an ability being a "psychic power" historically just means that there's an X% chance you'll fail to cast the power, that there's an X% chance your opponent will deny the witch, or that the caster will be susceptible to the aformentioned anti-psyker rules.
If you want to make the case that there should be fewer special abilities that proc vs psychic attacks or whatever, you can certainly make that argument. But let's not confuse the facts.
so heres the thing about psycic rules now, have you played grey knights from prior editions?
A little. I proxied my marines as GK for a few games in 5th edition, but that's about it.
thier psycic was very good, now though its not very good as an ability because other armies have it better, for example templar have lethal hits all the time, you can give it to other armies permanently, i onley get it on the charge.
I mean, that's kind of 10th in general. A lot of armies are arguably overusing the same handful of bland USRs (lethal hits, devastating wounds, etc.) in a way that makes armies feel kind of same-y. With some armies having access to each of those rules in different ways/to varying extents. You can make the case that BT are stronger than GK (I have no idea if that's true or not) or that GK and BT both having access to lethal hits makes them feel too similar/directly comparable. But note that neither of those arguments is directly related to how psychic powers function in general.
Like, if you're just trying to say that you want GK to feel more unique without necessarily being more powerful than BT, that's totally valid.
Nemisis wepons always did something, sometimes they caused more wounds, or a single mortal up to 6, but they always did something decent and nice, this bieng because they had raw warp energy pouring through them.
Again. Nemesis weapons currently do something. Would you feel better if they said something like,
"This Strength 4 D1 weapon adds +2 to its Strength and +1 to its Damage stat because it's psychic"?
Because that's what the psychic warp energy is doing. It's causing more wounds (like before), and it's wounding more reliably (basically a baked-in Hammerhand). You basically have always-on Hammerhand and always-on extra damage. It seems like you're maybe hung up on the presentation rather than the actual rules here?
just make them out to be normal psyker space marines, of wich they are not, thier alot closer to custodes, in power, and should at minimum reflect that status much like the space marines.
I mean, saying that GK are more like custodes than like psychic space marines is just... objectively not true. They are literally space marines with psychic powers. Aside from that, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you want GK to be marines +1 that cost more points? Because that's fair enough. Or are you literally just saying that a specific paragraph of fluff doesn't get you hyped? In which case... fine. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong for not liking some flavor text.
I think perhaps you thought the lore needed changing? grey knights dont have to be overpowered to make sense, and even in thier insane battles they do in fact loose, they often loose to win, they just take a ton with them, and theres nothing wrong with that they rarely have survivors, and rarely a clean victory like space marines do, or other imperial armies, instead they strike like a malet, at the worst infestations of chaos, slaying it purging it like a cancer, so the rest of the imperium can survive.
I did not think the lore needed to change, nor do I think GK are significantly *more* Gary Stu-ish than normal marines.
these and the bland rules are some of the reasons you onley see 2-5% grey knight players in tournaments, its about 3 players for every 100, thier just tacky, but you dont have to agree with me, heck you might even like how they sound now, but most grey knight players have switched to other space marines armies, as have I till they start adding detachments back to them.
I mean. I think most tournament players are either playing what's powerful at the moment or else playing the armies they already have and are familiar with. I doubt a significant number of GK players jumped ship because of the index's flavor text.
they are always some of the last to recieve updates
That is kind of true and stinks. Not really relevant to 10th edition as a whole or the current GK rules though.
, and sometimes get worse, instead of better
My drukhari sympathize.
, they did have a slight boost but lost most of thier stuff including critical wepons they needed like halberds and hammers. it doesent take alot to make grey knights players happy, a couple small quality of life upgrades would go a long way, and honoring thier lore in thier codexes from 5-9th, rather then this blah, entry
That's fair. A lot of armies are definitely irked by the loss of options this edition. Again, my drukhari sympathize.
ill tell you what ill give you a better example of what should have been put as the index introduction to grey knights : "The Grey Knights are the legendary Chapter 666 - and although nominally a Chapter of the Astartes, They are the chamber militant of the ordo malleus Each member of the chapter undergoes a gruelling and torturous selection process, and even once inducted, their harsh training regime is without equal. In battle, they move as an army of silver ghosts, surrounded by awe, and equipped to the teeth to deal with the worst foes that Chaos can raise to meet them."
I'm... glad you thought up some flavor text you like? I don't mean to tear apart your writing, but as an elevator pitch meant to convey an army's gimmick and how it operates, I don't think it conveys as much as the GW fluff I quoted earlier. The earlier quote tells me:
* These guys are using a bunch of supernatural gear.
* They're psychic.
* They're marines.
* They're known for fighting daemons.
* They use precognition when forming battle plans.
* They have a thing for teleportation.
That gives me a decent idea of what to expect from the army. Compared to your text which tells me:
* They're marines.
* They work with the ordo malleus (which may or may not be informative depending on whether or not I already know what the ordo malleus is.)
* They move like ghosts, suggesting to me that they're known for stealth or possible phasing through walls? Neither of which is really true. Or if I disregard the silver ghosts thing then that line tells me nothing.
* They're known for fighting chaos.
So in terms of conveying information, the GW one is better. But if you're literally just saying you prefer your own writing style to that of whomever wrote the index flavor text... you are entitled to that preference.
There's tons of stuff to criticize 10th edition over, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of legitimate problems with GK that can be criticized. But that said, a lot of the specific gripes you're bringing up at the moment don't hold up under scrutiny. Let's be angry at GW for the right reasons, yeah?
ignoring all the GK talk and going back to the start, i disagree that the rules are overly sanitized. 10th edition is just in an awkward state, and one that will be fixed as more codexes come out. three of the four released codexes are good-to-great, with AdMech being the one miss (and with them being one of the most complex armies last edition, it does feel like they've lost their soul a bit). but only one miss so far is a solid enough hit rate for being less than a year into the edition
i do wish 10th had changed psychic to be like magic in AOS instead of what they actually did, tho. i think that would've fixed the "some armies don't interact with this phase" issue
GW keeps trying to make the game competitive but it's built off the bones of a system that does not work well for a competitive game. The more they move away from flavorful gameplay mechanics, the more stale the game becomes and it highlights the weaknesses of the game instead of letting the bright points shine enough to obscure the problematic aspects of the game (IGYG being a nightmare to balance around for competitive play).
Let's use blast weapons for example. They gave the game the feeling of having a weapon that blew up an area and it made the placement of models matter in relationships to each other. Misses scattered and could potentially hit other units and in general blast weapons could hit multiple units. It gave the concept of area concentration more impact in the game as a very congested area was a prime target for blast weapons while during the later parts of the battle when units have been thinned out, the combat effectiveness of a blast weapon diminished due to them hitting less targets. From a competitive standpoint, these things causes arguments over exactly how many models did that blast template hit, spamming blasts bogged down the game, needing to space out models to negate blast weapons effectiveness, and in general it was a longer process to resolve than just "my guys will shoot those guys *click clack* you need to make 7 armor saves". From a more cinematic and tactical experience, blast weapons where a fun concept and made the battlefield feel more dynamic and made each model placement matter. The calculus of the effectiveness of those types of weapons shifted as the battlefield changed to where it became difficult to calculate because it really depends on the placement of models and the concentration of models in the area (including if it scattered off onto something else). This again was something great for the enjoyment and skill of playing the game to determine what are the best targets for those sorts of weapons but it was bad for figuring out game balance and everything competitive.
Blast weapons effectively went away to simplify the game and to make to better for competitive play so you don't have sweaty gits arguing that they hit 5 models with a small blast as they look at the template at a certain angle while slightly moving it back and forth. While that decision was sorta reasonable, the replacement is a system that made a mortar/grenade/sub munition cannon blast/etc feel like an RNG machine gun that the Orks would use instead of something that was simulating an explosion hitting a wide area.
Repeat this simplification process over and over again to make it more competitive and beginner friendly until you have what 8th and 10th became while 9th was just 8th but with the inevitable excessive bloat that comes with trying to work with an insanely oversimplified game foundation and selling rules updates plus power creep.
Frankly I found 8th to be an absolute snooze to play despite my Orks being stronger and it got to the point that I missed the brutal oppression that was trying to use 7th edition Orks vs the insanely OP Eldar because at least the game at moments of entertainment between getting my teef kicked in. 8th felt like playing a children's board game like Risk. I have no idea how 10th managed to be even more boring.
With regards to denying psychic powers from previous editions. 7th system wasn't terrible IF you have 1 psyker on each side. The idea of using warp dice to pay for the power but using more dice meant a higher chance to perils but getting skimpy on the dice made it easier to possibly deny the power or just fail to manifest it. Granted the fact that buff spells on friendly units could only be denied on 6s vs spells targeting enemies could be denied easier made offensive powers weak while the super OP powers like invisibility really hard to stop. The real issue was when one side has a ton of cheap psykers which could generate a ton of dice and made it so you could dump buckets of dice into those must have powers and certain BS psykers *cough* Eldar *cough* could just negate the dangers of perils for the most part. The side with 1 psyker going against the psyker swarm would get bullied as their 1-2 powers being cast had buckets of deny dice rain on them so they basically were useless. The system was a decent concept but it was not at all prepared to handle edge cases like Eldar, Grey Knights, Daemons, possibly Inq spamming cheap/plentiful psyker units. RNG psychic power lists was also a problem but that wasn't directly related to the psychic phase system.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
I feel like the on table experience has a lot more going on but there's less to mess with off table and over the years I've realized for a lot of people that's the main draw.
Vankraken wrote: GW keeps trying to make the game competitive but it's built off the bones of a system that does not work well for a competitive game. The more they move away from flavorful gameplay mechanics, the more stale the game becomes and it highlights the weaknesses of the game instead of letting the bright points shine enough to obscure the problematic aspects of the game (IGYG being a nightmare to balance around for competitive play).
Totally agree. I remember providing feedback in the 7th(?) edition survey put out by GW where I stated I wanted more focus on balance, but that was because the game at the time was so imbalanced and full of unclear rules that it was difficult to have a decent casual game without a bunch of extra work. But the focus on tournament style games in recent editions has really drained a lot of personality from 40k.
Let's use blast weapons for example.
Oh. Well, hold on now...
They gave the game the feeling of having a weapon that blew up an area and it made the placement of models matter in relationships to each other...
Blast weapons effectively went away to simplify the game and to make to better for competitive play so you don't have sweaty gits arguing that they hit 5 models with a small blast as they look at the template at a certain angle while slightly moving it back and forth. While that decision was sorta reasonable, the replacement is a system that made a mortar/grenade/sub munition cannon blast/etc feel like an RNG machine gun that the Orks would use instead of something that was simulating an explosion hitting a wide area.
While argument-prevention was definitely a big part of it, that experience wasn't exclusive to competitive play. Sure, my casual games almost always found polite ways to resolve disagreements about blast templates, but those resolutions were usually either a role-off or one person simply shrugging and backing down. Neither of which was great. Plus, the "model positioning" thing usually boiled down to punishing horde players for not taking the time to perfectly space their squads every time they moved or for having the audacity to pile in when their melee units did melee things. Which, competitive or casual, didn't feel great.
Agreed about the random hits mechanic not being a good replacement, but I think the current incarnation of the blast rule works reasonably well.
With regards to denying psychic powers from previous editions. 7th system wasn't terrible IF you have 1 psyker on each side.
That's true. It was just such a big if. And the way the math worked out, you really wanted to be putting something like 2 dice per warp charge towards each power you cast to have a relatively good (but still far from guaranteed) chance of casting a power *before* factoring in deny the witch. So if your army featured a caster who wanted to cast two powers in a turn (because they're paying points to do so), you were kind of encouraged to bring along a psychic battery to help them out.
Which also didn't feel great. Like, if I took a farseer and a warlock, chances are I was rolling, at most, a single die to see if my warlock's power went off, meaning I had something like a 50% chance of my warlock just not casting a power each turn. And as you mentioned, armies like GK and tzeentch daemons that automatically have a ton of psykers break the system pretty much instantly. And armies that had no psykers (either as a conscious choice in army creation or because the faction lacks psykers) were always going to be down a couple of dice compared to the "ideal" 1 psyker per side scenario. And of course, the fact that spamming psykers meant you were more likely to shut down your opponent's psykers and also less likely to get shut down yourself created a natural incentive to take lots of psykers where possible instead of just sticking to a humble single psyker per side.
So while 7th's casting system wasn't terrible if you happened to be bringing the right matchup, it kind of actively encouraged you to *not* bring a balanced matchup, plus it wasn't especially fluffy even when you did. Like, the aforementioned scenario of a warlock only managing to make psychic things happen every other turn never felt right. Nor did my shadowseers (when fielding mono-harlies) randomly failing to cast the one power that kept their squad alive because I didn't bring enough spare psykers to dump dice into their tests.
7th's casting system felt like the result of someone coming up with a cute minigame and falling a little too in love with their idea. It didn't do a very good job of representing the lore of the game, and it actively encouraged frustrating, imbalanced scenarios. It was just kinda neat to feel like you could put your back into resisting your least favorite enemy power. Not that being able to do that feels particularly fluff-appropriate to me, mind you.
and certain BS psykers *cough* Eldar *cough* could just negate the dangers of perils for the most part.
In my space elves' defense, it's pretty unfluffy for them to go around with their heads randomly exploding like they're wyrd boyz or something. Ditto my centuries-old chaos sorcerers, my mysterious servants of the laughing god, my literal daemons. Perils' is flavorful, but it's also kind of out of character for any psykers that are supposed to know what they're doing.
That said, I did like the 7th edition perils table for Corsairs. You wouldn't explode like a wyrd boy, but you would come away feeling like you'd touched something unpleasant.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
I feel like the on table experience has a lot more going on but there's less to mess with off table and over the years I've realized for a lot of people that's the main draw.
i like there to be a healthy balance between the two... and 10th is heavily leaning towards one and not the other. on the other hand, 9th edition had a lot that pointed in that direction, so it didn't feel balanced there, either. there's probably a good middleground to be found. in the meantime, if i want a crunchier game experience, i'll turn to fantasy if i want something crunchier, since that's a game really built for this sort of thing
"Sanitized" is perhaps not the right word, but I do know what the OP is feeling. As a previous poster pointed out, "Sanitized" implies an attitude toward depictions of violence, and that isn't something that's happened here- violence is depicted in pretty much the same way as it ever was- removing models.
The psychic stuff is one of my biggest complaints of the edition. Psychic powers were always "in addition to" everything else; now in some cases they are "instead of things everyone else has". So for example, in an addition that has movement, shooting, close combat and leadership abilities- a psyker would get all of those things PLUS a psychic ability.
In 10th, movement may be psychically influenced... But it's still just movement, which everyone else does anyway, even if they do it differently.
In 10th, you may have a psychic shooting attack- and it is fair to say that IF you can use that psychic shooting attack in addition to a regular shooting attack, then this type of ability is still "in addition to"... but I'm not sure that all psychic shooting attacks are in addition to; I think some might be instead of.
This is particularly true with HTH. Wyldhunt is correct that Nemesis force weapons are stronger than non-psychic attacks, but they always were and they used to be "in addition to" casting an actual power in the psychic phase.
This is most egregious in 10th when it comes to leadership/ datacard abilities. This is an edition where EVERY leader has a leadership ability and EVERY unit has a datacard ability. But with psykers, often times, their leadership or datacard ability will be a psychic ability. When this happens, what that means is that the psyker effectively does not actually have a leadership or datacard ability- they have a psychic ability INSTEAD.
If GW wanted to maintain the feel of psyker status, but decided to redefine what would have been a power in previous editions as a leadership ability, the unit would need BOTH a standard leadership ability (like the kind every other unit in the game has) AND a psychic leadership ability (which is the thing they get for being a psychic). Similarly, a psyker shouldn't have just a psychic datacard ability- they should have a mundane one (like every other unit in the game) AND a psychic one, which they get because they are psychic.
Finally, and I've mentioned this in other threads, the psychic test/ perils and Deny the Witch weren't just rules- they were part of the narrative. A failed psychic test IS an expression of warp anomolies interfering with a psyker's ability, and there were other narrative focused rules which keyed off this concept- such as Theatre of War rules for warp storms which modified the roll, or mission specific rules which did the same. And perils is literally daemonic possession/ incursion. Forces skilled at Denying the Witch had a narrative hook for their inclusion against particular enemies, and their exclusion when those enemies were absent.
Deny the Witch, for example, is WHY Sisters and not regular ole Guard made a good Chamber Militant for the Ordo Hereticus. But these days, guard might as well be the Hereticus Chamber, because Deny no longer exists.
As for LunarSol's comment:
I feel like the on table experience has a lot more going on but there's less to mess with off table and over the years I've realized for a lot of people that's the main draw.
This is somewhat true- there is definitely less to mess with off table. But I wouldn't say there's more going on in the on table experience than previous editions- I feel that's roughly the same, it's just coming from different sources.
For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
Vankraken wrote: GW keeps trying to make the game competitive but it's built off the bones of a system that does not work well for a competitive game.
I don't even think it necessarily comes down to 'fluffy' mechanics like armor facings or blast templates, for which the implementation of the ideas was always clunky and prone to arguments. I think they just haven't put enough legwork into making those bones produce a decent game, and resort to layering stuff on top.
In most wargames, it's the core rules that establish the tactics and general dynamics of the game. You can play Warmaster, Future War Commander, Hail Caesar, or Pike & Shotte and recognize the common command structure that drives decision-making even though they're totally different settings. The individual units, special rules, and weapons affect how you interact with the core mechanics of command-and-control and maneuver across those eras, but those core mechanics are deep enough to produce a good gameplay experience across the different settings, and the stuff layered on top just adds flavor. Going beyond Warmaster but staying within GW, Blood Bowl has great core mechanics and strategy no matter what team you play. Or Battlefleet Gothic draws a lot of depth from its movement and orders system even if you only play Imperial-vs-Imperial using just core rules. The basic mechanics are fun and interesting to engage with, and then all the faction rules and unit types and special rules add flavor and variety.
Currently, 40K's core rules are about as deep and compelling as the original release of Age of Sigmar. There's just nothing there, and it's pretty telling how a comparably simple game like Grimdark Future can be more interesting just by virtue of better activation and action mechanics, even if the lack of chrome can lead to it ultimately getting stale.
So 40K relies on its depth coming from layers of additional codex-specific mechanics, but the core rules only have so many levers to work with. Even with the USRs written into the core rules, notice how many of them are just different flavors of 'kill more'. And there's only so much 're-roll 1s to hit if [condition]' you can read before it starts to feel same-y and 'sanitized' as OP put it, while the more special rules they cram in the harder the game becomes to play. Then you throw in a tournament attitude towards neutering unpredictability and emphasizing balance over verisimilitude, and things get bland.
I don't feel that the codices that have released so far fix it, and I'm not sure that they can.
Vankraken wrote: GW keeps trying to make the game competitive but it's built off the bones of a system that does not work well for a competitive game.
I don't even think it necessarily comes down to 'fluffy' mechanics like armor facings or blast templates, for which the implementation of the ideas was always clunky and prone to arguments. I think they just haven't put enough legwork into making those bones produce a decent game, and resort to layering stuff on top.
In most wargames, it's the core rules that establish the tactics and general dynamics of the game. You can play Warmaster, Future War Commander, Hail Caesar, or Pike & Shotte and recognize the common command structure that drives decision-making even though they're totally different settings. The individual units, special rules, and weapons affect how you interact with the core mechanics of command-and-control and maneuver across those eras, but those core mechanics are deep enough to produce a good gameplay experience across the different settings, and the stuff layered on top just adds flavor. Going beyond Warmaster but staying within GW, Blood Bowl has great core mechanics and strategy no matter what team you play. Or Battlefleet Gothic draws a lot of depth from its movement and orders system even if you only play Imperial-vs-Imperial using just core rules. The basic mechanics are fun and interesting to engage with, and then all the faction rules and unit types and special rules add flavor and variety.
Currently, 40K's core rules are about as deep and compelling as the original release of Age of Sigmar. There's just nothing there, and it's pretty telling how a comparably simple game like Grimdark Future can be more interesting just by virtue of better activation and action mechanics, even if the lack of chrome can lead to it ultimately getting stale.
So 40K relies on its depth coming from layers of additional codex-specific mechanics, but the core rules only have so many levers to work with. Even with the USRs written into the core rules, notice how many of them are just different flavors of 'kill more'. And there's only so much 're-roll 1s to hit if [condition]' you can read before it starts to feel same-y and 'sanitized' as OP put it, while the more special rules they cram in the harder the game becomes to play. Then you throw in a tournament attitude towards neutering unpredictability and emphasizing balance over verisimilitude, and things get bland.
I don't feel that the codices that have released so far fix it, and I'm not sure that they can.
40K codexes are what drive the flavor. You can have a perfectly cromulent game of 40K with overwatch, ingress / deepstrike, reserves, and missions. That provides the core of the experience and decision making. What the book or index does on top is just extra. You made a favorable distinction with those other systems, but not with 40K.
You mention USRs being about kill more, but ignore the codex "USRs" that aren't. A Chronomancer provides a move after shooting. Something that a scout or skimisher unit might have. It makes sense for every single army in a historical setting to have access to such a unit. It doesn't make sense in 40K, because these armies all operate extremely differently. Did we want variety in 40K or not?
So blaming a division of where the rules fall doesn't seem compelling - to me, at least. You're certainly right in that index armies might feel a bit more restricted in their capabilities by comparison, but not by the quantity of codexes past.
tournament attitude towards neutering unpredictability and emphasizing balance over verisimilitude
I don't understand this sentence. Also, the majority of tournament players use tactical missions, which are far less predictable.
Wayniac wrote: For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
This is hardly something new, just a side effect of the way GW mixes rules language and common concepts into their rules. They need to pin down a flowchart and write their rules to abide to it. Implement timing windows consistently and all that stuff. Most of what you refer to isn't even an issue with the rules so much as the rules interactions which is currently the bit they're behind on. This kind of stuff is still dramatically better than its been in the past though, but GW tends to be about 5 years behind the edge of the curve.
Wayniac wrote: For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
For someone who isn't playing 10th, could you give some examples of those weird actions?
a_typical_hero wrote: For someone who isn't playing 10th, could you give some examples of those weird actions?
The biggest thing I dealt with recently is that units that can be resurrected can't do so when Battleshocked. Some people tried to argue that once destroyed the unit was no longer Battleshocked so they could rez, but GW clarified in the latest patch that the BS state remains.
Fighting an army that will resurrect takes some careful planning to try and mitigate the effect and prevent slamming your head into a wall of meat.
a_typical_hero wrote: For someone who isn't playing 10th, could you give some examples of those weird actions?
The biggest thing I dealt with recently is that units that can be resurrected can't do so when Battleshocked. Some people tried to argue that once destroyed the unit was no longer Battleshocked so they could rez, but GW clarified in the latest patch that the BS state remains.
Fighting an army that will resurrect takes some careful planning to try and mitigate the effect and prevent slamming your head into a wall of meat.
Battleshock is clearly something that RAW did not work at all to how GW thought it did. I'd say its the source of most of the 10th caveats, but in truth it mostly just doesn't do anything at all.
LunarSol wrote: Battleshock is clearly something that RAW did not work at all to how GW thought it did. I'd say its the source of most of the 10th caveats, but in truth it mostly just doesn't do anything at all.
I'd definitely agree that the impact can seem miniscule compared to the morale of yore. I think a lot of people are still catching up to other facets of the rework so making sure your opponent is testing on all their eligible units every single command phase can slip away.
In general people don't think about the impact as much as they could, but when you catch the scenario that matters it can matter a lot. Other times there's an opportunity, but you wind up on a different choice and so the status becomes irrelevant.
40K is the king of gaming aids - having tokens to mark out units needing tests helps a ton.
On the subject of Psychic tests I'm always torn. On one hand, I think 10th's implementation is more than a little soulless but on the other, I've never liked the Psychic phase in any of its implementations. It's always been pretty clunky and the uneven and relatively expensive implementation tends to make it rarely an interesting part of an already overlong game.
I don't think the 10th implementation is necessarily bad, but the Psychic keyword doesn't seem to actually do anything. There's lots of things it could do, like certain things have a FNP against it, but those are mostly negatives as is making it hazardous or something similarly fluffy. I'm not sure it needs a separate system that armies need to take a model to interact with (if they can at all), but its also just odd that some leadership abilities have this random Psychic tag without it actually mattering.
They probably needed to bring back the old blessing/malediction/witchfire/etc. keywords if they wanted to interact with psychic abilities more directly. It's easy enough to write rules for "psychic attacks" because you know broadly what they'll do (follow the attack process). It's harder to write one-size-fits-all rules that interact with non-witchfires because there isn't currently an easy way to tell whether that power is going to grant rerolls to attacks or a defensive buff or something else entirely.
But honestly, I mostly like how 10th handles psychic powers. That is, it just makes them into special abilities and weapons like any other with tags so that things like a culexus assassin can theoretically interact with them.
I think public opinion on powers would be a lot better if they just gave psykers a few powers to choose from on each datasheet rather than locking in a single specific rule.
LunarSol wrote: On the subject of Psychic tests I'm always torn. On one hand, I think 10th's implementation is more than a little soulless but on the other, I've never liked the Psychic phase in any of its implementations. It's always been pretty clunky and the uneven and relatively expensive implementation tends to make it rarely an interesting part of an already overlong game.
And in a pick-up game context, this point of view makes a lot of sense. Bringing an army with zero psykers and finding yourself up against Ksons, GK or a Psyker heavy Eldar list could really suck.
I just don't typically play pick-up games, so my friends and I always tended to build armies together, which meant fewer surprises and gotchas.
It certainly was always true that armies who are decidedly unpsychic always needed something to help them more actively participate during the psychic phase. But IMHO, that is the solution the game needed, not a neutering or marginalization of psychic phenomenon, upon which the entire background of the game is based.
After all, the Astronomicon is the only thing that allows the Imperium to exist at all, and is based entirely upon the daily tithing of hundreds of thousands of psykers via the blackships. You can make that a central theme and then just say "Yeah, but actual psychic powers are are just shooting or melee attacks cuz balance."
Or rather, you can (because GW did), but you shouldn't.
I used to love building list. A lot of the fun for me came out of thinking of an army concept and working it into a actual army, theme was so important and I had to make choices.
Now the only decision I really have to make is what detachment to take. Everything else is just stock standard with no choices or minimal choices with no real impact. Enhancements are a cool concept but just like artifacts before them so many are just flat out laughably unusable.
My biggest moment of dissonance in 10th was the first game where I saw that battleshock does absolutely nothing. I just couldn't wrap my head around how THAT was the down side to losing half your unit. Ohh no, my half dead squad can't be target by stratagems? Good thing I wouldn't use stratagems on a half dead unit because I am not brain dead. The biggest issue is the loss of Obsec but really, I can't think of a situation where it would have meaningful impact on the game.
It certainly was always true that armies who are decidedly unpsychic always needed something to help them more actively participate during the psychic phase. But IMHO, that is the solution the game needed
Fun fact: when I started playing in 5th, there was no such thing as the psychic phase. Psychic defenses were few and far between, and there was no expectation that every army would have ways of interfering with a psyker's ability to use his powers. From my understanding, that's how thing worked at least as far back as 3rd up until the whole warp dice minigame got introduced in 6th or 7th.
, not a neutering or marginalization of psychic phenomenon, upon which the entire background of the game is based.
After all, the Astronomicon is the only thing that allows the Imperium to exist at all, and is based entirely upon the daily tithing of hundreds of thousands of psykers via the blackships. You can make that a central theme and then just say "Yeah, but actual psychic powers are are just shooting or melee attacks cuz balance."
Respectfully, I think you're overhyping the importance of the Astronomicon and psychic powers in general to the setting. It's not Astronomicon 40k. The tagline isn't, "In the grim psychic future of the psychic-first millennium, there are only psykers."
Psykers are just one of many cool things in a large setting full of cool things. Technology is a big part of the setting, but we don't have elaborate subsystems for tech priests and crypteks to wage hacker duels over the local wifi. We just give them powers that represent them doing impressive tech-related things. Similarly, psykers have rules that let them do things their non-psychic counterparts can't, and we represent the unreliability of the warp by making their psychic attacks hazardous or giving them a small chance of failure where appropriate. It doesn't mean that psykers aren't cool or that they're unimportant to the setting; it just means that the game experience isn't well-served by clunky subsystems that make units fluffed as being psychic unreliable.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
LunarSol wrote: On the subject of Psychic tests I'm always torn. On one hand, I think 10th's implementation is more than a little soulless but on the other, I've never liked the Psychic phase in any of its implementations. It's always been pretty clunky and the uneven and relatively expensive implementation tends to make it rarely an interesting part of an already overlong game.
I don't think the 10th implementation is necessarily bad, but the Psychic keyword doesn't seem to actually do anything. There's lots of things it could do, like certain things have a FNP against it, but those are mostly negatives as is making it hazardous or something similarly fluffy. I'm not sure it needs a separate system that armies need to take a model to interact with (if they can at all), but its also just odd that some leadership abilities have this random Psychic tag without it actually mattering.
As a member of one of the premier psychic armies I feel the changes a lot. I enjoyed tailoring my psykers in 9th. Now I'm sort of forced to pick the "right model for the job" rather than the spells. It's different, but I don't hate it and it's given me enough to ponder before games. The decision tree for selecting units is a little more synergistic now.
In 9th I might have used an Exalted to cast Weaver ( 4++ ) on my unit and Tendrils on an enemy. Now he simply grants the 4++ to what's he attached to and I need a 2+ on Tendrils to apply it. It's pretty much the same just with less risk -- except that is mostly all he did in 9th - two spells and done. Not even likely to be involved in denials ( I guess he did have a rr1s aura? I can't even recall now ). In 10th he now also comes with a S6 AP2 DD3 flamer on top of two abilities. If I'm being honest most of my spell selection was to push as many MW through as I could on key targets. Now all my casters do lots of stuff.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
There were always clear winners.
Clearer winners, I guess. Previously, you could at least weigh the pros and cons of taking a cheap squad without all the bells and whistles. Now you're paying for the bell and whistle prices even if you want a bell-less, whistle-less squad. Or if your squad is built with bells but not whistles because you were trying to save points in the previous edition.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
There were always clear winners.
Clearer winners, I guess. Previously, you could at least weigh the pros and cons of taking a cheap squad without all the bells and whistles. Now you're paying for the bell and whistle prices even if you want a bell-less, whistle-less squad. Or if your squad is built with bells but not whistles because you were trying to save points in the previous edition.
It depends. There are definitely non-choices out there, but they largely did a good job of making high volume vs high damage weapons unique roles that are often a meta pick. There are units with options that don't fit this paradigm that are left with some notable duds, but there's quite a few units where I feel like my loadout choices come down to what I want the unit to do.
Sure. But also sergeants have no reason to pass on a free plasma pistol, and my kabalite warriors are stuck with weapons that I'd rather trade in for some extra points (if only to avoid having 5+ weapon profiles in a single unit each shooting phase.)
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
There were always clear winners.
Clearer winners, I guess. Previously, you could at least weigh the pros and cons of taking a cheap squad without all the bells and whistles.
Most people were not doing any such weighing. They were simply figuring out how to squeeze in as many of whatever they thought were the winners. Or what people on-line told them were the winners. They weren't picking it by the pts, just AP/Damage with the side effect that now and then you'd get a squad with a cheaper spec/heavy weapon or even none.
And this would repeat every time new pts were released.
Wyldhunt wrote: Now you're paying for the bell and whistle prices even if you want a bell-less, whistle-less squad. Or if your squad is built with bells but not whistles because you were trying to save points in the previous edition.
Well, considering that the cost your paying is 0 either way I don't see what your complaining about pts wise.
BTW, did you know that I'm paying 5pts LESS for each of my Guard squads here in 10e? That my CSMs Legionares didn't change price at all? Im even paying less for a full Tac squad (160 now vs 180 in 9e - of course I've also lost the ability to only take 5x for half the points on this one.)
If you're looking at a model thats now not armed optimally for the current edition? Well, welcome to 40k. That's been happening for 9 editions & a few decades.... The solutions the same as it's always been: 1) Use what you've got, or 2) get yourself some spare models, arm them with the rest of the weapons you didn't pick the 1st time through & paint to match the squads. Rotate wich models you use based on the meta.
@ccs: The biggest issue, to my mind, is that a lot of units went from having multiple viable builds to only have a single "correct" build. My kabalites, for instance. They worked as a dirt cheap space filler. They worked as a 5-man squad with a blaster. They worked as a 10-man squad with special and heavy weapons. In various editions, the sybarite could be left cheap or kitted out for phantasm shenanigans, or built for melee, or serve as an extra source of darklight. All of those were reasonably viable at one point or another.
Now, we're down to a single correct option. Any special weapons you don't take (except the sybarite weapons) are power left on the table. So in addition to it being annoying to resolve 5+ weapon profiles on a single unit, it also just stinks that you can't put a little personality into the squad based on which of the various viable options you chose.
For those of us not playing cut-throat competitive games, there used to be a range of "good enough" options. Now there aren't. I think this is one of the contributing factors to why the current edition feels a bit more bland. Where there used to be like, 3 reasonably good builds for kabalites at a given time, now there's 1. And other units are in similar positions.
Wayniac wrote: For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
Wayniac wrote: For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
Such as?
Almost everything? I can't point to just one thing. But I feel like an absolute idiot reading the 10th edition rules, and I've played since 1997. I can't really explain it more, sorry. But I can read the rules and think I comprehend it, then I watch a video of competitive/tournament play and I'm left staring like "WTF how did they do that" like a moron.
Respectfully, I think you're overhyping the importance of the Astronomicon and psychic powers in general to the setting. It's not Astronomicon 40k. The tagline isn't, "In the grim psychic future of the psychic-first millennium, there are only psykers."
Equally respectfully, (and BTW, thanks for that- I sometimes misinterpret tone in text without cues, and while I can read regular emoji, Orkmoticons confuse me as much as text without cues), several books from Rogue Trader on have said that without Warp travel, humans would till be confined in the Sol System where humanity began on terra, and since warp travel is only possible due to psykers, I think it is you who underestimate the importance of psykers.
Cuz if we never got to Baal? No BA.
If we never got to Fenris? No SW.
Oh yeah, and that Emperor guy who created ALL SM?
Pretty potent psyker, right?
Not convinced?
How did the Eldar fall? Surely not the psychic confluence that birthed a God?
Why are the Tau restricted to such a small area of space? Couldn't be the lack of Psykers (and resulting lack of warp travel), could it?
What is the Hive Mind? Surely not a gestalt psychic consciousness?
Why do the SoS even exist? The Hereticus?
Fun fact: when I started playing in 5th, there was no such thing as the psychic phase. Psychic defenses were few and far between, and there was no expectation that every army would have ways of interfering with a psyker's ability to use his powers. From my understanding, that's how thing worked at least as far back as 3rd up until the whole warp dice minigame got introduced in 6th or 7th.
You may be right about 5th- I don't have a copy of that rulebook or any dexes from that era.
But 3rd had psychic powers and sisters Shield of Faith ability nullified psychic powers on 5+, and there was a selection of Ordo Hereticus powers. I don't have the rulebook from 3rd, but the Witch Hunters dex confirms the existence of psychic tests, a mechanic like Deny the Witch within the Shield of Faith rules, and it confirms the existence of faction specific powers chosen from a list.
I DO have the fourth ed rulebook, and it too has psychic phase.
Second had a very detailed psychic system released as a Dark Millennium, which was big box of cards, including the infamous Foot of Gork template. I played Rogue Trader, but I came late in the game and only got two games or so before the table-top world exploded in Space Crusade, Space Hulk and Second ed, so I'm not sure about RT, but if they did have a psychic phase, it was probably published in a compendium, a Chapter Approved, or a WD Article.
So if you remember a psychic phase in 6th and 7th (the only editions I didn't play), then 5th and 10th are the anomalies in a game that otherwise, has ALWAYS had psychic phase (with the possible exception of RT).
Personally, I believe the mid-edition campaign arch will be a psychic expansion; I was surprised in 8th when that wasn't what Psychic Awakening turned out to be. I wouldn't be surprised if they reused the Psychic Awakening title- after all, our second third trip to the Pariah Nexus has just begun. Getting us to think about datacards as play aids was slow-walking us into card based psychic play like 2nd ed. I also believe that 11th will be a 10,5 that updates one or two small core rules the way 9th re-did terrain; it will bring back costed equipment, somewhat more options and it will re-solidify the psychic phase as a core rule.
There was no Psychic Phase in 3rd Edition. As you noted, the Codex Witch Hunters, a 3rd Edition Codex, has psychic powers with test. Each of these powers tells you what phase to use them in. I doubt there was a Psychic Phase given this is the case.
If the Lexicanum article on 4th Edition is accurate, there was no Psychic Phase on 4th Edition.
My copy of the 5th Edition rules has no Psychic Phase in it.
So the Psychic Phase seems to have started in 6th Edition, probably as an import from Fantasy Battles.
GW doesn't do a good job of labelling the edition numbers on their books, so I could be wrong about the BRB I have- it could be the 3rd, 4th, or 5th. It is the one that has the Kill Team rules with sentries and Brutes. When I described it to Unit, he said it was 4th.
But either way, it clearly identifies a psychic phase; I trust that Unit correctly identified it, but even if he didn't, the edition predates 6th.
Third is actually more interesting, because rereading it, it's a really good model to add back into 10th part way through, because I concede- you're right, it does look like like there was no psychic phase, but they still had enough nuance to psychic rules that it didn't need a phase to feel right- really, as long as you choose a power from a faction based list, and the opportunity to Deny the Witch exists, I can get behind it. There also needs to be mechanism for Perils, though I could see something other than a psychic test to achieve that.
2nd definitely had a psychic phase, or at least I was sure it did, but seeing how well 3rd did it without a phase, I'm less sure. Either way, if 10th system was as good as 3rd's I'd be satisfied.
But I would still like to see those lifers weigh in- like the dudes from the Oldhammer thread. Someone summon Mezmorki! Does Prohammer have a psychic phase?
I have no experience with 2nd but it looks like it did have one, though like you mentioned the system in 2nd was quite different from anything 40k had later.
Wayniac wrote: For me, the biggest issue is just the way the rules work. They FEEL clunky and with a lot of "hidden" parts that you just don't get unless you see it, or unless you're a high-end comp player who digs into it to find the old "Well, the rule is worded like X so that means I can do Y since that's part of X" kind of stuff that just fries my brain to consider. I find watching games that I'm shocked by people doing things that don't even seem possible and then you read the rule and it's like some nuanced thing that's allowable due to the wording the rule, but not something that anyone "normal" would even consider can be done.
That frustrates me probably the most because it constantly feels like there's this metagame within the game that you're only aware of if you're looking for it, and just playing the game doesn't work. Like, it legit hurts my brain to watch people play 40k and constantly be like "Wait, that's legal?" because it's not something that even remotely appears like a thing you can do. I do not recall the game EVER being like that in the past.
Psychic powers being as bland as they are is another huge problem; the AOS approach would have been 100% better than what we got.
Such as?
Almost everything? I can't point to just one thing. But I feel like an absolute idiot reading the 10th edition rules, and I've played since 1997. I can't really explain it more, sorry. But I can read the rules and think I comprehend it, then I watch a video of competitive/tournament play and I'm left staring like "WTF how did they do that" like a moron.
Without actual examples it just sounds like you don't read rules properly, sorry. No seriously; give examples.
Believe me, I dislike 10th's rules but there are very few things that would apply to what you're talking about, or at least not many more than the previous 9 editions. They exist, but they're absolutely edge-cases that will never come up in 90% of games. The main things are actually just because of how loose and restriction-free the rules are so you're able to do things that you weren't in previous (9th especially) editions. Prime example being able to stack out-of-phase movement like Shadow Spectres JSJ ability with the Fire and Fade stratagem. This isn't hidden away or some weird way to interpret the way the rules are written; it's very clear. It's just completely at odds with how such abilities have been designed for like at least 2 editions previously.
Kothra wrote: 4th absolutely doesn't have a psychic phase.
I have no experience with 2nd but it looks like it did have one, though like you mentioned the system in 2nd was quite different from anything 40k had later.
There was no separate "phase" for powers like in classic warhammer fantasy. there were 3 phases to a players turn- move/shoot/assault. powers were used in those phases depending on what they did. if it was a shooting power it was treated like a gun, if it was a melee power it was used in close combat, a travel power-during movement and support powers the eldar were famous for-guide/fortune/doom were all done during their movement phase.
Seriously MODs need to close this topic everything in here is a re-hash of this recent topic that is 63 pages long-go there read it and add to it if you want.
PenitentJake wrote: GW doesn't do a good job of labelling the edition numbers on their books, so I could be wrong about the BRB I have- it could be the 3rd, 4th, or 5th. It is the one that has the Kill Team rules with sentries and Brutes. When I described it to Unit, he said it was 4th.
But either way, it clearly identifies a psychic phase; I trust that Unit correctly identified it, but even if he didn't, the edition predates 6th.
Third is actually more interesting, because rereading it, it's a really good model to add back into 10th part way through, because I concede- you're right, it does look like like there was no psychic phase, but they still had enough nuance to psychic rules that it didn't need a phase to feel right- really, as long as you choose a power from a faction based list, and the opportunity to Deny the Witch exists, I can get behind it. There also needs to be mechanism for Perils, though I could see something other than a psychic test to achieve that.
2nd definitely had a psychic phase, or at least I was sure it did, but seeing how well 3rd did it without a phase, I'm less sure. Either way, if 10th system was as good as 3rd's I'd be satisfied.
But I would still like to see those lifers weigh in- like the dudes from the Oldhammer thread. Someone summon Mezmorki! Does Prohammer have a psychic phase?
Easy to mix the books up, 4th through 8th all had a hammer on the front.
Yeah, psychic powers were used in the appropriate phase. There was no game-wide Deny the Witch until... 6th edition I think. Generally speaking, some armies had no psychic defenses, some had limited defenses, and some had psychic defenses as their theme (Sisters of Battle/Hereticus and Black Templars). Most psychic defenses only worked on powers targeting the unit with the defense. Imperial Guard, for example, could take Sanctioned Psykers from 2003, but they randomly generated powers and had a 1/6th chance of getting the psychic defense power. That was the only codex option for IG psychic defense (there was a Chapter Approved high command unit for a Cadian campaign that could basically take a high-ranking astropath who counted as having a psychic hood). Tau had no defences. Space Marine Librarians had psychic hoods, Space Wolves had a wolf something or other too. Culexus assassins were available to Imperial forces, but these didn't defend other units from psykers particularly. They were good at killing psykers.
A lot of psychic effects in this era were also innate and didn't require psychic tests, they couldn't be blocked although some could be weakened. Examples include Grey Knights Nemesis force weapons (except when used as force weapons by high ranking knights) or their Shrouding power, and Warlock powers.
Wyldhunt wrote: They probably needed to bring back the old blessing/malediction/witchfire/etc. keywords if they wanted to interact with psychic abilities more directly. It's easy enough to write rules for "psychic attacks" because you know broadly what they'll do (follow the attack process). It's harder to write one-size-fits-all rules that interact with non-witchfires because there isn't currently an easy way to tell whether that power is going to grant rerolls to attacks or a defensive buff or something else entirely.
But honestly, I mostly like how 10th handles psychic powers. That is, it just makes them into special abilities and weapons like any other with tags so that things like a culexus assassin can theoretically interact with them.
I think public opinion on powers would be a lot better if they just gave psykers a few powers to choose from on each datasheet rather than locking in a single specific rule.
alextroy wrote: There was no Psychic Phase in 3rd Edition. As you noted, the Codex Witch Hunters, a 3rd Edition Codex, has psychic powers with test. Each of these powers tells you what phase to use them in. I doubt there was a Psychic Phase given this is the case.
If the Lexicanum article on 4th Edition is accurate, there was no Psychic Phase on 4th Edition.
My copy of the 5th Edition rules has no Psychic Phase in it.
So the Psychic Phase seems to have started in 6th Edition, probably as an import from Fantasy Battles.
2nd had a psychic phase like WHFB at the time (card driven). 3rd had something like 10ths but you could buy powers; it wasn't a "This model always has this power and that's all you get, feth you" (aka how they SHOULD have done 10th edition). 4th and 5th I assume were the same as 3rd. 6th I think is when they added back the Psychic Phase similar to how, again, WHFB did at the time.
alextroy wrote: There was no Psychic Phase in 3rd Edition. As you noted, the Codex Witch Hunters, a 3rd Edition Codex, has psychic powers with test. Each of these powers tells you what phase to use them in. I doubt there was a Psychic Phase given this is the case.
If the Lexicanum article on 4th Edition is accurate, there was no Psychic Phase on 4th Edition.
My copy of the 5th Edition rules has no Psychic Phase in it.
So the Psychic Phase seems to have started in 6th Edition, probably as an import from Fantasy Battles.
2nd had a psychic phase like WHFB at the time (card driven). 3rd had something like 10ths but you could buy powers; it wasn't a "This model always has this power and that's all you get, feth you" (aka how they SHOULD have done 10th edition). 4th and 5th I assume were the same as 3rd. 6th I think is when they added back the Psychic Phase similar to how, again, WHFB did at the time.
Not all psykers could choose in 3rd. Sanctioned psykers had one of 5 randomly-selected, wildly-different powers and could end up with NO power. Some psykers had assigned powers, like Ork Weirdboyz.
There was also the experimental minor psychic powers list for extra shenanigans
Plus as mentioned, there were "always on" psychic abilities that required no psychic test: Warlock powers (except Augment), Grey Knights Shrouding, Rites of Exorcism, and most Nemesis force weapon abilities, arguably Exarch powers, the deepstrike-detection of Daemonhunter mystics, the psychic lighning-rod effect of Witchhunter penitents to name a few.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I used to love building list. A lot of the fun for me came out of thinking of an army concept and working it into a actual army, theme was so important and I had to make choices.
Now the only decision I really have to make is what detachment to take. Everything else is just stock standard with no choices or minimal choices with no real impact. Enhancements are a cool concept but just like artifacts before them so many are just flat out laughably unusable.
Here's a consideration I waffle on.
Sorcerer - Lethal Hits, Untargetable outside 18". Comes with a pistol spell - 12" 2D6 BS2 S5 AP1 D1 SH3.
Infernal Master - SH, changes one of his own rolls to a 6. Comes with a flamer - 18" 2D3 S6 AP2 D1 - hazardous for 2D6
Both attach to Rubrics who rr1s to wound and full wounds against targets on objectives. Neither of these characters would interact with flamers. So what does a bolter squad look like?
I have strats that add 9" to Psychic weapons and another that makes the bolters Pyschic and S5. My army ability is that I add either DW, SH, or LH to psychic attacks.
Sorcerer unit -
Pros : more durable in the backfield with less that can target them
Cons : spell is shorter range, LH doesn't mix well with rr wounds and DW Output vs terminators :
Spoiler:
Infernal Master unit -
Pros : flamer spell will reach further, SH and DW go great together
Cons : flamer spell needs to go hazardous to be on par, unit is more vulnerable
Output vs terminators :
Spoiler:
The Infernal Master unit is slightly better at the cost of durability. Or i can saw screw it and go all flamers, but be danger close:
Spoiler:
My biggest moment of dissonance in 10th was the first game where I saw that battleshock does absolutely nothing. I just couldn't wrap my head around how THAT was the down side to losing half your unit. Ohh no, my half dead squad can't be target by stratagems? Good thing I wouldn't use stratagems on a half dead unit because I am not brain dead. The biggest issue is the loss of Obsec but really, I can't think of a situation where it would have meaningful impact on the game.
There's a difference between "happens all of the time" and "happens some of the time and you need to be vigilant". There are strong outcomes in tight games where battleshock matters. That it doesn't happen often or that you or the opponent didn't look for it doesn't make it have no impact.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
alextroy wrote: There was no Psychic Phase in 3rd Edition. As you noted, the Codex Witch Hunters, a 3rd Edition Codex, has psychic powers with test. Each of these powers tells you what phase to use them in. I doubt there was a Psychic Phase given this is the case.
If the Lexicanum article on 4th Edition is accurate, there was no Psychic Phase on 4th Edition.
My copy of the 5th Edition rules has no Psychic Phase in it.
So the Psychic Phase seems to have started in 6th Edition, probably as an import from Fantasy Battles.
Yea I literally purchased spells in CSM 3.5 and they worked exactly like they do now. They just happen ( with an LD test ).
My two bits for psychic powers is that we need the ability to chose from a list, although not necesarily all psykers need such list: e.g my Zoanthropes don't need one, but my Hive Tyrant would love to have one.
And the second one is that we need a special rule for a psychic test. Not all psychic abilities need to have a test, again my Zoanthropes shouldn't need to test to fire their warp blasts, but we already see plenty of psychic abilities that have a "roll a D6, on a 1 take X mortal wounds and you suck" kind of inbuilt tests.
Tyran wrote: My two bits for psychic powers is that we need the ability to chose from a list, although not necesarily all psykers need such list: e.g my Zoanthropes don't need one, but my Hive Tyrant would love to have one.
And the second one is that we need a special rule for a psychic test. Not all psychic abilities need to have a test, again my Zoanthropes shouldn't need to test to fire their warp blasts, but we already see plenty of psychic abilities that have a "roll a D6, on a 1 take X mortal wounds and you suck" kind of inbuilt tests.
I think they have the right balance on ones that need tests. It'd be obnoxious to test for Lethal Hits or whether or not I can shoot my gun that usually needs to roll to hit anyway.
I can't see a "pick a spell" setup, but I could see them adding extra datasheets with varied configurations.
Tyran wrote: My two bits for psychic powers is that we need the ability to chose from a list, although not necesarily all psykers need such list: e.g my Zoanthropes don't need one, but my Hive Tyrant would love to have one.
Agreed. Honestly, the way they were handling pivotal roles and exarch powers the last couple editions was great, and I think a similar approach could work for psychic powers. Do you want your librarian to provide defense, offense, or mobility (teleportation)? Choose Kine Shield, Avenger, or Gate of Infinity as appropriate.
And the second one is that we need a special rule for a psychic test. Not all psychic abilities need to have a test, again my Zoanthropes shouldn't need to test to fire their warp blasts, but we already see plenty of psychic abilities that have a "roll a D6, on a 1 take X mortal wounds and you suck" kind of inbuilt tests.
I could live with this, but I'm not sure it's really needed. How often do psykers fail to use their powers in BL novels? Probably not 1 in 6 times. Possibly never? If anything, it might be more appropriate to have a small chance of suffering mortal wounds, but have the power go off regardless so long as the psyker doesn't die from it.
I could live with this, but I'm not sure it's really needed. How often do psykers fail to use their powers in BL novels? Probably not 1 in 6 times. Possibly never? If anything, it might be more appropriate to have a small chance of suffering mortal wounds, but have the power go off regardless so long as the psyker doesn't die from it.
Ok maybe not an inbuilt test, but there are many psychic defenses in the lore that have been either reduced to FNP+ vs psychic or completely dropped (e.g the Shadow in the Warp rework into causing morale).
And I can actually think of at least one BL example of a Librarian being suppresed by the Shadow in the Warp and later killing himself by overexerting himself psychically.
So maybe a return of Deny the Witch or other types of psychic nullification beyond FNP.
Yeah. I'd be okay with that. Sort of surprised we don't have more anti-psychic abilities in 10th worded something like:
"Wolf Tail Talisman: When this unit is targeted by an enemy unit's Psychic ability, roll a d6. On a 5+, this unit is unaffected. Additionally, this model's unit has FNP5+ against Psychic Attacks."
Honestly, I'm not against anti-psychic effects. However, the increased prevalence of everyone and their mom being able to randomly shut down a farseer from 6th edition onward was a major pet peeve. If I paid points for a librarian to put up a forcefield, you should have to pay points to turn off that forcefield, y'know?
Which rules? A lot of the nitty gritty (read: mostly a waste of time) rules got dropped in the transition from 7th to 8th. From 9th to 10th, we lost subfaction rules and some of the generic strats, but we gained a bunch of unit-specific rules plus some USRs.
Flavor rules aren't a waste of time to everyone - as shown by this second thread on basically that topic.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
I wouldn't say clear winner, but there's often a clear loser. Most people will take the bolt Aggressors, but there's a niche role for the flamer Aggressors for example - not a clear winner. 10 Vanguard Vets deep striking to just outside 3" with Inferno or Plasma Pistols - neither is a clear winner, but there is a clear loser in the bolt/grav pistol and mostly hand flamer which probably has a less than good niche use.
Which rules? A lot of the nitty gritty (read: mostly a waste of time) rules got dropped in the transition from 7th to 8th. From 9th to 10th, we lost subfaction rules and some of the generic strats, but we gained a bunch of unit-specific rules plus some USRs.
Flavor rules aren't a waste of time to everyone - as shown by this second thread on basically that topic.
To clarify, I was mostly referring to the rules that tended to be a lot of dice rolling for limited impact on the game or for moderate impact but they felt bad. Ex: a vehicle exploding used to involve 3 dice pools instead of 1. Difficult terrain added a fair bit of rolling for an end result of either not mattering or else mattering and it felt bad (hooray for rolling snake eyes on the movement distance of your footslogging melee unit). Failing morale meant rolling to see how far you moved away from the fight (possibly resulting in a unit death if you're near the board edge or as good as a unit death if the unit was a slow melee specialist), then extra rolling to see if kept rolling... Plus snapshots being prevalent meaning lots of fishing for 6s to not a lot of effect. That sort of thing.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
I feel like the on table experience has a lot more going on but there's less to mess with off table and over the years I've realized for a lot of people that's the main draw.
I'd disagree with that as most of what people are talking about are the fluff-tailored stuff like Chapter Tactics, and Strats that are applied in game.
Which rules? A lot of the nitty gritty (read: mostly a waste of time) rules got dropped in the transition from 7th to 8th. From 9th to 10th, we lost subfaction rules and some of the generic strats, but we gained a bunch of unit-specific rules plus some USRs.
Flavor rules aren't a waste of time to everyone - as shown by this second thread on basically that topic.
To clarify, I was mostly referring to the rules that tended to be a lot of dice rolling for limited impact on the game or for moderate impact but they felt bad. Ex: a vehicle exploding used to involve 3 dice pools instead of 1. Difficult terrain added a fair bit of rolling for an end result of either not mattering or else mattering and it felt bad (hooray for rolling snake eyes on the movement distance of your footslogging melee unit). Failing morale meant rolling to see how far you moved away from the fight (possibly resulting in a unit death if you're near the board edge or as good as a unit death if the unit was a slow melee specialist), then extra rolling to see if kept rolling... Plus snapshots being prevalent meaning lots of fishing for 6s to not a lot of effect. That sort of thing.
That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
Breton wrote: That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
A rose by any other name though.
Anvil Siege Force is probably Imperial Fists.
Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in your unit have the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability. If your unit Remained Stationary this turn, then until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
That's pretty much bolter drill.
Firestorm Assault Force is Salamanders.
Each detachment enables you to focus more on a particular facet that you enjoy - regardless of your name or paint scheme.
Breton wrote: That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
A rose by any other name though.
Anvil Siege Force is probably Imperial Fists.
Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in your unit have the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability. If your unit Remained Stationary this turn, then until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
That's pretty much bolter drill.
Firestorm Assault Force is Salamanders.
Each detachment enables you to focus more on a particular facet that you enjoy - regardless of your name or paint scheme.
But some factions have yet to get any additional detachments.
Breton wrote: That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
A rose by any other name though.
Anvil Siege Force is probably Imperial Fists.
Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in your unit have the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability. If your unit Remained Stationary this turn, then until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
That's pretty much bolter drill.
Firestorm Assault Force is Salamanders.
Each detachment enables you to focus more on a particular facet that you enjoy - regardless of your name or paint scheme.
But some factions have yet to get any additional detachments.
And that's an issue with release patterns, not the system itself.
I'm with Daed on this-not locking detachments to paint schemes is good.
JNAProductions wrote: And that's an issue with release patterns, not the system itself. I'm with Daed on this-not locking detachments to paint schemes is good.
That's a problem with game bloat. There are so many factions now that even if GW were to release one codex a month (which they already don't do, making it even longer), it would take them 2 years until everyone had a book, which means everyone gets 1 year of having a codex before the new edition potentially invalidates it since we are on 3 year edition cycles (and, I suspect, 6 year edition resets but we don't know that for sure yet)
As for detachments I'm sort of torn, as I liked having subfactions be specific as it meant there was an actual reason to play the subfaction and not "grey tide" where you picked whatever was the meta crap, but a lot of the subfaction rules weren't actually specific. Marines are the most prevalent in this case because most of their special rules were just combat doctrines that any of them could use, so the new style makes more sense.
Thirded. It was weirdly limiting that your BA could *only* be good at melee and your white scars could *only* be good at riding bikes. Now, if your unmounted White Scars need to hold a fortress, they're allowed to do so using the Anvil Siege Force rules rather than having to "steal" the IF rules or punish themselves by going without benefits because you wanted to field something other than bikes that day. And conversely, your Salamanders are allowed to field a mounted strikeforce with everyone on bikes and in transports and get rules to support that (recent legend-ing of various bike units aside).
JNAProductions wrote: And that's an issue with release patterns, not the system itself.
I'm with Daed on this-not locking detachments to paint schemes is good.
That's a problem with game bloat. There are so many factions now that even if GW were to release one codex a month (which they already don't do, making it even longer), it would take them 2 years until everyone had a book, which means everyone gets 1 year of having a codex before the new edition potentially invalidates it since we are on 3 year edition cycles (and, I suspect, 6 year edition resets but we don't know that for sure yet)
That's still more a matter of release patterns than game bloat, per se. The customer-friendly thing to do would probably be to move away from physical books and towards pdf's, which would then make it extremely easy to release as many PDFs as they want all at once without worrying about shipping concerns. Presumably they don't do this because it's seen as more profitable to steadily release physical books every couple months rather than putting everything out in one wave. The long wait for everyone to get their rules is more the result of a business decision than an inherent flaw with the number of factions.
But the problem, from a fluff perspective is that Anvil Siege Force ISN'T Imperial Fists; it's ANY Chapter. Which means the rule invalidates the fluff. Imperial firsts AREN'T noted for being good at siege tactics anymore: all space marine forces, baring faction specific models, are now all equally good at everything. And marines are the only faction lucky enough to actually get faction specific units beyond a character or two.
But for other factions? Like, when any sisters order can specialize in melee, what even is the Bloody Rose?
Wyldhunt wrote: It was weirdly limiting that your BA could *only* be good at melee and your white scars could *only* be good at riding bikes.
This is a misinterpretation of what the case was.
Blood Angels melee units used to be able to do things that other chapter's melee units couldn't do, but their non-melee troops were no better or worse than anybody else. If BA bikers and UM bikers and SW bikers all compete against each other, each has equal odds. They aren't bad at biking- they just don't specialize in it.
Now if you throw a Ravenwing bike army into the contest, it's likely to beat any of the other armies, not because the other armies are bad at biking, but biking is an area of specialization for Whitescars, they are likely to win a contest against other bikers.
Being extra good at a thing does not mean that you are bad at all other things. It just doesn't.
Now, if your unmounted White Scars need to hold a fortress, they're allowed to do so using the Anvil Siege Force rules rather than having to "steal" the IF rules or punish themselves by going without benefits because you wanted to field something other than bikes that day. And conversely, your Salamanders are allowed to field a mounted strikeforce with everyone on bikes and in transports and get rules to support that (recent legend-ing of various bike units aside).
But since White Scars don't specialize in siege units according to their fluff, SHOULD their siege units be allowed to be as good as Chapters whose fluff says they DO specialize in siege tactics? Because if so, then nobody is actually specialized in anything.
Wayniac wrote: There are so many factions now that even if GW were to release one codex a month (which they already don't do, making it even longer), it would take them 2 years until everyone had a book, which means everyone gets 1 year of having a codex before the new edition potentially invalidates it since we are on 3 year edition cycles (and, I suspect, 6 year edition resets but we don't know that for sure yet)
The issue isn't the number of factions, it's the length of the edition, and the way to fix it isn't removing factions, it's lengthening the edition cycle. The formula for the MINIMUM length of an edition should be 2.5 x codex release cycle with NO CAMPAIGN BOOKS taking up book release slots UNTIL all dexes are out.
A BA Tactical squad, in 8th and 9th, was better in melee than an UM Tactical squad.
Were they better enough to make you want to melee with them? Probably not. But they were better.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: I used to love building list. A lot of the fun for me came out of thinking of an army concept and working it into a actual army, theme was so important and I had to make choices.
Now the only decision I really have to make is what detachment to take. Everything else is just stock standard with no choices or minimal choices with no real impact. Enhancements are a cool concept but just like artifacts before them so many are just flat out laughably unusable.
Here's a consideration I waffle on.
Sorcerer - Lethal Hits, Untargetable outside 18". Comes with a pistol spell - 12" 2D6 BS2 S5 AP1 D1 SH3.
Infernal Master - SH, changes one of his own rolls to a 6. Comes with a flamer - 18" 2D3 S6 AP2 D1 - hazardous for 2D6
Both attach to Rubrics who rr1s to wound and full wounds against targets on objectives. Neither of these characters would interact with flamers. So what does a bolter squad look like?
I have strats that add 9" to Psychic weapons and another that makes the bolters Pyschic and S5. My army ability is that I add either DW, SH, or LH to psychic attacks.
Sorcerer unit -
Pros : more durable in the backfield with less that can target them
Cons : spell is shorter range, LH doesn't mix well with rr wounds and DW Output vs terminators :
Infernal Master unit -
Pros : flamer spell will reach further, SH and DW go great together
Cons : flamer spell needs to go hazardous to be on par, unit is more vulnerable
Output vs terminators :
The Infernal Master unit is slightly better at the cost of durability. Or i can saw screw it and go all flamers, but be danger close:
My biggest moment of dissonance in 10th was the first game where I saw that battleshock does absolutely nothing. I just couldn't wrap my head around how THAT was the down side to losing half your unit. Ohh no, my half dead squad can't be target by stratagems? Good thing I wouldn't use stratagems on a half dead unit because I am not brain dead. The biggest issue is the loss of Obsec but really, I can't think of a situation where it would have meaningful impact on the game.
There's a difference between "happens all of the time" and "happens some of the time and you need to be vigilant". There are strong outcomes in tight games where battleshock matters. That it doesn't happen often or that you or the opponent didn't look for it doesn't make it have no impact.
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alextroy wrote: There was no Psychic Phase in 3rd Edition. As you noted, the Codex Witch Hunters, a 3rd Edition Codex, has psychic powers with test. Each of these powers tells you what phase to use them in. I doubt there was a Psychic Phase given this is the case.
If the Lexicanum article on 4th Edition is accurate, there was no Psychic Phase on 4th Edition.
My copy of the 5th Edition rules has no Psychic Phase in it.
So the Psychic Phase seems to have started in 6th Edition, probably as an import from Fantasy Battles.
Yea I literally purchased spells in CSM 3.5 and they worked exactly like they do now. They just happen ( with an LD test ).
You really went out of your way to pad out the difference between one additional dead terminator as somehow meaningful choice. The Infernal Master is a better choice, you even left out that Infernal Master grants two cabal points to the sorcerers one.
A harder choice is between an Exalted Sorcerer and an Infernal Master but it is clear based one what you want out of the squad. If you want some more staying power you go Exalted, you want more killing power you go Infernal Master.
On the point of battleshock, you can pull out what ever anecdotes you want but I have yet to see it make a difference in a game. I concede that it may potentially make or break a game but I think it is a terrible mechanic that is just so empty of significant impact that I think it to be a terrible rule. I though Fearless wounds were dumb in 5th but that was a better mechanic than battleshock.
Breton wrote: That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
A rose by any other name though.
Anvil Siege Force is probably Imperial Fists.
Except It's not - A: Its everybody not just Fists, and B: Its a shallow shadow of their previous flavor. The point/appeal of the Tactics and Super Doctrines etc. was to differentiate the different chapters using the same playbook. How it changed how they were built and play. A unit of Aggressors from the Imperial Fists and the Salamanders was likely to look very different. Fists were more likely to take Devastators than Raven Guard because Fists got a specific bonus to Devs, while Ravenguard were more likely to use their bonus in hand to hand thus favoring Jump Packers.
Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in your unit have the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability. If your unit Remained Stationary this turn, then until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
That's pretty much bolter drill.
Firestorm Assault Force is Salamanders.
Each detachment enables you to focus more on a particular facet that you enjoy - regardless of your name or paint scheme.
You keep proving my point. A flavor everyone gets isn't unique. What used to be a unique flavor turned into a shared Strat isn't flavor. Giving an Aeldari player a 1 CP Strat that gives an Aeldari unit MV12 4++ until the end of turn isn't Harlequinesque - its diminishing Harlequins by giving their thing to Wrathguard.
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JNAProductions wrote: And that's an issue with release patterns, not the system itself.
I'm with Daed on this-not locking detachments to paint schemes is good.
Some Dets should be locked, most should not. But none of the Dets should be the (sole) source of Chapter/Klan/Sept/etc flavor. Nor should we go back to one basic system each faction is hammered through. Chapter Tactics worked for Assorted Marines, and probably Nids, it didn't work for Orks, they and Guard probably needed something similar but different.
Breton wrote: That isn't what I see most people "missing". Its the differentiation/fluff/flavor rules - especially the ones that worked. Bolter Drill for Imperial Fists, Unique but similar psychic powers with fluffy names between (sub)factions - specialist phase perfomance (BA Fights, DA Shoots, GK Psyches) to include a generalist all-phase performance (UM Demi Company Kitchen Sinks).
A rose by any other name though.
Anvil Siege Force is probably Imperial Fists.
Except It's not - A: Its everybody not just Fists, and B: Its a shallow shadow of their previous flavor. The point/appeal of the Tactics and Super Doctrines etc. was to differentiate the different chapters using the same playbook. How it changed how they were built and play. A unit of Aggressors from the Imperial Fists and the Salamanders was likely to look very different. Fists were more likely to take Devastators than Raven Guard because Fists got a specific bonus to Devs, while Ravenguard were more likely to use their bonus in hand to hand thus favoring Jump Packers.
Until the end of the phase, ranged weapons equipped by models in your unit have the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability. If your unit Remained Stationary this turn, then until the end of the phase, each time a model in your unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
That's pretty much bolter drill.
Firestorm Assault Force is Salamanders.
Each detachment enables you to focus more on a particular facet that you enjoy - regardless of your name or paint scheme.
You keep proving my point. A flavor everyone gets isn't unique. What used to be a unique flavor turned into a shared Strat isn't flavor. Giving an Aeldari player a 1 CP Strat that gives an Aeldari unit MV12 4++ until the end of turn isn't Harlequinesque - its diminishing Harlequins by giving their thing to Wrathguard.
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JNAProductions wrote: And that's an issue with release patterns, not the system itself.
I'm with Daed on this-not locking detachments to paint schemes is good.
Some Dets should be locked, most should not. But none of the Dets should be the (sole) source of Chapter/Klan/Sept/etc flavor. Nor should we go back to one basic system each faction is hammered through. Chapter Tactics worked for Assorted Marines, and probably Nids, it didn't work for Orks, they and Guard probably needed something similar but different.
The doctrine and super doctrine is why internal balance for Marines was basically taken out back and shot. It was needless layering of rules that nobody else got and all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys unit A too good when their yellow "ultramarine successors" with fists symbols on the shoulders, that every other "chapter" was punished for their sins.
Unless they get individual codexes so units can be priced differently, the current implementation is far better. The old one gave more flavour and personality, won't deny that, but it was at an extreme cost to game play.
If I'm really into a chapter because of their preferred fighting style, I can still do that and not lose anything.
If somebody else likes Ultramarines and bikes at the same time, why should they either be playing with worse rules or cosplay as a DA successor?
Why punish people for their colour scheme?
Are Blood Angels (and their successors) the only chapter in the galaxy that ever had the idea to put a wounded Librarian into a Dreadnought?
The doctrine and super doctrine is why internal balance for Marines was basically taken out back and shot. It was needless layering of rules
The number of people complaining about how shallow/sanitized/whatever the current edition is suggests it wasn't as needless as you imply.
that nobody else got
As far as I knew, most factions had some version of it.. Hive Fleet, Chapter, Klan Kulture, Shield Host Katahs, and so on.
and all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys
Denigrating people who disagree with you by calling them "Little Timmy" probably isn't helpful.
unit A too good when their yellow "ultramarine successors" with fists symbols on the shoulders, that every other "chapter" was punished for their sins.
Unless they get individual codexes so units can be priced differently, the current implementation is far better. The old one gave more flavour and personality, won't deny that, but it was at an extreme cost to game play.
If I'm really into a chapter because of their preferred fighting style, I can still do that and not lose anything.
If somebody else likes Ultramarines and bikes at the same time, why should they either be playing with worse rules or cosplay as a DA successor?
Because they get other rules that might not interact in a balanced manner. Ultramarines should absolutely be able to do an all or mostly biker army and it should be relatively effective. They shouldn't get the boost to bikers that White Scars, Wolves, or Ravenwing should get because their chapter tactics with Ravenwing Strats wouldn't be balanced for use together for the same reason Wolves shouldn't field Sammael, and Raven Guard shouldn't field Commander Dante.
Why punish people for their colour scheme?
Are Blood Angels (and their successors) the only chapter in the galaxy that ever had the idea to put a wounded Librarian into a Dreadnought?
Probably not, but even now they're the only ones who can field one without "breaking" the rules.
Simplifying the Marine rules was one of the actual simplification efforts that was sorely needed. The fact the accessible beginner faction couldn't move their basic infantry model without triggering like 5 different rules was an absurdity.
The issue is GW took that and then applied it to every faction, even the ones who historically have always had lots of unique mechanics. No Aeldari, Drukhari or GSC player was complaining that their army was too complicated, but they all got hit with this absurd "You Get One Army Special Rule" nonsense that just hobbles 10th. In fact Marines in 8th and 9th were all more complicated, or just had more layers of stacking rules, than those armies which was just bizarre.
Of course rather than fixing that singular problem everyone else got hit too. Collective punishment in Games Design; you love to see it.
If I'm really into a chapter because of their preferred fighting style, I can still do that and not lose anything.
If somebody else likes Ultramarines and bikes at the same time, why should they either be playing with worse rules or cosplay as a DA successor?
Because they get other rules that might not interact in a balanced manner. Ultramarines should absolutely be able to do an all or mostly biker army and it should be relatively effective. They shouldn't get the boost to bikers that White Scars, Wolves, or Ravenwing should get because their chapter tactics with Ravenwing Strats wouldn't be balanced for use together for the same reason Wolves shouldn't field Sammael, and Raven Guard shouldn't field Commander Dante.
Aren't Ultramarines and Black Templars right now the most competitive Marine chapters to play exactly because they get something that others do not have access to? The 5th edition codex had this little blurp right before the army list:
You'll notice that the named characters in the Space Marines army list are drawn from several different Chapters, but they can still be used in the same army if you wish. This can represent the common occurrence of different Space Marine Chapters fighting alongside one another.
Alternatively, you can use the model and rules for a named character to represent a mighty hero of a different Chapter - for example, using the rules and model for Marneus Calgar as the Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists, or a Space Marine Chapter of your own design - you just need to come up with a new name.
This is a perfect way to personalise your army - just make sure your opponent is aware of what everything counts as.
Best way to handle it, in my opinion. Provide the crunch and let players reflavour to their liking.
If I'm really into a chapter because of their preferred fighting style, I can still do that and not lose anything.
If somebody else likes Ultramarines and bikes at the same time, why should they either be playing with worse rules or cosplay as a DA successor?
Why punish people for their colour scheme?
Are Blood Angels (and their successors) the only chapter in the galaxy that ever had the idea to put a wounded Librarian into a Dreadnought?
Because the game has lost the point. it isn't 40K anymore, it is just a game with models wearing a 40K skin suit. the entire point of when they (Rick, Phil, Andy etc..) designed 40K and set the lore between 3rd and 4th ed. it was to fight in the 40K setting. they went out of the way in the older editions to allow players to make the armies their own in a way. rather through your own paint scheme that counts as army fighting style A, B, or C. to the the point they made a trait system in the 4th ed marine codex, a doctrine system in the guard codex and various craftworld core choices etc.. that you could make your own. and they did it with just a page or 2 of unique rules that made each force fight in it's own way. ravenwing was a bike army just as much as white scars could be a bike army but the rules that each had made them fight very differently.
the scars have never had a better set of rules than this-
Spoiler:
The same as the forces of the chaos legions never having anything better than the 3.5 codex.
players are people and they become very invested in the setting and the factions they love(this is true of any game with deep lore behind it). they are not being punished if anything they are given all options and they choose the one that fits them best. if you truly love ultra marines and bikes you can still use bikes in an ultra marines army but they will not fight the same way that the scars fight with bikes.
The "one rule" for each faction in 10th edition is absolutely absurd if not offensive considering how deep and interesting the game was when it's creators were still around. of course the new players have no idea how much they are missing out on.
The doctrine and super doctrine is why internal balance for Marines was basically taken out back and shot. It was needless layering of rules
The number of people complaining about how shallow/sanitized/whatever the current edition is suggests it wasn't as needless as you imply.
that nobody else got
As far as I knew, most factions had some version of it.. Hive Fleet, Chapter, Klan Kulture, Shield Host Katahs, and so on.
and all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys
Denigrating people who disagree with you by calling them "Little Timmy" probably isn't helpful.
unit A too good when their yellow "ultramarine successors" with fists symbols on the shoulders, that every other "chapter" was punished for their sins.
Unless they get individual codexes so units can be priced differently, the current implementation is far better. The old one gave more flavour and personality, won't deny that, but it was at an extreme cost to game play.
If I'm really into a chapter because of their preferred fighting style, I can still do that and not lose anything.
If somebody else likes Ultramarines and bikes at the same time, why should they either be playing with worse rules or cosplay as a DA successor?
Because they get other rules that might not interact in a balanced manner. Ultramarines should absolutely be able to do an all or mostly biker army and it should be relatively effective. They shouldn't get the boost to bikers that White Scars, Wolves, or Ravenwing should get because their chapter tactics with Ravenwing Strats wouldn't be balanced for use together for the same reason Wolves shouldn't field Sammael, and Raven Guard shouldn't field Commander Dante.
Why punish people for their colour scheme?
Are Blood Angels (and their successors) the only chapter in the galaxy that ever had the idea to put a wounded Librarian into a Dreadnought?
Probably not, but even now they're the only ones who can field one without "breaking" the rules.
No, orks etc did not get to pick 2 custom subfaction traits, declare they were iron hands for the day and unlock another layer of free stuff to access. This is the main point, there is no integrity to the argument. People "chapter hopped" for rules all the time and it made internal balance miserable. It's a milder version now but functionally the same, they just removed the chapter tags.
Edit: for reference little timmy is a long standing meme in this hobby, it's not demeaning to people, it's to represent random young person A learning stuff.
Wyldhunt wrote: Yeah. I'd be okay with that. Sort of surprised we don't have more anti-psychic abilities in 10th worded something like:
"Wolf Tail Talisman: When this unit is targeted by an enemy unit's Psychic ability, roll a d6. On a 5+, this unit is unaffected. Additionally, this model's unit has FNP5+ against Psychic Attacks."
Honestly, I'm not against anti-psychic effects. However, the increased prevalence of everyone and their mom being able to randomly shut down a farseer from 6th edition onward was a major pet peeve. If I paid points for a librarian to put up a forcefield, you should have to pay points to turn off that forcefield, y'know?
GW decided to give every GK rule, which for other armies are just rules, the psychic trait. GK don't get any benefit from the psychic trait. There are not buff weapon/skill/etc, if it is psychic. But there are rules like the WE, 1ksons or BT rules which punish the living hell out of an army based around psykers. Giving most or all armies easy access to anti psyker stuff would make GK struggle even more.
That is one of the main problems with "psychic" skills of the GK. Other armies be it eldar or 1ksons just have their skills, and the psychic stuff is a bonus or an upgrade to rules the armies already have. There are synergies, rules over lap etc
A GK chaplain or Brother Cpt, which GW somehow forgot is GK rank of Lt, has rules just like or similar to those of other marines. Only his are psychic. GK melee weapons? psychic. Well ogryns have similar and they aren't. GK range weapons, psychic too. Benefits, non, but suddenly anti psyker protections of certain armies suddenly kick in.
On top of that GK have odd "once per game" rules spread over the army, when other armies have those on a per turn use. And GKs versions are somehow psychic too. And maybe, if in spite of that GK were some tournament power house, because "movment is king" (turns out it isn't when you can't also kill stuff). But now necron have hyper crypt which is being GK with better rules, buff defensive, offensive, points per model/rule cost wise, etc.
But again this is just rules, it would be nice have powerful one, it would be good to have good ones. But right now the feeling one gets while playing GK is like playing Ad Mech (only for less money, but with a higher chance of a phase out of model line). It is just not fun. An army which faciton fantasy is about knight mages/shamans/paladins/etc is relagated to "let me not interact with the opponent, and try to max out secondaries, while staying outside of LoS". Ad mecha dudes want their robots, tech stuff, maybe a knight splashed in, and not a 3000$ army that plays like IG and has turns last 45min. Now most GK players are used to GW pulling stuff like that, but I can imagine that if someone new was suppose to start their w40k adveture with GK, they could be asking questions why some armies can feel right, while others can not.
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Dudeface 812953 11640131 wrote:
No, orks etc did not get to pick 2 custom subfaction traits, declare they were iron hands for the day and unlock another layer of free stuff to access. This is the main point, there is no integrity to the argument. People "chapter hopped" for rules all the time and it made internal balance miserable. It's a milder version now but functionally the same, they just removed the chapter tags.
Edit: for reference little timmy is a long standing meme in this hobby, it's not demeaning to people, it's to represent random young person A learning stuff.
The thing with this is that for a long time, since end 8th ed, you can't really chapter hop. No one knows or cares how an ork should be painted to be clan X, or how a specific hive fleet looks like. Eldar can have their dudes painted what ever, same with chaos. But with marines, if they aren't painted correct, then you can not play your BA as IH. Now you can play them as a succesor chapter, but in some cases this just doesn't give the proper game effects. Why play ultramarines without Ventris and Calgar? Why take a DA successor army, if you can't use Azrael. Maybe for the really bad chapters like RG, WS or Fists of all types it doesn't matter much, but then again they are so bad, then it would be hard to find new players for those.
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Bosskelot wrote: Simplifying the Marine rules was one of the actual simplification efforts that was sorely needed. The fact the accessible beginner faction couldn't move their basic infantry model without triggering like 5 different rules was an absurdity.
The issue is GW took that and then applied it to every faction, even the ones who historically have always had lots of unique mechanics. No Aeldari, Drukhari or GSC player was complaining that their army was too complicated, but they all got hit with this absurd "You Get One Army Special Rule" nonsense that just hobbles 10th. In fact Marines in 8th and 9th were all more complicated, or just had more layers of stacking rules, than those armies which was just bizarre.
Of course rather than fixing that singular problem everyone else got hit too. Collective punishment in Games Design; you love to see it.
Only marines without all the extra rules just didn't work. We have seen it in 8th, when the streamlined primaris came out.
one weapon, no melee weapon on the sgt of the basic troop squad, maybe a weapon option change for the whole squad.
And what happened? all those hellblasters, interceptors, intercessors etc were not used. And the balance of +1W ended up not being much of a balance when 2D became the norm for all weapons. end 8th ed marines, when they finaly became fun to play and had more then one list, required rules over lap, use of models GW thought people wouldn't (because they weren't primaris or were FW) etc Then 9th came, the rules were removed and marines dropped hard, with one exeption of WS, which had a good synergy with melee units. And even then it is not like WS were peak of game entire 9th. They were just a good army, and the best of marines for long time. BA were good because GW, again, didn't not think that people would play with 30 old sang guard or bricks of DW terminators (again old models).
Even now, the marine army that works best is an army that is marines+ton of extra special rules and MM on vehicles. Venguard, pre change, was that too over lap of rules, GW forgetting that centurions exist. When someone tries to build a space marine the way GW wants it. The army just doesn't work, and they don't just not work in tournaments (just check how often non venguard marines are played and what is their win rates), but they also don't work in regular store games.
Edit: for reference little timmy is a long standing meme in this hobby, it's not demeaning to people, it's to represent random young person A learning stuff.
It is when you're using it to belittle and demean the people disagreeing with you, not an actual young person learning stuff.
Edit: for reference little timmy is a long standing meme in this hobby, it's not demeaning to people, it's to represent random young person A learning stuff.
It is when you're using it to belittle and demean the people disagreeing with you, not an actual young person learning stuff.
It was not used in that context at all, I'll reword it to prove the point: "a young random player finding their feet with the hobby rocks up to a game with yellow marines painted with fists icons using ultramarine rules because those happen to be what works best for their collection, if this happens in events it skews results and results in internal balance issues. The fact they're yellow with fist icons hasn't factored into the choic of rules, gameplay has, hence the entire argument lacks integrity."
You are looking to be offended fellow forum person.
No, orks etc did not get to pick 2 custom subfaction traits, declare they were iron hands for the day and unlock another layer of free stuff to access. This is the main point, there is no integrity to the argument. People "chapter hopped" for rules all the time and it made internal balance miserable. It's a milder version now but functionally the same, they just removed the chapter tags.
Edit: for reference little timmy is a long standing meme in this hobby, it's not demeaning to people, it's to represent random young person A learning stuff.
The thing with this is that for a long time, since end 8th ed, you can't really chapter hop. No one knows or cares how an ork should be painted to be clan X, or how a specific hive fleet looks like. Eldar can have their dudes painted what ever, same with chaos. But with marines, if they aren't painted correct, then you can not play your BA as IH. Now you can play them as a succesor chapter, but in some cases this just doesn't give the proper game effects. Why play ultramarines without Ventris and Calgar? Why take a DA successor army, if you can't use Azrael. Maybe for the really bad chapters like RG, WS or Fists of all types it doesn't matter much, but then again they are so bad, then it would be hard to find new players for those.
I'm confused. Your argument makes it sound like you agree, you shouldn't be punished for playing the way you want to play with what you want to play irrespective of what chapter your minis visually identify with. Flavour being added via characters and other unique options. Did I read that right?
No, orks etc did not get to pick 2 custom subfaction traits, declare they were iron hands for the day and unlock another layer of free stuff to access. This is the main point, there is no integrity to the argument. People "chapter hopped" for rules all the time and it made internal balance miserable. It's a milder version now but functionally the same, they just removed the chapter tags.
I'm sitting here looking and Leagues have a Warlord Trait and a Strat. Ork Klans had both, a "chapter tactic" and a relic. Similar with Nids. Similar with Aeldari. Looking at this: Custodes have Aegis of the Emperor (Chapter Tactics), a Martial Ka'tah (doctrines), and a Shield host Fighting Style (Super Doctrine) The Aeldar have Strands of Fate (Doctrines) Attributes (Chapter Tactics) and probably skip the Super Doctrine because Strands of Fate is so much better than Doctrines by themselves which is probably why they added Super Doctrines in the supplements.
It was not used in that context at all, I'll reword it to prove the point: "a young random player finding their feet with the hobby rocks up to a game with yellow marines painted with fists icons using ultramarine rules because those happen to be what works best for their collection, if this happens in events it skews results and results in internal balance issues. The fact they're yellow with fist icons hasn't factored into the choic of rules, gameplay has, hence the entire argument lacks integrity."
You are looking to be offended fellow forum person.
Sure it was.
Dudeface wrote: all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys unit A too good
the people who disagree with you are children power gamers trying to make Unit A too good.
Karol wrote:The thing with this is that for a long time, since end 8th ed, you can't really chapter hop. No one knows or cares how an ork should be painted to be clan X, or how a specific hive fleet looks like. Eldar can have their dudes painted what ever, same with chaos. But with marines, if they aren't painted correct, then you can not play your BA as IH. Now you can play them as a succesor chapter, but in some cases this just doesn't give the proper game effects. Why play ultramarines without Ventris and Calgar? Why take a DA successor army, if you can't use Azrael. Maybe for the really bad chapters like RG, WS or Fists of all types it doesn't matter much, but then again they are so bad, then it would be hard to find new players for those.
That's not really true. Aeldari are theoretically more color-locked than Space Marines because Aeldari don't have Successor Craft Worlds. But that doesn't really matter because an overwhleming number of players are perfectly willing to do whatever fluffing Counts-As is necessary for a game. Marneus Calgar and a company of Ultramarines have escaped from a Black Fortress, exited the webway on a Dark Angels recruitment planet where their raid the DA Armory for armor and equipment. So my Green Ultramarines are using the UM Rules even though they look like Dark Angels. The nearly immortal warriors of the Biel Tan craftword have joined up with the Alaitoc craftword for a defense and because of their longevity can adapt their style to Biel-Tan using their rules instead of Alaitoc. Paint color has never locked in any Sub Faction for the vast majority of players.
When I think of 10th edition 40k, the comparison that comes to mind is 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.
It was an edition that made sweeping changes to the core rules and especially to how the different classes functioned - with a very heavy emphasis on balance.
In past editions, a Barbarian played very differently to a Wizard, who in turn played very differently to a Cleric.
In 4th, though, every class was cut from the exact same mould. They would each get the exact same number of at-will abilities, encounter-abilities, daily abilities, utility abilities etc., and at the exact same intervals. Moreover, the abilities were all near-identical, with only minor differences in rider abilities or such. Gone were the wide variety of spells that spellcasters used to have access to. Instead, virtually every boiled down to 'do damage + effect'. So in essence you had something like this:
Hit with Sword - 1d8 damage + an ally can move 2 squares.
Holy Smash - 1d8 damage + an ally can spend a hit dice.
Magic Missile - 1d8 damage + enemy is pushed back 2 squares.
Now, these mechanics worked and far better balanced than prior editions of the game. However, it also felt very flat to a lot of people. It felt more like a MMORPG than D&D, as almost everything was built for combat, with all the rules so rigid that the advantages that normally came from playing an offline game were all but non-existent.
Even the little things felt off. For example, D&D had traditionally measured range in ft (where necessary, maps would traditionally use 5ft squares). However, all the distances in 4th edition were measured in squares. It was a small change but one that felt very off and was anti-immersive, as every single description reminded you of the grid you were presumably expected to rigidly stick to at all times.
The point is, while 4th Edition was perfectly functional as a game, it no longer felt like D&D. So much choice and flavour had been sacrificed in the name of balance that it just wasn't fun.
This is what I'm reminded of when I think of 10th edition 40k. We seem to have sacrificed far too much in the name of balance. Every faction must have Exactly One faction ability and Exactly One subfaction ability and Exactly Four relics etc.. Characters may only join Ze Designated Units! Plus the annihilation of wargear as NMNR (the worst policy ever enacted by GW) is hammered down even more. Except now the characters who've been hardest hit no longer even have warlord traits (or a meaningful selection of artefacts) to compensate.
Even list-building has been stripped back to the point that GW might as well just pre-write your lists for you.
However functional or balanced the game is, it's just no longer a game I have any desire to play.
Because the game has lost the point. it isn't 40K anymore, it is just a game with models wearing a 40K skin suit. the entire point of when they (Rick, Phil, Andy etc..) designed 40K and set the lore between 3rd and 4th ed. it was to fight in the 40K setting. they went out of the way in the older editions to allow players to make the armies their own in a way. rather through your own paint scheme that counts as army fighting style A, B, or C. to the the point they made a trait system in the 4th ed marine codex, a doctrine system in the guard codex and various craftworld core choices etc.. that you could make your own. and they did it with just a page or 2 of unique rules that made each force fight in it's own way. ravenwing was a bike army just as much as white scars could be a bike army but the rules that each had made them fight very differently.
the scars have never had a better set of rules than this-
Spoiler:
The same as the forces of the chaos legions never having anything better than the 3.5 codex.
players are people and they become very invested in the setting and the factions they love(this is true of any game with deep lore behind it). they are not being punished if anything they are given all options and they choose the one that fits them best. if you truly love ultra marines and bikes you can still use bikes in an ultra marines army but they will not fight the same way that the scars fight with bikes.
The "one rule" for each faction in 10th edition is absolutely absurd if not offensive considering how deep and interesting the game was when it's creators were still around. of course the new players have no idea how much they are missing out on.
It's interesting to see the stark difference in how rules were written then (where you'd have notes on flavour/story baked in) as compared to now.
Dudeface wrote: all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys unit A too good
the people who disagree with you are children power gamers trying to make Unit A too good.
You're really reaching here. Are you denying that people changed "chapter rules" to fit with their play style? That chapter rules were oddly restricting to some players? That marines gained more flexibility and options in list construction through keyword choice than other forces?
If you want to answer no to those, I'd honestly tell you that you've been very sheltered if you haven't encountered meta list blue iron hands because they're "totally fluffy for my ultramarine dread army" etc.
The current method benefits more people including marine players, than the few who played strictly to the exact fluff their rules reinforced.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: You really went out of your way to pad out the difference between one additional dead terminator as somehow meaningful choice. The Infernal Master is a better choice, you even left out that Infernal Master grants two cabal points to the sorcerers one.
A harder choice is between an Exalted Sorcerer and an Infernal Master but it is clear based one what you want out of the squad. If you want some more staying power you go Exalted, you want more killing power you go Infernal Master.
The terminator count is a demonstration that the a-typical Infernal Master choice isn't the be-all end-all regardless of cabal points.
To carry the problem further and bring it back to "list building decision making within 10th" --
The best placing TS list ( WWWLWW ) in LVO ran 11 characters : Ahriman, Magnus, 2 Exalteds, 3 Exalteds on Disc, IM, 3 Shamans. The guy right behind him ( WWWWWL ) ran Magnus, Ahriman, IM, DP w/ Wings, and 2 Sorcerers. The next guy ( WLWWWW ) was fewer characters still, but double mutalith double forgefiend.
Even Eldar lists don't run the same things. There's a significant amount of variety.
An exalted provides a 4++ and will resurrect a model per turn ( unless he hurts the unit or you spike a 6, but those outcomes wash ). My nemesis the nightspinner who sits in the corner and wants to open up my backfield doesn't care at all about an invulnerable either from regular shots or spiking devastating wounds. There is no better protection than not being able to be targeted. For the 4++ to matter it needs to be AP3 weapons, which is generally melee territory ( Deathguard ) and I don't want to be in melee.
On the point of battleshock, you can pull out what ever anecdotes you want but I have yet to see it make a difference in a game. I concede that it may potentially make or break a game but I think it is a terrible mechanic that is just so empty of significant impact that I think it to be a terrible rule. I though Fearless wounds were dumb in 5th but that was a better mechanic than battleshock.
I think a lot of people look for it to swing games. It shouldn't really do that often, because it'd create a win more situation where the army that's ahead stays ahead.
My thesis, on the original question, is that GW was trying to reset bloat. 40k has had three big burn-it-down-and-start-over moments in its past, in 3e, 8e, and 10e, all of which happened because the edition before was or was perceived to be bloated beyond usability. In trying to reset the bloat while also trying to preserve their bare-bones core mechanics they've produced a game that doesn't really have much substance left.
Breton wrote: Except It's not - A: Its everybody not just Fists, and B: Its a shallow shadow of their previous flavor. The point/appeal of the Tactics and Super Doctrines etc. was to differentiate the different chapters using the same playbook. How it changed how they were built and play. A unit of Aggressors from the Imperial Fists and the Salamanders was likely to look very different. Fists were more likely to take Devastators than Raven Guard because Fists got a specific bonus to Devs, while Ravenguard were more likely to use their bonus in hand to hand thus favoring Jump Packers.
I feel like a lot of this sentiment revolves around "my guys can do this cool thing and your guys can't so it makes my choice more unique and special". Kind of a purity test, I guess? I'm not saying these are anyone's words.
Someone playing "IF" could certainly run Stormlance ( as one example ) and it might feel weird, but it's not outside the scope of possibility that the jack of all trades marines can pivot. Horus Heresey IF likely still run Scimitar Jetbikes I'd bet even if more players lean heavy on vehicles or terminators.
How might one run a fluffy IF bike list in 40K?
Well, IF love bolters. Outriders have those. An ATV with a gatling fits the mold, too. Like all marine detachments they can use AoC - durability fits. Then there's Blitzing Fusillade, which grants Assault and SH1 - more bolter hits = good. IF should love to run a flying brick as well. Stormlance provides a -1 to be hit and -1 to be wounded strat that gels nicely with it's -1D. A super durable beefcake flyer? Totally.
So three strats that fit how IF might operate on a slightly more mobile list. Would it be the best list ever? No, but that shouldn't matter.
Realistically anyone running Stormlance will likely think of their army as White Scars. It doesn't diminish what White Scars are if someone else uses them as Imperial Fists. In reality I don't think anyone will do this. People will look at units and perhaps they really like bikes. So they pick Stormlance. And then they read about marines and here are these guys who love bikes, too...and a WS player is born.
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AnomanderRake wrote: My thesis, on the original question, is that GW was trying to reset bloat. 40k has had three big burn-it-down-and-start-over moments in its past, in 3e, 8e, and 10e, all of which happened because the edition before was or was perceived to be bloated beyond usability. In trying to reset the bloat while also trying to preserve their bare-bones core mechanics they've produced a game that doesn't really have much substance left.
Different substance.
- Picking the unit dynamics I want rather than whether or not I should take 7 Rubrics instead of 10 so I can fit "more good stuff".
- Picking characters that perform the task I need rather than the spells I want.
- At some point there will be a detachment layer to pick from, which will influence all the choices below it.
And these are just pre-game things. No one is talking about the mission format or how that operates.
I suspect people miss the really strong combinations and that's what is meant by heavily sanitized.
Realistically anyone running Stormlance will likely think of their army as White Scars. It doesn't diminish what White Scars are if someone else uses them as Imperial Fists. In reality I don't think anyone will do this. People will look at units and perhaps they really like bikes. So they pick Stormlance. And then they read about marines and here are these guys who love bikes, too...and a WS player is born.
Stormlance is a bad example. Because no one is running. It is suppose to be White Scars, but because GW removed all the bike characters and units from the codex, it rules don't even support a potential army build. I don't think that a WS player or the WS community care, if some crazy IH player switches to play a bike army as a meme. Maybe they could be a little bit unhappy that after doing that he can go back to play a regular IH build, and they can't, because their regular sucks/is bad.
A better example of how this "a free option for all" is the Venguard list. The RG detachment, doesn't do much to build an efficient RG list. Or even play venguard units. But take them instead as ultramarines, with ultramarine special characters, load up on centurions and aggressors. And suddenly a RG player may start thinking, why are ultramarine players give a better RG? And it can go cross factions too. My dudes were suppose to be the teleport army. HUGE cuts taken to balance the abilities. Damage dropped to practicaly no damage, both in shoting and melee. And then Necron get their codex and the GK army rule is suddenly just a detachment for them. And they have better units, better rules, better synergies, better damage, no where in the codex does it seem as if the designer though that in order to balance the ability to teleport, everything has to be nerfed. Ah and for some reason they can teleport vehicles and we can no. Even ones that have litteral teleport packs mounted on them.
No player of an army is happy to see his army be bad, but they get a lot more unhappy, when they see the same design team write good rules. And it really reaches new levels of unhappy, when the designers do it to a different army in the same codex.
I'm confused. Your argument makes it sound like you agree, you shouldn't be punished for playing the way you want to play with what you want to play irrespective of what chapter your minis visually identify with. Flavour being added via characters and other unique options. Did I read that right?
Shoulds don't matter. What matters is what GW does and how they write their rules. Should GW write good rules, that represent faction fantasy of a faction and have , which more or less is a very GW games specific term, no trap units or even armies? Yes of course. But that is not how they write rules.
We all know that, aside for marines, once your codex is writen you are done with the rules for that edition. The number of large scale fixes or changes are extremly rare per edition. How long will it take for GW to fix an army like Ad Mecha. One that already has the codex out, and was bad since the start of the edition? There won't be any new book coming in 10th. And GW doesn't do large changes, for some factions they don't do it, even for a index to codex switch. Maybe GW fixes them in a year, aka 2/3 in to the edition, that is assuming they get lucky as a faction in 10th.
We know that no bike models, characters etc are planned for this edition for marines. Which more or less means White Scars players are not going to have an army till minimum 11th ed. In general for supposed favourism, GW does the marine changes with the speed of a snail. If they wanted to phase out marines, they could have done it through out a single edition, tops 2. And not spread it over 4. Non marine full updates are sometimes good, sometimes not, but at least they don't take three or four times as much as an avarge dude plays the game.
What I would want is for GW do not just have one or two pet army projects from someone people in the design studio, and the rest of the armies being done as a copy paste. This creates only confusion, huge imbalances and stuff gets missed, because some dude with a spreadsheet working on a codex or index "forgets/doesn't" know what faction he is working on. I could write another page about my dudes, but people don't like that. So let me just point at the ad mecha codex. I don't know who wrote it, who said okey to it, who playtested it etc But the person in charge clearly thought that the faction about robots and robot humans, shouldn't have a valid robot army. But hey the studio did the same to tau in prior edition, maybe it was even the same people
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JNAProductions wrote: I'll say it again: "GW did an idea badly" is not the same as "An idea is bad".
Yes, but we play with GW rules, within GW created limitations to stuff like gear, army updates, terrain (important for those that have their own/store owners/tournament orgenisers etc). GW ain't a kid, who decided that it would be fun to take a cousin sleding, and it somehow ended with the cousin missing half his teeth and a scar mid face. They are a gaming company, the biggest in the world with 40years of expiriance. I know them for three editions, and to me it looks like every edition GW has to learn again that A LoS ignoring shoting is stupid, when it does max dmg B roll modification in an game where procs and on roll effects happen are impossible to quantify with points C Current year is not 1980 and we are not playing a historical table top game with a Rules Master and narrative goal to the game.
Companies are judged by effects and results, not on what they hope or wish for. In real life, maybe , and this is a big maybe, only parents judge their kids based on hopes and wishes. And even those that do only to a certain age. I have my doubts a 40 years old can told his mom and dad, It went bad, but I had good intentions.
I feel like a lot of this sentiment revolves around "my guys can do this cool thing and your guys can't so it makes my choice more unique and special". Kind of a purity test, I guess? I'm not saying these are anyone's words.
This one made me think a bit- you know, examine my own motivations to see if I might fit this description. I don't think I do.
Because the thing is, it's not JUST about my choice being special. It's about knowing that all of my possible opponents ALSO have things that are special for their subfaction. Because it's about believing that ALL subfactions deserve an identity hook that is their signature and which affects how they operate. And I believe the point is best illustrated by examining factions that AREN'T marines, because marines have had distinct subfaction abilities that affect how they play on the field since 2nd.
But man, as a Sisters player, for whom it has NEVER mattered whether I chose Bloody Rose or Sacred Rose, it really made me feel almost as privileged as marines have always been for that choice to finally fething mean something. In order to go all the way, of course, my broad faction range would have to include 150+ kits with a chunk of those being dedicated to subfaction, and maybe an entire spin-off game set in the Age of Apostasy...
But having my subfaction choice mean something was a good start. And knowing that everyone else's subfaction choice mattered too was a huge part of my satisfaction, because I don't JUST play Sisters. Generally, I find that the less other stuff a faction has, the more important having subfactions was- like the choice between Hereticus, Malleus or Xenos was EVERYTHING to an Inquisition force.
Someone playing "IF" could certainly run Stormlance ( as one example ) and it might feel weird, but it's not outside the scope of possibility that the jack of all trades marines can pivot. Horus Heresey IF likely still run Scimitar Jetbikes I'd bet even if more players lean heavy on vehicles or terminators.
How might one run a fluffy IF bike list in 40K?
Well, IF love bolters. Outriders have those. An ATV with a gatling fits the mold, too. Like all marine detachments they can use AoC - durability fits. Then there's Blitzing Fusillade, which grants Assault and SH1 - more bolter hits = good. IF should love to run a flying brick as well. Stormlance provides a -1 to be hit and -1 to be wounded strat that gels nicely with it's -1D. A super durable beefcake flyer? Totally.
So three strats that fit how IF might operate on a slightly more mobile list. Would it be the best list ever? No, but that shouldn't matter.
And I think the second option is absolutely awesome- it illustrates what I was talking about in an earlier post- non-White Scar bikers are not "Bad" - they're just NOT White Scar Bikers. And if both of us agree that that IS a fluffier choice, and that it is not objectively "Bad," then why can we not also agree that the detachment that was created to represent White Scars is better reserved for White Scars in most, if not all games... And especially those that are classified as "narrative?"
Realistically anyone running Stormlance will likely think of their army as White Scars. It doesn't diminish what White Scars are if someone else uses them as Imperial Fists. In reality I don't think anyone will do this. People will look at units and perhaps they really like bikes. So they pick Stormlance. And then they read about marines and here are these guys who love bikes, too...and a WS player is born.
I do generally agree with this, and it's important for me to remember it. In MOST cases, people probably will choose to stick to the fluffier way, and certainly the circle I game with would, so as long as the detachments in the upcoming dexes continue to allow us to do that, I won't notice this as much as it feels like I will while I'm participating in online debate rather than actually playing.
So yeah, checking my own righteous indignation every now and again is probably healthy.
I suspect people miss the really strong combinations and that's what is meant by heavily sanitized.
Not really, because the combo still exists- it's just DETACHMENT rule + Army rule + Enhancement + Strat + Leader rule + Datacard rule instead of SUBFACTION rule + Army rule + Enhancement + Strat + Leader rule + Datacard rule.
We haven lost combos at all. What we've lost is a guarantee that our opponent's abilities will be at least somewhat consistent with their subfaction identity, because ONE element in the combo is dependent upon subfaction identity.
I think part of the issue here is the question of SHOULD subfactions play differently or should it be only a cosmetic choice of colors and maybe some special characters?
If we look at the far back times of 2nd edition, Marines as a whole were Ultramarines (i.e. any codex compliant Marine chapter) that weren't Space Wolves, Dark Angels, or Blood Angels; in these days Raven Guard, iron Hands, Templars, et all were just Ultramarines painted differently and you had no special rules to make your chapter unique (I believe the only special characters were Ultramarines, but I could be mistaken). Same for Chaos, which Legion you were was superfluous and had no bearing on anything, they all played identically and color was just an aesthetic choice, although you did have like Abaddon, Kharn, Ahriman, Fabius Bile and Huron Blackheart as characters. Same with Eldar and craftworlds; they didn't matter and all Eldar played identically.
Fast-forward to 3rd edition. Now we start getting special rules for subfactions come in. The big reason the Chaos 3.5 codex, to this day, is considered the best codex GW ever wrote is because every legion played differently. Night Lords didn't play like Alpha Legion, who didn't play like Iron Warriors. Your choice legion was as much a statement of what you wanted out of the army as a player as it was how you approached the game.
But is that good or bad? Is the difference between them large enough that they should be almost their own unique armies? Or should they play similarly as a single faction and have the color, once again, be a matter of taste rather than determining what set of abilities you get to use? It used to be that your choice of subfaction, yes including colors, was an important one to you and not one to be taken lightly. It wasn't tied to power, so it meant you were invested in the subfaction because you liked it, and not simply because it was the "best" choice and power on the table is the limit of you interest in it.
I know in the past it bothered me intensely to see someone with an Ultramarine army, painted and themed as ultramarines, but using Iron Hands rules because those happened to be the "meta" choice; it completely rubbed me the wrong way and immediately made me think the person was a power-gaming weasel because it's clear they want Ultramarines but don't want to deal with any consequences for picking Ultramarines over Iron Hands However, this once again brings up the point of what, if anything, should determine your subfaction? Is it just a playstyle, similar to the 10th edition Marine codex where detachments, despite any obvious subfaction they might hint at, are purely a tactical choice? Or should it be more than that?
AnomanderRake wrote: My thesis, on the original question, is that GW was trying to reset bloat. 40k has had three big burn-it-down-and-start-over moments in its past, in 3e, 8e, and 10e, all of which happened because the edition before was or was perceived to be bloated beyond usability. In trying to reset the bloat while also trying to preserve their bare-bones core mechanics they've produced a game that doesn't really have much substance left.
I'd disagree that 2nd-to-3rd was a de-bloat change. GW wanted to get people to play bigger games (so they buy more), and accepted that the more detailed/fiddly rules of 2nd were hindering that. The engine itself was fine (as seen in Necromunda or Gorkamorka), but the scale they were aiming for meant they needed to zoom out a bit in terms of the mechanics.
I'd agree that at least part of the intent around 7th-to-8th and 9th-to-10th is debloating, though whether GW have learned or applied the right lessons when doing this is definitely up for debate.
I feel that there’s a bunch of management oversight on 40k that prevents the design team from really branching out and doing new things. Even during 3rd edition Andy Chambers felt massively constrained when writing rules, and IIRC he was blocked from making 4th edition have alternating activations.
Fast forward to today and 10th has a lot of things that sound good to managers, but may not really be what players want. For example: one-in-one-out is exactly something the suits would love, or only one army rule per faction, or the dreaded “simplified not simple”. Dropping war gear costs also makes writing rules faster and cheaper so that could be an incentive to do so. I suspect stratagems are one of the only things the new studio actually managed to get past the filters and that’s why they’re so prevalent. We can see too that Eldar lost classic abilities like Battle Focus in favor of the new Fate Dice, most likely because it’s something the new studio came up with, which got the green light, and they want to celebrate that success by keeping it.
So to reiterate, 10th potentially had quite a bit of managerial oversight that prevented it from actually doing cool things.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: You really went out of your way to pad out the difference between one additional dead terminator as somehow meaningful choice. The Infernal Master is a better choice, you even left out that Infernal Master grants two cabal points to the sorcerers one.
A harder choice is between an Exalted Sorcerer and an Infernal Master but it is clear based one what you want out of the squad. If you want some more staying power you go Exalted, you want more killing power you go Infernal Master.
The terminator count is a demonstration that the a-typical Infernal Master choice isn't the be-all end-all regardless of cabal points.
To carry the problem further and bring it back to "list building decision making within 10th" --
The best placing TS list ( WWWLWW ) in LVO ran 11 characters : Ahriman, Magnus, 2 Exalteds, 3 Exalteds on Disc, IM, 3 Shamans. The guy right behind him ( WWWWWL ) ran Magnus, Ahriman, IM, DP w/ Wings, and 2 Sorcerers. The next guy ( WLWWWW ) was fewer characters still, but double mutalith double forgefiend.
Even Eldar lists don't run the same things. There's a significant amount of variety.
An exalted provides a 4++ and will resurrect a model per turn ( unless he hurts the unit or you spike a 6, but those outcomes wash ). My nemesis the nightspinner who sits in the corner and wants to open up my backfield doesn't care at all about an invulnerable either from regular shots or spiking devastating wounds. There is no better protection than not being able to be targeted. For the 4++ to matter it needs to be AP3 weapons, which is generally melee territory ( Deathguard ) and I don't want to be in melee.
On the point of battleshock, you can pull out what ever anecdotes you want but I have yet to see it make a difference in a game. I concede that it may potentially make or break a game but I think it is a terrible mechanic that is just so empty of significant impact that I think it to be a terrible rule. I though Fearless wounds were dumb in 5th but that was a better mechanic than battleshock.
I think a lot of people look for it to swing games. It shouldn't really do that often, because it'd create a win more situation where the army that's ahead stays ahead.
I see, you are missing my point. Choosing units when your detachments spell out what units you take in order to even benefit from the rule is an illusion of choice tied directly to the detachment. Yes, you proved your point that you can build more than one list and do well. Great, that isn't really anything I ever argued against; My point is that when building an army once I have picked my detachment my choices are spelled out for me and there is no way to customize my units past that.
I really like the concept of the Assimilation Swarm but when I go to build the list my eyes just glaze over and I don't even care anymore. Detachments now are so open ended with options while at the same time being so laser focused on what you ought to take the choice of what models to take feels artificial. I truely miss the day when I had to choose between boyz or toys so to speak.
Dudeface wrote: all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys unit A too good
the people who disagree with you are children power gamers trying to make Unit A too good.
You're really reaching here. Are you denying that people changed "chapter rules" to fit with their play style? That chapter rules were oddly restricting to some players? That marines gained more flexibility and options in list construction through keyword choice than other forces?
If you want to answer no to those, I'd honestly tell you that you've been very sheltered if you haven't encountered meta list blue iron hands because they're "totally fluffy for my ultramarine dread army" etc.
The current method benefits more people including marine players, than the few who played strictly to the exact fluff their rules reinforced.
No, I'm denying your attempt to classify those people who liked the deeper more complex system as children who power game wasn't meant to be an insult to bolster your argument.
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AnomanderRake wrote: My thesis, on the original question, is that GW was trying to reset bloat.
I would posit they were trying to cater to the people who called it bloat. And I take no little amount of schadenfreude watching some of them now complain about how shallow the current edition is because their subfaction lost its identity. Any given army in 10th probably has about the same number of rules it had before - they're just arranged differently. The rules played Musical Chairs. Instead of Doctrines, Chapter Tactics, Super Doctrines, and Strats we have Faction Abilities, USRs, Dets, Unit Bespokes, Strats, and so on. The problem is the new seating arrangement resolves to far fewer unique combinations that provided the subfaction flavor.
Bosskelot wrote: Simplifying the Marine rules was one of the actual simplification efforts that was sorely needed.
No it wasn't.
The fact the accessible beginner faction couldn't move their basic infantry model without triggering like 5 different rules was an absurdity.
Yes they could. At best they had to deal with their current Doctrine (in the phase before they moved) and may or may not have had to interface with their Chapter tactic. BT had I think one benefit in one super doctrine choice in the movement phase. We had to stretch for 3. In the light of the full moon. After sacrificing a goat. Only if your opponent wiggles their fingers.
The issue is GW took that and then applied it to every faction, even the ones who historically have always had lots of unique mechanics. No Aeldari, Drukhari or GSC player was complaining that their army was too complicated,
Neither were the marine players- just the people who hated the Marine players. You can tell because they only wanted the nerfbat to hit Marines and not their faction.
but they all got hit with this absurd "You Get One Army Special Rule" nonsense that just hobbles 10th. In fact Marines in 8th and 9th were all more complicated, or just had more layers of stacking rules, than those armies which was just bizarre.
Of course rather than fixing that singular problem everyone else got hit too. Collective punishment in Games Design; you love to see it.
I'm surprised noone pointed out that was coming. Oh wait.
Breton wrote: Except It's not - A: Its everybody not just Fists, and B: Its a shallow shadow of their previous flavor. The point/appeal of the Tactics and Super Doctrines etc. was to differentiate the different chapters using the same playbook. How it changed how they were built and play. A unit of Aggressors from the Imperial Fists and the Salamanders was likely to look very different. Fists were more likely to take Devastators than Raven Guard because Fists got a specific bonus to Devs, while Ravenguard were more likely to use their bonus in hand to hand thus favoring Jump Packers.
I feel like a lot of this sentiment revolves around "my guys can do this cool thing and your guys can't so it makes my choice more unique and special". Kind of a purity test, I guess? I'm not saying these are anyone's words.
You mean aside from doing just that by putting them in quotation marks? Just like your Little Timmy Slur, you're doubling down now on the Power Gamer thing with a fake quote to poorly characterize the people who disagree with you.
Someone playing "IF" could certainly run Stormlance ( as one example ) and it might feel weird, but it's not outside the scope of possibility that the jack of all trades marines can pivot. Horus Heresey IF likely still run Scimitar Jetbikes I'd bet even if more players lean heavy on vehicles or terminators.
How might one run a fluffy IF bike list in 40K?
One of two ways, making them Scars/Ravenwing by the rules, and IF by the name/paint/fluff or making them Imperial Fists in a bike heavy list using the IF rules.
Well, IF love bolters. Outriders have those. An ATV with a gatling fits the mold, too. Like all marine detachments they can use AoC - durability fits. Then there's Blitzing Fusillade, which grants Assault and SH1 - more bolter hits = good. IF should love to run a flying brick as well. Stormlance provides a -1 to be hit and -1 to be wounded strat that gels nicely with it's -1D. A super durable beefcake flyer? Totally.
So three strats that fit how IF might operate on a slightly more mobile list. Would it be the best list ever? No, but that shouldn't matter.
It should absolutely matter. IF rules in a biker force should be relatively equal to Ravenwing Biker forces in different ways. In 10th edition the bikers would get a boost vs fortifications and vehicles which was a benefit Ravenwing didn't have, instead Ravenwing got faster movement, and Counts-As-Assault.
Realistically anyone running Stormlance will likely think of their army as White Scars. It doesn't diminish what White Scars are if someone else uses them as Imperial Fists. In reality I don't think anyone will do this. People will look at units and perhaps they really like bikes. So they pick Stormlance. And then they read about marines and here are these guys who love bikes, too...and a WS player is born.
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AnomanderRake wrote: My thesis, on the original question, is that GW was trying to reset bloat. 40k has had three big burn-it-down-and-start-over moments in its past, in 3e, 8e, and 10e, all of which happened because the edition before was or was perceived to be bloated beyond usability. In trying to reset the bloat while also trying to preserve their bare-bones core mechanics they've produced a game that doesn't really have much substance left.
Different substance.
- Picking the unit dynamics I want rather than whether or not I should take 7 Rubrics instead of 10 so I can fit "more good stuff".
- Picking characters that perform the task I need rather than the spells I want.
- At some point there will be a detachment layer to pick from, which will influence all the choices below it.
And these are just pre-game things. No one is talking about the mission format or how that operates.
I suspect people miss the really strong combinations and that's what is meant by heavily sanitized.
Again with the power gamer character assasinations. I suspect people miss the synergy of their chapter specific rules boosting and deboosting army building choices based on what is "fluffy" for their interpretation of their chapter. I would expect a blacksheep IF captain (potentially fluffed as relating stronger to the Sigismund aspect, rather than the Lysander branch of the Dorn Family tree while still being an IF) that loves Bike warfare to still use those bikes against their preferred Siege targets like a horde of movie Indians riding in a circle around the circled wagon train.
I believe 10th Ed was a step forward and two steps back on this front. The death of the old Detachment system + new archtype detachments was a step forward, but as usually happens when GW does wholesale rebuilds they do it half-assed. For example, Bladeguard units are still Deathwing in the new Codex. The Captain and Lieutenant models from that same set/equipment load that we might call Bladeguard Captains and Lieutanants for lack of a more specific name are not Deathwing, and cannot gain the keyword - which they would need to take the Inner Circle Taskforce enhancements. Half-assed. Do it right? Create a Chapter Upgrade sprue for each chapter designed to replace bits from assorted archetypal Squad kits (Outriders, Aggressors/Heavy Intercessors, Terminators, Jump Intercessors, etc) to turn one of those models into a Captain/Lieutenant/Librarian/Chaplain with a corresponding datasheet. Re-add Chapter Tactics to slide unit priority around - in army construction and target priority in a way that synergizes with Chapter Identity then adding that to the universal or Chapter specific Dets.
Wayniac wrote: I think part of the issue here is the question of SHOULD subfactions play differently or should it be only a cosmetic choice of colors and maybe some special characters?
If we look at the far back times of 2nd edition, Marines as a whole were Ultramarines (i.e. any codex compliant Marine chapter) that weren't Space Wolves, Dark Angels, or Blood Angels
But a question that became irrelevant the second there were SW and BA and DA.
Because by then, it was already unfair to Templars, and Raven Guard etc, and more unfair for other factions. The decision to do this for marines and no other faction literally IS the reason marines went on to become the poster children for the game. If instead, GW had led by creating dexes and unique units for Biel Tan, Saim-Hann and Ultwe and left marines as generic army, maybe we'd have Eldar in every release box and a whole side game about the fall of the Eldar, where every faction is a flavour of Eldar with chaos Daemons as the antagonists and no support for other factions.
They could have put the genie back in the bottle if 3rd had chosen to kill BADA and SW and go back to "all armies are just armies." But they didn't.
And guess why? Because, as it turns out, subfactions are things that players really liked and wanted, and even if there were only three subfactions to kill, player outrage even then would have probably killed the company.
Instead, they leaned into it making moves toward subfaction identities to many of their other popular factions, and became objectively the most successful table top miniature gaming company in the world. Other companies with less diverse offerings have, by comparison, failed spectacularly. Four decades of people have voted with their wallets that subfactions are cool. Meanwhile, Battletech- one of the only miniature games with a history as long as 40k, and largely described as "superior" by those disillusioned with 40k- has changed hands what, 4 times? And is currently relying on Kickstarter to get models made?
PenitentJake wrote: The decision to do this for marines and no other faction literally IS the reason marines went on to become the poster children for the game.
I'd say the reason Space Marines are the power child of the game is because they're Superman, Batman and Ironman all mixed together.
If instead, GW had led by creating dexes and unique units for Biel Tan, Saim-Hann and Ultwe and left marines as generic army, maybe we'd have Eldar in every release box and a whole side game about the fall of the Eldar, where every faction is a flavour of Eldar with chaos Daemons as the antagonists and no support for other factions.
I'm not sure. I mean there are some people who fetishize elves of course, but most people play the "human" race in assorted games if there is a human option. If there's a superhuman faction thats going to be even more popular - which is why IG isn't the poster child.
Breton wrote: I'd say the reason Space Marines are the power child of the game is because they're Superman, Batman and Ironman all mixed together.
All superheroes, with the possible exception of Iron Man, have more in common aesthetically with Aspect Warriors than marines.
I could se Batman too, because like Marines, it's his gear that does the heavy lifting.
I'm not sure. I mean there are some people who fetishize elves of course, but most people play the "human" race in assorted games if there is a human option. If there's a superhuman faction thats going to be even more popular - which is why IG isn't the poster child.
DO people choose humans more often than others, or are humans merely over-represented in most games?
Because in my Shadowrun and D&D games, humans were often the minority. Why would I want to play something in a fantasy game that I ride the bus to work with five days a week? Talk about the epitome of dull. It's why Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis will always suck harder than every other game GW makes no matter how good their rules are.
Note: I write provocatively to hammer home the point- Horus Heresy and Legion Imperialis don't suck, they just aren't for me and a lot of other people because we find Marines dull, samey and ubiquitous. My intent isn't to trigger, antagonize or troll fans of those games, or space marine enthusiasts. I'd be more than happy to join you if GW would allow the factions I find interesting to play. Aeronautica might have been able to draw me in- I was happy about the addition of Eldar and Tau, and if 'Nids had made the bill, I would have bought in.
Dudeface wrote: all it meant was that if combinations of made up rules made little timmys unit A too good
the people who disagree with you are children power gamers trying to make Unit A too good.
You're really reaching here. Are you denying that people changed "chapter rules" to fit with their play style? That chapter rules were oddly restricting to some players? That marines gained more flexibility and options in list construction through keyword choice than other forces?
If you want to answer no to those, I'd honestly tell you that you've been very sheltered if you haven't encountered meta list blue iron hands because they're "totally fluffy for my ultramarine dread army" etc.
The current method benefits more people including marine players, than the few who played strictly to the exact fluff their rules reinforced.
No, I'm denying your attempt to classify those people who liked the deeper more complex system as children who power game wasn't meant to be an insult to bolster your argument.
Jfc at no point did I say that, you're now living out some weird victim fantasy.
My literal point and statement was that some people who mashed rules together from massive stack of options that marines had could inadvertently push a unit to be far better than it was for other players, often in contradiction to the "fluff" of their own army. This then forces poor balance choices and hurts the chapter rules that you hold dear.
None of that is calling anyone a child, you're acting like one now, but that's not the point.
"All my imperial fists have better bolters but only durong 2 turns of the game" isn't some great deep mechanic. It's crappy rules layering to try and force an identity that didn't exist previously. But your army is now tied to the balance of the other chapters, so it's possibly your bolter units get pushed to obscurity because of something dark angels do. Or you maybe have a scout company themed fists force, but the rules that thematically apply to you are locked behind ravenguard. Maybe you have a Dreadnought heavy imperials fists force, but the rules that best represent that are locked behind iron hands, since obviously the other chapters aren't great at repairing vehicles.
The "complex deep" system was a bloated shallow problem.
Breton wrote: You mean aside from doing just that by putting them in quotation marks? Just like your Little Timmy Slur, you're doubling down now on the Power Gamer thing with a fake quote to poorly characterize the people who disagree with you.
Erm, Breton - you are aware that Dudeface and Daedalus81 are different accounts, right?
They might post in lock-step a lot of the time, but it was Dudeface going on about Little Timmy, not Daed.
Breton wrote: You mean aside from doing just that by putting them in quotation marks? Just like your Little Timmy Slur, you're doubling down now on the Power Gamer thing with a fake quote to poorly characterize the people who disagree with you.
Erm, Breton - you are aware that Dudeface and Daedalus81 are different accounts, right?
They might post in lock-step a lot of the time, but it was Dudeface going on about Little Timmy, not Daed.
Breton wrote: I'd say the reason Space Marines are the power child of the game is because they're Superman, Batman and Ironman all mixed together.
All superheroes, with the possible exception of Iron Man, have more in common aesthetically with Aspect Warriors than marines.
I could se Batman too, because like Marines, it's his gear that does the heavy lifting.
I'm not sure. I mean there are some people who fetishize elves of course, but most people play the "human" race in assorted games if there is a human option. If there's a superhuman faction thats going to be even more popular - which is why IG isn't the poster child.
DO people choose humans more often than others, or are humans merely over-represented in most games?
Because in my Shadowrun and D&D games, humans were often the minority. Why would I want to play something in a fantasy game that I ride the bus to work with five days a week? Talk about the epitome of dull. It's why Horus Heresy and Legions Imperialis will always suck harder than every other game GW makes no matter how good their rules are.
Note: I write provocatively to hammer home the point- Horus Heresy and Legion Imperialis don't suck, they just aren't for me and a lot of other people because we find Marines dull, samey and ubiquitous. My intent isn't to trigger, antagonize or troll fans of those games, or space marine enthusiasts. I'd be more than happy to join you if GW would allow the factions I find interesting to play. Aeronautica might have been able to draw me in- I was happy about the addition of Eldar and Tau, and if 'Nids had made the bill, I would have bought in.
In WoW, Humans (even before adding half human Worgen, and the Human but different Kul'Tiran) are the most common race at about 15% for the Alliance side, while Blood Elves being the most human-like option on the Horde side filled with orcs and anthropomorphic cows at 15.2% so yeah, I'd say people tend to play Humans and Superhumans over non-humans.
Larian shared statistics for Baldur's Gate 3 some time ago.
Most played origin character is a human wizard.
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
Breton wrote: You mean aside from doing just that by putting them in quotation marks? Just like your Little Timmy Slur, you're doubling down now on the Power Gamer thing with a fake quote to poorly characterize the people who disagree with you.
Erm, Breton - you are aware that Dudeface and Daedalus81 are different accounts, right?
They might post in lock-step a lot of the time, but it was Dudeface going on about Little Timmy, not Daed.
Thank you, I respect Daeds posts too much to be happy being confused with or misrepresented as. They are a much more coherent and well thought out poster than I.
Wayniac wrote: The big reason the Chaos 3.5 codex, to this day, is considered the best codex GW ever wrote is because every legion played differently.
Didn't you really just answer your own question right there?
Perhaps I did
But let's continue the train of thought from my post: If people do want subfactions to be unique, which it seems many do as it gives them a sense of being different, should it follow then that these subfactions should be something that is intrinsic to the player's decision, and not be something that gets changed on a whim based on which way the meta pendulum swings?
We are currently seeing exactly this, and detachment choice is more or less a set of tactics you want to use, not something key to your army's identity: Take the current Marine detachments, for example. They exist as options, that might lend themselves to a particular chapter, but they aren't tied to a particular chapter. Anyone can take a Gladius Task Force, it has nothing about it that is tied to Ultramarines. The Vanguard Spearhead, which nominally would lean into the "stealthy" chapters like Ravenguard or Raptors, doesn't require having an army selected from those Chapters. Nor does the Anvil Siege Force, which seems fluffwise to be for Imperial Fists and their less radical successors, have anything actually tying them to those chapters since anyone can select to use it.
This makes the most sense for Space Marines because Space Marine doctrine is 90% the same in the lore anyway, being laid out in the Codex Astartes which basically all of them follow in at least some ways, if not others. So it's rational to think of these detachments as being much closer to the formations in Jomini's Art of War than being distinct army styles based on heritage and doctrines (e.g. the difference between how the French, Prussian, and Austrian armies approached battle in the 18th and 19th century).
The ultimate question then becomes, should all detachments behave in that way and be more of a set of formations/tactics that the faction is known for, but without any requirement or specific tie to the subfactions best known for that mode of warfare? That seems to be the approach GW wants to go with 10th, in that for example with Eldar one might have a construct-focused army but not having to be Iyanden, or a Swordwind aspect-themed army that doesn't force Biel-tan. Similar to the Space Marine approach, this is understandable as Craftworlds are vast with vast resources, so even Iyanden which is said to have "few" Aspect Warriors surely would have enough to mobilize in a Swordwind-esque formation given the standard scale of a typical Warhammer 40,000 battle on the tabletop, whilst Biel-tan, despite being known for its Aspect shrines would certainly have enough construct units to field them en masse if the Autarchs and Farseers felt that was an appropriate response.
But, the question remains, does this hold true for everyone? And should it hold true at all? As mentioned previously SHOULD choice of subfaction be key to your identity, or something that you change on a whim based on how you want the army to play? If the latter, then what's the point of specifically choosing a subfaction that you identify with at all if you're going to ignore it whenever the winds of change (read: meta) shifts away from them?
Wayniac wrote: But, the question remains, does this hold true for everyone? And should it hold true at all? As mentioned previously SHOULD choice of subfaction be key to your identity, or something that you change on a whim based on how you want the army to play? If the latter, then what's the point of specifically choosing a subfaction that you identify with at all if you're going to ignore it whenever the winds of change (read: meta) shifts away from them?
There's also the question of how subfactions should be differentiated.
in 8th-10th, it's boiled down to a series of buffs that generally push some units over others (if you're lucky, they'll be the units that the theme wants to encourage).
However, there are other possibilities - e.g. making specific units troops/battleline. Effectively tweaking army-composition, rather than providing a direct effect on the field (or could have a combination of the two).
Honestly, I thought 9th's method was fine. I know people complained about bloat but IMO the worst offenders were the Loyalty Abilities, stratagems, and auras. Loyalty abilities could have been cut outright, as the detachment system already encouraged mono-faction play. Stratagems could have been removed, with a few useful ones being turned into standard game abilities (e.g. relics and WLTs could just be based on game size), wargear/unit abilities (e.g. grenades), and Command Abilities (which would replace the always-on auras).
I think doing that (and maybe a few other tweaks) would have streamlined 9th, without also stripping out virtually all flavour, faction identity, customisation etc.
PenitentJake wrote: But a question that became irrelevant the second there were SW and BA and DA.
Not really. After the SWs got fixed (no more assault cannon gunline terminators for you!), the Angels of Death were essentially a minor tweak to the Ultras, with one getting cool bikes and tougher terminators and the other getting bloodthirsty lunatics.
There was no "army special rule" for any of them, just variation on unit selection, and then players could create their own chapter with further variations and this was what gave them their feel. For example, the Ultras got veteran tactical squads, which are quite useful if you're in to a shooty army. But if you want close combat, the veteran assault marines of the BA are a better fit.
SW of course are a 90 degree twist on what "feral" marines would look like, so I'll concede a partial point there, though I'll take it back because they all use the exact same weapons, vehicles, etc. There's no "ooh, these tanks move faster for those marines," or "if I want this sweet, sweet loadout, I need that faction."
Once you started saying "this army gets this bonus for all models," now the subfactions became actual factions and it was natural for players to gravitate to the type of SM that was objectively the toughest because of these new rules.
The same was true of Chaos. The 2nd ed. codex listed the legions, the way they fought, their doctrine, etc., and GW gave you the units to build that out. With 3.5, those lines became much more starkly defined, and faction selection was now less about preferred play style that which one was objectively better.
And the point of it all was to make models unique to each sub-faction and sell them.
BTW, having read through much of the thread, is the word "streamlined" not a better way to describe 10th than "sanitized"?
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: BTW, having read through much of the thread, is the word "streamlined" not a better way to describe 10th than "sanitized"?
I think it's subjective, but I think the choice of "sanitized" is to indicate that it's lacking something. Streamlined would be positive, while IMHO and it seems in the view of many others, the game feels negative and bland, lacking in options, not with streamlined choices. It's a big part of why I like to use "sterile" to describe it.
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
I think in BG3 (or similar) its a bit skewed, because there's an obvious reason to make your main character a Charisma class. The rundown was Pala/Sorc/Warlock/Rogue (not Cha, but has other things that can sort of stand in for it)/Bard.
In WoW I'm pretty sure its just about which character model doesn't look awful. Humans and Night Elves trounced the rest - but then in TBC Blood Elves showed up, and swiftly outnumbered everything.
I'm fairly confident Space Marine dominance is explained simply by them being in every starter set the game has ever had. Its the cheapest, easiest and most pushed way to get into the hobby.
I've got various issues with 10th, but I think the detachment system is fine as compared with subfactions. I don't think Flanderising ever smaller forces is good for the game.
I think some are overly niche and not very good as a result (looking at you Ad Mech). But that's a different issue.
A Space Marine chapter should have all the equipment in the codex. At least as far as I'm aware, Dorn didn't declare "and they shall know no bikes." If you love the colour Yellow and love bikes, why not have both? I don't buy the whole "well maybe they can have bikes that are different to WS bikes". We know how this goes - some rule is always better. And then you get the bizarre situation where WS are actually worse with bikes than IF, IH or RG etc, or you are left with a suboptimal combination which is just annoying. (8th edition Word Bearers say hi.)
I mean I'm not sure why you'd get into say Iyanden if you didn't like Wraithguard. But maybe you like the colour scheme. Or maybe you do like Wraithguard - but not playing with them *every game*. I don't see the issue if you go "today I'm going to run all aspect warriors, and I'll talk the Swordwind detachment to indicate the rules this force should have". Crying "no no no that should be Biel-Tan only, if you aren't green it can't apply" feels pointless.
Tyel wrote: A Space Marine chapter should have all the equipment in the codex. At least as far as I'm aware, Dorn didn't declare "and they shall know no bikes." If you love the colour Yellow and love bikes, why not have both? I don't buy the whole "well maybe they can have bikes that are different to WS bikes". We know how this goes - some rule is always better. And then you get the bizarre situation where WS are actually worse with bikes than IF, IH or RG etc, or you are left with a suboptimal combination which is just annoying. (8th edition Word Bearers say hi.)
I mean I'm not sure why you'd get into say Iyanden if you didn't like Wraithguard. But maybe you like the colour scheme. Or maybe you do like Wraithguard - but not playing with them *every game*. I don't see the issue if you go "today I'm going to run all aspect warriors, and I'll talk the Swordwind detachment to indicate the rules this force should have". Crying "no no no that should be Biel-Tan only, if you aren't green it can't apply" feels pointless.
Valid point, that's sort of where I was leading the topic of discussion. In most cases (Chapter/Craftworld/etc.) it seems like the detachment/army rules should be a tactical thing only, because like you said whilst Imperial Fists might "specialize" in sieges, they are still a Codex-compliant chapter and have access to everything that entails, and their specific tactics might change depending on the circumstances on which they've been deployed, whether or not it's the sieges they are best equipped to handle. Same with the Eldar. Iyanden is noted for having a lot of Wraithguard and not a lot of Aspects, but surely they have enough to determine which is best used for the situation they're confronted with.
However, it still brings up the point of whether there should be any benefit at all to select, say, Imperial Fists over "Generic Space Marine Chapter #42" (or, worse, grey tide) or if that should be an irrelevant choice. If nothing differentiates Imperial Fists from any other Codex chapter (as the detachment is not unique to them and could be done equally well with Ultramarines or White Scars or whatever), is there any point at all in picking them? SHOULD there be a compelling reason to pick Imperial Fists over anyone else other than "The yellow marines look cool"?
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
I think in BG3 (or similar) its a bit skewed, because there's an obvious reason to make your main character a Charisma class. The rundown was Pala/Sorc/Warlock/Rogue (not Cha, but has other things that can sort of stand in for it)/Bard.
FWIW, I'm pretty sure Human is the most popular race even in tabletop D&D.
Wayniac wrote: SHOULD there be a compelling reason to pick Imperial Fists over anyone else other than "The yellow marines look cool"?
That's an easy question to answer. Yes and No.
No, the rules should not encourage you to pick Imperial Fist over any other Codex Compliant Chapter.
Yes, there should be background reasons to pick the Imperial Fist over any other Codex Compliant Chapter.
GW has very much moved further and further towards "let the player play what they want to play" in their rules. Not the direction that I would have chosen, but not a bad decision either.
But let's continue the train of thought from my post: If people do want subfactions to be unique, which it seems many do as it gives them a sense of being different, should it follow then that these subfactions should be something that is intrinsic to the player's decision, and not be something that gets changed on a whim based on which way the meta pendulum swings?
...
But, the question remains, does this hold true for everyone? And should it hold true at all? As mentioned previously SHOULD choice of subfaction be key to your identity, or something that you change on a whim based on how you want the army to play? If the latter, then what's the point of specifically choosing a subfaction that you identify with at all if you're going to ignore it whenever the winds of change (read: meta) shifts away from them?
So, you had a lot to say and I didn't want to throw a huge wall of text out there.
Part of the issue, and what a subset of the really dedicated Marine players/fans are trying to get across, is that while the detachments may not actually be locked to the subfaction...it's extremely clear that they were meant to be themed to them. Right down to previous subfaction abilities being placed into the detachment instead. So there went that bit of flavor, locked into a detachment. Add to it that characters for those subfactions other than Ultramarines are basically nonexistent in C: SM, and...yeah.
As much as hating on Marines can be justifiable, it's always daft to hate on the basic Codex. Outside of Ultramarines, everyone else is treated roughly as well as any other subfaction out there: They have a named character and are said to exist.
Add to it that the Space Marines' "expansions" can pick & choose from C: SM while not having to forego their own units and it's just insulting. It's not like Raven Guard are swimming in their own units, or Salamanders, or White Scars.
It would be a wildly different situation if, say, taking a character you were able to throw an upgrade on them that made them tied to a subfaction which in turn affected the Detachment they're in.
But that's not the case. Even taking those named characters for the Chapters just doesn't feel like it does gak.
Wayniac wrote:Fast-forward to 3rd edition. Now we start getting special rules for subfactions come in. The big reason the Chaos 3.5 codex, to this day, is considered the best codex GW ever wrote is because every legion played differently. Night Lords didn't play like Alpha Legion, who didn't play like Iron Warriors. Your choice legion was as much a statement of what you wanted out of the army as a player as it was how you approached the game.
But is that good or bad? Is the difference between them large enough that they should be almost their own unique armies? Or should they play similarly as a single faction and have the color, once again, be a matter of taste rather than determining what set of abilities you get to use? It used to be that your choice of subfaction, yes including colors, was an important one to you and not one to be taken lightly. It wasn't tied to power, so it meant you were invested in the subfaction because you liked it, and not simply because it was the "best" choice and power on the table is the limit of you interest in it.
I thought it was cool that in 3rd-4th the different subfactions approached listbuilding differently and played differently on the table.
I thought it was even cooler that the differences in organization and doctrine were represented as differences in force organization, or unique units, or unique wargear, representing differences that are relevant at the scale of an army and give them actually unique stuff. Iron Warriors bringing Basilisks, or Death Guard having special weapons Devastators, or Alpha Legion fielding Cultists, were all more interesting than 'every World Eater punches better'.
And I thought it was just super cool that when subfaction abilities did give additional power to units, it was almost always paid for, so you could safely ignore the subfaction bonuses entirely and still have a credible, functional, powerful force.
The 8th-9th Ed subfaction approach flanderized factions into doing one thing and one thing only, and directly penalized taking any army composition beyond that two-dimensional, one-note caricature. Oh, you've got a White Scars tank company? Something that exists in the fluff, because White Scars actually do more than just spam bikes? Sucks to suck, enjoy your handicap- should have taken mass biker spam like everybody else, dumbass.
At least in 10th Ed you can choose which of GW's curated army themes you want to field, instead of being railroaded into a specific composition by your paint scheme. It doesn't really bother me that other chapters are allowed to do bikers too and White Scars don't get to uniquely claim to be the best (with the result of anyone else wanting to play a bikers army just using counts-as anyways).
It's interesting to see the stark difference in how rules were written then (where you'd have notes on flavour/story baked in) as compared to now.
I think that has much more to do with the difference between those who created the universe and the game and those who just inherited the IP with a company that has moved from "we design wargames" to "we sell models that happen to have a game attached to them".
If instead, GW had led by creating dexes and unique units for Biel Tan, Saim-Hann and Ultwe and left marines as generic army, maybe we'd have Eldar in every release box and a whole side game about the fall of the Eldar, where every faction is a flavour of Eldar with chaos Daemons as the antagonists and no support for other factions.
They actually did, but in a subtle way, instead of making them separate codexes like GW would do now to make you buy more books. the 4th ed eldar codex allowed you to build the core of your army around each craft world or your own generic one. As every craftworld had access to all the aspect warriors(while some favored heavy on one aspect or another). the core and the characters associated with them defined the army direction. there are 5 core troops-
.dire avengers-uthwe
.rangers-alaitoc
.guardian jet bikes-saim hann
.10 man wraithguard units with spirit seers-iyanden
.guardians-generic
The 8th-9th Ed subfaction approach flanderized factions into doing one thing and one thing only, and directly penalized taking any army composition beyond that two-dimensional, one-note caricature. Oh, you've got a White Scars tank company? Something that exists in the fluff, because White Scars actually do more than just spam bikes? Sucks to suck, enjoy your handicap- should have taken mass biker spam like everybody else, dumbass.
The subfaction approach might have flanderized the factions, but the lore did it as early as 4th-5th. Pre-Ward.
Realistically anyone running Stormlance will likely think of their army as White Scars. It doesn't diminish what White Scars are if someone else uses them as Imperial Fists. In reality I don't think anyone will do this. People will look at units and perhaps they really like bikes. So they pick Stormlance. And then they read about marines and here are these guys who love bikes, too...and a WS player is born.
Stormlance is a bad example. Because no one is running. It is suppose to be White Scars, but because GW removed all the bike characters and units from the codex, it rules don't even support a potential army build. I don't think that a WS player or the WS community care, if some crazy IH player switches to play a bike army as a meme. Maybe they could be a little bit unhappy that after doing that he can go back to play a regular IH build, and they can't, because their regular sucks/is bad.
A better example of how this "a free option for all" is the Venguard list. The RG detachment, doesn't do much to build an efficient RG list. Or even play venguard units. But take them instead as ultramarines, with ultramarine special characters, load up on centurions and aggressors. And suddenly a RG player may start thinking, why are ultramarine players give a better RG? And it can go cross factions too. My dudes were suppose to be the teleport army. HUGE cuts taken to balance the abilities. Damage dropped to practicaly no damage, both in shoting and melee. And then Necron get their codex and the GK army rule is suddenly just a detachment for them. And they have better units, better rules, better synergies, better damage, no where in the codex does it seem as if the designer though that in order to balance the ability to teleport, everything has to be nerfed. Ah and for some reason they can teleport vehicles and we can no. Even ones that have litteral teleport packs mounted on them.
No player of an army is happy to see his army be bad, but they get a lot more unhappy, when they see the same design team write good rules. And it really reaches new levels of unhappy, when the designers do it to a different army in the same codex.
But that isn't an RG army, is it? About half the stuff in Vanguard is keyed to only scout / phobos. It isn't a scout / phobos only detachment, because that would make diverse list building pretty difficult.
What you're describing is like an Ultramarine successor that is good at concealment, but not subterfuge or maneuvers.
To put it differently - would locking Vanguard strats and enhancements to only "scout / phobos" units make for good RG lists?
And if we think back real hard to the broken RG lists we saw late 8th / early 9th...what were people running? Centurions and agrressors...
It's interesting to see the stark difference in how rules were written then (where you'd have notes on flavour/story baked in) as compared to now.
I think that has much more to do with the difference between those who created the universe and the game and those who just inherited the IP with a company that has moved from "we design wargames" to "we sell models that happen to have a game attached to them".
If instead, GW had led by creating dexes and unique units for Biel Tan, Saim-Hann and Ultwe and left marines as generic army, maybe we'd have Eldar in every release box and a whole side game about the fall of the Eldar, where every faction is a flavour of Eldar with chaos Daemons as the antagonists and no support for other factions.
They actually did, but in a subtle way, instead of making them separate codexes like GW would do now to make you buy more books. the 4th ed eldar codex allowed you to build the core of your army around each craft world or your own generic one. As every craftworld had access to all the aspect warriors(while some favored heavy on one aspect or another). the core and the characters associated with them defined the army direction. there are 5 core troops-
.dire avengers-uthwe
.rangers-alaitoc
.guardian jet bikes-saim hann
.10 man wraithguard units with spirit seers-iyanden
.guardians-generic
I think you are referring to Codex: Craftworlds in 3rd edition? This was an expansion to the generic Eldar army list on Codex: Eldar (3rd edition) with 5 variant lists representing the typical fighting style of each major Craftworld alongside a handful of list-specific new units.
It also came with this note, which I think summed up the 3rd edition approach:
Eldar got a 7th list in Codex: Eye of Terror (Ulthwe strike force, the second Ulthwe list) for a total of nine 3rd edition Eldar lists when including Codex: Dark Eldar and the experimental Harlequins list from Citadel Journal.
But that isn't an RG army, is it? About half the stuff in Vanguard is keyed to only scout / phobos. It isn't a scout / phobos only detachment, because that would make diverse list building pretty difficult.
It's only difficult because they removed Infiltrators/Incursors from being "Troop" equivalents. If either of them had been left as Battleline, suddenly it is not that difficult.
The Vanguard "Spearhead" isn't sure what it wants to be. It isn't the far superior Phobos Army of Renown, and it isn't willing to commit to all Phobos. If they'd been on their game, they would have looked back to the Pinion Demi-Company of Kau'yon and done it so that Phobos and Scouts acted as "wayfinders" for teleporting/deep striking troops.
What you're describing is like an Ultramarine successor that is good at concealment, but not subterfuge or maneuvers.
What Karol's describing is not that. It literally was the case that people were doing crap like Marneus, RG, and other Ultras characters in there.
The Vanguard "Spearhead" isn't sure what it wants to be. It isn't the far superior Phobos Army of Renown, and it isn't willing to commit to all Phobos. If they'd been on their game, they would have looked back to the Pinion Demi-Company of Kau'yon and done it so that Phobos and Scouts acted as "wayfinders" for teleporting/deep striking troops.
That sounds like a great supplement.... $$$
I do wonder if GW will try detachments that are more restrictive, but also more unique.
What Karol's describing is not that. It literally was the case that people were doing crap like Marneus, RG, and other Ultras characters in there.
Well, Bobby took some pointers from his waifu on subtlety, I guess.
In WoW, Humans (even before adding half human Worgen, and the Human but different Kul'Tiran) are the most common race at about 15% for the Alliance side, while Blood Elves being the most human-like option on the Horde side filled with orcs and anthropomorphic cows at 15.2% so yeah, I'd say people tend to play Humans and Superhumans over non-humans.
My point wasn't that more people wanted to play any one alien species than humans. My point was that that there are a lot of people who don't want to play humans. Looking at the numbers you've provided, it seems I'm right.
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
Again, probably more humans than any other single faction, but not more humans than all other factions combined- which was my point. If a D&D party has two humans, an elf, a dwarf, a half-orc and a gnome, sure humans were the most popular faction, but the majority of players did not choose humans.
And you bring up a great point too- people don't always pick their faction based on their actual level of personal interest in it; they often consider additional motives... Which was my point. Sure ONE of the reasons that people pick Marines is that marines ARE cool, and people do like them. But another reason, the one I was drawing attention to, is that marines have more kits, more subfactions and therefore more options than any other faction in the game, and from second ed onward, that has ALWAYS been the case. Another reason is that they're in all the starter sets, so you are guaranteed to have an army of them if you buy the starter box, and the more editions that go by, the larger your collection gets, while the antagonists rotate from edition to edition, meaning you never accumulate as many of any other faction.
I mean, I say I don't like Space Marines, but even I got so many of them in boxed sets it was impractical to not make an army, so I picked Deathwatch, since I think of them more as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos than a Marine Chapter.
But let's continue the train of thought from my post: If people do want subfactions to be unique, which it seems many do as it gives them a sense of being different, should it follow then that these subfactions should be something that is intrinsic to the player's decision, and not be something that gets changed on a whim based on which way the meta pendulum swings?
We are currently seeing exactly this, and detachment choice is more or less a set of tactics you want to use, not something key to your army's identity: Take the current Marine detachments, for example. They exist as options, that might lend themselves to a particular chapter, but they aren't tied to a particular chapter. Anyone can take a Gladius Task Force, it has nothing about it that is tied to Ultramarines. The Vanguard Spearhead, which nominally would lean into the "stealthy" chapters like Ravenguard or Raptors, doesn't require having an army selected from those Chapters. Nor does the Anvil Siege Force, which seems fluffwise to be for Imperial Fists and their less radical successors, have anything actually tying them to those chapters since anyone can select to use it.
This makes the most sense for Space Marines because Space Marine doctrine is 90% the same in the lore anyway, being laid out in the Codex Astartes which basically all of them follow in at least some ways, if not others. So it's rational to think of these detachments as being much closer to the formations in Jomini's Art of War than being distinct army styles based on heritage and doctrines (e.g. the difference between how the French, Prussian, and Austrian armies approached battle in the 18th and 19th century).
The ultimate question then becomes, should all detachments behave in that way and be more of a set of formations/tactics that the faction is known for, but without any requirement or specific tie to the subfactions best known for that mode of warfare? That seems to be the approach GW wants to go with 10th, in that for example with Eldar one might have a construct-focused army but not having to be Iyanden, or a Swordwind aspect-themed army that doesn't force Biel-tan. Similar to the Space Marine approach, this is understandable as Craftworlds are vast with vast resources, so even Iyanden which is said to have "few" Aspect Warriors surely would have enough to mobilize in a Swordwind-esque formation given the standard scale of a typical Warhammer 40,000 battle on the tabletop, whilst Biel-tan, despite being known for its Aspect shrines would certainly have enough construct units to field them en masse if the Autarchs and Farseers felt that was an appropriate response.
But, the question remains, does this hold true for everyone? And should it hold true at all? As mentioned previously SHOULD choice of subfaction be key to your identity, or something that you change on a whim based on how you want the army to play? If the latter, then what's the point of specifically choosing a subfaction that you identify with at all if you're going to ignore it whenever the winds of change (read: meta) shifts away from them?
Well, okay- let's take player preferences out of the conversation and just talk about whether it's "objectively better" to do it one way versus the other. That seems to be what you were more interested in talking about in the post I replied to, and perhaps I didn't see it.
Objectively? It might be better for subfaction to not be linked to play style- I mean, I've got to concede that right? I mean, since 10th is the only game that even tried to decouple fighting style from subfaction across the board since rogue trader, we'd just veer into a contest between hypotheticals, which is something that can't really be well argued anyway.
I think what I'm really looking for is a system that makes other factions FEEL as close as possible to parity with marines, and they've had strong subfaction identities reflected in rules and ranges since second. The 9th edition is the one that feels to me like it came closest to doing that- largely because of subfactions, but also because of things like all factions getting the equivalent of a Chapter Master upgrade.
And on a side note, GW didn't achieve parity in 10th, because even though specialization is not tied to subfaction, Marines and CSM still have supplement/ dexes for some of their subfactions, which in the current edition means more detachment choice than anyone else. If you play DA, you can use any detachment in the DA book, OR any detachment in the Marine book. If I remember correctly, DA could even take a detachment from the BA book if they want to, they just can't use the BA's bespoke units. Now I could be wrong about this because it comes from a statement made on Warcom prior to the release of any dexes, and Warcom's track record isn't perfect on describing how rules work, but that's what Warcom claimed.
But even if they can't, some Marine subfactions are still privileged- they get two books of detachments to choose from.
It's unclear that CSM will have the same degree of privilege with their cult-armies; GW has tended historically to avoid giving the same advantages to CSM as they do Loyalists, and I wouldn't be surprise if the Death Guard dex specifically says "DG MUST use these detachments and not the ones in Codex CSM.
Wayniac wrote: whilst Imperial Fists might "specialize" in sieges, they are still a Codex-compliant chapter and have access to everything that entails, and their specific tactics might change depending on the circumstances on which they've been deployed, whether or not it's the sieges they are best equipped to handle.
Yes, but "specialize" does mean that IF siege units are somehow better or different than the siege units of other Chapters. If they aren't, you can't actually claim that the "fluff" of "this Chapter specializes in siege" is supported by rules.
Whether the way you denote this is by making siege units battle line, or giving IF some bespoke units which happen to fall into the siege category, or special rules that apply to siege units or tactics- irrelevant. The point is, if you're going to say it in the fluff, find a way (whatever that may be) to reflect it on the table.
And truth be told, I might rather have it reflected in a different way than a special rule. Like if Bloody Rose armies made Repentia battle line? Hell yeah! Or if GW finished what they started with Junith Eurita and made the Cannoness Superior models for the other five Orders, plus, say a single bespoke unit for each? Again hell yeah! I'd probably take either of those types of options over a mere special rule.
But those options are probably a bit more difficult for GW to accommodate than adding a special rule, so that's what we get.
Again, it depends on what you want out of the game, and clearly, I want different things from the game than most people who post here. Funny thing is though, even though you and I disagree about what we want from the game, and perhaps about how best to achieve it, I think both of us agree that 10th doesn't quite give either of us what we want... Which I think is the larger point.
PenitentJake wrote: Yes, but "specialize" does mean that IF siege units are somehow better or different than the siege units of other Chapters. If they aren't, you can't actually claim that the "fluff" of "this Chapter specializes in siege" is supported by rules.
'This chapter specializes in [x]' does not in any way, shape, or form mean 'this chapter alone is capable of [x] or is the best at [x] and nobody else can compete'. It just means they do [x] more often, or more capably, but in no way implies other chapters can't do [x] too when the situation requires.
I have very little sympathy for players who want the game to be railroaded into flanderized archetypes, who only feel like their army is interesting if nobody else is allowed to do what they do. The setting was more interesting when it was an open-ended sandbox with a few exemplars, not this prescriptive regime where Yellow Marines get pissy because other people are allowed to be siege specialists too.
catbarf wrote: 'This chapter specializes in [x]' does not in any way, shape, or form mean 'this chapter alone is capable of [x] or is the best at [x] and nobody else can compete'. It just means they do [x] more often, or more capably, but in no way implies other chapters can't do [x] too when the situation requires.
I have very little sympathy for players who want the game to be railroaded into flanderized archetypes, who only feel like their army is interesting if nobody else is allowed to do what they do. The setting was more interesting when it was an open-ended sandbox with a few exemplars, not this prescriptive regime where Yellow Marines get pissy because other people are allowed to be siege specialists too.
While you're not wrong, does that also mean that "This chapter specializes in [x]" should just be fluff? Because that's what we have now. Nothing about Imperial Fists makes them better at sieges nor reflects how that's their specialty; they are, in effect, just yellow Marines with one or two special characters (I don't recall if Lysander got sent to Legends) that don't add anything of note to make a fists army feel different than Ultramarines. Is that something we should want? Should the only reason someone looks at Imperial Fists be that they like the fluff, like yellow, or really like Tor Garadon or (if not Legends) Lysander and want to use them? Should Imperial Fists be nothing but Ultramarines in yellow armor, or something more to set them apart?
In effect, we have what, in the lore, Gabriel Seth mentioned when he learned about primaris being sent to replenish the Blood Angels and their successors:
‘You are too noble to understand.’ Seth rounded on Dante. ‘That is not salvation, that is replacement. These new warriors will bear the colours of Flesh Tearers, but without Sanguinius’ fury they will be Flesh Tearers in name only.
All my time as Chapter Master I have waged war on our rage, to wrestle it into submission and use its strength to slay our foes. We are fury! From the time of Amit, the savage lord, to this day, we have carried the white heat of Sanguinius’ anger in us.
That was our gift and our burden. The flaw is what makes us what we are.’
‘We are nothing without the struggle against it. He would make us all Ultramarines in red armour.'
Is that good or bad? I can't say, as there are reasons for and against.
I think there are three different positions here, using the example of siege masters:
1) This list exclusively represents Imperial Fists (+/- similar successors depending on how hardline you want to be) and they are the only Marines this good at siegecraft
2) This list represents all Chapters skilled in siegecraft, whatever their primogenitor, but doesn't represent those Chapters who are less skilled in this field (such as White Scars or Ultramarines)
3) This list represents a Space Marine force from any Chapter set up for sieges, and all Chapters are equally capable of being siege masters with a bit of force reorganisation
Personally, I think option 2 is my preferred. Lorewise, an Ultramarines force shouldn't be as good at sieges as an Imperial Fist force, because the Ultramarines pursue a balanced doctrine. However, I think it is entirely possible for an Ultramarines successor to be very capable siege masters if their specific circumstances and doctrines lead them to that mastery over siege warfare. Imperial Fist successors are simply more likely to be siege masters as a result of their heritage.
This can be extrapolated to any specialisation associated with a specific Chapter.
So I think the real underlying issue here is going to be flavour vs. game balance. We've seen what happens already where a specific subfaction gets "better" bonuses than the other. Without hardline enforcing color schemes, which itself causes issues, you have the previous situation where Iron Hands had the "best" bonuses so you saw every Space Marine army (obviously I mean that loosely) playing as Iron Hands, even if they were all painted as Ultramarines or Blood Angels or Homebrew Chapter #42, simply for the mechanical benefits. That, to me, is the worst situation because people ignore and fight against the aesthetic in the name of "balance" and argue that it's okay to have Ultramarines count as whatever is the cheese du jour.
I'd argue in this case, the current approach is better, but only marginally, as everyone has the same options of detachments. Yes, there's nothing to really represent Imperial Fists as being better at siegecraft, but ultimately that's a small price to pay for not having the "Oh my Imperial Fists are all Raven Guard because of totally not powergaming reasons" kind of crap that we saw before. At least it's not punishing you for liking X chapter of Y chapter or being labelled a powergaming weasel for using counts-as.
Maybe someday GW will have a good in between where you can be rewarded for picking a subfaction beyond just "I like the fluff" or "I like the colours" and not have it turn into everyone counts-as the meta choice.
Imperial Fists can be the best chapter in the galaxy at sieges without that translating into a myopic +1 to hit with bolt weapons or whatever. I reject the implication that if the rules of a company-level skirmish wargame aren't giving some bespoke bonus to a particular subfaction, then it means they aren't any better at that capability than anyone else in the background.
'Ultramarines shouldn't be as good at sieges as Imperial Fists' reflects differences in organizational expertise manifesting way beyond the scope of this tiny little back alley brawl of a battle. You don't see WW2 gamers complaining that Bolt Action isn't adequately reflecting the prevalence of Soviet artillery by not giving every conscript a +1 to throwing grenades or some other quasi-irrelevant bonus.
It can be the case that Fists are the best at sieges and that this does not manifest as tangible advantages over other chapters' siege formations at the small scale of 40K.
And again: Unless your view on the lore is that Fists do nothing but siege formations, or that any Fist player who doesn't want to play a siege formation should be at a handicap, the 8th/9th Ed approach to subfactions is not a good system.
Haighus wrote: I think there are three different positions here, using the example of siege masters: 1) This list exclusively represents Imperial Fists (+/- similar successors depending on how hardline you want to be) and they are the only Marines this good at siegecraft 2) This list represents all Chapters skilled in siegecraft, whatever their primogenitor, but doesn't represent those Chapters who are less skilled in this field (such as White Scars or Ultramarines) 3) This list represents a Space Marine force from any Chapter set up for sieges, and all Chapters are equally capable of being siege masters with a bit of force reorganisation
Personally, I think option 2 is my preferred. Lorewise, an Ultramarines force shouldn't be as good at sieges as an Imperial Fist force, because the Ultramarines pursue a balanced doctrine. However, I think it is entirely possible for an Ultramarines successor to be very capable siege masters if their specific circumstances and doctrines lead them to that mastery over siege warfare. Imperial Fist successors are simply more likely to be siege masters as a result of their heritage.
This can be extrapolated to any specialisation associated with a specific Chapter.
I recall some discussions in the past regarding Guard subfaction bonii where the suggestion came up to split the bonus between the homeworld and the regimental type (after all, Armageddon isn't the only world to make Mechanized Infantry regiments, even if they might be more skilled at it for institutional/cultural reasons). Granted, this would mean a lot more moving parts for GW to feth up, but I like the idea of non-Tallarn Raiding/Recon playing differently (if only slightly worse) to Tallarn Raiding/Recon, while Tallarn Heavy Infantry plays differently (if only slightly worse) to to non-Tallarn Heavy Infantry. I'm not sure how 10e Detachments work, but it sounds like the "regiment" half of the suggestion here whereas 8e (and possibly 9e) were the "homeworld" half. I'd be curious to see how GW would do merging the two together. Poorly, of course, but having a base to work from might help any of the alternative rulesets who haven't already included such a system.
PenitentJake wrote: Yes, but "specialize" does mean that IF siege units are somehow better or different than the siege units of other Chapters. If they aren't, you can't actually claim that the "fluff" of "this Chapter specializes in siege" is supported by rules.
'This chapter specializes in [x]' does not in any way, shape, or form mean 'this chapter alone is capable of [x] or is the best at [x] and nobody else can compete'. It just means they do [x] more often, or more capably, but in no way implies other chapters can't do [x] too when the situation requires.
I have very little sympathy for players who want the game to be railroaded into flanderized archetypes, who only feel like their army is interesting if nobody else is allowed to do what they do. The setting was more interesting when it was an open-ended sandbox with a few exemplars, not this prescriptive regime where Yellow Marines get pissy because other people are allowed to be siege specialists too.
Yes of course and thanks to that lack of "flandrisation". Instead of multiple lists for multiple chapters we suddenly find out that DA, IF, CF, WS, RG are just bad versions of Ultramarines, and that the Ultramarines are the only workable way to play marines. WITH ONE EXEPTION and it being, drum rules, the ultra fladrised Black Templar with their own units, extra rules on top of the marine ones, extra weapon on tanks no one else gets etc. What a suprise the speciality chapter somehow makes it to the top of marines. Meanwhile playing something like Crimson Fists or White Scars is like shoting yourself in the foot.
Also what we have right now is not the other marines can have siege focused centurions (would be cool if IF could take more of those or have them cheaper, or something). But rather stuff like the RG "venguard" detachment being the best for ultramarines, because nothing says scouting force like 9 centurions, hordes of aggresors and dudes in terminator sized armour infiltrating.
I suppose I will be labeled a heretic for wanting to abolish some 40K ‘traditions’ that are holding the game back. It is still largely based on a design that was already stale in 1987 - IGO/UGO mechanics. And with the plethora of races, vehicles ,weapons, and equipment, reliance on the D6 really hurts the game. When the basic stats are based on a D6, it is inevitable that the multiplicity of units feel alike, with very little to differentiate them, but for boatloads of arbitrary special rules. Which only serve to make the game even clunkier.
Until 40K fully steps out of 1987, it’s only going to continue to be as bland and obtuse as it is now. They don’t have the weight of market share or nearly 40 years of history behind them, but I would argue that there are many better [i]games than 40K out there. But people cling to the familiar, and if you want to find a pickup game somewhere, it pretty much has to be 40K. Everybody plays 40K, because everybody 40K. Not, unfortunately, because of it being a good game. It’s just become the standard based on other factors, like marketing, background, and having a ‘relatively’ large company behind it in years there was little other competition to it in the marketplace.
Objectively? It might be better for subfaction to not be linked to play style- I mean, I've got to concede that right? I mean, since 10th is the only game that even tried to decouple fighting style from subfaction across the board since rogue trader, we'd just veer into a contest between hypotheticals, which is something that can't really be well argued anyway.
I think what I'm really looking for is a system that makes other factions FEEL as close as possible to parity with marines, and they've had strong subfaction identities reflected in rules and ranges since second. The 9th edition is the one that feels to me like it came closest to doing that- largely because of subfactions, but also because of things like all factions getting the equivalent of a Chapter Master upgrade.
I think this attitude is the biggest rub for me with what 40K has turned into. i am drawn to the game for the lore i want to game to reflect the factions in the lore i don't give a GAK about how close each faction is to parity with marines. i want them to all reflect their unique fighting style. i play the game for epic battles in the 40K setting. i expect each faction to have weaknesses or be "imbalanced" as it is your job as the general to make up for these by what you do on the table top aside from just list building or popping gotcha card/stratagems. without it the game is sanitized, bland, or otherwise lost it's soul as the other topic on this was titled.. the setting and the devotion players have to various factions is what keeps them interested and drawn to the game. you might as well play a generic battlegame named "x" without that.
As somebody who was there through the development from 3rd onward where there was clear observed progressive improvement in the mechanics and a setting of the lore before it all went sideways when the original team started jumping ship (6th ed). what i see now is a game that is not 40K. i do not fault new players who do not know anything better.
I am going to re-post this from the other topic that pretty well sums up everything we discussed in both.
I would like to take a crack at this. I think it is a layered discussion that combines aspects of the lore, the game, GW, and the community.
I was not an Oldhammer player. While I've enjoyed 40k for a fair bit of time, I didn't start into the hobby proper until a year or two ago. That being said, I certainly feel some dissatisfaction going from my brief encounter in 8th to 9th edition codex and now to the least satisfying 10th. This prompted me to go back and take a look at the old editions of 40k. I do not have any rose tinted goggles for them because I am a newcomer, thus I had no experience with them prior.
I will be making comparisons between Oldhammer, Modernhammer (9th & 10th), and the MESBG.
From a lore standpoint, I think it is entirely fair to say that the Gathering Storm, the introduction of Primaris, the Indomitus, and the return of the Primarchs have considerably been at odds with the tone of the 41st Millennium. The lore books of the grinding, grimdark battlefields on countless worlds and billions of lives whose names shall not be remembered shifted suddenly to a focus upon a handful of characters. Introducing Guilliman was like adding Superman to WW1. Don't get me wrong, a Primarch's return is absolutely a massive event - but then the writers proceeded to have Guilliman go on to invade Nurgle's Garden, beat Mortarian, fight Magnus on the moon, and suddenly give the Imperium Space Marine Legion-level reinforcements after the loss of a single planet.
I think we can both agree this wildly changes the setting, if not from a perspective of scale or tone, at least from a perspective of.. well.. perspective. Individual battles or campaigns like Vraks are still there, but they are considerably dwarfed compared to what the new Regent of the Imperium is up to. Even as more Primarchs are added, the focus will just be upon these superhuman demigods that move and shake the entire setting. As far as I can tell, and at least certainly for myself, its a jarring change in the direction compared to what came before. Personally, I would much rather have had 100 stories like Dawn of War & Winter Assault than a single Gathering Storm that springboards changes to the entire setting.
From a gameplay standpoint, I believe that 40k as a tabletop game has lost its "soul" to some because it has shifted its focus and attention away from simulation of a battle and more towards being a game.
You might raise the counterpoint that 40k was never a good nor realistic depiction of a battle. I would agree with you, but I do not think the quality of that simulation detracts from the fact that this was the intent.
As I have read the older editions (3rd, 5th, 6th, and even a fan edition of Oldhammer), the consistent thing that I have noticed between those editions which is absent from newer editions of 40k is what I would like to dub "Fumbly Nerdstuff".
To define the term: Fumbly Nerdstuff is when a game takes a considerable amount of time to account for various factors and consequences of an action taken in a nerdy game (ie D&D or Warhammer) for the purposes of simulating a narrative of what happens before, during, and as a result of that action.
As an example: If I swing a sword and hit an Orc in an RPG, adding modifiers of my relative position to the Orc from heightened terrain to the location which I hit the Orc on his body to rolling a result on a table of what happens to the Orc when I hit him with my sword is an example of "Fumbly Nerdstuff". You can absolutely have way too much Fumbly Nerdstuff in a game, and I think everyone's tolerance level for Fumbly Nerdstuff is different.
Older editions of 40k definitely seem to be more interested in the battle you are playing be more of a battle than a game. There are numerous rules differentiating a walker from a tank to a biker and how they interact with movement or attacking. Vehicles react differently to being wounded than an infantry unit and a destroyed vehicle can become another piece of terrain on the map. Melee combat is described in terms of advancing or retreating lines. Movement and shooting has more direct interaction.
And I would not say this is unique to 40k, because I will draw upon what most consider to be GW's best game: MESBG. MESBG's entire rulebook is written in a way where the designers clearly want the player to be approaching the game as a simulated battle or a relived moment from the movies involving characters rather than just "minis on a board". The rules account for being knocked prone, being pushed and falling off ledges, jumping chasms. Combats are written in terms of duelists having a cinematic clash where one assumes parries and strikes. Arrows have to account for terrain and blocking enemy models getting in the way of the shot. There's a fair bit of this Fumbly Nerdstuff written for the intent of a simulated clash between two forces in Middle-Earth.
9th edition introduced, imo, one of the better ideas GW has had in 40k, the Crusade gameplay mode. The most fun I've had with 40k is writing up a story with a bunch of characters matched against an army that my friend made, tweaking the lists to give every unit a personality and a particular role in the army, and then simulating those engagements against my friend who has done the same, then the various post-game Crusade mechanics and written battle reports which followed - along with the story that created. However, Crusade is merely one aspect and largely handled outside of the actual battles.
10th edition by far has the least amount of this trait than any previous edition in 40k. Morale is barely considered beyond Battleshock, and Battleshock serves no real purpose in terms of storytelling but rather is a purely gameplay mechanic revolving around standing on objective circles. The objective circles themselves are largely interacted with in two ways: Standing on them or standing on them and doing "an action". Armies are not constructed by any real logical structure that would be sensible in a battle; you simply grab what you minis you want and put them on the table. Army loadouts are internally balanced and limited to what comes in the packaged GW box rather than encouraging players to kitbash, to build their particular squad in a different manner to alter what role they play on a battlefield, or other opportunities of creative expression. Yes, there is still some of that where I give a unit of Rubrics flamers or bolters or equip Legionnaires with boltguns or chainswords, but you have to admit that those options have been considerably reduced as editions have progressed and it is only getting more and more homogenized. A unit's role is largely predetermined and GW is doing more and more to reduce any potential deviation from that predetermined role.
All of that makes for a perfectly fine tournament game, but the heart of 40k was not as a tournament game. Tournaments always existed, sure, but you can't deny they have become more and more a central focus of the game's community. Tournament performance is more of a determining factor for an army's rules than it used to be. How much of a factor it is can be debated, but you cannot deny that this difference exists.
The game is moving further away from simulation and more into the realm of being purely a marketed game for wider accessibility. It is no longer about "a battle between the Red Corsairs and the Craftworld Drehanon over the fate of the planet Moreldain" and more so about "2k points CSM raider detachment vs Aeldari wraith detachment". The community itself has changed as well reflecting this change in focus.
That is what makes 40k40k and why the game has felt like it has less soul than it used to.
I think this attitude is the biggest rub for me with what 40K has turned into. i am drawn to the game for the lore i want to game to reflect the factions in the lore i don't give a GAK about how close each faction is to parity with marines. i want them to all reflect their unique fighting style. i play the game for epic battles in the 40K setting. i expect each faction to have weaknesses or be "imbalanced" as it is your job as the general to make up for these by what you do on the table top aside from just list building or popping gotcha card/stratagems. without it the game is sanitized, bland, or otherwise lost it's soul as the other topic on this was titled.. the setting and the devotion players have to various factions is what keeps them interested and drawn to the game. you might as well play a generic battlegame named "x" without that.
Sorry Aphyon, I don't think I was clear in my post.
What I meant by parity with marines was not parity in terms of power on the table- it was more about the amount of options that only marines get- specifically the fact that marines have rules to reflect subfactions where a lot of other factions do not. I don't mean messing with fluff to balance armies- I'm absolutely okay with armies having strengths and weaknesses, and in fact what I mean by parity INCREASES that potential, rather than decreasing it.
Basically it comes down to this: in the fluff, there are subfactions for most if not all factions. That being the case, if one faction gets rules for their subfactions, other armies that have subfactions should also get rules for theirs. Notice here that the parity I speak of can be achieved either by giving subfaction rules to the factions that don't get them, or taking them away from the faction or two that are lucky enough to have them.
It's not about making my faction stronger so that they are the equal of the marines in performance, it's about subfactions either making a difference to both of us or neither of us. Either way, parity.
Also, this parity is system agnostic- I don't care if subfaction identity manifest as which units count as troops, or whether it's through the existence of bespoke subfaction units (ie Death Company), or whether it's through a special rule.
Now 10th's system ALMOST has parity: every faction is the same in that any of their subfactions can do everything just as well as any of their other subfactions. But Marines do have more choices than other armies, because as I understand it, Blood Angels can use either Space Marine Detachments or Blood Angels Detachments, while Order of Our Martyred Lady can only choose Sisters of Battle Detachments, since OoOML detachments don't exist.
Wayniac wrote: The big reason the Chaos 3.5 codex, to this day, is considered the best codex GW ever wrote is because every legion played differently.
Didn't you really just answer your own question right there?
Perhaps I did
But let's continue the train of thought from my post: If people do want subfactions to be unique, which it seems many do as it gives them a sense of being different, should it follow then that these subfactions should be something that is intrinsic to the player's decision, and not be something that gets changed on a whim based on which way the meta pendulum swings?
The same could be said of the top level faction choice. Meta often lends itself to a main faction - There's currently about a 15% swing on the tournament tracker. This is a balance failure of GW not an inherent flaw of the system.
We are currently seeing exactly this, and detachment choice is more or less a set of tactics you want to use, not something key to your army's identity: Take the current Marine detachments, for example. They exist as options, that might lend themselves to a particular chapter, but they aren't tied to a particular chapter. Anyone can take a Gladius Task Force, it has nothing about it that is tied to Ultramarines. The Vanguard Spearhead, which nominally would lean into the "stealthy" chapters like Ravenguard or Raptors, doesn't require having an army selected from those Chapters. Nor does the Anvil Siege Force, which seems fluffwise to be for Imperial Fists and their less radical successors, have anything actually tying them to those chapters since anyone can select to use it.
This makes the most sense for Space Marines because Space Marine doctrine is 90% the same in the lore anyway, being laid out in the Codex Astartes which basically all of them follow in at least some ways, if not others. So it's rational to think of these detachments as being much closer to the formations in Jomini's Art of War than being distinct army styles based on heritage and doctrines (e.g. the difference between how the French, Prussian, and Austrian armies approached battle in the 18th and 19th century).
And In some ways this is a step forwards. Each chapter has proficiency in all methods while chapters have specialization. The Dets should have been designed a little tighter for their intended look, but they should be available to all to show the proficiency, while Chapter Tactics provided the Specialization. One of the main reasons some of these special characters had their popularity is because of how they turned a "typical" Marine army on its head making Bikes/Terminators/Jump Packers into TROOPS\BATTLELINE in the old system (Or whatever they did to make a non-standard FOC valid). I would say the ultimate goal should be moving that to the generic HQ (and filling out the generic HQ choices in all the main "armor" types - Power, Term, Grav, Phobos, Bike) Phobos HQ's turn Infil/Incursor/whatever into BATTLELINE and increase their OC by 1 for example. I generally refer to this sort of thing as a Black Sheep Captain. Ultramarines are pretty much all about the demi/company build. 3/6 Tacs, 1/2 Assaults, 1/2 Devastator. Combined Arms was sort of their raison d'être, while Blood Angels were the Death From Above army, and Space Wolves were a snarling horde (relatively speaking) of ground-pounding axe and sword smashers. But they all have their "Black Sheep" Be it Captain Yonnrim Ganico of the Imperial Fists known for heavy use of Space Marine Bikes or Khan Ishodai who never left his suit of Terminator Armor behind. All chapters should have all builds be viable - this likely means Chapter Tactics have to be more generic - it works for the IF because (Attack/ATV) Bikers who get a +1 to wound Vehicles and monsters with their Multi Meltas isn't a bad option for a bike heavy army and probably fairly balanced against a 5++ for bikers in a Ravenwing army. Their tactic was generic enough to make it work. BT Vows were much the same - and probably make a good template for this plan because they could have a BA/UM/DA/SW etc Captain at any given time.
The ultimate question then becomes, should all detachments behave in that way and be more of a set of formations/tactics that the faction is known for, but without any requirement or specific tie to the subfactions best known for that mode of warfare? That seems to be the approach GW wants to go with 10th, in that for example with Eldar one might have a construct-focused army but not having to be Iyanden, or a Swordwind aspect-themed army that doesn't force Biel-tan. Similar to the Space Marine approach, this is understandable as Craftworlds are vast with vast resources, so even Iyanden which is said to have "few" Aspect Warriors surely would have enough to mobilize in a Swordwind-esque formation given the standard scale of a typical Warhammer 40,000 battle on the tabletop, whilst Biel-tan, despite being known for its Aspect shrines would certainly have enough construct units to field them en masse if the Autarchs and Farseers felt that was an appropriate response.
But, the question remains, does this hold true for everyone? And should it hold true at all? As mentioned previously SHOULD choice of subfaction be key to your identity, or something that you change on a whim based on how you want the army to play? If the latter, then what's the point of specifically choosing a subfaction that you identify with at all if you're going to ignore it whenever the winds of change (read: meta) shifts away from them?
Absolutely, every faction should have multiple build options - horde/elite, shooty/fighty/combined, Psychic/Null, Morale/Stoic, and on and on with assorted applications of the various turn phases. Given the millennia of experience Ulthwe has had with their psyker supremacy, does anyone think they haven't planned and strategized to maximize the effect of few psykers supported by a lot of Guardian/Wraith/Aspect support? Or that Saim-Hann hasn't planned for battles where their jet bikes weren't feasible?
Choice of subfaction shouldn't be key to the identity, it should be a sharpening of that identity. Key to the identity of the Space Marines are fewer hardier units of superhumans in power armor. The sharpening of that identity is Dark Angels enhancing the bikes and terminators, while for Blood Angels it might be Dreads and Jumpers. Key to the Imperial Guard is even more of a combined arms approach than the UM, adding tanks and support vehicles much more frequently - larger numbers of lighter armored regular men, heavy weapons teams, artillery units, tanks, APCs/IFVs, etc. - Steel Legion might get rid of all the foot infantry and lean into more tanks and Platoons in IFVs. There should probably be SOME outliers like a Genestealer Infestation in its early stages having more Brood Brother Guard than hybrids and such.
In WoW, Humans (even before adding half human Worgen, and the Human but different Kul'Tiran) are the most common race at about 15% for the Alliance side, while Blood Elves being the most human-like option on the Horde side filled with orcs and anthropomorphic cows at 15.2% so yeah, I'd say people tend to play Humans and Superhumans over non-humans.
My point wasn't that more people wanted to play any one alien species than humans. My point was that that there are a lot of people who don't want to play humans. Looking at the numbers you've provided, it seems I'm right.
15% play humans. That means 85% don't, right?
Thanks for proving my point.
I'm pretty sure the point you were trying to make was that something other than humans could have been the "face of the franchise" which was DISPROVED not proved. WoW spent a lot of time and effort making Orcs and Thrall the face of the Horde franchise and people still played first expansion human like Blood Elf more than Orcs. Pointing out all the non-humans outnumber the humans isn't really proof that Dark Iron Dwarves by themselves could have been the face of the franchise. It was humans. It was humans in BG3.
But that isn't an RG army, is it? About half the stuff in Vanguard is keyed to only scout / phobos. It isn't a scout / phobos only detachment, because that would make diverse list building pretty difficult.
It's only difficult because they removed Infiltrators/Incursors from being "Troop" equivalents. If either of them had been left as Battleline, suddenly it is not that difficult.
I'm expecting Infiltrators to go back to Battleline soon enough. GW always screws this stuff up on a major change. BGV style Caps and Lieutenants aren't Deathwing anymore and can't get the enhancements. I assume GW will be FAQ'ing that pretty quickly too. When (What was it 8th?) came out they ripped the guts out of fight units by getting rid of so many of the +1A options they had (two weapons, charging, etc), and tried to put them back with +1A Chainswords, Shock Attack/Hateful Assault and so on (and even then screwed that up by leaving off units that should have been included).
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
I think in BG3 (or similar) its a bit skewed, because there's an obvious reason to make your main character a Charisma class. The rundown was Pala/Sorc/Warlock/Rogue (not Cha, but has other things that can sort of stand in for it)/Bard.
Yes, you are right about the Cha class, but there is no inherent bonus to taking any race over the other, as there are no racial modifiers to attributes (in BG3) and every race can be every class. Racial feats are such a minor bonus that they are largely irrelevant, especially for a singleplayer or co-op game. Even then, Humans are the worst race to pick from an optimisation PoV, though.
I'm not denying that other factors...factor into the popularity for Space Marines, but "looks like me" is a big plus imho.
Most played custom characters are Half-Elf / Human / Elf Paladins. All races that are closest to a regular human (aka the player) in looks.
People are "boring" like that and want to identify themselves with the character they are playing.
I would say this is even a little tiny bit more representative than WoW, as humans had one of the best racials for a long long time, so numbers are a bit skewed on Alliance side.
I think in BG3 (or similar) its a bit skewed, because there's an obvious reason to make your main character a Charisma class. The rundown was Pala/Sorc/Warlock/Rogue (not Cha, but has other things that can sort of stand in for it)/Bard.
Yes, you are right about the Cha class, but there is no inherent bonus to taking any race over the other, as there are no racial modifiers to attributes (in BG3) and every race can be every class. Racial feats are such a minor bonus that they are largely irrelevant, especially for a singleplayer or co-op game. Even then, Humans are the worst race to pick from an optimisation PoV, though.
I'm not denying that other factors...factor into the popularity for Space Marines, but "looks like me" is a big plus imho.
I agree "looks like me" is a factor, but given human factions seem to be around 15% in these RPG settings and Space Marines are more like 50%... I suspect other factors are playing a bigger role. Appearing in every starter set and having much more reliable range + rules support are probably bigger factors IMO, along with some mechanical advantages in elite armies being more affordable.
I agree "looks like me" is a factor, but given human factions seem to be around 15% in these RPG settings and Space Marines are more like 50%... I suspect other factors are playing a bigger role. Appearing in every starter set and having much more reliable range + rules support are probably bigger factors IMO, along with some mechanical advantages in elite armies being more affordable.
BG3 etc don't work to make a Human the face of the franchise, and you don't get a free Paladin every time you buy a starter set. Both of those things happen with GW and Space Marines - in other words - When Humans aren't pushed as face of the franchise they still are. When the push does happen, it becomes even more obvious.
Ignoring the humans-as-popular argument, I suppose the question then is if you have subfaction rules which encourage specific units, but not flanderizing them (e.g. you might get a bonus for X unit, but you aren't restricted to taking only X unit like a caricature), is that going to be enough? Again, I feel that faction identity should be an important choice, not one that gets used when the rule is good and ignored when the rule is not, which we too frequently see. I do not want to see an Ultramarines army suddenly played as Iron Hands because Iron Hands have the better rules at the moment, and then next dataslate they count as Raven Guard because IH got nerfed and RG is the next "best" one. Short of enforcing paint schemes though (which has its own set of problems and loopholes) I don't see a valid way to encourage people to pick a subfaction and actually stick with it through thick and thin, not change whatever subfaction they're playing to fit the "meta", without making the subfaction choice largely superfluous or generic enough (as in the current detachments which might lean to a subfaction but does nothing to enforce them) that it becomes a meaningless decision.
Wayniac wrote: Ignoring the humans-as-popular argument, I suppose the question then is if you have subfaction rules which encourage specific units, but not flanderizing them (e.g. you might get a bonus for X unit, but you aren't restricted to taking only X unit like a caricature), is that going to be enough? Again, I feel that faction identity should be an important choice, not one that gets used when the rule is good and ignored when the rule is not, which we too frequently see. I do not want to see an Ultramarines army suddenly played as Iron Hands because Iron Hands have the better rules at the moment, and then next dataslate they count as Raven Guard because IH got nerfed and RG is the next "best" one. Short of enforcing paint schemes though (which has its own set of problems and loopholes) I don't see a valid way to encourage people to pick a subfaction and actually stick with it through thick and thin, not change whatever subfaction they're playing to fit the "meta", without making the subfaction choice largely superfluous or generic enough (as in the current detachments which might lean to a subfaction but does nothing to enforce them) that it becomes a meaningless decision.
This is the root of the whole thing, positive and negative. People rules hop because their collections or environments promote them using other chapters rules to avoid being a 2nd rate army for no reason other than paint job.
There is no way to do this without generalising rules to make them openly available to all, which is where we ended up. Otherwise you'll always have your Salamanders ballistus priced like it has the survivability of a stealth RG one, access to IH repair buffs or the extra offensive push of fists maybe.
These rules balance points result in none-preffered units being actively "bad" for some chapters because they're forced to be balanced around their use in "intended" chapters.
I cannot see any solutions beyond enforcing paint schemes to rules, or making them wide open to all players. 9th tiptoed around the first point and 10th, unwilling to deal with it, fell to the 2nd.
I imagine that for Breton a lot of the issue is they can't comprehend that people would be a big RG fan and still want a dread list which is naturally better suited to IH for example and doesn't want to acknowledge the internal balance issues.
Wayniac wrote: Ignoring the humans-as-popular argument, I suppose the question then is if you have subfaction rules which encourage specific units, but not flanderizing them (e.g. you might get a bonus for X unit, but you aren't restricted to taking only X unit like a caricature), is that going to be enough? Again, I feel that faction identity should be an important choice, not one that gets used when the rule is good and ignored when the rule is not, which we too frequently see. I do not want to see an Ultramarines army suddenly played as Iron Hands because Iron Hands have the better rules at the moment, and then next dataslate they count as Raven Guard because IH got nerfed and RG is the next "best" one. Short of enforcing paint schemes though (which has its own set of problems and loopholes) I don't see a valid way to encourage people to pick a subfaction and actually stick with it through thick and thin, not change whatever subfaction they're playing to fit the "meta", without making the subfaction choice largely superfluous or generic enough (as in the current detachments which might lean to a subfaction but does nothing to enforce them) that it becomes a meaningless decision.
This is the root of the whole thing, positive and negative. People rules hop because their collections or environments promote them using other chapters rules to avoid being a 2nd rate army for no reason other than paint job.
There is no way to do this without generalising rules to make them openly available to all, which is where we ended up. Otherwise you'll always have your Salamanders ballistus priced like it has the survivability of a stealth RG one, access to IH repair buffs or the extra offensive push of fists maybe.
These rules balance points result in none-preffered units being actively "bad" for some chapters because they're forced to be balanced around their use in "intended" chapters.
I cannot see any solutions beyond enforcing paint schemes to rules, or making them wide open to all players. 9th tiptoed around the first point and 10th, unwilling to deal with it, fell to the 2nd.
I imagine that for Breton a lot of the issue is they can't comprehend that people would be a big RG fan and still want a dread list which is naturally better suited to IH for example and doesn't want to acknowledge the internal balance issues.
Exactly. I think both solutions suck, because there should be a reason to pick a chapter and stick with it, not treat them as "yellow ultramarines" with no flavor of their own or, worse, treat the color as being irrelevant.
The way 10th has gone is, sadly, I think the lesser of two evils because it at least means the choice of your subfaction is more of an "I like this" choice than a "This has the best rules" choice. I'd rather have Fists be yellow ultramarines and let a "true" Fist player pick them because the background resonates with them, than a powergaming weasel who changes their subfaction like they change clothes based on whatever is the "best" option.
That was less of an issue when the buffs came with a cost, either in points or rules nerfs.
In addition, internal balance just has to be decent, not perfect. To take an example, mech Guard and Drop Guard were both viable lists in the late 3rd/4th edition meta, but hardly anyone was running melee Guard because it was very expensive for little benefit (Hardened fighters cost 15pt a unit and bizarrely Warrior weapons cost a whopping 2pts/model for a laspistol and close combat weapon to replace a lasgun on a 6pt model). The internal balance was good enough for some options but not for others. That seems like a fixable issue with balance though.
I think a better solution is free rules PDFs that get tweaked over time to improve balance, rather than a rolling wave of new books and editions, but that isn't happening any time soon...
Regarding subfactions, not everyone is Marines. Marines in particular have been developed with heavy emphasis on their subfactions.
But everyone else? maybe Guard and Sisters also have a somewhat strong subfaction theme, but I doubt Orks, Eldars and Necrons players started their armies by choosing a subfaction.
I know for a fact I didn't start my Tyranids as Leviathan, Behemoth or Kraken, and it was a standard and very accepted practice among Tyranid players to disregard paint and play as whatever hive fleet supported their preferred playstyle and/or was meta.
I definitely did it and would do so again if I'm forced to pick a subfaction, because I like playing Tyranids as a whole and experimenting with the different playstyles the faction as a whole supports, not only one.
Tyranids admittedly have the most flexible lore and least sense having subfactions.
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Tyran wrote: Regarding subfactions, not everyone is Marines. Marines in particular have been developed with heavy emphasis on their subfactions.
But everyone else? maybe Guard and Sisters also have a somewhat strong subfaction theme, but I doubt Orks, Eldars and Necrons players started their armies by choosing a subfaction.
I know for a fact I didn't start my Tyranids as Leviathan, Behemoth or Kraken, and it was a standard and very accepted practice among Tyranid players to disregard paint and play as whatever hive fleet supported their preferred playstyle and/or was meta.
I definitely did it and would do so again if I'm forced to pick a subfaction, because I like playing Tyranids as a whole and experimenting with the different playstyles the faction as a whole supports, not only one.
To expand moreso on this. Tyranids are all about adaptation and shifting tactics, and the Hive Mind is (probably) linked across fleets, so subfactions don't make a lot of sense.
I liked the 3rd edition mutable genus rules for local adaptations to specific problems, but I can see that being tough to balance.
Orks do have very distinct subfactions, both clan kultures and different stages of development and specialisation. That is somewhat complex to model well with the recent methods of distinguishing subfactions but it does exist. Again, I like the 3rd edition approach, which had feral Orks, the standard Ork list for warbands without a strong clan culture or with mixed cultures (freebooterz), 6 distinct clan lists for the clan fanatics, and speed freeks for the speed addicts (which could be any clan). Artillery warbands and an early iteration of dreadmobz were mentioned in the lore as big gun and walker addicts, but never got 40k rules in 3rd (dreadmobz did later in 5th). We now have another Ork specialisation in beast snaggas. Those factions have been around with rules impacts since 2nd, so I think they are pretty well established.
Tyran wrote: Regarding subfactions, not everyone is Marines. Marines in particular have been developed with heavy emphasis on their subfactions.
But everyone else? maybe Guard and Sisters also have a somewhat strong subfaction theme, but I doubt Orks, Eldars and Necrons players started their armies by choosing a subfaction.
I know for a fact I didn't start my Tyranids as Leviathan, Behemoth or Kraken, and it was a standard and very accepted practice among Tyranid players to disregard paint and play as whatever hive fleet supported their preferred playstyle and/or was meta.
I definitely did it and would do so again if I'm forced to pick a subfaction, because I like playing Tyranids as a whole and experimenting with the different playstyles the faction as a whole supports, not only one.
Back in 2nd / 3rd when I was totally a Bad Moons fan. Orks detachments will fall into ranged ( Deathskulls, Bad Moons), mounted ( Evil Sunz ), mixed ( Freebooterz, Snakebites ), melee ( Goffs ), sneaky ( Blood Axes ).It's quite likely you won't have anything that screams Deathskulls over Bad Moons unless they have like a Mek detachment.
Aside from Goffs all the Ork factions are pretty comfortable being mixed and just usually lean one way.
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Dudeface wrote: This is the root of the whole thing, positive and negative. People rules hop because their collections or environments promote them using other chapters rules to avoid being a 2nd rate army for no reason other than paint job.
There is no way to do this without generalising rules to make them openly available to all, which is where we ended up. Otherwise you'll always have your Salamanders ballistus priced like it has the survivability of a stealth RG one, access to IH repair buffs or the extra offensive push of fists maybe.
These rules balance points result in none-preffered units being actively "bad" for some chapters because they're forced to be balanced around their use in "intended" chapters.
I cannot see any solutions beyond enforcing paint schemes to rules, or making them wide open to all players. 9th tiptoed around the first point and 10th, unwilling to deal with it, fell to the 2nd.
I imagine that for Breton a lot of the issue is they can't comprehend that people would be a big RG fan and still want a dread list which is naturally better suited to IH for example and doesn't want to acknowledge the internal balance issues.
There's clear evidence that GW is pricing based on the army rule, but not the detachment rule.
e.g. Forgefiend
CSM - 200
TS - 135
( World Eaters pay a 10 point shooting tax it seems )
Really the dynamic is discouragement from leaning too heavy into units that don't benefit. Rubric Flamers have literally no interaction with any army rules and rely on their own datasheet and Ahriman to get boosted. As such it's quite hard to run multiple "effective" units of flamers. People still do it, because they prefer the utility and dynamics.
People will still run a Ballistus in non-favorable detachments if that's the unit they think best supports the gap they need to cover while the rest of their units benefit and do more work.
Tyran wrote: Regarding subfactions, not everyone is Marines. Marines in particular have been developed with heavy emphasis on their subfactions.
But everyone else? maybe Guard and Sisters also have a somewhat strong subfaction theme, but I doubt Orks, Eldars and Necrons players started their armies by choosing a subfaction.
I know for a fact I didn't start my Tyranids as Leviathan, Behemoth or Kraken, and it was a standard and very accepted practice among Tyranid players to disregard paint and play as whatever hive fleet supported their preferred playstyle and/or was meta.
I definitely did it and would do so again if I'm forced to pick a subfaction, because I like playing Tyranids as a whole and experimenting with the different playstyles the faction as a whole supports, not only one.
Right, I agree with most of what you said but I loved the subfactions for my bugs. Gorgon let me play my toxic dream out when I had the chance and that was completely removed without any sort of replacement; hell I can't even take toxin sacs anymore because of how bland 10th has become.
I think it ridiculous that people tie color scheme to rules but at the same time I have absolutely no problem with someone playing blue Blood Angels.
Also, I totally started Orks with Snakebites in mind! I miss Old Zogwort and turning enemies into squigs. But I went all in and own a gargantuan squiggoth and multiple regular squiggoths from before we got the Beast Snaggas.
Thanks Daed, I was more referencing back to late 8th/parts of 9th, when some units were almost certainly rebalanced because of specific interactions locked behind chapter rules/relics/traits. They do seem to by army now, but as we've seen if a unit is overly good in one detachment they seem to target the unit, not the detachment, which then impacts the others even more so.
I don't know about starting by choosing a subfaction - but Eldar and Orks struck me as the original subfaction factions. Even back in 2nd they had broad varied rosters and if you leaned into a particular selection of units, could make what seemed quite a different list to someone leaning the other way.
Certainly felt like more variety than "guys in power armour. Guys in power armour with a jetpack. Guys in power armour on bikes. Wait for it - guys with even thicker power armour."
The old guard regiments were great for flavour - but you were still looking at half a dozen different types of "guy with lasgun" jogging alongside tanks.
Tyranids have never really struck me as having subfaction archetypes. I.E. Carpets of gaunts and Nidzilla obviously existed but this always felt more like a player preference rather than being subfaction related. Like whether you favour Boyz or Toyz in Orks isn't really a subfaction decision in itself.
And then you move into other factions where all the subfactions feel kind of artificial outside of colour scheme. Clearly you can make different lists, but I never felt DE/Tau/Necrons were readily explained by subfactions. Or the subfaction fluff identify was never explicitly tied to models in the same way so it all had to be reverse engineered.
The height of this silliness in 8th was the Harlequins codex with 6 subfactions and just 4 non-character unit types.
Dudeface wrote: Thanks Daed, I was more referencing back to late 8th/parts of 9th, when some units were almost certainly rebalanced because of specific interactions locked behind chapter rules/relics/traits. They do seem to by army now, but as we've seen if a unit is overly good in one detachment they seem to target the unit, not the detachment, which then impacts the others even more so.
Ah, gotcha. Sometimes it's hard to follow lines of thought with these walls of text, lol.
I feel as though they were pretty cautious so far, but they obviously can't point each detachment properly. Looking at marines -- Inceptors and Aggressors were good regardless. I didn't see many cent devs, but I just recently figured out how to scrape lists from BCP.
I haven't parsed them so this is pretty rudimentary analysis, but here's the frequency of "Centurion Dev" ( once per list ) by Detachment:
( these are Dec and Jan lists only atm )
The use in Gladius is enough to tell me that Cent Devs were good enough to warrant a smack even though the detachment doesn't support them. The detachments where they weren't used don't really care since their use was already 0. So while an increase might make them even less relevant to say Stormlance...does it matter?
So, in a perfect world, I can see advantages to the chapters being locked to specific rules, but GW is so far from perfect its just not something I support. The reality is, sometimes you find out your army is garbage for the next 2-5 years and there's nothing you can do about it short of buying a new one. That's bad enough, but to say that because you painted your dudes red is really unnecessary and unhealthy.
Ultimately, I think the Space Marine chapters have enough gameplay tinged flavor that people are attracted to playing them as presented. Ultimately if you're attracted to White Scars you're probably wanting to play with the bikes and if it just happens that Gladius or something best supports your ability to play bikes, all the better. You're not going to find Space Wolves that want to play a static gunline very often, but they might not be all that into completing mini games for character buffs. It would be nice if their own detachment was better, but you can hardly complain that their misuse of White Scars hasn't created an undeniably Space Wolves army.
Its just a system that better supports people getting to play with their toys. I also think we're going to see some awesome expression from players as a result. I'm sure some day an assault focused marine list will be meta and while that seems kind of dumb for Iron Hands, its also a fantastic opportunity for someone to make a CC unit with skull masks and chain axes or something to fit their style. And even if its not for meta reasons, if someone wants to try a new playstyle, they shouldn't have to rebuild their army from scratch to get it.
Ultimately, unlocking detachments lets players play and personally, I think that's well worth the change.
A Space Marine chapter should have all the equipment in the codex. At least as far as I'm aware, Dorn didn't declare "and they shall know no bikes." If you love the colour Yellow and love bikes, why not have both? I don't buy the whole "well maybe they can have bikes that are different to WS bikes". We know how this goes - some rule is always better. And then you get the bizarre situation where WS are actually worse with bikes than IF, IH or RG etc, or you are left with a suboptimal combination which is just annoying. (8th edition Word Bearers say hi.)
I mean I'm not sure why you'd get into say Iyanden if you didn't like Wraithguard. But maybe you like the colour scheme. Or maybe you do like Wraithguard - but not playing with them *every game*. I don't see the issue if you go "today I'm going to run all aspect warriors, and I'll talk the Swordwind detachment to indicate the rules this force should have". Crying "no no no that should be Biel-Tan only, if you aren't green it can't apply" feels pointless.
Delayed response, but I wanted to chime in and say that this pretty well sums up my thoughts on the topic. Like fist lore but also want to field a bike army? You shouldn't have to play with a handicap because your GW-assigned subfaction rules don't support bikes while another chapter's do. Doubly true given that we've seen examples of GW assigning rules to one subfaction that make more sense on another. (I'm thinking 8th edition craftworld traits here.)
You're not going to find Space Wolves that want to play a static gunline very often, but they might not be all that into completing mini games for character buffs. It would be nice if their own detachment was better, but you can hardly complain that their misuse of White Scars hasn't created an undeniably Space Wolves army.
SW are a great example of where the 10th edition approach works! There's canonically a great company lead by a guy named Egil Ironwolf. They're known for fielding lots of vehicles. Basically the tech-heavy sub-subfaction for the SW. You can easily see how they might prefer to use the not-Iron Hands detachment over the saga thing. There's also a company called the Fire Howlers who are big on flamer use and understandably might want to use the not-Salamanders detachment as a nod to their fluff.
To me, the whole point of detachments is to give players a variety of ways to use/play with their models. The collection of models that one detachment turns into a gunline might be a bunch of mobile skirmishers with a different detachment. Trying to tie rules to paint schemes is contrary to that. We don't need special rules that make non-White Scars bikers feel like irrelevant second-stringers; we need rules that make bike armies feel like a valid choice that plays differently from a gunline army or an armored assault army, etc.
As a Blood Angels player I have always been interested in Dreadnoughts and Jump packs but usually the rules and support for the dreads in Blood Angels have been bad and in 9th they were so bad it crossed over into insulting. The BA melee dreads were slower than the generic shooting dreads, with no way to even get run and charge on them, ffs!
The few times I even played in 9th (only as the ringer in a few local events) I used my Blood Angel models as Ultramarines or Iron Hands. Ultramarines for when I wanted to field my Invictor Warsuits (converted to look like dreads cause the original look is really bad) or Iron Hands for the other dreads. The person who tries to force me into using the BA rules/detachment for when I run my dreads rather than some other chapter/detachment that have more suitable rules have to gamble on if I might see black and unleash my rage on them.
You're not going to find Space Wolves that want to play a static gunline very often, but they might not be all that into completing mini games for character buffs. It would be nice if their own detachment was better, but you can hardly complain that their misuse of White Scars hasn't created an undeniably Space Wolves army.
SW are a great example of where the 10th edition approach works! There's canonically a great company lead by a guy named Egil Ironwolf. They're known for fielding lots of vehicles. Basically the tech-heavy sub-subfaction for the SW. You can easily see how they might prefer to use the not-Iron Hands detachment over the saga thing. There's also a company called the Fire Howlers who are big on flamer use and understandably might want to use the not-Salamanders detachment as a nod to their fluff.
To me, the whole point of detachments is to give players a variety of ways to use/play with their models. The collection of models that one detachment turns into a gunline might be a bunch of mobile skirmishers with a different detachment. Trying to tie rules to paint schemes is contrary to that. We don't need special rules that make non-White Scars bikers feel like irrelevant second-stringers; we need rules that make bike armies feel like a valid choice that plays differently from a gunline army or an armored assault army, etc.
Space Wolves players have always been Orks at heart. Play the whole range, just slap some viking nonsense on there. Some see hover tanks, but others see longboats. Honestly, I don't need the Fire Howlers to exist to justify a flamer themed wolves. I need someone to put the army on the table and tell me excitedly about their Hellhound Battalion. That's the kind of stuff the 40k setting has always excelled in.
I know I'm in on page 6 here, but reading the OPs first post, I'm left with another question. Is there more than just bland rules? What do they seem to mean by sanitized? Plot? Lore? Art? All of those have been pretty sizably epic I thought. I think this is the edition after a massive success like 9th, and 10th by any comparison is going to feel weaker, and boring, and derivative. I'm not sure what he wanted, but three primarchs have returned, two Demon, 1 Loyalist, and we have talk of another loyalist one soon. We also are barely half way through. We haven't even gotten to the weird part where GW starts scraping the bottom of the idea barrel for new models. (This is the new ATV JETBIKE LT with TH/MELTA PISTOL, *Online order only*)
A Space Marine chapter should have all the equipment in the codex. At least as far as I'm aware, Dorn didn't declare "and they shall know no bikes." If you love the colour Yellow and love bikes, why not have both? I don't buy the whole "well maybe they can have bikes that are different to WS bikes". We know how this goes - some rule is always better. And then you get the bizarre situation where WS are actually worse with bikes than IF, IH or RG etc, or you are left with a suboptimal combination which is just annoying. (8th edition Word Bearers say hi.)
I mean I'm not sure why you'd get into say Iyanden if you didn't like Wraithguard. But maybe you like the colour scheme. Or maybe you do like Wraithguard - but not playing with them *every game*. I don't see the issue if you go "today I'm going to run all aspect warriors, and I'll talk the Swordwind detachment to indicate the rules this force should have". Crying "no no no that should be Biel-Tan only, if you aren't green it can't apply" feels pointless.
Delayed response, but I wanted to chime in and say that this pretty well sums up my thoughts on the topic. Like fist lore but also want to field a bike army? You shouldn't have to play with a handicap because your GW-assigned subfaction rules don't support bikes while another chapter's do.
Having a thing isn't the same as being effective with it. Fists and their Successors back in the days of the 3.5/4E doctrines book literally had a flaw that was about "Pride in their colors", do you think they should be able to take a Vanguard Spearhead full of stealthy troops?
Doubly true given that we've seen examples of GW assigning rules to one subfaction that make more sense on another. (I'm thinking 8th edition craftworld traits here.)
People having different interpretations of what should be vs what is given is not what's at issue here.
Anyways, maybe it's time to just lock named characters to specific detachments.
Want to play IF? Cool, don't take the named characters if you want to run them all!
Want to run the named characters? So sorry, no biker or vanguard detachments.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I seriously thought Fulgrim was already out. Did they release a Slanesshi DP I mistook for Fulgrim? I swear I thought he was out....
Having a thing isn't the same as being effective with it. Fists and their Successors back in the days of the 3.5/4E doctrines book literally had a flaw that was about "Pride in their colors", do you think they should be able to take a Vanguard Spearhead full of stealthy troops?
In practical terms? Yes. They should. Or rather, it should be up to the individual IF player whether or not they should. Because:
A.) As a rule of thumb, there are probably more detachments that could reasonably run by most subfactions than not. And
B.) To do otherwise is to be a fluff snob telling people they're enjoying their hobby wrong.
Doubly true given that we've seen examples of GW assigning rules to one subfaction that make more sense on another. (I'm thinking 8th edition craftworld traits here.)
People having different interpretations of what should be vs what is given is not what's at issue here.
I think it's worth mentioning as a brief aside. You seem to be against Imperial Fists being stealthy. Now imagine if their 8th edition rule was, inexplicably, to make them the especially stealthy subfaction. You might, understandably, prefer to run them with rules that you felt fit your understanding of their lore, yes? The 10th edition approach to detachment rules allows for that. And realistically, so did 8th and 9ths'. People use the rules that they prefer for whatever reason be it fluff, mechanical advantage, or something else entirely. If someone had yellow marines in 9th but really wanted to play with White Scars rules, they were going to use the White Scars rules. 10th's approach just removes the awkward feeling that you're "borrowing another faction's rules." You're playing an army full of marine bikers? They're using the rules that support that playstyle. Whether yellow-armored biker spam is lore accurate is between you, your opponent, and the Emperor.
Anyways, maybe it's time to just lock named characters to specific detachments.
Want to play IF? Cool, don't take the named characters if you want to run them all!
I could go either way with this and wouldn't mind if it were the case. On one hand, I don't love when not-Guilliman is present at every battle, and it probably feels neat to have your own "special thing" if you happen to be playing one of the subfactions lucky enough to get extra support from GW. On the other hand, you can justify most named characters having a crossover episode easily enough, and there isn't really any mechanical harm in it. So disallowing named characters from mixing and matching kind of comes back to being a fluff snob who tells people they're having fun wrong. Which is gross.
Want to run the named characters? So sorry, no biker or vanguard detachments.
This feels more okay than just banning people from using detachments or characters based on their paint scheme, but probably still falls into fluff snob territory. Unless there's something about a detachment that makes a character more powerful than intended when taken in that detachment.
JNAProductions wrote: I'll repeat a point I've made before-the majority of named characters should just be certain builds that you make from generic characters.
Calgar might be a unique individual, but Chapter Master with Twin Power Fists shouldn't be locked to Ultras exclusively.
Yes and no? I mean, yes, everyone should get that basic trope, but should everyone get the "Gauntlets of Ultramar"? Shouldn't those specific relic weapons be BETTER, and locked to the Ultras?
JNAProductions wrote: I'll repeat a point I've made before-the majority of named characters should just be certain builds that you make from generic characters.
Calgar might be a unique individual, but Chapter Master with Twin Power Fists shouldn't be locked to Ultras exclusively.
Yes and no? I mean, yes, everyone should get that basic trope, but should everyone get the "Gauntlets of Ultramar"? Shouldn't those specific relic weapons be BETTER, and locked to the Ultras?
Imo Gauntlets of Ultramar should just be something you could assemble, which would be Master Crafted Powerfist and Master Crafted Storm Bolter. On Calgar they take a certain form, (double Fist with underslung bolter) but that would be the end of it. And Calgar as a named character would have a certain Warlord Trait or similar, but that would also be something generic you could choose for your own custom hero.
For Chapters, 4th ed did it best with the Chapter Traits. Pick your own traits from a list, possibly some trade-offs. Named Chapters get some fixed set of traits from the same list.
Basically just open up the options for people to make their own. Named characters and chapters should be mostly create-able with the options available.
Tyran wrote: Regarding subfactions, not everyone is Marines. Marines in particular have been developed with heavy emphasis on their subfactions.
But everyone else? maybe Guard and Sisters also have a somewhat strong subfaction theme, but I doubt Orks, Eldars and Necrons players started their armies by choosing a subfaction.
I know for a fact I didn't start my Tyranids as Leviathan, Behemoth or Kraken, and it was a standard and very accepted practice among Tyranid players to disregard paint and play as whatever hive fleet supported their preferred playstyle and/or was meta.
I definitely did it and would do so again if I'm forced to pick a subfaction, because I like playing Tyranids as a whole and experimenting with the different playstyles the faction as a whole supports, not only one.
Space Marines themselves had their subfactions (DA/BA/SW) split out earlier than others yes, and had some (BT/RG/etc) continue to be split off.
Some, like Orks, had their subfactions mixed from the beginning in such a way that trying to force them through the Chapter Tactics Template doesn't work. They likely need a different template.
A Space Marine chapter should have all the equipment in the codex. At least as far as I'm aware, Dorn didn't declare "and they shall know no bikes." If you love the colour Yellow and love bikes, why not have both? I don't buy the whole "well maybe they can have bikes that are different to WS bikes". We know how this goes - some rule is always better. And then you get the bizarre situation where WS are actually worse with bikes than IF, IH or RG etc, or you are left with a suboptimal combination which is just annoying. (8th edition Word Bearers say hi.)
I mean I'm not sure why you'd get into say Iyanden if you didn't like Wraithguard. But maybe you like the colour scheme. Or maybe you do like Wraithguard - but not playing with them *every game*. I don't see the issue if you go "today I'm going to run all aspect warriors, and I'll talk the Swordwind detachment to indicate the rules this force should have". Crying "no no no that should be Biel-Tan only, if you aren't green it can't apply" feels pointless.
Delayed response, but I wanted to chime in and say that this pretty well sums up my thoughts on the topic. Like fist lore but also want to field a bike army? You shouldn't have to play with a handicap because your GW-assigned subfaction rules don't support bikes while another chapter's do.
Having a thing isn't the same as being effective with it. Fists and their Successors back in the days of the 3.5/4E doctrines book literally had a flaw that was about "Pride in their colors", do you think they should be able to take a Vanguard Spearhead full of stealthy troops?
Imperial Fists had "Death before dishonour", not "Have pride in your colours" in the 4th ed book. They have never had restrictions on using scouts or infiltrate, being mostly a good codex Chapter. Plus, infiltration is an important siege strategy.
In practical terms? Yes. They should. Or rather, it should be up to the individual IF player whether or not they should. Because:
A.) As a rule of thumb, there are probably more detachments that could reasonably run by most subfactions than not. And
B.) To do otherwise is to be a fluff snob telling people they're enjoying their hobby wrong.
I strongly disagree with this entire sentiment. the reason players in general...that are not power gaming faction hoppers looking for the new comp hotness. are drawn to the sub factions because of the lore, the way they fight and the way they do not fight. GW already skillfully addressed making the armies your own in previous editions when lore mattered more than tournaments. through the trait system for marines, the craftworlds for eldar etc...
If anything locking iconic factions into a specific play style prevents abuse, while supporting the setting. were back to that feeling of sanitized blandness or lost soul that started this discussion.
Nobody is telling them they are enjoying it wrong, if anything it helps them enjoy the hobby more by finding the faction or creating their own that fits what they are after. my view of 40K overall is what led me back to playing oldhammer. it is for epic fun battles in the setting. where my love of flame weapons matches the compassionate and noble Salamanders who love flame and melta weapons for lore reasons. or my love of wraith constructs draw me to playing the Iyanden craftworld that was forced into reforming itself around them because of the setting.
With the fists specifically, sitting here looking at my index astartes book. they do not directly eschew stealth but they prefer direct in your face aggression that precludes it along with special bonuses for destroying or fighting from fortifications.
The great thing about playing old hammer is i will never have to worry about balances passes invalidating armies or models or GW screwing things over ever again by rediculous rules changes that are directly the result of tournament win rates.
When i see a scars army or a templar army or a fists army on the table i know what i am up against just as much as if i were fighting alaitoc or bad moons.
Or it could be an entire custom chapter or an army of purple orks.....that you will never see coming..sneaky gitz.
detachments, like stratagem bloat and formation bloat before them were more of a detriment to the game from the marketing department at GW to push new sales than anything that should be in the game. but then NU-40K isn't 40k at all in my book. it just pretends to be.
Marines should just largely import the 30k lists, Rites of War and overall design sensibilities. A massive general list, a few special rules that offer benefits and weaknesses and a smattering of a couple of unique units. White Scars, Night Lords and Blood Angels can all use general Terminators but how those units are used in a given legion list will vary immensely and be equipped accordingly.
The other factions should also follow this general outline in 40k proper
Imperial Fists had "Death before dishonour", not "Have pride in your colours" in the 4th ed book. They have never had restrictions on using scouts or infiltrate, being mostly a good codex Chapter. Plus, infiltration is an important siege strategy.
Who am I thinking of? I don't have the book anymore, that trait just always stuck out to me.
I should note that I didn't say they should not have Scouts. Just that they shouldn't be sneaky.
Space Marines themselves had their subfactions (DA/BA/SW) split out earlier than others yes, and had some (BT/RG/etc) continue to be split off.
RG, etc haven't ever been split out. That's the problem which exists. We have more RG themed stuff smattered in Space Wolves and Deathwatch than we do in the main codex.
Some, like Orks, had their subfactions mixed from the beginning in such a way that trying to force them through the Chapter Tactics Template doesn't work. They likely need a different template.
It's actually why I'm leaning towards special characters having detachment locks as a viable solution. For Marines? It's the easiest and most effective way to manage things.
Imperial Fists had "Death before dishonour", not "Have pride in your colours" in the 4th ed book. They have never had restrictions on using scouts or infiltrate, being mostly a good codex Chapter. Plus, infiltration is an important siege strategy.
Who am I thinking of? I don't have the book anymore, that trait just always stuck out to me.
I should note that I didn't say they should not have Scouts. Just that they shouldn't be sneaky.
I'm not sure, none of the Chapters of Legend have the no-sneaky trait listed:
The fatal flaw of the Imperial Fists has always been over-zealous stubborness, which sometimes prevents them from retreating when it would be tactically prudent. This is shared with the Index Astartes lore and rules:
The only time Imperial Fists didn't do sneaky was during the Scouring, when they were especially bitter and vengeful and largely abandoned their usual careful reconnaissance prior to set pieces. Infiltration isn't a specialty, but they are as capable in it as any Chapter not from the Raven Guard lineage.
Edit: the Red Scorpions don't like sneaking, or at least Carab Culln doesn't.
Edit2: the 4th ed Marines codex had some major flaws too- White Scars being limited in vehicles incl. transport vehicles being the most obvious. They should have added a different major flaw for them that represented a distaste in slow troops on foot. "All infantry except scouts requires a dedicated transport or to be upgraded with bikes or jump packs", for example.
That 4th edition book was the correct way. Benefits AND drawbacks, where you could pick but named subfactions had theirs set (like how in later editions Warlords had set warlord traits and couldn't get relics/enhancements)
Wayniac wrote: That 4th edition book was the correct way. Benefits AND drawbacks, where you could pick but named subfactions had theirs set (like how in later editions Warlords had set warlord traits and couldn't get relics/enhancements)
It's funny though: I've seen people claim to like drawbacks in old editions, but not like 9th's subfaction rules, where the drawback was that you'd be specialized in one particular style of warfare, and not others. In 9th, people would call that Falanderization, when there's not even actually a drawback, people just say there is because they feel like everything in which they are not specialized is "something that they are penalized for doing" when no actual penalty exists.
And I'll remind people that not only was 9th the first edition to offer subfaction specializations to every unit in the game, it was also they only edition to have "Build your own options" for every faction in the game.
Now Wayne, I'm not sure if you are one of the people who posted that not having a special rule that affects a particular fighting style is a penalty that makes that play style "useless" - but there cetainly are a few who argue against subfaction rules that did.
The problem with drawbacks is that they are even more difficult to balance holistically than advantages.
I mean for example above - "We Stand Alone, can't take allies". Oh no, what a terrible shame in my pure Space Marine list. Then you had classic things like "can take an extra Heavy Support choice, but have to run one less Fast Attack". Oh no, how will my mainly heavy tank army cope?
Its very hard to balance this really. "This perk buffs shooting, but this matching flaw nerfs your close combat ability" - well, my list is full of gunline units that that suck in close combat anyway so who cares?
Thing is, there are "characters" which have no clear or absolute non-character model proxy. For instance, off the top of my head, without leaving space Marines, Tor Garadon has no current space marine model that can be fielded which he is a double for. Dante has no clear counterpart. Nor does Sanginius. There are singular character models that prevent "This model is just a captain with a jetpack and an axe/melta pistol". Because those don't exist currently. At least not Primaris.
To be completely honest I'd be totally fine with special characters being narrative or opponent's permission only. We went from them being special to being all over the place, often being "auto includes" because of their special abilities.
Well, I mean, you might as well tell people that UM,BA, and BT are not playable without players permission, as half their strength is tied to their characters being some of the best in the game. I mean, I see your point, but that's a little extreme.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Well, I mean, you might as well tell people that UM,BA, and BT are not playable without players permission, as half their strength is tied to their characters being some of the best in the game. I mean, I see your point, but that's a little extreme.
Well, that being the case is kinda the problem in general, isn't it? You shouldn't be required to take a special character for your faction to function.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Well, I mean, you might as well tell people that UM,BA, and BT are not playable without players permission, as half their strength is tied to their characters being some of the best in the game. I mean, I see your point, but that's a little extreme.
Well, that being the case is kinda the problem in general, isn't it? You shouldn't be required to take a special character for your faction to function.
Well put. But what game are we playing. The game we are talking about is not the game that we've been playing....ever. Characters and super models have always broken the natural flow. This isn't checkers. You can't create perfect equality. It would be bland and boring. There needs to be at least an appearance of Rock paper scissors. Morty of 9th was essentially an unkillable terrain piece that killed any model that came within range of him. That was unbalanced. 10th is at least trying to address this. But still failing....but I get your point.
PenitentJake wrote:It's funny though: I've seen people claim to like drawbacks in old editions, but not like 9th's subfaction rules, where the drawback was that you'd be specialized in one particular style of warfare, and not others. In 9th, people would call that Falanderization, when there's not even actually a drawback, people just say there is because they feel like everything in which they are not specialized is "something that they are penalized for doing" when no actual penalty exists.
In 8th/9th Ed if you play a bike subfaction but don't take bikes, you effectively get no subfaction bonus in a game balanced around having subfaction bonuses. Your army is strictly worse, to no benefit, because GW has decided that the only 'correct' way to play that subfaction is to spam the units that benefit the most.
In 3rd/4th Ed if you play a bike subfaction but don't take bikes, you are effectively playing a vanilla codex in a game balanced around vanilla codices. The guy who does spam bikes gets a bonus, but he has to pay for it on a per-unit basis. You might still have FOC restrictions, but if those are a problem you can just use the vanilla codex if you like and be perfectly fine.
Flanderization is when the game tacitly punishes you for taking anything other than the one-note stereotypical composition of that subfaction. The 3rd/4th Ed system didn't do that. It let you lean into a subfaction's strengths if you wanted to, but taking a different approach was viable too. It also allowed builds with more nuance- you could play Blood Angels as a tank company but mix in a few units of elite Assault Marines, if you wanted, and that was a viable force.
Lastly, there is zero functional difference between 'getting punished' and 'not getting a bonus everyone else gets and which the game is balanced around'. You can't semantics it away.
Tyel wrote:The problem with drawbacks is that they are even more difficult to balance holistically than advantages.
I mean for example above - "We Stand Alone, can't take allies". Oh no, what a terrible shame in my pure Space Marine list. Then you had classic things like "can take an extra Heavy Support choice, but have to run one less Fast Attack". Oh no, how will my mainly heavy tank army cope?
Its very hard to balance this really. "This perk buffs shooting, but this matching flaw nerfs your close combat ability" - well, my list is full of gunline units that that suck in close combat anyway so who cares?
Virtually all of the combat buffs had an attendant points cost, and the ones that didn't tended to be extremely minor or had implicit disadvantages (eg Close Order Drill for Guard- yes, please put your infantry in base-to-base in a game with templates). They also came with other constraints, be it the force organization limits of Guard regiments or the advantage/drawback system of Marines. Since you're talking 4th Ed Marines- and since that 'this perk buffs shooting, but this matching flaw nerfs your close combat ability' example doesn't actually exist- let's look at a few examples that are actually in the rules.
Imperial Fists- their advantage is Suffer Not The Works of Heretics, which lets you purchase the Tank Hunters skill for Tacs or Devs at 3pts per model. Their disadvantage is Death before Dishonor, which lets your opponent force the game to go an extra turn on a 4+. So your advantage is an optional ability that, if you choose to use, you have to pay points for, and your downside is stubborn pride.
Or Crimson Fists. They can spend 1pt/model to get Preferred Enemy against Orks, but they always get 1 less (each) Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support slots. Not an amazingly powerful ability, but you can always use the vanilla codex if you're not fighting Orks.
Or White Scars. Wow, they get multiple benefits- they can take Bikes as Elites but must buy a Veteran skill at 3ppm, or take them as Troops but they must be 5+ per unit, and all Bikes must buy Expert Riders for 2ppm. Their infantry can also choose to take Counter-Attack and True Grit for 3ppm. As their downside they can only take 0-1 Land Raiders, Predator Destructors, Whirlwinds, or Vindicators, can't use Land Raider Crusaders or Predator Annihilators at all, and transport vehicles take up Fast Attack slots.
Do you see the theme here? The upsides that actually boost your combat ability all need to be paid for or have built-in downsides (eg 6+ invuln, but you can't ever benefit from cover), and whether you choose to use them or not, you also take a downside of some form. The subfaction abilities could make a significant difference, but with how many disadvantages are baked in unless you're going for a certain theme you might consider just using the vanilla codex (and that was allowed, and perfectly fine).
The closest this system ever got to 'something for nothing' was the rearranging of FOC slots, but since you still had to pay for every unit you weren't actually getting anything for free, just getting more options that could have balance implications. It wasn't 'perfectly balanced', but it was a system with more flavorful subfaction differentiation than just making every Blood Angel punch harder, where taking an army that didn't neatly fit into a particular archetype didn't put you at a disadvantage, and most of all where GW could actually balance the game worth a damn because they didn't have to somehow pick one points cost for a unit that could be anywhere from mediocre to amazing depending on what subfaction it's in.
Tyel wrote: The problem with drawbacks is that they are even more difficult to balance holistically than advantages.
I mean for example above - "We Stand Alone, can't take allies". Oh no, what a terrible shame in my pure Space Marine list. Then you had classic things like "can take an extra Heavy Support choice, but have to run one less Fast Attack". Oh no, how will my mainly heavy tank army cope?
Its very hard to balance this really. "This perk buffs shooting, but this matching flaw nerfs your close combat ability" - well, my list is full of gunline units that that suck in close combat anyway so who cares?
The Iron Warriors lost two fast attack choices to gain a heavy support choice, so doing so heavily altered the list composition. In 3rd and 4th edition, there was a lot more mission variety available in the core rulebook, so reducing mobility probably had a bigger impact in some mission types than others. For example, a gunline list might be pretty good at cracking bunkers in Bunker assault, but lack mobility if attacked in an Ambush mission and can result in being outdeployed in a Meatgrinder mission.
But then I feel like varying up missions more to shake up what units are valuable is generally good for the game. I hated that my friends preferred kill points over any other mission type in 5th edition. So boring.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Well, I mean, you might as well tell people that UM,BA, and BT are not playable without players permission, as half their strength is tied to their characters being some of the best in the game. I mean, I see your point, but that's a little extreme.
Well, that being the case is kinda the problem in general, isn't it? You shouldn't be required to take a special character for your faction to function.
Well put. But what game are we playing. The game we are talking about is not the game that we've been playing....ever. Characters and super models have always broken the natural flow. This isn't checkers. You can't create perfect equality. It would be bland and boring. There needs to be at least an appearance of Rock paper scissors. Morty of 9th was essentially an unkillable terrain piece that killed any model that came within range of him. That was unbalanced. 10th is at least trying to address this. But still failing....but I get your point.
Not true, special characters used to require the permission of your opponent to play and were a smaller part of the game in general. They were also tied to army size. An important character could only be taken in 2000pts or larger forces, for example.
This thread is making miss 3rd-4th edition, truly the best period of time for the game even though balance may have been not so great. People talk about flanderization in the 9th faction traits but I would say that 10th detachments are so much worse. I look at Tyranids and each of their detachments basically tells you exactly how to build the army, some cases like the Assimilation Swarm being so restrictive on what units get the bonus that you have to dedicate so much of your points to a small pool of FOUR units. How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
Well put. But what game are we playing. The game we are talking about is not the game that we've been playing....ever. Characters and super models have always broken the natural flow. This isn't checkers. You can't create perfect equality. It would be bland and boring. There needs to be at least an appearance of Rock paper scissors. Morty of 9th was essentially an unkillable terrain piece that killed any model that came within range of him. That was unbalanced. 10th is at least trying to address this. But still failing....but I get your point.
Hmm. I guess nobody told the DG players I faced the most often in 9th that.
Combined I killed their Morties a dozen times + throughout the edition.
In practical terms? Yes. They should. Or rather, it should be up to the individual IF player whether or not they should. Because:
A.) As a rule of thumb, there are probably more detachments that could reasonably run by most subfactions than not. And
B.) To do otherwise is to be a fluff snob telling people they're enjoying their hobby wrong.
I strongly disagree with this entire sentiment. the reason players in general...that are not power gaming faction hoppers looking for the new comp hotness. are drawn to the sub factions because of the lore, the way they fight and the way they do not fight. GW already skillfully addressed making the armies your own in previous editions when lore mattered more than tournaments. through the trait system for marines, the craftworlds for eldar etc...
If anything locking iconic factions into a specific play style prevents abuse, while supporting the setting. were back to that feeling of sanitized blandness or lost soul that started this discussion.
Nobody is telling them they are enjoying it wrong, if anything it helps them enjoy the hobby more by finding the faction or creating their own that fits what they are after. my view of 40K overall is what led me back to playing oldhammer. it is for epic fun battles in the setting. where my love of flame weapons matches the compassionate and noble Salamanders who love flame and melta weapons for lore reasons. or my love of wraith constructs draw me to playing the Iyanden craftworld that was forced into reforming itself around them because of the setting.
With the fists specifically, sitting here looking at my index astartes book. they do not directly eschew stealth but they prefer direct in your face aggression that precludes it along with special bonuses for destroying or fighting from fortifications.
The great thing about playing old hammer is i will never have to worry about balances passes invalidating armies or models or GW screwing things over ever again by rediculous rules changes that are directly the result of tournament win rates.
When i see a scars army or a templar army or a fists army on the table i know what i am up against just as much as if i were fighting alaitoc or bad moons.
Or it could be an entire custom chapter or an army of purple orks.....that you will never see coming..sneaky gitz.
detachments, like stratagem bloat and formation bloat before them were more of a detriment to the game from the marketing department at GW to push new sales than anything that should be in the game. but then NU-40K isn't 40k at all in my book. it just pretends to be.
So it's only real 40K if they force you into a box? I guess that's grimdark.
ccs wrote: I think that what the OP is largely noticing is that they don't need to waste time adding up wargear costs.
And then doing it again with the next Balance Sheet..
Because rules? There's plenty of rules. Every unit has 1,2, 3+ unique rules. And 1/2+ of the weapons as well.
And a lot of the rules feel pretty dull or unimpactful.
Plus, without any costs for anything besides unit size (in bulk) there's often a clear winner in terms of gear to pick.
Which units have rules that are more dull than what they had in 9th? Are we just talking weapon options here?
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This thread is making miss 3rd-4th edition, truly the best period of time for the game even though balance may have been not so great. People talk about flanderization in the 9th faction traits but I would say that 10th detachments are so much worse. I look at Tyranids and each of their detachments basically tells you exactly how to build the army, some cases like the Assimilation Swarm being so restrictive on what units get the bonus that you have to dedicate so much of your points to a small pool of FOUR units. How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
Now we're just pulling at everything to argue both sides of the coin.
You're coming from the opposite direction on this. If I have a bunch of endless swarm units I can look at the available detachments and find which fits the style I want to play. No one is going to take their monster mash list into assimilation instead of crusher just like no one is going to take assimilation if they don't like using harvester units.
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JNAProductions wrote: 9th Edition wasn't exactly a bastion of interesting rules either.
So is paying 3 points for Tank Hunters more or less interesting?
Edit2: the 4th ed Marines codex had some major flaws too- White Scars being limited in vehicles incl. transport vehicles being the most obvious. They should have added a different major flaw for them that represented a distaste in slow troops on foot. "All infantry except scouts requires a dedicated transport or to be upgraded with bikes or jump packs", for example.
the trait system in 4th was pretty flavorful but i default to index astartes for some marine sub faction. the white scars were far more detailed as i posted earlier as were the iron hands. in alignment with the 3.5 chaos codex the dark angels codex 3.5 mini dex spent 2 pages to make the dark angels who they are known for. when it comes to BA or wolves their 5th ed codexes are superior to everything they had before or since. same with the 4th ed black templar codex.
When it comes to the other factions GW never put it in hard parameters. what they did do was put all the options in the codexes/forge world books and if you as a player well versed in the lore wanted to, could build a list themed around a particular craftworld or ork clan.
So it's only real 40K if they force you into a box? I guess that's grimdark.
Perhaps you missed the point or ignored it.
You as the player choose the "box" because you like it and if you do not like a particular box you had the freedom in the rules to actually create your own and were at one time encouraged to from GW no less. see the trait system above.
Your point is akin to playing Americans in flames of war and complaining that you are being forced into a box because you have to use Sherman tanks and not German panzers.
JNAProductions wrote:I'll repeat a point I've made before-the majority of named characters should just be certain builds that you make from generic characters.
Calgar might be a unique individual, but Chapter Master with Twin Power Fists shouldn't be locked to Ultras exclusively.
I kind of both agree and disagree. I feel like "special characters" should only have bespoke datasheets if they're actually so unlike another unit that wargear just doesn't cover it. So something like the Parasite of Mortrex or Ephrael Stern and her harlequin buddy definitely make sense as bespoke datasheets. But Marneus Calgar? He could probably be pretty well represented with just a generic chapter master datasheet and some wargear options. And speaking as someone who does play marines on occassion, the same is true for most marine characters. Most of them are just a more killy version of one of the generic datasheets. Eldrad mostly falls into this category too, though being the only seer with the Doom power gives him a bit of an excuse.
So yes, most special characters should be builds made with generic character rules, but also they should basically not be "special characters" at that point; just generic characters with canon background and a bespoke model.
Wayniac wrote:To be completely honest I'd be totally fine with special characters being narrative or opponent's permission only. We went from them being special to being all over the place, often being "auto includes" because of their special abilities.
I get where people with this view are coming from, but also that sort of stinks for anyone who happens to really love a certain character and goes out to build their army around it. You can imagine it would be pretty disheartening for someone who gets into the game and wants to build a ynnari army to find out their central character is veto-able.
And also, if a special character is an auto-include because they're more powerful/points efficient than a generic character, then they're probably in need of a points increase or a power nerf.
Wayniac wrote:That's why I feel the 30k Rites of War is the best way that I've seen that does a good compromise.
I like Rites of War. I think doing faction-agnostic Rites of War would be a great approach. Thorough changes to how an army is built and behaves, but don't tie them to specific paint schemes.
Edit2: the 4th ed Marines codex had some major flaws too- White Scars being limited in vehicles incl. transport vehicles being the most obvious. They should have added a different major flaw for them that represented a distaste in slow troops on foot. "All infantry except scouts requires a dedicated transport or to be upgraded with bikes or jump packs", for example.
the trait system in 4th was pretty flavorful but i default to index astartes for some marine sub faction. the white scars were far more detailed as i posted earlier as were the iron hands. in alignment with the 3.5 chaos codex the dark angels codex 3.5 mini dex spent 2 pages to make the dark angels who they are known for. when it comes to BA or wolves their 5th ed codexes are superior to everything they had before or since. same with the 4th ed black templar codex.
When it comes to the other factions GW never put it in hard parameters. what they did do was put all the options in the codexes/forge world books and if you as a player well versed in the lore wanted to, could build a list themed around a particular craftworld or ork clan.
I agree re. White Scars and Iron Hands. Salamanders were also much more interesting in their Codex: Armageddon/Index Astartes form. Essentially, I think the more divergent a Chapter was from the Codex Astartes, the more flavourful their 3rd edition incarnation was vs the 4th edition traits (if they had a 3rd edition format, obviously the trait system could be used to create all kinds of Chapters).
I also have a soft spot for the number of multi-faction units in 3rd edition. For example, any Space Marine force could take an Emperor's Champion, not just Black Templars. The latter were more associated with the Emperor's Champion of course.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This thread is making miss 3rd-4th edition, truly the best period of time for the game even though balance may have been not so great. People talk about flanderization in the 9th faction traits but I would say that 10th detachments are so much worse. I look at Tyranids and each of their detachments basically tells you exactly how to build the army, some cases like the Assimilation Swarm being so restrictive on what units get the bonus that you have to dedicate so much of your points to a small pool of FOUR units. How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
The key difference here is that the anhilation swarm isn't the only detachment for any given hivefleet. If you like the idea of the assimilation swarm and/or have a collection that happens to benefit from the swarm , then you're welcome to use it. Otherwise, you're welcome to use whichever of the detachments you find the most appropriate/enjoyable for your army. In contrast, the 9th edition approach told you which set of rules your canon subfaction "had to" use. Imagine if GW decided that the anhilation swarm was Behemoth's "thing" for whatever reason (just as an example, I know they'd probably use the stampede), and everyone with a Behemoth paint scheme was expected to use the anhilation swarm every game. Or alternatively, you explain to your opponent that while you're painted like the anhilation swarm army, you're actually using the crusher stampede army's rules.
So 9th edition white scars are "flanderized" in that 90% of their rules revolve around bikes. You can technically run something like a gunline or tank army with their rules, but you'll functionally be playing at a disadvantage because less of your army will benefit from your subfaciton rules. 10th edition white scars are equally welcome to use the bike detachment or the sneaky detachment or the terminator detachment, or whatever they're in the mood to field that day. Maybe you find it fun and fluffy to remind people that white scars devastators exist so you take the detachment that best supports a bunch of heavy weapon infantry.
I really don't see the problem with special characters and haven't for the past decade or two that this idea has been floated.
It can be bad when GW clearly make a special character OP - or a necessary crutch - and so it appears in just about every single list for a given faction. But then I often think this is the limits of the fluff problem. I.E. how often have I seen Thousand Sons players run Ahriman or Magnus? Most of the time. Especially when they were good - but frankly often even when they were not. Because they were a main reason why people had got into Thousand Sons in the first place.
After all what else is there? "I just really like magic and having bolters with better AP?" (I'm sure this isn't true for everyone and you can easily make your own characters up, but still.)
I mean I thought the same with Eldrad and Eldar 30~ years ago. Eldrad was part of the reason I liked Eldar those decades ago. Why wouldn't I want to run him as opposed to just a regular farseer?
Haighus wrote: I also have a soft spot for the number of multi-faction units in 3rd edition. For example, any Space Marine force could take an Emperor's Champion, not just Black Templars. The latter were more associated with the Emperor's Champion of course.
Characters in the 3rd edition codex were chapter locked.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
At least you have the choice of which narrow, prescriptive army archetype you want to play, rather than being railroaded into one of them by your choice of paint scheme.
Really, 10th Ed is just letting every named subfaction do what homebrew subfactions could in 8th-9th- pick whatever archetype feels most appropriate to the style of list you want to play.
Tyel wrote: Why wouldn't I want to run him as opposed to just a regular farseer?
If you're into Eldar for their jetbikes or aesthetics or aspect warriors or anything other than Eldrad and don't want the named character in your Your Dudes army, then it's really obnoxious when GW either balances the rest of the army around whatever buffs he provides, or ties options to including him in your list (eg in 5th, I think it was, when you had to take a named character to play Deathwing).
I play Tyranids. I have no interest whatsoever in the Swarmlord. It was frustrating when 8th Ed saw my Genestealers nerfed into the ground because they could wombo-combo with the Swarmlord to throw them across the table. I don't mind the Swarmlord existing in rules or being taken by people who like it or whatever, I just don't want my army to have a Swarmlord-shaped hole because the designers assume I love all their named characters too.
Oh, one side effect of the 8th to 9th subfaction paradigm is that GW needed to come up with a whole bunch of subfaction rules for armies they hadn't bothered to before, so couldn't easily pilfer lore-themed rules from 3rd edition. However, that doesn't mean those subfactions didn't already have lore...
An example that comes to mind is Stygies VIII, a forge world with longstanding lore about their superior capability for crafting ballistic weaponry, seen in their successful attempt to revive the Vanquisher cannon and the long-barrelled autocannons on their Hydra variant. Then 8th edition comes along and Stygies is the sneaky electronic warfare forge world and a different subfaction are the master weapon smiths... At least they kept Ryza's plasma affinity.
Can you give us a spread of some of the interesting rules you miss though so we have a frame of reference please?
9th edition Tyranids were IMHO quite interesting, because they were OP it was pretty much the first and only time the Synapse was an actual rule system that gave buffs and could chain abilities. Having a varied and strong synaptic web was highly rewarded. Sure it lacked the customization of 4th and 3rd (but it still had more than 8th and 10th) but I'm unsure you can make those systems work with an unit roster that is 3-4 times larger.
Haighus wrote: I also have a soft spot for the number of multi-faction units in 3rd edition. For example, any Space Marine force could take an Emperor's Champion, not just Black Templars. The latter were more associated with the Emperor's Champion of course.
Characters in the 3rd edition codex were chapter locked.
The Emperor's Champion got updated rules in Chapter Approved (easiest to find in Chapter Approved: 2003) where it could be taken by any Chapter, although had to be taken by Black Templars. See the text at the top:
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This thread is making miss 3rd-4th edition, truly the best period of time for the game even though balance may have been not so great. People talk about flanderization in the 9th faction traits but I would say that 10th detachments are so much worse. I look at Tyranids and each of their detachments basically tells you exactly how to build the army, some cases like the Assimilation Swarm being so restrictive on what units get the bonus that you have to dedicate so much of your points to a small pool of FOUR units. How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
The key difference here is that the anhilation swarm isn't the only detachment for any given hivefleet. If you like the idea of the assimilation swarm and/or have a collection that happens to benefit from the swarm , then you're welcome to use it. Otherwise, you're welcome to use whichever of the detachments you find the most appropriate/enjoyable for your army. In contrast, the 9th edition approach told you which set of rules your canon subfaction "had to" use. Imagine if GW decided that the anhilation swarm was Behemoth's "thing" for whatever reason (just as an example, I know they'd probably use the stampede), and everyone with a Behemoth paint scheme was expected to use the anhilation swarm every game. Or alternatively, you explain to your opponent that while you're painted like the anhilation swarm army, you're actually using the crusher stampede army's rules.
So 9th edition white scars are "flanderized" in that 90% of their rules revolve around bikes. You can technically run something like a gunline or tank army with their rules, but you'll functionally be playing at a disadvantage because less of your army will benefit from your subfaciton rules. 10th edition white scars are equally welcome to use the bike detachment or the sneaky detachment or the terminator detachment, or whatever they're in the mood to field that day. Maybe you find it fun and fluffy to remind people that white scars devastators exist so you take the detachment that best supports a bunch of heavy weapon infantry.
Why limit yourself because of a paint job? I have never met anyone who would care if you used Leviathan rules with an army that looked like Behemoth because most people don't know the difference.
Your position seems to be that lore shouldn't matter at all in game because that one fringe weird person wants to run devastator White Scars. If someone really likes devastators and heavy weapons then why the hell do they like White Scars? If you just like the color white, go right ahead and paint them white. White with a Mongolian theme? Who cares? Now, no army has any identity because all armies are the same within a faction. There is nothing unique about playing any chapter of space marines except for the blessed few that get their own unique models.
I feel like the best way I can describe is it is that I enjoy fast cars so I invest into a fast car to go fast. Then you come along and replace my car with an SUV that can still go a little fast but can also do a lot of other things well; telling me that it is okay cause I can still go fast, just not as fast and look at all the other things I get with this car! But I don't care about those other things, I just wanted a fast car.
Detachments are really just the exact same as faction traits just wrapped up in an extremely boring way that walks all over established history of the game and setting for who? Who benefits from the change from GW TELLING you that this color space marine gets these rules and GW TELLING you that no color matters. The change from faction rules to detachment rules just forces you to take specific units, sure you might like those units but I much prefer when my entire army benefits from a umbrella rule rather than just some of my models.
You can like White Scars without being so completely devoted to bikes that the only way you can possibly imagine playing the game is to do so with bikes. Sometimes people want to play with other options without having to buy a completely new army.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: If someone really likes devastators and heavy weapons then why the hell do they like White Scars?
If you're so uninvested in the setting and lore that you can't fathom liking a subfaction for any reason besides what one-dimensional stereotypical army build they represent, why do you care whether GW lets other color schemes pick the same rules?
Haighus wrote: The Emperor's Champion got updated rules in Chapter Approved (easiest to find in Chapter Approved: 2003) where it could be taken by any Chapter, although had to be taken by Black Templars. See the text at the top:
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This thread is making miss 3rd-4th edition, truly the best period of time for the game even though balance may have been not so great. People talk about flanderization in the 9th faction traits but I would say that 10th detachments are so much worse. I look at Tyranids and each of their detachments basically tells you exactly how to build the army, some cases like the Assimilation Swarm being so restrictive on what units get the bonus that you have to dedicate so much of your points to a small pool of FOUR units. How is a detachment that pushes me to play four units any less flanderization than a 9th faction trait, such as Leviathan, giving my entire army a form of FNP?
The key difference here is that the anhilation swarm isn't the only detachment for any given hivefleet. If you like the idea of the assimilation swarm and/or have a collection that happens to benefit from the swarm , then you're welcome to use it. Otherwise, you're welcome to use whichever of the detachments you find the most appropriate/enjoyable for your army. In contrast, the 9th edition approach told you which set of rules your canon subfaction "had to" use. Imagine if GW decided that the anhilation swarm was Behemoth's "thing" for whatever reason (just as an example, I know they'd probably use the stampede), and everyone with a Behemoth paint scheme was expected to use the anhilation swarm every game. Or alternatively, you explain to your opponent that while you're painted like the anhilation swarm army, you're actually using the crusher stampede army's rules.
So 9th edition white scars are "flanderized" in that 90% of their rules revolve around bikes. You can technically run something like a gunline or tank army with their rules, but you'll functionally be playing at a disadvantage because less of your army will benefit from your subfaciton rules. 10th edition white scars are equally welcome to use the bike detachment or the sneaky detachment or the terminator detachment, or whatever they're in the mood to field that day. Maybe you find it fun and fluffy to remind people that white scars devastators exist so you take the detachment that best supports a bunch of heavy weapon infantry.
Why limit yourself because of a paint job? I have never met anyone who would care if you used Leviathan rules with an army that looked like Behemoth because most people don't know the difference.
Right. Exactly. People were already using the rules that fit their army best. 10th just made that the norm instead of wrapping it in this weird, "Yellow marines should use the yellow marine rules" presentation. To quote catbarf:
Really, 10th Ed is just letting every named subfaction do what homebrew subfactions could in 8th-9th- pick whatever archetype feels most appropriate to the style of list you want to play.
Your position seems to be that lore shouldn't matter at all in game because that one fringe weird person wants to run devastator White Scars. If someone really likes devastators and heavy weapons then why the hell do they like White Scars? If you just like the color white, go right ahead and paint them white. White with a Mongolian theme? Who cares? Now, no army has any identity because all armies are the same within a faction. There is nothing unique about playing any chapter of space marines except for the blessed few that get their own unique models.
If someone likes the idea of playing a build of an army that isn't the immediate stereotypical build for that subfaction, I think they should be allowed to do so. You and I can cringe and poo poo their taste in fluff or armies or whatever, but I'd rather the rules support them doing that than not. The imperial fist bikers and devastator white scars players out there are valid and should be allowed to enjoy the game even if they aren't playing into stereotypes for their factions. Heck, I think playing a less stereotypical branch of a chapter is a cool way to carve out a place for yourself in the lore.
And ultimately, if you're playing an army full of bikers, you should probably have access to the biker strats and the biker enhancements. I don't want my opponent to be stuck with a bunch of less-useful-than-usual strats just because his bike army is painted yellow. A force composed largely of bikers is going to fight like a force composed largely of bikers.
As for there not being anything unique about a specific chapter... That was kind of already the case in 8th and 9th. As previously mentioned, there really wasn't anything stopping you from calling your yellow-painted biker army a "white scars" army despite the imperial fist logos on their shoulder pads. It was just a little more awkward because the rules you were using had another chapter's name on them.
I feel like the best way I can describe is it is that I enjoy fast cars so I invest into a fast car to go fast. Then you come along and replace my car with an SUV that can still go a little fast but can also do a lot of other things well; telling me that it is okay cause I can still go fast, just not as fast and look at all the other things I get with this car! But I don't care about those other things, I just wanted a fast car.
The problem in this analogy being that your car doesn't go as fast? What's that translate to in 40k terms? Do you feel your subfaction is no longer able to reflect its fluff as well as before? Or are you just offended that other factions can also do The Cool Thing now?
Detachments are really just the exact same as faction traits just wrapped up in an extremely boring way that walks all over established history of the game...
Can you explain what you find boring about it? The lore hasn't changed. White Scars are still known for liking their bikes, and they're still good at riding bikes if you take the bikes detachment. And just like before, people are free to write lore saying that their customer chapter is also good at riding bikes. The only difference is that imperial fists (or whomever) don't have to be relatively bad at riding bikes to make White Scars feel special.
Who benefits from the change from GW TELLING you that this color space marine gets these rules and GW TELLING you that no color matters.
I think you may have contradicted yourself there? The people who benefit from subfaction-agnostic detachments are anyone who wants to play their subfaction using non-stereotypical units. I.e. the hypothetical devastator white scars guy. Also, anyone whose GW-assigned subfaction rules weren't necessarily a good fit for that faction's lore.
The change from faction rules to detachment rules just forces you to take specific units, sure you might like those units but I much prefer when my entire army benefits from a umbrella rule rather than just some of my models.
I'm not sure how this differs from 8th and 9th? In 9th, a player using White Scars rules was at a disadvantage if he didn't field a bunch of bikes. He was "forced" to take bike units in that sense. Typically, a 9th edition player would select units/subfaction rules that go together. 10th is doing the same thing. Perhaps you feel that 10th restricts which units benefit from the detachment rules more than 9th edition did?
aphyon wrote: Perhaps you missed the point or ignored it.
You as the player choose the "box" because you like it and if you do not like a particular box you had the freedom in the rules to actually create your own and were at one time encouraged to from GW no less. see the trait system above.
Your point is akin to playing Americans in flames of war and complaining that you are being forced into a box because you have to use Sherman tanks and not German panzers.
So you loved 9th then? ( like honestly, because I'm unsure - it's hard to know where people are coming from with multipleideas swirling around )
Here's all the traits from 4th:
Spoiler:
Be Swift As The Wind - Bikes as Elites and/or Troops
Blessed Be The Warriors - Assault as Elite and/or Fast
Cleanse And Purify - Tacs can take a plasma or melta gun
Heed The Wisdom Of The Ancients - Dreadnoughts as Heavy and/or Elite
Honour Your Wargear - Devs as Elites and/or Heavy
Never Despair - Extra turn on 4+
No Mercy, No Respite - Tacs and Assault can take Furious Assault
Purity Above All - Upgrade Vet or Tac Sagres to Apothecary
Take The Fight To Them - Tac can trade bolters for bp and cs Scion Of Mars - Techmarine can get +1 wound
See, But Don't Be Seen - Tacs and Devs can Infiltrate ( can't mix with Have Pride In Your Colors )
Suffer Not The Alien To Live - Preferred enemy
Suffer Not The Works Of Heretics - Tacs / Devs can take Tank Hunters
Trust Your Battle-Brothers - Tacs / Devs / Assault / Command / Vets can take Counter attack
Uphold The Honour Of The Emperor - 6++ for Command / Vets, but no cover
You could take any two of those for a major and minor drawback, which was silly easy to game. And based on this we can see that literally no chapter has 'Have Pride In Your Colors' so then any of them could Infiltrate.
Five of these are just force org jumbling, which is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it. The rest are upgrades to units...
...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.
Spoiler:
Your point of doing what you want stands in opposition to others here who seem to prefer a rigid framework for each Chapter. What's absolutely befuddling is that both options are available. You can run White Scars as Stormlance and go all bikes ( like they want ) or you can run them in Firestorm as a mixed CQC army ( like you want ).
Both positions by both sides are gatekeepery, because they don't want to see others make Chapters that don't fit their idea of what the Chapter is and you seem to think that there's only one valid state for 40K.
Man its goo to see the same faces are still around!
I've been away from the 40k scene completely for a while and have recently been looking to get back into it.
I played all through 8th and beginning of 9th.
Rules bloat and OPBS was prevailent and was a scourge on 8th ed at certain point (Alitoic rules, rerolls everything auras, then doctirnes and super doctrines layers upon layers).
9th I didn't play much i cant put a finger on it but I just didn't enjoy it.
From what I've seen of 10th based on bat reps it just seems very very drab and frankly boring.
It seems GW in their usual fashion goes from one extreme to the next.
Five of these are just force org jumbling, whch is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it.
Except for that Rule of Three, so take as many bikes as you want except limit it to exactly three squads. As opposed to the 4th ed where you could take twelve Bike Squads with the Chapter Trait unlock.
The rest are upgrades to units...
...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.
AFAIK Outriders have no upgrades available as a unit, as opposed to the old Bike entry which allowed Specials as upgrades. Every bike could take Meltabombs too actually. The Sergeant in fact could get Terminator Honors, and unlock the character wargear list which included all sorts of stuff. And then of course the Elite unlock for Tank Hunters and Furious Assault, as well as the previously mentioned Skilled Riders.
Not to mention the fact that any independent character could ride a Bike, so your bike army could be led by Captains, Librarians, Chaplains and Techmarines on Bikes.
As a bonus, you could actually get each Bike squad to the traditional Codex ten-man allotment. 8 on bikes and two on the Attack Bike, making it possible to run the entire 8th company on Bikes.
I have preferred having freedom in my list construction, expressing my vision of a force on the battlefield. I get having constraints and restraints, but I did not enjoy the FOC introduced in 3rd Ed. In terms of Chapters, are people saying that Iron Hands cannot have fifteen bikes and riders skilled in their use? Are they saying that Ravenguard cannot muster fifteen suits of Terminator Armour and the veterans to employ them? Why couldn't a White Scars force have three Predators or three Devatator Squads? Dark Angels Scouts cannot be sneaky?
I enjoy the more open feel of Space Marine list construction in 10th. The Detachments are not all equal in terms of power, but they do represent choices by the player. Many of the enhancements and stratagems only work of certain units which does impose some limits. There are some likely unintended choices such as Centurians being the key feature of competitive Vanguard Spearhead lists, but players are going to play.
A player who likes Imperial Fists can still have some fun with a Phobos/Scout heavy list if they so choose and not be punished for fit. A White Scars player can have three tanks and not be at a disadvantage.
So while I am not thrilled with the power of my new Dark Angels Codex, I would hardly say that the game is heavily sanitized for me. I can choose from ten detachments, each with their own style.
I certainly see some gatekeeping in some of the posts above.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Not that this is indicitive of anything relevant to a reasonable conclusion, but wasn't 9th the best selling edition in 40k history?
Again, not drawing a conclusion/judgement of the edition here, but saying it wasn't popular, or well liked, is....wrong.
Purely anecdotal personal experience? I bought books for it, but I played less of it than any other edition since I started because the amount of bookkeeping and stratagem juggling ended up being more stressful than fun.
Imperial Fists had "Death before dishonour", not "Have pride in your colours" in the 4th ed book. They have never had restrictions on using scouts or infiltrate, being mostly a good codex Chapter. Plus, infiltration is an important siege strategy.
Who am I thinking of? I don't have the book anymore, that trait just always stuck out to me.
I should note that I didn't say they should not have Scouts. Just that they shouldn't be sneaky.
Space Marines themselves had their subfactions (DA/BA/SW) split out earlier than others yes, and had some (BT/RG/etc) continue to be split off.
RG, etc haven't ever been split out. That's the problem which exists. We have more RG themed stuff smattered in Space Wolves and Deathwatch than we do in the main codex.
Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).
Some, like Orks, had their subfactions mixed from the beginning in such a way that trying to force them through the Chapter Tactics Template doesn't work. They likely need a different template.
It's actually why I'm leaning towards special characters having detachment locks as a viable solution. For Marines? It's the easiest and most effective way to manage things.
I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.
Breton wrote: Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).
Oh no, it absolutely does matter. You're conflating the supplements that did nothing but add stratagems, wargear, and a character with the full-on things like the Space Wolves.
I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.
You're misunderstanding the suggestion. To use Eldrad as an example?
Eldrad doesn't make it so the Ulthwe Psyker heavy army happens.
The Ulthwe Psyker heavy army makes Eldrad happen.
Imperial Fists- their advantage is Suffer Not The Works of Heretics, which lets you purchase the Tank Hunters skill for Tacs or Devs at 3pts per model. Their disadvantage is Death before Dishonor, which lets your opponent force the game to go an extra turn on a 4+. So your advantage is an optional ability that, if you choose to use, you have to pay points for, and your downside is stubborn pride.
Here's 9th:
Bespoke Chapter Tactic:
- light cover has no effect against this factions ranged attacks
- Bolt weapons score on extra hit on a hit roll of 6
Bespoke WL Trait:
- friendly units within 6 inches and within cover are unaffected by -1AP
- if you don't take this, your WL can take any generic SM Trait
Huh: Your preferred rules affect only two units in the army, mine affect them all. Yours are optional, but you get AN ACTUAL punishment (as opposed to just "no bonus") whether you choose to max out troops and devs or not. My rules HAVE a bespoke WL Trait, but you can take a generic one if you don't like it.
Or Crimson Fists. They can spend 1pt/model to get Preferred Enemy against Orks, but they always get 1 less (each) Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support slots. Not an amazingly powerful ability, but you can always use the vanilla codex if you're not fighting Orks.
Here's 9th:
Bespoke Chapter tactic:
- +1 to hit vs. units that outnumber the shooting unit by 5+ (all vehicles count as 5)
- bolt weapons score an extra hit on a hit roll of 6
Bespoke WL Trait:
- the first time your WL is destroyed, you can forego all other resurrection rules to get a chance to come back with D3 wounds on a roll of 4+
- if you don't take this, your WL can take any generic SM Trait
Okay- bonus applies to all units, so both are equally flanderized on that point. But your preferred ability is WAY weaker DESPITE having a cost, and so specific, you could argue it's more flanderizing than mine AND it comes with an ACTUAL PENALTY (as opposed to merely "no bonus") which is always on, whether you take any Ork Hunters or not?
So who's more flanderized?
And before we move on, what makes "Just use the vanilla marines if you don't like the bonus" any more valid than Aphyon's statement that "If you don't like the box your subfaction puts you in, then pick a different subfaction with box you like better?" And why is it less "Changing your faction to fit flavour of the month meta" than when somebody says "My White Marines are going to count as BA for this game, because the White Scars rules won't give me an advantage in this match?"
Or White Scars. Wow, they get multiple benefits- they can take Bikes as Elites but must buy a Veteran skill at 3ppm, or take them as Troops but they must be 5+ per unit, and all Bikes must buy Expert Riders for 2ppm. Their infantry can also choose to take Counter-Attack and True Grit for 3ppm. As their downside they can only take 0-1 Land Raiders, Predator Destructors, Whirlwinds, or Vindicators, can't use Land Raider Crusaders or Predator Annihilators at all, and transport vehicles take up Fast Attack slots.
Here's 9th:
Bespoke Chapter Tactic:
- your units can charge even if they advanced or fell back
- no hit penalty for Assault weapons if you advance
Bespoke WL Trait:
- after a charge, this WL scores a mortal wound against a single unit within 1" on a 2+
- any generic SMWL trait is available if you don't like this one
Clearly we can see your preference is WAY more Flanderized than mine, and wow, look at that always always on penalty. Seriously, how did you even keep a straight face while typing that "not getting a bonus" is a devastating disadvantage that locks you into a monobuild while praising this ridiculous ALWAYS ON, ACTUAL DISADVANTAGE?
Because all 3 of the things you presented are a) more flanderizing b) less balanced and c) objectively more disadvantaged than any of the ones I presented?
but it was a system with more flavorful subfaction differentiation
I don't actually disagree with this. Because the White Scars rules you present, though objectively more flanderizing than the 9th equivalent by both providing bonuses only to certain units, and mandatory exclusion of other units, does feel flavourful because you can see it on the table. The 9th alternative is actually MORE in keeping with the fluff because it just makes the whole army faster and more mobile, but you only notice when you actually play, not when you look at the army.
where taking an army that didn't neatly fit into a particular archetype didn't put you at a disadvantage
But you're losing me on this. I understand relativism: a player that chooses not to maximize their army according to it's strengths is always at a relative disadvantage against an army that does, even when no actual penalty rule is assigned. But an actual penalty rule that is active whether or not you choose to maximize is objectively more of a disadvantage than any relative "penalty" you might suffer by being denied a bonus if you choose not to maximize.
most special characters should be builds made with generic character rules, but also they should basically not be "special characters" at that point; just generic characters with canon background and a bespoke model.
For me, this is where Crusade comes in- it is the build your own character machine of 40k. And what's great about it is that it doesn't FORBID named characters; it just recognizes that the extra rules they come with represent skills and wargear accumulated as a result of battle experience, and as such, they have already grown into the Heroes and Legends that generic leaders can become by earning that experience in game.
So essentially, used named characters if you like them, but they aren't going to grow any more than they already have. If you choose to field generic characters, you get to build your own, you just have to earn those extra traits by fighting.
JNAProductions wrote: 9th Edition wasn't exactly a bastion of interesting rules either.
It is compared to 10th. But realistically its just another example of GW responding with wildly extreme swings rather than an incremental mid zone.
The ideal would be - I suspect - a minor thematic "Chapter Tactics" style buff with at least a couple different templates for the rule depending on the fluff of the Top Faction. SM Chapter Tactics don't work for a congealed mass of Ork Infantry where Deathskull Lootas and Evil Sunz buggies all working under the leadership of a Goff Boss. They'd need a different template than some sort of Subfaction Purity test probably based on the Warlord Choice filtering down into a popularity=power thing similar to what you see in the HH novels where all the First Captains/Chapter Masters/Dark Apostles/Pick your Fluff Word vying for the approval of their Legion Primarch through their personal strengths. Erberus converting primarchs with the super magic knife, Phaeron summoning Daemons, etc.
Each "Chapter Tactic" (whether a Chapter Tactic or Sept Protocol or Hive Fleet etc) should be roughly equivalent, and thematic, any Chapter/Sept/etc specific units should synergize well with their respective tactic Each Detachment should have some wiggle rules to make their theme preferred in the Det - Generic OC bonus to Terminators and assorted -Guard Veterans (Blade, Stern, Van) Something like the First Company Det having an addon to AOC for Units with an invuln (Terminators, BGV) to to give them a FNP - then something to the Stormlance Det that gives you a "Before Your First Turn" you can bring on a special Det-Required "Outflank Reinforcements which can only include mounted and embarked TRANSPORTS type units that can come on from any non-opponent board edge. And the usual "these are just examples for theme, not for game power examples" rules apply.
The Detachments should be modifiers to the unit types to make the Detachment work (for example) instead of Black Knights getting a 5++ - all MOUNTED and SPEEDER units should have gotten a 5++ to give it to all the Ravenwing - the Inner Circle Det should have given all VETERAN INFANTRY (this would have required giving all the Stern/Blade/Van Guard Veteran Squads and all the Terminator Squads the VETERAN keyword) +1 OC (Bikes are already OC2 so the RG Det didn't need it) The keyword system is immensely powerful here, but GW is drastically underusing it to provide these thematic nudges.
I'd do three things:
Lean Hard into Keywords to framework the following:
Bring back and modify Chapter Tactics, and a small handful of Chapter Strats that are fluffy and equivalent to all the other CHAPTER/HIVE/etc abilities.
Bring back and modify the Det System from 6th? 7th? The one that started out with the Captain Demi Company + Chaplain Demi Company = free transports. That was way too potent, but combining that template with keywords is such a no brainer. This Detachment does A to Keyword 1, B to Keyword 2, yadda yadda. In such a way that an All Terminator army representing the First Company gets modified to be a viable army removing the often double dipped drawbacks to those units in a more standard 3, 6, 3+, 3, 3, HQ, Elites, Troop, Assault, Heavy Support formula Dets. For example as above giving expensive VETERANS a +1OC as they're now the TROOPS not the ELITES supporting the TROOPS and still really expensive.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JNAProductions wrote:I'll repeat a point I've made before-the majority of named characters should just be certain builds that you make from generic characters.
Calgar might be a unique individual, but Chapter Master with Twin Power Fists shouldn't be locked to Ultras exclusively.
Calgar's particular power fists should be unique, but I absolutely agree everyone should be able to make a Captain/Lieutenant in Gravis Armor with two Flamer fists or two Bolt Fists + Grenade Harness. I think instead of making more blister characters, they should just make a Chapter Upgrade Sprue. You buy the Armor Base mini/kit - Aggressor, Sternguard, Vanguard, Outrider, and add a couple bits from the Chapter Sprue to create a generic Captain/Lieutenant/Libby/Chaplain - For example the next Talonmaster is an Outrider mini with a special Ravenwing winged helmet, and an one of two-ish arms - with a Ravenwing/Power Sword, or a Thunderhammer/Powerfist etc - and you have that extra body because the Ravenwing Assault Squadron is back with 5 Outriders, 1 ATV and a 3 crew Storm Speeder (which makes 10) with an extra Outrider body for the talon master. Turning the rest of the 3 or 3-6 units into 5 or 5-10 will also end up with extra bodies for conversion into characters.
So yes, any chapter should be able to make a Captain out of an Aggressor but they should have regular Power fists and Aggressor guns, not the super fists and guns of the Gauntlets of Macragge, just like Ultramarine players shouldn't be able to make a Terminator Captain with a Super Thunderhammer, or a magic AOE 4++ unkillable token.
This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes. They had:
Charge even if you fell back or advanced
No penalty to shooting assault weapons when you advance
ONE of their six warlord traits requires a bike, for a Chapter that IS heavily about bikes.
Now we have the Stormlance Task Force which has 2 out of 4 enhancements that require "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units which there are a grand total of three in the codex. 3 out of 6 stratagems mention "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units.
So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?
Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.
For me, this is where Crusade comes in- it is the build your own character machine of 40k. And what's great about it is that it doesn't FORBID named characters; it just recognizes that the extra rules they come with represent skills and wargear accumulated as a result of battle experience, and as such, they have already grown into the Heroes and Legends that generic leaders can become by earning that experience in game.
So essentially, used named characters if you like them, but they aren't going to grow any more than they already have. If you choose to field generic characters, you get to build your own, you just have to earn those extra traits by fighting.
I like Crusade a lot and agree that it's a good way to add more personality to a generic character. However, I feels that's kind of parallel to my point and the point I was responding to because not all games will be crusade games. Frankly, if a named character is just a +1 version of a generic character or a generic character with a slightly different piece of wargear (that could harmlessly be made a generic option), it's probably best to just expand the options of the generic datasheet rather than adding extra datasheets to the game. And at that point, a lot of the named characters that are just generics+1 (see: most marine beatsticks) probably don't need to be their own datasheets in matched play.
Not that I'm particularly bothered by Calgar or Grimnars' datasheets existing, mind you; they just feel unnecessary.
Bring back and modify the Det System from 6th? 7th? The one that started out with the Captain Demi Company + Chaplain Demi Company = free transports. That was way too potent, but combining that template with keywords is such a no brainer. This Detachment does A to Keyword 1, B to Keyword 2, yadda yadda. In such a way that an All Terminator army representing the First Company gets modified to be a viable army removing the often double dipped drawbacks to those units in a more standard 3, 6, 3+, 3, 3, HQ, Elites, Troop, Assault, Heavy Support formula Dets. For example as above giving expensive VETERANS a +1OC as they're now the TROOPS not the ELITES supporting the TROOPS and still really expensive.
Idk, man. That kind of just sounds like removing the rule of 3 with extra steps. I think I'd just prefer a more thorough, Rites of War-esque set of rules for each detachment that spells out how an army using those RoW differs from the norm.
So instead of bringing back formations or mutated versions of the CAD (with all its problems), you can just be like:
"First Company Detachment:
* Take all the termie squads you want.
* If you use this detachment, your army must include Unit X and do such and such during deployment.
* Units with keyword Y or Z in this detachment have unlocked the First Company Special Mechanic (FCSM). Here's how that works. It changes how units with Keyword Y and Z behave in a different-but-equally-powerful way to the norm."
Five of these are just force org jumbling, whch is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it.
Except for that Rule of Three, so take as many bikes as you want except limit it to exactly three squads. As opposed to the 4th ed where you could take twelve Bike Squads with the Chapter Trait unlock.
The rest are upgrades to units...
...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.
AFAIK Outriders have no upgrades available as a unit, as opposed to the old Bike entry which allowed Specials as upgrades. Every bike could take Meltabombs too actually. The Sergeant in fact could get Terminator Honors, and unlock the character wargear list which included all sorts of stuff. And then of course the Elite unlock for Tank Hunters and Furious Assault, as well as the previously mentioned Skilled Riders.
Not to mention the fact that any independent character could ride a Bike, so your bike army could be led by Captains, Librarians, Chaplains and Techmarines on Bikes.
As a bonus, you could actually get each Bike squad to the traditional Codex ten-man allotment. 8 on bikes and two on the Attack Bike, making it possible to run the entire 8th company on Bikes.
So i dunno . . . @Daedelus?
I get that the ATV is an ugly ass model, but it exists.
Tank Hunters which is reroll hits vs vehicles is available in Oath. Otherwise a chaplain on bike grants DW to shooting attacks.
Furious Assault is +1S on charge, but again the chaplain gives +1 to wound in melee.
At some point GW will make more marine models on bikes ( but not all ).
An ATV gives reprisal shots. Stromlance can give advance and fallback, fallback and shoot, reserves on turn 1, the ability to move react when someone comes within 9", a 9" advance, a -1 to hit and wound, and SH.
Tank hunters, furious assault, and characters on bikes that just carry wargear and give you better LD or fearless isn't any more compelling to me and may well be less so when playing the game and not just list building. Ymmv.
What ways does a techmarine on a bike make the game more interesting? Would it make the battle reports Argive is watching more dynamic?
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes.
At least in my case, I've been using WS as short-hand for "an army with an obviously distinctive playstyle/tendency to field a specific subset of non-standard units en masse." I'm not really trying to talk about WS specifically. Although I'm fairly sure a lot of the WS stratagems were bike-centric?
So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?
Yes. Whether you like the style of rules/specific benefits subfactions gave in 9th over the specific benefits detachments give in 10th is a whole other conversation. My main point has been that the playstyle best represented by subfaction X's rules should be available to all armies using that codex; not only to armies with a certain paint scheme/gene daddy.
Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.
Excellent example. Your complaint here isn't that there's no "Gorgon Detachment;" it's that there's no detachment that happens to hand out buffs that let you represent an army of hyper-toxic bugs. Which is a fair complaint, but not something that is inherently problematic with detachments being subfaction agnostic. If there was a "Hypertoxic Detachment" that made no direct reference to your bugs literally belonging to Gorgon, you'd probably be fine with that, right?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Not that this is indicitive of anything relevant to a reasonable conclusion, but wasn't 9th the best selling edition in 40k history?
Again, not drawing a conclusion/judgement of the edition here, but saying it wasn't popular, or well liked, is....wrong.
Last I checked the number of games played in BCP is up 20% this January over last year. I don't have other months loaded so not terribly conclusive yet. ( not including online games, but there could be other junk in there too )
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This is what I don't understand about these people so fixated on White Scars; In 9th your faction trait said NOTHING about Bikes. They had:
Charge even if you fell back or advanced
No penalty to shooting assault weapons when you advance
ONE of their six warlord traits requires a bike, for a Chapter that IS heavily about bikes.
Now we have the Stormlance Task Force which has 2 out of 4 enhancements that require "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units which there are a grand total of three in the codex. 3 out of 6 stratagems mention "Adeptus Astartes Mounted" units.
So is this all really just because you don't like having the "White Scars" name attached to the army rules?
Plus this all just completely ignores the fact that we are not just talking about Space Marines. I really liked that Hive Fleet Gorgon gave me the ability to play an army of hyper-toxic Tyranids that focused on poison with rules that reflected that. Now I don't have anything even remotely close to that.
"Fall back and Charge" is very Bike-ish. That's probably the current evolution of their bike rules. Also don't fall into the monolithic trap here - All of the Chapters had at least a couple of "iconic units" BA were about Jump Packs, but they also tied in Terminators, Speeders and Dreads to some degree depending on edition. Wolves were (originally) Terminators/Dreads/Bikes. RG are Jumps and Scouts. Scars were Bikes and Mechanized Infantry - squads in vehicles that frequently outflanked.They're loosely based on the Mongols of history so their thing was mobility/surrounding. DA were loosely based on Teutonic Knights so you've got heavily armored medieval armed stuff - Deathwing Knights, Mounted Swordsmen/pick hammers like Black Knights. One of the main things screwing White Scars is the end of the Bike Squad and Bike mounted characters. Kor'sarro Khan crossed the rubicon and forgot how to ride a bike at about the same time all Captains forgot how to ride a bike. Libbys forgot a long time ago. Part of bringing back the assorted flavor "detachments" will require restoring a lot of the non-standard HQ's.
Yes. Whether you like the style of rules/specific benefits subfactions gave in 9th over the specific benefits detachments give in 10th is a whole other conversation. My main point has been that the playstyle best represented by subfaction X's rules should be available to all armies using that codex; not only to armies with a certain paint scheme/gene daddy.
I'm 50/50 on this. The generic playstyle at the Det Level (Biker List, Jumper List, Termie List, etc) where its not the standard 30 Tacs, 10 Assaults, 10 Devs and a toy or two - but is thematically different should absolutely be available to each chapter. The Fortifications knowledge of the Imperial Fists, or the Vows of the Black Templar should not be available to the sons of Sanguinius or Guilliman.
In otherwords, Everyone should be able to make a list with 100 Terminators in their full First Company (and not need 60 Tacticals for troops units etc), not just the progengy of the Lion. But the gene-father SHOULD change how that group plays. The sons of the Lion might be a more 50/50 mix of shooters and fighters because they're more stoic and have Terminator sized Plasma Cannon from their First Legion armories - while the Sons of Russ are equally at home in Terminator Armor their aggression may swing the balance from 50/50 to favoring the Terminator Assault Weapons 25/75 or something to represent their more aggressive nature making them better at striding into a melee, even in the slower Terminator Armor. While yet a third example of the of the implacable Imperial Fists might skew 75/25 in favor of their shooters given the progeny of Dorn are more known for the ranks upon ranks of armored marines inexorably clomping ahead with their storm bolters on a mission to destroy the lascannon turrets for their less armored brethren.
It was wrong that only Dark Angels armies led by Belial could make an all Terminator force. Its equally wrong to make an all terminator force of the sons of Russ into a walking wall of Storm Bolters.
Breton wrote: Yes they were, there was a point where all the loyalist first founding had a Chapter Specific Supplement to partner with the generic SM Codex. Thus why I pointed out "and had some continue to be split off" and nor part of "earlier" But that doesn't really matter. All in one book, or each in a supplement the point is the way to do it is somewhat generalized "twists" on the theme (like Chapter Tactics were tho some probably would need reworking) combined with one of the new Detachments (which should probably be refined a rebalanced now that the players can demonstrate short comings).
Oh no, it absolutely does matter. You're conflating the supplements that did nothing but add stratagems, wargear, and a character with the full-on things like the Space Wolves.
Well first off you're confusinging what part didn't matter. It doesn't matter if the flavor comes from a new book, or a dedicated section of the main book. Separate flavor rules differentiating between UM and RG are separate flavor rules.
Second, doing "nothing" like adding SEPARATE chapter specific rules like warlord traits, wargear, and character(s) is pretty much the definition of separation. Your complaint isn't the act, its the quantity. RG were a separate and distinct chapter with their own rules.
I'm against that - not enough special characters, and you shouldn't have to take Eldrad to take an Ulthwe psyker heavy army. I'd do it based on HQ's probably but I'd do it to the generic archetype (i.e. Jump Pack Captain, Terminator Chaplain, etc). Which means the generic archetypes need to be filled out - but they already should be.
You're misunderstanding the suggestion. To use Eldrad as an example?
Eldrad doesn't make it so the Ulthwe Psyker heavy army happens.
The Ulthwe Psyker heavy army makes Eldrad happen.
You may want to backtrack to the post I was replying to - the idea was that paradigm shift armies were tied to special characters. That literally means that if you wanted to run an X specific army, they were expecting to you to take Special Character X to unlock the army/rules.
I'm 50/50 on this. The generic playstyle at the Det Level (Biker List, Jumper List, Termie List, etc) where its not the standard 30 Tacs, 10 Assaults, 10 Devs and a toy or two - but is thematically different should absolutely be available to each chapter. The Fortifications knowledge of the Imperial Fists, or the Vows of the Black Templar should not be available to the sons of Sanguinius or Guilliman.
In otherwords, Everyone should be able to make a list with 100 Terminators in their full First Company (and not need 60 Tacticals for troops units etc), not just the progengy of the Lion. But the gene-father SHOULD change how that group plays. The sons of the Lion might be a more 50/50 mix of shooters and fighters because they're more stoic and have Terminator sized Plasma Cannon from their First Legion armories - while the Sons of Russ are equally at home in Terminator Armor their aggression may swing the balance from 50/50 to favoring the Terminator Assault Weapons 25/75 or something to represent their more aggressive nature making them better at striding into a melee, even in the slower Terminator Armor. While yet a third example of the of the implacable Imperial Fists might skew 75/25 in favor of their shooters given the progeny of Dorn are more known for the ranks upon ranks of armored marines inexorably clomping ahead with their storm bolters on a mission to destroy the lascannon turrets for their less armored brethren.
It was wrong that only Dark Angels armies led by Belial could make an all Terminator force. Its equally wrong to make an all terminator force of the sons of Russ into a walking wall of Storm Bolters.
I get where you're coming from here. However, I feel like that level of distinction might not be a feasible ask. At that point, you're talking about every supported army archetype having 9+ variations. So if there are 6(?) supported archetypes that are each modified in 9 chapter-specific, slight-different, equally-viable ways, that's functionally 54 different sets of detachment rules.
I also, and I mean this with no disrespect to your or marine players intended, feel that it might be a bit of "marine privelege" that makes that level of distinction seem necessary. Speaking as a primarily eldar player, I mostly just want a handful of detachments that support the main archetypes (plus, selfishly, my own minor canon craftworld's thing for banshees.) So while I do want rules that support a biker/skimmer-heavy Saim-Hann style detachment, I don't feel compelled to have slightly different rules for a bunch of Ulthwe/Saim-Hann/Iyanden/Alaitoc/Biel-Tan/Iybraesil/Altansar biker detachments.
I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.
Neither, because you clearly have no idea what I'm talking about and seem to interpret 'flanderized' as 'things that only apply to some units', which isn't remotely correct.
Go back and re-read my previous posts, understand what's different between free-across-your-entire-army and paid-with-points bonuses, understand how bonuses that push certain archetypes by giving them benefits at no attendant disadvantage encourage flanderized depictions of a subfaction, and then we can have a conversation. I'm not going to go line-by-line on comparisons that fundamentally miss the point.
Five of these are just force org jumbling, whch is irrelevant now. You want an all bike army then go for it. You don't need to pick into it.
Except for that Rule of Three, so take as many bikes as you want except limit it to exactly three squads. As opposed to the 4th ed where you could take twelve Bike Squads with the Chapter Trait unlock.
The rest are upgrades to units...
...which are available in spades and in far greater variety than 4th ever offered on top of having a tactical consideration of their use and strategic consideration of their deployment.
AFAIK Outriders have no upgrades available as a unit, as opposed to the old Bike entry which allowed Specials as upgrades. Every bike could take Meltabombs too actually. The Sergeant in fact could get Terminator Honors, and unlock the character wargear list which included all sorts of stuff. And then of course the Elite unlock for Tank Hunters and Furious Assault, as well as the previously mentioned Skilled Riders.
Not to mention the fact that any independent character could ride a Bike, so your bike army could be led by Captains, Librarians, Chaplains and Techmarines on Bikes.
As a bonus, you could actually get each Bike squad to the traditional Codex ten-man allotment. 8 on bikes and two on the Attack Bike, making it possible to run the entire 8th company on Bikes.
So i dunno . . . @Daedelus?
I get that the ATV is an ugly ass model, but it exists.
Tank Hunters which is reroll hits vs vehicles is available in Oath. Otherwise a chaplain on bike grants DW to shooting attacks.
Furious Assault is +1S on charge, but again the chaplain gives +1 to wound in melee.
At some point GW will make more marine models on bikes ( but not all ).
An ATV gives reprisal shots. Stromlance can give advance and fallback, fallback and shoot, reserves on turn 1, the ability to move react when someone comes within 9", a 9" advance, a -1 to hit and wound, and SH.
Tank hunters, furious assault, and characters on bikes that just carry wargear and give you better LD or fearless isn't any more compelling to me and may well be less so when playing the game and not just list building. Ymmv.
What ways does a techmarine on a bike make the game more interesting? Would it make the battle reports Argive is watching more dynamic?
Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.
For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.
"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.
Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.
Wyldhunt wrote: I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.
To add on to this, I'd be perfectly fine with Iyanden and Ulthwe both being able to take ghost armies but also both having a unique stratagem or upgrade or ability or whatever so that they still feel a little different from one another. The problem is more when each build archetype has only one acceptable subfaction to represent it; if an Ulthwe ghost army is just straight-up worse than an Iyanden one, with absolutely no redeeming features, that isn't good design.
I get where you're coming from here. However, I feel like that level of distinction might not be a feasible ask. At that point, you're talking about every supported army archetype having 9+ variations. So if there are 6(?) supported archetypes that are each modified in 9 chapter-specific, slight-different, equally-viable ways, that's functionally 54 different sets of detachment rules.
I don't think its an unreasonable ask, its not that difficult. A Chapter Tactic for each subfaction of each main faction, and a handful of detachments is still fairly basic. Sure it runs out to 54, but they don't have to manually create each one. They have to create 9 things and 6 things that work together but don't require each other.
I also, and I mean this with no disrespect to your or marine players intended, feel that it might be a bit of "marine privelege"
You mean even though I've taken pains to specifically and repeatedly include all the factions by calling out Hive Fleets, Klans, and Septs and so on. Sounds like more sour grapes on your part than supported arguement.
that makes that level of distinction seem necessary. Speaking as a primarily eldar player, I mostly just want a handful of detachments that support the main archetypes (plus, selfishly, my own minor canon craftworld's thing for banshees.) So while I do want rules that support a biker/skimmer-heavy Saim-Hann style detachment, I don't feel compelled to have slightly different rules for a bunch of Ulthwe/Saim-Hann/Iyanden/Alaitoc/Biel-Tan/Iybraesil/Altansar biker detachments.
I do. I want a generic Iyanden Craftword Trait like the AP reduction from 9th - something generic that doesn't specifically call out guardians and wraith - that can then interact with a handful of detachments in such a way that Iyanden units might play the same Det in a different way.
I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.
And I'd rather the stoicism of Iyanden make their Wraiths more resistant, while the Alaitoc Wraiths are more hidden.
So you loved 9th then? ( like honestly, because I'm unsure - it's hard to know where people are coming from with multipleideas swirling around
I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning stars. the only NU-40K i will use is index era 8th ed because we use it to play epic. we just halve all movement and ranges.
The FLGS oldhammer group i started uses core 5th ed with a few rules swapped out for their 4th ed counterpart that fit better with the game-
IE wound allocation, assaulting vehicles and sniper rifles. we allso added in snap fire, overwatch, and grenade throwing from 7th because they add a lot to the feel of the game in 5th.
we use whichever codex we feel best fits the lore of the army. but it must operate under 5th ed core rules and USRs. needless to say the vast majority of codexes come from 3rd and 4th with a few from 5th and occasionally 7th especially for factions that did not exist before that edition.
this is just my personal collection i keep with me on game night for anybody to use as needed.(not including chapter approved, every index astartes and forgeworld imperial armor book that i also have at home). as i consider them the best of the codexes GW has ever made for each faction.
Spoiler:
Anything else other players usually have in their collections as needed.-demons, knights, custodes etc....
Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:
9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines
The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power
Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.
Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.
So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.
Haighus wrote: The Emperor's Champion got updated rules in Chapter Approved (easiest to find in Chapter Approved: 2003) where it could be taken by any Chapter, although had to be taken by Black Templars. See the text at the top:
I stand corrected.
Well, it is a niche option from a ruleset that went out of support twenty years ago. Easy to miss
There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".
In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):
Spoiler:
HQ All independent characters must start the game with a squad with room in its transport, or be given a jump pack or bike as part of their wargear. If the character has a command squad they must all be mounted in a Rhino, Razorback, or Land Raider. Alternatively, a command squad may be mounted on bikes for +20 points per model.
ELITES Terminators must be mounted in a Land Raider.
TROOPS Bike Squads - may have up to 10 models Scout bike squads Tactical squads must be mounted in a Rhino or Razorback
FAST ATTACK Assault Squads Land Speeders and all variants
HEAVY SUPPORT Attack Bike squadrons Land Raiders Predators (cannot be given weapon sponsons) Dreadnoughts
Dreads have a note that they are really cool but don't quite fit, but they're allowing it anyways with some jokes about having considered teleporting Dreads or rollerblades and rocket boosters
Wayniac wrote:There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".
In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):
Spoiler:
HQ All independent characters must start the game with a squad with room in its transport, or be given a jump pack or bike as part of their wargear. If the character has a command squad they must all be mounted in a Rhino, Razorback, or Land Raider. Alternatively, a command squad may be mounted on bikes for +20 points per model.
ELITES
Terminators must be mounted in a Land Raider.
TROOPS
Bike Squads - may have up to 10 models
Scout bike squads
Tactical squads must be mounted in a Rhino or Razorback
FAST ATTACK
Assault Squads
Land Speeders and all variants
HEAVY SUPPORT
Attack Bike squadrons
Land Raiders
Predators (cannot be given weapon sponsons)
Dreadnoughts
Dreads have a note that they are really cool but don't quite fit, but they're allowing it anyways with some jokes about having considered teleporting Dreads or rollerblades and rocket boosters
This is why a lot of people disliked the 4th edition White Scar rules specifically, as it actually restricted White Scars from using vehicles much when White Scars lore had them happily using any rapid attack method including drop pod assaults.
Aphyon already posted the full 3rd edition Index Astartes rules that are essentially a refined version of the rules you posted:
aphyon wrote:
the scars have never had a better set of rules than this-
Spoiler:
Here you can see that White Scars are encouraged to use a highly mobile force rather than a specifically-bikes force. This represents their preferred style of warfare. However, if your White Scars are forced to fight in a space hulk or underhive where bikes and vehicles are impractical, you could just pull your list from the default Space Marine codex. I think 3rd was great for that.
Neither, because you clearly have no idea what I'm talking about and seem to interpret 'flanderized' as 'things that only apply to some units', which isn't remotely correct.
Go back and re-read my previous posts, understand what's different between free-across-your-entire-army and paid-with-points bonuses, understand how bonuses that push certain archetypes by giving them benefits at no attendant disadvantage encourage flanderized depictions of a subfaction, and then we can have a conversation. I'm not going to go line-by-line on comparisons that fundamentally miss the point.
Flanderization is when the game tacitly punishes you for taking anything other than the one-note stereotypical composition of that subfaction.
If Crimson Fists MUST ALWAYS take one less Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy, they are already more one note than their 9th equivalent because their composition MUST conform to a narrow focus- and that's before we even discuss the bonus part. Getting a bonus to hit squads that outnumber you (9th) may encoruage you to take min sized squads (which you and others will twist to "Tacitly punishes you if you don't" despite the fact that this is a relativist fallacy), but is that more one note than "If you want compensation to offset the penalty which you must take, you can only get it if you're fighting orks?"
In White Scars, it's even worse! You can only take one heavy tank ever. Always. How is that less one note than "anything in your army can charge even if it falls back or advances?" What makes it worse than the Crimson Fists is that if you want compensation for the always active penalty that FORCES you to have one note composition, you can only do that by taking bike units. You're being forced not to take one type of unit and encouraged to take another type of unit. The 9th rules do neither of these things.
So if one note composition of your army is your definition of Flanderization, 3rd/4th White Scars are the poster boys for it whether they pay for their advantages or not. 9th ed? Even your Termies can advance and charge if they want to, so there's no punishment tacit or otherwise for not taking bikes.
Now with Imperial Fists, the always-on penalty isn't at related to composition the way it is with you other two examples, so it doesn't one note the army. But if you want compensation for the always on penalty, that compensation applies only to tacticals and devastators, so back to one note... Although you could argue that a) tacticals are already encouraged by FOC, so applying a bonus to them doesn't do any more or less to encourage you to take them and b) the disadvantage is such a small one that your less likely to fell the need to max out the only two units in your list that qualify for the advantage.
But you are still far more encouraged to have one note composition by those rules than 9th's.
So your examples?
White Scars- super one note in 3rd/4th because the penalty forces exclusion of one unit type and the bonus encourages inclusion of another.
Crimson Fists- less one note because the bonus doesn't encourage specific units, but the always on penalty does exclude certain units
Imperial Fist- the least one note because the always on penalty has nothing to do with composition, even if the optional bonus does
And that's all true whether you pay for the bonus or not.
White Scars- super one note in 3rd/4th because the penalty forces exclusion of one unit type and the bonus encourages inclusion of another.
Crimson Fists- less one note because the bonus doesn't encourage specific units, but the always on penalty does exclude certain units
Imperial Fist- the least one note because the always on penalty has nothing to do with composition, even if the optional bonus does
And that's all true whether you pay for the bonus or not.
For the sake of accuracy, that is true for 4th edition. 3rd edition had different and (IMO) superior rules for all of those Chapters. In addition, the 3rd edition paradigm was much more comfortable restricting some unit types as a sort of targeted version of the modern rule of three. It wasn't uncommon for a unit to be 0-1 or 0-2 in a given list.
See the post above yours for 3rd edition White Scars.
I think GW tried to tone down subfactions in 4th and 5th. By 5th, you might get a FOC reshuffle, and may get some specialised rules locked behind a special character.
I'd probably try and steer the conversation away from "my past edition could beat up your past edition". Preference is clearly going to be subjective - and I suspect for the large part tinged with nostalgia.
I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?
I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)
But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.
Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.
For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.
"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.
Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.
#1 in a game where there's actual structured missions having an army of all move 20/22 makes for a very lopsided game. If you desire such a thing you can't also be for a balanced game.
#2 just because primaris gets limited loadouts doesn't mean 40K is sanitized. Chaos Bikers still have selective loadouts. Will they redo old marine bikes? No idea.
#3 isn't really true. Everything is pretty easily visible and digestible at the start of a game.
#4 is so rarely useful as to be not worth mentioning. Putting searchlights on all the vehicles might make you look like a genius when night fight is rolled, but at the end of the day isn't an engaging way to design a game just because you happened to drop that missile launcher for search lights.
Clearly there's a few ideas in this thread. This one being ultimate customization at the cost of literally everything else.
So you loved 9th then? ( like honestly, because I'm unsure - it's hard to know where people are coming from with multipleideas swirling around
I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand burning stars. the only NU-40K i will use is index era 8th ed because we use it to play epic. we just halve all movement and ranges.
The FLGS oldhammer group i started uses core 5th ed with a few rules swapped out for their 4th ed counterpart that fit better with the game-
IE wound allocation, assaulting vehicles and sniper rifles. we allso added in snap fire, overwatch, and grenade throwing from 7th because they add a lot to the feel of the game in 5th.
we use whichever codex we feel best fits the lore of the army. but it must operate under 5th ed core rules and USRs. needless to say the vast majority of codexes come from 3rd and 4th with a few from 5th and occasionally 7th especially for factions that did not exist before that edition.
this is just my personal collection i keep with me on game night for anybody to use as needed.(not including chapter approved, every index astartes and forgeworld imperial armor book that i also have at home). as i consider them the best of the codexes GW has ever made for each faction.
Spoiler:
Anything else other players usually have in their collections as needed.-demons, knights, custodes etc....
Right, so I would say you don't actually care about customization as a concept. What you really care about is oldhammer.
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Haighus wrote: Here you can see that White Scars are encouraged to use a highly mobile force rather than a specifically-bikes force. This represents their preferred style of warfare. However, if your White Scars are forced to fight in a space hulk or underhive where bikes and vehicles are impractical, you could just pull your list from the default Space Marine codex. I think 3rd was great for that.
Literally flanderized. There is only one rule there that isn't favored to bikes.
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Tyel wrote: I'd probably try and steer the conversation away from "my past edition could beat up your past edition". Preference is clearly going to be subjective - and I suspect for the large part tinged with nostalgia.
I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?
I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)
But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.
A large part of list design has to incorporate how you'll accomplish missions. You can't rely on your opponent bringing enough things of a certain type to go for fixed missions and so you need to be adaptable.
Otherwise people would just take blocks of terminators and centurions in Vanguard, shove their thumbs in their ears and say, "nah nah you can't kill me". In reality the game doesn't work as such and people who haven't played don't have a concept for it at all. It has far more generalship than the fiddly list building of yore.
And people can like what they like. I enjoyed my oldhammer days, but I've moved on. It's asserting that anything that isn't what they like is assumed bad is where it kind of goes off the rails.
You're still missing the forest for the trees. Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.
In the 8th/9th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the stronger your army is. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, your army will be weak.
In the 3rd/4th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the more opportunities you have to spend points to make them stronger. It doesn't actually make your list stronger. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, the rules explicitly encourage you to just use the vanilla list so that you aren't receiving drawbacks to no gain.
The first one is flanderizing because it rewards you for taking a certain subset of units and tacitly punishes you for taking others. The second one is not flanderizing because you can take whatever the feth you want and be neither rewarded nor penalized for it.
It's not about who benefits from the rules or whether they come with penalties. It's about whether your army's power level is affected by how hard you lean into the prescribed theme, and whether you have the freedom to deviate from it without ending up with a C-tier army as a result.
Tyel wrote: I think the discussion was better on "what are subfactions meant to accomplish?" Are they there to inspire you - or are they to offer meaningfully different ways of playing a collection of models?
I think its a fair criticism of 10th's detachments that they can sort of hint at the former (although its lacking enough flavour I think), but they are too specialised for the latter. I.E. if I look at Ad Mech, you have 2 notionally standard cross-faction detachments - and then you have "Spam Skitarii", "Spam Priests" and finally "Spam Robots and a few vehicles". Now even if we ignore that Ad Mech are I think the most expensive army in the game, having a sufficiently diverse collection to run these in a vaguely optimal way is probably out of the question. You certainly can't manage it with a classic White Dwarfesque soft-highlander collection (i.e. 1-2 boxes of every unit at most, no spam.)
But I guess this is more talking about mechanics again rather than rules into fluff. But I think its a much bigger question of whether say the new Marine detachments are "fun" (for whatever you find fun) rather than whether they should have been labelled RG, IF, WS etc.
I agree with this, and also that the 10th Ed detachments tend to be awfully prescriptive and boil down to 'spam X'. As someone else mentioned earlier, the Assimilation Swarm detachment for example really does just come down to a couple of units taken en masse.
8th/9th tended to be less specific about the bonuses, but ones that amounted to 'spam melee' or 'spam ranged' or 'spam tanks' led directly to the soup that we saw in 8th. It wasn't just a tournament thing, it was straightforward to separate out the different elements of your army to get appropriate bonuses. That wasn't particularly inspiring, but it at least offered more diversity in list composition than when your whole army became locked into a single bonus and the choices became more straightforward.
I think the deeper issue is that there's only so much you can do with giving units bonuses. You can make certain units better, but often it doesn't substantially change how they play or how the army as a whole plays; you just take more of the appropriate units. If you want to encourage meaningfully different ways to play a collection of models, then the changes need to be more meaningfully different.
I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.
I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.
catbarf wrote: I agree with this, and also that the 10th Ed detachments tend to be awfully prescriptive and boil down to 'spam X'. As someone else mentioned earlier, the Assimilation Swarm detachment for example really does just come down to a couple of units taken en masse.
Here are all the recent assimilation lists from the following tournaments:
Jupiter Games Warhammer 40,000 Tenth Edition Tournament [January]
January ITC Strike Force Tourney
BC540 Invitational Qualifier - RTT
Spoiler:
RTT (2000 points)
Tyranids
Strike Force (2000 points)
Assimilation Swarm
CHARACTERS
Deathleaper (70 points)
• 1x Lictor claws and talons
Hive Tyrant (250 points)
• 1x Heavy venom cannon
1x Monstrous bonesword and lash whip
• Enhancement: Instinctive Defence
Exported with App Version: v1.9.0 (35), Data Version: v322
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: For the uninitiated, literally what is "Flanderization" mean in this context?
It looks like people have different definitions, but the actual definition is :
Flanderization is the process through which a complex fictional character's essential traits are oversimplified to the point where they constitute their entire personality, or at least exaggerated while other traits remain, over the course of a serial work.
i.e. White Scars are flanderized when they're encouraged to take all bikes, because they only way for them to be fast is on a bike.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: For the uninitiated, literally what is "Flanderization" mean in this context?
It looks like people have different definitions, but the actual definition is :
Flanderization is the process through which a complex fictional character's essential traits are oversimplified to the point where they constitute their entire personality, or at least exaggerated while other traits remain, over the course of a serial work.
i.e. White Scars are flanderized when they're encouraged to take all bikes, because they only way for them to be fast is on a bike.
Derives from how Ned Flanders in The Simpsons degenerated over time from a slightly pious regular guy to a diddly-spouting religious nut caricature of himself.
Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.
For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.
"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.
Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.
#1 in a game where there's actual structured missions having an army of all move 20/22 makes for a very lopsided game. If you desire such a thing you can't also be for a balanced game.
#2 just because primaris gets limited loadouts doesn't mean 40K is sanitized. Chaos Bikers still have selective loadouts. Will they redo old marine bikes? No idea.
#3 isn't really true. Everything is pretty easily visible and digestible at the start of a game.
#4 is so rarely useful as to be not worth mentioning. Putting searchlights on all the vehicles might make you look like a genius when night fight is rolled, but at the end of the day isn't an engaging way to design a game just because you happened to drop that missile launcher for search lights.
Clearly there's a few ideas in this thread. This one being ultimate customization at the cost of literally everything else.
It amuses me how quickly you've gone from "Just take as many bikes as you want, 10th is so open!" to "Well golly if you're allowed to take a whole army of bikes ThAt'S So UnBaLaNcEd!"
Your responses to 2-4 are likewise negligible. If you want to talk Chaos options now vs. Chaos 3.5 options, do so at your own peril. Bespoke Special rules are not as visible as modeled equipment, nor as accessible as USRs. And po-pooing the ability for characters to leave and join squads right after emphasizing character abilities as a replacement for abilities purchased for units in counter-example is likewise amusing.
No idea what the Searchlight thing is on about, but they were auto-take in my book because Night-Fight absolutely happened, and they were invaluable in the occurence.
I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.
I have the Seeding Swarms in my Chapter Approved 2003, so late 3rd.
There was likewise an interesting Drop Pod Attack option in the 3rd ed Marine book. In a mission which allowed Deep Strike, you could Deep Strike any Infantry, Dreadnoughts and Land Speeders, but any Bikes or other Vehicles in your list couldn't be used. This was really interesting because it wasn't a list choice, it was a deployment choice. You decided at the start of the battle.
Insectum7 wrote: It amuses me how quickly you've gone from "Just take as many bikes as you want, 10th is so open!" to "Well golly if you're allowed to take a whole army of bikes ThAt'S So UnBaLaNcEd!"
Your responses to 2-4 are likewise negligible. If you want to talk Chaos options now vs. Chaos 3.5 options, do so at your own peril. Bespoke Special rules are not as visible as modeled equipment, nor as accessible as USRs. And po-pooing the ability for characters to leave and join squads right after emphasizing character abilities as a replacement for abilities purchased for units in counter-example is likewise amusing.
No idea what the Searchlight thing is on about, but they were auto-take in my book because Night-Fight absolutely happened, and they were invaluable in the occurence.
You got me. Perhaps I should have said "if you want to max out bikes"?
3/4th had tons of options, because characters literally had nothing on their datasheet.
I don't need to purchase a daemonic aura when characters already come with an invulnerable save. And I guarantee you that 9th had wildly more options than 3.5e. You just prefer the super fiddly buy everything from oldhammer.
10th still has a wide array of abilities in far more interesting assortments than simply +1S, +1T, +1A, 5++, 2+, etc ( bar the small handful of interesting abilities ) and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
I get where you're coming from here. However, I feel like that level of distinction might not be a feasible ask. At that point, you're talking about every supported army archetype having 9+ variations. So if there are 6(?) supported archetypes that are each modified in 9 chapter-specific, slight-different, equally-viable ways, that's functionally 54 different sets of detachment rules.
I don't think its an unreasonable ask, its not that difficult. A Chapter Tactic for each subfaction of each main faction, and a handful of detachments is still fairly basic. Sure it runs out to 54, but they don't have to manually create each one. They have to create 9 things and 6 things that work together but don't require each other.
I want a generic Iyanden Craftword Trait like the AP reduction from 9th - something generic that doesn't specifically call out guardians and wraith - that can then interact with a handful of detachments in such a way that Iyanden units might play the same Det in a different way.
Gotcha. That would be way more reasonable. Still not sure I'm a fan of the idea though. If you introduce a list of X/Y traits where the X traits are all craftworld-explicit, then we sort of loop back around to haves and have-nots, right? Making the Y-splats (the army archetypes) craftworld agnostic sort of solved issues like GW having different opinions than you about how a subfaction should be represented and GW only providing support to certain canon subfactions. If we make the X-splats craftworld-specific, then what do we do about minor craftworlds or non-canon craftworlds? I could see making the X-splat into something craftworld-agnostic but thematic. Stoicism, Foresight, etc., but I'm not sure that's what you're looking for.
I also, and I mean this with no disrespect to your or marine players intended, feel that it might be a bit of "marine privelege"
You mean even though I've taken pains to specifically and repeatedly include all the factions by calling out Hive Fleets, Klans, and Septs and so on. Sounds like more sour grapes on your part than supported arguement.
Fair enough in regards to you calling out hive fleets, etc. I don't think it's sour grapes on my end so much as concern that adding a craftworld-specific element might complicate things/make it harder to pull off a good ruleset well.
I'd rather just have a well-written rules for a handful of archetypes rather than needing each color scheme to feel extra special, you know? Let an Iyanden ghost army and an Ulthwe ghost army both use the same rules.
And I'd rather the stoicism of Iyanden make their Wraiths more resistant, while the Alaitoc Wraiths are more hidden.
See, I'm already not thrilled by the sounds of that. If the only things we can think of differentiate Iyanden wraith hosts and Alaitoc wraith hosts are to make them more tanky or more stealthy, I feel like we've already started entering into unnecessary hair-splitting territory. Granted, I imagine those were just off-the-cuff examples and that you could probably come up with something appropriate for the wraith hosts of each craftworld if you were so inclined. But on my side, the important thing there is "wraith host." I don't necessarily need a camoflauged variation on wraith host rules. If anything, I'd probably prefer that the hypothetical complexity budget be spent on further fleshing out the wraith host archetype's rules even further. That said, reasonable people can disagree, and I do see the appeal of what you're describing.
Insectum7 wrote: It amuses me how quickly you've gone from "Just take as many bikes as you want, 10th is so open!" to "Well golly if you're allowed to take a whole army of bikes ThAt'S So UnBaLaNcEd!"
Your responses to 2-4 are likewise negligible. If you want to talk Chaos options now vs. Chaos 3.5 options, do so at your own peril. Bespoke Special rules are not as visible as modeled equipment, nor as accessible as USRs. And po-pooing the ability for characters to leave and join squads right after emphasizing character abilities as a replacement for abilities purchased for units in counter-example is likewise amusing.
No idea what the Searchlight thing is on about, but they were auto-take in my book because Night-Fight absolutely happened, and they were invaluable in the occurence.
You got me. Perhaps I should have said "if you want to max out bikes"?
3/4th had tons of options, because characters literally had nothing on their datasheet.
I don't need to purchase a daemonic aura when characters already come with an invulnerable save. And I guarantee you that 9th had wildly more options than 3.5e. You just prefer the super fiddly buy everything from oldhammer.
10th still has a wide array of abilities in far more interesting assortments than simply +1S, +1T, +1A, 5++, 2+, etc ( bar the small handful of interesting abilities ) and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
Yeah I'm just going to post this again:
And note that, sure, you can buy the Death Guard book $50 and unlock Nurgle Captain options in 10th (which will be good for maybe 2-3 years) . . . but I'll happily take the single $25 book for everything instead.
Right, so I would say you don't actually care about customization as a concept. What you really care about is oldhammer
.
I care about 40K, the lore, the mechanics, and the setting. what you call 40K now (8th-10th) is a game, a gamey game like chess. at this point you could name it anything you want because the current state of the game is so removed from the setting that created it. and because of that it is focuses on tournament competition. which it appears from my experience to be the majority of current active players for this edition. but it is not a wargame and it does not represent the 40K univeral lore in the game mechanics.
I pointed this out in previous posts. what draws people into a game like 40K (and keeps them coming back) or a fandom is the rich background. an investment in the setting. rather it be star wars, 40K or battle tech etc...
Yeesh. That armory list on its own has me coming up with more cool kitbashes and army concepts than all of 10th edition. Probably all of 8th and 9th too. Man I miss ye olde dark eldar armory...
Insectum7 wrote: It amuses me how quickly you've gone from "Just take as many bikes as you want, 10th is so open!" to "Well golly if you're allowed to take a whole army of bikes ThAt'S So UnBaLaNcEd!"
Your responses to 2-4 are likewise negligible. If you want to talk Chaos options now vs. Chaos 3.5 options, do so at your own peril. Bespoke Special rules are not as visible as modeled equipment, nor as accessible as USRs. And po-pooing the ability for characters to leave and join squads right after emphasizing character abilities as a replacement for abilities purchased for units in counter-example is likewise amusing.
No idea what the Searchlight thing is on about, but they were auto-take in my book because Night-Fight absolutely happened, and they were invaluable in the occurence.
You got me. Perhaps I should have said "if you want to max out bikes"?
3/4th had tons of options, because characters literally had nothing on their datasheet.
I don't need to purchase a daemonic aura when characters already come with an invulnerable save. And I guarantee you that 9th had wildly more options than 3.5e. You just prefer the super fiddly buy everything from oldhammer.
10th still has a wide array of abilities in far more interesting assortments than simply +1S, +1T, +1A, 5++, 2+, etc ( bar the small handful of interesting abilities ) and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
Yeah I'm just going to post this again:
And note that, sure, you can buy the Death Guard book $50 and unlock Nurgle Captain options in 10th (which will be good for maybe 2-3 years) . . . but I'll happily take the single $25 book for everything instead.
That's pretty misleading considering you're comparing the entire armory to a single chaos lord...without literally anything else 9th had, which included, but is not limited to ( this is only Black Legion options )...
Spoiler:
And then inflating your list with stuff like Bike or Terminator armor, which is simply another datasheet. Frag grenades...krak grenades...melta bombs...vehicle upgrades like havoc launcher and pintle combi-bolter...spells...
And then you get to the table and there's nothing else where 9th had this and more....
Spoiler:
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LunarSol wrote: All the possibilities..... none of them taken
I can't wait to sit down for four hours and waffle on whether or not spiky bits will be worthwhile! Reroll one miss in melee...hot diggity dang!
Right, so I would say you don't actually care about customization as a concept. What you really care about is oldhammer
.
I care about 40K, the lore, the mechanics, and the setting. what you call 40K now (8th-10th) is a game, a gamey game like chess. at this point you could name it anything you want because the current state of the game is so removed from the setting that created it. and because of that it is focuses on tournament competition. which it appears from my experience to be the majority of current active players for this edition. but it is not a wargame and it does not represent the 40K univeral lore in the game mechanics.
I pointed this out in previous posts. what draws people into a game like 40K (and keeps them coming back) or a fandom is the rich background. an investment in the setting. rather it be star wars, 40K or battle tech etc...
What you think keeps people in the hobby =/= what keeps people in the hobby.
Consider the mountains of evidence over the years and complaint after complaint through every edition -- what keeps people invested...is complaining about 40K.
Daed, you included psychic powers on your list. Which Chaos Lords cannnot take.
And honestly? Considering how many of those were mutually exclusive (one Relic per Lord, though you could also take a Daemon Weapon), I'd still prefer the 3.5 armory.
LunarSol wrote: All the possibilities..... none of them taken
True, but an option that exists provides infinitely more possibility than one that does not. We can certainly argue whether a given option should have the rules it does, whether it's worth the cost, whether it should be an option, etc. However, I fail to see how losing those options entirely makes current lists less flanderized.
LunarSol wrote: All the possibilities..... none of them taken
True, but an option that exists provides infinitely more possibility than one that does not. We can certainly argue whether a given option should have the rules it does, whether it's worth the cost, whether it should be an option, etc. However, I fail to see how losing those options entirely makes current lists less flanderized.
I enjoyed it for what it was when I played it, but honestly I "played" a lot more 40K on paper than on the table given the time it took to put an army on the table and analysis paralysis.
It's more RPG than anything. It's enjoyable. Some people prefer that. I don't really anymore unless I want to garage hammer.
Lack of distinct psychic phase is the first thing that came to min first
Maybe its just usual resistance to change dunno but also the army rules/ unit rules seemed to be nothing to write home about but I guess I'm looking at it through the prism of end of 8th..
Mission structure for some of the missions im not a fan of.
LunarSol wrote: All the possibilities..... none of them taken
True, but an option that exists provides infinitely more possibility than one that does not. We can certainly argue whether a given option should have the rules it does, whether it's worth the cost, whether it should be an option, etc. However, I fail to see how losing those options entirely makes current lists less flanderized.
I enjoyed it for what it was when I played it, but honestly I "played" a lot more 40K on paper than on the table given the time it took to put an army on the table and analysis paralysis.
It's more RPG than anything. It's enjoyable. Some people prefer that. I don't really anymore unless I want to garage hammer.
Having not played 3.5 CSM, but knowing something of CSM, I would not be surprised if they COULD upgrade to be a pysker.
LunarSol wrote: All the possibilities..... none of them taken
True, but an option that exists provides infinitely more possibility than one that does not. We can certainly argue whether a given option should have the rules it does, whether it's worth the cost, whether it should be an option, etc. However, I fail to see how losing those options entirely makes current lists less flanderized.
I enjoyed it for what it was when I played it, but honestly I "played" a lot more 40K on paper than on the table given the time it took to put an army on the table and analysis paralysis.
It's more RPG than anything. It's enjoyable. Some people prefer that. I don't really anymore unless I want to garage hammer.
Well, in 3.5th a Chaos lord could be upgraded to a sorcerer, so I think that is broadly a wash in this case.
Yeesh. That armory list on its own has me coming up with more cool kitbashes and army concepts than all of 10th edition. Probably all of 8th and 9th too. Man I miss ye olde dark eldar armory...
You won't catch me standing up to defend 10th; like I said, I'm going to play it with the free stuff at my disposal, I'm going to keep an open mind, and I expect it will be fun enough. Once the dexes for Sisters and Drukhari drop, Goonhammer reviews will tell me everything I need to know in order to decide whether or not to buy in.
I want the models in the Krootbox, so Tau will actually be the first dex I get my hands on, and I'll end up with it whether Goonhammer says it's good or not because I can't buy that collection of models without it.
I'm in this thread because people decided to take drive-by shots at 9th, which is my baby.
In 9th, I had about five Chaos detachments I wanted to build- EC, Daemons of Slaneesh, Ksons, Slaanesh mortal Cultists, Tzaangor Warpmeld... And then I could combine those detachments to create multiple armies built from the same component parts. And of course, all of them would be Crusades, which fought both independently and as allied forces. It would have been f-ing epic.
I haven't even looked at 10th chaos yet- not with the intensity I poured over 9th. I build a CSM list (500 pts) and a Daemons of Slaanesh (500 points), but that's about it.
Daedalus81 wrote: and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
Snipped the rest.
I think there is something to this line, and in conjunction with what you said later about more of an RPG vibe to older 40k.
Part of what I dislike about current 40k is that it feels more like a card game with tokens, rather than an RPG wargame. However, I can see why that appeals to others (after all, MTG is huge).
As for PenitentJake specifically... crusade is the feature of 9th I found most interesting, and it is because of the RPG aspect. So there you go. I also liked similar campaign systems in earlier editions too.
Oh yeah, I really feel like a general when only one unit of my jetpack equipped soldiers can use their jetpacks to jump back behind cover each turn, provided I have the CP to spend on that ability, that is.
Or how all of my jetpack troops have now forgotten how to fire their weapons on the move effectively unless they are lead by a commander in coldstar armour. Seriously, GW removed the Assault rule from every single crisis suit weapon. They didn't even make our Plasma Rifle rapid fire again to compensate.
Daedalus81 wrote: and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
Snipped the rest.
I think there is something to this line, and in conjunction with what you said later about more of an RPG vibe to older 40k.
Part of what I dislike about current 40k is that it feels more like a card game with tokens, rather than an RPG wargame. However, I can see why that appeals to others (after all, MTG is huge).
As for PenitentJake specifically... crusade is the feature of 9th I found most interesting, and it is because of the RPG aspect. So there you go. I also liked similar campaign systems in earlier editions too.
Yea, I think there are many flavors of 40K player. I've changed over time. I think I've always been "this" type, but the old editions occluded it. There are crusaders and super narrative folks -- not for me, but I love to see it. There's the RPG bend, which was fun when I did it. And yet there are other games I don't like -- Infinity -- that is what I'd call sterile / sanitized. 40K still has an edge to it.
I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
And yet the "Warhammer moments" persist. The edge of your seat outcomes, wild swings, miserable dice, etc. When I go to the table I won't be facing other humans - I'll face bugs or elves and more.
Daedalus81 wrote: I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.
Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Oh yeah, I really feel like a general when only one unit of my jetpack equipped soldiers can use their jetpacks to jump back behind cover each turn, provided I have the CP to spend on that ability, that is.
Or how all of my jetpack troops have now forgotten how to fire their weapons on the move effectively unless they are lead by a commander in coldstar armour. Seriously, GW removed the Assault rule from every single crisis suit weapon. They didn't even make our Plasma Rifle rapid fire again to compensate.
I believe that essentially because Assault a very useful USR and so it's handed out rarely. I'd love to run and gun with my flamers, but it'd be pretty silly if I could and that's part of the "lethality" puzzle.
What is it that you think JP marines did in 3rd/4th?
JP w/ a Chaplain now could ( depending on detachment )...Infiltrate, charge with a +1 to wound, some mortals, and precision out a character / dodge a charge / deepstrike turn 1 / move-react to enemy movement / dive into a tank and crump it with SH1 and 5+ crits ( and then wound with a +1 ) / advance & charge / fallback & charge / fight on death / join with a captain instead and pickup lance for free on top of +1S / fallback after fighting ( on to an objective ) / get +1A once per battle.
Making the best choice at the right time with correct positioning matters. CP constraints make it more meaningful. After all, "if everyone is super then no one is".
Lack of distinct psychic phase is the first thing that came to min first
Maybe its just usual resistance to change dunno but also the army rules/ unit rules seemed to be nothing to write home about but I guess I'm looking at it through the prism of end of 8th..
Mission structure for some of the missions im not a fan of.
I think you have to play to experience it. I totally understand the sort of mental gap from just having "spells" that provide a buff, which takes away something you'd normally have to roll for where now it is automatic. The shooting attacjs help to balance that off. Perhaps I'm lucky in that my army rule is a fair bit more dynamic than others, but then I've always had more magic floating than most.
Daedalus81 wrote: I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.
Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.
An errant related thought - people resort to flamers in recce in BA, because it's the best combination of abilities. Heavy tanks are pretty useless. Guns are basically all the same stats. When you grant everything all the time it becomes pretty hard to make a balanced game. 40K certainly isn't there, but they have a lot more to juggle. BA has the benefit of everyone "being the same".
...What is it that you think JP marines did in 3rd/4th? ...
Space Marines had Coldstar and Crisis Suits in 3e/4e? Man, my memory is even worse than I thought.
Snark aside, they could use their jump packs whenever their player felt was appropriate, with however many units of jump-pack troops they felt appropriate to do so (barring any rules that prevented that, I want to say there may have been a few weird guns and/or psychic powers that would have either made using jump packs very dangerous or stopped it outright). It is technically more of a choice now, but as has been pointed out, it is an entirely artificial choice with no clear logical basis beyond gameplay concerns. As far as I know, the fall of Cadia didn't magically make all jump packs vent radiation to the point that commanders had to limit their use per turn due to environmental concerns (and let's be real, this is 40k - the Imperium would consider Project Pluto "a good start").
Insectum7 wrote: It amuses me how quickly you've gone from "Just take as many bikes as you want, 10th is so open!" to "Well golly if you're allowed to take a whole army of bikes ThAt'S So UnBaLaNcEd!"
Your responses to 2-4 are likewise negligible. If you want to talk Chaos options now vs. Chaos 3.5 options, do so at your own peril. Bespoke Special rules are not as visible as modeled equipment, nor as accessible as USRs. And po-pooing the ability for characters to leave and join squads right after emphasizing character abilities as a replacement for abilities purchased for units in counter-example is likewise amusing.
No idea what the Searchlight thing is on about, but they were auto-take in my book because Night-Fight absolutely happened, and they were invaluable in the occurence.
You got me. Perhaps I should have said "if you want to max out bikes"?
3/4th had tons of options, because characters literally had nothing on their datasheet.
I don't need to purchase a daemonic aura when characters already come with an invulnerable save. And I guarantee you that 9th had wildly more options than 3.5e. You just prefer the super fiddly buy everything from oldhammer.
10th still has a wide array of abilities in far more interesting assortments than simply +1S, +1T, +1A, 5++, 2+, etc ( bar the small handful of interesting abilities ) and in ways that make me feel more like a general instead of a quartermaster.
Yeah I'm just going to post this again:
And note that, sure, you can buy the Death Guard book $50 and unlock Nurgle Captain options in 10th (which will be good for maybe 2-3 years) . . . but I'll happily take the single $25 book for everything instead.
That's pretty misleading considering you're comparing the entire armory to a single chaos lord...without literally anything else 9th had, which included, but is not limited to ( this is only Black Legion options )...
Spoiler:
An interesting list. I wonder how many of those amount to the +1S or +1 Attack that you bemoaned earlier. And also how many of those items you can stack, as you can in the 3.5 list, because of course a list of items you can combine will give you far more freedom than a list of items that are exclusive. I also wonder if you list is applicable to minor characters such as Sergeants as well, because the 3.5 list is. Heck, you were able to hand out a bunch of those options to entire units of Chosen. How did 9th's Chosen compare?
Daedalus81 wrote: And then inflating your list with stuff like Bike or Terminator armor, which is simply another datasheet. Frag grenades...krak grenades...melta bombs...vehicle upgrades like havoc launcher and pintle combi-bolter...spells...
Ah yes, "Inflated" by options that you can no longer take, such as Chaos Lords and Sorcerers with things like Jump Packs.
And then you get to the table and there's nothing else where 9th had this and more....
Spoiler:
I seem to recall how 10th cut a wide array of Stratagems because people f'kin hated how out of control they had become. Those hidden 'gotchas' we mentioned earlier. Those are them. I'll take the lovingly converted army with visible exotic options over Stratagems any day.
Right, so I would say you don't actually care about customization as a concept. What you really care about is oldhammer
.
I care about 40K, the lore, the mechanics, and the setting. what you call 40K now (8th-10th) is a game, a gamey game like chess. at this point you could name it anything you want because the current state of the game is so removed from the setting that created it. and because of that it is focuses on tournament competition. which it appears from my experience to be the majority of current active players for this edition. but it is not a wargame and it does not represent the 40K univeral lore in the game mechanics.
I pointed this out in previous posts. what draws people into a game like 40K (and keeps them coming back) or a fandom is the rich background. an investment in the setting. rather it be star wars, 40K or battle tech etc...
What you think keeps people in the hobby =/= what keeps people in the hobby.
Consider the mountains of evidence over the years and complaint after complaint through every edition -- what keeps people invested...is complaining about 40K.
To be clear, what brought me here (because I've been fairly inactive here for a while), was your full-of-beans statement about "Just take bikes if you want a bike army" in comparison to 4th where you had far more ability to field an army of bikes.
Daedalus81 wrote: When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.
And? Unless I've misread the conversation, we're talking about choices available during gameplay, not how they felt to play against.
For what it's worth, I actually agree with you re: JSJ being obnoxious, but there were ways to fix that which didn't involve strats (ie, reduce the number of units with access to it, or enforcing a cooldown so it couldn't be used on consecutive turns, or making the distance you could move semi-random, or some potential interaction with morale/pinning to make it so that your opponent could lock the suit in place for a turn by focusing fire on it, etc). All of these still allow the Tau player to make use of JSJ without locking it behind playing "mother may I" with the ruleset, and some even give the opposing player more choices in how they deal with it.
Daedalus81 wrote: When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.
I think that is actually a myth driven by general hostility to the Tau when they came out from some fans. Like, the most memed and infamous strategy of the Tau from 4th edition wasn't JSJ, it was the Fish of Fury which didn't use any jetpack units but just the borked LOS rules with skimmers and friendly units. And you can hardly claim that Tau were oppressing anyone in 5th edition and retain any credibility. 3rd edition? Maybe people struggled but was that because the mechanics was too strong or due to people lacking familiarity and building armies to counter it?
So then there is 6th, which was also the birth of Riptide spam and turtle Tau, where GW decided to write rules for a mobile, mechanised, combined arms army that rewarded you bunching up at maximum range and standing completely still. The Riptide was a problem, yes. It was too tough, its gun was too strong and had too much range, and it was too mobile. But why was it too mobile?
If there is one unit that was actually oppressive with JSJ, it was Eldar jetbikes with scatterlasers. And that was because, unlike Tau jetpacks who had a base move of 6", jetbikes had a base move of 12" and could also turbo charge (an extra 36" of movement) which made them actually uncatchable even if you had your own bikes or cavalry. Oh, what's that? The Riptide also had an ability to boost it's jump distance? Hmmm, I think we are maybe starting to identify the actual issue.
The problem is not JSJ, it is JSJ with too high a speed potential which renders the opponents own movement inconsequential as you can just reposition away with impunity. If your army cannot catch a unit with 12" movement, then there is a problem with your army. No army can catch a unit with 48" of movement which ignores enemy units and terrain.
Daedalus81 wrote: I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.
Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.
In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP. You could do it every turn with every skimmer in your army. Plus, it had a built-in downside (you gave up your offense on the following turn) which made it feel more like a meaningful choice. There are definitely a lot of strats that I find myself wishing were just every-turn abilities. Not because they'd be more powerful that way but because they're fluffy and feel good to use.
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote: When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.
I think that is actually a myth driven by general hostility to the Tau when they came out from some fans. Like, the most memed and infamous strategy of the Tau from 4th edition wasn't JSJ, it was the Fish of Fury which didn't use any jetpack units but just the borked LOS rules with skimmers. And you can hardly claim that Tau were oppressing anyone in 5th edition and retain any credibility.
I didn't start playing until 5th, but I'm inclined to agree. People always seem to be really touchy about JSJ, but it often felt to me like they were basically cranky that they might have to actually maneuver instead of just sitting back and gunlining. JSJ always struck me as a great way to turn 40k into more than just a straight-forward shooting optimization puzzle. Not that JSJ was perfect or incapable of being frustrating.
If there is one unit that was actually oppressive with JSJ, it was Eldar jetbikes with scatterlasers. And that was because, unlike Tau jetpacks who had a base move of 6", jetbikes had a base move of 12" and could also turbo charge which made them actually uncatchable even if you had your own bikes or cavalry. Oh, what's that? The Riptide also had an ability to boost it's jump distance? Hmmm, I think we are maybe starting to identify the actual issue.
The problem is not JSJ, it is JSJ with too high a speed potential which renders the opponents own movement inconsequential as you can just reposition away with impunity. If your army cannot catch a unit with 12" movement, then there is a problem with your army. No army can catch a unit with 48" of movement.
Turbo boosting to safety definitely made jetbikes more challenging, but that tactic wasn't uncounterable nor do I think it was the main thing that made scatbikes a problem. The main problem with scatbikes was that they were just super lethal against anything short of a knight. JSJ plus their long range meant that they were a low-risk-high-reward unit. Turbo boosting to safety was an annoying third layer to the issue, but I'd argue it was both an easier problem to solve (you just had to spread out a bit/have units ready to pounce on them after they moved), and it was only really a "problem" because of the hyperlethality and JSJ. Units like reavers and shining spears didn't draw the same ire at the time despite being able to turboboost in the same fashion.
catbarf wrote: I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.
I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.
I think this may be true - but its sort of where the influence of the Tournament Scene kicks in.
If GW brings in very... unusual detachments, they are likely to be abused (as always happens whenever they introduce a rule that meaningfully changes up basic 40k play). We'll have wall to wall complaining as said army stomps tournament after tournament.
Arguably that's how I feel about all these old detachments - and oldhammer in general. They were fun when I was in my 40k innocence stage. But despite not really being competitive, I can't think that any more. I feel if you care about the game *as a game*, there's an inevitable evolution towards being a Spike. Which probably applies to GW themselves - but still.
I mean its a silly example - but I really didn't like the Tyranid Crusher Stampede. I think if you stuck with a "White Dwarf army" - i.e. no Forgeworld, no spam, it was so-so. But if you took it to the obvious next stage (and we had one guy at the store who did) it was just obnoxiously broken. (In before you played DE, what do you know about being obnoxiously broken, oh wait...) I have very positive memories of 3rd - but its because no one was running remotely optimal lists. "This is my collection, these units seem good, these units seem bad." Being about 14 in 2000 (and playing similar people), none of us had the money to go "this unit seems good, I'll go and buy 3." Which did start to become the case by mid 5th and the average age of the group was now mid 20s.
Its like the discussion of JSJ. I don't think in terms of cutting edge, every game is the LVO final, it was that powerful. But did it allow people to absolutely destroy more casual players who were left unable to do anything in response? Yes. So you are left with the question of how you value this. To a degree you can say "get good scrub". But I don't know. Most people just don't play that many games of 40k.
But I do think that's sort of the issue I have with 10th. There's no innocence to it. There's no wonder. But unfortunately that's player evolution for you. I look at the list of Chaos Lord Wargear and don't think "wow, so much options" - I think "wow, so much of this redundant". Cookie cutter builds abounded. If you balance it you end up with a dozen options that all math out to the same. Or you need to come up with a dozen options that all meaningfully add utility in a desirable and comparable way - which I'm just not sure 40k has the scope for.
I mean its turning in my DE card - but the laments for wargear can feel a bit forced. For melee characters, its all about your weight class. A Haemi having about 7 different options that meant he might, on a good roll, kill a Marine, didn't really do anything. GW could perhaps do better but still. But I think they tried with the WLT/Relic system - but then people whinged about that. So we are where we are.
catbarf wrote: I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.
I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.
I think this may be true - but its sort of where the influence of the Tournament Scene kicks in.
If GW brings in very... unusual detachments, they are likely to be abused (as always happens whenever they introduce a rule that meaningfully changes up basic 40k play). We'll have wall to wall complaining as said army stomps tournament after tournament.
As an exercise, can you tell us the meaningful difference between an "unusual detachment" and a skew list or other exotic army such as Knights or the hyper-elite Custodes? Because I see them as no different in terms of their potential for issues, the only difference really being that as a full "codex army" one gets more attention for potential balance problems (and yet still an exotic army can languish without much attention for years, regardless.)
lordstarhawk wrote: well the thing is psycic abilities actually did work rather well in every edition, felt like psycic, and were a great advantage and wile there were things to counter them you could defend against or get around it
If you liked the "feel" of psychic powers in previous editions better, that's fair enough. However, there was not always counterplay to psychic powers being shut down. In 5th edition, thing like psychic hoods and wolf tail talismans/runic weapons just had a flat percentage chance to negate your psychic powers, and you didn't really have any say in the matter. In 8th/9th there really wasn't much to counter someone passing a Deny the Witch test unless you happened to have a relic or stratagem or whatever to make your power undeniable. In 7th, there *was* some counterplay in the form of being able to dump all your psychic dice into a small number of powers to basically guarantee they went off, but your tastes are unconventional if you liked that approach."
not hard to do, there were things you could do to make them undeniable, even in 9th, loremaster if you rolled an unmodifiable 9, your powers went through you could use 3 of these on the same guy, it helped against armies that shut it down, so it did exist and existed in other editions as well
, now however, its much worse, as you give your enemy better saves a feel no pain, or they do things to you. its completly backwards to how its supposed to work, as psycic, could be defended against never a major debuff for having it, and it always enhanced the warrior.
So I get that what you're trying to convey is that there are currently some rules that trigger off of the psychic keyword and that these are almost always rules that are advantageous to the psyker's enemies. However, what you're actually saying simply isn't true. Psychic powers did not always "enhance the warrior" (warrior here meaning the psyker?). There have been at least a few special rules that make enemies especially effective against psykers in any edition that had a condemnor boltgun, a culexus assassin, or a crucible of malediction. Plus the last couple editions where there have been secondaries that reward you for killing psykers. Furthermore, there has never been anything inherent to the psyker rules that make psychic abilities inherently advantageous just for being psychic abilities. I mean, obviously being able to buff yourself or shoot lightning is a plus, but an ability being a "psychic power" historically just means that there's an X% chance you'll fail to cast the power, that there's an X% chance your opponent will deny the witch, or that the caster will be susceptible to the aformentioned anti-psyker rules.
ok well lets see for grey knights rules enhancing the warrior codex demon hunters the earliest, thier powers were mild, but they did double strength with hammerhands that was somehwat usefull, then there was holocaust that was an anti horde template, that was also usefull, 5th 6th 7th 8th, 9th introduced these powers as much more usefull enhancing the warriors with sanctuary, hammerhands would add rerolls or plus one to wound, armored resilience was -1 to wound, etc, more often then not they did enhance thier warriors, eldar also had abilities like fortune, your claim doesent support the actual evidence well simply have to dissagree. as far as things that could fight against psycics yes those have always existed, but you got major benifits to be denied, or fought against, with instead of mild abilities that are weaker then other armies rules its simply how it is. some powers you had to randomize between squads but grey knights always could cast several powers and they more often then not enhanced thier squads.
If you want to make the case that there should be fewer special abilities that proc vs psychic attacks or whatever, you can certainly make that argument. But let's not confuse the facts.
so heres the thing about psycic rules now, have you played grey knights from prior editions?
A little. I proxied my marines as GK for a few games in 5th edition, but that's about it.
thier psycic was very good, now though its not very good as an ability because other armies have it better, for example templar have lethal hits all the time, you can give it to other armies permanently, i onley get it on the charge.
I mean, that's kind of 10th in general. A lot of armies are arguably overusing the same handful of bland USRs (lethal hits, devastating wounds, etc.) in a way that makes armies feel kind of same-y. With some armies having access to each of those rules in different ways/to varying extents. You can make the case that BT are stronger than GK (I have no idea if that's true or not) or that GK and BT both having access to lethal hits makes them feel too similar/directly comparable. But note that neither of those arguments is directly related to how psychic powers function in general.
Like, if you're just trying to say that you want GK to feel more unique without necessarily being more powerful than BT, that's totally valid.
Nemisis wepons always did something, sometimes they caused more wounds, or a single mortal up to 6, but they always did something decent and nice, this bieng because they had raw warp energy pouring through them.
Again. Nemesis weapons currently do something. Would you feel better if they said something like,
"This Strength 4 D1 weapon adds +2 to its Strength and +1 to its Damage stat because it's psychic"?
right now thier actually relic blades, not nemisis wepons, st 6 was amazing in old editions because nothing was over toughness 6 but unfortunetly st 6 is the new st4 and st 4 is the new st 3, so it really struggles vs high toughness enemies, without say halberds and hammers, st 6 isnt that deadly like other marines wepons are, even cheap termies like powerfist termies can handle these units far better and at a cheaper cost. furthermore, often powers, or bonus damage really helped. yea they could do plus one damage, or lethal hits all the time, unfortunetly onley thier termies get lethal hits and onley on the charge it feels funny as if thier power gets turned off after thier not blood angels. the psycic keyword should do more then link a heros rules, like critical hits, or lethal hits or a bonus point of damage on a 6 doesent even have to ignore inv saves but maybe armor. it would just feel more grey knight like.
Because that's what the psychic warp energy is doing. It's causing more wounds (like before), and it's wounding more reliably (basically a baked-in Hammerhand). You basically have always-on Hammerhand and always-on extra damage. It seems like you're maybe hung up on the presentation rather than the actual rules here?
onley on the charge, and onley for one unit, hammerhands traditionally was a default power for 5 editions for all units, now onley termies and onley once.
just make them out to be normal psyker space marines, of wich they are not, thier alot closer to custodes, in power, and should at minimum reflect that status much like the space marines.
I mean, saying that GK are more like custodes than like psychic space marines is just... objectively not true. They are literally space marines with psychic powers. Aside from that, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you want GK to be marines +1 that cost more points? Because that's fair enough. Or are you literally just saying that a specific paragraph of fluff doesn't get you hyped? In which case... fine. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong for not liking some flavor text.
i think you would have to read the older codexes and even the latter dexes to see that, particularily grey knight training methods, you see grey knights are not like other space marines, thier training methods are much harder and they loose thousands or tens of thousands in training, they send them directly to fight demons and those who survive and survive the trials these go from initiates to grey knight, they also have the emperors gene seed that makes them most often stronger then the strongest librarians, with powers that enhance thier speed, resilience, and combat abilitiy, its why i believe a grey knight could match a custodes, if chaos marines a few could beef themselves up like the one in watchers of the throne, who fought valerien to match him, then so could a grey knight they do in fact do this. every power in 9th was an enhancement and we had a ton. a grey knight is one in a million, thier like small heros, and they need to be to fight the worst enemies of humanity and survive, but often they dont every battle for grey knights is a suicide mission. they will have to expand recruitment to survive to more chapters i highly suspect GW will do this. paladins are actually better then most custodians in the lore, having fought several greater demons and one of the 666 demon lords ever to exist just to become a paladin. that said the argument is that most often in these editions, grey knights are not as elite as they should be or functional, save for 5th and 9th, they were very behind and rated lower then custodes and marines, at competitive play, felt funny as even players like 40k dirtbags on youtube agrees thier custodes level in the lore.
I think perhaps you thought the lore needed changing? grey knights dont have to be overpowered to make sense, and even in thier insane battles they do in fact loose, they often loose to win, they just take a ton with them, and theres nothing wrong with that they rarely have survivors, and rarely a clean victory like space marines do, or other imperial armies, instead they strike like a malet, at the worst infestations of chaos, slaying it purging it like a cancer, so the rest of the imperium can survive.
I did not think the lore needed to change, nor do I think GK are significantly *more* Gary Stu-ish than normal marines.
yes all marines share the gary stu power level equally you should see the ultramarines lore.
these and the bland rules are some of the reasons you onley see 2-5% grey knight players in tournaments, its about 3 players for every 100, thier just tacky, but you dont have to agree with me, heck you might even like how they sound now, but most grey knight players have switched to other space marines armies, as have I till they start adding detachments back to them.
I mean. I think most tournament players are either playing what's powerful at the moment or else playing the armies they already have and are familiar with. I doubt a significant number of GK players jumped ship because of the index's flavor text.
They did, ive been asking around, its simply not that interesting, its ok a C tier index but its just an index not a codex, a decent hold over its just kinda boring its why they switched, normal marines have so much more flavor fun, and options, grey knights used to have this in thier codex with 8 army builds, brotherhoods that felt really fun and unique, now everything that made grey knights was removed and eliminated, moreso then older editions. but GW is learning, i just hope they dont squat and remove the army entirely as they feel rather ignored underated, marginalized, and not important to the story or game like GW wants them to go much like bretonians in fantasy theres just no hype for them and no one in GW championing them.
they are always some of the last to recieve updates
That is kind of true and stinks. Not really relevant to 10th edition as a whole or the current GK rules though.
well we can agree to dissagree, have you seen alot of grey knight players equal to the space marines? there are a ton of people on facebook but most of them dont play the army right now, even some of my most dedicated knight friends put them away, to play anouther more fun army.
, and sometimes get worse, instead of better
My drukhari sympathize.
yea its how it goes, i think dark eldar got a boost hopefully? i hear thier incubi are fun?
, they did have a slight boost but lost most of thier stuff including critical wepons they needed like halberds and hammers. it doesent take alot to make grey knights players happy, a couple small quality of life upgrades would go a long way, and honoring thier lore in thier codexes from 5-9th, rather then this blah, entry
That's fair. A lot of armies are definitely irked by the loss of options this edition. Again, my drukhari sympathize.
ill tell you what ill give you a better example of what should have been put as the index introduction to grey knights : "The Grey Knights are the legendary Chapter 666 - and although nominally a Chapter of the Astartes, They are the chamber militant of the ordo malleus Each member of the chapter undergoes a gruelling and torturous selection process, and even once inducted, their harsh training regime is without equal. In battle, they move as an army of silver ghosts, surrounded by awe, and equipped to the teeth to deal with the worst foes that Chaos can raise to meet them."
I'm... glad you thought up some flavor text you like? I don't mean to tear apart your writing, but as an elevator pitch meant to convey an army's gimmick and how it operates, I don't think it conveys as much as the GW fluff I quoted earlier. The earlier quote tells me:
* These guys are using a bunch of supernatural gear.
* They're psychic.
* They're marines.
* They're known for fighting daemons.
* They use precognition when forming battle plans.
* They have a thing for teleportation.
That gives me a decent idea of what to expect from the army. Compared to your text which tells me:
* They're marines.
* They work with the ordo malleus (which may or may not be informative depending on whether or not I already know what the ordo malleus is.)
* They move like ghosts, suggesting to me that they're known for stealth or possible phasing through walls? Neither of which is really true. Or if I disregard the silver ghosts thing then that line tells me nothing.
* They're known for fighting chaos.
So in terms of conveying information, the GW one is better. But if you're literally just saying you prefer your own writing style to that of whomever wrote the index flavor text... you are entitled to that preference.
but boring as hell the index way no hype or legend behind it like other armies
There's tons of stuff to criticize 10th edition over, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of legitimate problems with GK that can be criticized. But that said, a lot of the specific gripes you're bringing up at the moment don't hold up under scrutiny. Let's be angry at GW for the right reasons, yeah?
you do know that that particular qoute was also GW different writers, the thing about that qoute compared to the one in the index and in some of the rule books is it represents grey knights better, theres a legend and feel behind it like king arthurs knights, or legendary 7th sons who hunt monsters, there are many of these all throughout the codexes but if you go to say the index, or rulebooks, thier psycic marines, that purify and sacrosanct. its rather bland and lame. compared to the space marine and custodes intros that have amazing hype behind them(no theatre in wich they cannot exel is a fun saying). if you dont make an armies intros, exciting and interesting, people wont find that fun enough to play. GW knows this and i think thats why this sales cycle they prioritied other armies. lets face it the custodes recieved nerfs onley to have most of them reversed in good order putting them near the top again. wearas, grey knights when thier nerfed they stay nerfed for an entire edition or longer. hey ive been playing for a long time, we will just have to agree to disagree my reasons for bieng mad at GW are just as legitimate as the next mans. im looking forward to having an actual codex instead of a bounce around trick codex that people know how to counter by now.
Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.
Okay.
In every example you presented, the 2/3 rules that are penalties prevent you from taking specific types of units. 2/3 benefits buff only specific units. The distribution of those rules is that one faction forces flanderization by forbidding some specific units AND privileging others. Another faction forbids without privileging, the other privileges without forbidding; the reason the distribution is important is because it shows that ALL 3 of the factions YOU picked to demonstrate a non-flanderizing rules ACTUALLY, TEXTUALLY interfere with unit selection.
I gave you the 9th edition equivalents of the factions that YOU picked, and not a single one either explicitly forbids the inclusion of any battlefield role or unit, nor do any of them explicitly benefit any battlefield role or unit. The benefits that all 3 provide apply to all units in an army.
I think that what you want to say is that you prefer a system that gives you the option to play your faction without a subfaction at all, and balance subfaction rules against that by providing both costs and a flavourful disadvantage. And you know what? If that's what you want to say, and it's all you want to say... Hey man, that's a valid preference. I'll back down and leave you alone. I don't share that preference, but that's okay- I don't have to share it. It's as valid as mine.
(Although I may say that either costing advantages or providing penalties is enough to balance against playing with no subfaction rules- doing both seems heavy handed)
Our communication breakdown is that I'm not hearing you say that without also saying that 9th edition subfaction rules are somehow more likely to cause flanderization than the subfaction rules you presented, when that is clearly and objectively bs. Now it's also true that I might be intuiting a bit more of the latter than you're actually saying- I sometimes get lost in exactly who said what and when they said it in asynchronous, text-based conversations.
Dudeface wrote: Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:
9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines
The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power
Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.
Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.
So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.
You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction
And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.
In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic
You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.
This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.
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Wayniac wrote: There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".
In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):
Spoiler:
HQ All independent characters must start the game with a squad with room in its transport, or be given a jump pack or bike as part of their wargear. If the character has a command squad they must all be mounted in a Rhino, Razorback, or Land Raider. Alternatively, a command squad may be mounted on bikes for +20 points per model.
ELITES
Terminators must be mounted in a Land Raider.
TROOPS
Bike Squads - may have up to 10 models
Scout bike squads
Tactical squads must be mounted in a Rhino or Razorback
FAST ATTACK
Assault Squads
Land Speeders and all variants
HEAVY SUPPORT
Attack Bike squadrons
Land Raiders
Predators (cannot be given weapon sponsons)
Dreadnoughts
Dreads have a note that they are really cool but don't quite fit, but they're allowing it anyways with some jokes about having considered teleporting Dreads or rollerblades and rocket boosters
Well the short but incomplete answer is yes they should be about bikes. The long and complete answer is they shouldn't be JUST about bikes. None of the Chapter Flavors are about one single datasheet. White Scars were about bikes, mechanized Infantry, and outflanking. DA were about Terminators, Bikes, Speeders, and Dreads/Land Raiders, and Plasma. Wolves were about Terminators, Dreads, Bikes (possibly more than anyone else in the early stages as Swiftclaw Packs were a little nutty before things settled down) RG are about Jumps, Scouts/Phobos, and sort of what has turned into the Shrouded/Stealth rules. IF started wtih Bolter Drill - then switched the naming convention but still basically a version of Bolter Drill with Ignores Cover at range, and exploding 6's while using bolt weapons. Were I doing their next setup, I'd probably merge the exploding 6s with their Super Doctrine in some way that the superdoctrine bonus to heavy weapons with Tank Hunters was always on but not quite so potent. The Flamer bonus on bolter weapons was part of the flavor, but it detracted too much from the already weak reasons for picking flamer weapons. Making all-Something armies out of just one of the fluff icons of a chapter is what least to the "flanderisation" you see people complaining about. It needs to be about the style, not the unit. All Jump Pack Ravenguard aren't inconoclasts of stealthy striking from the Shadows, they're just a bunch of jump pack guys. The important thing about the Chapter Tactic is that is needs to modify every unit, the modification needs to synergize with their iconic units, but not punish a generalist list.
Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.
For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.
"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.
Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.
You (Insectum) probably meant Conversion Beamer, it was already a thing, and one of the reasons we ended up with If-Then-Else HQ customization.
#1 in a game where there's actual structured missions having an army of all move 20/22 makes for a very lopsided game. If you desire such a thing you can't also be for a balanced game.
Sure you can. Movement is just one aspect involved here. The threat it provides to a balanced game is not that movement trumps all, its that there are few/no scenarios that "punish" movement. Dense Fog causing dangerous terrain tests for any (non-aircraft etc) move over 4" will really punish anyone who gambled on a 20" move army. Its a problem with battle design that didn't encourage diversity not movement itself.
#2 just because primaris gets limited loadouts doesn't mean 40K is sanitized. Chaos Bikers still have selective loadouts. Will they redo old marine bikes? No idea.
I wouldn't say its a Primaris thing. Termagant options are pretty meh with little difference between them. At first glance on the Tyrannid Warriors, the Devourer is too close to the Deathspitter - making the Devourer not enough better than the Deathspitter to have a (relatively) significant different threat profile. Carnifex Ranged weapons are terrible, and lack a lascannon equivalent for Nids to handle Land Raiders at range without the big bugs. To some extent a lot of this is the new S/T ranges for the new design not being carefully checked on the S availability for the new T's, but again that's not Primaris specific let alone Marine specific. Its really going to suck when the later Codex releases adjust for that if its not FAQ'ed to the early ones.
#3 isn't really true. Everything is pretty easily visible and digestible at the start of a game.
this time around, almost everything was in the datacards and if someone printed out each set as they released they should have most of the bespoke rules at their finger tips. Next edition, you're back to not knowing who has what unless you buy every codex- so it has been true more often than it hasn't.. On the other hand, as long as we have to pay for each army rule book even if they're just pointers and collectors of USRs you're still going to have to trust the guy who bought the book that Stomping Feet is just a collection of the Big Guns Never Tire and Tank Hunters USRs so making all the faction rules into collections of USRs (which most of them already are in many editions) doesn't really tell everyone what the special rule does unless they own the book - or they release those PDFs and keep them available for everyone in such a way that you have to buy the BRB to know what the USRs are, but you can be told which USRs apply by the free datasheets.
#4 is so rarely useful as to be not worth mentioning. Putting searchlights on all the vehicles might make you look like a genius when night fight is rolled, but at the end of the day isn't an engaging way to design a game just because you happened to drop that missile launcher for search lights.
Was there an edit here? I'm not following Characters switching squads with searchlights on vehicles? I think in the long run - as far as characters go - the solution is to go back to auras and Look Out Sir but crunch the auras way down and improve sniping.
Clearly there's a few ideas in this thread. This one being ultimate customization at the cost of literally everything else.
His plan isn't what I'd choose but that doesn't mean throw away everything - indirectly he points out a flaw with mission building that you yourself reiterated in your next response.
A large part of list design has to incorporate how you'll accomplish missions. You can't rely on your opponent bringing enough things of a certain type to go for fixed missions and so you need to be adaptable.
The missions themselves don't usually have enough variety/adaptation of the mission itself. Because the missions have to be so generic (You can't count on your opponent bring 20 psykers for Abhor the Witch stuff) - which is because competitive and most casaul gamers want to pull out whatever their version of a Take-All-Comers list is instead of building a list under the restrictions of the mission - the missions have to have a square peg rounded enough to go in the round hole. i.e. Kill HQ's, especially psykers if there are any, while siting on more of 6 nickels than the other guy. It could be that the "best" but still not great solution is the expand the "Mission Rules" cards to negatively impact a generic strategy.instead of yet more fiddling with objective tokens. Something like the Dense Fog up above that screws a MV skew army. Change Vox Static such that every strat is +1CP to use. Chilling Rain reduces gives a -1 to all Invulns. Standard "those are just thematic examples not thought out balanced finished products. At that point I'd do a couple of things - if the mission rules affect everyone, give it a double whammy - Dense Fog makes movement faster than X painful, but also provides the benefits of Shrouding (basically Lone Operative + Steatlh) for everyone. The fast assault forces have to go slow, but are much harder to shoot up so those 30 Blood Angels Jump Packers are slow, but the 30 Dark Angels Hellblasters can't see them to shoot them until they're close.
You're still missing the forest for the trees. Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.
In the 8th/9th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the stronger your army is. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, your army will be weak.
.
The trick is to (generally) make the subfaction rule not unit specific. Some subfaction rules will by necessity be unit specific. The Deathwing rule should make Terminators and -Guard Veterans OC+1 and Battleline along with whatever Dark Angels and/or Deathwing specific fluff rules there are. Most of the 9th edition Chapter Tactics weren't unit specific. Some of them were bad, but that's not part of the point here. Righteous Zeal favored melee attackers but not a specific unit of them, plus giving them a non-psyker defense against the psychic phase. The Red Thirst wasn't limited to Sanguinary Guard and Vanguard Vets - in fact the first bullet point adding to charges and advances was less effective for them because of their base movement - but +1 to Advance/charge for Boltstorm Aggressors was extremely nifty. That's the sweetspot. A Chapter Tactic that reinforces but doesn't actually force a given unit.
i.e. White Scars are flanderized when they're encouraged to take all bikes, because they only way for them to be fast is on a bike.
I'd add because people THINK that's the only way for them to be fast - because flanderisation (probably assisted by vehicles being the red headed stepchild of 40K for a while) makes people forget about mechanized infantry i.e.5 guys in an Impulsor Outflanking onto your opponent's back table edge.
Another more popular/frequent example could be:
Bjorn the Fell-Handed paused to evaluate the devastation from his Helfrost Ice Cannon's effect on Ahriman's crackling psy-shield before preparing to eviscerate the potent warp weilder with his massive claw arm created from the largest Fenrisian Wolves fangs to be slain under the watchful gaze of Marines stationed in The Fang[ before being bound to the ancient device by permafrozen tufts of Fenrisian Wolf Fur.
Of, if you're old enough, stay tuned for next week, same Bat-Time, same Bat-channel on the Bat-Television in the Bat-Cave while sitting on the Bat-Fender of the Bat-Mobile.
There are obviously degrees and extremes involved too.
See, I'm already not thrilled by the sounds of that. If the only things we can think of differentiate Iyanden wraith hosts and Alaitoc wraith hosts are to make them more tanky or more stealthy, I feel like we've already started entering into unnecessary hair-splitting territory. Granted, I imagine those were just off-the-cuff examples and that you could probably come up with something appropriate for the wraith hosts of each craftworld if you were so inclined. But on my side, the important thing there is "wraith host." I don't necessarily need a camoflauged variation on wraith host rules. If anything, I'd probably prefer that the hypothetical complexity budget be spent on further fleshing out the wraith host archetype's rules even further. That said, reasonable people can disagree, and I do see the appeal of what you're describing.
Yellow painted guardians, like yellow painted Imperial Fists (Ironic how the implacable subfaction for both is painted yellow) "walk into the teeth of the fire and shrug off injury" or whatever fluffy passage you want - thus the ignore -X to armor saves Iyanden gets. This can still apply to their Wraithguard.
The Camo Rangers of Alaitoc are used to hiding in bushes and forests and are harder to hit/hurt by virtue of using cover. This can also apply to their Wraithguard.
Wraithguard in both cases are still wraithguard, but this one shrugs off light weapons, and that one uses trees to protect itself.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: Oh yeah, I really feel like a general when only one unit of my jetpack equipped soldiers can use their jetpacks to jump back behind cover each turn, provided I have the CP to spend on that ability, that is.
Or how all of my jetpack troops have now forgotten how to fire their weapons on the move effectively unless they are lead by a commander in coldstar armour. Seriously, GW removed the Assault rule from every single crisis suit weapon. They didn't even make our Plasma Rifle rapid fire again to compensate.
I'd put that down more to reducing the lethality than removing the fluff. Look at how many units were "screwed" by Twin Linked.
Breton wrote: You (Insectum) probably meant Conversion Beamer, it was already a thing, and one of the reasons we ended up with If-Then-Else HQ customization.
The Conversion Beamer came about with the Master of the Forge entry in 5th edition. I don't think it was an option in 4th.
Insectum7 wrote: Ah yes, "Inflated" by options that you can no longer take, such as Chaos Lords and Sorcerers with things like Jump Packs.
I'm on board here - at least for Marines of both stripes, each of the "iconic" "armor" types (Bike, Terminator, Jump, Gravis, Phobos, Power) should have a kit for Caps, Chaps, Lieutenants, and Libbies as well as the Command Squad'ers. Some factions like Tau it may only work sort of. A Breacher or Broadside Commander is potentially possible. Some others like Genestealer Cults or Nids it wouldn't work at all - Hive Lictors and Mawloc Tyrants might be harder to do.
Breton wrote: You (Insectum) probably meant Conversion Beamer, it was already a thing, and one of the reasons we ended up with If-Then-Else HQ customization.
The Conversion Beamer came about with the Master of the Forge entry in 5th edition. I don't think it was an option in 4th.
I'd have to drag out even more than I already have but I think it was 2nd Edition. Techmarine, Bike, Conversion Beam Projector from a Wargear Card or some other way. Drive to the Corner and shoot.
What you think keeps people in the hobby =/= what keeps people in the hobby.
Consider the mountains of evidence over the years and complaint after complaint through every edition -- what keeps people invested...is complaining about 40K
If you notice i wasn't just referencing 40K, As a long time fan of more than just 40k, i was referencing fandom in general and scifi and fantasy fandom specifically. the reason why people complain do range from the comp players looking for balance and the lore players decrying the destruction of something they love.
If you are the former and something akin to MTG with tokens is your thing then i can see you being perfectly fine with everything since 8th. if you are the latter, like myself then you see everything since as a destruction of the thing you love. rather it be through the game mechanics or the "lore" *cough* Cawl/primaris/fall of cadia etc..*cough* they used to try and justify turning the setting on it's head.
Daedalus81 wrote: I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.
Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.
In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.
I would have made it a "strat" on the datasheet. Call them 0CP strats with similar rules to below:
You must have at least 1 CP to use a 0CP Strat.
0CP Strats can be used as many times as you have units that have it.
0CP Strats are susceptible to the various counter-strat abilities like The Lion's All Secrets Revealed or those abilities sprinkled about that futher uses of this now cost +1CP - which means all units with this zero CP Strat now have to pay 1 to use it or some such. Again, theory/sample not completed product. Most of the Squad/Unit bespokes should be done like this.
I didn't start playing until 5th, but I'm inclined to agree. People always seem to be really touchy about JSJ,
I'd say the problem with JSJ isn't forcing opponent maneuver. Its the way it unilaterally invalidated IGO-UGO. There are a bunch of units out there that have something similar to Captain Sicariu's Knight of Macragge thing.. Yadda yadda enemy unit ends movement phase within 9". this unit can move 6" yadda yadda. Its a far more toned down JSJ. I cant unilaterally do it. You have to move within 9, but not within engagement. Now there are absolutely units that would be "mean" to do it to - say someone with a gun range of 6", but its far less so than JSJ of the past.
Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.
Okay.
In every example you presented, the 2/3 rules that are penalties prevent you from taking specific types of units. 2/3 benefits buff only specific units. The distribution of those rules is that one faction forces flanderization by forbidding some specific units AND privileging others. Another faction forbids without privileging, the other privileges without forbidding; the reason the distribution is important is because it shows that ALL 3 of the factions YOU picked to demonstrate a non-flanderizing rules ACTUALLY, TEXTUALLY interfere with unit selection.
I gave you the 9th edition equivalents of the factions that YOU picked, and not a single one either explicitly forbids the inclusion of any battlefield role or unit, nor do any of them explicitly benefit any battlefield role or unit. The benefits that all 3 provide apply to all units in an army.
I think that what you want to say is that you prefer a system that gives you the option to play your faction without a subfaction at all, and balance subfaction rules against that by providing both costs and a flavourful disadvantage. And you know what? If that's what you want to say, and it's all you want to say... Hey man, that's a valid preference. I'll back down and leave you alone. I don't share that preference, but that's okay- I don't have to share it. It's as valid as mine.
(Although I may say that either costing advantages or providing penalties is enough to balance against playing with no subfaction rules- doing both seems heavy handed)
Our communication breakdown is that I'm not hearing you say that without also saying that 9th edition subfaction rules are somehow more likely to cause flanderization than the subfaction rules you presented, when that is clearly and objectively bs. Now it's also true that I might be intuiting a bit more of the latter than you're actually saying- I sometimes get lost in exactly who said what and when they said it in asynchronous, text-based conversations.
I think part of the miscommunication here is that specifically *because* later edition faction traits buff specific playstyles and ignore others, you are somewhat encouraged to lean into the playstyle of that specific subfaction. Like in 8th you might see various detachments of the same army so that each unit had the maximum use of its doctrine.
Having just dusted off my 4th edition marine book, part of the reasoning why tactics only effect a small number of units is the simple fact that there are far fewer units. A quick count, so I might have missed something, shows 27 different profiles outside of named characters, and 7 named characters/specific units. Of note is that one of the units in the "Elite" section is Veterans, which are basically Tactical Marines +. They get to pick one of 3 skills to use and are 3 points per model more than Tactical Marines.
The interesting thing with the Chapter Tactics is that most of the special abilities apply to specifically Devastators, Assault Marines, and Tactical Marines - the meat and potatoes of the army, and grant them a specific one of those 3 skills at a cost of 3 points per model. Effectively, the Tactic makes your basic troops units and most common heavy support and assault units INTO Veterans, but with a very specific skillset (while the Veterans can choose any of the 3 still).
The same goes with the FOC swaps - the Bikers taken as elites get a Veteran skill at a 3ppm cost, while the troop BIkers do not and are less flexible due to their minimum models in the unit.
As to why other units weren't given these buffs? Well Veterans *already have* a better version of the tactics, while Terminators also get access to most of the Veteran Skills by default.
Now you can argue about how GW balances the traits and drawbacks, lord knows they have always sucked at it, but it gives a lot of flavor to the army, by effectively transforming your bog standard units into an elite slot, though with less flexibility in the skills it would know, while also tieing in a point cost to make them pay an equivalent point per model as the Veterans (in the case of Tacticals, in the other cases it increases the point cost of the models by the same difference as between Tac and Vets).
The 3.5 Guard codex is similar - choosing to use the build an army rules completely changes how the army functions, though with the flaw that the abilities are very poorly balanced between each other (woo, spend 6 of my 6 army points to buy back 6 of the 12 units I lost, or pay 2ppm for the privilege of equipping my terrible at melee Guardsman with a close combat weapon [while losing their lasgun]). The flip side is you can completely reconceptualize the army - the biggest variance being Mechanized and Drop Troops. It really let you build your own personal regiment with so many unique touches.
catbarf wrote: I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.
I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.
I think this may be true - but its sort of where the influence of the Tournament Scene kicks in.
If GW brings in very... unusual detachments, they are likely to be abused (as always happens whenever they introduce a rule that meaningfully changes up basic 40k play). We'll have wall to wall complaining as said army stomps tournament after tournament.
As an exercise, can you tell us the meaningful difference between an "unusual detachment" and a skew list or other exotic army such as Knights or the hyper-elite Custodes? Because I see them as no different in terms of their potential for issues, the only difference really being that as a full "codex army" one gets more attention for potential balance problems (and yet still an exotic army can languish without much attention for years, regardless.)
Armies of Renown like the Typhus or Phobos ones. The Double Demi Company Oprah formation where You get a Rhino, You get a Rhino, Everybody Gets a Rhino. Its usually a "skew" list with added benefits for a skew list.
Insectum7 wrote: As an exercise, can you tell us the meaningful difference between an "unusual detachment" and a skew list or other exotic army such as Knights or the hyper-elite Custodes? Because I see them as no different in terms of their potential for issues, the only difference really being that as a full "codex army" one gets more attention for potential balance problems (and yet still an exotic army can languish without much attention for years, regardless.)
Well as said, usually it would be any detachment which allows you to do something fundamentally different to the game system. Usually but not exclusively movement/positioning related.
Giving deepstrike to units which can't normally take it for instance. Maybe its useless - but maybe its incredibly powerful (it depends on the base value of whatever you are giving deep strike). Then what do you do, rip up the detachment, or hike points on everything?
I feel GW has had various issues with "pick up this unit and then redeploy it" abilities. Encircle the prey for Tyranids and Swooping Hawks for Eldar. Its too effective for both dealing damage where you need it - but also scoring/denying objectives. This lived on in the Yncarne who has been nerfed again. We don't need Karol to run in and point out Ynnari were busted for years.
I mean maybe this is just stupid, but imagine if GW decided Crusher Stampede kind of sucked (cos it does), but due to Warp Trickery all Tyranid Monsters gain the Yncarne's Inevitable Death rule. Suddenly you've got monsters teleporting all over the board. Okay not very fluffy perhaps - and depending on the Monster's value per point perhaps not even that great. But also potentially completely broken. Its fundamentally different in a way "get +1 to hit if X has happened" isn't. But hard to balance as a result.
I'm not a fan of Knights (or really Custodes, although on paper at least there are similar forces in the game). But I feel that's more of a stat skew that fundamentally bending the typical 40k rules. Knights can be efficient or inefficient depending on what you get for the points.
Dudeface wrote: Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:
9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines
The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power
Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.
Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.
So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.
You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction
Because it wasn't in the codex - it was added because they didn't have the same breadth of rules and options marines had, so needed something adding to draw some form of parity - Ironically if you want to include supplements you can also cover the fact that as per the above Raven Guard get yet more stuff via the psychic awakening.
And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.
It's two bullet points in the codex, it's in 2 halves, because all chapter tactics come in 2 halves. Yes there are some simplifications, which you're choosing to nitpick rather than address that it's a whole lot of stuff.
In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic
No but my chapter of Overly Verbose Nitpickers who have a choice of 2 traits from the build-a-chapter can opt to be Raven Guard Successors, so please, keep reaching.
You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.
That was FAQ'd in later because shockingly giving them the option to mix the powers together was too much, as they had.... too many options. But again you're obscuring the fact that as a marine player, I can choose from 18 psychic powers. They're in 3 sets of 6. But again you're nitpicking with the minutae of army building to ignore the fact that 2 sets of 6 base powers, is more than the 1 set of 6 tyranids get. The subfactions adding 1 more set of 6 powers, is more than the 1 power the tyranid subfaction adds.
This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.
And what has that got to do with anything? Are you postulating marine chapters should get more rules because they have more models? Tell you what, lets wrap it all up with Eldar since you note they have lots of units:
Marine subfaction:
Base book/supplement
- A chapter tactic (fixed or choice of 2 from list)
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18 (or 3 sets of 6)
- another psychic discipline for a total of 18 powers (or 3 sets of 6)
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Faith and fury:
- an additional litany
Eldar subfaction:
Base codex:
- a chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Phoenix Rising:
- option to build a chapter tactic (exists as a base thing in marines)
Are these equal? Can you still honestly say that subfactions across armies were equally represented?
Maybe subfaction stuff should exist but be categorically worse in every way so if you want to do it for fluff then it's largely meaningless - for all armies and have parity (I say this with a marine army in a cabinet to my left).
Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.
I think with Tau it was also the "army can only do one thing well" approach, since Kroot were and always have been pretty trash at melee which was supposed to be their whole role to offset the Tau's awful melee profiles.
Tau were hated because people only played "kill the enemy" missions on a salt desert plane with no terrain and Tau were skipping movement, melee and casting to simply stand there and shoot you.
a_typical_hero wrote: Tau were hated because people only played "kill the enemy" missions on a salt desert plane with no terrain and Tau were skipping movement, melee and casting to simply stand there and shoot you.
Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.
I think with Tau it was also the "army can only do one thing well" approach, since Kroot were and always have been pretty trash at melee which was supposed to be their whole role to offset the Tau's awful melee profiles.
Kroot used to put out 20 S4 attacks at WS4 from a unit of 10. That was solid enough for an auxiliary troop melee unit. They could also be difficult to shift if you used jungle/forests in your terrain thanks to their +1 to cover when in jungles/forests (which is often rare in 40K where it isn't uncommon that every battle is happening in imperial ruins as that is the terrain GW pushes and because TLOS makes forests useless for hiding anything). Then GW decided to make them S3, remove kroot rifles counting as two weapons so they no longer got an extra attack from them, and gave them sniper ammo which required standing still instead.
Also, what you just wrote can also apply pretty much equally to the Imperial Guard and probably a load of other armies.
Dudeface wrote: Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:
9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines
The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power
Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.
Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.
So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.
You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction
Because it wasn't in the codex - it was added because they didn't have the same breadth of rules and options marines had, so needed something adding to draw some form of parity - Ironically if you want to include supplements you can also cover the fact that as per the above Raven Guard get yet more stuff via the psychic awakening.
And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.
It's two bullet points in the codex, it's in 2 halves, because all chapter tactics come in 2 halves. Yes there are some simplifications, which you're choosing to nitpick rather than address that it's a whole lot of stuff.
In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic
No but my chapter of Overly Verbose Nitpickers who have a choice of 2 traits from the build-a-chapter can opt to be Raven Guard Successors, so please, keep reaching.
You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.
That was FAQ'd in later because shockingly giving them the option to mix the powers together was too much, as they had.... too many options. But again you're obscuring the fact that as a marine player, I can choose from 18 psychic powers. They're in 3 sets of 6. But again you're nitpicking with the minutae of army building to ignore the fact that 2 sets of 6 base powers, is more than the 1 set of 6 tyranids get. The subfactions adding 1 more set of 6 powers, is more than the 1 power the tyranid subfaction adds.
This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.
And what has that got to do with anything? Are you postulating marine chapters should get more rules because they have more models? Tell you what, lets wrap it all up with Eldar since you note they have lots of units:
Marine subfaction:
Base book/supplement
- A chapter tactic (fixed or choice of 2 from list)
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18 (or 3 sets of 6)
- another psychic discipline for a total of 18 powers (or 3 sets of 6)
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Faith and fury:
- an additional litany
Eldar subfaction:
Base codex:
- a chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Phoenix Rising:
- option to build a chapter tactic (exists as a base thing in marines)
Are these equal? Can you still honestly say that subfactions across armies were equally represented?
Maybe subfaction stuff should exist but be categorically worse in every way so if you want to do it for fluff then it's largely meaningless - for all armies and have parity (I say this with a marine army in a cabinet to my left).
Your point is that factions with supplements have more than those without, and that is undeniably true.
This second post is better than the first. It does still contain a few minor issues though (not that they invalidate your overall point).
The biggest issue is that your first post exclusively references 9th ed dexes, while this post seems to talk about 8th/9th interchangeably.
By 9th, I think EVERY faction had build your own rules in the dex. CSM might be an exception, because I think all of their subfactions got more than the 1 Chapter Tactic, 1 WL Trait, 1 Relic, 1 Strat. Sisters and DE certainly had build your own baked into their dexes. In 8th, you're correct, these were added via psychic awakening, but by 9th, built in for everybody, not just marines.
Also- while the rules compatibility between 8th/ 9th does allow PA material to be used in 9th, it stopped being technically legal when the 9th ed dex dropped. And it's worth noting that this expiration clause affected all modes of play, not just matched- which was rare in 9th, because most updates were matched only.
And finally, a lot of factions in 9th other than marines did get supplements in 9th via campaign books- Cult of Stife for DE, OoOML and BR for Sisters; I think Cadians got one, I think Orks got one, but I forget which clan. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the CSM got supplement level of stuff for each of their subfactions, but at the cost of build your own rules.
And then of course, there were also armies of renown, which weren't the same as supplements, because they all came with unit restrictions. What GW seemed to try to do was give every faction at least one supplement or army of renown over the course of the edition. They didn't quite hit that mark, but they tried.
Also, what you just wrote can also apply pretty much equally to the Imperial Guard and probably a load of other armies.
Imperial Guard are human and thus don't count.
The other army that could be infamous in the shooting phase if build that way was Eldar, and Eldar has been the other historically hated Xeno faction.
Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.
I think with Tau it was also the "army can only do one thing well" approach, since Kroot were and always have been pretty trash at melee which was supposed to be their whole role to offset the Tau's awful melee profiles.
Kroot used to put out 20 S4 attacks at WS4 from a unit of 10. That was solid enough for an auxiliary troop melee unit. They could also be difficult to shift if you used jungle/forests in your terrain thanks to their +1 to cover when in jungles/forests (which is often rare in 40K where it isn't uncommon that every battle is happening in imperial ruins as that is the terrain GW pushes and because TLOS makes forests useless for hiding anything).
When Kroot were released, GW sold three plastic terrain kits for 40k and one of them was jungle trees. The starter set and a good chunk of battleforces included these (notably the original Tau battleforce as well), so it was much more likely to be fighting over forest terrain in 3rd than from the middle of 4th onwards after Cities of Death got released.
Daedalus81 wrote: When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.
I think that is actually a myth driven by general hostility to the Tau when they came out from some fans. Like, the most memed and infamous strategy of the Tau from 4th edition wasn't JSJ, it was the Fish of Fury which didn't use any jetpack units but just the borked LOS rules with skimmers and friendly units. And you can hardly claim that Tau were oppressing anyone in 5th edition and retain any credibility. 3rd edition? Maybe people struggled but was that because the mechanics was too strong or due to people lacking familiarity and building armies to counter it?
So then there is 6th, which was also the birth of Riptide spam and turtle Tau, where GW decided to write rules for a mobile, mechanised, combined arms army that rewarded you bunching up at maximum range and standing completely still. The Riptide was a problem, yes. It was too tough, its gun was too strong and had too much range, and it was too mobile. But why was it too mobile?
If there is one unit that was actually oppressive with JSJ, it was Eldar jetbikes with scatterlasers. And that was because, unlike Tau jetpacks who had a base move of 6", jetbikes had a base move of 12" and could also turbo charge (an extra 36" of movement) which made them actually uncatchable even if you had your own bikes or cavalry. Oh, what's that? The Riptide also had an ability to boost it's jump distance? Hmmm, I think we are maybe starting to identify the actual issue.
The problem is not JSJ, it is JSJ with too high a speed potential which renders the opponents own movement inconsequential as you can just reposition away with impunity. If your army cannot catch a unit with 12" movement, then there is a problem with your army. No army can catch a unit with 48" of movement which ignores enemy units and terrain.
Well, speed and power. Even in 9th it became an issue with Tau and the old Fly rule to pop over ruins shoot and hide with a brick of suits and all the best weapons. Toning weapons down and nerfing Fly helped in that respect.
If multiple units could do it all the time it gets to be really difficult to deal with. If you want to play a game with missions that aren't about killing then giving an army all JP and infiltrate makes it impossible to balance and many of the things some oldhammer folks want fly in the face of that struggle.
Breton wrote: Sure you can. Movement is just one aspect involved here. The threat it provides to a balanced game is not that movement trumps all, its that there are few/no scenarios that "punish" movement. Dense Fog causing dangerous terrain tests for any (non-aircraft etc) move over 4" will really punish anyone who gambled on a 20" move army. Its a problem with battle design that didn't encourage diversity not movement itself.
Missions that punish a particular dynamic are only useful if they appear regularly and actively discourage use of that army. If it truly discourages use of that army then what is the point of allowing that army ( sure, narrative, I suppose )? If it doesn't discourage that army then what is the point of the mission?
I wouldn't say its a Primaris thing. Termagant options are pretty meh with little difference between them. At first glance on the Tyrannid Warriors, the Devourer is too close to the Deathspitter - making the Devourer not enough better than the Deathspitter to have a (relatively) significant different threat profile. Carnifex Ranged weapons are terrible, and lack a lascannon equivalent for Nids to handle Land Raiders at range without the big bugs. To some extent a lot of this is the new S/T ranges for the new design not being carefully checked on the S availability for the new T's, but again that's not Primaris specific let alone Marine specific. Its really going to suck when the later Codex releases adjust for that if its not FAQ'ed to the early ones.
I think people worry more about the visible math and the feels bad of wounding on a 5+. Sisters have pulled in tournament wins despite their lack of 'proper' anti-tank. That isn't to say Nids are fine as they are.
Devourer vs Deathspitter is a little more complex as well, but I won't try and dive into that here since it'd bore people to death. Maybe in a future post when I finish my tools.
this time around, almost everything was in the datacards and if someone printed out each set as they released they should have most of the bespoke rules at their finger tips. Next edition, you're back to not knowing who has what unless you buy every codex- so it has been true more often than it hasn't.. On the other hand, as long as we have to pay for each army rule book even if they're just pointers and collectors of USRs you're still going to have to trust the guy who bought the book that Stomping Feet is just a collection of the Big Guns Never Tire and Tank Hunters USRs so making all the faction rules into collections of USRs (which most of them already are in many editions) doesn't really tell everyone what the special rule does unless they own the book - or they release those PDFs and keep them available for everyone in such a way that you have to buy the BRB to know what the USRs are, but you can be told which USRs apply by the free datasheets.
Everything is on the datacard or in the detachment. A player is "supposed" to bring their supporting materials so the opponent can look. I know there's probably people who only use 39k.
Was there an edit here? I'm not following Characters switching squads with searchlights on vehicles? I think in the long run - as far as characters go - the solution is to go back to auras and Look Out Sir but crunch the auras way down and improve sniping.
I think joining units works far better for table dynamics. Characters actually see combat often rather than being behind all the shooty stuff buffing it. Some auras still exist where it makes sense ( Magnus ).
The missions themselves don't usually have enough variety/adaptation of the mission itself. Because the missions have to be so generic (You can't count on your opponent bring 20 psykers for Abhor the Witch stuff) - which is because competitive and most casaul gamers want to pull out whatever their version of a Take-All-Comers list is instead of building a list under the restrictions of the mission - the missions have to have a square peg rounded enough to go in the round hole. i.e. Kill HQ's, especially psykers if there are any, while siting on more of 6 nickels than the other guy. It could be that the "best" but still not great solution is the expand the "Mission Rules" cards to negatively impact a generic strategy.instead of yet more fiddling with objective tokens. Something like the Dense Fog up above that screws a MV skew army. Change Vox Static such that every strat is +1CP to use. Chilling Rain reduces gives a -1 to all Invulns. Standard "those are just thematic examples not thought out balanced finished products. At that point I'd do a couple of things - if the mission rules affect everyone, give it a double whammy - Dense Fog makes movement faster than X painful, but also provides the benefits of Shrouding (basically Lone Operative + Steatlh) for everyone. The fast assault forces have to go slow, but are much harder to shoot up so those 30 Blood Angels Jump Packers are slow, but the 30 Dark Angels Hellblasters can't see them to shoot them until they're close.
As noted above - I used to think these were good ideas. I don't anymore. It just simply punishes in a way that is not conducive to a fair competitive environment. Especially when some just kick Daemons in the nuts. They're fine for more casual games, but not when people want a contest of skill instead of a contest of list building. Note that competent list building is still required so that you have the tools to fight and to score.
I'd add because people THINK that's the only way for them to be fast - because flanderisation (probably assisted by vehicles being the red headed stepchild of 40K for a while) makes people forget about mechanized infantry i.e.5 guys in an Impulsor Outflanking onto your opponent's back table edge.
To be fair it's really GW's fault for setting up White Scars for failure. It's part of why people were incredulous that Kor'sarro wasn't on a bike.
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a_typical_hero wrote: Tau were hated because people only played "kill the enemy" missions on a salt desert plane with no terrain and Tau were skipping movement, melee and casting to simply stand there and shoot you.
Yea, but also missions that require things other than killing also don't mix well with an army that can be where they need to be at all times ( in the open to shoot and hidden on objectives afterwards ).
Daedalus81 wrote: I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.
In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.
Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.
In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.
I would have made it a "strat" on the datasheet. Call them 0CP strats with similar rules to below:
You must have at least 1 CP to use a 0CP Strat.
0CP Strats can be used as many times as you have units that have it.
0CP Strats are susceptible to the various counter-strat abilities like The Lion's All Secrets Revealed or those abilities sprinkled about that futher uses of this now cost +1CP - which means all units with this zero CP Strat now have to pay 1 to use it or some such. Again, theory/sample not completed product. Most of the Squad/Unit bespokes should be done like this.
Something like that could work. I've pitched getting rid of strats and marking some rules as "command" abilities that are susceptible to command disruption rules before. That said, I'm not sure whether it would make sense for JSJ to be one of them. Shooting on the move seems to be the default for crisis suits. It would feel a bit weird for someone scrambling your coms or sabotaging your battle plans to suddenly make your suits incapable of moving to new cover while they shoot.
I'd say the problem with JSJ isn't forcing opponent maneuver. Its the way it unilaterally invalidated IGO-UGO. There are a bunch of units out there that have something similar to Captain Sicariu's Knight of Macragge thing.. Yadda yadda enemy unit ends movement phase within 9". this unit can move 6" yadda yadda. Its a far more toned down JSJ. I cant unilaterally do it. You have to move within 9, but not within engagement. Now there are absolutely units that would be "mean" to do it to - say someone with a gun range of 6", but its far less so than JSJ of the past.
I don't know. That seems situationally *more* powerful if the enemy gets close enough to trigger it because you'd have more information about where the enemy units will be positioned when you get to make your move. And on the flip side, it would make JSJ useless for avoiding long-ranged attacks which seem like the attacks evasive actions should be most effective against.
In a lot of threads, people talk about wanting maneuvering to be more important. Needing to position units to line up shots against enemies that have JSJ'd back behind cover seems like a good example of that. You could probably impose a -1 to-hit penalty on units using JSJ to represent the relative difficulty of shooting on the move and to create a trade-off (other than points) to using JSJ, but I think the basic mechanics of ye olde jetpackers were pretty sound.
Dudeface wrote: Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:
9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines
The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power
Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.
Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.
So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.
You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction
Because it wasn't in the codex - it was added because they didn't have the same breadth of rules and options marines had, so needed something adding to draw some form of parity - Ironically if you want to include supplements you can also cover the fact that as per the above Raven Guard get yet more stuff via the psychic awakening.
And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.
It's two bullet points in the codex, it's in 2 halves, because all chapter tactics come in 2 halves. Yes there are some simplifications, which you're choosing to nitpick rather than address that it's a whole lot of stuff.
In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic
No but my chapter of Overly Verbose Nitpickers who have a choice of 2 traits from the build-a-chapter can opt to be Raven Guard Successors, so please, keep reaching.
You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.
That was FAQ'd in later because shockingly giving them the option to mix the powers together was too much, as they had.... too many options. But again you're obscuring the fact that as a marine player, I can choose from 18 psychic powers. They're in 3 sets of 6. But again you're nitpicking with the minutae of army building to ignore the fact that 2 sets of 6 base powers, is more than the 1 set of 6 tyranids get. The subfactions adding 1 more set of 6 powers, is more than the 1 power the tyranid subfaction adds.
This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.
And what has that got to do with anything? Are you postulating marine chapters should get more rules because they have more models? Tell you what, lets wrap it all up with Eldar since you note they have lots of units:
Marine subfaction:
Base book/supplement
- A chapter tactic (fixed or choice of 2 from list)
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18 (or 3 sets of 6)
- another psychic discipline for a total of 18 powers (or 3 sets of 6)
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats
Faith and fury:
- an additional litany
Eldar subfaction:
Base codex:
- a chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat
Phoenix Rising:
- option to build a chapter tactic (exists as a base thing in marines)
Are these equal? Can you still honestly say that subfactions across armies were equally represented?
Maybe subfaction stuff should exist but be categorically worse in every way so if you want to do it for fluff then it's largely meaningless - for all armies and have parity (I say this with a marine army in a cabinet to my left).
Your point is that factions with supplements have more than those without, and that is undeniably true.
This second post is better than the first. It does still contain a few minor issues though (not that they invalidate your overall point).
The biggest issue is that your first post exclusively references 9th ed dexes, while this post seems to talk about 8th/9th interchangeably.
By 9th, I think EVERY faction had build your own rules in the dex. CSM might be an exception, because I think all of their subfactions got more than the 1 Chapter Tactic, 1 WL Trait, 1 Relic, 1 Strat. Sisters and DE certainly had build your own baked into their dexes. In 8th, you're correct, these were added via psychic awakening, but by 9th, built in for everybody, not just marines.
Also- while the rules compatibility between 8th/ 9th does allow PA material to be used in 9th, it stopped being technically legal when the 9th ed dex dropped. And it's worth noting that this expiration clause affected all modes of play, not just matched- which was rare in 9th, because most updates were matched only.
And finally, a lot of factions in 9th other than marines did get supplements in 9th via campaign books- Cult of Stife for DE, OoOML and BR for Sisters; I think Cadians got one, I think Orks got one, but I forget which clan. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the CSM got supplement level of stuff for each of their subfactions, but at the cost of build your own rules.
And then of course, there were also armies of renown, which weren't the same as supplements, because they all came with unit restrictions. What GW seemed to try to do was give every faction at least one supplement or army of renown over the course of the edition. They didn't quite hit that mark, but they tried.
Yup it was a real dive down the fact that marines have had 4 codex in 7 years which was a problem, you sort of fall out of temporal alignment, especially when people make calls back to out of date rules as well.
The whole thing was in an attempt to draw back to this:
I'm sitting here looking and Leagues have a Warlord Trait and a Strat. Ork Klans had both, a "chapter tactic" and a relic. Similar with Nids. Similar with Aeldari. Looking at this: Custodes have Aegis of the Emperor (Chapter Tactics), a Martial Ka'tah (doctrines), and a Shield host Fighting Style (Super Doctrine) The Aeldar have Strands of Fate (Doctrines) Attributes (Chapter Tactics) and probably skip the Super Doctrine because Strands of Fate is so much better than Doctrines by themselves which is probably why they added Super Doctrines in the supplements.
Where the assertion was made that other armies had parity in 8th/9th and that has now been lost. Very simply they didn't, as the sheer breadth of options given over to the marines dwarfed the other armies, led to rules hopping and made internal balance impossible - hence why we now have "generic force type 1-6" that in theory all chapters benefit from regardless of build.
I have a Raven Guard force which I've built almost haphazardly, it doesn't really conform to the "tropes" of all jump packs (which is more BA anyway) or all scouts/stealth units. I'd much rather get to field my force with what I want to field the way I want to field it than to be sat thinking if I repaint them to a chapter I'm not bothered by, they'd work better. Plus this way they can address (in theory) issues with the detachments, rather than screw over 5 sets of rules because one of them makes a unit too good and have to punish the unit.
Yeah- I'm one of the folks who praised 9th's parity... And you're right, it wasn't 100% parity. No one in edition ever will have parity with marines.
But what I meant was it was the first (and to my knowledge, only) edition where ALL factions had at least the bare minimum to distinguish their subfactions, that being:
While not parity when looking at subfactions that got supplements, this is still the closest we've come to parity.
People praise the Witch Hunter dex, and don't get me wrong, I DO like it. But it might as well have not even mentioned that the Sororitas had different orders, because it didn't make a lick of difference which one you chose.
And as good as everything else was, that part certainly sucked.
PenitentJake wrote: Yeah- I'm one of the folks who praised 9th's parity... And you're right, it wasn't 100% parity. No one in edition ever will have parity with marines.
But what I meant was it was the first (and to my knowledge, only) edition where ALL factions had at least the bare minimum to distinguish their subfactions, that being:
While not parity when looking at subfactions that got supplements, this is still the closest we've come to parity.
People praise the Witch Hunter dex, and don't get me wrong, I DO like it. But it might as well have not even mentioned that the Sororitas had different orders, because it didn't make a lick of difference which one you chose.
And as good as everything else was, that part certainly sucked.
Yeah that's fair, the orders in the witchunter era were almost a side note but you'd have done it as a personal fluff choice via unit selection if you were dedicated.
Whilst I don't argue where you're coming from at all, people need to largely remember most armies came from these existing to justify alternate colour schemes. Some where down the line that "perk" if you like of getting rules has become an expectation and again, whilst justified, it's almost as justified to get rid of everyone's as well which is the tact they've taken.
Whenever everyone's super, no-one is and all that.
In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.
I would have made it a "strat" on the datasheet. Call them 0CP strats with similar rules to below:
You must have at least 1 CP to use a 0CP Strat.
0CP Strats can be used as many times as you have units that have it.
0CP Strats are susceptible to the various counter-strat abilities like The Lion's All Secrets Revealed or those abilities sprinkled about that futher uses of this now cost +1CP - which means all units with this zero CP Strat now have to pay 1 to use it or some such. Again, theory/sample not completed product. Most of the Squad/Unit bespokes should be done like this.
This just sounds like a unit ability with way too many extra steps.
Can we not just let Stratagems die a final death? I feel we don't need to torture other innocent rules, just to make use of their bloated corpse.
I have a Raven Guard force which I've built almost haphazardly, it doesn't really conform to the "tropes" of all jump packs (which is more BA anyway) or all scouts/stealth units. I'd much rather get to field my force with what I want to field the way I want to field it than to be sat thinking if I repaint them to a chapter I'm not bothered by, they'd work better. Plus this way they can address (in theory) issues with the detachments, rather than screw over 5 sets of rules because one of them makes a unit too good and have to punish the unit.
I don't often give GW credit and its rarely deserved, but I've come around to the conclusion that one of the best parts of the way they've implemented detachments in 10th is the lack of restrictions. I play a LOT of games that use subfactions to create design space for a large model range and the "what you give up" is an expected part of the deal so I initially found its absence here a sign GW didn't put a lot of effort into it. Truthfully, that may still be the case, but I think it results in something better than a lot of subfaction systems I've played elsewhere.
Ultimately, I've found that the flanderization problem is often a result of trying too hard to push a specific type of model. One of the things the detachment rules do remarkably well is keep their main buff as something pretty universally worthwhile while the buffs that encourage specific types of models really only do so for about 800 points worth of stuff. It's tempting to make sure that every unit makes use of your best strategem, but in practice you only need 2-3 targets and after that you're better off diversifying. Where I used to start with a detachment and build into it, I've gotten to where I'm building an army without the detachment rules, looking to see where it best fits around the 1500 mark and then using the last 500 to fill out specific needs for the detachment. It goes a long way towards removing the need to balance against a neutral, because its fairly close to neutral with just enough nudge to give some flavor and direction but not enough to lock you out of your collection as is so often the case.
Kroot used to put out 20 S4 attacks at WS4 from a unit of 10. That was solid enough for an auxiliary troop melee unit. They could also be difficult to shift if you used jungle/forests in your terrain thanks to their +1 to cover when in jungles/forests (which is often rare in 40K where it isn't uncommon that every battle is happening in imperial ruins as that is the terrain GW pushes and because TLOS makes forests useless for hiding anything). Then GW decided to make them S3, remove kroot rifles counting as two weapons so they no longer got an extra attack from them, and gave them sniper ammo which required standing still instead.
Also, what you just wrote can also apply pretty much equally to the Imperial Guard and probably a load of other armies.
The issue with kroot was a mixture of lack of damage and their awful save.
Their lack of power weapons (this is back prior to melee weapons having AP) meant that a shocking amount of their attacks were ineffective. 6+ meant that if they got to melee they suffered serious casualties on the counter swing. They were basically guardsmen damage output but in melee with worse armor.
Sure you could make them a bit better with shapers and krootox, but that was about as useful as pouring points into guard squads to up their damage.
@Daedelus?
"lore" *cough* Cawl/primaris/fall of cadia etc..*cough* they used to try and justify turning the setting on it's head.
