SecondTime wrote: Elaborate. Necron rules seem very weak compared to marines, and the batreps I've watched don't do much to dispel it. No armies seem to have anything close to enough offense to deal with marine killy units AND their troops now. For the rules they get, marines seem way too cheap even after 9th ed point hikes.
Spin it round, why do you think marines are so much more powerful than necrons, with empirical evidence if not a detailed opinion.
For necrons it seems to be the custom dynasties doing a lot of the lifting with hard to target/kill obsec units everywhere backed up by deadly melee and close range shooting if people try to engage and clear them.
Two wound troops for starters. Way more rerolls. More mobility. More CC power. Marines can push almost anything off an objective and then keep it. And they are cheap enough to have lots of bodies on the board. No one has the firepower to engage all the T4 3+ wounds marines put on the table now.
They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
SecondTime wrote: " Warriors have had their fluff changed to be brainless silver tide"
That doesn't preclude their chassis being technologically superior to marines. But this means fewer models, I know. But it feeds into the conception that everyone else is an NPC for marines to punch out.
I don't think their stats should be tied to this arbitrary role if Necrons are truly that much more advanced than the Imperium. But again, fewer models.
I think immortals are far too weak compared to marines atm.
Did you see literally none of the buffs Immortals got? Better weapons, T5, A2 at base, and FNP on steroids? Thats significantly better than whatever Tactical Marines got with the W2 LOL
SecondTime wrote: " Warriors have had their fluff changed to be brainless silver tide"
That doesn't preclude their chassis being technologically superior to marines. But this means fewer models, I know. But it feeds into the conception that everyone else is an NPC for marines to punch out.
I don't think their stats should be tied to this arbitrary role if Necrons are truly that much more advanced than the Imperium. But again, fewer models.
I think immortals are far too weak compared to marines atm.
Did you see literally none of the buffs Immortals got? Better weapons, T5, A2 at base, and FNP on steroids? Thats significantly better than whatever Tactical Marines got with the W2 LOL
Their weaker weapon got 6" of range, correct?
And their stronger one now was buffed against hit penalties, but is much weaker with hit bonuses. Before, at -1 to-hit, they got 1/2 hits; at normal shooting, 1/1 hits; and at +1, 3/2 hits. Now it's 5/6, 6/6, and 7/6 respectively.
T5 is good. No arguments there.
A2 is better-but they're still garbage in melee. It takes a squad of seven to bully a ten man Guard squad low enough to claim an objective from them in melee by reducing them to 6 models.
FNP on steroids is only true if you're dealing with weapons that have more than 1 Damage. Against anything 1 Damage, it's FNP... But worse, since you can't take it on the attack that wipes the squad. In a 10 Man squad, that can be tough, but 5 man... Not as much.
Overall, Immortals did get better. But that doesn't make them compare favorably to Intercessors.
Brotherjanus wrote: I was under the impression that this thread was arguing that the extra wound on regular marines meant that marines in general became op. I disagree with that but what is this Necron argument? Is it that Necrons should be op because of their technology instead of marines? Are people saying that Necrons should have Custodes stat lines? I don't understand the goal.
I don't know specifically. The discussion started with extra wound for marines, but then Necrons were brought into as an analogous unit that marines have completely eclipsed. (Especially if you compare the costs) The technological gap makes such an eclipse completely inappropriate in my personal view. It's an extra point that I think Necron units are far too weak on a model by model basis given their stated origin and background. Remember that a unit being OP is completely dependent upon its cost relative to its capabilities. Very weak units miscosted in the past have been just as problematic as very powerful units miscosted in the past.
Since people are using the term "elite" interchangeably with "power on a model by model basis", I suppose I'm saying it would make more sense for Necrons to be more elite than marines. Even the warriors. But then that wrecks the narrative of the outnumbered marines, right? They don't want the visual of multiple marines struggling to defeat a single Necron, even though this makes more sense given the representations. But simultaneously, its okay for multiple necrons to struggle to defeat a single marine according to GW. Because marines are Mary Sues now, I guess.
I think the problem is assuming that superior technology = superior troops. Just because Necrons have better technology doesn't mean that they would use it to create better troops, they may consider large numbers of slightly inferior troops a better option than smaller numbers of superior troops. It's a war, not a technological showcase. It's entirely possible that Necrons favor numerical superiority in troops over raw power, and thus create large numbers of such troops instead of investing resources into stronger, but less numerical, troops. They have the technology, but find it better to use it in a different way than you would.
For a representation of their superior technology, just compare vehicles. The majority of marine vehicles are T7 or T8 with a 3+ save, with a few packing a 5++, and a few rare examples a 4++. Necrons, on the other hand, have multiple vehicles with Quantum Shielding, which provides both a 5++ and causes all weapons to wound on a natural 4+ regardless of strength. So a S16 AP-5 volcano cannon is wounding a T6 Necron vehicle on 4s instead of 2s, with that vehicle still saving on 5s. Point that same gun at a T8 2+ Land Raider though.....
The thing is Necrons used to have VASTLY superior troops. Like, it was a thing. They've taken a mighty tumble over the years.
The original Necron Warrior had:
T5
2+ save
Costed 50% more than a Marine
Had an AP-2 on their gun
Didn't take morale/Ld tests.
If killed, rolled every turn to come back on a 6+
Had an aura that effected nearby technology which meant:
1: Vehicles/Dreadnoughts within 6" of a Necron Warrior required a roll of 4+ to Move, and if they succeeded they could only move at half rate.
2: Shooting weapons attempting to fire suffered a -1 to hit for each Necron within 6".
3: Necron opponents in CC couldn't use any strength bonuses for weapons in CC.
It should also be noted with Immortals that the "upgrade" to T5 is a return to their original Toughness through the first several editions of their existence.
It's interesting to see how Marines have gotten consistently improved and bloated in terms of both table and lore power, while the Necron Warrior has been similarly actively degraded and reduced, going from T5 2+sv when first introduced in 2E, to T4 3+sv in 3E, to T4 4+sv in just a few months before 6E.
a_typical_hero wrote: Correct me if fluff changed or got specified, but aren't Warriors basically Necron citizens which number into the billions?
So their technology turned a frail, short lived meatbag into one of the toughest, "mass produced" chassis known to the galaxy.
The Imperium can do it too, but on a much smaller scale. In the fluff, every Marine is a hero and a vital asset for the Imperium, revered by those who seen them and only whispered as a myth by others. While Warriors - with a similar statline - are a throw away unit, nothing compared to the actual Necron soldiers.
You're operating from the assumption that the Necrons are supposed to be on par with the Imperium power-wise; that Warriors should be weaker than Marines because there are a lot of Warriors and not a lot of Marines. That's never been the case. Unlike the Eldar or Imperium, they haven't lost the technology they possessed at their peak, so their baseline for a disposable cheap cannon fodder unit is on the level of a Space Marine and it only gets nastier from there.
Their whole shtick was that even the lowliest Warrior, the basic grunt footsoldier of this empire, was comparable to the Imperium's transhuman heroes, and when all the tomb worlds wake up the Imperium is going to be in serious trouble. Which will be the same day that all the hive fleets arrive, all the Orks unite under one leader, the Emperor dies, and every other Looming Bad Thing The Imperium Cannot Survive comes to pass- which is to say never, as long as the game continues to exist.
Vaktathi wrote: It should also be noted with Immortals that the "upgrade" to T5 is a return to their original Toughness through the first several editions of their existence.
It's interesting to see how Marines have gotten consistently improved and bloated in terms of both table and lore power, while the Necron Warrior has been similarly actively degraded and reduced, going from T5 2+sv when first introduced in 2E, to T4 3+sv in 3E, to T4 4+sv in just a few months before 6E.
To say nothing of the Heavy Intercessors which are now a thing. :/
Vaktathi wrote: It should also be noted with Immortals that the "upgrade" to T5 is a return to their original Toughness through the first several editions of their existence.
It's interesting to see how Marines have gotten consistently improved and bloated in terms of both table and lore power, while the Necron Warrior has been similarly actively degraded and reduced, going from T5 2+sv when first introduced in 2E, to T4 3+sv in 3E, to T4 4+sv in just a few months before 6E.
To say nothing of the Heavy Intercessors which are now a thing. :/
Indeed. Marine troopers have gone from T3 W1 4+sv at their start to T4 W1 3+ to now in some cases T5 W3 3+ and universally at least W2, it's a wee bit silly, to say nothing of the special rules layered on top.
SecondTime wrote: Elaborate. Necron rules seem very weak compared to marines, and the batreps I've watched don't do much to dispel it. No armies seem to have anything close to enough offense to deal with marine killy units AND their troops now. For the rules they get, marines seem way too cheap even after 9th ed point hikes.
Spin it round, why do you think marines are so much more powerful than necrons, with empirical evidence if not a detailed opinion.
For necrons it seems to be the custom dynasties doing a lot of the lifting with hard to target/kill obsec units everywhere backed up by deadly melee and close range shooting if people try to engage and clear them.
Two wound troops for starters. Way more rerolls. More mobility. More CC power. Marines can push almost anything off an objective and then keep it. And they are cheap enough to have lots of bodies on the board. No one has the firepower to engage all the T4 3+ wounds marines put on the table now.
They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
I didn't say it was new. Just that it exists. 8.5 marines were far superior to necrons, 9th marines kept most of that stuff and are now merely significantly superior instead of far superior. The main difference is now oldbois are now magically signficantly superior as well.
Gadzilla666 wrote: I think the problem is assuming that superior technology = superior troops. Just because Necrons have better technology doesn't mean that they would use it to create better troops, they may consider large numbers of slightly inferior troops a better option than smaller numbers of superior troops. It's a war, not a technological showcase. It's entirely possible that Necrons favor numerical superiority in troops over raw power, and thus create large numbers of such troops instead of investing resources into stronger, but less numerical, troops. They have the technology, but find it better to use it in a different way than you would.
Except that historically Necrons had been able to create massive numbers of troops that were one-for-one an equal to Astartes (more or less). That's changed recently.
SecondTime wrote: Elaborate. Necron rules seem very weak compared to marines, and the batreps I've watched don't do much to dispel it. No armies seem to have anything close to enough offense to deal with marine killy units AND their troops now. For the rules they get, marines seem way too cheap even after 9th ed point hikes.
Spin it round, why do you think marines are so much more powerful than necrons, with empirical evidence if not a detailed opinion.
For necrons it seems to be the custom dynasties doing a lot of the lifting with hard to target/kill obsec units everywhere backed up by deadly melee and close range shooting if people try to engage and clear them.
Two wound troops for starters. Way more rerolls. More mobility. More CC power. Marines can push almost anything off an objective and then keep it. And they are cheap enough to have lots of bodies on the board. No one has the firepower to engage all the T4 3+ wounds marines put on the table now.
They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
I didn't say it was new. Just that it exists. 8.5 marines were far superior to necrons, 9th marines kept most of that stuff and are now merely significantly superior instead of far superior. The main difference is now oldbois are now magically signficantly superior as well.
8.0 marines had 2 wound troops and plenty of rerolls, I'd actually agree the marine book is marginally better, but it feels like you're just buying into blind Internet hype with no rational thought at this stage, which is ironic given your experience with those blood angels last edition who you claimed were trash until the end.
I have to say that is obvious that normal marines are more durable than necron warriors but I would not say just because they have two wounds they become miles ahead than necron warriors, even from a "feeling" perspective. My preference would be still for Inmortals to have 2 wounds, and I have no problem with all marines having two wounds, but thats more about expecting the phase out of mini marines instead of this strange mix we have now.
Warriors still have a better weapon, for example, and are much more resilient agaisnt all kind of multi damage weapons, from 2 to 1d6.
And personally I would put inmortals with no sinergy whatsoever but with their base rules (That means no rerroll bubles, stratagems, character support but shock assault, RP, bolter discipline, chapter tactics, etc...) over Intercessors right now at least in the feeling of power department. They are more durable (Agaisnt nearly everything), they are better at shooting, and slighly worse in meele unless the sargeant has a meele weapon (But thats more points) in wich case they are much worse at meele. It looks off that the marine has two wounds and the inmortal has 1 wound, but thats more because how 40K has keep the wound count in all this years. In age of sigmar GW has been much more free to give different wound stats (And I know damage works diferently) to different units so just because one has two wounds doesnt means hes instantly more elite than one that has just 1, like Savage Orc Boyz vs Lumineth or Osiarch spearmen.
The tabletop tactics match alone is sufficient to demonstrate my concerns. The marine troops are just too difficult for the Necrons to damage. The score might have been close, but the match didn't seem close on the table. I don't know how good either of these lists were, though. Redemptors are now like wave serpents that shoot better and punch.
SecondTime wrote: The tabletop tactics match alone is sufficient to demonstrate my concerns. The marine troops are just too difficult for the Necrons to damage. The score might have been close, but the match didn't seem close on the table. I don't know how good either of these lists were, though. Redemptors are now like wave serpents that shoot better and punch.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Devastating is a hell of a stretch for the Gauss rule. Basically 10% of your shots will glance. If you're talking about the bigger more expensive vehicles it looks nice, but anything around 100 points it's hilariously inefficient.
1/6th not 10% And it was utterly devastating. A squad of 20 warriors in RF range would basically disintegrate any vehicle they encountered. Having the ability to destroy Heavy tanks/vehicles with your basic infantry was amazing for Necrons and really helped them because their other choices were somewhat...garbage.
So put that in perspective. You had a rather large mob of Warriors, comparable to Marines as far as durability (used to be much better) and whose BASIC rifle was able to destroy heavy vehicles. Now compare that to today's Necrons.
Brotherjanus wrote: I played a game on Saturday with my Blood Angels vs his custom Necron dynasty. I used eradicators, bladeguard vets, veteran intercessors, outriders, and an atv among other primaris. I struggled to wound his Immortals and only killed 2 of his skorpek destroyers with my eradicators before the remaining one wiped the squad. I was tabled by turn 4. I insisted that because I had eradicators that he couldn't win and offered him the option to concede. Somehow with all my extra wounds and eradicator usage I failed to kill a single unit before I was overrun. This is just a single game and I rolled poorly but I get the feeling that future games will be similar as far as capability. I am not concerned about marines vs necrons power level.
3 Eradicators, NO upgrades are averaging 6 shots, 4 hits, 2.66 = 2.66 dead Skorpekhs a turn. Yeah I get it you rolled badly, but with 8' movement you should have at the very least gotten 2 turns to blast them off the table. If you had upgraded 1 to a Multi-melta than it should have been 1 dead unit of skorpekhs turn 1. On his turn, if he gets into CC he only had 3 attacks, so if he wiped out your 3 eradicators than he rolled really well. 3 attacks hitting on 3s rerolling 1s = 2.33 hits, wounding on 2s = 1.94 wounds, so he should have averaged 2 dead Marines. So apparently you rolled really poorly and he rolled really well. Not exactly an indictment on how under powered Eradicators are.
Brotherjanus wrote: I think GW has always had trouble turning the lore into gameplay. With that aside, I think every army should be brought up to the level marines are instead of bringing marines down. If the armies on the table "feel" like they should as described in the lore then I think that is where it should be. Right now marines are closer to that feel. I want to be menaced by Necrons when I play against them and the last game I played did that. I want to feel overwhelmed when I go against Tyranids or Orks or even Imperial Guard. This sort of thing is difficult to translate but I think my opinion is more inline with the designer's. I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
The problem with your solution is that every time an army is brought up to SM power levels the same individuals come out of the wood work screaming that (Insert non SM army) is OP and needs massive nerfs. Keep in mind, we have people actively saying Eradicators are not OP and that Aggressors are now useless trash, Oh, and Intercessors are perfectly balanced being better at both Ranged combat compared to Fire warriors and melee combat compared to Genestealers on a point for point basis. FFS we had a Marine player in here complaining that the Ork relic Klaw was just too OP and needed to be nerfed to be worse than a normal SM thunder hammer.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
SecondTime wrote: The tabletop tactics match alone is sufficient to demonstrate my concerns. The marine troops are just too difficult for the Necrons to damage. The score might have been close, but the match didn't seem close on the table. I don't know how good either of these lists were, though. Redemptors are now like wave serpents that shoot better and punch.
I've watched several others with the same kind of result with the marine troops just being too hard to shift.
They're literally no harder to remove than they have been the last 3 years... come on.
2W Intercessors have always been a bad decision. It's just now Tactical Marines get 2W, and they do more damage than Intercessors. Either way most baseline infantry get shafted against marines.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Devastating is a hell of a stretch for the Gauss rule. Basically 10% of your shots will glance. If you're talking about the bigger more expensive vehicles it looks nice, but anything around 100 points it's hilariously inefficient.
1/6th not 10% And it was utterly devastating. A squad of 20 warriors in RF range would basically disintegrate any vehicle they encountered. Having the ability to destroy Heavy tanks/vehicles with your basic infantry was amazing for Necrons and really helped them because their other choices were somewhat...garbage.
So put that in perspective. You had a rather large mob of Warriors, comparable to Marines as far as durability (used to be much better) and whose BASIC rifle was able to destroy heavy vehicles. Now compare that to today's Necrons.
Brotherjanus wrote: I played a game on Saturday with my Blood Angels vs his custom Necron dynasty. I used eradicators, bladeguard vets, veteran intercessors, outriders, and an atv among other primaris. I struggled to wound his Immortals and only killed 2 of his skorpek destroyers with my eradicators before the remaining one wiped the squad. I was tabled by turn 4. I insisted that because I had eradicators that he couldn't win and offered him the option to concede. Somehow with all my extra wounds and eradicator usage I failed to kill a single unit before I was overrun. This is just a single game and I rolled poorly but I get the feeling that future games will be similar as far as capability. I am not concerned about marines vs necrons power level.
3 Eradicators, NO upgrades are averaging 6 shots, 4 hits, 2.66 = 2.66 dead Skorpekhs a turn. Yeah I get it you rolled badly, but with 8' movement you should have at the very least gotten 2 turns to blast them off the table. If you had upgraded 1 to a Multi-melta than it should have been 1 dead unit of skorpekhs turn 1. On his turn, if he gets into CC he only had 3 attacks, so if he wiped out your 3 eradicators than he rolled really well. 3 attacks hitting on 3s rerolling 1s = 2.33 hits, wounding on 2s = 1.94 wounds, so he should have averaged 2 dead Marines. So apparently you rolled really poorly and he rolled really well. Not exactly an indictment on how under powered Eradicators are.
Brotherjanus wrote: I think GW has always had trouble turning the lore into gameplay. With that aside, I think every army should be brought up to the level marines are instead of bringing marines down. If the armies on the table "feel" like they should as described in the lore then I think that is where it should be. Right now marines are closer to that feel. I want to be menaced by Necrons when I play against them and the last game I played did that. I want to feel overwhelmed when I go against Tyranids or Orks or even Imperial Guard. This sort of thing is difficult to translate but I think my opinion is more inline with the designer's. I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
The problem with your solution is that every time an army is brought up to SM power levels the same individuals come out of the wood work screaming that (Insert non SM army) is OP and needs massive nerfs. Keep in mind, we have people actively saying Eradicators are not OP and that Aggressors are now useless trash, Oh, and Intercessors are perfectly balanced being better at both Ranged combat compared to Fire warriors and melee combat compared to Genestealers on a point for point basis. FFS we had a Marine player in here complaining that the Ork relic Klaw was just too OP and needed to be nerfed to be worse than a normal SM thunder hammer.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
You forgot the hit roll, chief. 2/3 of the Warriors or Immortals hit, and then 1/6 after that glance. That's a 10% chance per shot to glance. So yes it IS inefficient if you bothered to do the math for it.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
Tac marines have 24" range, they can't kill the immortals from 30" but do take losses, as a gauss blaster is 30" now. But you just proved they trade favourably.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
Tac marines have 24" range, they can't kill the immortals from 30" but do take losses, as a gauss blaster is 30" now. But you just proved they trade favourably.
I'm sort of finding the whole thread weird because as people say, intercessors have been around a long time.
The critique of the Tabletop Tactics game is probably that both armies could have been tuned up - but then I'm not sure Redemptors are bad under the new rules. I feel you'd shave the troops for at least one more unit of eradicators. Possibly ditch the impulsors for more bodies too.
Its harder to work out what Necron players are going to spam going forward.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
Tac marines have 24" range, they can't kill the immortals from 30" but do take losses, as a gauss blaster is 30" now. But you just proved they trade favourably.
Grav Cannon is 30" range now, iirc.
I think so off top of my head but then the immortals outnumber the tac squad, not sure which way it swings it. Tac squad still needs to move into bolter range butting the grav cannon at -1 for a turn regardless.
Napkin maths the tac marines win purely due to the slow speed of the immortals and bolter discipline. But it's not a landslide overly.
Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
If I were to play marines again, I might just so I can shoot MOAR plasma at enemy marines. I can pack in 4 plasma guns into one Rhino.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Orks already have lists that win by camping objectives and running a horde, you want them to have even more models, and at the same time intercessors being worse at shoting then tau and orks at melee, so every skew army would beat them? that is madness.
You forgot the hit roll, chief. 2/3 of the Warriors or Immortals hit, and then 1/6 after that glance. That's a 10% chance per shot to glance. So yes it IS inefficient if you bothered to do the math for it.
Ah, ok "chief" my mistake for thinking we were talking specifically hits instead of shots.
Regardless, 20 Warriors were inflicting 2.2 glances per vehicle per turn, and if they somehow got into RF range they were gutting a vehicle entirely. How many HPs did most vehicles in the game have? 3-5? so the necrons basic troops choice was killing a vehicle every 2 turns, not bad for a troops choice that used to also be one of the most durable in the game.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Orks already have lists that win by camping objectives and running a horde, you want them to have even more models, and at the same time intercessors being worse at shoting then tau and orks at melee, so every skew army would beat them? that is madness.
yes karol a skew list should beat a Tac list, that is kind of the point of a skew list. You take a TAC list to have a better shot at winning vs a number of factions/armies/builds you take a skew list to screw up the meta and mess with the TAC list, especially when Tac lists are currently more heavily geared towards killing elite infantry (Hi 3W basic troops/elites/heavies)
And yet again, if any of those "Tac" Marine lists invested more points into intercessors and aggressors than they do speshul units that kill vehicles and elites really well than they wouldn't have a problem dealing with Ork hordes.
And I do not believe there has been any tournament winning Ork lists since SM's codex dropped.
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Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
Completely agree, especially when anything the Tac Marines can do, can be done better by Intercessors or by taking a specialist squad like a dev squad.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Orks already have lists that win by camping objectives and running a horde, you want them to have even more models, and at the same time intercessors being worse at shoting then tau and orks at melee, so every skew army would beat them? that is madness.
So what do you propose, Karol? What's your fix for this?
Also, you may have missed the "or" in that quoted post. Not "Nerf the crap out of Marines AND make their competition cheaper," it was or.
Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
I think people might avoid Tacticals if they're dedicated Primaris players. Otherwise Tacticals have a huge damage-output advantage over Intercesors against higher value targets.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
Tac marines have 24" range, they can't kill the immortals from 30" but do take losses, as a gauss blaster is 30" now. But you just proved they trade favourably.
Grav Cannon is 30" range now, iirc.
I think so off top of my head but then the immortals outnumber the tac squad, not sure which way it swings it. Tac squad still needs to move into bolter range butting the grav cannon at -1 for a turn regardless.
Napkin maths the tac marines win purely due to the slow speed of the immortals and bolter discipline. But it's not a landslide overly.
Right. Imo that's kind of an issue in my eyes. Points notwithstanding, Imo 10 Immortals should handily win over 10 Tacticals from a model-to-model perspective. The fact that they're sorta on-par point-for-point is close to reasonable balance from a game perspective, though I'd prefer Immortals be better either at shooting or taking hits.
Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
Completely agree, especially when anything the Tac Marines can do, can be done better by Intercessors or by taking a specialist squad like a dev squad.
Why bother taking a Dev Squad when your Tacticals can do the same task? That's the thing. Tacticals are a Troops choice that can far out-pace Intercessors against elites and vehicles. Intercessors simply can not do everything that Tacticals can.
if you want to feel "overwhelmed" by horde factions than guess what? units like Eradicators/aggressors and intercessors all need HEAVY nerfs. That or you need to make those horde armies significantly cheaper. If you want to get that feeling of being overwhelmed but still keep those units as is than my 110pt buggies need to be closer to 50pts. My Ork boyz need to be back down to 6ppm not 8ppm, and even then they would probably need a durability increase thanks to aggressors even existing.
Orks already have lists that win by camping objectives and running a horde, you want them to have even more models, and at the same time intercessors being worse at shoting then tau and orks at melee, so every skew army would beat them? that is madness.
Intercessors should absolutely be worse at CC than Orks and shooting than firewarriors at their price point.
Tyel wrote: I'm sort of finding the whole thread weird because as people say, intercessors have been around a long time.
Do you mean 'Intercessors existed before, so why are people complaining about 2-wound Marines only now?'
If so, I think the issues are twofold: 1) Prevalence. 2) Fluff/Lore.
In the case of #1, Intercessors existed before but they were hardly the norm. In contrast, with the prevalence/dominance of Marine factions means that 2-wound infantry has now become the standard for troops. So rather than fighting primarily 1-wound troops with occasional exceptions, most people will now be looking at fighting 2-wound troops with occasional exceptions. Or, to put it another way, the vast majority of anti-infantry weapons have just had their effectiveness halved against the most ubiquitous infantry in the game.
As for #2, Primaris were a new thing so, whilst people might have disliked them for a variety of reasons, they nevertheless weren't trampling on any existing lore by being 2-wounds apiece and strong in general. In contrast, the improvements to basic Marines have now put them ahead of the elite units from a myriad of other armies which had previously been as good or even stronger than they were. Necrons have already been discussed considerably, but this extends far beyond them and also to units like Ork Nobz, Eldar/DE elites, and various others which are being increasingly left in the dirt by endless buffs to Marines.
Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
I think people might avoid Tacticals if they're dedicated Primaris players. Otherwise Tacticals have a huge damage-output advantage over Intercesors against higher value targets.
Dudeface wrote: They have reduced rerolls now and they already had 2 wound troops, intercessors didn't get cheaper and tac marines are still worse stats wise, they're fairly even now.
Nothing you list is new or additional from this codex, they had access to all that before.
10 necron immortals will kill 1.5 tac marines outside of bolter range, better yet 10 marines in rapid fire range, in tactical doctrine drop a little over 1 immortal.
Problem is, everything that used to target those 8th edition Intercessors is now more expensive and is having to target Tac Marines which are almost as good as Intercessors.
10 Necron immortals are a bit cheaper than 10 Intercessors and just about the same price as Tac Marines. 10 Immortals get 10 shots, 6.66 hits 4.44 wounds and basically 3 unsaved wounds for 1.5 dead Tac Marines. 10 Tac Marines under tac doctrine get 20 shots, 13.33 hits, against T5 that is 4.44 wounds and 2.22 unsaved wounds which is 2.22 dead Immortals. They have the same range, and Tac Marines no longer need to get into "Rapid Fire" range. So your basic Tac Marine outperforms immortals at ranged combat. Those intercessors though, they are doing 3 dmg at 30' range to those Immortals. And if not in TAC doctrine its 1.5 dead immortals and 2.2 respectively.
If you factor in Reanimation protocols they get a 5+ per wound to come back to life so if you kill 3, likely 1 comes back. Problem I see with this is 1: if you do 1 damage to those Immortals the likelihood is they lose 1 model, where as it takes 2 damage to inflict the same loss in damage output to those Marines, so if you manage 10 dmg vs immortals you wipe the unit, if you manage 10 damage against those Marines? Well you still have 5 Marines standing to get through. So yeah, they have similar damage output but those Marines are still more durable thanks to having 2 wounds each.
Tac marines have 24" range, they can't kill the immortals from 30" but do take losses, as a gauss blaster is 30" now. But you just proved they trade favourably.
Grav Cannon is 30" range now, iirc.
I think so off top of my head but then the immortals outnumber the tac squad, not sure which way it swings it. Tac squad still needs to move into bolter range butting the grav cannon at -1 for a turn regardless.
Napkin maths the tac marines win purely due to the slow speed of the immortals and bolter discipline. But it's not a landslide overly.
Right. Imo that's kind of an issue in my eyes. Points notwithstanding, Imo 10 Immortals should handily win over 10 Tacticals from a model-to-model perspective. The fact that they're sorta on-par point-for-point is close to reasonable balance from a game perspective, though I'd prefer Immortals be better either at shooting or taking hits.
Tyel wrote: Going to be interesting to see if proved wrong - but I don't think anyone is going to take Tacs over Intercessors. At least as I see it, one special weapon isn't worth a significantly worse gun and 1 attack, for a fairly trivial amount of points.
Completely agree, especially when anything the Tac Marines can do, can be done better by Intercessors or by taking a specialist squad like a dev squad.
Why bother taking a Dev Squad when your Tacticals can do the same task? That's the thing. Tacticals are a Troops choice that can far out-pace Intercessors against elites and vehicles. Intercessors simply can not do everything that Tacticals can.
And this is where the second wound is huge. It takes tacticals from a unit where i would never consider taking because I'm not putting expensive gear on one wound models and makes putting gear on them VERY attractive. Ideally, I'd give them 1.5 W, but here we are.
And I do not believe there has been any tournament winning Ork lists since SM's codex dropped.
If you mean 1st place then I'm not either, but being fair here, I'm not aware of that many tournaments in the past week and a half. I see one 40k Stats item, the Northern Front YYC, that went Custodes>White Scars>Orks>Slaanesh Soup.
Tyel wrote: I'm sort of finding the whole thread weird because as people say, intercessors have been around a long time.
Do you mean 'Intercessors existed before, so why are people complaining about 2-wound Marines only now?'
If so, I think the issues are twofold: 1) Prevalence. 2) Fluff/Lore.
In the case of #1, Intercessors existed before but they were hardly the norm. In contrast, with the prevalence/dominance of Marine factions means that 2-wound infantry has now become the standard for troops. So rather than fighting primarily 1-wound troops with occasional exceptions, most people will now be looking at fighting 2-wound troops with occasional exceptions. Or, to put it another way, the vast majority of anti-infantry weapons have just had their effectiveness halved against the most ubiquitous infantry in the game.
TBH non-primaris space marine infantry was never used outside 3x5 scout squads. The meta has been for now roughly 2 years about killing 2 wound infantry.
You forgot the hit roll, chief. 2/3 of the Warriors or Immortals hit, and then 1/6 after that glance. That's a 10% chance per shot to glance. So yes it IS inefficient if you bothered to do the math for it.
Ah, ok "chief" my mistake for thinking we were talking specifically hits instead of shots.
Regardless, 20 Warriors were inflicting 2.2 glances per vehicle per turn, and if they somehow got into RF range they were gutting a vehicle entirely. How many HPs did most vehicles in the game have? 3-5? so the necrons basic troops choice was killing a vehicle every 2 turns, not bad for a troops choice that used to also be one of the most durable in the game.
Riiiiight, and how many points were those Warriors again?
I might be oblivious here - but what weapon are you putting on the Tacticals to suddenly make them massively outpace Intercessors versus elites/vehicles?
This isn't a gotcha - just a general missing something here. You get one heavy or special weapon (if my reading is right?) and I guess a combi-plas or something?
Karol wrote: Orks already have lists that win by camping objectives and running a horde, you want them to have even more models, and at the same time intercessors being worse at shoting then tau and orks at melee, so every skew army would beat them? that is madness.
That's not what he was suggesting, and if you were paying attention you would understand that. That or you're just blatantly misrepresenting his point.
Tyel wrote: I might be oblivious here - but what weapon are you putting on the Tacticals to suddenly make them massively outpace Intercessors versus elites/vehicles?
This isn't a gotcha - just a general missing something here. You get one heavy or special weapon (if my reading is right?) and I guess a combi-plas or something?
Practically any weapon, but the Grav CAnnon is my go-to. The Multimelta is going to be a popular choice too.
1 Grav Cannon vs. Marines -- 4 x .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 = 2.94
1 Grav Cannon vs. Leman Russ Equivalent -- 4 x .666 x .333 x .83 x 2 = 1.47
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs MEQ --10 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 1.66
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs. LREQ -- 10 x .666 x .17 x . 5 = .56
A single Grav Cannon does more than the entire 5 man Intercessor Squad, and the Tactical Squad still has Bolters and a potential Special/Combi to fire. Imo Tacticals make Intercessors total chumps right now.
Edit: Adding in 3 Bolters and single OC Plasma shot:
5 Tacs vs. MEQ = 4.5 (~3X Intercessor output)
5 Tacs vs. LREQ = 2.25 (~4X Intercessor output)
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
You forgot the hit roll, chief. 2/3 of the Warriors or Immortals hit, and then 1/6 after that glance. That's a 10% chance per shot to glance. So yes it IS inefficient if you bothered to do the math for it.
Ah, ok "chief" my mistake for thinking we were talking specifically hits instead of shots.
Regardless, 20 Warriors were inflicting 2.2 glances per vehicle per turn, and if they somehow got into RF range they were gutting a vehicle entirely. How many HPs did most vehicles in the game have? 3-5? so the necrons basic troops choice was killing a vehicle every 2 turns, not bad for a troops choice that used to also be one of the most durable in the game.
Riiiiight, and how many points were those Warriors again?
I'm not a Necron player, but unless I am mistaken they were 12ppm in 7th, so 240pts to kill a vehicle in 2 turns, or 1 turn if in rapid fire range, not bad for a basic infantry unit. My Ork boyz in 9th are 240pts now, and they can't kill a vehicle in 4 turns at range let alone possibly 1. Even in CC they struggle to kill most vehicles in 2 turns, if its T8 than its basically safe from Ork boyz for a few turns.
Tyel wrote: I might be oblivious here - but what weapon are you putting on the Tacticals to suddenly make them massively outpace Intercessors versus elites/vehicles?
This isn't a gotcha - just a general missing something here. You get one heavy or special weapon (if my reading is right?) and I guess a combi-plas or something?
Spoiler:
Practically any weapon, but the Grav CAnnon is my go-to. The Multimelta is going to be a popular choice too.
1 Grav Cannon vs. Marines -- 4 x .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 = 2.94
1 Grav Cannon vs. Leman Russ Equivalent -- 4 x .666 x .333 x .83 x 2 = 1.47
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs MEQ --10 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 1.66
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs. LREQ -- 10 x .666 x .17 x . 5 = .56
A single Grav Cannon does more than the entire 5 man Intercessor Squad, and the Tactical Squad still has Bolters and a potential Special/Combi to fire. Imo Tacticals make Intercessors total chumps right now.
Edit: Adding in 3 Bolters and single OC Plasma shot:
5 Tacs vs. MEQ = 4.5 (~3X Intercessor output)
5 Tacs vs. LREQ = 2.25 (~4X Intercessor output)
Apologies, I don't have a SM codex and they haven't updated BS as far as I can see, so correct any numbers that are incorrect.
My understanding is that Tacs are now 18ppm and the Grav for some reason remained the same at 10pts. You won't have a Special weapon because I still don't see any Marine player taking more than minimum squads. So likely you are going to be running 5 Marines, 1 with grav cannon for 100pts. (10 more if you want to upgrade the sgt's weapon)
Against Orkz thats 4 RF Bolters, 4 Grav shots. The 4 Bolters are 8 shots (if they stand still) for 5.33 hits and 2.66 wounds for 2.22 dead Ork boyz. The Grav Cannon math is very similar, 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.77 wounds and dead. Tacs at 100pts = basically 4 dead Orkz. This requires them to go 2nd otherwise they have to move to get into range which removes 50% of Bolter damage and 25% of grav dmg. Likewise, if you need those "Troops" to go cap an objective they similarly lose that as well.
In CC the Tacs get 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds and 3.3 dead Orkz.
5 Intercessors (same price) are 10 RF Bolt Rifle shots for 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and 3.33 dead Orkz, So .67 fewer dead Ork boyz. They are Range 30' though so they technically don't have to move, and if they go second they can easily move and get into RF half range and still get their full shots if the enemy moved forward to get the objective. For 2pts you can equip 1 of them with a grenade launcher and bang out 6 Shots instead of 2 at S3 no AP, this is an upgrade in dmg of about .44dmg against a horde unit.
In CC Those 5 intercessors get 17 attacks, 11.3 hits 5.66 wounds and 4.72 dead Orkz. (I didn't add in the -1AP for chainswords for either sgt which I think they get now?)
So intercessors are almost as good at shooting, compared to TACs with a heavy weapon upgrade, but more importantly in light of 9th play style requirements, IE. get on the objective and hold it with troops, Intercessors are significantly better than TACS at CC, roughly 31% better
So, shooting against one another the TACs will win thanks to the damage profile of the grav cannon and how its basically built to target Primaris Marines S5 -3AP and D3 dmg against 3+ saves. However, in an objective game where CC actually matters, those Intercessors pull ahead and easily win the fight thanks to their better CC profiles.
Especially in close groups , there are ways to migitate issues with factions and collections quite easy.
GK sucked hard, 100-200pts handicap.
R&H list ocmpletly fethed and half the issues still not FAQed? refer back to the older iteration adapt what pieces you can to reconstruct what should work in which manner.
Try do that with non close groups and you look at significantly longer negotiation times , well if you even can find someone willing to do so.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
Which would be a lot easier if those balance issues were smaller to begin with. If you know that 2000 points of army A = 2000 points of army B (within a small margin of error) then it becomes much easier to build interesting narrative scenarios involving stuff like imbalanced forces.
Nothing quite like taking what you intended to be a heroic last stand rearguard action against overwhelming odds akin to Thermopylae and ending up with a decisive slaughter of the attackers because that 1000 points of army A was actually more akin to 1500 points of army B and the terrain set up to simulate the defenders holding a strong defensive location made up the remaining 500 point discrepancy.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
How was it fun for marines to be target practice for multiple editions and now how is it fun for them to be OP Mary Sues?
I think this just shows how people are getting completely different experiences playing the same game. I go into each game with the expectation of having fun and knowing that it inherently isn't balanced. I make sure that I don't spam the best units not just because they are too good but because I want my opponent to have a good time too. Full disclosure: I have yet to win a game in 9th though the great majority have been close. I have had the best time ever playing this edition. I also refuse to play in tournaments for GW games. I came to the realization long ago that they simply cannot be balanced and it is a waste of time for me to try. I guess what I am saying is that we have vastly different expectations from our gaming experience and our degree of difference shows it.
The poster before me makes the inference that people that play the game casually do so because they aren't capable of comprehending competitive strategy. I personally am a tournament veteran having won ccg tournaments as well as gw events during 5th edition 40k and 6th edition fantasy. The biggest event I won was a 1500 player magic tournament so I take umbrage at that implication.
Brotherjanus wrote: I think this just shows how people are getting completely different experiences playing the same game. I go into each game with the expectation of having fun and knowing that it inherently isn't balanced. I make sure that I don't spam the best units not just because they are too good but because I want my opponent to have a good time too. Full disclosure: I have yet to win a game in 9th though the great majority have been close. I have had the best time ever playing this edition. I also refuse to play in tournaments for GW games. I came to the realization long ago that they simply cannot be balanced and it is a waste of time for me to try. I guess what I am saying is that we have vastly different expectations from our gaming experience and our degree of difference shows it.
I'm a little confused. So you are simultaneously not worried about marine vs necron balance, but also don't play tuned lists. So how do you know if you need to worry or not?
I don't worry because after seeing how they perform on the table I can see how to handle them. I think assault hellblasters will be popular this edition for their weight of str 6 shots for example.
Still beats by a rather large margin not playing at all to make up an opinion.
I mean, if one can change his opinion from "i can't win with SMs, they are trash" to "SMs are grossly OP and we shouldn't play with or against them" from YT battle reports, I'm sure playing while holding blows counts in making another.
Tyel wrote: I might be oblivious here - but what weapon are you putting on the Tacticals to suddenly make them massively outpace Intercessors versus elites/vehicles?
This isn't a gotcha - just a general missing something here. You get one heavy or special weapon (if my reading is right?) and I guess a combi-plas or something?
Spoiler:
Practically any weapon, but the Grav CAnnon is my go-to. The Multimelta is going to be a popular choice too.
1 Grav Cannon vs. Marines -- 4 x .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 = 2.94
1 Grav Cannon vs. Leman Russ Equivalent -- 4 x .666 x .333 x .83 x 2 = 1.47
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs MEQ --10 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 1.66
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs. LREQ -- 10 x .666 x .17 x . 5 = .56
A single Grav Cannon does more than the entire 5 man Intercessor Squad, and the Tactical Squad still has Bolters and a potential Special/Combi to fire. Imo Tacticals make Intercessors total chumps right now.
Edit: Adding in 3 Bolters and single OC Plasma shot:
5 Tacs vs. MEQ = 4.5 (~3X Intercessor output)
5 Tacs vs. LREQ = 2.25 (~4X Intercessor output)
Apologies, I don't have a SM codex and they haven't updated BS as far as I can see, so correct any numbers that are incorrect.
My understanding is that Tacs are now 18ppm and the Grav for some reason remained the same at 10pts. You won't have a Special weapon because I still don't see any Marine player taking more than minimum squads. So likely you are going to be running 5 Marines, 1 with grav cannon for 100pts. (10 more if you want to upgrade the sgt's weapon)
Against Orkz thats 4 RF Bolters, 4 Grav shots. The 4 Bolters are 8 shots (if they stand still) for 5.33 hits and 2.66 wounds for 2.22 dead Ork boyz. The Grav Cannon math is very similar, 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.77 wounds and dead. Tacs at 100pts = basically 4 dead Orkz. This requires them to go 2nd otherwise they have to move to get into range which removes 50% of Bolter damage and 25% of grav dmg. Likewise, if you need those "Troops" to go cap an objective they similarly lose that as well.
In CC the Tacs get 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds and 3.3 dead Orkz.
5 Intercessors (same price) are 10 RF Bolt Rifle shots for 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and 3.33 dead Orkz, So .67 fewer dead Ork boyz. They are Range 30' though so they technically don't have to move, and if they go second they can easily move and get into RF half range and still get their full shots if the enemy moved forward to get the objective. For 2pts you can equip 1 of them with a grenade launcher and bang out 6 Shots instead of 2 at S3 no AP, this is an upgrade in dmg of about .44dmg against a horde unit.
In CC Those 5 intercessors get 17 attacks, 11.3 hits 5.66 wounds and 4.72 dead Orkz. (I didn't add in the -1AP for chainswords for either sgt which I think they get now?)
So intercessors are almost as good at shooting, compared to TACs with a heavy weapon upgrade, but more importantly in light of 9th play style requirements, IE. get on the objective and hold it with troops, Intercessors are significantly better than TACS at CC, roughly 31% better
So, shooting against one another the TACs will win thanks to the damage profile of the grav cannon and how its basically built to target Primaris Marines S5 -3AP and D3 dmg against 3+ saves. However, in an objective game where CC actually matters, those Intercessors pull ahead and easily win the fight thanks to their better CC profiles.
The thing is, all of those Calculations are against Orks, which are targets that I'm just in no way concerned about when playing Marines. Being 31% better against Orks in CC isn't worth nearly as much as the Tacticals being 3X as good against MEQs, and 4X as good against LREQs at range. Playing Marines one has an abundance/over-abundance of ways to get more S4 attacks into the foe from either shooting or CC. When you combine that with the new Blast rules, dealing with hordes is a solved problem.
Two more things:
1. The Sergeant can get a Combi-weapon, so you can pack a Special into the squad along with the heavy with 5 guys.
2. The efficacy of the Tacticals degrades way slower because of the concentration of firepower in the Heavy/Combi/Special. Losing four Intercessors means you're at 20% the damage output at range. Losing four Tac Marines with only the Grav Cannon left means you're still putting out more firepower than the Intercessor Squad even had to begin with against MEQ+ targets.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
By your reasoning, I could say that narrative players are lazy/dumb/donkey caves who should stick to their fethed-up variation of the game and I will just stick to having fun.
A player's approach to the game is not a moral position. Competitive games are fun for some people. Non-tournament games can be competitive too, y'know.
A more balanced, tactical game for "competitive" play can always be adjusted by narrative players to suit their purposes. We can all play as we prefer with the same ruleset.
This is the standard argument made in opposition to balancing 40k: "Competitive players are bad people! My group makes adjustments to the rules so we all have fun, like you're s'posed to!" This argument is worthless. It's being angry towards an imagined group off players for the sake of it, without addressing anything of substance.
A balanced game is easier to riff narrative rules off of than an imbalanced game.
If I'm building a narrative campaign, what sort of rules do I want to make:
Marine Balancing: For this campaign, tactical marines are 10 pts more expensive (or don't have doctrines or whatever)
OR
Asteroid Rain: For battles fought on the planet Chortaxus IV, each player gets one free Orbital Lance Strike (per the Inquisition stratagem) in each of their command phases.
One of those is a cool narrative rule, and the other is a balance bandaid...
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
How was it fun for marines to be target practice for multiple editions and now how is it fun for them to be OP Mary Sues?
I think you're speaking to the wrong crowd about them being target practice. Dakka tradition is marines are never worse than "good" in the entire history of 40k and other armies should be jealous.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
How was it fun for marines to be target practice for multiple editions and now how is it fun for them to be OP Mary Sues?
I think you're speaking to the wrong crowd about them being target practice. Dakka tradition is marines are never worse than "good" in the entire history of 40k and other armies should be jealous.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
Tyel wrote: I might be oblivious here - but what weapon are you putting on the Tacticals to suddenly make them massively outpace Intercessors versus elites/vehicles?
This isn't a gotcha - just a general missing something here. You get one heavy or special weapon (if my reading is right?) and I guess a combi-plas or something?
Spoiler:
Practically any weapon, but the Grav CAnnon is my go-to. The Multimelta is going to be a popular choice too.
1 Grav Cannon vs. Marines -- 4 x .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 = 2.94
1 Grav Cannon vs. Leman Russ Equivalent -- 4 x .666 x .333 x .83 x 2 = 1.47
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs MEQ --10 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 1.66
5 RF Bolt Rifles vs. LREQ -- 10 x .666 x .17 x . 5 = .56
A single Grav Cannon does more than the entire 5 man Intercessor Squad, and the Tactical Squad still has Bolters and a potential Special/Combi to fire. Imo Tacticals make Intercessors total chumps right now.
Edit: Adding in 3 Bolters and single OC Plasma shot:
5 Tacs vs. MEQ = 4.5 (~3X Intercessor output)
5 Tacs vs. LREQ = 2.25 (~4X Intercessor output)
Apologies, I don't have a SM codex and they haven't updated BS as far as I can see, so correct any numbers that are incorrect.
My understanding is that Tacs are now 18ppm and the Grav for some reason remained the same at 10pts. You won't have a Special weapon because I still don't see any Marine player taking more than minimum squads. So likely you are going to be running 5 Marines, 1 with grav cannon for 100pts. (10 more if you want to upgrade the sgt's weapon)
Against Orkz thats 4 RF Bolters, 4 Grav shots. The 4 Bolters are 8 shots (if they stand still) for 5.33 hits and 2.66 wounds for 2.22 dead Ork boyz. The Grav Cannon math is very similar, 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.77 wounds and dead. Tacs at 100pts = basically 4 dead Orkz. This requires them to go 2nd otherwise they have to move to get into range which removes 50% of Bolter damage and 25% of grav dmg. Likewise, if you need those "Troops" to go cap an objective they similarly lose that as well.
In CC the Tacs get 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds and 3.3 dead Orkz.
5 Intercessors (same price) are 10 RF Bolt Rifle shots for 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and 3.33 dead Orkz, So .67 fewer dead Ork boyz. They are Range 30' though so they technically don't have to move, and if they go second they can easily move and get into RF half range and still get their full shots if the enemy moved forward to get the objective. For 2pts you can equip 1 of them with a grenade launcher and bang out 6 Shots instead of 2 at S3 no AP, this is an upgrade in dmg of about .44dmg against a horde unit.
In CC Those 5 intercessors get 17 attacks, 11.3 hits 5.66 wounds and 4.72 dead Orkz. (I didn't add in the -1AP for chainswords for either sgt which I think they get now?)
So intercessors are almost as good at shooting, compared to TACs with a heavy weapon upgrade, but more importantly in light of 9th play style requirements, IE. get on the objective and hold it with troops, Intercessors are significantly better than TACS at CC, roughly 31% better
So, shooting against one another the TACs will win thanks to the damage profile of the grav cannon and how its basically built to target Primaris Marines S5 -3AP and D3 dmg against 3+ saves. However, in an objective game where CC actually matters, those Intercessors pull ahead and easily win the fight thanks to their better CC profiles.
The thing is, all of those Calculations are against Orks, which are targets that I'm just in no way concerned about when playing Marines. Being 31% better against Orks in CC isn't worth nearly as much as the Tacticals being 3X as good against MEQs, and 4X as good against LREQs at range. Playing Marines one has an abundance/over-abundance of ways to get more S4 attacks into the foe from either shooting or CC. When you combine that with the new Blast rules, dealing with hordes is a solved problem.
Two more things:
1. The Sergeant can get a Combi-weapon, so you can pack a Special into the squad along with the heavy with 5 guys.
2. The efficacy of the Tacticals degrades way slower because of the concentration of firepower in the Heavy/Combi/Special. Losing four Intercessors means you're at 20% the damage output at range. Losing four Tac Marines with only the Grav Cannon left means you're still putting out more firepower than the Intercessor Squad even had to begin with against MEQ+ targets.
This is absolutely correct, and really shows the crazy power of that second wound. All these factors being brought up here was basically nullified for me by the single wound. That fancy grav cannon? I only need to inflict 5 wounds to silence it. That's a smite and a few bolter shots. They just bled points WAY too fast. But now? It's a major investment to get rid of one grav cannon. You're going to have to send 2 damage weapons or larger amounts of 1 damage. The difference between how 1 wound DC play and 2 wound DC is huge as well, especially considered that Dc have 6+++.
Insectum7 wrote: The thing is, all of those Calculations are against Orks, which are targets that I'm just in no way concerned about when playing Marines. Being 31% better against Orks in CC isn't worth nearly as much as the Tacticals being 3X as good against MEQs, and 4X as good against LREQs at range. Playing Marines one has an abundance/over-abundance of ways to get more S4 attacks into the foe from either shooting or CC. When you combine that with the new Blast rules, dealing with hordes is a solved problem.
Two more things:
1. The Sergeant can get a Combi-weapon, so you can pack a Special into the squad along with the heavy with 5 guys.
2. The efficacy of the Tacticals degrades way slower because of the concentration of firepower in the Heavy/Combi/Special. Losing four Intercessors means you're at 20% the damage output at range. Losing four Tac Marines with only the Grav Cannon left means you're still putting out more firepower than the Intercessor Squad even had to begin with against MEQ+ targets.
Even with Marines making up a rather large portion of the community, I think its like 15-20%, you are still more likely to come into contact with infantry that ISN'T rocking a 3+ save with multiple wounds, that is why I did the calculations against my own infantry. Against any statline that isn't multiple wounds with a 3+ the grav cannon is still good, but not as good as vs Space Marines. And again, you can have that grav cannon as the last model in the unit, if its tied up in CC it doesn't matter. With 9th's emphasis on holding objectives its a very relevant point.
As far as blast, I think people have heavily over-estimated the impact blast weapons have on the game. The average number of SHOTS just went from 3.5 to 6, So with a BS of 3+ that is only an extra 1.6 hits per weapon, if anything, bolter rules changing have been a more impactful rules change as far as Hordes are concerned.
I think you're speaking to the wrong crowd about them being target practice. Dakka tradition is marines are never worse than "good" in the entire history of 40k and other armies should be jealous.
I don't think you will find many players who think a "TACTICAL" Space Marine was "never worse than good". In previous editions they were under powered, in 8th they weren't. in 9th they are over powered. You conflating Tac Marine with Marine is a bad faith argument.
I'll even do you one better, ready? Terminators weren't good in previous editions.......*GASP*. Just because we point out the broken units in the codex doesn't mean we don't also point out the weak ones or accept facts like terminators sucking.
Tac marines were overpowered in early 3rd, but then began the slow degradation until the low point of late 7th.
But just looking at the realities of fielding tac marines vs mech vets in 5th ed. It was immersion-breaking joke. But 9th ed's "fix" is what people have feared for years.
SecondTime wrote: Tac marines were overpowered in early 3rd, but then began the slow degradation until the low point of late 7th.
But just looking at the realities of fielding tac marines vs mech vets in 5th ed. It was immersion-breaking joke. But 9th ed's "fix" is what people have feared for years.
yup, but there are several people in this forum who think any criticism of a broken SM unit is because "You hate Speese Mehreens" as opposed to "We hate broken, OP units that ruin the game". I love terminators, im glad they aren't complete trash anymore, I hope they figure out how to place Tac Marines in a place where they aren't garbage but aren't over powered. And honestly, I am not even that concerned with the 2nd wound mechanic for Tac Marines, I just think it needs to be more appropriately priced. I argue that Intercessors are slightly better overall because of 9ths emphasis on objectives which inherently means more CC, but you have people right now showing how Tacs are actually beating up those intercessors at ranged combat, and they are cheaper. So if Intercessors are over powered (They are) and Tac Marines can beat them at ranged combat in a 1v1 right, that doesn't mean Tacs are better, it just means both needs points hikes.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
By your reasoning, I could say that narrative players are lazy/dumb/donkey caves who should stick to their fethed-up variation of the game and I will just stick to having fun.
that's perfectly fine and the exact reasoning why there should even be more of a distinction between the 2. the game currently works fine if you're playing WITH some one. it doesn't work when you play AGAINST them.
GW just needs to make a feth you version of the game so players that want to feth over their opponent can do so in the most "balanced" way possible. y'know like taking max squads of unit X, wombo combo MTG-bs. if that's the kind of game you like, more power to you.
stop trying to make 40k a competitive game. as long as the goal of GW is to sell models and players will throw money at them to have the most powerful stuff, I hate to break it to ya, it ain't gonna happen.
SecondTime wrote: Tac marines were overpowered in early 3rd, but then began the slow degradation until the low point of late 7th.
But just looking at the realities of fielding tac marines vs mech vets in 5th ed. It was immersion-breaking joke. But 9th ed's "fix" is what people have feared for years.
yup, but there are several people in this forum who think any criticism of a broken SM unit is because "You hate Speese Mehreens" as opposed to "We hate broken, OP units that ruin the game". I love terminators, im glad they aren't complete trash anymore, I hope they figure out how to place Tac Marines in a place where they aren't garbage but aren't over powered. And honestly, I am not even that concerned with the 2nd wound mechanic for Tac Marines, I just think it needs to be more appropriately priced. I argue that Intercessors are slightly better overall because of 9ths emphasis on objectives which inherently means more CC, but you have people right now showing how Tacs are actually beating up those intercessors at ranged combat, and they are cheaper. So if Intercessors are over powered (They are) and Tac Marines can beat them at ranged combat in a 1v1 right, that doesn't mean Tacs are better, it just means both needs points hikes.
I don't think people hate space marines. They might hate the superior release schedule and allow that to color their judgment, though. I think there's a segment of the players who never witnessed great marine massacres because their play groups didn't field lists capable of such feats. Why they choose to not take reports of these massacres into account, I don't know. The same way I don't understand why GW allowed marines to languish rules-wise for so many editions.
I agree that points hikes might be the best course rather than yet another rules change. Pick a set of rules and then figure out what that set of rules should cost.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
By your reasoning, I could say that narrative players are lazy/dumb/donkey caves who should stick to their fethed-up variation of the game and I will just stick to having fun.
that's perfectly fine and the exact reasoning why there should even be more of a distinction between the 2. the game currently works fine if you're playing WITH some one. it doesn't work when you play AGAINST them.
GW just needs to make a feth you version of the game so players that want to feth over their opponent can do so in the most "balanced" way possible. y'know like taking max squads of unit X, wombo combo MTG-bs. if that's the kind of game you like, more power to you.
stop trying to make 40k a competitive game. as long as the goal of GW is to sell models and players will throw money at them to have the most powerful stuff, I hate to break it to ya, it ain't gonna happen.
As long as there is a winner and loser, it's a competitive game. Rogue trader games had GMs, which kept it more in the roleplay regime, but they were gone by 2nd. I've never had someone play WITH me in this game. It's always AGAINST. Now, there is a huge variation in just how against we are talking here. But players of GW games are notorious for twisting rules to their favor, even in other game genres. I've had to do more rules lawyering in GW games than all other games combined, including other wargames. Anecdotal, but supportive of the broader perception.
As an example of my playgroup, I regularly remind my opponents and they remind me when something would be good to use or do. Sure I might win if my opponent forgets to shoot one of his units or chooses the wrong target to shoot because he forgot what my stuff does but I'm not there for the gotcha moment. That is exclusively for tournaments and I am truly sorry that not everyone has a group to play that let's them relax and enjoy the game.
Insectum7 wrote: The thing is, all of those Calculations are against Orks, which are targets that I'm just in no way concerned about when playing Marines. Being 31% better against Orks in CC isn't worth nearly as much as the Tacticals being 3X as good against MEQs, and 4X as good against LREQs at range. Playing Marines one has an abundance/over-abundance of ways to get more S4 attacks into the foe from either shooting or CC. When you combine that with the new Blast rules, dealing with hordes is a solved problem.
Two more things:
1. The Sergeant can get a Combi-weapon, so you can pack a Special into the squad along with the heavy with 5 guys.
2. The efficacy of the Tacticals degrades way slower because of the concentration of firepower in the Heavy/Combi/Special. Losing four Intercessors means you're at 20% the damage output at range. Losing four Tac Marines with only the Grav Cannon left means you're still putting out more firepower than the Intercessor Squad even had to begin with against MEQ+ targets.
Even with Marines making up a rather large portion of the community, I think its like 15-20%, you are still more likely to come into contact with infantry that ISN'T rocking a 3+ save with multiple wounds, that is why I did the calculations against my own infantry. Against any statline that isn't multiple wounds with a 3+ the grav cannon is still good, but not as good as vs Space Marines. And again, you can have that grav cannon as the last model in the unit, if its tied up in CC it doesn't matter. With 9th's emphasis on holding objectives its a very relevant point.
As far as blast, I think people have heavily over-estimated the impact blast weapons have on the game. The average number of SHOTS just went from 3.5 to 6, So with a BS of 3+ that is only an extra 1.6 hits per weapon, if anything, bolter rules changing have been a more impactful rules change as far as Hordes are concerned.
Sure, but even armies that aren't fielding Space Marines are going to field target with multiple wounds, like LREQs, which the Grav-Cannon (or whatever) still vastly outperforms over the Intercessors. Because splitting fire is a thing, I can just point the Grav Cannon at the right target while the bolters do their thing against cheaper models. And even without pointing the big gun at heavier targets, the five Tacticals with a Grav Cannon are still better at shooting Tau, Necrons, Daemons, Eldar troops than the Intercessors with Bolt Rifles, in addition to being better against Marines and Vehicles (and that's not even counting a gun upgrade fort he Sarge). Tacticals are simply better at engaging a much wider array of targets, granting far more flexibility in terms of ranged board control. And the more stuff you kill at range, the less stuff you have to deal with in CC.
I play UM so being tied up in CC is rarely a thing for me to begin with. In fact since the modifiers are now capped at -1, a Grav Cannon falling back and firing is now more effective than it was before 9th.
As for Blasts, you're still looking at a 50% increase in output for D3, and a 75ish% increase in output for D6. That's hardly anything to spit at, especially when you're looking at things like Plasma Cannons and Thunderfires. I'm not sure what Bolter rules you're referring to (Bolter Discipline?), but since they're Bolters the Tacticals are benefitting from them anyways.
Brotherjanus wrote: As an example of my playgroup, I regularly remind my opponents and they remind me when something would be good to use or do. Sure I might win if my opponent forgets to shoot one of his units or chooses the wrong target to shoot because he forgot what my stuff does but I'm not there for the gotcha moment. That is exclusively for tournaments and I am truly sorry that not everyone has a group to play that let's them relax and enjoy the game.
I do that too quite often. Doesn't mean its still not a competition. I just don't want to win because of a gotcha. That doesn't mean I'm still not bringing the most brutal list imaginable to maximize the competitive challenge I present to others.
"I play UM so being tied up in CC is rarely a thing for me to begin with."
Then you need to play against wrap and trap foes more often. Against late 8th ed BA, UM basically didn't have a chapter tactic, because we would never let you use it. That being said a single attack per model on models with no CC weapons isn't very exciting.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
As long as there is a winner and loser, it's a competitive game. Rogue trader games had GMs, which kept it more in the roleplay regime, but they were gone by 2nd. I've never had someone play WITH me in this game. It's always AGAINST. Now, there is a huge variation in just how against we are talking here. But players of GW games are notorious for twisting rules to their favor, even in other game genres. I've had to do more rules lawyering in GW games than all other games combined, including other wargames. Anecdotal, but supportive of the broader perception.
And as a counterpoint wour group plays 'with', not 'against'. We have played with an approach that can best be described as 'collaborative game building' for about five years now.
Here's the question though. You touch on it yourself. How 'against' are we talking?
If there is a winner and a loser, and is therefore a 'competitive' game, how far can the competitive aspect be pushed and how appropriate is it to do this? What does 'competitive' mean and look like? What is the 'cost' of competitive (against other aspects of the game, for example) and is it worth it?
You can very easily get into win at all cost and competitive at all cost territory and often, even without meaning to, your actions can contribute to a toxification of the environment.
So how far?
From my pov, there being a winner and a loser does not detract or prevent collaborative game building, which is what the GM helped with in RT. I want a fair fight and an interesting scenario. This is not a weird approach - outside of the gw sphere, And especially in historical gaming, you see this kind of thing very often. Collaborative game building is the bedrock of narrative gaming, and a very different approach from the 'list-building-for-advantage, blind match up competitive/often verging on competitive at all.costs gaming that pug gaming often becomes.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
I'm trying to create as many problems for my foe as possible. That's why I'm an opponent. I'm not here to throw the game.
As long as there is a winner and loser, it's a competitive game. Rogue trader games had GMs, which kept it more in the roleplay regime, but they were gone by 2nd. I've never had someone play WITH me in this game. It's always AGAINST. Now, there is a huge variation in just how against we are talking here. But players of GW games are notorious for twisting rules to their favor, even in other game genres. I've had to do more rules lawyering in GW games than all other games combined, including other wargames. Anecdotal, but supportive of the broader perception.
And as a counterpoint wour group plays 'with', not 'against'. We have played with an approach that can best be described as 'collaborative game building' for about five years now.
Here's the question though. You touch on it yourself. How 'against' are we talking?
If there is a winner and a loser, and is therefore a 'competitive' game, how far can the competitive aspect be pushed and how appropriate is it to do this? What does 'competitive' mean and look like? What is the 'cost' of competitive (against other aspects of the game, for example) and is it worth it?
You can very easily get into win at all cost and competitive at all cost territory and often, even without meaning to, your actions can contribute to a toxification of the environment.
So how far?
From my pov, there being a winner and a loser does not detract or prevent collaborative game building, which is what the GM helped with in RT. I want a fair fight and an interesting scenario. This is not a weird approach - outside of the gw sphere, And especially in historical gaming, you see this kind of thing very often. Collaborative game building is the bedrock of narrative gaming, and a very different approach from the 'list-building-for-advantage, blind match up competitive/often verging on competitive at all.costs gaming that pug gaming often becomes.
Historical games have boundaries and real outcomes to measure against. GW has no such limitations. GW could put pseudo-historical restrictions on list building. They choose not to, thereby validating the list building for advantage paradigm.
As long as there is a winner and loser, it's a competitive game. Rogue trader games had GMs, which kept it more in the roleplay regime, but they were gone by 2nd. I've never had someone play WITH me in this game. It's always AGAINST. Now, there is a huge variation in just how against we are talking here. But players of GW games are notorious for twisting rules to their favor, even in other game genres. I've had to do more rules lawyering in GW games than all other games combined, including other wargames. Anecdotal, but supportive of the broader perception.
And as a counterpoint wour group plays 'with', not 'against'. We have played with an approach that can best be described as 'collaborative game building' for about five years now.
Here's the question though. You touch on it yourself. How 'against' are we talking?
If there is a winner and a loser, and is therefore a 'competitive' game, how far can the competitive aspect be pushed and how appropriate is it to do this? What does 'competitive' mean and look like? What is the 'cost' of competitive (against other aspects of the game, for example) and is it worth it?
You can very easily get into win at all cost and competitive at all cost territory and often, even without meaning to, your actions can contribute to a toxification of the environment.
So how far?
From my pov, there being a winner and a loser does not detract or prevent collaborative game building, which is what the GM helped with in RT. I want a fair fight and an interesting scenario. This is not a weird approach - outside of the gw sphere, And especially in historical gaming, you see this kind of thing very often. Collaborative game building is the bedrock of narrative gaming, and a very different approach from the 'list-building-for-advantage, blind match up competitive/often verging on competitive at all.costs gaming that pug gaming often becomes.
Imo it should basically function like an olde-time duel. You set the rules for the duel beforehand, then you play with honor while going for the throat in the competitive sense.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
I'm trying to create as many problems for my foe as possible. That's why I'm an opponent. I'm not here to throw the game.
You do know you replied to a conversation about casual narrative games with a die hard competitive response, right?
Yeah. What Insectum said - I play to win within the confines of the game, but before the game when making choices I base them on narrative.
For example, in a mechanized army, I might say "I won't take any models that don't have a seat in a transport." That's not a restriction anyone else put on me, but it is one I put for myself due to the narrative of this (mechanized) army.
The problem is people with different restrictions. Someone might have the narrative of "My commander is the bestest ever and will chose whatever tactically advantages him in the next battle!" thereby validating list-tailoring or taking the best list. And who am I to argue? I disagree and will probably not play that person, but it isn't because they're not being narrative.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
By your reasoning, I could say that narrative players are lazy/dumb/donkey caves who should stick to their fethed-up variation of the game and I will just stick to having fun.
that's perfectly fine and the exact reasoning why there should even be more of a distinction between the 2. the game currently works fine if you're playing WITH some one. it doesn't work when you play AGAINST them.
GW just needs to make a feth you version of the game so players that want to feth over their opponent can do so in the most "balanced" way possible. y'know like taking max squads of unit X, wombo combo MTG-bs. if that's the kind of game you like, more power to you.
stop trying to make 40k a competitive game. as long as the goal of GW is to sell models and players will throw money at them to have the most powerful stuff, I hate to break it to ya, it ain't gonna happen.
You misunderstand that, for a game to be competitive, it also needs to be relatively well-balanced so that the main factor is player skill during the game. Playing to win isn't about 'fething over" your opponent, its having a hard-fought, tense battle where both of you are doing your best to win.
You are also (disingenuously, I might add) attempting to mold a game that pits players against each other into a co-op game. You want to play in teams? Or work together to reach a desired outcome? That's fine, but you don't need a separate ruleset to ignore rules, or create your own.
You don't even have an argument, you just want to bash "those players," and ensure they they can't play the sane game as you.
SecondTime wrote: "You do know you replied to a conversation about casual narrative games with a die hard competitive response, right?"
It's not die hard. I'm not willing to bend rules, misinterpret rules to my advantage, etc.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Well no, because that's not what a narrative environment is. If we're agreeing to play a game where we're defending an imperial town against an ork waaagh. The ork player has a couple of units of boyz, some trucks, some nobz, a plane and a few dreads, I.e. a fluffy balanced ork list, then you rock up with 18 salamanders eradicators, a bucket load of bladeguard and w/e flavour of the week is, you've missed the point.
I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
How far do you take this? Tripointing makes no sense for BA death company models. Yet, it's perfectly legal and was almost mandatory in 8th ed.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
A balanced game with good army viability would permit a "this list won three tourneys last month, that's why I brought it" to be on an even playing field with a kroot merc army that picks secondaries and relics (at least assuming that army was intended to exist by the designers). And the battle should tell a good story, too, with opportunities for heroism and failure on both sides. Player skill would determine the winner, rather than simply what models are available to what side.
A one-sided battle isn't narratively compelling. "Oh, my Eldar tried their hardest, killed no one, and were wiped out to a man. My warlord escaped after getting his head bashed in because the enemy had to let them go" isn't a good story. So yes, I have to balance the game for the players - or, alternatively, I could trust the actual game designers to actually design the game.
A perfect example of where a narrative game can be skewed by rules is in the Bucklebury Ferry scenario for the LOTR SBG.
On the side of good you have Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. On the side of Evil you have 3 Ringwraiths. If Frodo makes it to to the opposite board edge, which involves crossing the Brandywine river, then Good wins. If Frodo is slain, Evil wins.
So what is the problem? The Ringwraiths start spread out, are subject to rules which simulate them searching for the Hobbits and so cannot all immediately head to their location, and their statline only had a single attack and a single wound. The Hobbits also only had a single attack each but there were four of them and Frodo and Sam both had 2 wounds. So the Hobbits had a greater chance of winning a fight against an individual wraith from rolling more dice (especially if they manage to get the wraith into a position where it is trapped, which doubles their attacks against it) and then could fish for sixes to kill them.
So instead of running away, it was a viable strategy to go Ringwraith hunting with your band of Hobbits.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
How far do you take this? Tripointing makes no sense for BA death company models. Yet, it's perfectly legal and was almost mandatory in 8th ed.
"The death company were lost to rage and refused to let their prey escape, surrounding them on all sides to keep them penned in while they attacked blindly. Their allies watched on with renewed hatred, eager to enact vengeance. "
Or if you were penned in: "the death company would not leave one of their own behind, the insult of seeing one of their own isolated and cut off pushing them to greater fits of rage."
Moreover, it was a core mechanic and made no sense for anyone really.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
How far do you take this? Tripointing makes no sense for BA death company models. Yet, it's perfectly legal and was almost mandatory in 8th ed.
"The death company were lost to rage and refused to let their prey escape, surrounding them on all sides to keep them penned in while they attacked blindly. Their allies watched on with renewed hatred, eager to enact vengeance. "
Or if you were penned in: "the death company would not leave one of their own behind, the insult of seeing one of their own isolated and cut off pushing them to greater fits of rage."
Moreover, it was a core mechanic and made no sense for anyone really.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
A balanced game with good army viability would permit a "this list won three tourneys last month, that's why I brought it" to be on an even playing field with a kroot merc army that picks secondaries and relics (at least assuming that army was intended to exist by the designers). And the battle should tell a good story, too, with opportunities for heroism and failure on both sides. Player skill would determine the winner, rather than simply what models are available to what side.
A one-sided battle isn't narratively compelling. "Oh, my Eldar tried their hardest, killed no one, and were wiped out to a man. My warlord escaped after getting his head bashed in because the enemy had to let them go" isn't a good story. So yes, I have to balance the game for the players - or, alternatively, I could trust the actual game designers to actually design the game.
Y'know. The guys at GW.
You're right but you can never cover that element of perspective and player onus. The person bringing the tourney list is doing it to kick face in, not because their army has a story behind it.
Even if the fluff list were balanced against it near enough, the players play styles and how they think and approach the game can still be incompatible.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
How far do you take this? Tripointing makes no sense for BA death company models. Yet, it's perfectly legal and was almost mandatory in 8th ed.
"The death company were lost to rage and refused to let their prey escape, surrounding them on all sides to keep them penned in while they attacked blindly. Their allies watched on with renewed hatred, eager to enact vengeance. "
Or if you were penned in: "the death company would not leave one of their own behind, the insult of seeing one of their own isolated and cut off pushing them to greater fits of rage."
Moreover, it was a core mechanic and made no sense for anyone really.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
Dudeface wrote: You're right but you can never cover that element of perspective and player onus. The person bringing the tourney list is doing it to kick face in, not because their army has a story behind it.
Even if the fluff list were balanced against it near enough, the players play styles and how they think and approach the game can still be incompatible.
But that's okay. It should be okay for one person to show up as a cutthroat competitive player and one person to show up as narrative. If the game is balanced, then the cutthroat competitive player can display his skill, and it has nothing to do with the army.
If an 18 eradicators list won a tournament a week ago, but it wasn't piloted by Timmy, and Timmy brings it to a narrative event, it shouldn't beat face nearly as badly. Because it shouldn't be the 18 eradicators that make the list win, but rather the skill of the pilot. Timmy, the unskilled pilot, should lose to Johnny, the skilled pilot, even if it's 18 eradicators vs. Kroot Mercenaries. That's what balance is - making player skill, rather than list contents, the defining factor of victory.
I don't deny that play style and how they think and approach the game can have an effect, but back in 5th edition I remember watching a Tallarn player with a very balanced, ho-hum fluffy Imperial Guard army absolutely TROUNCE a Grey Knights powerlist. The Tallarn player wasn't a tournament player, but he was a very very very skilled narrative player who had "seen it all before" and knew how to handle the threats that the GK were providing. He knew when to parry and hold up the enemy with his infantry while his ordnance pounded a critical asset, then when to switch targets and reposition the infantry into an offensive position. He knew when to thrust with armor, or do an overhanded cudgel-like swing with huge infantry blobs. It was a glorious joy to watch, and the GK powerlist guy was simply outmaneuvered at every turn by a player who had 0 tournament wins in his life - not because the GK list was bad, but because the pilot was terrible at using the provided assets.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Lol, 120 Hormagaunts is commitment for 2nd ed.
That'd be a fight and a half.
And someone figured that out within a few WEEKS of it dropping. With no netlisting. Just simple gamesmanship of how to abuse the "shoot closest thing" rule. GW could have limited hormagaunts. They didn't. Therefore, 120 must be just fine.
Dudeface wrote: You're right but you can never cover that element of perspective and player onus. The person bringing the tourney list is doing it to kick face in, not because their army has a story behind it.
Even if the fluff list were balanced against it near enough, the players play styles and how they think and approach the game can still be incompatible.
But that's okay. It should be okay for one person to show up as a cutthroat competitive player and one person to show up as narrative. If the game is balanced, then the cutthroat competitive player can display his skill, and it has nothing to do with the army.
If an 18 eradicators list won a tournament a week ago, but it wasn't piloted by Timmy, and Timmy brings it to a narrative event, it shouldn't beat face nearly as badly. Because it shouldn't be the 18 eradicators that make the list win, but rather the skill of the pilot. Timmy, the unskilled pilot, should lose to Johnny, the skilled pilot, even if it's 18 eradicators vs. Kroot Mercenaries. That's what balance is - making player skill, rather than list contents, the defining factor of victory.
I don't deny that play style and how they think and approach the game can have an effect, but back in 5th edition I remember watching a Tallarn player with a very balanced, ho-hum fluffy Imperial Guard army absolutely TROUNCE a Grey Knights powerlist. The Tallarn player wasn't a tournament player, but he was a very very very skilled narrative player who had "seen it all before" and knew how to handle the threats that the GK were providing. He knew when to parry and hold up the enemy with his infantry while his ordnance pounded a critical asset, then when to switch targets and reposition the infantry into an offensive position. He knew when to thrust with armor, or do an overhanded cudgel-like swing with huge infantry blobs. It was a glorious joy to watch, and the GK powerlist guy was simply outmaneuvered at every turn by a player who had 0 tournament wins in his life - not because the GK list was bad, but because the pilot was terrible at using the provided assets.
That 5th ed example sounds ideal, thats where I think people uniformly would like it to be now, but once you get it to the point where the human part of the game is the deciding factor it's a winner.
Not to say those 2 people will enjoy their experiences but the ability to win should be even, agreed.
But with GW, we get gak like 8th ed BA 2.0. This codex was codex: tripoint. Once I started shamelessly abusing tripoint, the army suddenly magically worked despite the mechanic making zero sense. Without tripoint, it was just a series of unfavorable exchanges for BA.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
Dudeface wrote: You're right but you can never cover that element of perspective and player onus. The person bringing the tourney list is doing it to kick face in, not because their army has a story behind it.
Even if the fluff list were balanced against it near enough, the players play styles and how they think and approach the game can still be incompatible.
But that's okay. It should be okay for one person to show up as a cutthroat competitive player and one person to show up as narrative. If the game is balanced, then the cutthroat competitive player can display his skill, and it has nothing to do with the army.
If an 18 eradicators list won a tournament a week ago, but it wasn't piloted by Timmy, and Timmy brings it to a narrative event, it shouldn't beat face nearly as badly. Because it shouldn't be the 18 eradicators that make the list win, but rather the skill of the pilot. Timmy, the unskilled pilot, should lose to Johnny, the skilled pilot, even if it's 18 eradicators vs. Kroot Mercenaries. That's what balance is - making player skill, rather than list contents, the defining factor of victory.
I don't deny that play style and how they think and approach the game can have an effect, but back in 5th edition I remember watching a Tallarn player with a very balanced, ho-hum fluffy Imperial Guard army absolutely TROUNCE a Grey Knights powerlist. The Tallarn player wasn't a tournament player, but he was a very very very skilled narrative player who had "seen it all before" and knew how to handle the threats that the GK were providing. He knew when to parry and hold up the enemy with his infantry while his ordnance pounded a critical asset, then when to switch targets and reposition the infantry into an offensive position. He knew when to thrust with armor, or do an overhanded cudgel-like swing with huge infantry blobs. It was a glorious joy to watch, and the GK powerlist guy was simply outmaneuvered at every turn by a player who had 0 tournament wins in his life - not because the GK list was bad, but because the pilot was terrible at using the provided assets.
You're basically describing Leaf Blower and that was a good list in 5th...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're basically describing Leaf Blower and that was a good list in 5th...
Leafblower used Chimera tanks and artillery extensively. The list I am describing includes large blobs of infantry and Leman Russ tanks (unless you plan and execute an armored thrust with medusas and basilisks ). So no, but thanks anyways.
Additionally, Leafblower was good in 5th only before the release of the GK codex.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
The guard player could take fewer points worth, they could give the dark eldar player extra cp, he'll if that bad give them a round of shooting before turn 1. There are other ways that don't involve "go buy stuff". If you buy, build and paint 1 list and never have spares or options, every chapter approved must be a tough time.
The rules could be better balanced, you're right,it would be better, you're right. So what do you expect people to do in the mean time?
SecondTime wrote:But with GW, we get gak like 8th ed BA 2.0. This codex was codex: tripoint. Once I started shamelessly abusing tripoint, the army suddenly magically worked despite the mechanic making zero sense. Without tripoint, it was just a series of unfavorable exchanges for BA.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're basically describing Leaf Blower and that was a good list in 5th...
Leafblower used Chimera tanks and artillery extensively. The list I am describing includes large blobs of infantry and Leman Russ tanks (unless you plan and execute an armored thrust with medusas and basilisks ). So no, but thanks anyways.
Additionally, Leafblower was good in 5th only before the release of the GK codex.
Oh it still wiped up the lesser power armor lists like they were children. Part of that immersion breaking I was talking about.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're basically describing Leaf Blower and that was a good list in 5th...
Leafblower used Chimera tanks and artillery extensively. The list I am describing includes large blobs of infantry and Leman Russ tanks (unless you plan and execute an armored thrust with medusas and basilisks ). So no, but thanks anyways.
Additionally, Leafblower was good in 5th only before the release of the GK codex.
Oh it still wiped up the lesser power armor lists like they were children. Part of that immersion breaking I was talking about.
Right. I'm not saying 5th was balanced; merely showing an example of a netlist getting smashed by a not-netlist because of a difference in player skill to emphasize my point.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
The guard player could take fewer points worth, they could give the dark eldar player extra cp, he'll if that bad give them a round of shooting before turn 1. There are other ways that don't involve "go buy stuff". If you buy, build and paint 1 list and never have spares or options, every chapter approved must be a tough time.
The rules could be better balanced, you're right,it would be better, you're right. So what do you expect people to do in the mean time?
SecondTime wrote:But with GW, we get gak like 8th ed BA 2.0. This codex was codex: tripoint. Once I started shamelessly abusing tripoint, the army suddenly magically worked despite the mechanic making zero sense. Without tripoint, it was just a series of unfavorable exchanges for BA.
What has that got to do with anything?
My point is HOW units are used can be counter to narrative themes as well. So why stop at list composition? Why not enforce narrative tactics as well? This is why I don't like the narrative "fix".
]Historical games have boundaries and real outcomes to measure against. GW has no such limitations. GW could put pseudo-historical restrictions on list building. They choose not to, thereby validating the list building for advantage paradigm.
At all times? Under any and all circumstances?
They have boundaries and real outcomes in the broadest sense but most historical games are as 'speculative' as gw games. Germany might have lost ww2 for example, but in the scale of games like bolt action or even flames of war, there's no reason that they can't have won battles or skirmishes even though in the big picture they lost the war.
And ultimately, just like gw games there are a lot of 'scripts' to choose from. Tank battles? City siege. Paratrooper skirmish etc. There are huge amounts of gaps and unknowns in the historical record. It's not about reenacting battles so much as 'reflecting' them and 'this is the kind of thing that could have happened' is the norm.
Gw can put pseudo-historical limits on things. So can the players themselves. gw in my experience are a 'hands-off' compwny. Let the players play the game they want to play. Everyone wants something different. And Relative list building can lead to outcomes that are just as competitive as absolute list building. Just because you can go absolutely all out in list building doesn't mean it's always appropriate. It's a Central tenet of those of us who enjoy narrative games more so than competitive, or competitive at all costs
And you didn't answer my question. I never said list building for advantage' was an invalid paradigm. I asked how far is it ok to push 'competitive'.
I certainly don't think its okay to change lists after lists are revealed. So that's a baseline for me.
I'm also talking REAL historical games, where the scenario gives you your order of battle and there is no list building at all. Not flames of war or bolt action. In these scenarios, you are trying get a better result than the historical outcome. GW has no historical outcomes, and never provides fixed orders of battle for their pseudo-historical battles.
The problem with being a "hands off company" is that they charge $50 for hands-off rules.
If I wanted to pay $50 to have to do someone else's work for them, I'd ... well, I wouldn't like it very much. If the rules were free? or like $5? Sure, whatever, go ham, I'll change what I need just like putting sugar in the coffee. But I can't even get the 40k rules I need to play for $50, let alone 5. At least not legally.
SecondTime wrote:But with GW, we get gak like 8th ed BA 2.0. This codex was codex: tripoint. Once I started shamelessly abusing tripoint, the army suddenly magically worked despite the mechanic making zero sense. Without tripoint, it was just a series of unfavorable exchanges for BA.
What has that got to do with anything?
My point is HOW units are used can be counter to narrative themes as well. So why stop at list composition? Why not enforce narrative tactics as well? This is why I don't like the narrative "fix".
But you're complaining your army worked once you used the rules? I'm not arguing tripoint makes sense on any level, but you fixed your army by learning to play using core rules, what's the problem?
Tripointing is a skill you use as part of assault, you just got better at using assault units to assault things, it's not unrealistic to try and cut down a foe instead of letting them walk away.
Thinking about it the fall back rule is less narratively appealing than tripointing, though both only make half sense.
SecondTime wrote:But with GW, we get gak like 8th ed BA 2.0. This codex was codex: tripoint. Once I started shamelessly abusing tripoint, the army suddenly magically worked despite the mechanic making zero sense. Without tripoint, it was just a series of unfavorable exchanges for BA.
What has that got to do with anything?
My point is HOW units are used can be counter to narrative themes as well. So why stop at list composition? Why not enforce narrative tactics as well? This is why I don't like the narrative "fix".
But you're complaining your army worked once you used the rules? I'm not arguing tripoint makes sense on any level, but you fixed your army by learning to play using core rules, what's the problem?
Tripointing is a skill you use as part of assault, you just got better at using assault units to assault things, it's not unrealistic to try and cut down a foe instead of letting them walk away.
You say "used". I say "exploited". It's a problem precisely because it makes no sense at all. I don't want it part of my narrative. Yet, because GW put fallback in the game, I have to. This is as problematic to me as points values.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
The guard player could take fewer points worth, they could give the dark eldar player extra cp, he'll if that bad give them a round of shooting before turn 1. There are other ways that don't involve "go buy stuff". If you buy, build and paint 1 list and never have spares or options, every chapter approved must be a tough time.
The rules could be better balanced, you're right,it would be better, you're right. So what do you expect people to do in the mean time?
That's breaking the game itself to give a bunch of additives. That's not balance whether that comes from you or GW themselves (Gladius y'all). So in the meantime don't give GW money for what you admit is a bad job.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
Indeed. A key skill of tripointing is to surround models while having inflicted zero damage on that unit. If you can't charge the intersection of two units, you are forced to do the "put only one DC within engagement range" trick. Every time I did it, I had to remind my opponent (and myself) that if I didn't do this, I'd lose every model easily on his turn. Because GW undercosted firepower in 8th and overcosted 1W marines.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
They're described as reliving the siege of terra, they fight against what they precieve to be the warmasters forces, throwing aside any regard for their own survival. That doesn't mean they're blind berserkers, that comes after with the red thirst.
I'm sure they'd rather not let the unit of fire warriors casually walk away from them rather than surround a foe and butcher them.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
The guard player could take fewer points worth, they could give the dark eldar player extra cp, he'll if that bad give them a round of shooting before turn 1. There are other ways that don't involve "go buy stuff". If you buy, build and paint 1 list and never have spares or options, every chapter approved must be a tough time.
The rules could be better balanced, you're right,it would be better, you're right. So what do you expect people to do in the mean time?
That's breaking the game itself to give a bunch of additives. That's not balance whether that comes from you or GW themselves (Gladius y'all). So in the meantime don't give GW money for what you admit is a bad job.
So don't play, or do you want to break forum rules and promote piracy?
SecondTime wrote: Read the above procedure and tell me how that makes sense.
Tripointing is the act of surrounding a model in a unit so they can't fall back, nothing says you have to try to not kill your enemy.
If you're losing repeatedly by actually attacking them, no that's not good enough. I'm pretty confident there were other ways around it, but not if you're playing competitive games, which you admit you were.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The problem with being a "hands off company" is that they charge $50 for hands-off rules.
If I wanted to pay $50 to have to do someone else's work for them, I'd ... well, I wouldn't like it very much. If the rules were free? or like $5? Sure, whatever, go ham, I'll change what I need just like putting sugar in the coffee. But I can't even get the 40k rules I need to play for $50, let alone 5. At least not legally.
Um, firstly, people buy them... Gw charge that much and people still pay. Put yourself in their shoes. This is something people want. You run a business, it makes sense to chase the easy money and cater. Books are cheap to print.
Ultimately you pay gw for their products, after the fact, they don't give a guardsman's cuss what you do with them. personslly I enjoy a codex for stuff other than the rules as well, so for me what I pay is worth it to me (I don't pay gw for their rules 'ahem', quality, I pay them for the cool models and the amazing IP. Rules I'll bodge thank you)
And this might surprise you - you can play the game however you want. you don't need to 'chase the rules dragon' if you don't want to. I played a game of 4th ed a while back. It was fun. Gw won't break down the door if you house rule a few things.
There's nothing wrong with it so don't assume it's some declaration of failure. Some people actively enjoy tinkering with a system. We did it with an osprey set of rules a while back (dux bellorum. I don't think we played the rules the same way for more than three or four games.always tinkering and enjoying ourselves).take home message: Everyone wants something different. People like me are just happier to try to accommodate rather than blindly adhering to the rules which cannot be questioned, or deviated from under any circumstances.
But that's okay. It should be okay for one person to show up as a cutthroat competitive player and one person to show up as narrative. If the game is balanced, then the cutthroat competitive player can display his skill, and it has nothing to do with the army.
.
I'm pretty sure this game is a unicorn and like unicorns, doesnt actually exist.
In the meantime we are left with the actual reality that ttg's are crude, limited systems and simply can't hold up to the pressure generated by anything even remotely resembling 'competitive' gaming.
SecondTime wrote: "nothing says you have to try to not kill your enemy."
Battleshock rules say you do.
Also, the point of telling people that they can't use their models because they are too good for the narrative scenario seems really crappy still.
Nobody is telling anyone anything, two people can have a discourse about how to balance a game out. There is no dictator here.
I'll sum this up and call it a night for me with:
Why can't people just be human beings and discuss solutions to their problems if it bothers you so much. It doesn't matter if GW did a bad job, you're both there to have fun. Find a way to do that if the default isn't fun for you both.
That is the underlying message in a casual/narrative group. Not who should win. It's making sure everyone has fun.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Lol, 120 Hormagaunts is commitment for 2nd ed.
That'd be a fight and a half.
And someone figured that out within a few WEEKS of it dropping. With no netlisting. Just simple gamesmanship of how to abuse the "shoot closest thing" rule. GW could have limited hormagaunts. They didn't. Therefore, 120 must be just fine.
Well I once ran 40 discs of Tzeentch at some point, so I'm not too surprised somebody tried some ridiculous nid spamming. I can't imagine they actually bought the models for that though.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Lol, 120 Hormagaunts is commitment for 2nd ed.
That'd be a fight and a half.
And someone figured that out within a few WEEKS of it dropping. With no netlisting. Just simple gamesmanship of how to abuse the "shoot closest thing" rule. GW could have limited hormagaunts. They didn't. Therefore, 120 must be just fine.
Well I once ran 40 discs of Tzeentch at some point, so I'm not too surprised somebody tried some ridiculous nid spamming. I can't imagine they actually bought the models for that though.
THey worked at the store, and as such got a discount.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Lol, 120 Hormagaunts is commitment for 2nd ed.
That'd be a fight and a half.
And someone figured that out within a few WEEKS of it dropping. With no netlisting. Just simple gamesmanship of how to abuse the "shoot closest thing" rule. GW could have limited hormagaunts. They didn't. Therefore, 120 must be just fine.
Well I once ran 40 discs of Tzeentch at some point, so I'm not too surprised somebody tried some ridiculous nid spamming. I can't imagine they actually bought the models for that though.
THey worked at the store, and as such got a discount.
Bonkers.
It'd be fun to figure out how to handle that list.
I'd start with lots of plasma missiles and plasma grenades, they block LOS, movement and can expand to murder huge expanses of gaunts.
Edit2: and a batch of Rhinos to drive through them and set up barricades.
Edit3: Oh hell yeah. Hormagaunts can't hurt Rhinos at all. I'd load up troops in Rhinos and just drive through them, running as many of them over as I can, while firing flamers and throwing grenades out the hatches. Six models could fire from the hatches. Then I'd roll through the Hormagaunts, right up to the Genestealers and hit them with everything I had.
Unit1126PLL wrote: The problem with being a "hands off company" is that they charge $50 for hands-off rules.
If I wanted to pay $50 to have to do someone else's work for them, I'd ... well, I wouldn't like it very much. If the rules were free? or like $5? Sure, whatever, go ham, I'll change what I need just like putting sugar in the coffee. But I can't even get the 40k rules I need to play for $50, let alone 5. At least not legally.
Um, firstly, people buy them... Gw charge that much and people still pay. Put yourself in their shoes. This is something people want. You run a business, it makes sense to chase the easy money and cater. Books are cheap to print. Ultimately you pay gw for their products, after the fact, they don't give a guardsman's cuss what you do with them. personslly I enjoy a codex for stuff other than the rules as well, so for me what I pay is worth it to me (I don't pay gw for their rules 'ahem', quality, I pay them for the cool models and the amazing IP. Rules I'll bodge thank you)
And this might surprise you - you can play the game however you want. you don't need to 'chase the rules dragon' if you don't want to. I played a game of 4th ed a while back. It was fun. Gw won't break down the door if you house rule a few things.
I just don't want to pay for bad rules. The fact that other people pay for bad rules just makes me wonder how much $$ GW is missing out on - imagine if the rules were GOOD!!
Deadnight wrote: There's nothing wrong with it so don't assume it's some declaration of failure. Some people actively enjoy tinkering with a system. We did it with an osprey set of rules a while back (dux bellorum. I don't think we played the rules the same way for more than three or four games.always tinkering and enjoying ourselves).take home message: Everyone wants something different. People like me are just happier to try to accommodate rather than blindly adhering to the rules which cannot be questioned, or deviated from under any circumstances.
I don't mind tinkering. I do mind rewriting wholesale. I wrote the narrative primer for my group's 30k event and included a lot of tinkers. But none of them were balance fixes - I don't have the leisure time to add cool tinkered stuff AND THEN (RE)WRITE THE REST OF THE GAME IN THE PROCESS.
But that's okay. It should be okay for one person to show up as a cutthroat competitive player and one person to show up as narrative. If the game is balanced, then the cutthroat competitive player can display his skill, and it has nothing to do with the army. .
I'm pretty sure this game is a unicorn and like unicorns, doesnt actually exist.
Simply because perfection is unattainable doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be better.
Deadnight wrote: In the meantime we are left with the actual reality that ttg's are crude, limited systems and simply can't hold up to the pressure generated by anything even remotely resembling 'competitive' gaming.
Not all TTGs, my man. I play many that are good fun and much better at simulating warfare than 40k. I've also played some that are way worse than 40k. The fact that 40k could be better is undeniable, and all I want is to apply pressure to improve it.
Someone toning down their list would be seen as insult in my experience. It's clearly not your experience.
Hehe. Ex-Martel's meta is like the American version of Karol's Polish meta.
I've played in three for four groups now that were all basically this. Some less, some more. But everyone wants to win. Everyone will read every rule in their own favor. I've ran into more people who think list tailoring is fine than those who buy into the narrative paradigm.
As far as I can tell, it's always been this way. A few weeks after the Tyranid dex dropped in 2nd, I ran into the 120 hormagaunt list. In a game where you had to shoot the closest thing. So I spent the whole game shooting hormagaunts while the genestealers got closer and closer. That's fluffy, but it was almost a sure loss for 2nd ed marines.
Lol, 120 Hormagaunts is commitment for 2nd ed.
That'd be a fight and a half.
And someone figured that out within a few WEEKS of it dropping. With no netlisting. Just simple gamesmanship of how to abuse the "shoot closest thing" rule. GW could have limited hormagaunts. They didn't. Therefore, 120 must be just fine.
Well I once ran 40 discs of Tzeentch at some point, so I'm not too surprised somebody tried some ridiculous nid spamming. I can't imagine they actually bought the models for that though.
THey worked at the store, and as such got a discount.
Bonkers.
It'd be fun to figure out how to handle that list.
I'd start with lots of plasma missiles and plasma grenades, they block LOS, movement and can expand to murder huge expanses of gaunts.
Edit2: and a batch of Rhinos to drive through them and set up barricades.
Edit3: Oh hell yeah. Hormagaunts can't hurt Rhinos at all. I'd load up troops in Rhinos and just drive through them, running as many of them over as I can, while firing flamers and throwing grenades out the hatches. Six models could fire from the hatches. Then I'd roll through the Hormagaunts, right up to the Genestealers and hit them with everything I had.
Long live 2nd ed.
Such list tailoring was frowned on even then. It was really hard , ie impossible, for marines to build for Nids, Eldar and CSM in 2nd. At least, that's my view on it. Transports were typically avoided because of the "rocks fall and everyone dies" result.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
They're described as reliving the siege of terra, they fight against what they precieve to be the warmasters forces, throwing aside any regard for their own survival. That doesn't mean they're blind berserkers, that comes after with the red thirst.
I'm sure they'd rather not let the unit of fire warriors casually walk away from them rather than surround a foe and butcher them.
Brotherjanus wrote:I like that they have started to make 2 sets of rules, one for matched and another for narrative/casual. The hard part is keeping it fair for matched play.
this is the best thing to happen to 40k in a very long time. I dont give a flying feth about tourney balance but I care that fluff/rules are more integrated between what's fluffy and what works on the tabletop.
They should be separated and the power gamers/waac/donkey-caves should stick to their fethed up variation of the game and we will stick to just having fun.
Except your gak balance is worse for casual play so...
And you missed the point - in a narrative casual group playing for fluff, they work around the balance issues generally.
That's fantastic, doing GW's work for them! Oh and then what happens when one army's fluffy list like Imperial Guard is just significantly better than another army's fluffy list like Dark Eldar? What are you doing to account for that balance issue?
I don't know that it is, but the dark eldar pkayer simply says "I'm struggling with x unit, can we try swapping it out for something or maybe change unit Y do I don't have 2 big problems please?"
Not hard, its not about GWs job for them, its about creating a positive experience for both players.
Good idea. I'm having trouble with your Infantry squads and Russes, two of your core units that are key to faction identity! Can you swap them for...oh wait.
You still haven't figured it out and it's hilarious. One army's fluff list is already a competitive one whereas the other one struggles even being optimized. So what's supposed to happen with your narrative, sport?
Take fewer russes? There are other units in the codex, likewise dark eldar do have ravagers, their flyers are good, talos are good, conveniently each of those are from kabals, cults and covens.
More importantly you're hardly a big casual/narrative fan, so why does it bother you?
But why is it the Guard player's responsibility to build and paint new models instead of the Dark Eldar player? Why should someone really be screwed over by choosing the wrong army, whether it be for casual OR tournament? That garbage rule writing that keeps happening is defended by those casual and narrative players and stops the game from reaching its potential. It isn't even the excuse of "It's good enough" that you're using.
The guard player could take fewer points worth, they could give the dark eldar player extra cp, he'll if that bad give them a round of shooting before turn 1. There are other ways that don't involve "go buy stuff". If you buy, build and paint 1 list and never have spares or options, every chapter approved must be a tough time.
The rules could be better balanced, you're right,it would be better, you're right. So what do you expect people to do in the mean time?
That's breaking the game itself to give a bunch of additives. That's not balance whether that comes from you or GW themselves (Gladius y'all). So in the meantime don't give GW money for what you admit is a bad job.
So don't play, or do you want to break forum rules and promote piracy?
You shouldn't be paying to play with rules that basically ask you to make more rules for a functioning game. Whether you pirate or not is up to you but it isn't like these new codices are high quality to begin with.
SecondTime wrote: "nothing says you have to try to not kill your enemy."
Battleshock rules say you do.
Also, the point of telling people that they can't use their models because they are too good for the narrative scenario seems really crappy still.
Nobody is telling anyone anything, two people can have a discourse about how to balance a game out. There is no dictator here.
I'll sum this up and call it a night for me with:
Why can't people just be human beings and discuss solutions to their problems if it bothers you so much. It doesn't matter if GW did a bad job, you're both there to have fun. Find a way to do that if the default isn't fun for you both.
That is the underlying message in a casual/narrative group. Not who should win. It's making sure everyone has fun.
Because I can have fun with my friends by making pew-pew noises and playing toy soldiers without rules, or with ad-hoc rules we make ourselves.
As I think Unit said earlier-if GW rules were free and you just paid for models, or if they charged something like $5 for a digital subscription to get all the rules for a year, then yeah, okay. It's okay if it ain't a premium ruleset-they aren't charging premium prices for it.
But they DO charge out the butt for it. So it doesn't seem at all unreasonable to expect higher quality.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
They're described as reliving the siege of terra, they fight against what they precieve to be the warmasters forces, throwing aside any regard for their own survival. That doesn't mean they're blind berserkers, that comes after with the red thirst.
I'm sure they'd rather not let the unit of fire warriors casually walk away from them rather than surround a foe and butcher them.
No, they are described as battle crazed monsters incapable of following orders/tactics. This is from the warhammer wiki
"Soon enough, the afflicted Blood Angel is lost to all reason, needing to be restrained in his frothing blood-madness, and living only to kill the enemies of the Emperor. No longer will he train and serve with his former squad. He is surrendered into the care of the Reclusiam, bound to take to the battlefield in ritually blackened armour.
From that day forward, he fights as one of the Death Company. Death in battle inevitably follows; with no ability to follow tactics or heed the intricacies of a commander's battle plan, the warriors of the Death Company charge in a howling tide, bound -- even if only temporarily -- by the inspiring wrath-chants of their Chaplains. As in so many matters of Adeptus Astartes spirituality, it is the Chaplains that play a key role. "
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
They're described as reliving the siege of terra, they fight against what they precieve to be the warmasters forces, throwing aside any regard for their own survival. That doesn't mean they're blind berserkers, that comes after with the red thirst.
I'm sure they'd rather not let the unit of fire warriors casually walk away from them rather than surround a foe and butcher them.
No, they are described as battle crazed monsters incapable of following orders/tactics. This is from the warhammer wiki
"Soon enough, the afflicted Blood Angel is lost to all reason, needing to be restrained in his frothing blood-madness, and living only to kill the enemies of the Emperor. No longer will he train and serve with his former squad. He is surrendered into the care of the Reclusiam, bound to take to the battlefield in ritually blackened armour.
From that day forward, he fights as one of the Death Company. Death in battle inevitably follows; with no ability to follow tactics or heed the intricacies of a commander's battle plan, the warriors of the Death Company charge in a howling tide, bound -- even if only temporarily -- by the inspiring wrath-chants of their Chaplains. As in so many matters of Adeptus Astartes spirituality, it is the Chaplains that play a key role. "
So again, no.
Given the way red thirst is described, I'm not sure if its really appropriate for ANY BA unit to use the "charge and put one model within engagement range" trick.
Such list tailoring was frowned on even then. It was really hard , ie impossible, for marines to build for Nids, Eldar and CSM in 2nd. At least, that's my view on it. Transports were typically avoided because of the "rocks fall and everyone dies" result.
If my meta required that I build to face 150 nids, I'm going to build to face 150 nids. As long as I use the same army against everyone else, it's not tailoring. My general belief is that in 2nd, there's pretty much always a solution.
There were probably a couple psychic powers that would really help in that scenario, too.
Such list tailoring was frowned on even then. It was really hard , ie impossible, for marines to build for Nids, Eldar and CSM in 2nd. At least, that's my view on it. Transports were typically avoided because of the "rocks fall and everyone dies" result.
If my meta required that I build to face 150 nids, I'm going to build to face 150 nids. As long as I use the same army against everyone else, it's not tailoring. My general belief is that in 2nd, there's pretty much always a solution.
There were probably a couple psychic powers that would really help in that scenario, too.
I feel that's more true now, but modern 40K is about weapon profiles as much as anything. Remember 120 hormagaunt guy was only one player. Unfortunately, 2W marine guy is a ton of players now.
Such list tailoring was frowned on even then. It was really hard , ie impossible, for marines to build for Nids, Eldar and CSM in 2nd. At least, that's my view on it. Transports were typically avoided because of the "rocks fall and everyone dies" result.
If my meta required that I build to face 150 nids, I'm going to build to face 150 nids. As long as I use the same army against everyone else, it's not tailoring. My general belief is that in 2nd, there's pretty much always a solution.
There were probably a couple psychic powers that would really help in that scenario, too.
I feel that's more true now, but modern 40K is about weapon profiles as much as anything. Remember 120 hormagaunt guy was only one player. Unfortunately, 2W marine guy is a ton of players now.
I'm far more excited by the challenge than I am threatened by it. I'm already certain that an extreme build would hard counter that list, so all that's left to do is figure out how to balance out my options vs. the other common lists I'd be facing. Sounds like a total blast, honestly.
I just don't want to pay for bad rules. The fact that other people pay for bad rules just makes me wonder how much $$ GW is missing out on - imagine if the rules were GOOD!!
Probably less, to be fair. As it is, people are wanting the next book to 'fix' the issues with the current book. Churn drives sales. Meta chasers will buy to keep on top. Collectors like me buy for other reasons.
In any case, there isn't really an incentive to be honest the effort (man hours, productivity wages etc) requires to makes rules 'GOOD' very quickly becomes a game of diminishing terms. 'Good' is nebulous, I genuinely doubt any ttgs will ever, or can ever be as 'GOOD' as the competitive players require for the game they want to play.
I don't pay for rules, like I said. I pay for the other stuff In the codex/rulebook that I actually value. The rules are the least important thing.
I don't mind tinkering. I do mind rewriting wholesale. I wrote the narrative primer for my group's 30k event and included a lot of tinkers. But none of them were balance fixes - I don't have the leisure time to add cool tinkered stuff AND THEN (RE)WRITE THE REST OF THE GAME IN THE PROCESS.
.
Fair. A mate of mine did it back home in Ireland and filled out a few 80 page copy books with fixes for 40k games.
Our approach is to basically play what's in front of us rather than the entirety of the game in one go.That's an impossibility.
Simply because perfection is unattainable doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be better.
True, but also pointless.
Simply put, how much 'better' is good enough? How much imbalance is acceptable? How many problems are ok? How 'broken' can a game be for it to still be 'better'?
The sad truth is ttgs will never be good enough to accommodate what the competitives want. Any other load bearing structures I've seen that can help (multiple lists, sideboards, multiple win conditions, competitive formats like steamroller or it, limited scale/scope, homogenisation) often have costs associated with them that cause just as much rage to be vented into the internet.
Not all TTGs, my man. I play many that are good fun and much better at simulating warfare than 40k. I've also played some that are way worse than 40k. The fact that 40k could be better is undeniable, and all I want is to apply pressure to improve it.
To be fair, I don't expect 40k to simulate warfare. 40k is an over the top 80s action movie crossed with an 80s heavy metal album cover from someone like Dio.its silly and goofy and I'm alright with that.
And I'm the Same here, actually. I've played a lot of historicals, fantasy and sci-fi. Lots of systems. Casually and competitively. Some, like WMH, infinity and flames ofwar, more than others. Best I've come across is 'good enough, at least some of the time'. There's not a single game I've come across that didn't have issues, or that in that hands of the 40k community wouldn't be broken and abused to the chaos gods and back again, and all the issues magnified to the level of apoplectic rage. Thing is, 'fun' is subjective. Best wargame I've ever played I still probably infinity. I'd argue it's also probably the most technically brilliant one on the market. It also gives me a massive bloody headache these days. Too much information overload for me. I don't actually want to play it, though as I mentioned above, intellectually I recognise how good it is.
On the one hand, 40k could be better, undoubtedly. But I don't need gw to improve it for me. We play the games we want to play as it is. Lucky, I suppose. On the other hand, But I also think players could be better as well. Both sides of the same coin, really.
It's gotten considerably less goofy as time as gone on. The more they play it straight, the more balance and realism will play a role. GW is buying into its own hype about marines a little too much I think. Or a lot too much.
Such list tailoring was frowned on even then. It was really hard , ie impossible, for marines to build for Nids, Eldar and CSM in 2nd. At least, that's my view on it. Transports were typically avoided because of the "rocks fall and everyone dies" result.
If my meta required that I build to face 150 nids, I'm going to build to face 150 nids. As long as I use the same army against everyone else, it's not tailoring. My general belief is that in 2nd, there's pretty much always a solution.
There were probably a couple psychic powers that would really help in that scenario, too.
I feel that's more true now, but modern 40K is about weapon profiles as much as anything. Remember 120 hormagaunt guy was only one player. Unfortunately, 2W marine guy is a ton of players now.
I'm far more excited by the challenge than I am threatened by it. I'm already certain that an extreme build would hard counter that list, so all that's left to do is figure out how to balance out my options vs. the other common lists I'd be facing. Sounds like a total blast, honestly.
We also had multiple pulsa rokkit spammers. For what 2nd charged for marines, it was beyond a challenge, imo.
We also had multiple pulsa rokkit spammers. For what 2nd charged for marines, it was beyond a challenge, imo.
Techmarines on Bikes with Flamers. Shoot forward and burn the Rokkit crew before they can fire, then follow up with a Plasma Missile barrage against the main Ork line. That might work.
Wow...the complete lack of understanding regarding the death company on full display LOL.
Enlighten me
Death company are Blood Angels who have completely given themselves over to the black rage. They are basically uncontrollable monsters at this point. There is very little in the way of "control" that a commander has over them at this point. Back when I played them Years ago, there was actually a rule where they had to roll every turn to see if they just randomly bumrushed the enemy.
So in a close combat engagement, the death company wouldn't just stand there boxing in an opponent, they would literally throw down their bolt pistols in order to tear the throats from the enemy. Tactics/strategy go out the window at that point. Hence tri-pointing makes no damn sense for them.
They're described as reliving the siege of terra, they fight against what they precieve to be the warmasters forces, throwing aside any regard for their own survival. That doesn't mean they're blind berserkers, that comes after with the red thirst.
I'm sure they'd rather not let the unit of fire warriors casually walk away from them rather than surround a foe and butcher them.
No, they are described as battle crazed monsters incapable of following orders/tactics. This is from the warhammer wiki
"Soon enough, the afflicted Blood Angel is lost to all reason, needing to be restrained in his frothing blood-madness, and living only to kill the enemies of the Emperor. No longer will he train and serve with his former squad. He is surrendered into the care of the Reclusiam, bound to take to the battlefield in ritually blackened armour.
From that day forward, he fights as one of the Death Company. Death in battle inevitably follows; with no ability to follow tactics or heed the intricacies of a commander's battle plan, the warriors of the Death Company charge in a howling tide, bound -- even if only temporarily -- by the inspiring wrath-chants of their Chaplains. As in so many matters of Adeptus Astartes spirituality, it is the Chaplains that play a key role. "
So again, no.
Given the way red thirst is described, I'm not sure if its really appropriate for ANY BA unit to use the "charge and put one model within engagement range" trick.
Death company are suffering from the black rage, not the red thirst as per the current codex, they're not frothing loonatics who want blood.
I'd trust the codex entry over a community edited site, so I'd say you're both wrong there.
Spoiler:
Regards price and perceived quality or value, there isn't a right or wrong answer, the rules can definitely be better and would benefit everyone but at what price etc will be a unique opinion to everyone.
Voss wrote: Well, the implied 'I'm having trouble with your list so _you_ need to buy other stuff to make it more fair' really bothers me.
Well to be fair, if you're not trying to achieve the same thing, the dude spamming all the most powerful units from his codex and trying to table you before turn 4 is non verbally communicating that you should buy new stuff if you want to have fun against him.
In both cases, if both players aren't on the same page regarding what kind of 40K they are going to have today, someone isn't going to have a great time.
I have troubles with the statements that a more balanced game would fix that. It isn't something tied to 40K or the state of the balance in whatever game. Most competitive activities are like that, sports, video games, wargames, whatever. Some people want to be "the best" (even if it just means they've beaten 5 other dudes at pushing plastic soldiers in the back of a shop) and some just enjoy something else (like insisting to tell you about his captain's long list of heroic achievement you don't care about), winning being secondary. And usually, competitive games try to fix this issue with different game modes and/or leagues. Not balance.
dhallnet wrote: Well to be fair, if you're not trying to achieve the same thing, the dude spamming all the most powerful units from his codex and trying to table you before turn 4 is non verbally communicating that you should buy new stuff if you want to have fun against him.
In both cases, if both players aren't on the same page regarding what kind of 40K they are going to have today, someone isn't going to have a great time.
Mmmm, the problem is that it doesn't take the same amount of effort to make a competitive list in different codices - some armies can be decent just by filling out detachments, if they have good troops that synergize well. Others have to tweak things to make it work, by maxing some particular unit that isn't core to the faction identity to the detriment of all else. So what that means is, if one player makes an army that "feels" right, they will trounce the player with the weaker codex. In order to have a game with an even chance of winning, the feel of the armies has to be bastardized. Players deserve better.
What I'm saying is that the dude spamming the most powerful units from his codex isn't necessarily communicating that at all, you're wrong. GW is, however.
dhallnet wrote: I have troubles with the statements that a more balanced game would fix that. It isn't something tied to 40K or the state of the balance in whatever game. Most competitive activities are like that, sports, video games, wargames, whatever. Some people want to be "the best" (even if it just means they've beaten 5 other dudes at pushing plastic soldiers in the back of a shop) and some just enjoy something else (like insisting to tell you about his captain's long list of heroic achievement you don't care about), winning being secondary. And usually, competitive games try to fix this issue with different game modes and/or leagues. Not balance.
Balance actually does fix this. GW's chronically unbalanced rules create an environment of poor sportsmanship and cheating. But it also creates an environment of "buy the best units to win games," so it gives GW what they want.
Mmmm, the problem is that it doesn't take the same amount of effort to make a competitive list in different codices - some armies can be decent just by filling out detachments, if they have good troops that synergize well. Others have to tweak things to make it work, by maxing some particular unit that isn't core to the faction identity to the detriment of all else. So what that means is, if one player makes an army that "feels" right, they will trounce the player with the weaker codex. In order to have a game with an even chance of winning, the feel of the armies has to be bastardized. Players deserve better.
What I'm saying is that the dude spamming the most powerful units from his codex isn't necessarily communicating that at all, you're wrong. GW is, however.
A player spamming broken stuff to win and another creating a decent list out of stuff you're expected to pick anyway, is extremely different. Borderline obvious. And one is actually quite clearly stating he's not here to fool around.
But yes, some balance is required, of course. If one's most powerful build is simply middle of the road for another faction, we have issues. What I was underlining though is that the issue of player "wants to win" vs player "wants to play with his dudes" will always happen whatever the state of said balance is and will more often than not be unbalanced, unless you believe perfect balance exist, in which case yes you're absolutely right but you'll also be forever disappointed.
Balance actually does fix this. GW's chronically unbalanced rules create an environment of poor sportsmanship and cheating. But it also creates an environment of "buy the best units to win games," so it gives GW what they want.
Again unless you believe you can achieve a state of balance where there is no build more powerful than others, no it doesn't fix anything. I also fail to understand how bad balance justify cheating or bad sportsmanship (but wanting to win above all doesn't, strangely) but whatever. Yes, more balance is something to look after but the mindset of the players will always be important too (and seems to be the issue in what you just listed here btw : no reason to cheat or always buy the next hot stuff if you're the kind of guy playing to tell the praise of your captain).
I think players who don't want to win are incredibly rare, and I say this as a narrative player.
There's not putting winning first (so you might reduce your chances to win to make an epic challenge with your hero or by making list concessions for fluff), but that doesn't mean the same as actively not wanting to win.
Furthermore, which of the following situations would satisfy me as a narrative player:
1) My hero makes an epic charge (say, a Lieutenant against a Keeper of Secrets) and lays some hurt on the fiend before being laid low.
2) My army flails ineffectually against the enemy army, accomplishing very little before folding like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Answer: The first one I am much more fine with, obviously. It was a choice I made in the name of fluff, and "Lieutenant Dan lost both his legs to a Keeper of Secrets in a heroic stand" is a cool narrative.
The second one is awful feelbads, firstly because I had little interaction or say in the outcome but also secondly because it doesn't have to be that way. In a balanced game, a conceptually coherent list (so something more coherent than, say, "2000 points of cultists WAAAAAAAH") should be on a sufficiently even playing field with all other conceptually-coherent lists. That's all we're asking for with balance, at least from my narrative perspective.
winning is secondary, first comes the fun of a match depending upon circumstances that can mean comp or casual or narrative, what is however more relevant some of the fun comes from the fact that there is a fighting chance involved.
And there are and were matchups that felt less like both players had a fair shot at winning and more as an allready predetermined result just going through the motions.
it does. Especially in a casual setting it leads rather fast to some real annoyment, especially if you have an instance of massive underpowering or overpowering capabilties in armies and GW is no stranger to that.
Take a devoted IH player that get's his supplement and now has in order to even get a decent experience or a match at all curb a gakton of his choices just because they became too good.
Take a GK player before the PA update beeing forced to pick a predetermined loadout and list set that he may or may not own.
Etc etc. those extremes are in many ways the worst case scenario but also the groups most likely to become burnt out from the hobby.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
It's really frustrating to me how often I see these same points go around in circles.
Jimmy is going to have a bad time with his Kroot Mercs against Eradicator meta spam. That's the point. In an ideal world there wouldn't be any difference between fluffy narrative lists and what's competitive. In a realistic world we can still do a lot better than this.
The point is that bad balance isn't just a competitive hindrance, it actively detracts from narrative games as well. 'But you can talk it through with your opponent...' Great! Now you're expecting two NARRATIVE players to have a complete (and identical!) understanding of the state of COMPETITIVE balance so that they can properly balance their NARRATIVE game. If they don't have that complete understanding of the state of COMPETITIVE balance, they don't know something is wrong until after their NARRATIVE game is spoiled by a one-sided conclusion.
I apologize for the all-caps but I really want to reinforce how missing-the-point it is to suggest that narrative gamers don't have to deal with competitive balance issues so long as they have a thorough understanding of competitive balance issues. Narrative gamers shouldn't have to be aficionados of a meta they don't really participate in just to build scenarios that work. And moving away from narrative and into casual pick-up games, not everyone wants to have this kind of social contract negotiation of scenario conditions before a game (this is exactly what people hated about AoS's lack of points system and 'just figure out a scenario together' approach on launch), especially when they can't guarantee that the other player (remember we're talking casual players) won't have some bonkers idea of what the state of play looks like and which things are actually unbalanced. Good luck persuading the dude who's convinced that his Ultramarines are bottom of the food chain and 18 Eradicators are what he needs to be on a level playing field that his list is a bit overboard, and if you do, get ready for some resentment if you win because obviously you're a powergamer that forced him to make his list terrible so you could steamroll him. That gak gets old real fast.
I can summarize this entire back and forth because it happens so often:
A: 'Bad balance hurts casual players too'
B: 'But you can balance out the armies before the game'
A: 'Yes but I don't want to take on that additional burden just to play a game'
B: 'Well things aren't always perfect, this is part of the hobby'
A: 'Yes but many games don't have this problem and when I pay $100 for books I expect better than this'
B: 'Well things are what they are, either fix it yourself or stop buying it'
You notice how (A)'s original point is that there is an issue that could stand be improved, while (B) starts by denying that it's a real issue, and then seamlessly shifts to pragmatic solutions without ever acknowledging that the point was valid? That's what I find really tiring about this topic. Whenever someone complains that balance is impacting their local, casual group, we know that we can fix it ourselves. Most groups come up with houserules to patch over problematic aspects of the game. We just don't want to have to do that, let alone take on the Herculean task of re-writing and re-balancing the game from the ground up, let alone try to find common consensus rather than having a central source of authority, all to make an expensive luxury product with an ostensibly professional design team work as intended.
I'd just like to, for once, see some acknowledgment that that's a reasonable expectation, that most games don't have this issue to the same degree, and that it's a real legitimate problem for narrative, casual, and competitive players, and then we can talk about what can practically be done about it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I guess my earlier point about balance being better for narrative got ignored, so I'll say it again:
As someone who makes narrative events for my local club, it is much much better for me to spend my time making cool stories, setting up excellent set-piece terrain setups, and writing narrative rules. It is a chore for me to rebalance 40k in the process.
Plus, if I saw a Salamanders player rock up with 18 Eradicators, who am I to tell him he is wrong? Eradicators are the perfect nuSalamander, since melta is their shtick after all. Like Ultramarines showing up with Blade Guard. Am I to say "sorry, you brought too much fire with you, Salamanders. Have you considered taking something more iron-handsy, like a tank?"
Because that's fluffier.
As the person designing the scenarios it's not your job to police the players, that's up to them.
Bringing the latest competitive net list will happen regardless of how well balanced the base game is, but by having a narrative event the story should be more important than the score sheet.
Will Jimmy with his loving converted kroot merc army where each character has a story and battle record, who plays to the theme by picking secondaries and relics in line with their narrative despite being sub optimal, really want a narrative story driven game against "this list won 3 tourneys last month, I figured its pretty good, thats why I brought it".
It's really frustrating to me how often I see these same points go around in circles.
Jimmy is going to have a bad time with his Kroot Mercs against Eradicator meta spam. That's the point. In an ideal world there wouldn't be any difference between fluffy narrative lists and what's competitive. In a realistic world we can still do a lot better than this.
The point is that bad balance isn't just a competitive hindrance, it actively detracts from narrative games as well. 'But you can talk it through with your opponent...' Great! Now you're expecting two NARRATIVE players to have a complete (and identical!) understanding of the state of COMPETITIVE balance so that they can properly balance their NARRATIVE game. If they don't have that complete understanding of the state of COMPETITIVE balance, they don't know something is wrong until after their NARRATIVE game is spoiled by a one-sided conclusion.
I apologize for the all-caps but I really want to reinforce how missing-the-point it is to suggest that narrative gamers don't have to deal with competitive balance issues so long as they have a thorough understanding of competitive balance issues. Narrative gamers shouldn't have to be aficionados of a meta they don't really participate in just to build scenarios that work. And moving away from narrative and into casual pick-up games, not everyone wants to have this kind of social contract negotiation of scenario conditions before a game (this is exactly what people hated about AoS's lack of points system and 'just figure out a scenario together' approach on launch), especially when they can't guarantee that the other player (remember we're talking casual players) won't have some bonkers idea of what the state of play looks like and which things are actually unbalanced. Good luck persuading the dude who's convinced that his Ultramarines are bottom of the food chain and 18 Eradicators are what he needs to be on a level playing field that his list is a bit overboard, and if you do, get ready for some resentment if you win because obviously you're a powergamer that forced him to make his list terrible so you could steamroll him. That gak gets old real fast.
I can summarize this entire back and forth because it happens so often:
A: 'Bad balance hurts casual players too'
B: 'But you can balance out the armies before the game'
A: 'Yes but I don't want to take on that additional burden just to play a game'
B: 'Well things aren't always perfect, this is part of the hobby'
A: 'Yes but many games don't have this problem and when I pay $100 for books I expect better than this'
B: 'Well things are what they are, either fix it yourself or stop buying it'
You notice how (A)'s original point is that there is an issue that could stand be improved, while (B) starts by denying that it's a real issue, and then seamlessly shifts to pragmatic solutions without ever acknowledging that the point was valid? That's what I find really tiring about this topic. Whenever someone complains that balance is impacting their local, casual group, we know that we can fix it ourselves. Most groups come up with houserules to patch over problematic aspects of the game. We just don't want to have to do that, let alone take on the Herculean task of re-writing and re-balancing the game from the ground up, let alone try to find common consensus rather than having a central source of authority, all to make an expensive luxury product with an ostensibly professional design team work as intended.
I'd just like to, for once, see some acknowledgment that that's a reasonable expectation, that most games don't have this issue to the same degree, and that it's a real legitimate problem for narrative, casual, and competitive players, and then we can talk about what can practically be done about it.
Yup seems fair, if you allow for the fact that perfect balance isn't rational or attainable so there will always be a "top list" even in a very well balanced game. Getting better game balance is better for everyone, no disputes there.
So your conversation is now truncated to:
B: 'Well things are what they are, either fix it yourself or stop buying it'
What's next now we acknowledge the game needs better balance for both narrative and casual?
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Nobody talking about whether marines should have two wounds ever again. This thread became a balance discussion.
2W marines are balance issue, so that makes sense.
"I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course."
Does someone want to clue him in? Because I kind of don't.
Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote: Nobody talking about whether marines should have two wounds ever again. This thread became a balance discussion.
Report to mod for the thread being off topic and having run its course in that case, it has evolved away from the initial point naturally, but agree it isn't what it started as.
Can that be answered without a point value attached?
"and thus Marneus, that is how I wrote the codex astartes, I arbitrarily made up points values for your men and their companies"
"The tyranids swarmed over the hill into the imperial forces, but as the marines had 130 points of wounds, they were able to turn the threat aside"
"Ragnar was impressed with his new found strength and extra 8 points of wounds having crossed the rubicon, now he was finding his injuries weren't costing him as many points for each blow that made it through his armour"
@Catbarf - I just have to say I very consistenly find myself nodding my head at your posts; in this case, as your words put a finger I was otherwise having trouble placing on the nature of issues that my Tabletop Sim game group is having. Thank you for this.
Can that be answered without a point value attached?
"and thus Marneus, that is how I wrote the codex astartes, I arbitrarily made up points values for your men and their companies"
"The tyranids swarmed over the hill into the imperial forces, but as the marines had 130 points of wounds, they were able to turn the threat aside"
"Ragnar was impressed with his new found strength and extra 8 points of wounds having crossed the rubicon, now he was finding his injuries weren't costing him as many points for each blow that made it through his armour"
Just saying that 50 pt guardsmen wouldn't be very lore accurate, now would they?
Can that be answered without a point value attached?
"and thus Marneus, that is how I wrote the codex astartes, I arbitrarily made up points values for your men and their companies"
"The tyranids swarmed over the hill into the imperial forces, but as the marines had 130 points of wounds, they were able to turn the threat aside"
"Ragnar was impressed with his new found strength and extra 8 points of wounds having crossed the rubicon, now he was finding his injuries weren't costing him as many points for each blow that made it through his armour"
Just saying that 50 pt guardsmen wouldn't be very lore accurate, now would they?
Why not? It's an arbitrary number scale. It's not like in the fluff they tell you that a marine is worth 4 guardsmen worth of points exactly is it.
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
LMAO! Yes, because GW has never arbitrarily changed fluff, invented completely contradictory fluff or flat out bat crap crazy fluff....I don't know....like Grey Knights covering their armor and weapons in the blood of sisters of battle.
Death Company = Uncontrollable rage monsters, that has been the fluff for 20-30 years, sorry the newest entry doesn't specifically mention that. I guess we can safely ignore decades of fluff because the newest entry doesn't specifically reference the last quarter century of fluff.
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
LMAO! Yes, because GW has never arbitrarily changed fluff, invented completely contradictory fluff or flat out bat crap crazy fluff....I don't know....like Grey Knights covering their armor and weapons in the blood of sisters of battle.
Death Company = Uncontrollable rage monsters, that has been the fluff for 20-30 years, sorry the newest entry doesn't specifically mention that. I guess we can safely ignore decades of fluff because the newest entry doesn't specifically reference the last quarter century of fluff.
That's kinda how this works.... remember when Abby lost the 13th black crusade officially? The new setting sort of completely ignores that, likewise C'tan weren't shards, Necrons didn't have personalities or dynastic courts, space wolves don't teleport, eldrad is dead and cadia was solid.
Not Online!!! wrote: it does. Especially in a casual setting it leads rather fast to some real annoyment, especially if you have an instance of massive underpowering or overpowering capabilties in armies and GW is no stranger to that.
Take a devoted IH player that get's his supplement and now has in order to even get a decent experience or a match at all curb a gakton of his choices just because they became too good.
Take a GK player before the PA update beeing forced to pick a predetermined loadout and list set that he may or may not own.
Etc etc. those extremes are in many ways the worst case scenario but also the groups most likely to become burnt out from the hobby.
This is one of the main reasons I don't actively play 40k anymore. If I wanted my DA to perform better, I needed to spam RWBKs, when I only owned 3. If I'd done that and abandoned my greening, I would have spent several hundred bucks merely because I "built my army wrong."
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
LMAO! Yes, because GW has never arbitrarily changed fluff, invented completely contradictory fluff or flat out bat crap crazy fluff....I don't know....like Grey Knights covering their armor and weapons in the blood of sisters of battle.
Death Company = Uncontrollable rage monsters, that has been the fluff for 20-30 years, sorry the newest entry doesn't specifically mention that. I guess we can safely ignore decades of fluff because the newest entry doesn't specifically reference the last quarter century of fluff.
That's kinda how this works.... remember when Abby lost the 13th black crusade officially? The new setting sort of completely ignores that, likewise C'tan weren't shards, Necrons didn't have personalities or dynastic courts, space wolves don't teleport, eldrad is dead and cadia was solid.
You missed that all BA have red thrist, which really calls your understanding of BA into question. As I stated, its very questionable whether tripointing is appropriate for any BA unit. Much less DC.
Not Online!!! wrote: it does. Especially in a casual setting it leads rather fast to some real annoyment, especially if you have an instance of massive underpowering or overpowering capabilties in armies and GW is no stranger to that.
Take a devoted IH player that get's his supplement and now has in order to even get a decent experience or a match at all curb a gakton of his choices just because they became too good.
Take a GK player before the PA update beeing forced to pick a predetermined loadout and list set that he may or may not own.
Etc etc. those extremes are in many ways the worst case scenario but also the groups most likely to become burnt out from the hobby.
This is one of the main reasons I don't actively play 40k anymore. If I wanted my DA to perform better, I needed to spam RWBKs, when I only owned 3. If I'd done that and abandoned my greening, I would have spent several hundred bucks merely because I "built my army wrong."
Don't forget that what would work at one point would just switch Next Interation of the dex...
SecondTime wrote: Can that be answered without a point value attached?
Unlike the balance question, yes. Yes it can.
SecondTime wrote: I guess. But then there's the issue of inconsistent and contradictory fluff. So I really think 2 W marines are best viewed as a balance issue.
If I take a balanced version of 40k, supposing this thing exist, and I suddenly exchange all guard profiles with marine profiles and vice versa, you'll still have a balanced version of 40k. But it won't be true to the lore at all.
So no.
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
LMAO! Yes, because GW has never arbitrarily changed fluff, invented completely contradictory fluff or flat out bat crap crazy fluff....I don't know....like Grey Knights covering their armor and weapons in the blood of sisters of battle.
Death Company = Uncontrollable rage monsters, that has been the fluff for 20-30 years, sorry the newest entry doesn't specifically mention that. I guess we can safely ignore decades of fluff because the newest entry doesn't specifically reference the last quarter century of fluff.
That's kinda how this works.... remember when Abby lost the 13th black crusade officially? The new setting sort of completely ignores that, likewise C'tan weren't shards, Necrons didn't have personalities or dynastic courts, space wolves don't teleport, eldrad is dead and cadia was solid.
You missed that all BA have red thrist, which really calls your understanding of BA into question. As I stated, its very questionable whether tripointing is appropriate for any BA unit. Much less DC.
All blood angels have the black rage to some degree, which is what causes them to enter the death company once it gets out of hand. The red thirst is what causes them to become beserkers, but the 2 aren't the same thing and never have been
All space wolves have the canis helix but do you see a chapter of only wulfen?
SecondTime wrote: Can that be answered without a point value attached?
Unlike the balance question, yes. Yes it can.
SecondTime wrote: I guess. But then there's the issue of inconsistent and contradictory fluff. So I really think 2 W marines are best viewed as a balance issue.
If I take a balanced version of 40k, supposing this thing exist, and I suddenly exchange all guard profiles with marine profiles and vice versa, you'll still have a balanced version of 40k. But it won't be true to the lore at all.
So no.
Fair enough. But I still think its framed as a balance issue. Since the lore is so inconsistent in general.
SecondTime wrote: You missed that all BA have red thrist, which really calls your understanding of BA into question. As I stated, its very questionable whether tripointing is appropriate for any BA unit. Much less DC.
Wait you just said the fluff was inconsistent and contradictory so what mattered was balance? Why isn't tripointing for BA also purely a balance issue? Also why does "being very angry" means it's easier to flee from you?
SecondTime wrote: You missed that all BA have red thrist, which really calls your understanding of BA into question. As I stated, its very questionable whether tripointing is appropriate for any BA unit. Much less DC.
Wait you just said the fluff was inconsistent and contradictory so what mattered was balance? Why isn't tripointing for BA also purely a balance issue? Also why does "being very angry" means it's easier to flee from you?
Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, and generally prefer balances issues. However, this particular issue makes very little sense in genre for a couple of reasons.
My issue with this is twofold. First BA would likely lack the restraint to pull off a tripoint as presented in the rules. Secondly, it makes no sense for 9 guys to stand around and get killed because one guy is surrounded. I dont' have to get into the weeds of the lore to have these objections.
SecondTime wrote: You missed that all BA have red thrist, which really calls your understanding of BA into question. As I stated, its very questionable whether tripointing is appropriate for any BA unit. Much less DC.
Wait you just said the fluff was inconsistent and contradictory so what mattered was balance? Why isn't tripointing for BA also purely a balance issue? Also why does "being very angry" means it's easier to flee from you?
Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, and generally prefer balances issues. However, this particular issue makes very little sense in genre for a couple of reasons.
My issue with this is twofold. First BA would likely lack the restraint to pull off a tripoint as presented in the rules. Secondly, it makes no sense for 9 guys to stand around and get killed because one guy is surrounded. I dont' have to get into the weeds of the lore to have these objections.
Apply some imagination, those 9 guys aren't fleeing because they don't want to leave a man behind, likewise tripointing isn't presented in the rules, it's a skill or tactic you choose to employ, you're playing in a competitive manner because playing it narratively highlights a balance issue.
Dudeface wrote: Yup seems fair, if you allow for the fact that perfect balance isn't rational or attainable so there will always be a "top list" even in a very well balanced game. Getting better game balance is better for everyone, no disputes there.
I think this is where your argument is flawed. Better balance is rational, obviously. Show me how it's not? And better balance is obtainable. "Perfect" balance isn't, but no one is asking for perfection. Just asking for better - for their $50 worth. I don't expect perfection for $50 (and if I did I'd be either incredibly naive or incredibly entitled). But I do expect $50 worth of good enough instead of $5.
B: 'Well things are what they are, either fix it yourself or stop buying it'
What's next now we acknowledge the game needs better balance for both narrative and casual?
Yes, and you also acknowledge that "better" is possible even where "perfect" is not.
Dudeface wrote: I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
"GW" doesn't write the fluff, different authors do. There may not even be agreement in GW about what Red Thirst does. Fluff is, of course, an interpretation.
Dudeface wrote: Yup seems fair, if you allow for the fact that perfect balance isn't rational or attainable so there will always be a "top list" even in a very well balanced game. Getting better game balance is better for everyone, no disputes there.
I think this is where your argument is flawed. Better balance is rational, obviously. Show me how it's not? And better balance is obtainable. "Perfect" balance isn't, but no one is asking for perfection. Just asking for better - for their $50 worth. I don't expect perfection for $50 (and if I did I'd be either incredibly naive or incredibly entitled). But I do expect $50 worth of good enough instead of $5.
B: 'Well things are what they are, either fix it yourself or stop buying it'
What's next now we acknowledge the game needs better balance for both narrative and casual?
Yes, and you also acknowledge that "better" is possible even where "perfect" is not.
Dudeface wrote: I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
"GW" doesn't write the fluff, different authors do. There may not even be agreement in GW about what Red Thirst does. Fluff is, of course, an interpretation.
Better is definitely rational, you'll hear no dissent there, but where do players go here and now.
If I wanted a game with a random ad hoc list tomorrow I will need to have a discussion with my opponent about our expectations and what sort of list we're bringing. We don't have the better balance yet, so what should players do now beyond engage in that dialogue which apparently is being framed as the wrong response?
Regards fluff, the codex writing teams are probably the nearest to GW writing it as they want it to be I'd imagine. I'd expect authors quirks and deviations from the codex/rulebook to be the more questionable choices.
That's kinda how this works.... remember when Abby lost the 13th black crusade officially? The new setting sort of completely ignores that, likewise C'tan weren't shards, Necrons didn't have personalities or dynastic courts, space wolves don't teleport, eldrad is dead and cadia was solid.
you are wonderfully losing the point. Nothing in the new fluff contradicts the last 30ish years of fluff regarding the death company. The only thing you can point out was they didn't include a reference to that one aspect of their rich backstory in their newest entry. So by that logic you can safely ignore any and all fluff which isn't mentioned in the newest codex release. So I guess if they don't mention Ork boyz loving combat in the next fluff release in the codex they are no longer battle crazed lunatics. And if they don't specifically mentioned "Red ones go fasta" in the codex, than Speed Freakz no longer think that correct?
It's not strictly wrong, but such negotiation seems tiresome and burdensome. A lot of the time, I'll have my 2k list with a few extra units in case I need to play smaller. I don't have room for negotiation.
Dudeface wrote: Better is definitely rational, you'll hear no dissent there, but where do players go here and now.
If I wanted a game with a random ad hoc list tomorrow I will need to have a discussion with my opponent about our expectations and what sort of list we're bringing. We don't have the better balance yet, so what should players do now beyond engage in that dialogue which apparently is being framed as the wrong response?
It isn't that engaging in dialogue is the wrong response. It's that it's an incomplete response. Pre-game negotiation may be necessary, but players: 1) Should not like being forced to do it 2) Should agitate for improvement and not accept imbalanced rules 3) Should be willing to tackle balance issues head on with GW either on FB or reddit or whatever ("the internet"). Make the company understand that better balance is desired.
And, most importantly:
4) Should not criticize other players for any of the above - at least, if they agree that better balance is indeed desirable.
Dudeface wrote: Regards fluff, the codex writing teams are probably the nearest to GW writing it as they want it to be I'd imagine. I'd expect authors quirks and deviations from the codex/rulebook to be the more questionable choices.
Really? I consider BL the definitive source (or I did. It's gotten weird lately), and the Codexes the sort of "summary" sources, where they can't go into detail about something. The codex is an hors d'oeuvres to whet the appetite for your own lore and to find more in depth lore about your favorite factions, which you can find in campaign books and at BL.
My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore. Tac marines circa 5th-7th weren't appropriate, but I really don't think 9th ed tac marines are appropriate either. They've just gone the other way too far.
SecondTime wrote: My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore.
That's not a problem, but only if other armies are built along their lore as well (ref: stories where they beat marines). The real problem is they're taking the marine-lore at face value, and ignoring other lore...
... or in other words, favoritism.
SecondTime wrote: My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore.
That's not a problem, but only if other armies are built along their lore as well (ref: stories where they beat marines). The real problem is they're taking the marine-lore at face value, and ignoring other lore...
... or in other words, favoritism.
There's far more lore for the marines, so the favoritism is really built-in. I'm just amazed it took this long, really.
SecondTime wrote: Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, and generally prefer balances issues. However, this particular issue makes very little sense in genre for a couple of reasons.
My issue with this is twofold. First BA would likely lack the restraint to pull off a tripoint as presented in the rules. Secondly, it makes no sense for 9 guys to stand around and get killed because one guy is surrounded. I dont' have to get into the weeds of the lore to have these objections.
Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, so we should ignore fluff, except on some issue where suddenly it matter?
SecondTime wrote: My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore.
That's not a problem, but only if other armies are built along their lore as well (ref: stories where they beat marines). The real problem is they're taking the marine-lore at face value, and ignoring other lore...
... or in other words, favoritism.
There's far more lore for the marines, so the favoritism is really built-in. I'm just amazed it took this long, really.
As long as it's consistent, then it doesn't really matter the quantity. If Marines have 100 books in which they fight, and Guard have 10, you can still draw conclusions about the average power of Marines and the average power of Guard.
Of course, if the quantity of fluff is wildly inconsistent, then you have to trim the outliers to approach a mean. But that type of outlier trimming is common in large data sets and isn't an ill-understood or arcane process.
SecondTime wrote: Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, and generally prefer balances issues. However, this particular issue makes very little sense in genre for a couple of reasons.
My issue with this is twofold. First BA would likely lack the restraint to pull off a tripoint as presented in the rules. Secondly, it makes no sense for 9 guys to stand around and get killed because one guy is surrounded. I dont' have to get into the weeds of the lore to have these objections.
Fluff is largely inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, so we should ignore fluff, except on some issue where suddenly it matter?
I guess it's too nuanced to be a general point. So just drop that point then.
The whole situation underscores the fluff to tabletop translation problem. To play narratively, I'd have to get my opponents to agree not to use fall back. That's the take home message here.
SecondTime wrote: My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore.
That's not a problem, but only if other armies are built along their lore as well (ref: stories where they beat marines). The real problem is they're taking the marine-lore at face value, and ignoring other lore...
... or in other words, favoritism.
There's far more lore for the marines, so the favoritism is really built-in. I'm just amazed it took this long, really.
As long as it's consistent, then it doesn't really matter the quantity. If Marines have 100 books in which they fight, and Guard have 10, you can still draw conclusions about the average power of Marines and the average power of Guard.
Of course, if the quantity of fluff is wildly inconsistent, then you have to trim the outliers to approach a mean. But that type of outlier trimming is common in large data sets and isn't an ill-understood or arcane process.
I think quantity matters quite a bit, because of its ability to cause bias.
SecondTime wrote: I think quantity matters quite a bit, because of its ability to cause bias.
You can have bias in 10 pieces of literature just like you can in 100. If you're saying that the mean is too high, then again, the mean doesn't really care how many pieces of lore you have. It just cares what those pieces say. If the average power of SM in the lore is too high, then that's a problem with GW's lore writing ability, and Marines should not be that powerful (or conversely bring up the mean of every other faction).
SecondTime wrote: I think quantity matters quite a bit, because of its ability to cause bias.
You can have bias in 10 pieces of literature just like you can in 100. If you're saying that the mean is too high, then again, the mean doesn't really care how many pieces of lore you have. It just cares what those pieces say. If the average power of SM in the lore is too high, then that's a problem with GW's lore writing ability, and Marines should not be that powerful (or conversely bring up the mean of every other faction).
You can, but the bias in the 100 pieces have 10X the likelihood of being read, right? That's how propaganda works, I think. If you spam X message in abundance, it becomes the narrative, even if other messages are just as valid. But marines are almost certainly depicted as far too powerful in most lore as well. It's not called bolter porn for no reason.
SecondTime wrote: I think quantity matters quite a bit, because of its ability to cause bias.
You can have bias in 10 pieces of literature just like you can in 100. If you're saying that the mean is too high, then again, the mean doesn't really care how many pieces of lore you have. It just cares what those pieces say. If the average power of SM in the lore is too high, then that's a problem with GW's lore writing ability, and Marines should not be that powerful (or conversely bring up the mean of every other faction).
You can, but the bias in the 100 pieces have 10X the likelihood of being read, right? That's how propaganda works, I think. If you spam X message in abundance, it becomes the narrative, even if other messages are just as valid.
Yes but GW is writing the narrative, not reading it. It doesn't particularly matter if Xenomancers thinks that a Space Marine can solo 15,000 Avatars of Khaine or if I think that a single Aspect Warrior can destroy a planet with a twitch of his ears. GW can vomit out as many books as they want on whatever they want - so long as the power levels on average roughly match, it doesn't really matter what any individual player thinks. Just what the aggregate power levels are in the lore, and you can take the mean of 100 as easily as you can 10.
And yes, if Marines are too powerful even in the lore, then chalk it up to GW being gak at writing and most importantly recognize then that lore MUST NECESSARILY be divorced from game balance. In which case, 2 wound Marines is absolutely a balance problem, even if it "feels right" lorewise.
I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
Yes, 2 wound marines are absolutely a balance issue. It was others saying that it wasn't necessarily.
SecondTime wrote: I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
That's so obviously flawed that not even a company as wrong as GW could be doing things that badly. Right? RIGHT?
And yes, I know. My response is largely directed at that discussion.
SecondTime wrote: I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
That's so obviously flawed that not even a company as wrong as GW could be doing things that badly. Right? RIGHT?
And yes, I know. My response is largely directed at that discussion.
I think that's exactly what GW is doing at this point. They are buying into their own press.
SecondTime wrote: I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
That's so obviously flawed that not even a company as wrong as GW could be doing things that badly. Right? RIGHT?
And yes, I know. My response is largely directed at that discussion.
I think that's exactly what GW is doing at this point. They are buying into their own press.
Then we're back to what I said at the beginning: favoritism. GW is actively favoring one of the factions in their own tabletop game. thisisfine.jpg
SecondTime wrote: I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
That's so obviously flawed that not even a company as wrong as GW could be doing things that badly. Right? RIGHT?
And yes, I know. My response is largely directed at that discussion.
I think that's exactly what GW is doing at this point. They are buying into their own press.
Then we're back to what I said at the beginning: favoritism. GW is actively favoring one of the factions in their own tabletop game. thisisfine.jpg
Oh yeah. It's completely favoritism. I didn't know that was in dispute, actually. It's a total wankfest now. It only wasn't before because they'd write Mary Sue marine lore, and then the marines would be taken out like target dummies on the tabletop. So rather than toning down the lore a bit and boosting the tabletop a bit, they just went full Mary Sue on the tabletop.
SecondTime wrote: I guess? My concern is that GW is both writing it AND reading it, and is reading their own Mary Sue marine lore to inform their rule writing at this point.
That's so obviously flawed that not even a company as wrong as GW could be doing things that badly. Right? RIGHT?
And yes, I know. My response is largely directed at that discussion.
I think that's exactly what GW is doing at this point. They are buying into their own press.
Then we're back to what I said at the beginning: favoritism. GW is actively favoring one of the factions in their own tabletop game. thisisfine.jpg
Oh yeah. It's completely favoritism. I didn't know that was in dispute, actually. It's a total wankfest now. It only wasn't before because they'd write Mary Sue marine lore, and then the marines would be taken out like target dummies on the tabletop. So rather than toning down the lore a bit and boosting the tabletop a bit, they just went full Mary Sue on the tabletop.
My original post said as much:
Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote: My other concern is a lot of the imbalanced marine rules are heavily influenced by all the marine-centric lore.
That's not a problem, but only if other armies are built along their lore as well (ref: stories where they beat marines). The real problem is they're taking the marine-lore at face value, and ignoring other lore... ... or in other words, favoritism.
Just discussion whether or not that is built in; I don't believe inherently that "quantity of lore" means, by itself, power escalation.
I guess I should have pointed out that its easier to ignore the other lore if there's far less of it AND it's not as lopsided as the marine lore.
Of course quantity doesn't mean that, because it wasn't like that for about two decades. But I think it's a contributory factor right now. For all I know, the current devs read one marine book and then decided to go nuts, though.
SecondTime wrote: I guess I should have pointed out that its easier to ignore the other lore if there's far less of it AND it's not as lopsided as the marine lore.
That's just more favoritism if GW is doing it. Outright ignoring their own published lore should be a no-no.
Players can ignore it (and be wrong) at their own peril, but the company less so.
SecondTime wrote: I guess I should have pointed out that its easier to ignore the other lore if there's far less of it AND it's not as lopsided as the marine lore.
That's just more favoritism if GW is doing it. Outright ignoring their own published lore should be a no-no.
Players can ignore it (and be wrong) at their own peril, but the company less so.
Who's going to stop them? Just as 5th ed didn't seem right when GW made AP2 accessible enmasse and marines were dying in droves, the current gap between marines and necrons/eldar/orks doesn't seem right either. Honestly, I don't even know what kind of lore they were basing 5th ed marines off of. Maybe they wrote the marine book, forgot about it, and then decided other factions needed mass AP2? I don't get it.
SecondTime wrote: I guess I should have pointed out that its easier to ignore the other lore if there's far less of it AND it's not as lopsided as the marine lore.
That's just more favoritism if GW is doing it. Outright ignoring their own published lore should be a no-no.
Players can ignore it (and be wrong) at their own peril, but the company less so.
Who's going to stop them? Just as 5th ed didn't seem right when GW made AP2 accessible enmasse and marines were dying in droves, the current gap between marines and necrons/eldar/orks doesn't seem right either. Honestly, I don't even know what kind of lore they were basing 5th ed marines off of. Maybe they wrote the marine book, forgot about it, and then decided other factions needed mass AP2? I don't get it.
So now we're getting into deliberate power vs indeliberate power.
There are 2 problems:
1) What we are seeing now is deliberate imbalance. GW just says "For the time being, Marines should be ridiculously powerful. Make it so."
2) What we saw then. GW doesn't understand their own game, so they accidentally give everyone mass AP2. This is contributed by their out-of-touch-ness with the player base.
GW: "Alright. We gave IG a Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun, Meltagun, and Flamer options. GLs and Flamers are 5, Meltas are 10, Plasmas 15. No doubt they will need a good spread of options."
Player: "Buuuuut GLs are useless."
GW: "Nonsense, you can shoot and charge with them because they're Assault, and they have a bit of flexibility and a fairly long range compared to Meltas."
Player: "Flamers are short ranged and don't penetrate the armor of most opponents so ignoring cover is useless."
GW: "Nonsense, the majority of people don't play Marines, surely, so AP 5 is fine. Plus, it hits multiple models, eh, eh?"
Player: "Meltaguns are too short-ranged and only get the bonus at an even shorter range, while my mobility options are limited and fragile."
GW: "They're your best anti-tank, so you will need them to kill tanks!"
Player: "Plasma has the same range as a GL (and I don't want to charge things with Guardsmen), penetrates the armor of my common foes and doesn't rely on them making an error by bunching up, and kills tanks at 12" about as well as a meltagun and can engage them from further away."
GW: ........
We assume its deliberate. Could it possibly be indeliberate? Are they that stupid? They were SHOCKED by that Tyranid flyrant list a few years back. You know, the one everyone else was completely aware of?
We assume its deliberate. Could it possibly be indeliberate? Are they that stupid? They were SHOCKED by that Tyranid flyrant list a few years back. You know, the one everyone else was completely aware of?
It could be not deliberate, but the new breed of post-Kirby developers are all fairly youthful and Warhammer Community is far more engaged than it was in 5th. They'd have to be pretttttttttty damn silly not to, idk, read the internet or whatever.
Back in the day? THAT GW didn't get it. This GW, made up of younger folks who probably read the internet (even if they don't go to Dakka Dakka) and are capable of basic maths? I would put my money down on "they know pretty well what they're doing and just choose to muck it up anyways, whether by personal choice as designers or because of pressure from on-high/marketing."
My money is on deliberate as well. But i just dont get it really.
The only primaris in my theoretical list are eradicators. If i were to play such a list, id be buying almost nothing new. The extra wound was the selling point for primaris.
I don't think we need to discuss this any further.
I agree, clearly the fluff in your mind is different to their most recently published book. Unless you're telling me GW wrote their own fluff wrong somehow of course.
Well, considering GW retconned Tau fluff when they introduced the Riptide to make it seem like it was deployed to combat heavy armour such as tanks and titans when the Hammerhead was superior at this task and was not an experimental new weapon and so available in superior numbers and within existing logistics channels, I'm going to go with the latter option.
Well, which lore are we talking? Marines from the perspective of Marines in Marine-centric novels? Novels where they're the antagonists and get zapped by lasguns or pulse rifles? Or novels where they show up as a third-party?
Once upon a time I got the sense that what we saw for in-game stats was ground truth for the setting, and lore was always skewed to favor the protagonist. I'd go so far as to say that this is how GW intended it; given how they published a Movie Marines list which gave you '''lore-accurate''' Marines, but was overtly written with the understanding that it's action movie exaggeration (the opening quote is Eddie Murphy saying, paraphrased, 'I'm not a tough guy, but if we fight in a movie I'm starring in, I'll kick your ass'), not a 'true' representation of the setting. In stories told from non-Marine perspectives- one of my go-to examples being Fall of Malvolion, where an entire company of Marines is wiped out within 40 minutes by a Tyranid swarm- they're not nearly as powerful as they are in the Marine-protagonist action-movie-style stories.
So looking back to when I was active in 3rd-5th, a Marine was as tough as an Ork, as skilled and well-protected as the heaviest Aspect Warriors, and stronger than either. They were outclassed on a one-on-one basis with some of the more potent horrors of the galaxy (Cult CSM, Genestealers, Nobz), but where those units were the elites in their respective armies, Marines were just grunts in theirs- and Marine elites like Terminators could take them on.
Over time, this seems to have changed. I'm not sure when exactly it happened; I think it may have been the Horus Heresy novels. The power level ascribed to Marines in Marine-focused works gradually became accepted as the baseline, with new ideas like 'transhuman dread' suddenly making Marines not just those weirdly augmented mon'keigh or more durable gue'ron'sha, but now lords of the galaxy that all the other races fear and respect. In other words, the Marine-centrism of the novels has been expanded to become Marine-centrism in the entire setting, and then people complained that their T4/W1/Sv3+ Marines didn't live up to how good they 'really are'.
To me this reads like watching Die Hard, and then taking to the Internet to complain about how the latest 28mm modern skirmish system doesn't accurately reflect the training and expertise of NYPD cops, and if a single cop can't take on an entire trained terrorist cell on the tabletop and win then it's not lore-accurate. The understood skew of our exceptionally capable and lucky lone underdog protagonist has become ground truth, and that feels utterly bizarre.
So, hot take: I don't think lore should matter all that much here, partly because it changes so much, and partly because it's easier to make the lore fit the tabletop than to make the tabletop fit the lore.
Now with that burden removed, what's best for the game? And on that point, I think W2 Marines were and are a mistake, be they Intercessors or Tacticals. It has a couple of problematic implications for the design space. Some off the top of my head:
-With Marines being the most common army, units are evaluated against that baseline. Instead of a diverse spread of 'better than Marine', 'equal to Marine', and 'worse than Marine' units which put basic Tacticals right in the middle, there's now a handful better, a handful equal, and a lot that are worse. For example, Genestealers and Hormagaunts are now both just different flavors of fast horde melee troops- that's not right.
-Marines as elite-of-the-elite causes them to start encroaching on the design space of other factions, especially when their lack of design limitations ensures they have units for every conceivable role. You stop being able to say 'my army is better than Marines at [x]' and have to settle for 'my army is more efficient than Marines at [x]'; or worse, Marines get to do something that fits your army's theme but you can't do.
-It weakens the consistency of design, since 'common infantry are W1, T reflects how hard they are to kill' was a core design principle for the game up until 8th. Having humanoid infantry almost universally at W1 allows for clear conceptual niches between D1 and D2 weapons, with the latter being explicitly anti-vehicle/monster/Big Thing. Now that distinction is gone- why ever take an autocannon when a heavy bolter, newly D2 to deal with Marines, is just better?
More fundamentally, as a general rule for game design, the greater the delta between the 'baseline' stat profile and that of the weakest or strongest units, the harder they are to balance. With Marines as the de facto baseline, this means every other army becomes harder to balance against them effectively. We're already seeing some of the effects of this:
-To kill Marines now you need to load up on W2 weapons, which are significantly worse at dealing with those W1 non-Marine armies. But those W2 guns kill Marines very effectively, and now they're more efficient at it than they were.
-As well, Marines being the most common army in the game means that the meta inevitably tailors against them. Part of why we're seeing success with green tide lists is because everyone's kitted up to fight a W2/Sv3+ meta, so a horde of t-shirts is a hard-counter. So if you tailor against Marines you kill them even better than before, but get shafted harder by W1 horde lists, and building a balanced list that doesn't just suck against both is harder.
It's basically the same issue that resulted from Knights being commonly fielded- more minor because obviously a Knight is a lot farther from the baseline than a Marine, but then magnified by the fact that a large majority of armies hitting the tables are exclusively some flavor of Marine.
Custodes are an example of how this concept can work in practice, but there are two keys to Custodes working- firstly, that they have inbuilt limitations (namely a lack of shooting and a very small number of units) that weaken their inherent skew advantage, and second, that they're relatively unpopular, rather than representing a majority of armies hitting the tabletop. It's not specifically a Marine issue, it's just that having the most common army archetype be significantly different in core design from all the armies causes problems.
tl;dr Irrespective of fluff, Marines being W2 means the most common army no longer has average stats, and this has a warping effect on the rest of the game.
The whole Tau schtick of combined arms was too sensible. It would have got in the way of selling ever bigger robot kits for ever bigger profit margins.
It takes effort to design an army around a balanced mixture of mechanised infantry, auxiliaries, elite battlesuits, armoured vehicles and air support. Much easier to make a big overpowered robot as the centrepiece.
I believe that diversifying the wound profiles of the game was and is still a necessity after bringing back the damage stat, and bringing back the damage stat was a good thing.
Yeah, they gave a couple wounds to some characters and gave more wounds to vehicles, but they leaved all infantry with exactly the same wounds for no reason whatsoever.
I'll say again, I'm an advocate to modify the statlines of probably most infantry units in the game. The game tryes to represent too much stuff from gretchin to imperial knights. It needs to use ALL the values. Statlines that have been keep the same when the bigger thing in the game was a Dreadnought or a Carnifex has just made that points keep getting lower and lower to allow for a place to the small stuff because bigger stuff is being added. And many people will arguee thats a problem on itself, but this is a product. GW needs to keep expanding it, so theres a point where old design paradigms no longer work. The problem with the prevalence in the competitie meta of marines and the need to taylor agaisnt them, or Imperial Knights of old, is not because their stats but because the missions werent designed with imperial knights in mind, and marines are just too good for their points, if you can't win without tailoring agaisnt them. And that was also true when conscript spam was OP on the index era: you tailored agaisnt hordes or you losed before starting the game.
I'll say, if they make all marines 2wounds and let most other infantry in the game the same it will become a grave mistake. But I don't believe modifying most statlines in the game is a bad thing. Diversify the number of stat profiles, make taking optimized weapon profiles harder, make room for everything that has been added. And give the job to people with actual game design careers please.
The whole Tau schtick of combined arms was too sensible. It would have got in the way of selling ever bigger robot kits for ever bigger profit margins.
It takes effort to design an army around a balanced mixture of mechanised infantry, auxiliaries, elite battlesuits, armoured vehicles and air support. Much easier to make a big overpowered robot as the centrepiece.
Tau players that still play them mechanized and with a ton of tanks represent!
As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
The #1 problem is the damage skew. Just like Martel's AP2 spam in 5th edition example, if the baseline is 2 wounds (or a 3+ save in 5th) then people will only take D2 weapons.
The only way to not make that the most efficient option is to have hordes be so hordey that you NEED to spam cheaper D1 weapons to beat them. This has 2 implications: 1) You either brought enough D2 weapons for Marines, or enough D1 cheapness for Hordes, or you lose to one or the other. Because what 40k needed was skew lists employing basic infantry. 2) Horde armies become so freaking massive (hundreds and hundreds of models) that they become a chore to play, and never get played anyways, making the D2 weapons the default.
When the D2 weapons become the default (either in case 1, where the baseline is 2 wounds, or Case 2 Premise 2), W2 Marines become bad again. Shall we make them W3? Surely that will solve the problem!
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.
They kind of are, though. Most popular morphs into the baseline because of list building realities.
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.
I define baseline based on what I consider my most common threat that I have to skew to counter would be.
If, in my meta, that's Knights? Knights are the baseline. But for most metas (and most tournaments) that "profile against which capability will be measured most commonly" is MEQ.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.
Hmmm... No? Are gretchin the baseline because they are by fluff the most populous? In fantasy your baseline profile was T3 W1 because that was normal humans and elves and most stuff in the game, and also were some of the most popular armies. In warhammer 40k the medium is represented by Space Marines.
Galas wrote: The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best. Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
They don't, though, not really.
Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. My gun might go from a 4 to a 5, or a 2 to a 3, but that's not really going to change what gun I bring. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor. Look at the Fire Prism - one profile that's Strength 6, one that's Strength 9, one that's Strength 12. The AP goes up from -3, to -4, to -5. The damage goes from 1, to d3, to d6. You can't get too much more statistically variant than that. And do you know what the best profile is against all target types that exist in 40k? The middle one. Always better, no question. I don't need other guns.
AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.
We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.
I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.
Galas wrote: I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.
You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.
Galas wrote: The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
They don't, though, not really.
Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.
AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.
We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.
AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs. A lot of the str 9 and 10 weapons at that point would go up in str too. Make the gap bewetween str 5 and str 10 weapons more important.
Galas wrote: The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best. Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
They don't, though, not really.
Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.
AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.
We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.
AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs.
Eh? I mean, sure, I guess. But things like Meltaguns will then have to become strength 12 to meet their preferred targets (i.e. Land Raiders). I mean I guess it makes AT weapons more AT-y, but even in that realm, damage is far more important. Doubling the wounds on a Baneblade would make it far tougher IMO than doubling the toughness. Heck, quadrupling the toughness would be worse than doubling the wounds (well maybe that's a bit of hyperbole but still).
Wounds is really the most significant durability stat - arguably so much so that it drowns out the other stats.
Galas wrote: The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
They don't, though, not really.
Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.
AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.
We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.
AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs. A lot of the str 9 and 10 weapons at that point would go up in str too. Make the gap bewetween str 5 and str 10 weapons more important.
It's almost as though GW doesn't actually understand the wounding chart they created
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.
Hmmm... No? Are gretchin the baseline because they are by fluff the most populous? In fantasy your baseline profile was T3 W1 because that was normal humans and elves and most stuff in the game, and also were some of the most popular armies. In warhammer 40k the medium is represented by Space Marines.
Even if they're populous they're not the regular human.
Galas wrote: I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.
You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.
This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.
Galas wrote: I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.
You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.
This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.
If marine metal boxes get them (impulsor), why shouldn't a hyper advanced Necron construct? This is the problem with the invuln paradigm. Invulns cheat people out of AP they paid for. And it makes the unit difficult to cost, and it makes high AP weapons difficult to cost.
I would arguee that what many people is saying, is that GW did some changes for 8th like the wound table changes (That is basically made to work with much bigger differences in strengh tand toughtness values) and damage stats, but then kept other stats unchanged, making a middle ground that doesnt work properly.
For example, with how the Wound table is made, you need strenght and toughtness values from 3 to probably 18, because the higher you go, the even bigger you need to be to make a difference. The old to wound table was enough for a much more limited system, and specially now with vehicles having the same statlines as normal units.
The same goes for wound values. With damage going from "always 1" to stuff like 1d6 damage, 1d6+2 damage, 1d3+3, or stuff like thunder hammers flat 3 damage, the changes to the wound values of most stuff was just insufficient. Specially for vehicles.
GW should decide, if they want small stats, they should go back to the old paradigms. But if they really want to continue the path they have started, they should abandon all past ideas and embrace the new systems they have implemented in their full power.
Galas wrote: I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.
You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.
This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.
If marine metal boxes get them (impulsor), why shouldn't a hyper advanced Necron construct? This is the problem with the invuln paradigm. Invulns cheat people out of AP they paid for. And it makes the unit difficult to cost, and it makes high AP weapons difficult to cost.
Invunes should not exist (except for in melee and be rare). AP should be reblanced around that.
Galas wrote: The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.
They don't, though, not really.
Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.
AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.
We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.
AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs.
Eh? I mean, sure, I guess. But things like Meltaguns will then have to become strength 12 to meet their preferred targets (i.e. Land Raiders). I mean I guess it makes AT weapons more AT-y, but even in that realm, damage is far more important. Doubling the wounds on a Baneblade would make it far tougher IMO than doubling the toughness. Heck, quadrupling the toughness would be worse than doubling the wounds (well maybe that's a bit of hyperbole but still).
Wounds is really the most significant durability stat - arguably so much so that it drowns out the other stats.
You are right about wound totals. The sad truth of the matter is light guns are far too effective at killing tanks ATM and something needs to be done about it.
Many solutions possible.
Give anti tank weapons more d3+3 type profiles* vs vehicals/monsters
Increase T on mosnters/vehicals and str of anti tank weapons.
increase wound totals on vehicals/monsters.
I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.
Galas wrote: I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.
Because Custodes effectively don't shoot for their cost. They shoot a little, but that volume of fire can be ignored for the model cost.
Galas wrote: I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.
Because Custodes effectively don't shoot for their cost. They shoot a little, but that volume of fire can be ignored for the model cost.
You act as though Heavy Intercessors shoot well for their cost though.
SecondTime wrote: I didn't say a thing about them. I haven't even contemplated that unit.
Why you think people are complaining about the T5 W3 paradigm in this thread and others?
I thought it was mostly about 2W marines in general rather than 3W. I'm not happy about the Heavy Intercessors mind you but at least they seem to be somewhat more fairly priced than current Tacs and Intercessors.
Surely everyone's not bothered about Heavy Intercessors because *they don't exist yet*. Unless someone's playing on the computer, or using tokens, its a bit hard to judge.
I suspect they will be a problem even if its a bit early to say. Mainly because there is a real lack of 3 damage weapons and even if there were there is obvious opportunity to play around with FNPs. Against T4/T5 targets the shooting is more or less a wash compared to regular intercessors.
The downside is in assault - but that might not matter so much.
Certainly if you think the issue is that 2 wound Marines don't die quick enough, these are not going to be better for you. Although maybe they are starting to get to the points where you just spam close range melta. Be a shame if lots of factions didn't have that...
But hey, as shown about 6 pages ago, the future may belong to Grav Cannon tacticals. (There are some downsides when you move, but otherwise its probably a legitimate argument.)
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
They sure don't play or feel like those to be honest. If they were that, then a 50-100 marines should be able to wipe out a regiment of IG or few thousand strong warband of orcs.
And if marines are played like an normal army, then for marines a 2W dude with t4 is the basic trooper. Something elite for marines is something like a bladeguard marine.
dhallnet wrote: A player spamming broken stuff to win and another creating a decent list out of stuff you're expected to pick anyway, is extremely different. Borderline obvious. And one is actually quite clearly stating he's not here to fool around.
In certain editions green tide orks were great, and also incredibly fluffy. So, to make it very clear, sometimes armies are very powerful in an incidental fashion, where just choosing whatever is very powerful, and other factions need to list tailor or squeeze every bit of power out of their faction to stand a chance. This is where "just play narrative" breaks down, because narrative players tend to not have a highly granular understanding of the rules to make that kind of assessment.
dhallnet wrote: If one's most powerful build is simply middle of the road for another faction, we have issues.
That is the case, and we do have issues.
dhallnet wrote: Again unless you believe you can achieve a state of balance where there is no build more powerful than others, no it doesn't fix anything. I also fail to understand how bad balance justify cheating or bad sportsmanship (but wanting to win above all doesn't, strangely) but whatever. Yes, more balance is something to look after but the mindset of the players will always be important too (and seems to be the issue in what you just listed here btw : no reason to cheat or always buy the next hot stuff if you're the kind of guy playing to tell the praise of your captain).
The reason it creates a system of cheating and bad sportsmanship, is if a game is decided mostly by codex power level and list matchups, there's nothing you can do on the table to win via expertise or smart play. This makes people feel powerless, and people recognize the inherent unfair nature of it. It's the same reason why crime is higher in kleptocracies and states with low social trust; nobody thinks the ostensible authority is playing fair, so why should they? GW is the authority in this context, and is playing favorites to the point where you can't count on a fair game, so why should an individual player feel obligated to play fair when GW won't? This pushes people who were on the fence about sportsmanship over the edge, since giving up any advantage on the table is just a fools' errand, because you can't overcome it by "getting gud."
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
No. Astartes are the most-played faction in the game, and the game is balanced around them. They are the baseline.
Galas wrote: I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
There are two significant factors to Custodes.
1. As noted, their shooting is minimal. Additionally, they lack board footprint, with the minimum size on their units being significantly more expensive than even Marines. These are both critical weaknesses that offset the inherently skewed nature of their multi-wound and strong-invuln statlines. In any engagement they show up in, they have the implicit advantage of being universally non-optimal target profiles, while simultaneously having the implicit weaknesses of lacking shooting and board control. Contrast this with Marines where they have much better shooting and significantly better board control, avoiding those weaknesses.
2. Custodes aren't anywhere close to the most popular faction- if they were, people would skew to counter them, which in turn would probably be great for some of the non-Custodes factions that would then be non-optimal targets for meta weapons, while Custodes would perpetually feel underpowered.
Basically the Custodes statline has the potential to be an issue, but because they're a niche faction with significant weaknesses that they have no way to overcome, they're kept in check. It's exactly the same for Knights- all-Knights is a skew list that benefits significantly from being skew, but having zero board control in an edition focused on objectives is a crippling weakness. If Knights were by far the most popular faction and could count their remaining wounds as that number of obsec models for the purpose of controlling objectives, the game would break wide open overnight. Obviously Marines represent much less skew than that, but the underlying issues are still there.
Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.
Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.
Also, it's very clear that GW balances around this idea, given they've even put articles on their community site on the topic.
The statline doesn't matter, its statline for points.
You can change nothing about Custodes at all, except give them a 10-15% points reduction, and they'd very quickly be winning every tournament and flooding every store.
Just as Marines would probably cease to be an issue if everything went up 10-15%.
Galas wrote: I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
There are two significant factors to Custodes.
1. As noted, their shooting is minimal. Additionally, they lack board footprint, with the minimum size on their units being significantly more expensive than even Marines. These are both critical weaknesses that offset the inherently skewed nature of their multi-wound and strong-invuln statlines. In any engagement they show up in, they have the implicit advantage of being universally non-optimal target profiles, while simultaneously having the implicit weaknesses of lacking shooting and board control. Contrast this with Marines where they have much better shooting and significantly better board control, avoiding those weaknesses.
2. Custodes aren't anywhere close to the most popular faction- if they were, people would skew to counter them, which in turn would probably be great for some of the non-Custodes factions that would then be non-optimal targets for meta weapons, while Custodes would perpetually feel underpowered.
Basically the Custodes statline has the potential to be an issue, but because they're a niche faction with significant weaknesses that they have no way to overcome, they're kept in check. It's exactly the same for Knights- all-Knights is a skew list that benefits significantly from being skew, but having zero board control in an edition focused on objectives is a crippling weakness. If Knights were by far the most popular faction and could count their remaining wounds as that number of obsec models for the purpose of controlling objectives, the game would break wide open overnight. Obviously Marines represent much less skew than that, but the underlying issues are still there.
Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.
Your analisis is correct but I don't believe your conclusion is. You see an statline in a vacuum, as if by itself it was a problem. Your rule about Imperial Knights is just like Beatsclaw Raiders or Giants have in AoS were they count as 10 models to capture objetives, and they aren't winning any tournament. The reality is that if marines are a problem is not because a statline, because all kind of units with all kind of statlines have been problems over the years. The problem with marines is just that they have been overpowered with a ton of firepower and durability for their costs.
I can understand people that dont like space marines with 2 wounds specially compared with stuff like genestealers, eldar banshee, etc... but we need to stop bringing that theres something fundamendally flawed with those statlines because they have always existed in one form or another and they have by the most part not been a problem, specially not a bigger problem that many other units over the years.
The differente between a custode and a marine is that a basic custode is fething 45 ppm aprox were you have space marine terminators with the nearly the same statline that have double the firepower and are nearly the same in meele with native deepstrike for 30 points. Is just as simple as that.
If GW wants elite marines, they should be pointed like the elite units they are, and then the weakness will appear by themselves because they will always be outnumbered. The problem is GW wants marines to sell like hotcakes and you can't keep up your business on the back of marine sales if your marine army is made by 20 models and 2 dreadnoughts like a Custodes is.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Galas wrote: I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.
There are two significant factors to Custodes.
1. As noted, their shooting is minimal. Additionally, they lack board footprint, with the minimum size on their units being significantly more expensive than even Marines. These are both critical weaknesses that offset the inherently skewed nature of their multi-wound and strong-invuln statlines. In any engagement they show up in, they have the implicit advantage of being universally non-optimal target profiles, while simultaneously having the implicit weaknesses of lacking shooting and board control. Contrast this with Marines where they have much better shooting and significantly better board control, avoiding those weaknesses.
2. Custodes aren't anywhere close to the most popular faction- if they were, people would skew to counter them, which in turn would probably be great for some of the non-Custodes factions that would then be non-optimal targets for meta weapons, while Custodes would perpetually feel underpowered.
Basically the Custodes statline has the potential to be an issue, but because they're a niche faction with significant weaknesses that they have no way to overcome, they're kept in check. It's exactly the same for Knights- all-Knights is a skew list that benefits significantly from being skew, but having zero board control in an edition focused on objectives is a crippling weakness. If Knights were by far the most popular faction and could count their remaining wounds as that number of obsec models for the purpose of controlling objectives, the game would break wide open overnight. Obviously Marines represent much less skew than that, but the underlying issues are still there.
Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.
Your analisis is correct but I don't believe your conclusion is. You see an statline in a vacuum, as if by itself it was a problem. Your rule about Imperial Knights is just like Beatsclaw Raiders or Giants have in AoS were they count as 10 models to capture objetives, and they aren't winning any tournament. The reality is that if marines are a problem is not because a statline, because all kind of units with all kind of statlines have been problems over the years. The problem with marines is just that they have been overpowered with a ton of firepower and durability for their costs.
I can understand people that dont like space marines with 2 wounds specially compared with stuff like genestealers, eldar banshee, etc... but we need to stop bringing that theres something fundamendally flawed with those statlines because they have always existed in one form or another and they have by the most part not been a problem, specially not a bigger problem that many other units over the years.
The differente between a custode and a marine is that a basic custode is fething 45 ppm aprox were you have space marine terminators with the nearly the same statline that have double the firepower and are nearly the same in meele with native deepstrike for 30 points. Is just as simple as that.
If GW wants elite marines, they should be pointed like the elite units they are, and then the weakness will appear by themselves because they will always be outnumbered. The problem is GW wants marines to sell like hotcakes and you can't keep up your business on the back of marine sales if your marine army is made by 20 models and 2 dreadnoughts like a Custodes is.
They are pointed like elite models.
How do they compare in cost to units like?
Tyranid warriors...
Dark Eldar Incubi...
Necron Preatorians...
Eldar Aspect warriors...
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Okay so marines are common on the 40k table top. It has nothing to do with the armies identity and power level. If anything being common is a disadvantage on the table top. Because you can always expect weapons good at removing you to be in every army. WHICH HAS BEEN THE CASE FOR ALL OF 40k's HISTORY. Power armor has always been borderline useless because ap3/2 type weapons can be spammed and are by almost every army (the ones that can anyways).
Xenomancers wrote: Power armor has always been borderline useless because ap3/2 type weapons can be spammed and are by almost every army (the ones that can anyways).
Ahah what??? [edit]Spamming melta to deal with marine infantry, seems like a winning plan right?[/edit]
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Yes you can play semantics as you are doing
Notice I Said IMPERIUM Not Marines as Marines are elite forces in the IMPERIUM.
Marine are just one small element of the Imperial war machine.
Xenomancers wrote: Power armor has always been borderline useless because ap3/2 type weapons can be spammed and are by almost every army (the ones that can anyways).
Ahah what???
[edit]Spamming melta to deal with marine infantry, seems like a winning plan right?[/edit]
Xenomancers wrote:Okay so marines are common on the 40k table top. It has nothing to do with the armies identity and power level.
Obviously it does. Every edition of the game has been tuned around space marines. Their statistics are chosen so that marines succeed more often than fail (66%), and 'weak units' fail against them more often than succeed (33%)
They designers have, in print, specifically stated they've increased the power level of space marines.
When they went from toughness 3 to 4 (and got several other buffs) the reasoning was literally that rules and models for their enemies had shifted the balance of power, and the
"once mighty space marines are now looking a little less heroic. Of course this is hardly appropriate!"
This was from 1990 or 1991 (a WD update that was reprinted in the WH40K Compilation in 1991). Its a flat statement that the space marine power level was low and that circumstance was entirely inappropriate for the game.
When they got 2 wounds... lets see some quotes
"If you’re playing Warhammer 40,000, you need a plan to kill Space Marines. With all fully fledged Adeptus Astartes going to 2 Wounds, tabletops are in for a considerable shake-up"
"That’s right – it won’t just be Primaris Marines on 2 Wounds anymore! All of a sudden, a lot of units that may have felt a bit left behind become very durable and appealing. From Battle Company units such as Assault, Devastator and Tactical Marines, to the elite Terminators of the 1st Company (who will be increased to 3 Wounds accordingly), the first born will be back to prove to their Primaris battle-brothers their great worth."
Considerable tabletop shakeup, and shifting 'left behind' Space Marine units to be more appealing.
On weapons changes:
The biggest and best-ever edition of Codex: Space Marines is on its way soon – you saw The Codex Show on Saturday, right? One of the biggest changes is that some of their most commonly used weapons are receiving upgraded profiles that are truly worthy of their potency in the lore.
Other armies benefited a little from this, but the major thrust of this change was _for Space Marines_.
We've just had a major update that is all about Space Marines being better on the table, and everyone else can go hang or wait. In some cases, it won't be a long wait, but there is no way to argue that it isn't about the power level of space marines.
How do they compare in cost to units like?
Tyranid warriors...
Dark Eldar Incubi...
Necron Preatorians...
Eldar Aspect warriors...
Using Praetorians actually highlights the issue perfectly.
Praetorians get a significant discount on their "real" points cost because they lack Core and they lack a Dynastic Code, which severely limits their available synergies and upper ceiling for power. This is why, despite being overall superior in stats on average to Lychguard, Lychguard still cost more points.
The issue with a lot of Marine units is that they aren't really paying appropriate points costs for things like Angels of Death, Chapter Tactics and the Core keyword. AoD especially is an incredibly problematic rule that has lots of situational (although not very difficult to access) but powerful bonuses that catapult certain units into the fething stratosphere power-wise. However because the attack bonus is not constant (even though in practice it is) and the appropriate Doctrine is turn-locked (even though in practice it isn't) the units do not pay appropriately for these abilities. The various Chapter Tactics and Chapter-specific stratagems also make the problem more acute because in terms of versatility and damage output, some of them are truly insane and singlehandedly break certain units to a far greater degree than say, the Necron Dynastic Codes. Just as an example, WS or BA BGV are criminally undercosted* and probably need to go up like 20% points wise. But at the same time it's hard to justify raising the points that much for, say, an Ultramarines or Imperial Fist BGV unit.
*I would say though that BGV are probably too cheap currently in general, but when combined with certain Chapters they should be approaching Custodian Guard levels of expense. Like you can't look at a Custodes with a Shield and Blade at 56 points and a BA BGV at 35 points and think the BGV is sensibly priced.
The Shield Custodes is one of the few units left with a 3++, and math wise they aren't terribly far off. A Shield Custodes inflicts 1.67 wounds in melee and the the Bladeguard does 1.2. Thats not to mention that's the defense one too. Spears won't fare better for defense of course, but they already have that tank to begin with and one Strat to increase their wound roll. To say it's unfair is a bit silly when the Custodes doesn't need to go down in price that much to be frank.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The Shield Custodes is one of the few units left with a 3++, and math wise they aren't terribly far off. A Shield Custodes inflicts 1.67 wounds in melee and the the Bladeguard does 1.2. Thats not to mention that's the defense one too. Spears won't fare better for defense of course, but they already have that tank to begin with and one Strat to increase their wound roll. To say it's unfair is a bit silly when the Custodes doesn't need to go down in price that much to be frank.
And you can get nearly one and a half Bladeguard per Custodian Guard.
A Custodian Guard is 49 Points (Spear) or 56 Points (Sword and Board). Add 3 points for an extra S5 AP-2 D1 attack.
A Bladeguard Veteran is 35 points a pop. Can add 5 for a fancy pistol on Sarge, but... No.
So, let's compare three squads of BGV to two squads of Custodian Guard. BGV are base, Custodian Guard are one Sword and Board, two Spears per three-man squad. No Misericordias.
315 points to 348.
BGV get 30 attacks at WS3+ S5 AP-3 D2, plus 9 on the first round of combat.
Guard get 12 attacks at WS2+ S6 AP-3 Dd3, and 6 at S5 AP-3 Dd3. No bonuses unless you take a banner, but we're counting unit to unit right now.
BGV are clearly the winners on offense-they get more hits than the Guard have attacks, and while some of the Guard's hits are higher strength, their damage is d3 instead of 2, which is generally a disadvantage.
Custodian Guard are arguably the winners on defense, as they have T5 and 2+ (with two models having a 3++, not just a 4++) but they've got 18 wounds to the BGV's 27. So it might be a wash.
Why wouldn't you purchase the Miscordia? That's auto-purchase for all intents and purposes. I'll admit I didn't factor it earlier though since I forgot about it.
That gets you 24 attacks total, which IS more than the BGV get hits. But that does increase the cost to 372. So two S&B plus three Spear with the extra weapon are...
Did I goof my math? I did-the Guard are (the six man, no extras) are 308. 332 with the extras.
In this case I don't think the Custode is the one that is badly costed, TBH, even if I believe with most marines having 2 and 3 wounds custodes should go to 4w with 5w terminators.
But did you take into account which Chapter the BGV are? That was my main point.
The comparison completely changes when they're getting even more attacks and a +1 to wound, or hitting at a flat 3 damage with the capability to advance and charge.
Bosskelot wrote: But did you take into account which Chapter the BGV are? That was my main point.
The comparison completely changes when they're getting even more attacks and a +1 to wound, or hitting at a flat 3 damage with the capability to advance and charge.
But we get back to "but marines are 1 army since every competitive list uses whichever chapter tactic is best", so they're either white scars or salamanders.
Bosskelot wrote: But did you take into account which Chapter the BGV are? That was my main point.
The comparison completely changes when they're getting even more attacks and a +1 to wound, or hitting at a flat 3 damage with the capability to advance and charge.
But we get back to "but marines are 1 army since every competitive list uses whichever chapter tactic is best", so they're either white scars or salamanders.
The point is that the various Space Marine buffs are too powerful.
I mean you compare Marines to Necrons. They both get a chapter tactic - so lets call that a wash.
Necrons get Reanimation Protocols and Command Protocols.
Marines get: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, And they shall know no fear, Combat Doctrines, Super Doctrines.
You can question the value of each of these on its own - but as a package, its pretty obvious whose winning. It could be that Marines are paying for all those buffs in inflated points costs versus base stats but its not obvious this is the case.
The result is that if any element of Marines is nerfed, the list just evolves into something else.
JNAProductions wrote: That gets you 24 attacks total, which IS more than the BGV get hits. But that does increase the cost to 372. So two S&B plus three Spear with the extra weapon are...
Did I goof my math? I did-the Guard are (the six man, no extras) are 308. 332 with the extras.
Actually only 22 attacks. Misericordias don't grant an extra attack when equipped alongside a shield. So there's only any point in putting them on the spear guys.
4 spear + 2 sword & board guys = 308. Adding 4 misericordias on the spear guys it comes to 320
JNAProductions wrote: That gets you 24 attacks total, which IS more than the BGV get hits. But that does increase the cost to 372. So two S&B plus three Spear with the extra weapon are...
Did I goof my math? I did-the Guard are (the six man, no extras) are 308. 332 with the extras.
Actually only 22 attacks. Misericordias don't grant an extra attack when equipped alongside a shield. So there's only any point in putting them on the spear guys.
4 spear + 2 sword & board guys = 308. Adding 4 misericordias on the spear guys it comes to 320
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Yes you can play semantics as you are doing Notice I Said IMPERIUM Not Marines as Marines are elite forces in the IMPERIUM.
Marine are just one small element of the Imperial war machine.
There are three ways to view this argument.
1: from the perspective of what is most common in the actual game. SM are the baseline.
2: From the perspective of what is most common in each army within the game. SM are most common and basic tacs/intercessors are baseline.
and finally 3: Lumping something like 50% of all the codex's in the game into 1 super faction and than comparing them to everyone else in a fluff perspective as opposed to a useful game perspective and saying "see, IG are the most populous in the fluff therefore they are the baseline".
You chose 3. Nobody else cares what the fluff says, we were talking about the actual game.
My two cents is that when playing against marines the new stats are cool and makes them feel tough, elite, and generally awesome like they should. Taking down a unit of them is satisfying.
What makes me not want to play against them anymore is seeing just how much extra they get. It starts with chapter tactics that are just plain better than the equivalent faction bonuses from my codex. Then they get doctrines as a significant bonus on top of that, compared to my... nothing. Then they have twice as many stratagems to use, plus even more from whatever flavor of supplement is augmenting them. I am left feeling like my opponent might well as have a 25-50% points bonus because my points are worth less than a space marine's. It's extremely discouraging, unfun, and I can see why people quit 40k over it.
jdouglas wrote: I think it makes sense, lore wise, since SM have undergone all of those troublesome surgical/genetic alterations (2 hearts, therefore 2 wounds).
Lore-wise, an Ork is a fungal mass with no discernible vital organs, so they're extremely difficult to kill. Don't need two hearts if you don't have a heart in the first place.
Lore-wise, a Tyranid Gaunt has multiply-redundant vital organs to ensure that they can keep functioning until totally obliterated.
Lore-wise, Drukhari Wracks have all sorts of unpredictable organ-grafting such that no two are the same, and relocating one's vital organs is practically a rite of passage in Haemonculus culture.
There are a lot of things with valid lore arguments to be tougher than humans; that's why the Toughness stat exists. Wounds were originally meant to represent plot armor for characters and really significant durability for larger-than-humanoid things, but now it's more or less redundant to Toughness and used interchangeably. Why's a Primaris T4/W2 but an Immortal is T5/W1? Who knows.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except we have people here, including me, saying Orks would be great at W2
That's not solving an imbalance so much as just adding to the inconsistency.
Would Orks be bumped down to T3? Or would they be T4 and W2? If W2 represents how much harder to kill they are than a human, what does the T4 represent?
Should everything else that's harder to kill than a human be W2 as well? Aren't those all T4+ already? Should there not be anything T4/W1? How do we decide what should switch and what shouldn't?
Why is a Plague Marine soon to be T5/W2? Why not T4/W3? When should something be high-T-low-W and vice versa?
And that doesn't even get into the fact that GW would than most likely incorrectly price that wound. Either by giving it a similar value to that of SM's I.E. 3pts extra or by going above and beyond and jumping them 5+ points at which point Ork boyz as a unit are dead as a horde and now rely on grotz to fill min requirements for a battalion in order to get more useful things that can actually kill enemies.
Friendly reminder, as of right now, it takes 31 Shoota shots or 16 Ork boyz shooting, to kill 1 TAC Space Marine in the shooting phase. ATM that is 128pts to kill 18pts. If you give them a 2nd wound and jump their value up to 11 or 13pts than the math goes up to 176-208pts to kill 1 Tac Marine. In CC Those same boyz only inflict 3.55dmg to a Marine.
While I do agree ork boyz are going to need a hefty durability boost to exist in the same meta as SM's currently do, I don't trust GW to correctly value that 2nd wound or T5 or hell, even giving them an army wide 6+ FNP that can be boosted by Painboyz.
Following on from what catbarf said, it strikes me that we have three different values to represent a model's durability (toughness, wounds, and save), but no value to represent how difficult a model is to hit.
Lore-wise, an Ork is a fungal mass with no discernible vital organs, so they're extremely difficult to kill. Don't need two hearts if you don't have a heart in the first place.
And get punched to death by Marines one on one with little effort.
Lore-wise, a Tyranid Gaunt has multiply-redundant vital organs to ensure that they can keep functioning until totally obliterated.
And get punched to death by Marines one on one with even less effort.
Lore-wise, Drukhari Wracks have all sorts of unpredictable organ-grafting such that no two are the same, and relocating one's vital organs is practically a rite of passage in Haemonculus culture.
All right I'll be honest, I have literally never once in my life read any fluff containing a Wrack, so you've got me here.
Do you see the difference? An Ork Boy is harder to inflict a grievous wound on than a human due to their robust physiology. But when something like a Marine does so, they tend to immediately die, and get cut down by the dozen.
This isn't typically the case when Marines fight each other. Marines are practically tougher than Ork Boys, per the fluff, especially since the extra wound seems to come with placing such a durable chassis inside of powered armour.
Making those units more durable and elite also doesn't fit the look of the army at all. Gaunts are a wave of chitinous monsters who drown you in sheer numbers. Orks are the same.
Marines are few in number but a daunting challenge each. Every Marine is a hero in their own right.
The problem isn't more wounds, the problem is that they're pointed way too efficiently for what you get throughout most of the codex. Marines are broken, and the more I see of the new codex the more I realize how fething stupid the codex is despite having some token nerfs here and there. Space Marines should be elite and hard to kill, but they should be outnumbered far more than they currently are.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except we have people here, including me, saying Orks would be great at W2
That's not solving an imbalance so much as just adding to the inconsistency.
Would Orks be bumped down to T3? Or would they be T4 and W2? If W2 represents how much harder to kill they are than a human, what does the T4 represent?
Should everything else that's harder to kill than a human be W2 as well? Aren't those all T4+ already? Should there not be anything T4/W1? How do we decide what should switch and what shouldn't?
Why is a Plague Marine soon to be T5/W2? Why not T4/W3? When should something be high-T-low-W and vice versa?
What the feth do these stats mean?
I always understand T as how hard is something to wound and the wounds the ammount of punishement it can take before going down.
For example, both Boyz and Nobz are equally hard to wound. Nobz don't have harder muscles or skin than boyz, but they are larger and take more punishement. Wounding a Plague Marine is harder than a normal marine basically because he's rotten flesh, and then he can take even more punishement (Represented in this case by their FNP not by having more wounds, so even another layer). In this case the same can be said about Wracks, they chosed to represent their durability with an invulnerable save, a little extrange but eeeh I can accept it.
Now, stats are just too small to represent the broad narrative difference in all the models in the game, just like a S4 Catachan isn't as strong as a S4 ork or a S4 marine by fluff. Probably a normal human would be T3, a Gaunt T3,4 an ork boyz 3,8T a space marine T4, but this isn't an RPG. Is a Wargame with stats that should translate some sense of fluff adderence but be ultimately made to be balanced. Having everyone with 1 wound and characters with 2-3 can work, it worked in Fantasy. In 40k ... it kinda worked because stufff like instant death was trash, and instead of removing it they added things like eternal warriors in typical GW way of fixing errors with bandages.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Yes you can play semantics as you are doing Notice I Said IMPERIUM Not Marines as Marines are elite forces in the IMPERIUM.
Marine are just one small element of the Imperial war machine.
There are three ways to view this argument.
1: from the perspective of what is most common in the actual game. SM are the baseline.
2: From the perspective of what is most common in each army within the game. SM are most common and basic tacs/intercessors are baseline.
and finally 3: Lumping something like 50% of all the codex's in the game into 1 super faction and than comparing them to everyone else in a fluff perspective as opposed to a useful game perspective and saying "see, IG are the most populous in the fluff therefore they are the baseline".
You chose 3. Nobody else cares what the fluff says, we were talking about the actual game.
Ok mate - look at the Marine data sheet - whats its fething primary key word - yeah thats right IMPERIUM.
Whats an orks boyz primary key word - oh yeah fething Orks.
Marines have Imperium keyword fails to refute that they are baseline for the game. Which they pretty clearly are given their number of kits and their frequency of play. You are saying they SHOULDN'T be, but simultaneously they should also only show up rarely due to their immersion-breakingly low numbers.
Here I am scrounging for a Triarch Stalker and there's like eight times more marine kits at the store than the next closest faction. Don't tell me they aren't the standard.
Galas wrote: As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?
No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.
Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors
etc
Marines are elite special forces.
So Space Marines aren't their own faction and fall under Codex "Imperium"? Interesting, i was unaware of this.
The reality is, you can play semantic games to your hearts content, but SM's are the most common faction in the game, and their "line" infantry is Tacs and intercessors.
Yes you can play semantics as you are doing Notice I Said IMPERIUM Not Marines as Marines are elite forces in the IMPERIUM.
Marine are just one small element of the Imperial war machine.
There are three ways to view this argument.
1: from the perspective of what is most common in the actual game. SM are the baseline.
2: From the perspective of what is most common in each army within the game. SM are most common and basic tacs/intercessors are baseline.
and finally 3: Lumping something like 50% of all the codex's in the game into 1 super faction and than comparing them to everyone else in a fluff perspective as opposed to a useful game perspective and saying "see, IG are the most populous in the fluff therefore they are the baseline".
You chose 3. Nobody else cares what the fluff says, we were talking about the actual game.
Ok mate - look at the Marine data sheet - whats its fething primary key word - yeah thats right IMPERIUM.
Whats an orks boyz primary key word - oh yeah fething Orks.
Q E fething D.
So what's Chaos' basic trooper?
And why are you looking solely at fluff? Because Marines are, despite being vastly less numerous in the fluff, much more common and the tabletop.
Ok mate - look at the Marine data sheet - whats its fething primary key word - yeah thats right IMPERIUM.
Whats an orks boyz primary key word - oh yeah fething Orks.
Q E fething D.
I think you might be misunderstanding the point.
From a Lore perspective, guardsmen (perhaps also Admech, albeit to a lesser extent) are the baseline Imperium troops. Guard in particular are by far the most numerous, and the force that will be called on to deal with almost every threat to the Imperium. Even if more elite troops are sent afterwards or in addition, the guard will still represent the first line of defence.
Marines, meanwhile, are very much an elite unit, who are well above the baseline of the Imperium. Given that their numbers are minuscule, relative to the guard and other Imperium units, they are relatively rare and are generally too scarce to participate in the vast majority of conflicts.
I assume you wouldn't disagree with the above?
Here's where it gets difficult. See, in the lore, Marines are scarce while guardsmen are the baseline. However, this simply isn't reflected in the actual game. Instead, you'll find that guardsmen are the scarce ones, whilst Marines are by far the dominant army in almost every gaming club and group. Even the novels and other such tend to present Marines in a similar manner. Yes, they'll probably say somewhere that Marines are rare, but just look at the number of Marine-centric novels, compared to guard-centric ones.
Put simply, the supposed scarcity of Marines is completely undermined by their ubiquity, both on and off the table. The upshot is that, whatever the lore, Marines must be seen as the baseline unit in the actual game. Because they are. Hell, they're so numerous that they've literally got their own separate tab on the GW webstore, whilst IG, SoB, Admech etc. are all lumped into Imperium. That should tell you something.
If you want to look at it in terms of numbers, there are 2 IG armies (I'm being quite generous here and counting MT as separate from IG, in spite of the fact that they don't even get their own entry on the GW webstore). I honestly don't know how common Admech are supposed to be, but let's throw them in anyway. Hell, we'll even throw in the Inquisition, why not? That gives us 4 factions (two with barely any units to their name) to represent the "baseline" Imperium units. Now lets look at the 'incredibly rare and scarce elites':
- Space marines
- Blood Angels
- Grey Knights
- Space Wolves
- Deathwatch
- Dark Angels
- Black Templars
- Imperial Fists
- Iron Hands
- Raven Guard
- Salamanders
- Ultramarines
- White Scars
That's Space Marine factions. They literally outnumber the ""baseline"" factions by more than 3:1. And if I was being less generous and just used IG and Admech as the base factions, it would be more than 6:1.
And this isn't even getting into the discrepancies with regard to the number of Space Marine players, compared to IG or Admech players.
Can you see why this makes it untenable to use IG as the baseline? Because when Space Marines outnumber them to this degree, it simply makes no sense. Their ubiquity means that their profile is by far the most common in the game, and thus it must be the baseline. And just to reiterate, I am in no way saying that this is reflective of the lore. The point is that, whatever the Lore might say, in actual game terms Space Marines are irrefutably the baseline unit.
Galas wrote: I always understand T as how hard is something to wound and the wounds the ammount of punishement it can take before going down.
For example, both Boyz and Nobz are equally hard to wound. Nobz don't have harder muscles or skin than boyz, but they are larger and take more punishement. Wounding a Plague Marine is harder than a normal marine basically because he's rotten flesh, and then he can take even more punishement (Represented in this case by their FNP not by having more wounds, so even another layer). In this case the same can be said about Wracks, they chosed to represent their durability with an invulnerable save, a little extrange but eeeh I can accept it.
Now, stats are just too small to represent the broad narrative difference in all the models in the game, just like a S4 Catachan isn't as strong as a S4 ork or a S4 marine by fluff. Probably a normal human would be T3, a Gaunt T3,4 an ork boyz 3,8T a space marine T4, but this isn't an RPG. Is a Wargame with stats that should translate some sense of fluff adderence but be ultimately made to be balanced. Having everyone with 1 wound and characters with 2-3 can work, it worked in Fantasy. In 40k ... it kinda worked because stufff like instant death was trash, and instead of removing it they added things like eternal warriors in typical GW way of fixing errors with bandages.
That model makes sense on the face of it but doesn't fit how the game works in practice. Ork flesh isn't noted as being particularly able to bounce bullets (lasguns frequently blow big chunks out of them), they're just very hard to actually stop- so, by that T/W explanation, they ought to be T3 but W2. Same for Wracks, which are made of the same stuff as any other Eldar.
Death Guard are made of rotting flesh. Rotting flesh isn't harder to damage than living flesh, so they shouldn't have a higher T than a Marine, but should have more Wounds to reflect that they can keep ignore their injuries and keep fighting.
Tyranids have a duplicative skeletal structure with both exoskeleton and endoskeleton, plus chitin reinforcement, that makes them difficult to damage with small arms- their 'skin' is made of bone. If T represents how hard something is to damage, a Termagant should have higher T than an Ork. Obviously this is not the case.
I don't have any clear idea of what T, W, FNPs and invulns independently represent, and I think neither do the designers. They're just levers to pull to interact with an increasingly abstract game engine.
Lore-wise, an Ork is a fungal mass with no discernible vital organs, so they're extremely difficult to kill. Don't need two hearts if you don't have a heart in the first place.
And get punched to death by Marines one on one with little effort.
I think we need a source for that, and it needs to be something other than the Space Marine video game. To my recollection, any time a bunch of Orks are getting one-sidedly punched to death it's because things like major characters or Terminators are involved.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except we have people here, including me, saying Orks would be great at W2
That's not solving an imbalance so much as just adding to the inconsistency.
Would Orks be bumped down to T3? Or would they be T4 and W2? If W2 represents how much harder to kill they are than a human, what does the T4 represent?
Should everything else that's harder to kill than a human be W2 as well? Aren't those all T4+ already? Should there not be anything T4/W1? How do we decide what should switch and what shouldn't?
Why is a Plague Marine soon to be T5/W2? Why not T4/W3? When should something be high-T-low-W and vice versa?
What the feth do these stats mean?
Why shouldn't Orks still be T4? Quite frankly I don't know what you're babbling about, but the general consensus is that toughness is how hard a model is to wound and wounds is how much of that punishment a model can take before dying. Seeing as Orks have always been basically as tough as Marines but without the armor, I'd propose they get T4 W2. It isn't inconsistency. It's getting close to lore toughness.
Also you're bringing up the problem of the gak wounding chart and the fact we should be on a D8 or D10 system.
Ok mate - look at the Marine data sheet - whats its fething primary key word - yeah thats right IMPERIUM.
Whats an orks boyz primary key word - oh yeah fething Orks.
Q E fething D.
I think you might be misunderstanding the point.
From a Lore perspective, guardsmen (perhaps also Admech, albeit to a lesser extent) are the baseline Imperium troops. Guard in particular are by far the most numerous, and the force that will be called on to deal with almost every threat to the Imperium. Even if more elite troops are sent afterwards or in addition, the guard will still represent the first line of defence.
Marines, meanwhile, are very much an elite unit, who are well above the baseline of the Imperium. Given that their numbers are minuscule, relative to the guard and other Imperium units, they are relatively rare and are generally too scarce to participate in the vast majority of conflicts.
I assume you wouldn't disagree with the above?
Here's where it gets difficult. See, in the lore, Marines are scarce while guardsmen are the baseline. However, this simply isn't reflected in the actual game. Instead, you'll find that guardsmen are the scarce ones, whilst Marines are by far the dominant army in almost every gaming club and group. Even the novels and other such tend to present Marines in a similar manner. Yes, they'll probably say somewhere that Marines are rare, but just look at the number of Marine-centric novels, compared to guard-centric ones.
Put simply, the supposed scarcity of Marines is completely undermined by their ubiquity, both on and off the table. The upshot is that, whatever the lore, Marines must be seen as the baseline unit in the actual game. Because they are. Hell, they're so numerous that they've literally got their own separate tab on the GW webstore, whilst IG, SoB, Admech etc. are all lumped into Imperium. That should tell you something.
If you want to look at it in terms of numbers, there are 2 IG armies (I'm being quite generous here and counting MT as separate from IG, in spite of the fact that they don't even get their own entry on the GW webstore). I honestly don't know how common Admech are supposed to be, but let's throw them in anyway. Hell, we'll even throw in the Inquisition, why not? That gives us 4 factions (two with barely any units to their name) to represent the "baseline" Imperium units. Now lets look at the 'incredibly rare and scarce elites':
- Space marines
- Blood Angels
- Grey Knights
- Space Wolves
- Deathwatch
- Dark Angels
- Black Templars
- Imperial Fists
- Iron Hands
- Raven Guard
- Salamanders
- Ultramarines
- White Scars
That's Space Marine factions. They literally outnumber the ""baseline"" factions by more than 3:1. And if I was being less generous and just used IG and Admech as the base factions, it would be more than 6:1.
And this isn't even getting into the discrepancies with regard to the number of Space Marine players, compared to IG or Admech players.
Can you see why this makes it untenable to use IG as the baseline? Because when Space Marines outnumber them to this degree, it simply makes no sense. Their ubiquity means that their profile is by far the most common in the game, and thus it must be the baseline. And just to reiterate, I am in no way saying that this is reflective of the lore. The point is that, whatever the Lore might say, in actual game terms Space Marines are irrefutably the baseline unit.
What are you using for a basis as this, loyalist armies with power armour? If so that's 2 codex now, if you mean choice of specific subfactions (chapter in this case), if you count the number of equivalent forgeworlds, sister orders, guard regiments, scion regiments & knight houses, then yes the marines are the minority. If youre simply counting publications, you then need to decide whether supplements are comparable to a codex despite requiring one.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: but the general consensus is that toughness is how hard a model is to wound and wounds is how much of that punishment a model can take before dying.
So, show me a lore source saying Ork flesh is particularly difficult to damage. Not that Orks can keep fighting despite sustaining heavy damage, after all, that's what Wounds represent, right?
Galas wrote: I always understand T as how hard is something to wound and the wounds the ammount of punishement it can take before going down.
For example, both Boyz and Nobz are equally hard to wound. Nobz don't have harder muscles or skin than boyz, but they are larger and take more punishement. Wounding a Plague Marine is harder than a normal marine basically because he's rotten flesh, and then he can take even more punishement (Represented in this case by their FNP not by having more wounds, so even another layer). In this case the same can be said about Wracks, they chosed to represent their durability with an invulnerable save, a little extrange but eeeh I can accept it.
Now, stats are just too small to represent the broad narrative difference in all the models in the game, just like a S4 Catachan isn't as strong as a S4 ork or a S4 marine by fluff. Probably a normal human would be T3, a Gaunt T3,4 an ork boyz 3,8T a space marine T4, but this isn't an RPG. Is a Wargame with stats that should translate some sense of fluff adderence but be ultimately made to be balanced. Having everyone with 1 wound and characters with 2-3 can work, it worked in Fantasy. In 40k ... it kinda worked because stufff like instant death was trash, and instead of removing it they added things like eternal warriors in typical GW way of fixing errors with bandages.
That model makes sense on the face of it but doesn't fit how the game works in practice. Ork flesh isn't noted as being particularly able to bounce bullets (lasguns frequently blow big chunks out of them), they're just very hard to actually stop- so, by that T/W explanation, they ought to be T3 but W2. Same for Wracks, which are made of the same stuff as any other Eldar.
Death Guard are made of rotting flesh. Rotting flesh isn't harder to damage than living flesh, so they shouldn't have a higher T than a Marine, but should have more Wounds to reflect that they can keep ignore their injuries and keep fighting.
Tyranids have a duplicative skeletal structure with both exoskeleton and endoskeleton, plus chitin reinforcement, that makes them difficult to damage with small arms- their 'skin' is made of bone. If T represents how hard something is to damage, a Termagant should have higher T than an Ork. Obviously this is not the case.
I don't have any clear idea of what T, W, FNPs and invulns independently represent, and I think neither do the designers. They're just levers to pull to interact with an increasingly abstract game engine.
I think you smacked the nail right on the head right there Kemosabe. It just comes down to what the designers want a unit to be durable against, and by how much. Fluff has little to do with it.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Seeing as Orks have always been basically as tough as Marines but without the armor, I'd propose they get T4 W2. It isn't inconsistency. It's getting close to lore toughness.
Plenty of other things that are significantly tougher than humans don't get a second wound. Only Marines do currently. That's inconsistent design.
Expanding the inconsistency of who gets a bonus wound and who doesn't to include Orks- by your own words, pretty much just because Marines do- is only continuing the problem; now it's not 'Marines are special', it's 'Marines and Orks are special'. Unless we go all the way and every race with fluff that says they can keep fighting despite grievous injury (which is most of them, because this is 40K) gets a second Wound. Are you fine with W2 Termagants? I mean, the lore says they have distributed multiple redundant organs to ensure that they can take a lot of punishment and keep fighting until completely destroyed; surely that qualifies for 'how much of that punishment a model can take before dying'.
This is what I was saying about the designers just using these stats as levers. They're clearly not trying to objectively model how tough something is to injure vs how much damage it can take before being combat-ineffective; they use about four different methods of representing durability (T, W, invulns, and FNPs) and just change numbers until it produces the generally desired end result in the gameplay, with some weird edge cases and balance issues as a side effect.
100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
Probably not. But its hard to get granularity at the low end with GW's system.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Seeing as Orks have always been basically as tough as Marines but without the armor, I'd propose they get T4 W2. It isn't inconsistency. It's getting close to lore toughness.
Plenty of other things that are significantly tougher than humans don't get a second wound. Only Marines do currently. That's inconsistent design.
Expanding the inconsistency of who gets a bonus wound and who doesn't to include Orks- by your own words, pretty much just because Marines do- is only continuing the problem; now it's not 'Marines are special', it's 'Marines and Orks are special'. Unless we go all the way and every race with fluff that says they can keep fighting despite grievous injury (which is most of them, because this is 40K) gets a second Wound. Are you fine with W2 Termagants? I mean, the lore says they have distributed multiple redundant organs to ensure that they can take a lot of punishment and keep fighting until completely destroyed; surely that qualifies for 'how much of that punishment a model can take before dying'.
This is what I was saying about the designers just using these stats as levers. They're clearly not trying to objectively model how tough something is to injure vs how much damage it can take before being combat-ineffective; they use about four different methods of representing durability (T, W, invulns, and FNPs) and just change numbers until it produces the generally desired end result in the gameplay, with some weird edge cases and balance issues as a side effect.
You're going by a slippery slope fallacy so thats about that. Is it really unfair to say that Orks and Marines are special?
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
I'm unsure what you're calculating there, but I think that 2W marines are more resilient than they should be over 1w Orks.
I return to the old balance again, of marines being as tough as an ork, with the armor of a heavy Aspect Warrior, and stronger than both. 2w is too big a jump.
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
I'm unsure what you're calculating there, but I think that 2W marines are more resilient than they should be over 1w Orks.
I return to the old balance again, of marines being as tough as an ork, with the armor of a heavy Aspect Warrior, and stronger than both. 2w is too big a jump.
The problem being weapons that mow down orks and aspect warriors were also mowing down marines, and they can't have that anymore. Apparently.
At this point, I'd just say feth it and give aspect warriors a 2W plasma shield directly lifted from starcraft. But I guess they aren't the Mary Sues the marines are. Eldar should be more powerful than marines. Significantly so. They should just pay for it.
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
I'm unsure what you're calculating there, but I think that 2W marines are more resilient than they should be over 1w Orks.
I return to the old balance again, of marines being as tough as an ork, with the armor of a heavy Aspect Warrior, and stronger than both. 2w is too big a jump.
Insectum7 wrote: 100% agree with catbarf. The stats don't represent categorically discrete things, they're just numbers to fiddle with until the resulting tabletop interaction feels right/reasonable.
That’s a perfectly reasonable view.
But should a single Marine be around four times as durable as an ork boy to a common AP-1 weapon?
I'm unsure what you're calculating there, but I think that 2W marines are more resilient than they should be over 1w Orks.
I return to the old balance again, of marines being as tough as an ork, with the armor of a heavy Aspect Warrior, and stronger than both. 2w is too big a jump.
Not in a system with damage stats on weapons now.
I run Nurgle Daemons.
What are my D2 options?
Here’s a hint-most if it is AP0, and therefore still bad against MEQ.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're going by a slippery slope fallacy so thats about that.
Nonsense. Slippery slope would be if I said 'if you give Orks a second wound, then pretty soon everybody's going to get a second wound!' I said no such thing.
What I said was that if we applied your explanation for what T and W represent equally to all factions, then that would have some unintuitive consequences- namely T3 Orks and W2 Termagants. Still waiting for a fluff reference for Ork flesh being significantly harder to damage than human flesh, which per your definitions for T and W would be necessary to justify T4.
So given that Orks are T4 and Termagants are W1, and people seem fine with these, obviously T does not really measure how hard to injure something is in the lore, and obviously W does not really measure how much damage something can take in the lore. They're just arbitrary stats balanced for overall game effect.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Is it really unfair to say that Orks and Marines are special?
Yes.
There is nothing so wildly unique about Orks or Marines that they need to break the existing paradigm wherein humanoid infantry are W1, with Toughness representing their overall durability.
Have we made any mention of 2W Orks being a good space to open up for Ard Boyz as a thing?
Because I think that would be a Good Thing as another Troops choice. 2W with a better save than the standard Boyz and same rough Toughness as the standard Boyz just a bit harder to kill.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except we have people here, including me, saying Orks would be great at W2
That's not solving an imbalance so much as just adding to the inconsistency.
Would Orks be bumped down to T3? Or would they be T4 and W2? If W2 represents how much harder to kill they are than a human, what does the T4 represent?
Should everything else that's harder to kill than a human be W2 as well? Aren't those all T4+ already? Should there not be anything T4/W1? How do we decide what should switch and what shouldn't?
Why is a Plague Marine soon to be T5/W2? Why not T4/W3? When should something be high-T-low-W and vice versa?
What the feth do these stats mean?
It's pretty simple. The stats function how they function. Toughness is how hard you are to wound and what strength weapons you are more likely to withstand. Wounds is how many wounds you can take before going down. Saves are the strength of your armor. I think you are being pedantic trying to dissect stats in weird ways.
There are already baselines for toughness in the game. Basic Humans and Eldar are T3 and Space Marines are T4. Why is a Plague Marine T5? They are harder to wound than a Space Marine. T4/3 wounds isn't harder to wound, it just means they can take more before going down. The stats function logically and consistently.
A t4 2w 6+ save Ork seems reasonable. T4 because they are harder to wound than a human, 2 wounds because they are known to survive wounds that would be fatal to something like a human or an eldar, and a 6+ save because their armor sucks.
). So no, but thanks anyways.
