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Has anyone noticed that the cost of vehicles in the new DA codex? The vehicles dropped in points across the board in points (with minor exceptions) yet they all gain smoke and searchlights as standard equipment. Some of the points changes were drastic- you can almost buy two rhinos now for the price of one before.Predator sponson costs went way up. Is there any insight as to how this will effect play balance as now the DA have the cheapest marine vehicles going? Also, what effect will this have with regards to other marine vehicles? Im not sure how to react to this but did no know if this had been addressed or noticed by anyone else. Not sure if this post should have gone here or in YMDC but figured this would be a place to start.

You neglected to mention the points value increase for the drop pods. Some of this was brought up in the DA Rumors confirmation thread.

Good point and thanks, the points for the drop pod did go up, but I am more shocked by the decreases in the other vehicles and the fact that even with the decreases they get some upgrades for free that everyone else has to pay for. I am wondering if there is going to be anything  done to rectify that their vehicles now out balanace all the other marine ones. Also a note, the dread did also go up a bit in price, but it now has more weapon options and they are available under the new points without increase.

 

But drop pods cost more.

Posted By ah64pilot5 on 03/03/2007 10:29 PM

...you can almost buy two rhinos now for the price of one before.

If only this applied to purchasing the actual models from the store...

dreadnoughts went way up though, as did predator annihilators. Both are 20 points more expensive for no increase in effectiveness. Plus, extra armor is 15 points for god knows what reason.

Rhinos needed a points reduction to reflect thier worth in 4th ed. They were incredible on 3rd ed, well worth 50 points. Now they're rolling quicksand for your marines to be entangled in. Most transports actually need to be reduced in points now that you can't assault out of them and they entangle embarked models, it's one of the few things I like about the new DA army list.

The dread did go up a bit, bit the only weapon option that will cost you is the twin las cannon.. the other assault cannon options (with the addition of plasma cannon and twin link autocannon being back and the removal of the TL heavy bolter) do not cost anything. As for the annilihator, the base cost is actualy quite less, where the cost comes in is adding the lascannon sponsons. Also the crusader while a bit lower, no longer comes standard with extra armor. Its just crazy that they would make major changes to vehicles for only one chapter. I really do like the cost changes to rhinos and razorbacks.. much more cost realistic. But again,, all of them get the smoke and searchlight for free now and no other chapter does. To me, that tosses way out play balance. If you leave out the charachters, and take into account the points advantage for the combat squad ability, a force built with the DA codex and one with the SM codex will not be equal with the huge differences in vehicles.

Man, you need to play more. Dedicated transports are almost all overpriced in 4th edition. The DA codex's restrictions on Troops and Terminators, and price increases for the anti-armor vehicles, make them much LESS flexible and powerful than regular marines, so one would HOPE GW would give back somewhere. There is no way on earth the DA codex is overpowered. More the opposite, and a few cheaper vehicles is just throwing us a bone.

Posted By Mannahnin on 03/04/2007 6:04 AM
Man, you need to play more. Dedicated transports are almost all overpriced in 4th edition. The DA codex's restrictions on Troops and Terminators, and price increases for the anti-armor vehicles, make them much LESS flexible and powerful than regular marines, so one would HOPE GW would give back somewhere. There is no way on earth the DA codex is overpowered. More the opposite, and a few cheaper vehicles is just throwing us a bone.

Indeed, it's now woefully underpowered and one doesn't even need to play the game regularly to see that. DA have never been very competitive and especially not in this edition and doubly so not after this book. While my Spase Mahrienz have always ostensibly been some sort of DA successor chapter, thank you GW for putting the final nail into the coffin on that. DIY trait Mahrienz all da way!

I psychically predict many Dark Angels will be defecting from their chapter to the little know and nearly identical DIY Dark Angles chapter.

Am I the only one who expected to see rhinos and Land Raiders in Bathrobes?

This is neither news, nor rumours. Off to 40k rules talk you go.

My earlier moaning aside, my DA army is (thankfully) partially mechanized, and so should still be okay. Maybe a bit weaker than a standard C:SM army, but probably still viable for competitive play.

Like any new codex release, the mix of what units are efficient/inefficient has changed. My Annihilator with Las Sponsons may wind up converted; at the very least I'm going to buy a Destructor. I will be losing out on some heavy weapon fire, but the cheap Destructors, enhanced Whirlwinds, and split Dev squads will help to make up for it. Since I was using two Rhinos and a Razor or two anyway, having more of those points shifted out of the transports and into the scoring units is definitely a plus.

I may go ahead and bust out C:SM if I want to use my pods, though.

It makes life much easier for a mechanized marine army. I'm switching my mech marines over to DA's (and to all-razorbacks) as soon as I get the codex.

Acutally I do need to play more,, but being stuck out in Afgan and other places for quite a few years has but a damper on that.. I do agree though that the trasnports are over priced,,, my beef goes to the fact that only the DA get the benefit of these vehicle advantages. I do hope they do something to make these values across the board.

Posted By ah64pilot5 on 03/04/2007 11:24 AM
Acutally I do need to play more,, but being stuck out in Afgan and other places for quite a few years has but a damper on that.. I do agree though that the trasnports are over priced,,, my beef goes to the fact that only the DA get the benefit of these vehicle advantages. I do hope they do something to make these values across the board.

So basically you are saying you do not want to see anything unique about any of the marine dexs, you prefer they all looked exactly the same....

I don't share this view myself.

While we are at it, should all other races also get the same restrictions DAs have?
Want to have to buy the full 10 marines in order to get a Heavy weapon????

A Rhino is a Rhino. They should cost the same regardless of which codex they are in...assuming ofcourse they have the same wargear...

I agree that the different codexes should have their own individual flavor though. That is made up in the "Combat Squad" rules.

Posted By Flagg07 on 03/04/2007 11:51 AM
A Rhino is a Rhino. They should cost the same regardless of which codex they are in...assuming ofcourse they have the same wargear...

I agree that the different codexes should have their own individual flavor though. That is made up in the "Combat Squad" rules.

That's just not true. A Rhino could (and should) cost more in an a marine army where the utilizing Rhinos is more useful to the army type (such as when BAs used to be able to jump out of their Rhinos moving more than 12" and still charge).

GW has made a big point to keep their "sub" codexes in 4th edition 'complete', in that they don't reference any other codex.

There is absolutely no indication that any of these changes can or will affect regular space marines until/unless they redo the original SM codex.


And really, what is wrong with having DAs have differently priced equipment? If GW playtested this particular army and found those points costs to be appropriate, I'm all for them making sure this particular codex is balanced. I would be much more angry if they stuck with the ridiculous points-costs of the SM codex just because the precedent was already set.

So does that make DA's suddenly horribly underpowered compared to regular SMs? Yep, but only if you try to play your DAs like a regular marine chapter.

Just like with the BT codex, you actually have to field a BT force that takes advantages of the codexes strength in order to field an effective BT army. If you try to take a BT army that looks more like a vanilla marine army, you'll just come away with an ineffective force.

The problem is, players already have existing DA and BT armies and they want to be able to use their same armies and have them work just as well as vanilla SMs. But IMO luckily GW has done away with the sub-dexes that only give benefits and don't have any negatives. Gone is the BT codex that would allow you to make a vanilla-ish army that was just as good (if not better) than a vanilla army OR an uber BT themed army that was even more powerful.


The point is, if you play DAs now, you'll want to play an effective DA force. What makes an effective DA force probably doesn't contain the units you've been previously using (such as the all Deathwiing or Ravenwing armies). If you don't cater to the DA special rules that give them an advantage you'll just be fielding a sub-standard vanilla list.

Of course if you want to field a vanilla-type list, you can always just use the regular SM army list. . .

Agreed that this is a good thing. Probably many of us remember the days right after the release of Codex: Amageddon when everybody who wasn't already playing BA or SW painted their marines black and fielded shooty BT armies? At the time, there was no reason not to. You got all the strengths of a standard marine force with extra, free advantages.

But Yakface what you're forgeting is that the DA don't really have any strengths. They can deep strike one Terminator squad on turn one, but their Terminators are more expensive and don't got enough heavy weapons. They can scout their bikes, but they are more expensive. Their Rhinos are cheaper if you don't buy extra armor, and when you do they are almost the same price as before and just as crap as in the vanilla Codex. Now, those were the DA 'advantages'. Dont' even get me started on all the disadvantages, like overpriced assault cannons, lascannons, Dreadnoughts, Tactical Squads, Terminators, Land Speeders, Predators, and so on...

My opinion is that the vanilla Space Marines probably aren't in the current top3 of most powerful armies, and any Codex that doesn't even live up to that standard is quite poor indeed. As a matter of fact, vanilla Space Marines just might be the most balanced Codex out there at the moment. Almost all of the units in it have a reasonable battlefield role and although the assault cannon might as well be heavy 3 it's still the one of the few things that really makes Marines compete with others on tournament tables.

Wow, you actually think that Vanilla marines are "the most balanced codex"? The only way  I would even begin to agree with you is if you ment the regular list without and traits of any kind.

  The trait system in and of itself is rather broken. The Imperial Guard codex had trait systems in it, but at least it didn't have no-brainer choices. With space marines you could take a major advantage, and then have your "disadvantage" be that you won't be able to take and allie that you wouldn't take anyway. Don't get me wrong, I like the trait system. It makes rather flavorful armies, but it isn't exactly balanced.

  I also have some reservations about some of the Librarian's psychic abilities. One of them I can deal with. I just find the ability to take up to four librarians with the same over-the-top power to be a tad rediculous.

Posted By cuda1179 on 03/04/2007 9:46 PM
Wow, you actually think that Vanilla marines are "the most balanced codex"? The only way  I would even begin to agree with you is if you ment the regular list without and traits of any kind.

I think that's what he means, and he's right. If you're using the 'everything is useful' criteria to assess balance, then the Marine Codex nearly has it. Bikes still suck, but otherwise you can find a place for almost every Marine unit. Very few Codices can claim that same level of usefulness.

BYE

Therion, this is true, like Yak says "only if you try to play your DAs like a regular marine chapter."

At 5 points extra amor is a no-brainer. At 15 points, it really becomes visible how much you don't really need it. Back in the days of assaulty rhino rushes in 3rd edition, it was vital to keep your rhinos moving. Now, who cares if they have to sit for a turn?

I agree with Yakface. The new DA do work and they are not underpowered even with only one assault cannon per Terminator squad. They are a finesse army and I can see how Jervis calls it the best codex he has written. The new DA are for tactical play rather than just maximising the number of rending shots you get.
Many of the options such as teleport homers, combat squads (especially for Ravenwing) and 1st turn deepstrike with combo termies is very nasty.

I dont like all the changes, heavy weapons needn't have been 0-1 in terminator squads. It would have been enough to just make assault cannon 0-1.

However taking this case in point. DA are not as 'nerfed' as some claim. As youset up a guaranteed early error free deepstrike - I welcome swapping out one assault cannon for some lightning claw termies. I prefer to think of it as allowing an assault cannon on a terminator assault squad rather than losing one assault cannon on a normal squad.

Posted By Therion- on 03/04/2007 7:56 PM
But Yakface what you're forgeting is that the DA don't really have any strengths. They can deep strike one Terminator squad on turn one, but their Terminators are more expensive and don't got enough heavy weapons. They can scout their bikes, but they are more expensive. Their Rhinos are cheaper if you don't buy extra armor, and when you do they are almost the same price as before and just as crap as in the vanilla Codex. Now, those were the DA 'advantages'. Dont' even get me started on all the disadvantages, like overpriced assault cannons, lascannons, Dreadnoughts, Tactical Squads, Terminators, Land Speeders, Predators, and so on...

My opinion is that the vanilla Space Marines probably aren't in the current top3 of most powerful armies, and any Codex that doesn't even live up to that standard is quite poor indeed. As a matter of fact, vanilla Space Marines just might be the most balanced Codex out there at the moment. Almost all of the units in it have a reasonable battlefield role and although the assault cannon might as well be heavy 3 it's still the one of the few things that really makes Marines compete with others on tournament tables.

Well, not having actually looked at the codex (just reading rumors and the latest WD) I can't really comment with any sort of real accuracy on whether there are any possible effecive combinations to be found in the DA army. That said, the ability to Scout bikes and bring in Terminators on the first turn seems to me a tactic that could disrupt army types pretty well in the first turn of the game. But like I said, that's just a guess at this point for me.

However, I do believe your personal standard for an effective build is quite a bit more stringent than most players. I believe there is a rather effective way to field Black Templars (utilizing their codex's strengths) while I'm guessing you'd say that Black Templars cannot be competitive. If I'm correct it means we obviously have some difference of opinion when it ultimately comes to what constitutes an effective army.


Also, I would respectfully disagree that the Space Marine codex is both balanced and not in the top 3 most powerful codices. I personally put it right below the Chaos codex as the second most powerful codex.

There are two very effective builds from the codex, IMO; that being the all drop pod army and the uber-shooty army. Both those army types regularly win tournaments and perform admirably against most opponents. The Drop Pod army obviously has its weaknesses against some army types and missions, but overall it is still a very flexible and dangerous army.

The problem with the SM codex isn't that all the units are useful; that is a good thing. The problem with it is that some units are insanely, no-brainer good. 35 point drop pods, Ld10 for the entire army, psychic powers that go all the way across the board without LOS and strike multiple units, and Whirlwind minefields that can saturate an objective area to make it nearly impossible for an enemy (and only an enemy) to capture, not to mention the ubiquitous Assault Cannon which is a weapon more effective at doing *everything* besides shooting at long range than any other weapon.

So what I'm obviously saying is that I don't think the SM codex is balanced and I am very glad that the DA codex isn't even in the same league with it just like I was glad the BT codex wasn't either.

Personally, I would rather the designers take several years to slowly reduce the power of each codex to get to a generally happy point than to bump every new codex up in power to compensate for poorly written  SM  and CSM codexes.

And like I said before, it's not like the SM codex went anywhere, so if DA players still want to field a force they're used to, they can always fall back on that codex.

I wholeheartly agree with yakface that the Space Marine codex is the second most powerful...

1) Chaos
2) Space Marines
3) Eldar

Personally I think that Ultramarines are the best force you can field using the SM codex. You save points not taking traits and they have access to some great units that you rarely see because most players do not understand how to properly utilize them.

- Greenie

The new Dark Angels are every anti-Marine person's new favorite army.(Qoute)

I hope Jervis writes all the new marine books. He da man.

Space Marine armies account for more than 70% of total sales in 40k. On the main continent of Europe the new DA codex has already been labeled a failure with hobby stores purposely not ordering the volume of new DA merchandise that GW would like to see because of fear of not being able to sell it. Most people that say the new DA codex is good either do not intend to play the army or not veteran players. My prediction is the next SM codex released will be the most powerful yet as the company has a strong tendency to over-compensate.

- Greenie

Well, I believe Jervis is writing the Chaos Codex if that gives any indication of their future.

Pete Haines not writing the Chaos Codex is an even bigger indication.