Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Stus67 wrote:
I'm literally picking up CA just for the extra maelstrom and eternal war missions. The points I can get from anywhere, and I use battlescribe.

Same here. Also looking forward to the apoc rules.

I just don't know what all the whining is about. Buy it, or get it free, you choose. Why is that so hard?

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Stus67 wrote:
I'm literally picking up CA just for the extra maelstrom and eternal war missions. The points I can get from anywhere, and I use battlescribe.

Same here. Also looking forward to the apoc rules.

I just don't know what all the whining is about. Buy it, or get it free, you choose. Why is that so hard?

Because apparently if there's no unwarranted bitching and whining then it isn't dakkdakka. It's almost as if most of the members had people from GW personally come into their homes and kill their pets or something while forcing them to buy things.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
No "The outcry on Dakka" is a couple dozen people in a body of hundreds of thousands. If you think the crying babies of Dakka are representative of anything then you are sorely mistaken.

Usually the same people who claim "the 6 people who play at my LGS hate AOS, so AOS is dead and no one plays it, GW should discontinue it"

Hey, I like AoS. It's a good game that managed to go through a bit of a rough patch in the beginning, but has been given the care it needed to become something solid. The GHB is really well done, and it's a shame that GW didn't learn from their mistakes and handle 40k in the same way.

Just curious, Fafnir, but what in your mind are the differences between the way CA and the GHB have been handled? I won't be picking up CA since it doesn't seem to have anything substantial for Necrons, and I'm not really interested in narrative or open play in 40k, so I haven't really looked into it much.

I can also field this since I play both.

It has a bit to do with the books themselves, but also a bit to do with each game.
With 40k, you're expected to purchase The Rules, your Codex/Index (potentially multiple if you have a mixed force), and Chapter Approved. Even with just one Codex, that's $135 in rules to "do it right".
With AoS, you need The General's Handbook. You are encouraged to buy your army's Battletome, but many armies, especially mixed armies, don't need to. That's $25. With a Battletome, more like $65.

That's a pretty hefty difference, and 40k Rules and Chapter Approved aren't even that different.


Additionally, the way they came about just feels really skewed.
General's Handbook came out and had a lot of new stuff - Points, Missions, Rules, etc. It was an entirely new thing for AoS. And GHB2017 also felt fresh - the Missions were familiar but different enough, the points were a big shake up, and the new Allegiance Abilities changed the game for a lot of people.
Chapter Approved is coming out, what, 5 maybe 6 months after The Rules? It just feels like Errata - some point changes but not a lot, some new missions (but it feels lazy because the missions in The Rules were just copy/pastes of 7th edition missions with slight tweaks). Faction Rules that will be overwritten themselves in a few months.

GHB was an overhaul of the game, and GHB2017 was a shakeup and brought enough new stuff to feel worthwhile. Everything that CA is updating is either very new (released less than a year ago) or will be replaced in a short time with a new Codex. It's a $35 stopgap that I don't even want to buy because there's not enough in there to justify the price tag. My Necrons will get fixed with the codex, the half page of rules for them does nothing. The missions are the only thing I need out of that, and it's not worth the purchase.

The only real gripe I have with the CA is that I feel like they could have waited. I get that they want the concept of it out the door early so we can get and see what it's going to be, but with 8th just being out and still half of the game's codexes coming out I wouldn't have minded seeing CA release in 2018.

At least that way it would have been pretty fresh and maybe offer more changes like the GHB.

 Stus67 wrote:
The only real gripe I have with the CA is that I feel like they could have waited. I get that they want the concept of it out the door early so we can get and see what it's going to be, but with 8th just being out and still half of the game's codexes coming out I wouldn't have minded seeing CA release in 2018.

At least that way it would have been pretty fresh and maybe offer more changes like the GHB.

Yeah, waiting for the dust to settle would likely have been a better call imo. I suppose they wanted to ride the hype of the newly released edition though. You can’t blame them tbh.

 Stus67 wrote:
The only real gripe I have with the CA is that I feel like they could have waited. I get that they want the concept of it out the door early so we can get and see what it's going to be, but with 8th just being out and still half of the game's codexes coming out I wouldn't have minded seeing CA release in 2018.

At least that way it would have been pretty fresh and maybe offer more changes like the GHB.

Yeah, like I said it's a stopgap that doesn't need to exist, when it should be a meta redefining book.

I have no doubts that CA2018 will feel very impactful but this is just a miss.

I just always wait before I bring out the pitchfork because GW moves at a glacial speed. Now if CA2018 comes out and it's like this one, then I'll probably join the ranks of a raving.

I also feel like a whole lot of these problems wouldn't be relevant if they had a digital system like AoS. I have no problem shelling out a few dollars for a decent official and consistently updated army builder with a digital suite of resources.

It's easily my favorite thing about AoS.

Honestly I just wish they hadn't also done Codexes. If this was just the next addition to the Indexes it would make a lot of sense.

Overall though, while the point changes should be freely available, it's more important that they're making changes at all. Everyone's trying to figure out a more proactive means of adjusting games for competitive environments and while this isn't how I think it should be done, something needs to be done and for GW, that's technically progress.

Out of curiosity, have there been any leaks about the rest of the book besides the points changes? Specifically the new missions? I know that a Community post talked about them but didn't give anything but summarizations and tidbits of the rules, and I'm sure that some of the video reviews of CA talked about them, but I wanted to see if there were any actual pictures of them leaked somewhere.

I'm very curious to see what's in store for us with those, 12 new matched play missions and 12 new narrative missions is exciting and awesome.

The points changes are a joke really.

For as many units as are in the game and having a staff to work on this there should have been alot more changes than they did...and some of the changes are just bonkers stupid.

Yes some make sense, but many look like really what are you thinking.

All GW needs to do is look at tournament lists and they can clearly see what units basically suck so prolly need rules or points adjustments---those are quick easy fixes.

For the stuff that is used in tournaments they need to look at closely before making big changes, tons of spam like malific lords needed a point boost...but then at the same time they didnt nerf Imperial cheap psykers much at all.

Also sorry but marine razorbacks and assault cannons did not need a 10-20% increase in point cost....seen marines winning events lately? Now twin assault cannon is same points as las/twin plasma and almost as much as twin las cannons both probably better options than twin assault cannons. In all honesty assault cannons were just about the right price before, maybe if anything just a couple point increase like 1-2 per barrel.

Hurricane bolters- 10 points maybe right, prolly 8 pts more likely as about the number.

You can also see this same over-reaction on IG commissars and conscripts.

Also seriously GW reduce melta/multi melta weapon point cost is stupidly overpriced compared to plasma.

Same with flamers/heavy flamers--mainly only a defensive weapon this edition and way to many points- or give it ignores cover or something to help it out.

Rhinos----OMG fix them...72 pts is stupid overpriced for basically wounds and a bolter. At most 50 pts? would be my swag. As all it is, is a glorified bullet soaker in an edition with alot of firepower.

Im a fairly casual player- 1 tournament in the last 6 months and can see these things as blatant issues...GW staff are incompetent is the only excuse.

There's a lot more fixed pricing in this edition. Hurricane Bolters are an obvious example. Bolters are free; Storm Bolters are +2 points for an extra shot; Hurricane Bolters are +10 points for 5 extra shots or +2 points per extra shot.

There's problem with that logic, but the logic itself is fairly plain to see.

Are SM bikes and CSM bikes costed differently? Since CSM have Legion rules now are Loyalists paying 4ppm just on ATSKNF? I play both armies, I'm just away from my books atm.

Okay, 2ppm when we add the twin bolter that's seems even... Sorta. 1 pt per wound.

chainfists to apparently---didnt see a point drop for regular marine chainfists but chaos chainfists got a point drop at least from looking at the points pages online.

Is poor editing for the book...as both armies follow almost same point structures.

Requizen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
No "The outcry on Dakka" is a couple dozen people in a body of hundreds of thousands. If you think the crying babies of Dakka are representative of anything then you are sorely mistaken.

Usually the same people who claim "the 6 people who play at my LGS hate AOS, so AOS is dead and no one plays it, GW should discontinue it"

Hey, I like AoS. It's a good game that managed to go through a bit of a rough patch in the beginning, but has been given the care it needed to become something solid. The GHB is really well done, and it's a shame that GW didn't learn from their mistakes and handle 40k in the same way.

Just curious, Fafnir, but what in your mind are the differences between the way CA and the GHB have been handled? I won't be picking up CA since it doesn't seem to have anything substantial for Necrons, and I'm not really interested in narrative or open play in 40k, so I haven't really looked into it much.

I can also field this since I play both.

It has a bit to do with the books themselves, but also a bit to do with each game.
With 40k, you're expected to purchase The Rules, your Codex/Index (potentially multiple if you have a mixed force), and Chapter Approved. Even with just one Codex, that's $135 in rules to "do it right".
With AoS, you need The General's Handbook. You are encouraged to buy your army's Battletome, but many armies, especially mixed armies, don't need to. That's $25. With a Battletome, more like $65.

That's a pretty hefty difference, and 40k Rules and Chapter Approved aren't even that different.


Additionally, the way they came about just feels really skewed.
General's Handbook came out and had a lot of new stuff - Points, Missions, Rules, etc. It was an entirely new thing for AoS. And GHB2017 also felt fresh - the Missions were familiar but different enough, the points were a big shake up, and the new Allegiance Abilities changed the game for a lot of people.
Chapter Approved is coming out, what, 5 maybe 6 months after The Rules? It just feels like Errata - some point changes but not a lot, some new missions (but it feels lazy because the missions in The Rules were just copy/pastes of 7th edition missions with slight tweaks). Faction Rules that will be overwritten themselves in a few months.

GHB was an overhaul of the game, and GHB2017 was a shakeup and brought enough new stuff to feel worthwhile. Everything that CA is updating is either very new (released less than a year ago) or will be replaced in a short time with a new Codex. It's a $35 stopgap that I don't even want to buy because there's not enough in there to justify the price tag. My Necrons will get fixed with the codex, the half page of rules for them does nothing. The missions are the only thing I need out of that, and it's not worth the purchase.

At the same time, GHB2017 did not do a good job with points adjustments. All of the other content was fantastic, but the point changes caused as many imbalances as they fixed. A handful of serious problem units were nerfed appropriately, but other nerfs (battalions) were handled in a ham-fisted and quite frankly lazy way. Underpowered stuff was buffed in a similar manner, including the massive unit discount which in many cases is the objectively worst possible adjustment that could have been made.

I would expect similar from CA. The non-point content will be good but the points adjustments will be all over the place with a few good things overshadowed by a lot of bad.

I don't know if anyone else has posted about this but: I asked on GWs FB post re the points changes & digital codexs & they replied that they will be updated with the new points but didn't give a date. I will re-download my DG dex on release date to find out.

I talked to some of the designers at heat 1 of the UKGT. They were there competing. I actually played Jes Bickham's Death guard army. Tabled him

Forgeworld was a really big topic of conversation. I'm really pleased to see that CA has taken their points on to handle the situation. The FW team just don't have the resources to playtest stuff properly. Normal-sized FW stuff seems to have had its points adjusted in rational ways, raising or lowering some points and bringing in some consistency - especially where codices had been released after the FW index and stuff needed bringing into line. I can now use my Xiphon without feeling like I'm cheating by using an obviously undercosted unit, I might try out some kind of Sicaran, and I have a degree of confidence that even the units whose points weren't changed have had a bit of thought applied to them. All good so far.

But the changes they've made to the superheavies are extreme and in most cases go way too far. They've essentially made them unplayable in matched play. Now actually I kind of agree that some of the really big stuff isn't appropriate for matched play, but I'm sure that FW doesn't feel that way and would rather sell some of their big fancy toys. And speaking as someone with a shelf with a Falchion and a Typhon on it, I can't say I'm all that happy.

Mandragola wrote:
I talked to some of the designers at heat 1 of the UKGT. They were there competing. I actually played Jes Bickham's Death guard army. Tabled him

Forgeworld was a really big topic of conversation. I'm really pleased to see that CA has taken their points on to handle the situation. The FW team just don't have the resources to playtest stuff properly. Normal-sized FW stuff seems to have had its points adjusted in rational ways, raising or lowering some points and bringing in some consistency - especially where codices had been released after the FW index and stuff needed bringing into line. I can now use my Xiphon without feeling like I'm cheating by using an obviously undercosted unit, I might try out some kind of Sicaran, and I have a degree of confidence that even the units whose points weren't changed have had a bit of thought applied to them. All good so far.

But the changes they've made to the superheavies are extreme and in most cases go way too far. They've essentially made them unplayable in matched play. Now actually I kind of agree that some of the really big stuff isn't appropriate for matched play, but I'm sure that FW doesn't feel that way and would rather sell some of their big fancy toys. And speaking as someone with a shelf with a Falchion and a Typhon on it, I can't say I'm all that happy.

Problem is that lack of resources ends actually in majority of UNDERPOWERED stuff which now gets price hike.

And somehow FW superheavies don't belong in game while plastic super heavies belong. Mark my words if GW releases plastic warhound titan that will cost like 1000 pts max.

FW changes have nothing to do with balance. Just money. Plain and simple. They want collectors to buy the 1 set of plastic, 1 set of resin rather than just 1 set of plastic. But gamers they want to sell 2 sets of plastic.

tneva82 wrote:
And somehow FW superheavies don't belong in game while plastic super heavies belong. Mark my words if GW releases plastic warhound titan that will cost like 1000 pts max.

You are free to use your warhound titan in open play, where its power level has not been changed at all.

Personally, I have no issue with a soft-ban on FW super-heavies in matched play. They can spend resources to re-introduce them when the rest of the game is somewhat balanced.

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
And somehow FW superheavies don't belong in game while plastic super heavies belong. Mark my words if GW releases plastic warhound titan that will cost like 1000 pts max.

You are free to use your warhound titan in open play, where its power level has not been changed at all.

Personally, I have no issue with a soft-ban on FW super-heavies in matched play. They can spend resources to re-introduce them when the rest of the game is somewhat balanced.

You missed point. GW said "Our superheavies are OK for matched play. FW however isn't".

That's just plain greed dictating decision rather than any semblance of balance concern. They just want gamers to buy plastic rather than resin since they get higher margins from those. FW stuff they are happy to sell collectors who wouldn't be buying multiples of same plastic anyway.

tneva82 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
And somehow FW superheavies don't belong in game while plastic super heavies belong. Mark my words if GW releases plastic warhound titan that will cost like 1000 pts max.

You are free to use your warhound titan in open play, where its power level has not been changed at all.

Personally, I have no issue with a soft-ban on FW super-heavies in matched play. They can spend resources to re-introduce them when the rest of the game is somewhat balanced.

You missed point. GW said "Our superheavies are OK for matched play. FW however isn't".

That's just plain greed dictating decision rather than any semblance of balance concern. They just want gamers to buy plastic rather than resin since they get higher margins from those. FW stuff they are happy to sell collectors who wouldn't be buying multiples of same plastic anyway.

Yet at the same time GW increased the storm raven points so its unusable and reduced the Fire Raptor down by 60. As if that's not bad enough they decreased the cost of the CHAOS Fire Raptor by 90 because they didn't realize the CSM version already had a discount. This book is pretty much a joke for balance and reeks of rolling dice on a chart to see which unit changes.

 Kirasu wrote:
Yet at the same time GW increased the storm raven points so its unusable and reduced the Fire Raptor down by 60. As if that's not bad enough they decreased the cost of the CHAOS Fire Raptor by 90 because they didn't realize the CSM version already had a discount. This book is pretty much a joke for balance and reeks of rolling dice on a chart to see which unit changes.

...Am I reading things wrong? Because according to the books I have both the SM and Chaos versions of the Fire Raptor were previously 250 points and are now 190 points.

tneva82 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
And somehow FW superheavies don't belong in game while plastic super heavies belong. Mark my words if GW releases plastic warhound titan that will cost like 1000 pts max.

You are free to use your warhound titan in open play, where its power level has not been changed at all.

Personally, I have no issue with a soft-ban on FW super-heavies in matched play. They can spend resources to re-introduce them when the rest of the game is somewhat balanced.

You missed point. GW said "Our superheavies are OK for matched play. FW however isn't".

That's just plain greed dictating decision rather than any semblance of balance concern. They just want gamers to buy plastic rather than resin since they get higher margins from those. FW stuff they are happy to sell collectors who wouldn't be buying multiples of same plastic anyway.

No I didn't. I stated multiple times that the FW exterminatus has nothing to do with balancing.

You cannot know if bigger margins on plastic, lack of quality in FW's rule writing or simply because FW is so much harder to access than GW stuff is the reason.
Big models with big rules skew the game heavily, especially when combined with things like craftworld traits. GW most likely doesn't want to put any effort (= money) into balancing those rules and thus wanted them out of matched play. The also didn't want to prevent anyone from playing those models they have bought, so they didn't put a hard ban on it.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. GW has plenty of track record of being stupid.

They destroyed the Grav Flux Bombard. It used to be competitive with the Storm Cannon, now at 30 points more for a pair...

"FW Exterminatus"? C'maaaaan.

Ascribing malice or "buy plastic" machinations to this needs a Citadel FineFoil hat, methinks.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
"FW Exterminatus"? C'maaaaan.

Ascribing malice or "buy plastic" machinations to this needs a Citadel FineFoil hat, methinks.

I'm absolutely shocked that you feel that way

Massive over pointing of 90% of FW stuff was an accident totally, as for the reason who knows incompetence cannot be ruled out but if you do rule out incompetence then it's intentional.

If it is intentional then it was not for balance so it must be for another reason and GW's main reasons for doing anything normally comes down to either greed or spite.

If you look at greed then the margins on the plastics versus resins is a valid possibility a plastic Baneblade costs pennies to make and can be mass produced where FW stuff is labour intensive and costs much more for the materials. If this was the reason then that could be a sign that FW had started to outsell some 40k kits causing them to be considered canablised sales.

If you look at spite then you have to consider that there a number of people in GW who resented the amount of freedom that FW got and office politics is nothing new. The gentleman who ran FW that recently passed away was noted as being able to handle that side of his job very well and that he managed to steer FW through it all relatively unscathed. It is not unlikely that someone with a chip on there shoulder might of stuck the knife in under the guise of assisting them with there workload.

Anyway that's just my thoughts on the matter got to go I can hear hoof beats......my son is trying to get on his rocking horse.

Simply put, plastic is allegedly over capacity and resin is made to order with its own workforce.

It would make more financial sense to leverage resin production to increase revenues at a time of plastic capacity issues.

So, if we're looking at making money (greed is splitting the Necro rulebook into bits over a year) then selling more resin would be better right now. So why nerf units they want to sell?

All I'm saying is people are projecting what they want to see and drawing 'conclusions' that support their view of GW. I'm no white knight, I'm pissed they're gouging away on the Necromunda rules. Equally, I'm not an armchair expert who could miraculously write perfect balance if ONLY he was allowed into Nottingham, and I'm not ascribing incompetence or malice.

Maybe, just maybe, it's their best shot in the time they had before print with the info they had? I dunno. Maybe it's just the DakkaDakka NegaChamber in effect...

 Stus67 wrote:
I just always wait before I bring out the pitchfork because GW moves at a glacial speed. Now if CA2018 comes out and it's like this one, then I'll probably join the ranks of a raving.

I also feel like a whole lot of these problems wouldn't be relevant if they had a digital system like AoS. I have no problem shelling out a few dollars for a decent official and consistently updated army builder with a digital suite of resources.

It's easily my favorite thing about AoS.

Yeah, agreed

A lot of the problem is seemingly caused by how long GW have from when the book is put on the schedule, to when it goes to the printers (and thus its contents 100% fixed), to when it actually hits the shelves. Haven't all of the codexes had day 0 FAQs released? I would be very surprised if CA hadn't been put on the schedule back when they decided 8th would be coming out and all of big additional stuff like apoc. was pre decided to be added. Points changes would have had to been decided a significant time ago otherwise it would never be able to be printed in large enough quantities for Christmas.

GW need to accept that the lists of points needs to be free and primarily digital otherwise they will never keep up. Sure, print them in white dwarf or something for those that insist on official printed copies.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Kirasu wrote:
Yet at the same time GW increased the storm raven points so its unusable and reduced the Fire Raptor down by 60. As if that's not bad enough they decreased the cost of the CHAOS Fire Raptor by 90 because they didn't realize the CSM version already had a discount. This book is pretty much a joke for balance and reeks of rolling dice on a chart to see which unit changes.

...Am I reading things wrong? Because according to the books I have both the SM and Chaos versions of the Fire Raptor were previously 250 points and are now 190 points.

Yes you are. The weapon options for the CSM fire raptor are cheaper due to balefire missiles which puts the minimum cost CSM fire raptor at a much lower price point.

If GW wanted us to buy plastic instead of resin they’d have lowered the cost of plastic and raised the cost of resin. They did not do that. There are FW units that had their cost fall by over 100 points. Plastic models have gone up by loads, including having several nerfs in some cases (eg conscripts and storm ravens).

That isn’t exterminatus. It’s an attempt at rebalancing the game – albeit not a flawless one.

What it looks like to me is a slightly panicked response. GW have seen certain big FW models, notably Mr. Alphabet Soup, dominate events. The approach seems to be the precautionary principle – they don’t have the resources right now to do this right so they are going to apply a soft ban. Better to break a unit than to break the game.

Hopefully we will see them apply proper balance to these units the next time around. It’s an iterative approach. We basically have to accept that points values are no-longer fixed but will change when experience tells GW that they are too high or low. And that’s a good thing.

 Kirasu wrote:


Yet at the same time GW increased the storm raven points so its unusable and reduced the Fire Raptor down by 60. As if that's not bad enough they decreased the cost of the CHAOS Fire Raptor by 90 because they didn't realize the CSM version already had a discount. This book is pretty much a joke for balance and reeks of rolling dice on a chart to see which unit changes.

So, by raising the total cost of the Stormraven by 20-31 points (depending on loadout) suddenly makes the Raven “unusable”?

If you still want to run Stormravens I’m pretty sure, the points aren’t going to hurt you too much.

As for the Fire Raptor, I personally think it needed a decrease. It is still ~47 points more expensive than the Stormraven, but it has more wounds. I’d argue that it could probably still come down more compared to the Stormraven, due to it lacking the transport capacity (and as we know, having transport space somehow costs an expensive premium in 40k). On the flip side, you can argue that the Raptor has better general weapons, even though the Stormraven will still likely do more damage to vehicles.