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JohnHwangDD I think people on Warseer would welcome you as a god

From a background perspective, it really seems absurd that Dark Angels have inferior storm shields than some joe-shmo chapter. The same can be said of the Blood Angels and even Black Templars. Was there a Space Marine convention in town but the Dark Angles, BA, and BT were not invited to make changes to weapons and wargear?

Ok, this topic get's brought up a lot. Here's what we know:

1) GW is pretty committed to not publishing too much in the way of errata that changes rules, as opposed to merely correcting or amending.

2) The BT, BA, and DA codices were written as a coherent whole, and not part of any other codex. As such, they were balanced and playtested as a unit.

Given those two facts, it seems unlikely that GW will "fix" the wargear in the DA/BA books. this is only a problem because the DA book sucks!

The problem comes in determining what's a genuine difference between codices (are scouts elites or troops?) and what could be easily updated. In addition, there are a few downgrades that DA would have to suffer as well.

We all think that a simple sheet explaining that all storm shield provide a 3++, all Cyclones are heavy 2, etc would be easy to do. The problem is that to a certain extent it's not "fixing" the DA book, it's updating it. It's trying to "balance" the book again. It's both hard to do and something GW has no interest in doing.

Yes, it is confusing that wargear operates differently in different codices, and GW should have made a fluff/name change to show why the rules are different. I think the problem quickly becomes that if we can update BA/DA for the new SM rules, why not update IG for kill points? Or tweak Necrons? etc.

When you pick a codex, you have to take the good and the bad. DA do have advantages, thin as they may be. They miss out on good storm shields or Cyclones, but can take melta guns in five man squads, have unlimited range psychic hoods, and still have access to fearless terminator troops units and a flying AV 14 vehicle.

For all my talk, I wish GW was more like Warmachine, but they aren't. While an update wouldn't be a bad thing, let's not pretend that the DA book needs an update because of inconsistency, it needs an update because it's awful!

Polonius wrote:For all my talk, I wish GW was more like Warmachine, but they aren't. While an update wouldn't be a bad thing, let's not pretend that the DA book needs an update because of inconsistency, it needs an update because it's awful!

I wish GW was like Catalyst - completely transparent about their aims and ideals, involved with the community, careful about playtesting, methodical about creating products and updating them, and when they keep a secret it's because they have a really cool reveal planned (like what they did with The Blake Document source book at GenCon this year).

BYE

Hopefully GW/ 40k will get more "cool" and less dumbed-down over the next few years. And dare I say, for 6th edition.

Not really, because Warseer and I have very different perspectives.

On WarSeer, you have to be enthusiastically for whatever pops up.

I take a somewhat different tack. I accept that GW will do stuff and that I can't change that, so we just move on with the game.

Polonius wrote:When you pick a codex, you have to take the good and the bad.

Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad.

Or more precisely, people want *everything* in *their* Codex to be "good", and to stay that way forever... Be that extra Heavy choices including Obliterators, or full-power Daemons that overshadow the Chaos Marines, or unkillable Falcons or whatever.

Polonius wrote:For all my talk, I wish GW was more like Warmachine, but they aren't.

Aside from the new Warcasters changing your army, erm, "Special Characters", OK.

And that's a good thing. The last thing we need is to carry 4 or 5 Rulebooks / updates just to have a complete current army list. Or a Focus / Rage mechanic with lots of little status cards for each model on the board.

Let GW be GW and PP be PP so we retain the notion of choice. After all, if GW were like WarMachine, then WarMachine would be necessarily like GW.

And quite frankly, I think we're going to see the latter sooner rather than later, as PP runs out of things they can do with scaling up WM without a major reset. I can't wait to see how they handle the WM 2.0 reset. So far, only GW managed to make the transition from RT-like skirmish to small-scale 2E to mass battle 3E+. Hopefully, they won't go bankrupt like Rackham...

JohnHwangDD wrote:Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad.

Or more precisely, people want *everything* in *their* Codex to be "good", and to stay that way forever... Be that extra Heavy choices including Obliterators, or full-power Daemons that overshadow the Chaos Marines, or unkillable Falcons or whatever.

Complete load of bullpucky again John. Let's look at these two statements in turn to see where you've stumbled along the path to coherent argument.

"Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad."

Why should be bad? Why should there be bad units? Why is having "bad" units good? How is it wrong to wish for all units to be equally useful and valid?

This doesn't make the process of making every unit "good" into an easy one, but it should be the ultimate goal, even if it takes a few attempts to get it right. Lord knows in our rules it's taken us a number of attempts to get things right, and we're still not 100% of the way there. For example Swooping Hawks took us months and endless playtests to get right, and we're only 99% of they way there.

But to deride people for not wanting 'bad' units? Do you even read the sh!t you write? Honestly?

"Or more precisely, people want *everything* in *their* Codex to be "good", and to stay that way forever... Be that extra Heavy choices including Obliterators, or full-power Daemons that overshadow the Chaos Marines, or unkillable Falcons or whatever."

Call it a strawman, red herring or simply attempting to restate the issue into something it isn't, this statement is even worse than your first.

You attempt here to reframe all those wishing for good rules as some sort of selfish power gamer. INSTANT WIN! You don't even have to make an argument when you change the topic so that everyone arguing against you becomes evil. This must be the 40K equivalent of saying "Won't someone think of the children", as the moment you're the guy who's arguing against children, you're the badguy. Same applies in 40K - once you're arguing for power, you must be a down-right dirty rotten power-gaming TFG tournament gamer.

Next you'll be telling us that those who want a balanced ruleset are all TFGs... oh wait! You already did that a few threads back.

BYE

ShumaGorath wrote:
They don't update every single book when a new edition comes out. Trying to do so would bankrupt them and piss off the community. They also don't FAQ for balance and consistency reasons, only for rules questions. In doing so they accomplish what they set out to do, which is require a player only to have a codex rulebook and army to play a game. All things readily available on a shelf.

The problem is that their stated goal, having everything to play the game condensed into 2 books, is something which is anathema to a living game system. Especially one so incredibly diverse as 40k. The obvious solution to this? Common equipment treated in the same way as USRs. Want to give SM a more powerful Storm Shield? Fine, name it something else and release a special model. The game stays consistent, GW generates more profit, and individual armies gain a bit more character. Think Storm Shields need to be rebalanced? Release an update to the main rulebook that features the change. The same applies to individual codices. These updates can be made freely available on the internet. Maybe charge a small fee to print them out at any GW store.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Besides, why do you of all people even care? You don't USE the rules as written and you don't play in tournaments by your own admittence. So why the hell have you climbed on this soapbox to decry a lack of FAQing or consistency that you don't even bother with using?

Maybe he would use the published rules if he felt they were worthwhile. Maybe he likes to critique other rules systems as a hobby. Why do you feel the need to undermine his position? Is it because you feel you need to 'win' the argument, or are you making a misguided attempt at constructive dialogue?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad.

That is correct. We want a balanced game where every unit is equally worth taking so you can make an army you like and won't have people telling you that you're a bad person because you took 'x' unit.

dogma wrote:
The problem is that their stated goal, having everything to play the game condensed into 2 books, is something which is anathema to a living game system. Especially one so incredibly diverse as 40k. The obvious solution to this? Common equipment treated in the same way as USRs. Want to give SM a more powerful Storm Shield? Fine, name it something else and release a special model. The game stays consistent, GW generates more profit, and individual armies gain a bit more character. Think Storm Shields need to be rebalanced? Release an update to the main rulebook that features the change. The same applies to individual codices. These updates can be made freely available on the internet. Maybe charge a small fee to print them out at any GW store.

Exactly Dogma. I think thats what most proponents are arguing in one form or another.

The easist way to fix this is to not have 5 different loyalist marine codexes. In my mind, the decision to make every marine dex standalone is at the heart of the problem. If they were mini-dexes (or even better, pdf's) then there'd be no issue.

As it stands now though, I don't agree with the herd that DA/BA should be brought in-line with the SM dex via FAQs. THey are seperate codexes. Yes they have similar models but so what? For better or worse each are completely different codexes and rules as far as the game is concerned. 40k does not suddenly implode just because there's a few weapons that have different abilities, or a difference in stats between two things. If you like what they did in the SM dex, run your army using those rules. If not then stick to the 4ed DA/BA until the 5ed versions come out. I am sure alot of non-marine players would love such flexibility. No it is not ideal but it could be worse.

ShumaGorath wrote:You are arguing for consistently bad rules.

Well since the studio officially doesn't give a sh!t, bad rules are pretty much a given. In that case I'd rather they be consistently bad rather than inconsistently bad. I think?

Well since the studio officially doesn't give a sh!t, bad rules are pretty much a given. In that case I'd rather they be consistently bad rather than inconsistently bad. I think?

Abadabadoobaddon, king of posts.

Complete load of bullpucky again John. Let's look at these two statements in turn to see where you've stumbled along the path to coherent argument.

I thought you were leaving.

Maybe he would use the published rules if he felt they were worthwhile. Maybe he likes to critique other rules systems as a hobby. Why do you feel the need to undermine his position? Is it because you feel you need to 'win' the argument, or are you making a misguided attempt at constructive dialogue?

I did it for the same reason you just posted this paragraph. Whatever that reason may be were both using it to construct the more inflammatory of our comments.

The problem is that their stated goal, having everything to play the game condensed into 2 books, is something which is anathema to a living game system. Especially one so incredibly diverse as 40k. The obvious solution to this? Common equipment treated in the same way as USRs. Want to give SM a more powerful Storm Shield? Fine, name it something else and release a special model. The game stays consistent, GW generates more profit, and individual armies gain a bit more character. Think Storm Shields need to be rebalanced? Release an update to the main rulebook that features the change. The same applies to individual codices. These updates can be made freely available on the internet. Maybe charge a small fee to print them out at any GW store.

Unfortunately storm shields are not really standardized across the imperium. They have also remained relatively the same for the last 10 thousand years. So just calling something mark II when you want to upgrade in a single book is pretty unfluffy. It also wouldn't solve much since these arguments don't exist because it's confusing. A five year old could understand that the same thing has two effects in two different books. It's not hard. These arguments stem from the fact that people do not like how the space marines got a seemingly better upgrade item then their chapter and witch/daemonhunter counterparts without reason. No one ever whined this much when the inferno canon changes because no one cared about the interbook consistency. The new Inferno Canon wasn't much better than the old one so no one "wanted it" bad enough to care.

People like HBMC and abababababababbababababab just like to rant against games workshop no matter how or why. HBMC doesn't even have a consistent platform for his opinion on this issue other than "GW is wrong". He doesn't want FAQing, he doesn't want updated rulebooks, and he won't comment on whether or not he thinks upgrades between codexes for balance purposes are good or bad. He just knows GW writes bad rules because they don't care.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Polonius wrote:When you pick a codex, you have to take the good and the bad.

Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad.

Or more precisely, people want *everything* in *their* Codex to be "good", and to stay that way forever... Be that extra Heavy choices including Obliterators, or full-power Daemons that overshadow the Chaos Marines, or unkillable Falcons or whatever.

I really don't understand your constant desire to constantly paint those that disagree with you as being power gamers, or bad people. I don't know if it's intentional or unintentional, but I wish you would stop with it.

I think it's totally natural that people want good stuff in their codex. And yes, people want to win. But for every middling codex that wants to become unbeatable, there's a wimpy codex just trying to become decent. Keep that in mind when parsing the balance complaints. Upgrading Storm Sheilds and Cyclones won't make DA unbeatable, heck, it would barely make them legit.

Like I said earlier, I think the codices are internally balanced and should not change with the tides. OF course, I think DA was a lousy codex that needed revision as soon as it hit the shelf. That is my major point: don't conflate those two issues!

Polonius wrote:For all my talk, I wish GW was more like Warmachine, but they aren't.

Aside from the new Warcasters changing your army, erm, "Special Characters", OK.

And that's a good thing. The last thing we need is to carry 4 or 5 Rulebooks / updates just to have a complete current army list. Or a Focus / Rage mechanic with lots of little status cards for each model on the board.

Let GW be GW and PP be PP so we retain the notion of choice. After all, if GW were like WarMachine, then WarMachine would be necessarily like GW.

And quite frankly, I think we're going to see the latter sooner rather than later, as PP runs out of things they can do with scaling up WM without a major reset. I can't wait to see how they handle the WM 2.0 reset. So far, only GW managed to make the transition from RT-like skirmish to small-scale 2E to mass battle 3E+. Hopefully, they won't go bankrupt like Rackham...

I hear all this, and then I have to ask myself, "are you actually serious?" So you show up to a store with between 25 and 250 painted miniatures, as well as up to a dozen tanks. You have dice, template, a tape measure and objective markers. You bring a regular rule book, an army codex, and an army roster. Yet a third book or a printed out sheet of rules would be too much?

10 years ago, five even I would agree that there is no really good way to add updates. OF course, back then, they did all the time. Does anybody really think that between postings in stores, postings to the GW site, every forum, etc. there will be problems with updating rules? The only potential problem in a rules update is somebody familiar and somebody unfamiliar playing, and how is that different from a person with an entirely new codex playing somebody new?

My point is that I don't think there is a valid extrinsic reason GW can't do updates. there are intrinsic reasons, namely that they don't want to and can't be bothered. But let's not pretend that updates would be any sort of impediment to play, any more than the inconsistent rules are an impediment. And that is why I don't think they will do an update: once they start, there is less reason to claim they can't tweak the other books. Yes, this is something we want, but IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN! At least not until the next regime change.

I hear all this, and then I have to ask myself, "are you actually serious?" So you show up to a store with between 25 and 250 painted miniatures, as well as up to a dozen tanks. You have dice, template, a tape measure and objective markers. You bring a regular rule book, an army codex, and an army roster. Yet a third book or a printed out sheet of rules would be too much?

FAQs don't harm veteran players with loads of stuff. They harm the casual player who doesn't ravage the internet looking for them. My WARMACHINE group back in the day didn't use the FAQs. They were bothersome, difficult to keep together, and required that we either leave them at the store or have each person have their own printed version. They obviously got substantial use in tournments, but that caused even more problems since people that didn't know about or use them were surprised that their forces didn't do what they remembered and their opponents were different then what they knew.

FAQing is great for us, were arguing on an internet forum dedicated to the hobby. Most of us have bee diehards for years. We are not why they don't do FAQ updates to stats and functional rules for balance purposes.

Simple: start printing new codices with a warning/statement that the rulebook is a living document and include a URL for the FAQs. Also start getting stores to spread the FAQ info at the same time. Nobody who's in this hobby doesn't use the net. They may not use the net for forums, but they know info (and porn) exists on it. Also those premade tourney materials GW has for you to print? Include the URL with a blurb in there too.


Casual players can ignore the FAQs willingly like you guys did. That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.

Yeah, I guess I honestly don't see why updates would be bothersome. I mean, there are only so many possible interactions between players, right? Your club didn't use the FAQs, and that was fine. You knew they existed, however, and knew that if you played at open gaming or a tournament they'd be a factor.

I'm also hearing that there was a problem in execution. I've heard that PP liked to barrage people with updates, FAQs, errata, and didn't always post it in the same place. If that's the case, then sure, it's a bit more bothersome. But that is not the solution on the table here!

What people here want is a few pages for each codex to update them a bit, starting at least with the DA/BA books. There are already FAQs for each codex, some of which do have substantive rules changes. There is already the need to have extra sheets of paper, so what is big deal with making it 3 sheets instead of 2? These wouldn't be online only. I'd imagine every GW and FLGS would have them posted or at least available, and they might include them in White Dwarf.

As for casual gamers that don't use the updates being surprised at a tournament, well, there are ways around that. The first is to simply have ever RTT announce that they are using the rules updates (like some RTTs announced that they were using the Adepticon FAQ). The other is to have a master print out of all the updates for the judges. Additionally, casual gamers that avoid the internet, gaming stores, clubs, and really any connection to the hobby are always surprised at tournaments. They see builds they've never imagined, tactics they've never seen, etc.

I think GW saw what PP did, figured they couldn't execute any better so they simply want to avoid doing updates. That's a shame, because back in the Andy Chambers days there were updates all the time, and it wasn't a huge problem.

Plus there is another issue here-

Without updated FAQ's, groups play by differing 'interpretations' of the rules. When two groups got together to play, you had the inevitable 'We don't play that way and the people that do play that way are bad people' that would ruin the game. I've played in too many places, only to be surprised that they don't follow the rules in one way or another. And inevitably, you're painted as a bad person if you want to follow the rules.

Casual players are supposed to be the ones who when confronted with an FAQ go, "Oh! OK, that makes sense. Sure, we'll play it that way. Can I get a copy?"

Kind of my point...Now you have the situation with no FAQ's, and if you play differently than I play, you're a bad person...

Oh no, Andy made different problems. Though back then they also ran Chapter Approved and other assorted yearly publications that were part FAQ and part supplement, those were great things.

Polonius wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Except a lot of people want *everything* in *every* Codex to be "good", and nothing in any Codex to be bad.

Or more precisely, people want *everything* in *their* Codex to be "good", and to stay that way forever... Be that extra Heavy choices including Obliterators, or full-power Daemons that overshadow the Chaos Marines, or unkillable Falcons or whatever.

I really don't understand your constant desire to constantly paint those that disagree with you as being power gamers, or bad people. I don't know if it's intentional or unintentional, but I wish you would stop with it.

I'm not calling everybody powergamers, nor bad people. But I think they are very misguided in understanding how Codices and balance actually works. If everything is "good" then nothing is good. And to do that, the variations must necessarily become smaller to the point of not having them. That is, I rail against these notions that drive everything towards bland homogenization.

For example, Storm Shields. Either it should be a 3++ or a 4++. I really don't care. But whichever it is, the masses want just one. As 3++ is obviously better, then the 4++ cannot be balanced as "good" no matter how much cheaper it is, short of "free". So the result is:
- homogenized Storm Shields, no variation between / among Astartes, so less army to army differentiation
- full stepwise power creep as the resulting equipment is clearly a step up from before
- focus moves to the next "not great" thing - Assault Termie with Claws, lather, rinse, repeat...

So as SW are next, they'll get improved Lightning Claws that give +2A when paired, rather than just +1.

But wait, that means that the Astartes (and CSM) LCs also need a bump.

And so on.

And the game slowly devolves until GW decides that the whole thing is unworkable and somebody has to be first to bite the bullet and receive a solid nerf to bring the bar back down.

Polonius wrote:I think it's totally natural that people want good stuff in their codex. And yes, people want to win.

Like I said earlier, I think the codices are internally balanced and should not change with the tides.

And that's not a problem, except at a macro level. You can't have all good stuff in all codices. It's not possible without making them all the same, or having continuous creep.

The very fact that difference exist means that there will always be a "better" and a "worse". Taking away the worse means taking away the better, because by definition, "better" and "worse" are relative to one another.

Given the choice, I'd rather have a Codex with good units that fit the theme and terrible units that break the theme, rather than a Codex with only a small list of themed units or a universe without variation.

So, if Astartes Marines are genetically predisposed NOT to do assault with JPs, why not let that be punitively costed?

If the BT / BA / SW geneseed is predisposed to assault, why not let that be more broadly available and advantageously costed?

At least, the resulting armies that field would actually be different, rather than the absolute blandness we had in 2E.

And that's a good thing. The last thing we need is to carry 4 or 5 Rulebooks / updates just to have a complete current army list. Or a Focus / Rage mechanic with lots of little status cards for each model on the board.

I hear all this, and then I have to ask myself, "are you actually serious?" So you show up to a store with between 25 and 250 painted miniatures, as well as up to a dozen tanks. You have dice, template, a tape measure and objective markers. You bring a regular rule book, an army codex, and an army roster. Yet a third book or a printed out sheet of rules would be too much?

10 years ago, five even I would agree that there is no really good way to add updates. OF course, back then, they did all the time. Does anybody really think that between postings in stores, postings to the GW site, every forum, etc. there will be problems with updating rules?

But let's not pretend that updates would be any sort of impediment to play, any more than the inconsistent rules are an impediment.

back in the Andy Chambers days there were updates all the time, and it wasn't a huge problem.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I did it for the same reason you just posted this paragraph. Whatever that reason may be were both using it to construct the more inflammatory of our comments.

Actually I was asking a simple question. You took it as an inflammatory remark because you aren't interested in debating a point. You're interested in being 'right'. Without any regard to whether or not that 'right' position has any actual merit.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Unfortunately storm shields are not really standardized across the imperium. They have also remained relatively the same for the last 10 thousand years. So just calling something mark II when you want to upgrade in a single book is pretty unfluffy. It also wouldn't solve much since these arguments don't exist because it's confusing. A five year old could understand that the same thing has two effects in two different books. It's not hard. These arguments stem from the fact that people do not like how the space marines got a seemingly better upgrade item then their chapter and witch/daemonhunter counterparts without reason. No one ever whined this much when the inferno canon changes because no one cared about the interbook consistency. The new Inferno Canon wasn't much better than the old one so no one "wanted it" bad enough to care.

Who said you had to call it 'mk II'? Come on dude, creativity is the life blood of a game like 40k, if GW really can't do any better they deserve to be doing as terribly, in a fiscal sense, as they are. Moreover, it isn't like GW hasn't changed the fluff before. If that's what standing in their way a creating an effective rule set then there is no hope for them.

It isn't a matter of the system being confusing. It also isn't a matter of the system being based on 'envy' as you put it. Its a matter of GW organizing their rules in such a way that is conducive to regular updates.

ShumaGorath wrote:
People like HBMC and abababababababbababababab just like to rant against games workshop no matter how or why. HBMC doesn't even have a consistent platform for his opinion on this issue other than "GW is wrong". He doesn't want FAQing, he doesn't want updated rulebooks, and he won't comment on whether or not he thinks upgrades between codexes for balance purposes are good or bad. He just knows GW writes bad rules because they don't care.

As opposed to ranting about HBMC, abby, and everyone else are wrong because all they want to do is talk about how 'GW wrong'? If that's the line of reasoning your going to take I suggest you develop a debate style which amounts to more than self-superior argumentative posturing.

@ John:

Look, i'm not advocating constant power creep. You say that having two kinds of storm sheilds makes for a difference between armies. It does, but it basically means there are armies that will take them and those that won't. The 4++ saves were a product of 4th edition, when a cover save wasn't what it is today. The world changed, and what was previously a mediocre unit is now even less essential.

I guess there are two ways of looking at it. One is that GW crafted DA, thinking every choice through and is comfortable with 4++ storm sheilds. The other is that they just kept the old rule despite everybody thinking they sucked 10 years ago. I think the latter is more likely.

Finally, I think the best way to end homogenization is to make more options palatable. But that's just me. Yes, people will always take what's best, but having more options that aren't auto-fail is a boon for casual gamers and even fluff tourney gamers looking for a challenge.

And yes, I think the crack about "wanting everything to be good and staying that way" coupled with a list of overpowered units was a crack at people that want to win.

However, if GW goes back down the Chapter Approved path, then that's bad. I'm not carrying a backpack full of WDs with rules changing articles and hand-printed FAQs just to play the game.

From a practical standpoint, having 1 rulebook and 1 Codex is ideal. It is simple and clear.

And far superior to massed Chapter Approved updates for the sake of updates.

Right here is an example of why discussing anything with you is infuriating. I specifically conjectured a few sheets of paper, and your response was that you won't want to carry a backpack full of White Dwarfs. You're saying that you don't want a D&D style library, and I agree, except that WASN'T WHAT I SUGGESTED!

Again, would a few sheets of paper, updated a few times a year, be that onerous? If so, explain how..

Actually I was asking a simple question. You took it as an inflammatory remark because you aren't interested in debating a point. You're interested in being 'right'. Without any regard to whether or not that 'right' position has any actual merit.

Actually it was a strong implication veiled in a rhetorical question. You didn't want an answer any more than I want one when I ask someone "have you stopped beating your wife?".

are of the system being confusing. It also isn't a matter of the system being based on 'envy' as you put it. Its a matter of GW organizing their rules in such a way that is conducive to regular updates.

If that was what this argument was about then I would have seen it the last couple of times they had done this. But it's not and this is all new. This is games workshops modus operandi. They update incrementally between books with long staggered releases and treat each of the books as self contained and self balanced documents. When you buff one you don't have to carry that to the others because it can easily become ubalancing. 30 stormshield wielding assault termies in 12 man land raiders wouldn't make the dark Angel book passable. It would make it stupid to play against. These buffs come in because they are within a document that balances them in a pretext. Normal marines can't mix termy squads, their independant characters automatically pay for the 4+ inv they have and their land raiders don't get the dark angels supersmoke launchers any more.

When the IG codex gets updated they aren't going to make the witchunters stormtroopers or chimeras any cheaper, will we see this "discussion" pop up again? And when they update the space wolf books to reflect these newer rulings will we hear the same outcry?

As opposed to ranting about HBMC, abby, and everyone else are wrong because all they want to do is talk about how 'GW wrong'? If that's the line of reasoning your going to take I suggest you develop a debate style which amounts to more than self-superior argumentative posturing.

Actually I can post content and self aggrandize at the same time. It's not even hard. I've done it in every post I've made and I've been fairly consistent with it. What you could try and do is dedicate at least half of your posts to actually debating the topic at hand rather than commenting on other peoples poor debating styles while ironically implying your own superiority in doing so.

JohnHwangDD wrote:And that's a good thing. The last thing we need is to carry 4 or 5 Rulebooks / updates just to have a complete current army list. Or a Focus / Rage mechanic with lots of little status cards for each model on the board.

Pah to all the book-carrying, that's why the rules for WM units are printed on those cards. So you only have to regularly those, plus any FAQs, clarifcations etc. that might apply. The latter are a bunch of sheets of paper, hardly backbreaking.

As for the Focus mechanic, I think the average gamer can handle the strain of pushing small glass beads around to signify something rules-related. If not, that's what notepads and pencils are for. It's hardly different from having to remember which sorcerer cast Warptime this turn, how many Faith points you have, and what Daemonhost rolled which power, etc.

Look, i'm not advocating constant power creep. You say that having two kinds of storm sheilds makes for a difference between armies. It does, but it basically means there are armies that will take them and those that won't. The 4++ saves were a product of 4th edition, when a cover save wasn't what it is today. The world changed, and what was previously a mediocre unit is now even less essential.

I guess there are two ways of looking at it. One is that GW crafted DA, thinking every choice through and is comfortable with 4++ storm sheilds. The other is that they just kept the old rule despite everybody thinking they sucked 10 years ago. I think the latter is more likely.

I think it was a mix of both. They were likely uncomfortable with making one supplement codex have superior equipment to the primary and all other supplements. I can guarantee you the player outcry would have been much louder and more angry then it is now. It could also simply be that at the time (back in fourth when land raiders and land speeders could score) they simply didn't think that they needed the buff, and that it simply wasn't worth the drama.

In the new ruleset, especially with consolidating into opposing squads removed assault termies really needed a buff. They couldn't become less expensive because the 40 point value of terminator armor is a consistent part of their design and players probably wouldn't like their elite superunit being "cheapened". They also couldn't be made better offensively, because that wouldn't help the problem and they are already quite destructive. So they simply decided to make them less vulnerable to plasma/melta/demolisher equivalent weapons and high initiative powerweapon squads like banshees. It was a change that I think needed to come in the base book so it could branch out to the supplements and it was most needed because of changes in fifth. The dark angels just got the short end of the stick by predating fifth but being the last codex before the revised primary.

To be fair Shuma, you really do tend to focus a lot on "winning" than simply on meaningful discussion. Yes, you can do both, but it pisses people off and makes people think less of you at the expense of your valid points. You know this, and you continue to post in "persona." By doing that, you are essentially saying that you'd rather have the persona than have your comments be as widely listened to as possible. If you really felt that communication was your priority, you would tone done the argument games in favor of more direct discussion. More people would listen and more people would agree. The fact that you don't is telling to me.

Polonius wrote:To be fair Shuma, you really do tend to focus a lot on "winning" than simply on meaningful discussion. Yes, you can do both, but it pisses people off and makes people think less of you at the expense of your valid points. You know this, and you continue to post in "persona." By doing that, you are essentially saying that you'd rather have the persona than have your comments be as widely listened to as possible. If you really felt that communication was your priority, you would tone done the argument games in favor of more direct discussion. More people would listen and more people would agree. The fact that you don't is telling to me.

Your last two sentences rhymed.


I can debate politely and without vociferous emotion. I do it rather often. I just can't do it when debating with other people that refuse to do the same because my reasoned opinions get lost in the shuffle. If I stoop to the level of HBMC, stelek, or abadabaononononfudsgidgj then I can debate with them. It simply changes the frame of the debate. If I don't then they trample all over my opinions and reinforce their own without what is in their mind meaningful disagreement to their points. I respond to your points specifically because I prefer reasoned and point driven debates. If you disagreed with HBMC I very much doubt you would receive the same deference that I or JohnHuang give (or at least that I give, john looks like he's getting mad).

As for being unable to frame my opinions reasonably, my last post, which was in its entirety a response to you was I think quite reasonable. Look at who I'm talking too, I usually mirror their debate style in my posts.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I'm not calling everybody powergamers, nor bad people. But I think they are very misguided in understanding how Codices and balance actually works. If everything is "good" then nothing is good. And to do that, the variations must necessarily become smaller to the point of not having them. That is, I rail against these notions that drive everything towards bland homogenization.

I think the main issue that people have is the disparity between broken, good and bad units within the same Codex. Using the CSM Codex as an example, Lash Princes are considered broken. I would say the standard CSM is a fairly good unit. Dreads, possessed and spaw are utterly useless and thus are bad units. I think most people would agree that with some fairly minor tweaking that wouldn't take more than a day of play testing, all the units could be brought in line with the good. To your point, everything being good makes nothing special, but it allows you to play the army in different manners and thus have different lists and strategies for those lists.

To use Warmachine as an example. Most of the units are solid, however some work better with certian compositions than others. The list I take with one style of Warcaster is going to be different than the list I take with another Warcaster. Irusk is troop heavy, while Karchev is jack heavy. Either way, I have solid options at all slots and with some rare exceptions (Sorsha & Haley), I can take any army have a good shot at winning.

GW doesn't balance their armies for real world gameplay as far as I can tell. They play some crap fluff list or look at it on paper and think how great something is. They then look at what sold last edition, what they want to sell this edition and edit the rules to represent that. Khorne was a big seller in 4th, now they aren't nearly as powerful being replaced by Nurgle as the prefered god. I find it amazing the Possessed were bad last edition and are now worse this edition, even though they got new models.

All I want is solid, not broken, units. If they are in the Codex, they should be solid and make me ponder if I should take them. I should look at the unit, read the rules, laugh and move on because it sucks so bad.