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 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hah, well, to 'having a bridge to sell' is a phrase used when you think someone is gullible, because you don't actually have a bridge to sell.

Originally, it was a reference to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was fairly regularly 'sold' to unwitting tourists by local conmen in early 20th century New York.

Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

"I want a list of 30 loadouts per unit, but if we could reduce the game to five factions and one kit for each battlefield role, THAT would reduce bloat, cuz I'm chasing the meta and I'm only gonna use 3 copies of the best unit for each battlefield role anyways cuz WINNING. Lulz"

Pick a side: you either want options or you don't.

I was just bitchin’ about my squads being “illegal” now. I like more units and more options. So not all. Just some.

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

"I want a list of 30 loadouts per unit, but if we could reduce the game to five factions and one kit for each battlefield role, THAT would reduce bloat, cuz I'm chasing the meta and I'm only gonna use 3 copies of the best unit for each battlefield role anyways cuz WINNING. Lulz"

Pick a side: you either want options or you don't.

1) Is anybody actually making that argument?

2) Restricting Skitarii to one of each special weapon actually increases bloat - just look at the amount of text/bullet points in the unit entry.

3) There is a difference between wanting to be able to choose special weapons freely and not thinking that the game is improved by having sixteen different Terminator squad entries. Those are different issues.

Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

"I want a list of 30 loadouts per unit, but if we could reduce the game to five factions and one kit for each battlefield role, THAT would reduce bloat, cuz I'm chasing the meta and I'm only gonna use 3 copies of the best unit for each battlefield role anyways cuz WINNING. Lulz"

Pick a side: you either want options or you don't.

No.

GW released new units like Plague Marines and Rangers years ago with specific options that you could build and play with for years. Then they arbitrarily decide to take these options away, leaving myself and others left with ILLEGAL units for no reason.

I equipped all of my Plague Marines with Knifes/Axes because I wanted a close combat Plague Marine army. Was I at any point chasing a meta?

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

I see this all the time and I'm not sure if it counts as a logical fallacy, but it kinda has the feel of one - Of course people complaining sound ridiculous and hypocritical if you put two or more complaints made by the community in the mouth of the same person at the same nebulous period in time when they ostensibly held the same opinion.

Quote the same person saying both things (Especially if it was me, because for all I remember it might have been, and I'll eat this second paragraph and/or try to reconcile the statements if it was) or this cannot be allowed to hold water.

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

"I want a list of 30 loadouts per unit, but if we could reduce the game to five factions and one kit for each battlefield role, THAT would reduce bloat, cuz I'm chasing the meta and I'm only gonna use 3 copies of the best unit for each battlefield role anyways cuz WINNING. Lulz"

Pick a side: you either want options or you don't.

Likely not the same people and this strips the nuance from the issue many people have. I don't agree with some of what they're saying, but it's ok for them to be upset about this.

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

"I want a list of 30 loadouts per unit, but if we could reduce the game to five factions and one kit for each battlefield role, THAT would reduce bloat, cuz I'm chasing the meta and I'm only gonna use 3 copies of the best unit for each battlefield role anyways cuz WINNING. Lulz"

Pick a side: you either want options or you don't.

You can only take 1 strawman per post.

Also as Daedalus81 said you're stripping nuance from the issue. You can have options and not have bloat, especially in this case because the three options are meaningfully different and preform different roles. Its not like Hellblaster squads where they have 3 options which are all minor variations of the same thing or a collection of Primaris's 15 or so bolt weapons. A squad equipped with arqebuseseses are going to fill a different role on the field than a unit with plasma calivers.

A funny thing, I'm starting a chaos army and wanted a specific loadout for my terminators. That loadout wasn't available via the normal CSM terminator box set. However, it was available in the cataphract terminator box. So, I said to myself, since cataphract were around during the crusade and I'm thinking of playing an original legion, why can't I just make my terminators cataphractii? So I made my terminators cataphractii and since there is no rule for cataphract termies in the CSM codex I can run them as "normal" CSM termies without running across WYSIWYG problems.

So I wonder what GW will do to this loophole? I mean I can also take Mk III armour which has a different loadout than either normal CSM or the starter set but it certainly falls within the fluff of 40K.

 Sim-Life wrote:
You can only take 1 strawman per post.

Is there a term for multi-strawmanning? "Cornfielding?" Is there a proper adjective, like "A Nicholas Cage of Strawmen?"

 CEO Kasen wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
You can only take 1 strawman per post.

Is there a term for multi-strawmanning? "Cornfielding?" Is there a proper adjective, like "A Nicholas Cage of Strawmen?"

I feel like "Nicholas Cage" should be reserved for a strawman that is particularly impressive/egregious or which has had an unusual amount of effort put in. A light Googling implies that the collective noun for scarecrows is a "gathering", though I'm uncertain if that's legit or not.

It makes me think that when Guard gets released we're either going to see Veterans and Special Weapon Squads removed, or something silly like:

Special Weapon Squad:
- 3 Guardsmen must be upgraded with the following: 1 Sniper Rifle, 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, or 1 Melta Gun.

Veteran Squad:
- 3 Veterans may be upgraded with the following: 1 Sniper Rifle, 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, or 1 Melta Gun.

Scions will be similar something like:
- 2 Scions may be upgraded with 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, 1 Melta Gun, or 1 Hotshot Volley Gun.
- If this unit numbers 10 models 2 additional Scions may be upgraded with 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, 1 Melta Gun, or 1 Hotshot Volley Gun.

It's so stupid, but this really seems to be the route GW are going down. If they do this, it's going to kill a lot of Guard options.

I just can't get upset about this. I think not only is it a new player friendly thing, it's an army balance thing. I don't think they want skitarii rangers and vanguard to be the heavy lifters with tons of special weapons.

I will just proxy some of my specials as galvanic/radium for now. Maybe when I pick up another boat I'll use the bodies to replace the extra specials.

I'm not so sure about Scions. They're not what I'd consider a typical troop.

If they wanted to reduce special weapon spam, they could have reduced the specials to 1 per 5 and called it a day. Instead, you can still spam special weapons, except to do so you have to create a Frankenstein squad that doesn’t actually specialize. And let’s not forget that the worst offenders (calivers) got a huge range buff. So no, it’s not a balance change. To me, it just seems like a mandate forced on the rules writers by middle management. Lastly, the new buffs and doctrines/traits to skitarii make them far more deadly than 3 calivers ever could.

Will be really interesting to see what they do to GK melee. All the weapons cost the same according to the points document. Right now, you can equip the whole squad with whatever you want, and I wager that basically 100% of everyone's existing squads are armed with identical weapons. There will be a massive outcry if all those squads (except the ones with swords, I guess, which literally nobody has because they were the worst option) get invalidated by some weird plague marine style hodgepodge.

Quasistellar wrote:
I'm not so sure about Scions. They're not what I'd consider a typical troop.

They come in boxes of 5. I've listed how they would work given what's in their box and their current rules. People also play mono-Militarum Tempestus armies.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

I see this all the time and I'm not sure if it counts as a logical fallacy, but it kinda has the feel of one - Of course people complaining sound ridiculous and hypocritical if you put two or more complaints made by the community in the mouth of the same person at the same nebulous period in time when they ostensibly held the same opinion.

Quote the same person saying both things (Especially if it was me, because for all I remember it might have been, and I'll eat this second paragraph and/or try to reconcile the statements if it was) or this cannot be allowed to hold water.

It was Sim-Life I was specifically reacting to; his first post was about stripping the your dudeness by restricting weapon options. I then suggested that any loss of customization from changes to equipment lists could be recovered by simply choosing to play Crusade, which, by offering customization benefits from different sources which stack offers far more combinations and hence an even greater number of options than having multiple equipment builds, because by virtue of all of those options being from the same source (equipment) they are less likely to stack.

To which he responded that Crusade was bloat, that having many factions is bloat, that many models are bloat... though his precious weapon list options, obviously are not bloat from his point of view, since the removal of these combinations is the thing that caused him to lament that 40k has become a garbage game.

Now a few things: someone pointed out that the load out restrictions cause bloat... And while I don't agree with that entirely, certainly the convoluted wording they use to explain the limits does add a fair bit of text to the data card. This further got me thinking about my original stance, and yeah, upon reflection weapon options AREN'T as much bloat because all the same weapons still need to be described- it's just the numbers of each that you are allowed to take that have changed.

So apologies for not quoting the person I was specifically talking about- it comes mostly from the fact that I still haven't figured out Multiquote on this forum.

Also, when I see Crusade- the whole reason I bothered with 9th, and the version of the game I've wanted for more than three decades referred to as bloat, it does get my ire up. I'm usually fairly polite (or try to be), and I'm generally good at seeing things from other peoples' points of view. So maybe a bit more rude than usual, and apologies for that too.

But consider: have you ever argued that all Spacemarines should be combined in a single dex? Have you ever suggested ditching the Inquisition? Or putting them all in a book with Sisters or Grey Knights to reduce the options available to them? Have you ever suggested combining all Eldar into a single dex? Doing away with SoS?

Because if you've done ANY of those things, but you consider whether or not you can take one or two Arc rifles in a squad a loss of "customizability" and "options" that you just can't deal with, well quite frankly, you've got issues because the thing you're okay with represents a far greater loss of "options" than the straw that broke your back. And these are ALL arguments I've seen on Dakka.

Only difference is THAT loss of options doesn't affect YOUR army, so it doesn't really make a difference to you.

To reply to you specifically Kasen, you are correct about that mistake- I do know for 100% sure I've made that mistake before- combining something that one person said with something that someone else said as if it was the same person saying both things... I've definitely done that before, and again: my bad. There's a lot of noise in here sometimes, and it does get me mixed up from time to time.

I'm getting better though, because I am starting to to remember and recognize some of you all- didn't really start to happen until my post count was in the high six hundreds low sevens. Before then, you all just blended together- hope that doesn't make me sound like too much of an @55.

Anyway, if nothing else, this conversation has helped me see that I might need to take a bit of a break from the more negative threads for a day or two- if I'm starting to lose my diplomacy skills, it's usually an indicator that I need a break.

See y'all in happier threads (if such a thing exists on Dakka), or if I can't find happier threads, maybe in couple days.

Peace.

PenitentJake wrote:
But consider: have you ever argued that all Spacemarines should be combined in a single dex? Have you ever suggested ditching the Inquisition? Or putting them all in a book with Sisters or Grey Knights to reduce the options available to them? Have you ever suggested combining all Eldar into a single dex? Doing away with SoS?

I neither feel that Inquisition should be eliminated nor do I play AdMech, but I think there is a big difference between options that provide negligible distinctions for the sake of distinction (see: SM spinoffs with one or two special units that are basically just codex units with minor variation) versus options that provide distinctive specialization of particular units.

The argument I've always seen is against options that provide false choice, where the distinctions don't actually make a real gameplay impact- mauls vs swords vs hammers, for example. But in the case of special weapons that define a unit's role, that's a much bigger deal.

PenitentJake wrote:

 CEO Kasen wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Funny that all the people bitching about the lack of a million and one equipment options are the same people bitching about how having lots of factions and models is bloat.

I see this all the time and I'm not sure if it counts as a logical fallacy, but it kinda has the feel of one - Of course people complaining sound ridiculous and hypocritical if you put two or more complaints made by the community in the mouth of the same person at the same nebulous period in time when they ostensibly held the same opinion.

Quote the same person saying both things (Especially if it was me, because for all I remember it might have been, and I'll eat this second paragraph and/or try to reconcile the statements if it was) or this cannot be allowed to hold water.

It was Sim-Life I was specifically reacting to; his first post was about stripping the your dudeness by restricting weapon options. I then suggested that any loss of customization from changes to equipment lists could be recovered by simply choosing to play Crusade, which, by offering customization benefits from different sources which stack offers far more combinations and hence an even greater number of options than having multiple equipment builds, because by virtue of all of those options being from the same source (equipment) they are less likely to stack.

To which he responded that Crusade was bloat, that having many factions is bloat, that many models are bloat... though his precious weapon list options, obviously are not bloat from his point of view, since the removal of these combinations is the thing that caused him to lament that 40k has become a garbage game.

Now a few things: someone pointed out that the load out restrictions cause bloat... And while I don't agree with that entirely, certainly the convoluted wording they use to explain the limits does add a fair bit of text to the data card. This further got me thinking about my original stance, and yeah, upon reflection weapon options AREN'T as much bloat because all the same weapons still need to be described- it's just the numbers of each that you are allowed to take that have changed.

So apologies for not quoting the person I was specifically talking about- it comes mostly from the fact that I still haven't figured out Multiquote on this forum.

Also, when I see Crusade- the whole reason I bothered with 9th, and the version of the game I've wanted for more than three decades referred to as bloat, it does get my ire up. I'm usually fairly polite (or try to be), and I'm generally good at seeing things from other peoples' points of view. So maybe a bit more rude than usual, and apologies for that too.

But consider: have you ever argued that all Spacemarines should be combined in a single dex? Have you ever suggested ditching the Inquisition? Or putting them all in a book with Sisters or Grey Knights to reduce the options available to them? Have you ever suggested combining all Eldar into a single dex? Doing away with SoS?

Because if you've done ANY of those things, but you consider whether or not you can take one or two Arc rifles in a squad a loss of "customizability" and "options" that you just can't deal with, well quite frankly, you've got issues because the thing you're okay with represents a far greater loss of "options" than the straw that broke your back. And these are ALL arguments I've seen on Dakka.

Only difference is THAT loss of options doesn't affect YOUR army, so it doesn't really make a difference to you.

To reply to you specifically Kasen, you are correct about that mistake- I do know for 100% sure I've made that mistake before- combining something that one person said with something that someone else said as if it was the same person saying both things... I've definitely done that before, and again: my bad. There's a lot of noise in here sometimes, and it does get me mixed up from time to time.

I'm getting better though, because I am starting to to remember and recognize some of you all- didn't really start to happen until my post count was in the high six hundreds low sevens. Before then, you all just blended together- hope that doesn't make me sound like too much of an @55.

Anyway, if nothing else, this conversation has helped me see that I might need to take a bit of a break from the more negative threads for a day or two- if I'm starting to lose my diplomacy skills, it's usually an indicator that I need a break.

See y'all in happier threads (if such a thing exists on Dakka), or if I can't find happier threads, maybe in couple days.

Peace.

I have to do this often. I enjoy talking about the game when I get a few minutes after doing some research or before my wife gets home from work, but this forum can be excessively negative and if I'm not real careful, I will let it affect me without realizing that its affecting me. There is only so much negativity you can open yourself up to before it begins to wear on you, and at that point, its too late and its affecting your behavior.

I know I have said that I'd happily forgo Emperor's Children getting a book (and rolling Death Guard and Thousand Sons back into one army) if it meant we did away with all the Marine Supplements. But I'm no longer convinced that alone would solve the problem; each faction needs less junk, Marines just need... slightly more less junk. Neither of these is realistically going to happen at this point - the problem is already too heavily baked in to what's expected of a codex in 9th. You've got a dozen-plus relics that will never be represented on a model, you've got six warlord traits, you've got your faction trait, your subfaction trait, your no-soup bonus and your ever-increasing number of unnecessary stratagems granted by faction and subfaction; in the case of Marines, your own extra psychic discipline, bonus warlord traits, double helping of unnecessary stratagems, extra datasheets, and one-turn no-soup superbonus that gives you +2" to your Ballsack range in the Kumquat doctrine.

None of this is helpfully USR'ed, so you can't just learn keywords to understand abilities; you have to know each individual variation of each model's rules and each faction's stratagems and that means you have to learn, by my rough and highly unscientific estimate, 2400% of the rules you'd have to know otherwise. It's really, really tiring. Sometimes GW figures out halfway through a codex cycle that wording a Fight Third ability with the words "On a bread roll of 5.25 hectares" results in your Obfuscators unintentionally having to be placed on a shuttle to Mars and given a wedgie in the sauna unless it's a Tuesday, so they fix it in future codexes, and maybe faq the older ones, but whoooo knows, better look that up in the middle of the goddamn game too, and...

...I mean, am I an idiot for having trouble with this and/or finding this boring as hell? Also I think I've forgotten what point I was actually trying to make, so that might make me an idiot.

Oh yeh, why is cutting out this bloat acceptable but removing weapon options isn't really so helpful.

Uh, well... In the case of Plague Marines or Admech, Dandelion said it. "For every 5.67 models you can have 1 Power Trimmer; for every 5.67 models you can have 1 Rad Colonoscope; for every 5.67 models you can have 1 Elucidated Buggerclaw" is a way bigger pain than just reducing the number of special weapons a squad can have. It's actually adding more bloat.

Ya wanna know what my least favorite tank I've ever actually seen on a field was? The Repulsor. Not because it was broken, but because it takes forever to fire. All six to eight of its profiles; Usually shooting at different targets, each one a separate decision with its own decision time. Probably isn't even close to the worst offender, either. But you dole out weapon options like that, and you're at best basically begging to turn every poorly configured squad into a mini-Repulsor.

As for Crusade... well, yeah, that's messy as hell, and frankly, the thought of trying to run Crusade cross-faction when not everyone had or indeed has a codex and with players of varying skill and intent kept me from trying to run one, but Crusade is heavily optional systems crammed onto a straining core, and is nowhere near a foundational issue with 40K 9th.




No problem. I get it. It's easy to conflate two people pulling on opposite sides of the game.

Sometimes I wonder if this whole exercise is unhealthy for me, too, or if it's more of a therapeutic 40K Rehab Clinic.

PenitentJake wrote:


It was Sim-Life I was specifically reacting to; his first post was about stripping the your dudeness by restricting weapon options. I then suggested that any loss of customization from changes to equipment lists could be recovered by simply choosing to play Crusade, which, by offering customization benefits from different sources which stack offers far more combinations and hence an even greater number of options than having multiple equipment builds, because by virtue of all of those options being from the same source (equipment) they are less likely to stack.

To which he responded that Crusade was bloat, that having many factions is bloat, that many models are bloat... though his precious weapon list options, obviously are not bloat from his point of view, since the removal of these combinations is the thing that caused him to lament that 40k has become a garbage game.

A couple of points here:

1. You're erroneously conflating all options into one big bucket and calling it all "bloat". That's not really what people are usually complaining about. Bloat is not necessarily just having a bunch of weapon options. I would argue that's exactly the kind of thing you want in a wargame like 40k but only if they're actually usefully distinct. Furthermore, GW is adding to bloat through the convoluted way they're presented instead of just saying "for every X models 1 may have a special weapon". That's much less bloated than what we have currently. The real bloat problems in 40k are with the endless stratagems, doctrines, army-wide special rules, the million-and-one bolt weapons SM get, all of which are variations on the same S4 theme and even things like having separate datasheets for the new SM tanks and speeders. It's just pointless extra stuff for no real reason in many cases. The example of Archon melee weapons was a good one - they have a bunch of options but they're all just bad, leading to a single useful loadout, restricted to a single Archon because it requires a specific relic/warlord combo. Sure, you can technically take any one of over a dozen combinations of equipment on your Archon but if they're all equally useless that's just bloat.

2. Your comment about "simply choosing to play Crusade" feels pretty disingenuous. It may be the way you normally play but the overwhelming anecdotal evidence from this board and many other places is that it isn't the most common so it's hardly a simple solution. It also ignores the fact that a lot of the bloat issues are exacerbated by Crusade because it adds yet more layers of rules on top of what's already there. It's perfectly possible to streamline the game without having to use a completely different game mode.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Will be really interesting to see what they do to GK melee. All the weapons cost the same according to the points document. Right now, you can equip the whole squad with whatever you want, and I wager that basically 100% of everyone's existing squads are armed with identical weapons. There will be a massive outcry if all those squads (except the ones with swords, I guess, which literally nobody has because they were the worst option) get invalidated by some weird plague marine style hodgepodge.

GK boxs come with enough falchions, although no one sane takes those, halabards, swords etc for everyone in the squads. There is only one hammer in the box and one staff. the first is not a problem, because in general they were run at 1 per squad, if run at all. The staffs are going to be a problem though, because a ton of people were running four of them.

Purgators, paladins and purfires are going to be a LOT less efficient, if they are going to be limited to what is in the box, Because mixing psycanons, incinerators and psi lancers would require some drastic rules rewrites to make such a combination valid.

First up, thanks for taking the time to reply- I said I was maybe going to get some distance from the thread and negativity, but I feel like if I did that, it would be disrespect for the time you put into your response to me. Having recognized my own tonal issues from the second to last post, I'll try to keep a cooler head. I suspect we'll end up having to agree to disagree, but that's always okay if we still manage to be decent to each other.

 CEO Kasen wrote:


I know I have said that I'd happily forgo Emperor's Children getting a book (and rolling Death Guard and Thousand Sons back into one army) if it meant we did away with all the Marine Supplements.

At the beginning of the edition, we were all overwhelmed by the magnitude of Space Marine love. Once I got my hands on the Drukhari dex though, I realized that everyone was eventually going to get a similar style of Codex with a similar quantity of options- by which I don't mean load out- I mean all the other things. And once I realized that, I relaxed. And I would be stoked, absolutely amped to sing GW's praise from a rooftop if EC become a faction. It's another thing I've wanted from this game for two decades. Any deal you might make to dial back on bloat that costs us that dex would be a mistake. And I hope at least one other person is with me on that.

 CEO Kasen wrote:


But I'm no longer convinced that alone would solve the problem; each faction needs less junk, Marines just need... slightly more less junk.

Okay, maybe. I'm willing to hear you out on this, but I want you to really think about this: if, in this game of ours, we field only what we like, why does it actually matter how much stuf there is in the book that you read once, decide to dismiss, and then you never have to read about it, see it again, or field it? If it sits there in your book, ignored; if the kits sit on the shelf unpurchased... how does that actually affect your enjoyment? You just choose to ignore it. And if it's as bad as you think it is, you won't ever have to fight against it either. Unless your analysis of what is gak turns out to not be as sound as you thought it was, and somebody ends up doing something with it that you never thought of doing.

So really, philosophically, fundamentally, in a game where you only use what you like, why does it matter how much stuff there is in your book that you don't like as long as there is enough stuff that you do?

Because I guarantee you, for every player who hates a given unit and thinks it's garbage, there is likely to be another person somewhere who does like it. Reivers come to mind; I can't count how many times I've read about how terrible Reivers are- for some it's the tacticool aesthetic- I've probably seen more complaints about that than their functionality. But on another forum today, I asked about whether or not their fear auras stack. It seems as though they do. And there's other traits, straits and gear that allow you to go total mind war- like dropping a unit's LD to ONE before you force the break test and then debuffing their attrition rolls on top of it. And I don't care if it ever wins me a tourney (who are we kidding- I don't play in them lol), I just want to be the guy who breaks a squad- doing something completely off the wall and unexpected that no one else would ever do because it's not meta.

Like I love Jokaero. Just the idea of a monkey on the spectrum who understands machines like Temple Grandon understands horses and cows is one of the coolest, most off the wall sci-fi concepts I've read. And you know what? Jokaero as written in PA Pariah are weak. But wait until you get a load of my Legendary Jokaero who uses an unlikely WL trait in addition to his 4 battle honours so that I finally have rules that could represent the Jokaero den warden. Now I have a reason to convert a ridiculous resin model- obviously, I need a way to differentiate a den warden from an adolescent who hasn't even managed to jury rig his first flying machine. If YOU think it's junk, all YOU'VE got to do is let it sit ignored in the book and unpurchased one the shelf. But that's not what I am going to do.

 CEO Kasen wrote:


Neither of these is realistically going to happen at this point - the problem is already too heavily baked in to what's expected of a codex in 9th. You've got a dozen-plus relics that will never be represented on a model,

Unless you convert. And count the number of comments you see in a week that whine about GW doing nothing to encourage conversion. I'm not saying that's why GW made all these relics that don't have models (before anyone tries to paraphrase so they can pin those words on me); what I'm saying is back in whatever distant edition we tend to think of as the golden age, would we have seen a relic that doesn't exist on a model as a conversion opportunity, or would our teenage selves do then what our mature adult selves are doing now- dismissing it as a possibility that shouldn't even exist?

 CEO Kasen wrote:

you've got six warlord traits, you've got your faction trait, your subfaction trait, your no-soup bonus

Which is EXACTLY the point I've been trying to make in this five page thread about how you've lost SOOOOO many options by not being able to take two copies of the same special weapon in a single squad. Seriously! This entire thread is about that one. little. change. when you yourself point out just how many damned options that aren't equipment that we DO have.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

your ever-increasing number of unnecessary stratagems granted by faction and subfaction;

And as previously discussed, you determine them to be unnecessary on your first close read, and then you just simply ignore for the rest of the edition once you've made that determination. And if you do like it, and you do think it might come in handy, you write it down on a little index card that you can buy in packs of 100 at buck store for pennies instead of trying to get the GW official cards and then bitching about how expensive they are, and then bitching again when they sell out. And now, you never need to trouble yourself with how many strats there are in your dex ever again- you just grab your cards, knowing those are the ones you'll want to use, and pretend that nothing else exists.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

None of this is helpfully USR'ed, so you can't just learn keywords to understand abilities;

Okay, USR's are not a bad idea in principle; if the full text of a USR appears on the data sheet for a unit and in the BRB, it creates that kind of "Everyone wins" solution that I'm always seeking; problem is, the previous implementation of USRs didn't do that. On the data card, they told you the USRs name, and if you didn't have it memorized that meant cross referencing in a different book. I $%^&ing HATED USRs! But I concede- if the full text of the rule appears on both the data card and in the BRB, both of us get what we want, and they can be made to work.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

you have to know each individual variation of each model's rules and each faction's stratagems and that means you have to learn, by my rough and highly unscientific estimate, 2400% of the rules you'd have to know otherwise.

Okay, you've already told me most strats are unnecessary, so which is it? Do you need to memorize them, or are they unnecessary? Because I'm not sure how both of those statements can be true. And there are some people who believe that in order to be a good player, you have to know all of your opponents strats as well as your own. And maybe at the top levels of the tourney circuit, the savant who can do this will have an edge. But see, I interpret this possibility differently than you; to me, it looks like evidence that pretending 40k is a sport has done far more harm to the game than any other thing that has happened- because if that's how you're playing, yeah, it's no wonder you aren't having fun. That's a damn job, not a game.

All of these hobbies- pen and paper RPG's, trading card games and table top miniature games- were all invented by nerds- people who were picked on by ultra-competitive, trophy seeking, toxically masculine alpha @55holes. Now our gamer communities of refuge are becoming that very thing. Think I'm exaggerating? When's the last time you've read one of Karol's posts? (And yeah- some of y'all on here bash pretty hard on him sometimes, so I anticipate some of you will will question his reliability, but I take him at face value- which is not to say that any of us would see the situation exactly as he does in his shoes, but rather that he is doing his best to genuinely describe what HE genuinely perceives... and if so man, that kid is tough as nails)

 CEO Kasen wrote:


Sometimes GW figures out halfway through a codex cycle that wording a Fight Third ability with the words "On a bread roll of 5.25 hectares" results in your Obfuscators unintentionally having to be placed on a shuttle to Mars and given a wedgie in the sauna unless it's a Tuesday, so they fix it in future codexes, and maybe faq the older ones, but whoooo knows,

Fair enough- I'll give you that; I'm in agreement here...

 CEO Kasen wrote:

better look that up in the middle of the goddamn game too, and...

But now I'm not so sure.

Because again, I do know MY fave strats and MY rules (just the ones I actually plan to use, mind you). Knowing yours is your job- and if you choose to believe you have to know all of them, rather than just the ones you're going to use, well that isn't on me or GeeDubs; it's on you. I'll also have my stuff written out on index cards, and yes, before you ask, I include the name of the document the rule comes from and the page number on the card just in case I'm playing TFG who needs to see every damn rule printed directly from an official source.

 CEO Kasen wrote:


Oh yeh, why is cutting out this bloat acceptable but removing weapon options isn't really so helpful.

Well this is one of those paraphrases... It's similar to the point I'm trying to make, but twisted around; I'm trying to say that all of that "bloat" as you call it provides so many more options than the loss of a particular load out that having a whole thread to bitch about the loss of a particular load out is a little much, given the plethora of non-equipment options that continue to exist. Tell you what though: we'll come back to that...

 CEO Kasen wrote:


Uh, well... In the case of Plague Marines or Admech, Dandelion said it. "For every 5.67 models you can have 1 Power Trimmer; for every 5.67 models you can have 1 Rad Colonoscope; for every 5.67 models you can have 1 Elucidated Buggerclaw" is a way bigger pain than just reducing the number of special weapons a squad can have. It's actually adding more bloat.

Something like this has definitely been said in this thread for sure, and it probably was Dandelion who said it, because given your very appropriate concern for quoting the correct people, I take it on faith that you put in the time to do it right. But here is something else Dandelion said in this very thread:

"Lastly, the new buffs and doctrines/traits to skitarii make them far more deadly than 3 calivers ever could."

Now I didn't say the buffs, doctrines/ traits are more deadly, I said they provide more options. But in order for those things to have provided more deadliness than one of the load outs we've all been complaining about losing for the past 5-7 pages, well, I'd assume that the bloat must have contained enough options that at least one other person sees that in terms of the way the game plays, the loss of the load out was more than compensated for by the other non equipment options that have become available.

 CEO Kasen wrote:

Ya wanna know what my least favorite tank I've ever actually seen on a field was? The Repulsor. Not because it was broken, but because it takes forever to fire. All six to eight of its profiles; Usually shooting at different targets, each one a separate decision with its own decision time. Probably isn't even close to the worst offender, either. But you dole out weapon options like that, and you're at best basically begging to turn every poorly configured squad into a mini-Repulsor.

Sure. But again, this thread is about how much of a tragedy it is to lose all of those equipment only options. I'm the one who is saying the loss of equipment options isn't a big deal because of all the extra non-equipment options. So I'm not sure this is actually a point against the argument I've been trying to make?

 CEO Kasen wrote:

As for Crusade... well, yeah, that's messy as hell, and frankly, the thought of trying to run Crusade cross-faction when not everyone had or indeed has a codex and with players of varying skill and intent kept me from trying to run one, but Crusade is heavily optional systems crammed onto a straining core, and is nowhere near a foundational issue with 40K 9th.

It's messy... if the goal is still purely to win. I say this because, yeah, stacking four layers of battle honours, if your purpose is purely game advantage CAN be a nightmare. I LOVE Crusade, but even I can admit this. But people who are actual Crusade players in spirit rather than competitive players who are giving Crusade a try typically don't. We pick the options that bring us closer to representing our dudes on the table- like Uber Jokaero, who isn't really a threat to anyone's win rate, but is just a hella cool lil dude.

As for the bespoke content and needing to wait for the dexes... I'll agree that could have been better; since all of the dexes for the ed have already been written, the COULD have put all the bespoke Crusade content for every faction in a single book and dropped it on day one. I would have preferred that myself- I wouldn't have had to wait almost a year to start really playing my sisters the way they deserve to be played.

And look, I got into it with Not Online! a few posts ago because he is lamenting the loss of R&H. And I know nothing will ever replace HIS R&H- man, brother loved that army. But we had talked about things like Alpha legion and their Cultists... And yeah, just like my Jokaero, Cultists as written in the 8th chaos dex are boring and do suck. So I suggested drop three units of Cultists into a Crusade; give them different battle honours and you can actually have three distinct units of cultists that all function in different ways and have different strengths. Heck, there are champions in cultist units, which even means you can give all three champs different weapon upgrades so its like sargeants having something as cool or cooler than the load out options that they no longer have. Now he, like many, doesn't like Crusade, and that's cool- I'm not here to force anyone to play Crusade... But at some point you gotta ask yourself: What bugs me more- the fact that all matched play cultists are samey, boring, uninspired and vacuous, or the fact that I need to play in a system that seems a little bit different than what I would expect a game of 40k to feel like.

(And BTW Not Online!- if you're reading this, in your last response to me in that post you asked me to point out where you had been rude to me; I went back and checked- you weren't rude at all; I did that think Kasen talks about- someone with a similar point of view to yours said something that got my ire up (probably suggested abolishing something I love because he thought it was bloat) and due to the similarities in your points of view, I assumed both comments came from the same person. I had to get away from that thread, like I had intended to get away from this one, so I never apologized. Well brother, here it is- better late than never. Leaving you hanging like that was another reason I had to come back to this thread and dignify Kasen with a response; didn't want to make the same mistake twice)

 CEO Kasen wrote:


No problem. I get it. It's easy to conflate two people pulling on opposite sides of the game.

Sometimes I wonder if this whole exercise is unhealthy for me, too, or if it's more of a therapeutic 40K Rehab Clinic.

And back to you brother Kasen; this particular quote more than anything is what made me come back to this damned thread for one. more. post. Because this is the nice segue into agreeing to disagree, and this quote was pretty damned classy given my wall of text loquaciousness and highly opinionated and over-wrought arguments to try and convince everyone that Crusade really, genuinely is closer to the spirit of what this game was in Rogue Trader days than any of the math hammer crap that has happened since.

Thanks for being civil in times of disagreement. Hope I pulled it of in this post too.

So really, philosophically, fundamentally, in a game where you only use what you like, why does it matter how much stuff there is in your book that you don't like as long as there is enough stuff that you do?

It matters a lot if the stuff you like is bad. If you like termintor armour, and GW wrote your book in a such a way that termintor armoured stuff is bad you are not going to be able to just go over it. And vice versa. And if on top of that the stuff you like isn't supported, but other stuff gets update people just get more angry. If someone would like to play a space marine scout army or a space marine termintor army, they are not going to be very happy about the fact that non of the models they like have a chance to be updated, and even more unhappy about the fact that there are literal better replacments in the books, but they don't just like them.

It is like asking a XIXth century irish why doesn't he just become welsh or scotish, because on a philosophical level it doesn't matter much, as all people die, so why not take the easy way out.

Andykp wrote:
There models works though, old players will buy more legalise their army and new players will keep buying. I started this thread and am very aware of the intention by GW but I have also already bought a box of skitarii so my squads will be legal, even though my mates said I was good to go they were.

Not really, I'm not going to buy one more box for any of the armies they'd screwed like this for me. Nor am I going to buy the codex these asinine rules come from. If it means my collections are settled, that is fine with me. If they keep screwing over my armies I will not support it, period and that is from me at least a good chunk of change they won't see from me in the future. I will not just support them not respecting my time to build, paint, model my guys in ways that have been legal for 2 or more editions now just because they have their finger far from the pulse and right up their own bum bum.

I won't support this policy at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Marines and Dark Eldar have both had new codexes without this treatment.

DE did ( Wyches did; Scourges did not ). Nobody complained about it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is one thing to invalidate a loadout when there is a change of kit, quite another to invalidate a loadout arbitrarily and in a manner that benefits no one. There are no players jumping into the game because of this change.

But there could be players not jumping in or jumping out without it.

I did complain about the wych change, as it also punched me in the bum.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
I am not sure why they are doing it, it might have been to ensure people can't build illegal units by mistake?

this is the big question here because there is no good reason for it

Because it is easier to balance unit by restrictiong the options than to try to make all options useable?
Because new players don't need to figure out witch loadout is the best?
Because people don't by 3rd party bits (they don't start searching for bits in the first place so never realise that other comapnies exist)

If GW does really care so much about balance, there are some other issues that need to be solved first.
If they want to make it easier for new players to make a starter army, don't add so many options in the first place

The fact people think GW are doing this because they finally really care about balance is maybe the saddest joke of all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jarms48 wrote:
It makes me think that when Guard gets released we're either going to see Veterans and Special Weapon Squads removed, or something silly like:

Special Weapon Squad:
- 3 Guardsmen must be upgraded with the following: 1 Sniper Rifle, 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, or 1 Melta Gun.

Veteran Squad:
- 3 Veterans may be upgraded with the following: 1 Sniper Rifle, 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, or 1 Melta Gun.

Scions will be similar something like:
- 2 Scions may be upgraded with 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, 1 Melta Gun, or 1 Hotshot Volley Gun.
- If this unit numbers 10 models 2 additional Scions may be upgraded with 1 Grenade Launcher, 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma Gun, 1 Melta Gun, or 1 Hotshot Volley Gun.

It's so stupid, but this really seems to be the route GW are going down. If they do this, it's going to kill a lot of Guard options.

If they do that, which feels oddly like they might, they will screw another army of mine because few of my squads are set up so strangely. So far, aside from Deathwatch and Space wolves they screwed every other army I have a workable force with. Some with units that have been viable for a decade or more. I'm not sure if even one of my Skittari troops is legal anymore. If you can have 2 plasma at 10, I have 2 viable squads of vanguards, if not, nope.

Because like a dip, I liked smaller ranger squads with arc rifles for tank hunting, and small Arq teams to snipe things. I ran literally every special they could take in squads where I felt they did better without really min maxing but trying to have them feel useful.

If the change happens to Scions, it'll crap on them too, which I do have a stand alone force of. Destroying both command squads, and troop squads for them and what you'll run them as 1 plasma, 1 melta in a squad ? For all the players I've ever seen or heard play this game who does stuff for OCD, this is going to drive people crazy.

@PenitantJake
Something I'm noticing in your posts is that you seem to think that just heaping more options on something is the same as Your Dudes/customization.

The problem is that its not actually helping, it's just the illusion of choice. Back before 8th/9th if you wanted, say, a melee focused army you would simply focus on the units in your army that specialized in melee and take more of them, slap whatever melee weapon option you wanted on them and deck your leader with whatever special wargear your codex had that pumped up his melee stats. There's your melee themed army, dictated by your unit and weapon options instead of extraneous multiple special rules that add a +1 here or a reroll there.

And if you needed a specific role for them you would just equip them appropriately and in whole squads of said weapon. Like for terminators if you wanted them to hunt vehicles you stick thunder hammer/storm shields on them. If you wanted them to blend infantry you give them lightning claws. In fact the best example I can think of is the carnifex. In 5th Ed they had LOADS of options. I forget how many exactly but it was easily into the upper teens. This wasn't bloat because you could tailor it to a specific role. If you wanted a regerating, tough to kill hive save Fex you could make that. If you wanted a melee blender you could make that, if you wanted a gun platform you could make that, and it didn't need faction traits, doctrines or any outside rules to acomplish that. It was all based on equipment options.

The equipment option are what primarily decide the role of the unit and how it works in an army, not all the extra bumpf GW have stuck on top of it. All the extra faction rules, doctrines, battleforged rules, auras, warlord traits etc is just gilding the lily.

Karol wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Will be really interesting to see what they do to GK melee. All the weapons cost the same according to the points document. Right now, you can equip the whole squad with whatever you want, and I wager that basically 100% of everyone's existing squads are armed with identical weapons. There will be a massive outcry if all those squads (except the ones with swords, I guess, which literally nobody has because they were the worst option) get invalidated by some weird plague marine style hodgepodge.

GK boxs come with enough falchions, although no one sane takes those, halabards, swords etc for everyone in the squads. There is only one hammer in the box and one staff. the first is not a problem, because in general they were run at 1 per squad, if run at all. The staffs are going to be a problem though, because a ton of people were running four of them.

The really interesting part will be the heavy weapons for GK squads because each sprue of 5 comes with one Incinerator, one Psilencer, and two Psycannons.

Will it be something like:

1 in every 5 Grey Knights may have a Nemesis Daemon Hammer
1 in every 5 Grey Knights may have a Nemesis Matt Warding Stave
1 in every 5 Grey Knights may have a Psilencer
1 in every 5 Grey Knights may have an Incinerator
2 in every 5 Grey Knights may have take Psycannons

'Cause that'd be amazing!

That has to be strikes sprues, because the termintor ones have one of each heavy weapon. Plus the options to make a banner ancient and apothecary.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
and one-turn no-soup superbonus that gives you +2" to your Ballsack range in the Kumquat doctrine.

This gave me a good chuckle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
The fact people think GW are doing this because they finally really care about balance is maybe the saddest joke of all.

I'm not convinced it is for balance, but it is closer to that possibility than some sales plot to undercut 3rd parties, force people to buy more, etc. I find that to be less rational.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:
The fact people think GW are doing this because they finally really care about balance is maybe the saddest joke of all.

I'm not convinced it is for balance, but it is closer to that possibility than some sales plot to undercut 3rd parties, force people to buy more, etc. I find that to be less rational.

Honestly, this feels to me more like the usual incompetence/misunderstanding/sloppy work that we've come to expect from GW. I think this was posited up-thread (and if not, it's certainly come up in similar threads when this happened to that DG kit), but I'd think it most likely that this was GW hearing "we don't want to buy five kits to equip a single squad of $unit with $special_weapon" and then flubbing the Insight check and coming up with a bone-headed solution that they assume solves the issue without really thinking about it or doing any amount of community outreach to see if it does or not.