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Not Online!!! wrote:
i know, they still were overall better though due to more weapons, and having support in the form of double slannesh wing lash princes.

I suppose it depended on what they were facing. Parking lots and heavy artillery were not good to them and with the slot change chaos couldn't 'stack the deck' anymore with gunlines.


It's funny to think that using a psychic power to clump models before shooting at them was one of the more memorable 'wombo combos' of the era. No double shooting, +1 to rolls, mortal wounds and exploding dice to keep track of. No increase in the actual damage they could inflict or types of target they could threaten
You always had a good idea of the odds of an action, the worst-case outcomes, and whether a unit rolling up on you was geared for the job or not. That said you also had time to consider the odds rather than having the seemingly every unit shoot or jump clear across the board as their first action.

A.T. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
You'll be hard pressed to find a CSM player who played with the 3.5 Codex who thought that the 4th edition codex was better in any way.

I don't think there can be any argument that 3.5 had far more scope for customisation.

In the spirit of the thread though, if 4e had all the same options with non of the bonuses would it still have been recieved as poorly? How much of the 3.5 iron hands was being able to represent the servo arm kitbashed onto a model and how much was it about getting 30% more heavy firepower for example

Go back to the original post here: are black templars defined by their ability to inflict 135 points of damage rather than 18 in close combat? Is it enough to have all the thematic options available if they aren't outright better at using them, and how much of that 'doing it better' is seen as an armys character.

Yes, I think the 4th edition CSM codex would have been better received if it had retained the options without the "bonuses". I can't speak for everyone, but it doesn't bother me that other Legions can have more than one unit of Raptors now.

What 3.5 got right was this: every Veteran Ability, every Daemonic Gift, and every Mark costed points. We can quibble over whether or not they were priced correctly, or if there should have been more limitations on how many of each and in what combinations you could stack them on your units, but they still had a price. Which is the problem with faction buffs like the OP is talking about: they don't. Making such things free destroys balance. Faction traits should cost points, as should Warlord traits and relics.

Relics for me are one of those things that can be difficult to balance but at the same time are really fun in game and as conversion opportunities.
I do agree relics should be paid for but restrictions should absolutely still be in place with regards to how many an army can take and what can take them. I don't ever want to get near 6th/7th where a Chapter Master could take 3 relics and become unkillable.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
You'll be hard pressed to find a CSM player who played with the 3.5 Codex who thought that the 4th edition codex was better in any way.

I don't think there can be any argument that 3.5 had far more scope for customisation.

In the spirit of the thread though, if 4e had all the same options with non of the bonuses would it still have been recieved as poorly? How much of the 3.5 iron hands was being able to represent the servo arm kitbashed onto a model and how much was it about getting 30% more heavy firepower for example

Go back to the original post here: are black templars defined by their ability to inflict 135 points of damage rather than 18 in close combat? Is it enough to have all the thematic options available if they aren't outright better at using them, and how much of that 'doing it better' is seen as an armys character.

Yes, I think the 4th edition CSM codex would have been better received if it had retained the options without the "bonuses". I can't speak for everyone, but it doesn't bother me that other Legions can have more than one unit of Raptors now.

What 3.5 got right was this: every Veteran Ability, every Daemonic Gift, and every Mark costed points. We can quibble over whether or not they were priced correctly, or if there should have been more limitations on how many of each and in what combinations you could stack them on your units, but they still had a price. Which is the problem with faction buffs like the OP is talking about: they don't. Making such things free destroys balance. Faction traits should cost points, as should Warlord traits and relics.

^100% The fact that everything had a price is what made Chaos 3.5 workable. Yes you could build some crazy stuff, but you paid through the nose for it, and thus there were vulnerabilities introduced into armies simply because one started running out of points.

 Gert wrote:
Relics for me are one of those things that can be difficult to balance but at the same time are really fun in game and as conversion opportunities.
I do agree relics should be paid for but restrictions should absolutely still be in place with regards to how many an army can take and what can take them. I don't ever want to get near 6th/7th where a Chapter Master could take 3 relics and become unkillable.

Yeah, I definitely don't want to see Relics removed from the game.

However, I think we badly need to go back to paying for relics with points. As it stands currently, every relic costs the same number of points and there's an arbitrary limit on how many you can take in your army. So whereas before you could stick a cheap relic on a character for a bit of fun, flavour or whatever, now there's no such thing as a cheap relic because they all cost the same number of points. Moreover, because of the arbitrary limit, taking what used to be 5pt pistols or 10pt minor artefacts now prevent you from taking other, much stronger artefacts on other characters.

I think this goes back to GW wanting to remove points altogether at the start of 8th and then changing their minds at the last minute (hence why every unit had a power level on its dataslate, whilst point costs were hastily jammed together into a table at the very end of each book). Since power levels don't allow for artefacts, they had to use CPs instead.

Chaos player here with 3.5 codex.

My thoughts on the matter:
While the codex profited from enthusiastic people writing it, my regular opponent (Dark Angels/Imps) sighed everytime when he had to face my NL. Reason was disparity between his codices and the Chaos codex.

The root of the problem was and still is that codices are NOT written by the same person AND released in one big book which includes EVERY faction. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the approach which GW takes doesn't contribute to a homogenic ruleset. More annoying is the fact that this will never change as codex sales are as much important to GW as SM sales.

Solution:
People either create custom rules in their own small communities or take 40K down the 9th Age path.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
...What 3.5 got right was this: every Veteran Ability, every Daemonic Gift, and every Mark costed points. We can quibble over whether or not they were priced correctly, or if there should have been more limitations on how many of each and in what combinations you could stack them on your units, but they still had a price. Which is the problem with faction buffs like the OP is talking about: they don't. Making such things free destroys balance. Faction traits should cost points, as should Warlord traits and relics.

Why get hung up on points? You can make relics etc have a cost without increasing the ppm of a unit, and given GW's track record with correcting points costs, I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

 waefre_1 wrote:
I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

Could you give some examples of how you imagine this working?

 vipoid wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

Could you give some examples of how you imagine this working?

Give them a points cost.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^100% The fact that everything had a price is what made Chaos 3.5 workable. Yes you could build some crazy stuff, but you paid through the nose for it, and thus there were vulnerabilities introduced into armies simply because one started running out of points.

Aside from the guards close order drill I think chaos 3.5 was the only one that did have out and out 'free' bonuses in the form of legion skills and free champions, and I guess the blastmasters would be considered a sidegrade.

For whatever reason GW in late 3e and early 4e were very fond on the 'choose your trade-offs' system where players could gain bonuses by not taking the stuff they weren't taking anyway - the 'cost' of Iron Warriors siege bonuses and extra slots was that they couldn't take daemons, marks, or bikes.
Similarly the cost for taking elite dreadnoughts in a marine army might be to not take the allies you didn't have, or the psyker you weren't using. But at least you had to then pay for everything after unlocking it.

The worst of the formations in 6th and 7th did the same, stuff like - bonus: aspect warriors are stronger, penalty: must take aspect warriors...

 oni wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

Could you give some examples of how you imagine this working?

Give them a points cost.

He specifically said he wanted to move away from points, so I'm guessing this isn't the answer.

EightFoldPath wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

You are more right than you realise, because many of those extra rules you mentioned appear to have no points cost. This is one of the reasons why there are so many mispointed (up or down) units on the release of each new codex.

GW abandoned points for bonuses long time ago. Now it's supposed to be balanced by other side getting free bonuses as well.

Have fun when bonuses invariably don't match.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
As it currently stands, the only reason you *wouldn't* use many of the stratagems is because you don't have the CP to do so.

Or because you plan on using the CP you do have later, for other purposes, but people that hate Stratagems always forget that part.

In game of alpha striking you rarely want to save CP. Cripple opponent first, win the game. 40k in nutshell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:


...Does this enhance your gaming experience?

If so, why? What are the positives for a miniatures game for there to be this degree of stat differentiation between what could actually be literally the same exact model fielded by the same opponent in two different sessions of play?

There are many threads on this if you have a scroll through the forums. Design wise it is to introduce a bigger tactical layer into the game. You either like it, or you don't. In my experience people who play a range of wargames don't like it and expect those types of mechanics in other styles of games. However the majority do like it and enjoy the challenge of figuring it all out.

Except it doesn't. Broken combos and layers and layers of rules have zero connection to anything eve REMOTELY related to tactics.

If you want tactical game card game style rule combo buffs is last thing you want


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
...What 3.5 got right was this: every Veteran Ability, every Daemonic Gift, and every Mark costed points. We can quibble over whether or not they were priced correctly, or if there should have been more limitations on how many of each and in what combinations you could stack them on your units, but they still had a price. Which is the problem with faction buffs like the OP is talking about: they don't. Making such things free destroys balance. Faction traits should cost points, as should Warlord traits and relics.

Why get hung up on points? You can make relics etc have a cost without increasing the ppm of a unit, and given GW's track record with correcting points costs, I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

If you have points on relic then ppm changes. If you don't change ppm of unit then relic isn't costing.

This 1 CP for relic isn't actual cost. At least not sensible one. It's same for eveyr unit.

You have points, CP, slots. Slots and CP's aren't good way to balance it. Well neither is points since they aren¨t even meant to be balance but it's closest thing you can do for quick way to get something that's not completely off the wall broken quickly. Or at least would if you had game dev whose goal would be to get good game rather than marketing tool.

Aenar wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Voss wrote:
Terrible terrain 'system' aside, almost all of this is codex bloat. The core rules are fine.

I keep hearing this and it always makes me scratch my head. The whole reason why codices are so bloated is because the core rules are utterly anaemic and about as dull as you can possibly get. They're what I'd expect for the demo rules of a 1st edition indie-game - not the full rules for the 9th edition of a wargame made by the largest wargaming company on the planet.

If the core rules actually had even an inch of depth to them to begin with then you wouldn't need to outsource every ounce of rules and flavour to individual codices.

This. We need USRs back.

Yup

tneva82 wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

You are more right than you realise, because many of those extra rules you mentioned appear to have no points cost. This is one of the reasons why there are so many mispointed (up or down) units on the release of each new codex.

GW abandoned points for bonuses long time ago. Now it's supposed to be balanced by other side getting free bonuses as well.

Have fun when bonuses invariably don't match.

But I was told balance was great this edition. Are you saying an ork rerolling 1s isn't the same as a space marine rerolling 1s?

 Sim-Life wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

You are more right than you realise, because many of those extra rules you mentioned appear to have no points cost. This is one of the reasons why there are so many mispointed (up or down) units on the release of each new codex.

GW abandoned points for bonuses long time ago. Now it's supposed to be balanced by other side getting free bonuses as well.

Have fun when bonuses invariably don't match.

But I was told balance was great this edition. Are you saying an ork rerolling 1s isn't the same as a space marine rerolling 1s?

Actually no. RR1s is a 7/6 improvement no matter what the target number is.

Not saying 9th is well-balanced or anything, but RR1s has consistent value.

 Sim-Life wrote:
But I was told balance was great this edition. Are you saying an ork rerolling 1s isn't the same as a space marine rerolling 1s?

Orks get a +1 to hit, including the character that gives the aura. Compared to a Space Marine character, who gives reroll 1s to stuff around him, but not himself.
Almost as if the distinction is there because Orks rerolling 1s would not be the same as a Marine.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Actually no. RR1s is a 7/6 improvement no matter what the target number is.

Not saying 9th is well-balanced or anything, but RR1s has consistent value.

There is a bit more to it like available units to buff, their weapon loadout and so on. Technically speaking, you are right of course.

 vipoid wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

Could you give some examples of how you imagine this working?

* Internal trade-offs within the rules for a given relic/faction bonus/etc (You can do a Scout move, but you have -1 Sv)
* Locking out other options (You can choose the +1-to-hit Relic, but you can't then buy the +1-to-Wound wargear or use the RR1s strat on the bearer)
* Messing with objectives/scoring (Your unit gets to re-roll Morale, but they don't count when determining if you control an objective)
* Preventing or forcing certain actions (Your beatstick HQ gets +2 A on the charge, but always has to charge the nearest enemy unit)
* Listbuilding restrictions (Your tank gets +1 T but you can only spend one slot on that datasheet, or you can give your squad +2 heavy weapon choices but they become Elite instead of Troops)
* Requiring other units to get the bonus (Your big beastie gets an aura that only works on wee beasties, or your tank can fire at more than one profile if you take two other tanks and keep them nearby)

Now, I'm not a game designer, so these could probably use some work (assuming I'm not missing some crucial flaw that kills them as an option entirely), and I'm sure an actual game dev could come up with a lot more and better choices here. Also, I'm not going to claim that points are a bad way to balance things or that non-point balancing is perfect - my point ( ) is that they are one way to balance things, and they're not always the best (or even a good) way and we should be open to other options that might be a better fit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
...What 3.5 got right was this: every Veteran Ability, every Daemonic Gift, and every Mark costed points. We can quibble over whether or not they were priced correctly, or if there should have been more limitations on how many of each and in what combinations you could stack them on your units, but they still had a price. Which is the problem with faction buffs like the OP is talking about: they don't. Making such things free destroys balance. Faction traits should cost points, as should Warlord traits and relics.

Why get hung up on points? You can make relics etc have a cost without increasing the ppm of a unit, and given GW's track record with correcting points costs, I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

If you have points on relic then ppm changes. If you don't change ppm of unit then relic isn't costing.

This 1 CP for relic isn't actual cost. At least not sensible one. It's same for eveyr unit.

You have points, CP, slots. Slots and CP's aren't good way to balance it. Well neither is points since they aren¨t even meant to be balance but it's closest thing you can do for quick way to get something that's not completely off the wall broken quickly. Or at least would if you had game dev whose goal would be to get good game rather than marketing tool.

I disagree - the relic costing a CP means it has a cost: the cost is 1 CP. You're not wrong that slots and CPs have their own flaws when it comes to using them to balance something (same as points), but I'd rather we not simply throw them out entirely and insist that all balancing must be done via points. And while I agree that some things should probably be costed on a sliding scale based on what's buying it (it isn't unfair to expect a Heavy 1 special weapon to cost less on a BS5+ unit as opposed to a BS3+ unit), I don't think that we should make that the norm. It's OK for some things to cost the same regardless of who takes it or what it is, that's a call to be made based on the circumstances.

Relics don't need to be perfectly balanced. If that's the one game mechanic that isn't balanced then it's not going to break the world, at most it's 40 free points for something like the original Ironstone compared to the other relics SM had at the time. It isn't great when there are relics which are auto-includes, but as long as every relic at least serves its purpose (so no 8th edition Necron poop flamer Relic), I think it's fine. Compared to the impact of chapter tactics on a whole army, how that radically changes the value of units and dictates army lists, relics are a total non-issue. It is a bit of an issue if every army has 3 relics because it has a negative impact on play experience to remember too many things, on the other hand if 1/10 people REALLY loves their relics and wants 3 then I think that's okay.

tneva82 wrote:
In game of alpha striking you rarely want to save CP. Cripple opponent first, win the game. 40k in nutshell.

That's a question of overall lethality, Stratagems don't have to make the game more lethal, but even if they do, they actually help the beta strike more than the alpha strike. If both players have 2k pts and 0 Stratagems then you might do 400 points of damage going first and 320 points of damage going second, with Stratagems it's 500 and 420 because Stratagems buff individual units rather than the whole army generally. There are plenty of units that don't need Stratagems to deal a lot of damage, like Demolisher Tank Commanders that can kill a Demolisher Tank Commander in a turn's worth of shooting. I am not sure whether I would rather have Stratagems in their current incarnation or no Stratagems at all, but I still think a version of Stratagems could be a really neat mechanic that fits into the kind of game I'd like 40k to be.

Fair games of 40k can be had in 9th edition where niche Stratagems that might help offence a little aren't worth using whenever possible, where you have to judge whether it is important enough to deal extra damage to overpay for mediocre Stratagems. I think it's a stats problem primarily in 9th edition codexes and not a Stratagem problem.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Actually no. RR1s is a 7/6 improvement no matter what the target number is.

Math squad

A.T. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^100% The fact that everything had a price is what made Chaos 3.5 workable. Yes you could build some crazy stuff, but you paid through the nose for it, and thus there were vulnerabilities introduced into armies simply because one started running out of points.

Aside from the guards close order drill I think chaos 3.5 was the only one that did have out and out 'free' bonuses in the form of legion skills and free champions, and I guess the blastmasters would be considered a sidegrade.

For whatever reason GW in late 3e and early 4e were very fond on the 'choose your trade-offs' system where players could gain bonuses by not taking the stuff they weren't taking anyway - the 'cost' of Iron Warriors siege bonuses and extra slots was that they couldn't take daemons, marks, or bikes.
Similarly the cost for taking elite dreadnoughts in a marine army might be to not take the allies you didn't have, or the psyker you weren't using. But at least you had to then pay for everything after unlocking it.

The worst of the formations in 6th and 7th did the same, stuff like - bonus: aspect warriors are stronger, penalty: must take aspect warriors...

Ahh, ok. Yes that's true there were upgrades in many of those books at an "opportunity cost" that may or may not have been felt depending on player disposition. However, most of those 'free' upgrades did little to effect unit lethality, iirc, and I'd peg that as the major difference between 3-4th and 7th+.

I remember using Chapter 'deviation' rules to unlock Elite Devastators, for example. But then there was an additional +3 points per model to actually take them. In the Chaos 3.5, Iron Warriors got to take more Obliterators, but I don't recall them being better Obliterators. You could just take more of them and that was it iirc.

Off the top of my head the only 'free upgrades' that were significant to models might have been the god-legion rules (world eaters, deathguard etc.) And iirc those were significantly more restrictive lists as a cost. Then there was the free champion upgrade for squads with a sacred number, but that's such a minor boost I cant see how it would offend anybody.

The current paradigm is far more prone to stacking free bonuses on top of one another to get shocking amounts of offensive power. It's much different imo.

 vipoid wrote:

 oni wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:
I'd rather we expanded into other means of making relics etc be a trade-off rather than just free bonuses.

Could you give some examples of how you imagine this working?

Give them a points cost.

He specifically said he wanted to move away from points, so I'm guessing this isn't the answer.

It may not be the desired answer, but it would certainly work. Points were assigned to AdMech Holy Orders and Necron Cryptek Arkana and similar because they're just straight up buffs. So why not do the same for relics? Lets toss warlord traits in the mix too.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

You are more right than you realise, because many of those extra rules you mentioned appear to have no points cost. This is one of the reasons why there are so many mispointed (up or down) units on the release of each new codex.

GW abandoned points for bonuses long time ago. Now it's supposed to be balanced by other side getting free bonuses as well.

Have fun when bonuses invariably don't match.

But I was told balance was great this edition. Are you saying an ork rerolling 1s isn't the same as a space marine rerolling 1s?

Actually no. RR1s is a 7/6 improvement no matter what the target number is.

Not saying 9th is well-balanced or anything, but RR1s has consistent value.

There is a difference between multiplying a 3+ to hit roll Lascannon fired by a space marine devastator and a 4+ lascannon fired by a guardsman by 7/6, and that disparity grows multiplicatively by mathematical definition once you start adding things like command rerolls that both sides may have access to, and access to abilities like ignoring cover bonuses from traits and what not. The factor you multiply by 7/6 is constant but what you found is the derivative for the value we are discussing, in calculus terms. You found the rate of change, not how much it is changed.

 Insectum7 wrote:
In the Chaos 3.5, Iron Warriors got to take more Obliterators, but I don't recall them being better Obliterators. You could just take more of them and that was it iirc.

In context it was probably the single largest 'freebie' of 3rd and 4th ed. An extra heavy support slot, or three if you consider the old oblits mis-slotted.
Probably seems crazy to anyone who hadn't played the old editions that such a small thing would have been such a big advantage, particularly at higher points levels.

To me, 40k is all about insane specialized rules. I quite enjoy the back and forth with opponents

After having to deal with 4E's lack of special rules for CSM.. I'd much rather have the insane amount of special rules.

A.T. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
In the Chaos 3.5, Iron Warriors got to take more Obliterators, but I don't recall them being better Obliterators. You could just take more of them and that was it iirc.

In context it was probably the single largest 'freebie' of 3rd and 4th ed. An extra heavy support slot, or three if you consider the old oblits mis-slotted.
Probably seems crazy to anyone who hadn't played the old editions that such a small thing would have been such a big advantage, particularly at higher points levels.

Sure, and I wouldn't say that the IW builds weren't irritating or maybe imbalanced, but I think it says a lot that out of all the options available in that book, the 'dreaded op build' that came out of it is basically a result of FOC manipulation, rather than individual unit buffs or lethality multipliers, etc etc. You could do lots of other stuff with that book, but it was generally balanced out with points or by heavy tradeoffs.

vict0988 wrote:Relics don't need to be perfectly balanced.

Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, that's not a horrendous issue for balance, but it does suck from an army-building perspective to have one or two good options and a bunch of crap that only the most casual of narrative players will use.

At least if they're tied to a points cost you have a reason to take the bad relic over the better alternatives.

Overall I agree that Relics don't need to be perfectly balanced but some sense of balance would be nice, both in codex and cross codex. If I look at the Necron, Ork, SoB, codexes there are plenty of decent options, even my last edition World Eaters have some fun things to take. Then I look at the Eldar relic list and they are badly balanced in their own codex, let alone cross codex.

To the original question, I think abilities that reflect a factions purpose, in this case the Black Templars ability to slaughter enemies in melee, is a gameplay enhancer. I don't think the current execution is the way to go though, since there are simply too many layers and layers of rules, I would rather a unit have more of its value on the datasheet and less on the rules interactions surrounding it.

 Aenar wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Voss wrote:
Terrible terrain 'system' aside, almost all of this is codex bloat. The core rules are fine.

I keep hearing this and it always makes me scratch my head. The whole reason why codices are so bloated is because the core rules are utterly anaemic and about as dull as you can possibly get. They're what I'd expect for the demo rules of a 1st edition indie-game - not the full rules for the 9th edition of a wargame made by the largest wargaming company on the planet.

If the core rules actually had even an inch of depth to them to begin with then you wouldn't need to outsource every ounce of rules and flavour to individual codices.

This. We need USRs back.

I mean fine as in 'functional.' USRs would be welcome. 'Flavor' is almost always subfaction X is SOOO much better at <unit> that there's no point in taking that unit in other subfactions.
Or some variety of flavor that doesn't need representation on the tabletop (wolfs are savage, romans are great organizers, monks are secretive)

The relic system is pretty lopsided. On one hand you get a relic that gives you a 2+ armour save, a 4+ invul save and a 5+ FNP save. On the other hand, here's a bolt pistol that does D3. Great.

 Aenar wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
If the core rules actually had even an inch of depth to them to begin with then you wouldn't need to outsource every ounce of rules and flavour to individual codices.

This. We need USRs back.

Completely agree. And I think vipoid summarised the "core rules vs Codex rules" issue perfectly in that one line.

I really don't see how a data sheet having the short hand term for a rule that let's them advance and fire without penalty and a data sheet having the full text "can advance and fire without penalty" changes anything.

USRs wouldn't add any depth to the core rules...