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 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Currently unless you respond with "yes they should be utterly perfect, totally balanced day 1 and free" you're going to get the same people always telling you how bad the codex model is. Nobody will say its good but they'd definitely whine (and do) if problems aren't sorted out with the errata and faq's.


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Hecaton wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

We'd rather they playtested to the point that day-1 patches weren't necessary and any changes required were minor.

You're still advocating for day 1 changes there.

I feel like people are missing the forest for the (former, now paper) trees.

If you have to update your rules rapidly, and disseminate them rapidly, and printing makes that difficult, then USE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION rather than a physical copy being the only option.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like people are missing the forest for the (former, now paper) trees.

If you have to update your rules rapidly, and disseminate them rapidly, and printing makes that difficult, then USE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION rather than a physical copy being the only option.

This basically. If you buy the book know it's going to not be entirely relevant for it's entire edition cycle.

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Of course not. You may have noticed that the topic of this thread concerns physical books. If someone's complaining about updates and errata in that context the obvious conclusion is they'd like to see the distribution model changed. The need for frequent errata would be much less of a problem if the product was digital.

Slipspace wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Of course not. You may have noticed that the topic of this thread concerns physical books. If someone's complaining about updates and errata in that context the obvious conclusion is they'd like to see the distribution model changed. The need for frequent errata would be much less of a problem if the product was digital.

And free.
Charging you for a book with a two year life span is just filthy, especially when the book is about the same as a set of models.

Two year? Try two week.

By the time Australia got the Tyranid Codex it was already out of date.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Two year? Try two week.

By the time Australia got the Tyranid Codex it was already out of date.

How did that happen? Shipping problems?

I presume so. They've had a lot of region-specific delays in recent months, and in the case of the 'Nid release (Codex, Cards, Dice, the itty bitty wingy thingy) it was delayed by over a month or so.

Slipspace wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Of course not. You may have noticed that the topic of this thread concerns physical books. If someone's complaining about updates and errata in that context the obvious conclusion is they'd like to see the distribution model changed. The need for frequent errata would be much less of a problem if the product was digital.

Of course, if you'd read the post I was replying to, you'll note that they were complaining about there being errata, full stop. No mention of it being better if the material was distributed digitally vs. physical, etc.

Hence my question to them, which seems to have been ignored.

For oh so many years, people complained that things weren't getting addressed. The quality probably wasn't that much better, though with an overall slower release schedule, we didn't see new issues crop up as often. We are in a position now where we know there will be an initial errata/FAQ to catch the most obvious issues (like missed keywords, for example) within 4 weeks of a book coming out. People would've been over the moon if this was a thing during 5th, 6th or 7th, yet now it is apparently a negative?

And don't get me started on this "out of date" nonsense about the Tyranid book. That errata document? Ten items being errata'd, plus two FAQs to clarify how thing should be played. I don't have the Tyranid Codex to compare the original to what was fixed, but two of the errata should definitely have been caught before print (the two ones where a keyword is being added to a datasheet) - I'm less clear on the others, though I'd guess the HT weapon option one is because they didn't think anyone would go for the Two Big Gun Tyrant approach.

10 changes, 12 if you're being picky, at least two of which (adding missing keywords) should be a positive. Everything that makes it to print has errors to some degree or other. Should GW be catching more of these before they go to print? Sure, not going to argue that.

But you don't get to bitch about books being "out of date" in an edition where you know there are:
a, An errata/FAQ released ~4 weeks after launch
b, A quarterly balance dataslate that may affect the rules for your faction
c, A six-monthly points update
d, Further errata/FAQ released... roughly every six months (I've lost track of the Big FAQ Update schedule, if I'm honest)
e, An annual Power Level PDF update

Anyone posting frequently about 40k on here should be fully aware of all of the above, so give over when it comes to this "out of date" nonsense.

 Dysartes wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Of course not. You may have noticed that the topic of this thread concerns physical books. If someone's complaining about updates and errata in that context the obvious conclusion is they'd like to see the distribution model changed. The need for frequent errata would be much less of a problem if the product was digital.

But you don't get to bitch about books being "out of date" in an edition

Yes I do when I'm expected to pay $60 for said book.

Dudeface wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like people are missing the forest for the (former, now paper) trees.

If you have to update your rules rapidly, and disseminate them rapidly, and printing makes that difficult, then USE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION rather than a physical copy being the only option.

This basically. If you buy the book know it's going to not be entirely relevant for it's entire edition cycle.

I can get behind "In addition to"

But not "Rather than"

People who want digital should 100% be able to get it.

Ditto for people who want paper.

All about solutions that satisfy the greatest number, not just the people in My Camp.

The only problem with "in addition to" is it very rapidly becomes "rather than" for economic reasons. I agree with you in principle, but...

The books are expensive to print (hence the price). Selling them digitally for $10 in a convenient place that is automatically updated... Alongside selling hard copies for $50 that have all this extra bookkeeping and costs you overhead and shelf space and whatnot...


One of those models is going to kill the other.

 Dysartes wrote:
For oh so many years, people complained that things weren't getting addressed.

There's a marked difference between addressing things in the rules that need to be errata'd or ambiguous or unclear rules that require an FAQ, and things that they're flat out changing because they didn't test the book correctly and missed the massive imbalances in their rules.

So when I say outdated it's not because they clarified something that might have had two interpretations based upon the wording, or that they printed value X rather than value Y due to an honest mistake. I say outdated when they flat out change rules. The Tyranid Codex/cards aren't outdated because they forgot to include 'Synapse' in the Zoanthrope entry and added it via errata, it's outdated because things like "Encircle the Prey" literally had the wording of the rules changed so that it now operates at a different time. "Power of the Hive Mind" is another example; they haven't fixed a functionally broken rule or cleared up some ambiguity - they just changed the rules.

This comes back to something catbarf said in a different thread:

Catbarf wrote:Yeah, it's not the complexity that gets you, it's the cognitive load.

...

If you lose track of what Synaptic Imperatives you've used, or what Synaptic Imperatives you've assigned to which units, or what Adaptive trait you've picked for the battle, or what psychic powers you've attempted in the turn, you might cheat without meaning to.

But make it someone picking up the brand new Codex for the first time. They may be cheating without knowing it simply because GW invalidated the rules in their book before it was even on sale in their country.

You cant unintentionally cheat. That is called an honest mistake.

Almost nothing.

Dai wrote:
You cant unintentionally cheat. That is called an honest mistake.

C'mon man: Context.

It's clear what Catbarf is talking about.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The only problem with "in addition to" is it very rapidly becomes "rather than" for economic reasons. I agree with you in principle, but...

The books are expensive to print (hence the price). Selling them digitally for $10 in a convenient place that is automatically updated... Alongside selling hard copies for $50 that have all this extra bookkeeping and costs you overhead and shelf space and whatnot...


One of those models is going to kill the other.

Not really - other companies also have print to order products which then just has a third party company print one copy of that book.

However, as I said in another thread, large parts of GW are earning their money with book printing and they will likely fight tooth and nail not get replaced by a contractor.


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Dai wrote:
You cant unintentionally cheat. That is called an honest mistake.

You can get penalized as if cheating even if it was an honest mistake.

For example, when I switch between orks and DG too often in short intervals, I sometimes mess up rules between them, the most common one being PF = S10. Technically there is no way for you to differentiate between me cheating to have better wound rolls and me being an idiot for having ork stats hardwired to my brain.

 Dysartes wrote:


For oh so many years, people complained that things weren't getting addressed. The quality probably wasn't that much better, though with an overall slower release schedule, we didn't see new issues crop up as often. We are in a position now where we know there will be an initial errata/FAQ to catch the most obvious issues (like missed keywords, for example) within 4 weeks of a book coming out. People would've been over the moon if this was a thing during 5th, 6th or 7th, yet now it is apparently a negative?

And don't get me started on this "out of date" nonsense about the Tyranid book. That errata document? Ten items being errata'd, plus two FAQs to clarify how thing should be played. I don't have the Tyranid Codex to compare the original to what was fixed, but two of the errata should definitely have been caught before print (the two ones where a keyword is being added to a datasheet) - I'm less clear on the others, though I'd guess the HT weapon option one is because they didn't think anyone would go for the Two Big Gun Tyrant approach.

I don't really have a problem with "out of date books", IMHO frequent FAQs and changes are good and healthy, even if they are dropped days after a book's release.

I did complain a lot when things weren't getting addressed, so what we have now is a very positive feature in my eyes. What I can't stand is having to re-buy a codex (and an edition rulebook) every 2-3 years, in that I'd like to go back to the old cycle of releases rate. We already have lots of orks players who are looking forward to a new codex but the current one is not even one year old. I'd rather stick with it for a long time and address it with free changes, even multiple corrections.


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 Jidmah wrote:


You can get penalized as if cheating even if it was an honest mistake.

For example, when I switch between orks and DG too often in short intervals, I sometimes mess up rules between them, the most common one being PF = S10. Technically there is no way for you to differentiate between me cheating to have better wound rolls and me being an idiot for having ork stats hardwired to my brain.

Yeah, in 8th I played the KFF wrong for almost an year. I didn't do it on purpose, but the way I played it (for "wholly within" I intended "at least a fraction for each model/base in the squad) I gained a significant advantage.

I really like physical codexes, and the mix of lore and rules. For me 40K isn't a digital game, so a physical rulebook sits well with the physical models on the table. I do use BattleScribe for army lists though, and the 40K app for quick reference when not playing.

 Jidmah wrote:


You can get penalized as if cheating even if it was an honest mistake.

For example, when I switch between orks and DG too often in short intervals, I sometimes mess up rules between them, the most common one being PF = S10. Technically there is no way for you to differentiate between me cheating to have better wound rolls and me being an idiot for having ork stats hardwired to my brain.

It happens in sports all the time. gear had the wrong or broken seal, you went out in the wrong shoes etc The difference is that for non of those do you risk getting a life long ban, unlike lets say having a small engine inside your bike to help you a bit .
People learn to live which such errors, and sometimes they can feel really bad, but life is bad in general. What rules and TO should be stopping is people breaking the rules over and over again, on purpose and without any backlash. I doesn't even matter why the TOs do it.

 Jidmah wrote:
You can get penalized as if cheating even if it was an honest mistake.

I still remember a thread from Dakka where many, many posters were all taken by surprise that Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons didn't get 2D6+S armour penetration, because so many of us had read the rule incorrectly for so long, and just assumed what the rule was.

None of it was intentional.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The only problem with "in addition to" is it very rapidly becomes "rather than" for economic reasons. I agree with you in principle, but...

The books are expensive to print (hence the price). Selling them digitally for $10 in a convenient place that is automatically updated... Alongside selling hard copies for $50 that have all this extra bookkeeping and costs you overhead and shelf space and whatnot...


One of those models is going to kill the other.

Not really - other companies also have print to order products which then just has a third party company print one copy of that book.

However, as I said in another thread, large parts of GW are earning their money with book printing and they will likely fight tooth and nail not get replaced by a contractor.


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Dai wrote:
You cant unintentionally cheat. That is called an honest mistake.

You can get penalized as if cheating even if it was an honest mistake.

For example, when I switch between orks and DG too often in short intervals, I sometimes mess up rules between them, the most common one being PF = S10. Technically there is no way for you to differentiate between me cheating to have better wound rolls and me being an idiot for having ork stats hardwired to my brain.

Sorry but I call BS because Marines have basically always been S4.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Sorry but I call BS because Marines have basically always been S4.

yeah, and Nobs are S5..

Aren't all mobs and warbosses S5 though? If someone is used that orks fists are S10, then it can be possible to not remember that for DG it is S8, specialy when for a lot of targets it doesn't matter much.

 dreadblade wrote:
I really like physical codexes, and the mix of lore and rules.

Question: have you played previous editions? Because after coming back from a break it was shocking to me how little non-rules content there is in current codices compared to what they used to have.

So yeah, in answer to the title question: almost zero value. Wahapedia covers the rules in a better format, I don't need to pay $50 for a copy of how the rules used to be six months ago and a stripped down fluff section that contains half of what my 4th edition copy of the book has.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 dreadblade wrote:
I really like physical codexes, and the mix of lore and rules.

Question: have you played previous editions? Because after coming back from a break it was shocking to me how little non-rules content there is in current codices compared to what they used to have.

I have - RT and 8th (although RT didn't have codexes as such). I do agree about the fluff in the 9th edition codexes, and I've mentioned it on here before. I did prefer it when codexes had descriptions and images of every unit.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Sorry but I call BS because Marines have basically always been S4.

And nobz haven't.

Thanks for demonstrating why spectators should not be allowed to interrupt streams though

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Why isn't "get it right the first time around" on the table?

 Stormonu wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Would you prefer it if they didn't errata things that are incorrect, or answer FAQs that are raised?

Why isn't "get it right the first time around" on the table?

A, Something will always slip through the net - if expensive academic textbooks can feature mistakes, I'm not surprised that a Codex can. The two keyword examples from the Nid book being an example here.
B, Just because something is right in the eyes of the Studio, doesn't mean people aren't going to ask questions, which is why there's a need for FAQs.
C, In the case of points, as everything isn't currently written and balanced together at the same time, there is often a need to adjust things after the fact.
D, While "get it right first time" is a nice ideal, it's unlikely to actually be delivered - by any studio.

We swing back to the same problem GW always has over other rules systems. Most other rules systems advance much more slowly and remain in the market for way longer. Edition changes tend to (not always) be more of a collective series of changes that happened during the life of the previous edition; whilst sometimes introducing a few new mechanics.

GW tends to throw one book out and replace it with another. They change for the sake of change alone because they've found it generates a guaranteed level of sales for them. So the barrier GW always has is that they only have a few years to balance things and that it often takes more than half the time (even now, in the past it took more than that time) to release all the armies to have a "complete game".

So GW's continual shake-up approach means that there are always things slipping the net; always new things to errata and FAQ because the system is always changing.


Video games often do this too in competitive games, Starcraft 2 has changed a lot from its launch state including adding and removing some units as well as changing some abilities around (eg the Thor seems to constantly switch from its abilities being either timer or resource based and from being anti ground to anti air mega guns). However often those games make gradual evolution changes and, in the end, the changes are done on the engine so the player only has to note the change and play; they don't have to enable the change themselves like you do in a physical game