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One of the big advantages of the bespoke psychic power system is that it potentially adds "stronger psychic powers" as a nob to turn to balance characters against each other. You can afford for the Exalted Sorcerer's powers to just be better than the regular Sorcerer's.

I will also look forward to being able to get the basic math fixers that everyone else gets without having to clear three failure points first

Voss wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised to see psychic powers as enhancements. Psykers will have the default ones, and then instead of giving them a spicy gun or whatever you can give them Warp Time.

Wouldn't want a player to exceed the regulation amount of fun now, would we?

Given how much bloat was a complaint? Yes, probably.

More rules and less restrictions makes for a spectacle, but not necessarily a great game. 9th is a fun and fluffy system, but it is now terribly difficult to manage.

I am sad to lose much of my customizability, but I am excited to play a tighter game where everyone is having a good time rather than just those with enough time to process rules from all the new codexes each month or two. It is a sacrifice I am ok with given how much more interesting other aspects of the game seem to becoming.

You can try to justify knighting it, but it's obvious that combining Combi-Weapons like this is terrible decision making.

No, its just a decision you don't like.
We need a lot more context to judge it as 'terrible.' Or good.

Should the Combi-Flamer hit the same as a Combi-Melta vs various targets, yes or no?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Voss wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised to see psychic powers as enhancements. Psykers will have the default ones, and then instead of giving them a spicy gun or whatever you can give them Warp Time.

Wouldn't want a player to exceed the regulation amount of fun now, would we?

Given how much bloat was a complaint? Yes, probably.

More rules and less restrictions makes for a spectacle, but not necessarily a great game. 9th is a fun and fluffy system, but it is now terribly difficult to manage.

I am sad to lose much of my customizability, but I am excited to play a tighter game where everyone is having a good time rather than just those with enough time to process rules from all the new codexes each month or two. It is a sacrifice I am ok with given how much more interesting other aspects of the game seem to becoming.

You can try to justify knighting it, but it's obvious that combining Combi-Weapons like this is terrible decision making.

No, its just a decision you don't like.
We need a lot more context to judge it as 'terrible.' Or good.

Should the Combi-Flamer hit the same as a Combi-Melta vs various targets, yes or no?

You've answered a point with a question that's answered by the point above it. You're just trying to word around it.

To spin it around, why shouldn't they have the same profile, but I want an answer that isn't "because that's what they used to do".

Some other things shown in this article which I think are a strong sign that Ork stats may stay static.

The Weirdboy stays T5, loses a wound, improved armour save. Has the same WS3 A3 S8 AP1 Dd3 with his staff, doesn't have Smite at all. Explodes when he dies, love it.

The Terminator Librarian has a 4++ and T5 like a regular Terminator.

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Voss wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised to see psychic powers as enhancements. Psykers will have the default ones, and then instead of giving them a spicy gun or whatever you can give them Warp Time.

Wouldn't want a player to exceed the regulation amount of fun now, would we?

Given how much bloat was a complaint? Yes, probably.

More rules and less restrictions makes for a spectacle, but not necessarily a great game. 9th is a fun and fluffy system, but it is now terribly difficult to manage.

I am sad to lose much of my customizability, but I am excited to play a tighter game where everyone is having a good time rather than just those with enough time to process rules from all the new codexes each month or two. It is a sacrifice I am ok with given how much more interesting other aspects of the game seem to becoming.

You can try to justify knighting it, but it's obvious that combining Combi-Weapons like this is terrible decision making.

No, its just a decision you don't like.
We need a lot more context to judge it as 'terrible.' Or good.

Should the Combi-Flamer hit the same as a Combi-Melta vs various targets, yes or no?

You've answered a point with a question that's answered by the point above it. You're just trying to word around it.

To spin it around, why shouldn't they have the same profile, but I want an answer that isn't "because that's what they used to do".

They shouldn't have the same profile because Flamers and Meltas don't have the same profile. Real rocket science there.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
One of the big advantages of the bespoke psychic power system is that it potentially adds "stronger psychic powers" as a nob to turn to balance characters against each other. You can afford for the Exalted Sorcerer's powers to just be better than the regular Sorcerer's.

I will also look forward to being able to get the basic math fixers that everyone else gets without having to clear three failure points first

It also accepts the fact that many powers were just guns you'd go about firing in a very convoluted way anyway - especially some of the chaos powers became quite ridiculous, roll 2D6 to determine the number of D6s you roll, everyone that comes up 6 causes a Mortal Wound... much rolling for something that was ultimately not very far from D3 Mortal Wounds anyway.

Doing your baseline offensive powers as 'guns' is much faster, allows to plug into all sorts of ready-made weapon abilities for convenience, and still leaves enough room to let the truly special powers be special. It's a sensible decision.

EightFoldPath wrote:
Some other things shown in this article which I think are a strong sign that Ork stats may stay static.

The Weirdboy stays T5, loses a wound, improved armour save. Has the same WS3 A3 S8 AP1 Dd3 with his staff, doesn't have Smite at all. Explodes when he dies, love it.

The Terminator Librarian has a 4++ and T5 like a regular Terminator.

Unless that ends up being a typo, Orks are going to M 6"

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They shouldn't have the same profile because Flamers and Meltas don't have the same profile. Real rocket science there.

Ok, but what about combi-grav? We both know you think Grav should just become plasma, but grav has a profile now? Are you upset that the different bolt rifle variants have condensed profiles? Power weapons?

Are you also then going to slate GW when they can't pin point precisely balance the dozen of potential loadouts on a simple battleline squad because everything has to have a separate points and profile for you?

I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

Well given the alternative in GW land is:
1 per X has combi-A
1 per X has combi-B
1 per X has combi-C
1 per X has combi-D

In some cases it should be a welcome change to those who hate the finnicky loadout rules and/or if they don't do that, having to hunt/convert 5 of whatever meta flavour combi weapon is in that week.

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
They shouldn't have the same profile because Flamers and Meltas don't have the same profile. Real rocket science there.

Ok, but what about combi-grav? We both know you think Grav should just become plasma, but grav has a profile now? Are you upset that the different bolt rifle variants have condensed profiles? Power weapons?

Are you also then going to slate GW when they can't pin point precisely balance the dozen of potential loadouts on a simple battleline squad because everything has to have a separate points and profile for you?

Grav doesn't have a niche that wasn't filled by Plasma in the first place

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

It reduces bloat in that it removes a handul of options with overlapping use-cases and pretty situational benefits in favor of a condensed profil, which imho is an acceptable trade-off and becomes outright sensible once you consider edge cases like Deatwatch teams or some of the more esoteric Veteran units and the extreme amount of different loadouts they could otherwise have. You can still have the more specific combi-weapons like the melta or flamer as a skill on these units if they absolutely need to exist, but on characters the difference rarely matters or matters only situationally.

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

They didn't have unique profiles before, they just had Bolter+ whatever Special Weapon was on there. It was pretty straight forward.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Grav doesn't have a niche that wasn't filled by Plasma in the first place

Grav could have easily been short-ranged-anti-elite while Plasma took long-range-anti-elite/vehicle.

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

They didn't have unique profiles before, they just had Bolter+ whatever Special Weapon was on there. It was pretty straight forward.

Those are all unique profiles though. I don't mean completely different from anything else, just that it's a unique thing that has to be balanced.

novembermike wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

They didn't have unique profiles before, they just had Bolter+ whatever Special Weapon was on there. It was pretty straight forward.

Those are all unique profiles though. I don't mean completely different from anything else, just that it's a unique thing that has to be balanced.

Wah?

Oh no. . . effort?

I think it's likely relevant that the bulk of people upset by this, I'd wager are because they added in combi melta or whatever to maximise the efficiency or purpose of a designated unit. Termicide squads, sternguard out of pods etc.

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

They didn't have unique profiles before, they just had Bolter+ whatever Special Weapon was on there. It was pretty straight forward.

Those are all unique profiles though. I don't mean completely different from anything else, just that it's a unique thing that has to be balanced.

Wah?

Oh no. . . effort?

Do you actually have a point or are you just chiming in with "witty" asides? Extra complexity doesn't lead to effort, it leads to GW publishing imbalanced rules.

Dudeface wrote:
I think it's likely relevant that the bulk of people upset by this, I'd wager are because they added in combi melta or whatever to maximise the efficiency or purpose of a designated unit. Termicide squads, sternguard out of pods etc.

Yes, i get that, but we don't even know that all combi-weapons are the same yet - depending on the profile, a combi-weapon on e.g. a Terminator chaplain could easily have a 'flamer' mode, the weapon name basically mean nothing anymore anyway. Deathwatch could have a single gun profile that presents their various modded bolters and special ammo, and a rule like the Tyranids hyper-adaptation that allowed them to tack a special trait onto them each turn depending on what the situation requires, representing them using the adequate gubbins for the job.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I think it's likely relevant that the bulk of people upset by this, I'd wager are because they added in combi melta or whatever to maximise the efficiency or purpose of a designated unit. Termicide squads, sternguard out of pods etc.

Yes, i get that, but we don't even know that all combi-weapons are the same yet - depending on the profile, a combi-weapon on e.g. a Terminator chaplain could easily have a 'flamer' mode, the weapon name basically mean nothing anymore anyway. Deathwatch could have a single gun profile that presents their various modded bolters and special ammo, and a rule like the Tyranids hyper-adaptation that allowed them to tack a special trait onto them each turn depending on what the situation requires, representing them using the adequate gubbins for the job.

Oh I know, what I was getting at is a lot of people have spammed a loadout historically, likely to leverage a rules loophole/situation, will now be annoyed they can't do that any more.

Some are a bit weird to me, I doubt a unit of chaos terminators would strap in with combi meltas to just appear, kill a tank and die, for example. Likewise the lovely Emperor's Children blob of recent years with 10 combi plasma that drop in, shoot twice and charge. There's no fluff choice there, it's simply just trying to leverage a rules/loadout that's a temporary flavour of the season.

So for those, I'm glad it's gone. I'm glad people don't have to hunt bits to make a unit that makes sense. I'm glad we don't end up with stupid loadout limitations. It'll be nice not to have an obvious "best" option to tack onto a unit.

novembermike wrote:

Do you actually have a point or are you just chiming in with "witty" asides? Extra complexity doesn't lead to effort, it leads to GW publishing imbalanced rules.

The point is that GW appears to not want to put in the effort that some of us expect? I thought that was pretty clear.

Dudeface wrote:
I think it's likely relevant that the bulk of people upset by this, I'd wager are because they added in combi melta or whatever to maximise the efficiency or purpose of a designated unit. Termicide squads, sternguard out of pods etc.

I've been happily switching my Special/Combi/Heavy loadouts for the past . . . 25+ years or so. I feel no inconvenience regarding weapon swaps.

One could make an argument that GW wants to move away from that model so that people have to switch UNITS around, incentivizing more model purchases. But I also haven't seen the rest of the rules yet.

But for me personally? Pouring through the options, looking at point costs, expected use cases, mathhammering some stats out, is where I get a lot of enjoyment from the game. (and I know it's not just me). I don't want to see that go. I also don't want to see the individual character of these classic weapons and units getting mashed out of existence in a chase for "balance", especially when the argument for "balance" is being used to speed up churn or whatever.

I'll wait until full release, but atm I don't like what I see.

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:

Do you actually have a point or are you just chiming in with "witty" asides? Extra complexity doesn't lead to effort, it leads to GW publishing imbalanced rules.

The point is that GW appears to not want to put in the effort that some of us expect? I thought that was pretty clear.

First off these things aren't just about effort. A lot of balance comes from the discipline to limit the surface area that needs to be balanced.

Second don't you think it's a little ironic to complain about effort when you didn't even put in the effort to write a coherent thought out?

Removed - have a care please..

I would say that eliminating four different combi weapons for a single character, and just balancing it against a storm bolter is a pretty elegant way to have fewer options, but more choice.

Making things simpler is sometimes going to mean that one of a codexes literally dozens of characters will go from having five weapon options to two. I think we'll surive.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised to see psychic powers as enhancements. Psykers will have the default ones, and then instead of giving them a spicy gun or whatever you can give them Warp Time.

Wouldn't want a player to exceed the regulation amount of fun now, would we?

Given how much bloat was a complaint? Yes, probably.

More rules and less restrictions makes for a spectacle, but not necessarily a great game. 9th is a fun and fluffy system, but it is now terribly difficult to manage.

I am sad to lose much of my customizability, but I am excited to play a tighter game where everyone is having a good time rather than just those with enough time to process rules from all the new codexes each month or two. It is a sacrifice I am ok with given how much more interesting other aspects of the game seem to becoming.

To me this just brings back the comparison to D&D 4th edition.

The most common description of which was "It's a decent game, but it's not D&D".

Dudeface wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

Well given the alternative in GW land is:
1 per X has combi-A
1 per X has combi-B
1 per X has combi-C
1 per X has combi-D

In some cases it should be a welcome change to those who hate the finnicky loadout rules and/or if they don't do that, having to hunt/convert 5 of whatever meta flavour combi weapon is in that week.

I feel like this is the real reason. All those broad datasheets trying to accommodate multiple loadouts. Now it just all gets condensed, but units with more prevalent loadouts ( Devastators keep all their tools ).

I think the problem will be -- how do you make Sternguard feel special? It's going to be in whatever ability they gain as a result, I suppose.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
One of the big advantages of the bespoke psychic power system is that it potentially adds "stronger psychic powers" as a nob to turn to balance characters against each other. You can afford for the Exalted Sorcerer's powers to just be better than the regular Sorcerer's.

I will also look forward to being able to get the basic math fixers that everyone else gets without having to clear three failure points first

It also accepts the fact that many powers were just guns you'd go about firing in a very convoluted way anyway - especially some of the chaos powers became quite ridiculous, roll 2D6 to determine the number of D6s you roll, everyone that comes up 6 causes a Mortal Wound... much rolling for something that was ultimately not very far from D3 Mortal Wounds anyway.

Doing your baseline offensive powers as 'guns' is much faster, allows to plug into all sorts of ready-made weapon abilities for convenience, and still leaves enough room to let the truly special powers be special. It's a sensible decision.

Totally. I'm also happy that this (probably) means we can go back to having witchfires with a variety of profiles and preferred targets instead of just a bunch of mortal wound generators.

That said, I find myself kind of missing the pre-7th system of just paying points for psychic powers. Was there really anything wrong with that approach? You could have weaker and stronger powers, and the cost of your psyker unit went up or down based on how expensive (read: powerful) your chosen powers were. They tossed it out in 7th for the Fantasy-esque dice-off game, but I feel like the pre-7th approach was just better in general.

EDIT: Regarding combi-weapons, was there anything wrong with the old system of treating them as a one-shot version of another weapon? I know it added a smidgeon of bookkeeping, but made sense and created the interesting choice of when to pop the special profile. Alternatively, we could just have them be treated as both a bolter and a special weapon and be done with it. I don't think it would gamebreaking if sergeants could shoot a flamer and a bolter at the same time without penalty.

novembermike wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

novembermike wrote:
I can't say that merging the combi weapons makes me happy but they're rare enough that the various options all having their own stats is kind of pointless. It's also hard to visually differentiate some of the combi-gun options. This seems like a good game design decision.

They didn't have unique profiles before, they just had Bolter+ whatever Special Weapon was on there. It was pretty straight forward.

Those are all unique profiles though. I don't mean completely different from anything else, just that it's a unique thing that has to be balanced.

Wah?

Oh no. . . effort?

Do you actually have a point or are you just chiming in with "witty" asides? Extra complexity doesn't lead to effort, it leads to GW publishing imbalanced rules.

Combi-Weapons weren't complex.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
One of the big advantages of the bespoke psychic power system is that it potentially adds "stronger psychic powers" as a nob to turn to balance characters against each other. You can afford for the Exalted Sorcerer's powers to just be better than the regular Sorcerer's.

I will also look forward to being able to get the basic math fixers that everyone else gets without having to clear three failure points first

It also accepts the fact that many powers were just guns you'd go about firing in a very convoluted way anyway - especially some of the chaos powers became quite ridiculous, roll 2D6 to determine the number of D6s you roll, everyone that comes up 6 causes a Mortal Wound... much rolling for something that was ultimately not very far from D3 Mortal Wounds anyway.

Doing your baseline offensive powers as 'guns' is much faster, allows to plug into all sorts of ready-made weapon abilities for convenience, and still leaves enough room to let the truly special powers be special. It's a sensible decision.

Totally. I'm also happy that this (probably) means we can go back to having witchfires with a variety of profiles and preferred targets instead of just a bunch of mortal wound generators.

That said, I find myself kind of missing the pre-7th system of just paying points for psychic powers. Was there really anything wrong with that approach? You could have weaker and stronger powers, and the cost of your psyker unit went up or down based on how expensive (read: powerful) your chosen powers were. They tossed it out in 7th for the Fantasy-esque dice-off game, but I feel like the pre-7th approach was just better in general.

EDIT: Regarding combi-weapons, was there anything wrong with the old system of treating them as a one-shot version of another weapon? I know it added a smidgeon of bookkeeping, but made sense and created the interesting choice of when to pop the special profile. Alternatively, we could just have them be treated as both a bolter and a special weapon and be done with it. I don't think it would gamebreaking if sergeants could shoot a flamer and a bolter at the same time without penalty.

Single shot versions create memory problems. It's not that bad when a vehicle has a single shot thing like a seeker missile but if you have 27 guys with combi-weapons and you need to keep track of whether the guy that shot his flamer died this fight phase or didn't it gets weird.

 vipoid wrote:
To me this just brings back the comparison to D&D 4th edition.

The most common description of which was "It's a decent game, but it's not D&D".

Sure. A potentially apt comparison, however, I feel like it comes from a baseline of what we have in 9th. Prior editions spoiled us on unit options, but not so much in compelling rules outside of that. The definition of what 40K is, is a little more nebulous.

 Polonius wrote:
I would say that eliminating four different combi weapons for a single character, and just balancing it against a storm bolter is a pretty elegant way to have fewer options, but more choice.

Making things simpler is sometimes going to mean that one of a codexes literally dozens of characters will go from having five weapon options to two. I think we'll surive.

How is it more choice?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
EDIT: Regarding combi-weapons, was there anything wrong with the old system of treating them as a one-shot version of another weapon? I know it added a smidgeon of bookkeeping, but made sense and created the interesting choice of when to pop the special profile. Alternatively, we could just have them be treated as both a bolter and a special weapon and be done with it. I don't think it would gamebreaking if sergeants could shoot a flamer and a bolter at the same time without penalty.

Keeping track of single-shot combi-s was a little tedious. I felt that the way 8th-9th handled them was fine. IIrc, in 2nd edition a combi-weapon worked the same way, it was just two guns and there was no "one-shot" limitation.