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 Palindrome wrote:

 tomjoad wrote:

If you demand good game design, I'd suggest that Games Workshop is not the company for you.

It's not anymore.

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.


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lord_blackfang wrote:I'm pretty sure H.B.M.C. meant Chaos 3.5 and IG 3.5

Extreaminatus wrote:You're right. I was looking at "Tyranids say hi" and just put in "nid".

I've edited my post to correct the error.

Yeah, I'm not seeing that. Unless he's not responding to the post before him, in which case that's a 'failure to quote'.

 pretre wrote:

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

It wasn't far off in the mid/late 90's. GW has never been very strong on balancing but at least it could turn out some decent rules once.

 Palindrome wrote:

 pretre wrote:

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

It wasn't far off in the mid/late 90's. GW has never been very strong on balancing but at least it could turn out some decent rules once.

2nd and 3rd edition were 'decent rules'. Ugh. I guess we just have very different opinions of what 'decent rules' are. 4 hour hero/termi hammer or chopped down black book? I'll take 5th/6th edition any day over those.

Battlefleet Gothic, Mordheim and Necromunda (I know both have dubious campaign rules), Epic Armageddon, in fact basically all of the Specalist games, even Epic 40k wasn't all that bad.

The 'core' rules have always been a bit ropey. My 2nd ed games tended to last 2 hours (around the time that a game of 6th ed takes actually) and I played IG infantry, I'm not sure where people get the impression that 2nd ed took hours to play.

 tomjoad wrote:
If you don't think you can use literally any codex to make a fluffy army, sans any sort of supplemental material, you aren't actually trying.

With Sisters you either can not make fluffy army, or can not make unfluffy army. Because no matter what you do, you will end up with a ton of Sisters in power armor, and vehicles on a rhino chassis .

 Palindrome wrote:

 pretre wrote:

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

It wasn't far off in the mid/late 90's. GW has never been very strong on balancing but at least it could turn out some decent rules once.

Problem is too many armies, too much variety. Mantic works fine now, but once they hit 8+ armies the interaction if the rules will begin to break. I played both 40k and fantasy back then, and remember armies being tabled all the time by "the new codex/army book" because they created the new beat stick.

 Palindrome wrote:
Battlefleet Gothic, Mordheim and Necromunda (I know both have dubious campaign rules), Epic Armageddon, in fact basically all of the Specalist games, even Epic 40k wasn't all that bad.

The 'core' rules have always been a bit ropey. My 2nd ed games tended to last 2 hours (around the time that a game of 6th ed takes actually) and I played IG infantry, I'm not sure where people get the impression that 2nd ed took hours to play.

2nd edition didn't take as long to play because you had half the models on the table. A 10 man tactical squad cost 300 points base before weapons, war gear, and other options. If you played orcs or tyrannids and got into hth combat, that took time because each model fought separately. It only got out of hand when you had some 8 guys fighting 1 character and the character cut all 8 of them down in one turn. Moving, shooting, and psychic powers were all quick. Hand to hand combat was where it broke down. Thats where it broke down in third edition too. 3rd just had conflicting rules in the rule book special weapons only worked against those models in base to base but the example in the book was that the supporting attack used the special rules. It made for all sorts of arguments and was never errata'ed properly because they took the example out online and then they changed it back a year later in the published FAQ. That was when I took my 4 year hiatus from the game and came into the tail end of 4th edition.


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 pretre wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

 pretre wrote:

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

It wasn't far off in the mid/late 90's. GW has never been very strong on balancing but at least it could turn out some decent rules once.

2nd and 3rd edition were 'decent rules'. Ugh. I guess we just have very different opinions of what 'decent rules' are. 4 hour hero/termi hammer or chopped down black book? I'll take 5th/6th edition any day over those.

I will say for the most part the game has improved. There are some things I like more than others but overall, the game has been getting better each edition. In real life, characters aren't the focal point of an army. Sure they support it, but for the most part they aren't game changers. Troops have always been the backbone and you can win or lose based on them alone. When I could put 6 models on the table and use the rest of my army as chaffe to get to your line and kill you, it wasn't a fun game any longer. If Ragnar and 5 termies with assault cannons and cyclone missile launchers could wipe your entire army off the table when it was my turn to shoot, it's not competitive or fun anymore. You really had some ridiculous builds like harlequins on jet bikes (you need an 8+ to hit me) or the blood angel army with max heavy Bolter tarantulas (the hb had a lot of power back in 2nd edition and for 40 points you could fit 12 of them in an army and they ignored their first 2 jams), or the IG army with sentinels (they had twin linked donkey cannons when these were really powerful). I liked the psychology rules in 2 nd edition (especially Abbadon because you either hated him or you were terrified of his gauntlet). There was a lot of randomness in 2nd edition like shooting at bikes (did you ever kill a biker only to have the bike go out of control and run you over?) and lighting people on fire with flamers. Some of the strategy cards like virus outbreak could kill an entire army before the game started or the infamous "Jones is acting strangely" in which he blew up and sprayed spores everywhere. Third edition was fun because it made troops necessary in the game. Fourth was fun because it stream lined hth. Fifth was fun because it put more importance on troops again. 6th is fun because you have some level of randomness which can be fun or infuriate you depending on whether you make the assault

 pretre wrote:
Tyranids say hi!

Tyranids have never received a .5 Codex. They've had one new one in each edition, never two in the same edition.

Chaos got a .5 Codex, and it was the best Codex they've ever had (balance issues aside). Guard got a .5 Codex, and it was considerably better than the previous one (inherent issues with any sort of Doctrine system aside). Even Dark Eldar and Dark Angels got .5 Codices in 3rd Ed, and whilst it they were mostly the same and the differences were minor they were a mostly better than their previous incarnations.

 pretre wrote:
It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

As mentioned, Epic and Necromunda had good core rules. Warmaster was decent too.

 Theophony wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

 pretre wrote:

It never had been. I love GW and even I accept that.

It wasn't far off in the mid/late 90's. GW has never been very strong on balancing but at least it could turn out some decent rules once.

Problem is too many armies, too much variety. Mantic works fine now, but once they hit 8+ armies the interaction if the rules will begin to break. I played both 40k and fantasy back then, and remember armies being tabled all the time by "the new codex/army book" because they created the new beat stick.

You know Mantic as more than 8 armies, right? Elves, dwarves, twilight kin, abyssal dwarves, orcs, goblins, kingdoms of men, undead, ogres, nature, abyssals and basileans. That's 12. And balance is fine. Dreadball has 12 as well, and only one team had issues, which I hear they fixed. It's not amounts of armies, it's over complexity. Mantic keeps it simple, that's why their games work. GW used to work before it went overboard.

 pretre wrote:
I love GW...

Hmm...

I actually enjoyed how 2nd had less models.. the rules were wonky though with lots of special things going on (Wargear cards.. anyone remember Vortex Grenades?) but I liked when an army was like 30 guys for the non-horde armies.

Heh. I remember Chaos armies that had 20 or fewer models simply due to how expensive Chaos Champions (of all types) could get.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Heh. I remember Chaos armies that had 20 or fewer models simply due to how expensive Chaos Champions (of all types) could get.

I feel like that's how it should be.... If a few squads of SM can pacify a planet, what sort of damage can some that have been fighting for the last 10,000 years do?

Sure plenty have become mere shells of their selves through debauchery and debasement, but at least give me some options for some badasses who have been hanging out, pillaging, and burning in the warp for the last 10 millennia...

Also remember that Special IC's was in fact upgradebale.

Yup Abbay and Kharn din't come fresh from the box with drac'hnyen or Gorechild, they had some more basic weapons on them for their base price, and you paid extra points for thoses.

Can't remember the points cost but it was in 70-90pts or something, and Kharn's Blessing of the Blood God, did double his Wounds and rethrow his failed to hit and another effect that i can't remember.

But hey thats old people speech...

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
Also remember that Special IC's was in fact upgradebale.

Yup Abbay and Kharn din't come fresh from the box with drac'hnyen or Gorechild, they had some more basic weapons on them for their base price, and you paid extra points for thoses.

Can't remember the points cost but it was in 70-90pts or something, and Kharn's Blessing of the Blood God, did double his Wounds and rethrow his failed to hit and another effect that i can't remember.

Are you... sure about that? Abby in 2nd Ed was 150 base, but had to take 3 Wargear Cards (Drach'nyen, Chaos Terminator Armour & Talon of Horus), bringing him to 275. Kharn was similar - 157 base, but had to take Wargear Cards/Chaos Rewards that took him to 217. He didn't get any choices. He did get to re-roll armour saves and re-roll 1's in close combat. You're right in that some special characters did have options (such as a three Wargear Card limit but only came with two by default, so the third was up to you) and things like that, but for the most part they were pretty set in stone.

I remember a game where myself and my opponent mistakenly thought that Khornate Terminators got Praise of Khorne, allowing them to re-roll that 3+ on 2D6 save they had. I killed them all in the end, but that was a tough unit to crack!

I can attest that Eldrad got a bunch of options unique to him, but could choose a few of the generic war gear cards as well. If I hadn't just stashed my 2nd ed codexes in storage while I move houses I'd look it up to be precise.

I have the 2nd edition Chaos and Eldar codexes on a shelf. I'll look into it when I get home if anyone still cares.

There's no new rumors. This is literally all we care about.

Motograter wrote:
Now if only that came out too. My slaanesh army would like to be a real slaanesh army

Up to this point I've been setting aside the Slaaneshi heads (ones with the horn) from the CSM box and using the marine bodies to make Chosen. If an official Chosen box is made I could always use them as Aspiring Champions or just keep up with my plan.

 tomjoad wrote:
There's no new rumors. This is literally all we care about.

Fair enough, at least as a derail it's a fairly harmless one.

H.B.M.C. has the right of it. Abby and Kharne are both "May have up to three wargear cards. These must be X, Y, and Z." So the "may" is more of a must.

Eldrad has the same up to 3 wording, but is only forced to take one particular piece of wargear (the staff) leaving the other two flexible.

Why not just put the havocs and chosen in one box and give us a normal 10 man marine box?

 pretre wrote:
There's a game where you can take any old fluffy army/list and it is still tournament calibre? Count me as skeptical.

Warmachine has tier lists which are basically theme lists for each Warcaster. They limit your options, but give you bonuses which can be worth it.

Some are crap, but some end up being very good while still in tier. Varies from caster to caster but most factions have a viable tier list or two.

I'm not sure if they fall under "any old fluffy army/list" because you still have to follow the tier restrictions, but it's the closest I can think of.

TimmyIsChaos wrote:
Why not just put the havocs and chosen in one box and give us a normal 10 man marine box?

Because then they couldn't charge double!

WayneTheGame wrote:

TimmyIsChaos wrote:
Why not just put the havocs and chosen in one box and give us a normal 10 man marine box?

Because then they couldn't charge double!

The havoc box is pretty much a money scam. 36€ for 5 models you don't even want to field in that combination (or does anyone go for HB+RL+LC+AC-kombi?). There is some inherent discrepancy between model pricing across the board.

 Kosake wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

TimmyIsChaos wrote:
Why not just put the havocs and chosen in one box and give us a normal 10 man marine box?

Because then they couldn't charge double!

The havoc box is pretty much a money scam. 36€ for 5 models you don't even want to field in that combination (or does anyone go for HB+RL+LC+AC-kombi?). There is some inherent discrepancy between model pricing across the board.

Most heavy weapons from GW are a scam though. Devastators are the same way, although at least you get 2x of some weapons (I don't think you do with the Havocs). They basically scammed it so you need to buy 4 boxes to get a combination you actually want (and how convenient they killed bitz sales off long ago, so you can't even get one box and them just order say three extra autocannons), and at the price they run that's ridiculous, and it's more ridiculous that they seem to think a valid answer for needing 4x of a weapon type is to just buy four boxes of an overpriced squad. The Dev/Havoc squads are better suited to be treated as bitz i.e. you buy one for each regular squad you field so you get the different weapons options, and even that's insane with the prices as it means you spend double (or approximately double) for each single squad you want to field.

Good old GW.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Tyranids say hi!

Tyranids have never received a .5 Codex. They've had one new one in each edition, never two in the same edition.

Yeah, that's totally different from the read you got off it. I thought you were talking about the 6.5 codexes (tau, eldar, tyranids).

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 pretre wrote:
I love GW...

Hmm...

Was this ever in doubt? I do love GW. Doesn't mean I can't criticize some of their moves, but overall, I still love them. I may have battered wife syndrome.

May?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
May?

GW's just having a rough month. They still love me. If I wasn't so bad, they wouldn't have to hurt me so much.

Yeah I can believe this. I want plastic havoks though, so I'd believe anyone who said that.

The models do look dated, stood next to the shiny new plastic Space Marines who would buy Chaos? Chaos need this really really badly, I hope it is true.