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BrianDavion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ultramarines didn't get any debuffs.

yeah they did, they get a -1 to their firing when pulling out of combat. it's a debuff as most units that can do that suffer no such thing

When you couldn't fire at all before (because NO ONE except units with Fly and special rules can do so, normally, when you Fall Back), and you can now fire at a penalty, you have not gotten debuffed in any conceivable, non-absurd way (presuming that SM with Fly don't also take the -1... Is that honestly how you're reading it?).

That's because you have ONLY gained through the addition of the ability, and have lost NOTHING that you didn't have before. To debuff, you must first be buff! There was no buff previous to the CT, and the buff from the CT did not preceed the debuff (and so was simply a buff - not necessarily the maximum buff, but a straight-up buff nonetheless).

Don't play that semantics game, because its silly, and makes you appear to not only be nitpicking, but also wrong and misrepresentative at best.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ultramarines didn't get any debuffs.

They don't get to use other characters that are named, and it sticks them to a build style to get the most out of the said Chapter Tactics. That's its own downside.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Seems perfectly fair unless you specifically like playing an army that has been boosted against an army that has not - smacks of WAAC gaming tbh. If all the Factions are getting them soon as people keep insisting then it won't be a long wait will it - so whats the problem

And for those proclaming that its not a real boost, minor rules, no real impact etc - well then - you don't need to play with it then against those without it until they get their's do you? Or do you need that "little " power boost so very much.

If you want to start house ruling things to create better balance, go for it! But I expect you to star house ruling for every unbalanced faction.... which is honestly going to do more for space marines than it will other factions they'd be "advantaged" over, judging from what we've seen so far. What armies do you run? Why don't we start working to trim all the unbalanced aspects of it so we ensure a totally level playing field

 vipoid wrote:
Second, even if they didn't want to do that, then the logical thing to do is to knock the price of Chapter Tactics off every SM model that would benefit from them and then add those points back when the full codex (complete with chapter tactics) is released.

It's an upgrade that's not even worth a point. Do you want me to break this down again? Fly, deepstrike, and a 6" increase in movement is priced at 3 points for space marines, in the form of jump packs. This gives you a portion of the fly rule at reduced effectiveness. Not the entire fly rule, not even that portion at full effectiveness. Also, an extra point of LD, which is useless if you field your SM army in any kind of sensible arrangement, as MSU and combat squads do a much better job protecting you.

So they did knock the point cost off, in the codex expect them to cost the same amount once these basically nothing chapter tactics get calculated back into the cost, as they are literally not worth a single point. Paying an entire point for these rules would be a poor choice.

 Mr Morden wrote:


And for those proclaming that its not a real boost, minor rules, no real impact etc - well then - you don't need to play with it then against those without it until they get their's do you? Or do you need that "little " power boost so very much.

It's not about power, it's about flavor.

Anyway, your argument falls apart because it's built off the faulty premise that more options = higher powerlevel. 6th-7th edition CSM had four times as many supplement books as both Tau and Eldar. If you're going to assert that having four books worth of additional rules and options gave CSM "an advantage" over those two factions then I'm going to question your sanity.

What armies do you run? Why don't we start working to trim all the unbalanced aspects of it so we ensure a totally level playing field

I have large Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Eldar, Tau, Sisters, Tryanids, Orks, Necrons, Ad Mech, Guard.armies - smaller forces for Black Templars, 5 Knights etc etc. What do you play?

Happy to look at anything that adds to balance

Adding boosts to one army whilst others don't get it does not, doesn't matter if its only for a month - or as seems likely for some armies 6, 8 or more months. Thats is the fundermental issue with the Codex model as it presently works.

t's not about power, it's about flavor.Anyway, your argument falls apart because it's built off the faulty premise that more options = higher powerlevel. 6th-7th edition CSM had four times as many supplement books as both Tau and Eldar. If you're going to assert that having four books worth of additional rules and options gave CSM "an advantage" over those two factions then I'm going to question your sanity.

We know that the Ultramarines CT is powerful and tats without copmbining Chapter Tactics with multiple detachments, relics and stratagems - something that seems to be possible.

If there is an actual downside to the CT or some actual restriciton that seems fine - otherwise this is a straight Power Boost. Thats not the same as a Option.

GAdvance wrote:

Oh well why don't we all just fork up more cash so GW can pay for extra rules writers and managers to get keyword tactics written for EVERY faction's subfactions

There's at mimimum for space marines Imperial Fists, UltraMarines, Raven Guard, Salamanders and White Scars, there's also quite possibly (maybe probably) chapter tactics for Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space wolves, then almost as many FW chapter tactics to come later. Then all the guard regiments, then every kabal, craftworld, klan etc etc.

This is hundreds of man hours both in writing and cross referencing with everyone else, balancing all hat would be a nightmare

Sure. But, once again, that wasn't my point. I didn't ask that every faction be done immediately for the new edition. What I'm saying is that if codices are going to be released sequentially then they shouldn't be a pure power boost. As in, they shouldn't be handing out free special rules.

SilverAlien wrote:

It's an upgrade that's not even worth a point.

Utter rubbish. It is worth at least 1pt per model (probably more on the more expensive models).

you're right 8th edition 40k sucks, you should go play something else instead. I will happily take your now useless models off you for the grand total of 50 cents Canadian, you of course will need to pay for the shipping.

BrianDavion wrote:
you're right 8th edition 40k sucks, you should go play something else instead. I will happily take your now useless models off you for the grand total of 50 cents Canadian, you of course will need to pay for the shipping.

No we are saying 8th Edition is a step forward - we don't want to to step and slide backwards by boosting specific armies and ignoring others for what might be 6, 8 or more months (most) - this as well all know was one of many Major issues with 7th edition.

Aagain we do not know yet what the other advantages that the new Codex is going to grant to a select few armies in terms of Relics, multi-detachment having advantageous Chapter Tactics and interactions between them.

And just to drive the nail in the coffin of balance -these gems from the Codec foucs

These have been changed a little from what you may be used to, and for the better – we’ve been able to make the Chapter Tactics very powerful and very flexible, but your army will need to be battle-forged to use them.

So the only restirction is that they be battle-forged - wow.

he Stratagems are especially exciting; the Space Marines codex has 26 new Stratagems for you to play with. These allow you to customise your army even more – as well as general Stratagems, there’s also one for each Chapter, as well as Stratagems focused around specific units. Try combining Vindicators to fire a brutal Linebreaker Bombardment, or unleashing Tremor Shells from a Thunderfire Cannon. Again, these are going to reward disciplined and careful list building with a lot of powerful choices and allow you to spotlight units and tactics that you like to use.

Oh look - broken Formations coming back.

In fact the whole article is about how powerful the army will be.

The Vindicator one isn't a formation. It's the bonus they had for being in a group of 3 in the last codex. And the other thing is adding firing options back to the Thunderfire like demanded.

If you're gonna be critical, at least know what you're actually trying to be critical about.

 Mr Morden wrote:


We know that the Ultramarines CT is powerful

UT chapter tactics aren't nearly good enough to change the current meta/balance of power. Using random numbers for the sake of example, if Space Marines had a 52% win-rate against another army without any chapter tactics at all, the Ultramarine tactics aren't going to push that win-rate up any.

It's entirely possible that other CT's, the new stratagems and the new WT's might be busted and push Marines toward being OTT, but that's baseless speculation. The rules that we currently know of (UM tactics) are tame.

If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

 vipoid wrote:
Utter rubbish. It is worth at least 1pt per model (probably more on the more expensive models).

Not at all. It does absolutely nothing to address any weaknesses Marines have as an army. The +1 leadership is never going to come into play, it might as well not even be there, and being able to shoot at worse BS after falling back is extremely situational and also might as well not even be there if you're playing against an opponent that's actually good.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

besides command points are supposed to be a balancing factor. if you have oodles of command points it means you took tactical squads instead of sternguard squads. just for examples sake. let's wait to see what the result is before we declare doom and gloom. for all we know 99% of the stratagiums may not be worth using.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

Indeed. This is way better way to handle these sort of things.

We are all seeing this new chapter tactic stuff in a vacuum and haven't seen what everyone else will be getting yet. Not to mention it's a pretty situational buff. Fighting a ranged army makes it pointless and fighting a melee army gives them more chance to do something. But anyone with a heavy weapon will be getting a -2 to their shooting, unlike IG who can just shoot normally from an order.
I don't think it'll end up as powerful as everyone thinks.
I bet, once a few more codexes have been announced in the coming months, people will be ranting about how OP someone else is and how Ultras need a buff

BrianDavion wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

besides command points are supposed to be a balancing factor. if you have oodles of command points it means you took tactical squads instead of sternguard squads. just for examples sake. let's wait to see what the result is before we declare doom and gloom. for all we know 99% of the stratagiums may not be worth using.

Wait, what do tac squads have to do with sternguard? Did I miss something?

I'm not sure whether I should feel amused or offended at the fact that people are raging about the Ultramarine chapter tactics yet nobody was really bothered when Harlequins got exactly the same army-wide special rule except better in every feasible way.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
We are all seeing this new chapter tactic stuff in a vacuum and haven't seen what everyone else will be getting yet. Not to mention it's a pretty situational buff. Fighting a ranged army makes it pointless and fighting a melee army gives them more chance to do something. But anyone with a heavy weapon will be getting a -2 to their shooting, unlike IG who can just shoot normally from an order.
I don't think it'll end up as powerful as everyone thinks.
I bet, once a few more codexes have been announced in the coming months, people will be ranting about how OP someone else is and how Ultras need a buff

Which is the inherent problem with the current Codex power boosting systm.

Armies get better (and it looks liek substantially better) based n their place in the release schedule - yes this has been this way for previous editions but it was a missed opportunity to move away from this poor system.

The idea of Codex armies only figting Codex armies seems very sensible.

Once again because we have not seen the power of the other CT (except for GW proclaiming how awesome thery are) we do not yet know how much they can be combined across an army. add in Relics and Strategms,,,,,

I'm not sure whether I should feel amused or offended at the fact that people are raging about the Ultramarine chapter tactics yet nobody was really bothered when Harlequins got exactly the same army-wide special rule except better in every feasible way.

Because that was part of their index entry and so arguably part of their points cost.

The only way that Chapter Tactics should not be costed is if (as some have stated) Marines were overcosted in the Index and again that is not obvious. Do you feel they are overcosted and by how much?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

besides command points are supposed to be a balancing factor. if you have oodles of command points it means you took tactical squads instead of sternguard squads. just for examples sake. let's wait to see what the result is before we declare doom and gloom. for all we know 99% of the stratagiums may not be worth using.

Wait, what do tac squads have to do with sternguard? Did I miss something?

He's just talking about how in order to get a large number of Command Points you're better off taking the Battalion Detachment which requires Troops, because otherwise you're going to be short on Command Points for critical re-rolls.

 vipoid wrote:

GAdvance wrote:

Oh well why don't we all just fork up more cash so GW can pay for extra rules writers and managers to get keyword tactics written for EVERY faction's subfactions

There's at mimimum for space marines Imperial Fists, UltraMarines, Raven Guard, Salamanders and White Scars, there's also quite possibly (maybe probably) chapter tactics for Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space wolves, then almost as many FW chapter tactics to come later. Then all the guard regiments, then every kabal, craftworld, klan etc etc.

This is hundreds of man hours both in writing and cross referencing with everyone else, balancing all hat would be a nightmare

Sure. But, once again, that wasn't my point. I didn't ask that every faction be done immediately for the new edition. What I'm saying is that if codices are going to be released sequentially then they shouldn't be a pure power boost. As in, they shouldn't be handing out free special rules.


Except outside of mass stormraven spam Marines ARE losing a ton of games right now, Dakka's results table proves that they pretty much suck. Further it doesn't make sense to weaken these armies for flavour sake when what we have now is meant to be the baseline that all marines aree capable off

When the Indexes came out I was so happy to see the back of all the 'special snowflake' rubbish like Chapter Tactics, thinking that finally the game might start being sensible again. The entire point of the Space Marine army list (in all of its iterations over the years) was to represent the typical Space Marine Chapters, of which the Ultramarines were the most prevalent example. Chapters were always better as colour scheme choices, and not every single one needs a special, unique army-wide rule beyond ATSKNF (regardless of how effective or not that rule is) in the interests of not bogging things down in over-complication which (for me at least) was one of the things that killed 40k years ago.

From an entirely mechanical viewpoint, these Chapter Tactics will play merry hell with the keyword system: either you will freely be able to substitute the named Chapter for any other (to account for player-made Chapters), in which case it will be all too easy to flit between entirely different warfare doctrines from game to game with no regard for background or consistency, or the opposite will be true (only the specific Chapter can use those rules), in which case players are punished for their choice of colour scheme, because undoubtably some CT's will be stronger choices than others, just like the 4th Ed Traits.

It might be a shred less 'flavourful' to have all Codex Chapters be equal, but I'd rather that to keep things sensible and straightforward, the way 8th edition was supposed to be, rather than give every tiny subfaction its own rules. They don't need them and they only create problems for the game. The existing detachments give enough freedom on army selection that you can fluffily represent any Chapter organisation you like without needing a special rule to do it.

This applies universally, and not just to Space Marines. Different Eldar Craftworlds, or Ork Klans, or Tyranid Hive Fleets, or whatever, do NOT need special rules to make them flavourful. That's up to the players in their army selections and gameplay style.

If the kind of crap that 6th and 7th edition were laden down with is set to return in all subsequent Codices, I'll be sticking to the Index books and playing with like-minded friends, rather than engaging fully with the game again as I had hoped I was going to be able to do. To my mind, the Codex books needed to return to the 3rd Edition 'supplement' style, with a handful of Relics (to cover fancier stuff than standard wargear, like Chaos gifts or what have you), a few (3 or 4) army-specific strategems, and new units that are created post-Index. Clearly though, GW and I differ on that. I suppose some things will never change.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
When the Indexes came out I was so happy to see the back of all the 'special snowflake' rubbish like Chapter Tactics.....

........

I don't get the "All SM should be the same but different colors" angle at all.

Why stop there? Why not give all "infantry" the same stats across armies, why should SM have better infantry than IG just because of their model choice?

You can complain about rules complexity and "special snowflakes" until the game is nothing but two players rolling a single D6 to determine outcome.

The armies should be balanced, they should not be equal. Particularly when it comes to SM, where each legion/chapter has different doctrinal priorities. Blood Angels are assaulty, Ultramarines are flexible, Imperial Fists are shooty, White Scars are fast, Raven Guard is sneaky beaky, etc.

As long as the CT are fluffy then they only add to the game.

I think it's mostly because each chapter practically turning into their own army further exaggerates Space Marine bloat, and people who don't play Space Marines either don't get that kind of treatment outside of Forge World, or don't get it at all outside of a tiny handful of special characters.

What's the rules difference between a Tau'n army and a Fal'shia army?

What's the difference between a Sautekh army and a Nihilakh army, other than their special character options?

What's the difference between a Leviathan army and a Behemoth army?

What's the difference between a Ryza army and a Deimos army? Or even a Mars army outside of Cawl?

IG at least has Forge World to look out for them, giving them Elysians, Kreig, and probably Armageddon later. But in the Codex? The difference between Cadia and Catachan is that one can take Creed and Pask, the other can take Straken and Harker.

And then GW's release schedule ends up looking like:
Space Marines
Ultramarines
Grey Knights
Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Imperial Fists
Black Templars
Space Wolves
Tau
Space Marines
Ultramarines
Eldar
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Space Marines
Space Marines
...
*3 years later*

GW: "Okay, I think we managed to get one release for every faction and about a hundred releases for various flavors of Space Marine. I feel like we've forgotten something though... Oh gak, we forgot Dark Eldar again!"

verticalgain wrote:

 MalusCalibur wrote:
When the Indexes came out I was so happy to see the back of all the 'special snowflake' rubbish like Chapter Tactics.....

........

I don't get the "All SM should be the same but different colors" angle at all.

Why stop there? Why not give all "infantry" the same stats across armies, why should SM have better infantry than IG just because of their model choice?

You can complain about rules complexity and "special snowflakes" until the game is nothing but two players rolling a single D6 to determine outcome.

The armies should be balanced, they should not be equal. Particularly when it comes to SM, where each legion/chapter has different doctrinal priorities. Blood Angels are assaulty, Ultramarines are flexible, Imperial Fists are shooty, White Scars are fast, Raven Guard is sneaky beaky, etc.

As long as the CT are fluffy then they only add to the game.

Thats shifting to extremes isn' it?

The Problem is not only do they keep having to find new rules for various marine flavours but they also then keep having to find ways of selling all those marine players they keep focussing on new stuff for their armies. Armies which are complete.

And so we get increasingly outlandish signature units - Space Wolves slowly beomce more and more viking like and then explode into self paradoy with Wolves riding Wolves with wolf weapons - even some pulled by Wlf sleighs. I loved my Spacec Wolves when they were a bit norse now they are just Wolfy Wolfy Wolf Wolf wolf - my Dark Angels are not much better - My favourite things about them were the bikers and the fantastic deathwatch origin story but the now they are mopy, secret obsessed and likely traitors.

AT leaast with the Primaris Marines they can sort of start again but god forbid they have to recreate all the flvaour units for the various snowflake chapters but still no sniper/ infilitration squads fro Raven Guard, Elite terminators for Salamanders, you know stuff thats actually in the fluff rather than crowbared in as a afterthought.

The Imperial Guard are far far more diverse than the Astartes which is why it is so sad that they are ignored and were made into indikit Cadians

lastly "CT only add to the game" idea? Well if like me you consider them free power ups - well then no - they cause balance issues, further resentment by non marine players - so the opposite.

The entire point of the Space Marine army list (in all of its iterations over the years) was to represent the typical Space Marine Chapters, of which the Ultramarines were the most prevalent example.

Yeah that's never been true, the overall typical Space Marine Chapter was forced in after 2nd edition when they decided to turn the Ultramarines book into the overall SM chapters, forcing in the rest as a result and making people wonder why Ultramarines are mentioned a fair bit more.

BrianDavion wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its a stratagem, wouldn't that mean you are spending command points to use it?
Its probably going to be something like "spend X command points. Up to X vindicators may combine their fire to increase the strength of the attack by 1 per additional vindicator"

That's not the same as a formation, which was "you have 3 of this unit. You now get free stuff with no drawbacks"

besides command points are supposed to be a balancing factor. if you have oodles of command points it means you took tactical squads instead of sternguard squads. just for examples sake. let's wait to see what the result is before we declare doom and gloom. for all we know 99% of the stratagiums may not be worth using.

That's some BS right there. Played a guy yesterday who had Guilleman, Celestine, 2 tacs, custodes as a core and received 9 command points.

I guess one thing i would ask is what people who don't like this codex release model would have preferred as a realistic alternative?

GW releasing 20 codexes in one day?
Releasing codexes starting with the least popular armies?
Releasing codexes with no added rules?

I honestly don't see how any of those are good options. Instead, they are going to be releasing a codex something like EVERY OTHER WEEK.

Whether you like it or not, most people who play 40k play space marines. Chaos marines are probably number two. So in the first month, they will have provided rules for the largest amount of players as they can. Grey knights and death guard admittedly may not be quite as helpful, but i think it's safe to say that at least a few xenos will get books by Christmas, as well as some more imperium books.

I would argue that the sooner more players have more rules the better, and while it is unfortunate that someone has to wait the longest, it makes sense that it be the smaller % of players that play the least popular armies.

What is likely to be 10 marine books in a row is still depressing as hell, regardless of your (failed, IMO) attempts to justify it. They could easily space these things out, add more variety to their rerease schedule , but instead they're doing 30k and being boring.

jcd386 wrote:
I guess one thing i would ask is what people who don't like this codex release model would have preferred as a realistic alternative?

GW releasing 20 codexes in one day?
Releasing codexes starting with the least popular armies?
Releasing codexes with no added rules?

I honestly don't see how any of those are good options. Instead, they are going to be releasing a codex something like EVERY OTHER WEEK.

Whether you like it or not, most people who play 40k play space marines. Chaos marines are probably number two. So in the first month, they will have provided rules for the largest amount of players as they can. Grey knights and death guard admittedly may not be quite as helpful, but i think it's safe to say that at least a few xenos will get books by Christmas, as well as some more imperium books.

I would argue that the sooner more players have more rules the better, and while it is unfortunate that someone has to wait the longest, it makes sense that it be the smaller % of players that play the least popular armies.

And so the cycle continues - the most popular get the most relaease so sell the most so get more releases..........I play Marines - is it a good idea to just keep churning stuff out for them - no not really.

My model would have been supplements that covered all armies with campaign books to expand upon factions. If you want to give everyone power boosts with Chapter tactics and the like - do it one go.

Thye could have done Chaos God flavoured Codex's covering not just Chaos Marines but all of those that serve a given power.

I thought they said that they were doing 10 codexes by year end (mostly Marines) - until the other factions do get them (if they do and GW has been vague on who is and is not getting a codex) there will be the Power Dex armies and then the inferior Indices armies - is that healthy and will that not just make the above cycle even more obvious since allmsot all of those will be some flavour of Marines.

so the 10 Codexes by year end

1. Space Marines
2. Chaos Space Marines
3. Deathguard Chaos Space Marines
4. Grey Knights Space Marines

likely:
5. Space Wolves Space Marines
6. Dark Angels Space Marines
7. Blood Angels Space Marines

maybe leaving room for Eldar, Orks and Tau or Necrons - and thats all folks. Unless they need to do Thousand Sons and or Deathwatch. In which case maybe just Orks and Eldar

How many AOS factions are still missing speclaist codexes?

jcd386 wrote:
I guess one thing i would ask is what people who don't like this codex release model would have preferred as a realistic alternative?

GW releasing 20 codexes in one day?
Releasing codexes starting with the least popular armies?
Releasing codexes with no added rules?

I honestly don't see how any of those are good options. Instead, they are going to be releasing a codex something like EVERY OTHER WEEK.

Whether you like it or not, most people who play 40k play space marines. Chaos marines are probably number two. So in the first month, they will have provided rules for the largest amount of players as they can. Grey knights and death guard admittedly may not be quite as helpful, but i think it's safe to say that at least a few xenos will get books by Christmas, as well as some more imperium books.

I would argue that the sooner more players have more rules the better, and while it is unfortunate that someone has to wait the longest, it makes sense that it be the smaller % of players that play the least popular armies.

I think most people don't mind new codexes to flesh out the flavour of the chapters. What people don't like is added rules at no additional cost...just because. For every additional rule or unique unit, the army should lose something that a generic marine list can get. Ultras don't get this. They basically have access to everything, then let's add more characters, and now more rules.

I would have liked to see the Librarian powers fleshed out to 6 choices. 3 new general strategems to choose from, plus maybe 1 unique chapter one. 1 new warlord trait per chapter. That's it. No new rules like Chapter Tactics unless you had to spend a command point to activate them, or you lost access to specific units to take them.