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Haighus wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
You mean you don't like the appeal to probability fallacy argument that some future opponent at your LFGS is going to say no to a Kill Team match because your team isn't in the latest tournament approved list?
The pendulum always swings in either -
1. GW hasn't updated my army/models/characters in forever and hates me. Space marines always get updates and Dark Eldar never get updates.
2. GW just invalidated my awesome tournament list by releasing a new army/model/character and made my army underpowered. Now I have to start all over again with these new shiny models.

People are going to complain because it's what they do.

You're talking like these are the same people, when they may well be two distinct groups. There is probably overlap, but I highly doubt the GW player population is homogenous.

I never said it was the same people. I'm just saying that when GW goes a while without releasing anything people tend to freak out and when they release a higher number of kits people also tend to freak out. I'm sure there are people feeling that way right now with their specific collection. I wish they would release more Kroot diversity and I'm also tired of the fact that they just updated SCE AGAIN. See I'm someone who is complaining about the same thing. But in all honesty I just just appreciate that both of those games are supported and GW keeps its rules and production of miniatures in full swing.

Platuan4th wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
You mean you don't like the appeal to probability fallacy argument that some future opponent at your LFGS is going to say no to a Kill Team match because your team isn't in the latest tournament approved list?

You can belittle it as fallacy all you want, but the fact remains that many communities do as a whole or individually have players that refuse to play against Legends specifically because they're not tournament legal.

That is a reality players deal with regularly, whether right or wrong.

Yeah that sucks for those communities. I'd be interested to see if those communities were LGS or Warhammer stores?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Are you expecting them to make casual only rules for 70+ Kill Teams, all with unique functions?

::Takes quick glance at 40k's Legends section::

Um, yes? Yes.

I take it that was indeed a quick glance. You're asking them to produce bland generic profiles for something, which will undoubtedly sort of half work in the game, never be updated. Youd find a small minority of the game moaning they're not "tournament legal" because a larger minoirty refuses to acknowledge they exist. All while a new team came out that does the exact same thing as the Legends team but with all the contemporary bells and whistles.

That's ignoring the fact that these Kill Teams can't be purchased, that the games development and ongoing support requires a cash flow. Hence if people ardently stuck to playing their Legends teams, the game dies anyway.

When you buy a copy of any annual video game series, how many years do you demand to be able to find full lobbies and have the servers running for?

Dudeface wrote:
When you buy a copy of any annual video game series, how many years do you demand to be able to find full lobbies and have the servers running for?

See, I don't play video games that have annual releases, partly for that reason.

The key difference, however, is the hobby investment. I was somewhat irked when, after converting my Chosen Marines to all have thunder hammers, GW went and just gave them all 'accursed weapons'. Ditto for my Vanguard Veterans. I have a lovingly crafted Sorcerer Lord of On Disc (see avatar, left) I kitbashed from several kits to use as my general in Warhammer Fantasy who currently can't be fielded in any system because Age of Sigmar is now enforcing round bases and the Disc has no actual rules in Old World (and its base size is off to just be a Daemonic Mount).

Dudeface wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Are you expecting them to make casual only rules for 70+ Kill Teams, all with unique functions?

::Takes quick glance at 40k's Legends section::

Um, yes? Yes.

When you buy a copy of any annual video game series, how many years do you demand to be able to find full lobbies and have the servers running for?

Wargaming is not the same as COD, unless you're playing grey plastic.

Give me a break.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

The key difference, however, is the hobby investment. I was somewhat irked when, after converting my Chosen Marines to all have thunder hammers, GW went and just gave them all 'accursed weapons'. Ditto for my Vanguard Veterans. I have a lovingly crafted Sorcerer Lord of On Disc (see avatar, left) I kitbashed from several kits to use as my general in Warhammer Fantasy who currently can't be fielded in any system because Age of Sigmar is now enforcing round bases and the Disc has no actual rules in Old World (and its base size is off to just be a Daemonic Mount).

Congrats, I converted an entire R&H army that now doesn't exist in 40k.
Do you know what I did? Got over it and used Guard/GSC rules in 40k and the Militia rules in HH instead.
You gave two units identical weapons, the rules changed, and the weapons are still all identical. Zero sum change in the usability of the models.
You've chosen not to rebase your Sorcerer despite having every possible sign shown that squares were not going to be used for AoS and ignored it, then blamed the rules saying to use circle bases.
The point about TOW is laughable at best unless you've mounted this Sorcerer on a base half the size it should be.

Ok, so this is what the WarCom article actually says:

From now on, every kill team will receive consistently updated rules for two editions – updates will be quarterly, while smaller adjustments may be made as required. Every team will remain in the product range for four full seasons – seasons generally last 12 months, though they can be longer or shorter as required. This is to ensure a manageable range that we can keep in stock.

Classified Kill Teams

Teams that are currently available in the Kill Team product range are labelled Classified, which indicates that they are the ones currently recommended for tournament play. The teams below are currently Classified, and this list will be updated after the first season of the new edition comes to a close. When a team leaves the product range it leaves the Classified list.

So what is Classified for? The list will be used to ensure fairness, stability, and availability for major Warhammer events such as US Opens and the World Championships of Warhammer. We will provide an Event Companion document containing all the guidance you need to run your own tournaments in a similar way. But that doesn’t mean that your favourite team won’t be playable!

For example, Kommandos will be Classified throughout the first season of the new edition. The box will leave the Kill Team range when the season comes to a close, and the Kommandos kill team will leave the Classified list. You can still enjoy playing them in all other settings except for Classified tournament play – and they will continue to receive updates (including for balance) until the end of this edition.

Editions are ~3 years, and Seasons are ~1 year. I think it is quite clear that a Kill team unit will be fully supported for 3-4* years and boxed as a Kill Team unit, and will have further rules support for between 0 to 2 years for casual play before receiving no further updates in the subsequent edition.

They are clear a unit will only get rules for 2 editions, so a team released at the end of the 3rd season of an edition will only get a little more than 3 years of support before being dropped from Kill Team, although all of that will be "Classified". If you want to continue using unsupported teams for the next edition, you/your group will need to use houserules to adapt to the new edition. The level of work this will require is entirely unpredictable.

Where this gets wonky is that some absolutely classic units within the infiltration role will be getting retired from Kill Team. For example, Ork Kommandoes and Tau Pathfinders will no longer be part of Kill Team in about 3 years. These are very thematic units for Kill Team missions, and it feels very odd that they will loose support. I can see the (economic) logic of range rotation for Kill Team, but I do think that each faction should retain their "core" infiltration unit. No other Ork unit makes as much sense doing Kill Team missions as Kommandos (except their feral Ork equivalent Trackas), and clearly GW agrees because they haven't released any other bespoke Ork kill teams to date. These units are not detached from the rich background of 40k.

All round this seems like an inflexible approach that will bite them in a couple of years, especially if they continue to have significant faction imbalances in the release schedule.


*If a team is released after the beginning of a season, you will only get a fraction of a year to play in that season. If the last team released in that season, it will be a small fraction.

There's essentially two problems. You can't infinitely expand a game and ruleset while still keeping it balanced and fun. It's why LCGs have set rotation. It's why you won't find a board game with 50+ asymmetric sides. It's why 40K is what it is (not a great game).

Problem two is wargamers stop playing a game if nothing new comes out. The game is dead. You can't just declare Kill Team complete and expect to keep up continued sales and play of older teams. People would stop playing it. You'd have just as much luck finding someone to play KT21 at the FLGS if GW stopped making new stuff for it as you will now with KT24 out.

They made a choice to prioritise the game with this, which is actually an interesting departure for GW. To prioritise the balance of a game system over having a system that's primarily just a showcase for painted models. It further marks out KT as its own thing, not a value-add for 40K players or a gateway to said game.

So accepting that a rotation is inevitable would people be less angry if GW guarantees that the newest Kill Team of a faction will always stays in until the faction gets another one?

So for example Kommandos won't be removed until another Ork Kill Team is released but Krieg get removed since Guard had Kasrkin afterwards.

Of course that also has problems since Pathfinders, Kroot and Vespids are pretty different even if they are all Tau but still the best compromise I could think of to at least not exclude entire factions until they might get another Kill Team sometime in the future

deano2099 wrote:
There's essentially two problems. You can't infinitely expand a game and ruleset while still keeping it balanced and fun. It's why LCGs have set rotation. It's why you won't find a board game with 50+ asymmetric sides. It's why 40K is what it is (not a great game).

Problem two is wargamers stop playing a game if nothing new comes out. The game is dead. You can't just declare Kill Team complete and expect to keep up continued sales and play of older teams. People would stop playing it. You'd have just as much luck finding someone to play KT21 at the FLGS if GW stopped making new stuff for it as you will now with KT24 out.

.

This, and also:
- b&m stores may be not willing to keep a range that requires an area the size of a football field. Warmachine run into this problem and even when their models were actually available in stores, taking up a lot of space, the chances that it would be exactly what a customer is looking for were still slim, due to the immense size of the range

-if I were a tournament player I would actually appreciate the fact that I can get my head around a limited meta instead of trying to learn the tricks of a hundred different Kill Teams. That's why I preferred Standard during my short adventure with MtG Arena - I could concentrate on efficient play and strategy, not on reading every single card my opponents played in formats with a much wider range of cards.

As a casual player I am not going to affected by Classified anyway, but even if I was, I can see the positives.

deano2099 wrote:
There's essentially two problems. You can't infinitely expand a game and ruleset while still keeping it balanced and fun. It's why LCGs have set rotation. It's why you won't find a board game with 50+ asymmetric sides. It's why 40K is what it is (not a great game).

Problem two is wargamers stop playing a game if nothing new comes out. The game is dead. You can't just declare Kill Team complete and expect to keep up continued sales and play of older teams. People would stop playing it. You'd have just as much luck finding someone to play KT21 at the FLGS if GW stopped making new stuff for it as you will now with KT24 out.

They made a choice to prioritise the game with this, which is actually an interesting departure for GW. To prioritise the balance of a game system over having a system that's primarily just a showcase for painted models. It further marks out KT as its own thing, not a value-add for 40K players or a gateway to said game.

Or they could make everybody happy with the classic GW unofficial rotation of just making new teams strictly better than old teams, so they're technically legal, but you're an idiot for using them.

 RaptorusRex wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Are you expecting them to make casual only rules for 70+ Kill Teams, all with unique functions?

::Takes quick glance at 40k's Legends section::

Um, yes? Yes.

When you buy a copy of any annual video game series, how many years do you demand to be able to find full lobbies and have the servers running for?

Wargaming is not the same as COD, unless you're playing grey plastic.

Give me a break.

Why?

Both are products provided by the retailer, you take them home, you use them for whatever purpose, their intended support isn't finite.

Just like wargames, you can play your favourite release indefinitely as long as you have enough people to play with, but eventually it stops making them money and they need to do something to refresh it, a new edition.

Your paint scheme/conversions/assembly, whatever is utterly irrelevant here. If anything CoD or whatever being £60+ with an online subscription for consoles and only having 12-18 months of lifespan is a categorically worse deal than GW offers here.

The writing has been on the wall for nearly a decade now that GGw is moving to LCG/video game style release patterns but spread over much longer cycles.

They're now telling you in advance so you can plan, instead of just doing it.

Dislike it, dislike them, dislike me, whatever. Nothing is stopping anyone continuing to play current killteam, nobody will remove your minis from your possession. But this is how GW will continue to operate, which if they do it, likely orhers will follow.

 Matrindur wrote:
So accepting that a rotation is inevitable would people be less angry if GW guarantees that the newest Kill Team of a faction will always stays in until the faction gets another one?

So for example Kommandos won't be removed until another Ork Kill Team is released but Krieg get removed since Guard had Kasrkin afterwards.

Of course that also has problems since Pathfinders, Kroot and Vespids are pretty different even if they are all Tau but still the best compromise I could think of to at least not exclude entire factions until they might get another Kill Team sometime in the future

I think they will probably ensure to release an Ork team by the end of this season to replace Kommandos IMO. I am pretty sure such a strategy is in place for the core factions already, but GW could publicly confirm it.

Personally, I'd prefer (under the caveat GW is going to do range rotation) to have core teams and rotational teams- maybe one core team per faction that always remains in the ruleset, that is their most iconic unit for the infiltration/scouting/raiding role.

 Jammer87 wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
You mean you don't like the appeal to probability fallacy argument that some future opponent at your LFGS is going to say no to a Kill Team match because your team isn't in the latest tournament approved list?

You can belittle it as fallacy all you want, but the fact remains that many communities do as a whole or individually have players that refuse to play against Legends specifically because they're not tournament legal.

That is a reality players deal with regularly, whether right or wrong.

Yeah that sucks for those communities. I'd be interested to see if those communities were LGS or Warhammer stores?

LGS. GW stores aren't as common in the US as LGS are and many states have maybe one GW store if any.

Dudeface wrote:
Why?

because than it is not a wargame any more but a miniature livestyle game

and any other company but GW doing that thing with miniatures can close their doors after the announcement for a wargame

 kodos wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Why?

because than it is not a wargame any more but a miniature livestyle game

and any other company but GW doing that thing with miniatures can close their doors after the announcement for a wargame

My word, a miniature lifestyle game? It's 6 years to paint and play with a box of roughly 10 duders. It's hardly a lifestyle choice.

AoS is a good example of discontinued stuff... It's great for GW. Thats about it really.

Churning new stuff is their game these days.

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Why?

because than it is not a wargame any more but a miniature livestyle game

and any other company but GW doing that thing with miniatures can close their doors after the announcement for a wargame

My word, a miniature lifestyle game? It's 6 years to paint and play with a box of roughly 10 duders. It's hardly a lifestyle choice.

Technically 3-6 years. You get a lot more use out of a season 1 team than a season 3 team, especially the last team of the edition.

 Haighus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Why?

because than it is not a wargame any more but a miniature livestyle game

and any other company but GW doing that thing with miniatures can close their doors after the announcement for a wargame

My word, a miniature lifestyle game? It's 6 years to paint and play with a box of roughly 10 duders. It's hardly a lifestyle choice.

Technically 3-6 years. You get a lot more use out of a season 1 team than a season 3 team, especially the last team of the edition.

Yes that's a valid stance so 37 - 72 months of usage as a minimum. I stand by a 3+ year return is hardly a lifestyle choice, certainly no more than any if the other games.

As another thread to pull at, does killteam really have to be 40k-lite? Does each 40k scale force need to be represented, or can this game opt to represent some of the unusual and weird/wonderful choices as has been shown?

it should be, but the last teams we got were just "not enough slots for that game at the factory so we just use the slots for the other game to make it"

 kodos wrote:
it should be, but the last teams we got were just "not enough slots for that game at the factory so we just use the slots for the other game to make it"

There had been a thread of that happening for sure, it's still better than no releases if it pumps up the Kill Teams sales numbers and makes it look popular however, especially if it ends up with a mix of kooky and "stock 40k squad with more stuff".

Dudeface wrote:
As another thread to pull at, does killteam really have to be 40k-lite? Does each 40k scale force need to be represented, or can this game opt to represent some of the unusual and weird/wonderful choices as has been shown?

I can think of two factions straight off the bat who've never had a Kill Team, and a couple of others where I can't recall either way if they had.

That would imply the answer to your theoretical is that no, not all 40k forces need to be represented.

 Dysartes wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
As another thread to pull at, does killteam really have to be 40k-lite? Does each 40k scale force need to be represented, or can this game opt to represent some of the unusual and weird/wonderful choices as has been shown?

I can think of two factions straight off the bat who've never had a Kill Team, and a couple of others where I can't recall either way if they had.

That would imply the answer to your theoretical is that no, not all 40k forces need to be represented.

Yet people keep asking for it as a core of the games range.

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:
it should be, but the last teams we got were just "not enough slots for that game at the factory so we just use the slots for the other game to make it"

There had been a thread of that happening for sure, it's still better than no releases if it pumps up the Kill Teams sales numbers and makes it look popular however, especially if it ends up with a mix of kooky and "stock 40k squad with more stuff".

with the result that there are now too many teams and we need to accept that generic Teams are gone and the dedicated Teams are also not there to stay

I would have preferred less releases but therefore dedicated Kill Teams rather than 40k lite as that it was kills the game, if it is just a vehicle to release new 40k boxes and not its own game, people lose interest

 kodos wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 kodos wrote:
it should be, but the last teams we got were just "not enough slots for that game at the factory so we just use the slots for the other game to make it"

There had been a thread of that happening for sure, it's still better than no releases if it pumps up the Kill Teams sales numbers and makes it look popular however, especially if it ends up with a mix of kooky and "stock 40k squad with more stuff".

with the result that there are now too many teams and we need to accept that generic Teams are gone and the dedicated Teams are also not there to stay

I would have preferred less releases but therefore dedicated Kill Teams rather than 40k lite as that it was kills the game, if it is just a vehicle to release new 40k boxes and not its own game, people lose interest

And here in this thread are a lot of complaints people can't just slap down some Intercessors and play now.

There's clearly a lot of very opposing view points and opinions on this and seemingly people are just annoyed for whatever subjective personal reason whilst not swaped by the objective reasoning for it.

I suppose a niche game by GW will always bring people with more diverse expectations.

Imagine if Necromunda did this "to keep the game balanced for competitive play, we're going to retire your gang after 3 years" thing. It's insanity. Just release stuff, make rules for it, let people play it. If the competitive players don't like something let them ban it in their event pack. Commercially this is an insane thing to do. You aren't maintaining a live service video game.

Billicus wrote:
Imagine if Necromunda did this "to keep the game balanced for competitive play, we're going to retire your gang after 3 years" thing. It's insanity. Just release stuff, make rules for it, let people play it. If the competitive players don't like something let them ban it in their event pack. Commercially this is an insane thing to do. You aren't maintaining a live service video game.

The difference is, Necromunda keeps releasing new stuff for each gang, adding brutes, vehicles, hired guns etc. rather than swathes of new factions.

I'm just wondering what they'll be doing for the solo-coop material later on, and whether Necromunda will follow suit. Hive Secundus was quite the lost oppertunity unless they have a solo-coop supplement in the works, given the "bug hunt" theme the game currently has.

I certainly hope there are more options for Craftworlds and Tyranids in the near future. I'd love to have a team that might include units such as the Neurogaunts, Neurolictor or Von Ryan's Leapers. Eldar wise I'm up for a Spiritseer leading some Wraithguard, or a Farseer and Warlock leading some guardians that can be either Defenders or Stormies - ideal for representing both Iyanden and Ulthwe teams.

SamusDrake wrote:
I'm just wondering what they'll be doing for the solo-coop material later on, and whether Necromunda will follow suit. Hive Secundus was quite the lost oppertunity unless they have a solo-coop supplement in the works, given the "bug hunt" theme the game currently has.

I certainly hope there are more options for Craftworlds and Tyranids in the near future. I'd love to have a team that might include units such as the Neurogaunts, Neurolictor or Von Ryan's Leapers. Eldar wise I'm up for a Spiritseer leading some Wraithguard, or a Farseer and Warlock leading some guardians that can be either Defenders or Stormies - ideal for representing both Iyanden and Ulthwe teams.

I guess White Dwarf might start doing articles on new teams again?

 Shakalooloo wrote:

Billicus wrote:
Imagine if Necromunda did this "to keep the game balanced for competitive play, we're going to retire your gang after 3 years" thing. It's insanity. Just release stuff, make rules for it, let people play it. If the competitive players don't like something let them ban it in their event pack. Commercially this is an insane thing to do. You aren't maintaining a live service video game.

The difference is, Necromunda keeps releasing new stuff for each gang, adding brutes, vehicles, hired guns etc. rather than swathes of new factions.

How many factions are in Necromunda now?
Six Great Houses
Mercenary/bounty hunters
Genestealer cult
Totally-not-khorne meat cult
Other Genestealer cult
Enforcers
Wastelanders
Squats
Spyrers

So fourteen? Any more?
Need at least two more to get to even half as many as current KT factions. And Necromunda gangs have much less in the way of unique special rules.

The numbers are arbitrary since the rubric is "how much effort is this to balance" and that's entirely subjective. The reason they'd never do it is because everyone would just tell them to F off and go back to community rules like we did for all the years they couldn't be bothered to support munda. That context doesn't exist for kill team so they feel safer taking the piss. See also: stormcast eternal sacrosanct chamber