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I appologise if I'm just a little slow on the uptake, but I noticed that GW posted their "Tactica" for the 'Nid psychic powers.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=400031§ion=&pIndex=0&aId=5100032a&start=1

It's the standard GW explanation of what the powers do, and how they might work in game, without actually being useful, or tactical. (Tactica?)

However, I noticed that it does say this:

GW wrote:The Horror: This power forces a single unit within 12" pass a Leadership test or fall back. While it's no use against Fearless foes, it's fairly handy against most units in Warhammer 40,000.

You could try using a Genestealer Broodlord or two to bring down the Leadership of nearby enemies before unleashing The Horror or Psychic Scream.

The Broodlord power says:

Nid 'dex p.62 wrote:This psychic power is used at the beginning of your Assault phase. If successful, all enemy units within 12" of the Broodlord suffer a -1 to their Leadership until the end of the following player turn.

This power lasts from your assault phase, until the end of the following player's turn. The end of the next (following) player turn would be the end of your opponent's turn.

There is no way to use a psychic shooting attack in conjunction with Aura of Despair.

GW being dead wrong does not really surprise me, but just to be sure; am I reading everything right?

Yes, you are right.

GW are being utter morons, yet AGAIN.

EDIT: Removed some highly specific British Slang that would just confuse people!

I don't know... it's just funny anymore...
It's just too much to ask for proofreading, or actual communication between departments in GW.

They have a different approach to the game. They will never adopt the tight legalese required to avoid confusion.

Considering their fans, their aversion to tightly coded rules is understandable.

The fact the rules are not always so tightly worded and customers can mess them up bothers me less in the end than the fact that the people at GW don't even seem to know how even the clearly worded rules like in the OP's post work.

Sure, but that's holding them to a higher standard than their customers, and a considerably higher standard at that. Lots of stuff gets jigged around during play-testing, and its easy to loose track of stuff if you don't have the budget for the extra personel whose task it is to keep track of this stuff.

I think that people sometimes forget just how costly designing games like this is, which is why GW has an underpaid team of enthusiasts who wear several caps each rather than a well-paid team of professionals with high-falutin'specialties and areas of expertise.

They could spend the extra couple of millions of dollars, but for what? I don't think people consider the diminishing returns in writing water-proof rules, error-free books, and so on. In my industry (finance) where millions of dollars are on the line every day then the money spent on extra compliance is well worth it. In a game company whose task it is to move toy soldiers? Not even close.

We are not asking for Legal grade rules, we are asking for proofreading.

Nurglitch wrote:They could spend the extra couple of millions of dollars, but for what?

Ignoring for a moment that hiring a competent editor, or training Games Devs to have a full understanding of the games system for which they are writing wouldn't cost millions... how about professional pride? Increased sales due to improved perception of the product? Or just because saying 'We're giving you a half-assed effort because doing any better would cost more' just doesn't cut the mustard...?

Saying they don't have the budget to do better is an explanation... but it's not an excuse. Particularly not for the company that bills itself as the premier miniature wargaming company.

I agree with Gwar! and Insaniak.

You know what, I think GW should fire their C&D writing division. By my best Guesstimates, that accounts for 78.98% of all Expenditure at GW.

Do you think they lose much business through questionable rules and typos? I think while it is annoying to have to argue how some rules work, it'll get amicably sorted between players in most situations.

Is anyone here put off buying models from GW due to the need for a YMTC forum?

Do you think they lose much business through questionable rules and typos? I think while it is annoying to have to argue how some rules work, it'll get amicably sorted between players in most situations.

Is anyone here put off buying models from GW due to the need for a YMTC forum?

I personally have a great core of gamers I'm very familiar with as my opponents, so stupid things like this almost never pop up in a game situation.

However, there's a historical club that I go to, which has a few cynical x-40k players, who DID leave because of the lack of support and editing, and professionalism.

Best example, This guy is an awesome Wargamer, beautiful paintjobs, nice conversions. He started playing in 3rd ed, with Blood Angles and Dark Angels. His BA are fleshtearers, with aweome variety of weapons on the deathco, and 7 man termie squads, and all sorts of neat old stuff. Once the 5th ed came, he literally threw his hands in the air and quit 40k. That's right, GW's rule shenanigans and invalidating armies with edition changes actually makes people quit.

I mentioned to him that there was a new BA codex coming, but the damage has been done, and he said he wasn't going back.

So yes, Soup and a roll, there is definite business loss, as there is no longer ANY 40k at that club (as you might notice I now refer to it as the Historical club), unless one of my local group members brings it there.

Sad.

Nurglitch wrote:Sure, but that's holding them to a higher standard than their customers, and a considerably higher standard at that.

What a strange thing to say...

Soup and a roll wrote:Do you think they lose much business through questionable rules and typos?

I absolutely think they do.

Speaking for myself, I had pretty much lost any interest in 40K for the last half of 4th edition's lifespan, due solely to the state of the rules. My regular gaming group had mostly moved on, and I just had no interest in trying to get in pick-up games against opponents who were unlikely to be playing the same game as I was. So I stopped playing, and as a result stopped buying. My gaming budget instead went to Star Wars miniatures and one-offs that I wanted to paint from other companies.

Going by various discussions with other gamers over that time, I would very much doubt I was the only one to do so. People with regular opponents aren't usually as bothered, as they tend to sort things out amongst themselves and develop a group house rule pool anyway. But for pick-up gamers and tournament players, the state of the rules sucked an awful lot of the fun out of the game. Not because the issues are difficult to sort out (although against a certain opponent they might be) but because the need to sort them out is there in the first place. And that sorting out will potentially be required for every single game.

5th edition sucked me back in, with a core rulebook that actually sorted out most of the issues that I had with 4th edition. but now the gradual creeping back of poorly thought out codexes is starting to put me off again.

If poorly written rules are enough to put off a fanatic who has been collecting GW games for more than 15 years now, how much more of a deterrent is it going to be for newcomers looking to get started? Or those who haven't been playing as long, and so don't have as much invested in the game?

insaniak wrote:If poorly written rules are enough to put off a fanatic who has been collecting GW games for more than 15 years now, how much more of a deterrent is it going to be for newcomers looking to get started? Or those who haven't been playing as long, and so don't have as much invested in the game?

QFT. I have played now for 11 years, and, like you, I actually dropped off during 4th edition due to the rules and came back for 5th.