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What is going to happen with Razorbacks? my memory of 2nd Ed was that you bought ALL squads as 10man squads and then before the game you broke them into 5man squads, does that mean the only way to take an RB is to get a commander with a 5man command squad?? tha seems like a silly notion.

RB say they are good for 6dudes that just doesn't fit the 5/10 squad size ...

It's all part of Jervis' master plan to bring 40k in line with Epic Armageddon.

Posted By Toreador on 04/29/2007 3:22 PM
It began that way. In the original RT book and Book of the Astronomican, that was the way squads were set.

And it was that way in 2nd Ed, where in your average 1500-2000 point game, a Tactical squad cost 300 points before any upgrades. Realising how bad that was, GW later released rules for 5-man squads at 150 points, so Marine players could field some more squads. A good decision.

They then took that decision further into the variable squad sizes, something that has Marines far more flexible. Now they're regressing, to the detriment of the army.

BYE

The question is, will Chaos Space Marines get the combat squad rule too?

Yep Nyarl, the RT book had no lists, but the Book of the Astronomicon did, and referenced the combat squads rule in the main RT book. If more options you mean 2 for most squads, then you are correct.Such as a tactical squad being able to be made into a "missle" squad or jump pack squad. It is fun reading the old fluff for the White Scars and how they helped defeat those evil servants of chaos the Hive Fleet Behemoth. Even the DA have more options in the current list. Considering that was the only list, yes you could just make armies out of whatever, but really, you can do that now. No cop holding a gun to your head.

Sucks the new vets are metal. Even though they look better, why remake in metal what already was in metal? Different options? Kinda silly.

They really need to redo the plastic High Elf kits. I'll keep using my old ones. No reason to upgrade to those. I do hope the High Elf foot list becomes viable.

Really curious to see what Codex Renegades will be. GW has for far too long ignored a major part of their fluff without having Imperial world turned renegade lists. Hopefully this will cover a good chunk of it. I have hopes, but don't expect much there. I am curious though...

I would actually guess that combat squads is just old fluff coming back. I would hazard a guess that Jervis likes 5 and 10 man marine units. It just happened to kill two birds with one stone for the designers.

There is one major problem for combat squads and that is escalation. Attaching vehicles to the squad in escalation pretty much negates any bonus combat squads gives. Too much of a detriment, so you almost have to only assign razorbacks to a 5 man squad, and thus not giving you the heavy. But the razorback can give you that heavy and mobility. So in a way you can see the balance and trade offs there. It's a wonky list to try plan for.

Skyth, I really wonder how that book will be organized too. I heard they were dropping the squads being the magic chaos number, but will they be shoe horned into regimented combat squads? Seems very unchaosy, but it will show how the design team is thinking. Then we have orks.....

Posted By skyth on 04/30/2007 2:26 AM
The question is, will Chaos Space Marines get the combat squad rule too?

Of course. Don't you know that after the Heresy, Abbadon and ... uhh... let's say Alpharius, as he never got to do anything cool, well they got together and wrote the Codex Diabolicus, a ancient and evil tome that dictates how all Legions would operate.

The tome had three tennents:

1. Field 5 and 10 man squads - by copying our loyalist brothers on purposes we are being non-conformist conformists, thereby we remain Chaotic.
2. Only armies that field special characters can take Cult squads as troops.
3. No daemon is allowed to be different to any other - this, again, allows us to be non-conforming conformists.

Torador - I hope they rerelease the same plastic High Elves, only 10 to a box rather than 20, and don't drop the price. Then you can celebrate the great deal we get.

BYE

You are correct in assuming that if the models were actually good looking, and had a lot more options in the kit, that I would be glad if they released them 10 to a box. Not ecstatic if it costed more, but models worth buying are worth paying for more than models that suck.

I'll throw the party in your honor H.B.M.C.

So the new "alternative" is being conformist, making conformists look alternative thus making the renegades Imperialists and the Imperialists renegades? I actually hope they do not push combat squads on chaos. Quite silly for a rag tag bunch.

Combat Squads reduce Tactical squads to really only being good at one thing: Rapid Firing and then absorbing a charge with a PF Sarge.

They work well in a Rhino, and if you like Mechanized Marines - this isn't a terrible thing. If you don't like that, then yeah it totally sucks. It seriously nerfs Marines in the context of being competitive with Nids, Eldar, & Tau. And probably the new Chaos book as well (assuming Demons get Rending or something similar and Demon Bombs stick around).

On the plus side, 10 Marines with a PF sarge are pretty good in assault. Granted, that's only because a Hidden Power Fist is awesome, and you've got 9 casualties to soak up the damage. Not even the best assault units in the game (that will get to you in any numbers) can kill enough Marines before the fist swings. Not that the Fist is all that great against all the assault units you're worried about (Harlies, Stealers, Orks, Gaunts, etc) but it's still a damn fine option.

Basically it forces you to build a Marine list very differently than you'd normally do, at least from the SAFH variety.

What it boils down to is the fact that while Tactical squads got neutered, Devastators became awesome, in fact better suited to the roll that the Las/Plas squads used to fill for a marginal (but fair) increase in points cost.

I expect to see many lists running into the 2x10 Devs with either 4 Lascannons or 4 ML's in each; combat squadded out. I know that's what I'm going to run when the Redux hits.

After that is "filled" in alist, you'll see people go for the standard kit as they see fit (either Assault Marines, Termies, Speeders, etc).

The only problem I really see with Combat Squads is that it forces Devs to be the stock choice for a shooty marine army, and thus leaves you needing to fill your troops slot with something that's pretty inefficient for what you probably want to do. But if Scouts stay as troops in SM redux, then they'll probably be fine.

Posted By skyth on 04/30/2007 2:26 AM
The question is, will Chaos Space Marines get the combat squad rule too?

Was telling my brother - who plays Iron Warriors - about all of the Chaos changes, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on both of our parts.  Talking about the 5/10 space marine change, Chaos being able to take squads from 5-20 suddenly becomes entirely fluffy in relation to their loyalist brethren with their adherence to 'codex' and all that.  Same goes for the Templar breaking with codex and taking big or odd-sized squads, and I should hope the Wolves get to do the same thing.  Weirdly enough, I support the 5/10 change to Codex: SM armies, mostly because it makes those that deviate from it a little more special.

 Voodoo does have some good points on using 5/10 tactical squads though, and the possible nerf to marines in competitive play.  Also the continuance of Chaos in the top, if for 6-man las/plas alone ... plenty of 'renegade' Ultras in the future anyone?

- Boss Salvage

I don't think scouts are going to stay troops, if DA and BA are any indication.

Jury is still out for me on 10 man dev squads and or combat squadded dev squads. With the lack of heavy weapons in a list points start becoming a premium, especially at 1500pts. Adding those extra wounds on limits the points I have for other weapons and or options. Taking two fully kitted out ML dev squads is also quite expensive and quite static. Deciding how to efficiently put together a list has been a lot tougher for me now with the DA codex.

Horde bugs haven't had a chance vs a kitted out SM list for some time. If the changes come down the pipe for Redux, I see them being a lot better off, but will Bugzilla lists become the master of all? I am still undecided on how powerful they can be. Need more testing.

Posted By Toreador on 04/30/2007 3:08 AM
You are correct in assuming that if the models were actually good looking, and had a lot more options in the kit, that I would be glad if they released them 10 to a box. Not ecstatic if it costed more, but models worth buying are worth paying for more than models that suck. 

Nonsense. You'd be ecstatic. You'd finally be able to pay what the models are worth. Admit it. You lie awake at night wracked by guilt because you feel you've been ripping GW off by buying models at current prices.

You tried to give the GW red shirt more money, but he just looked at you funny. The rest of us should be happy to have the privilege, nay, the honour of giving GW more money.


Anyway, it looks like combat squads and the current "restrictions instead of options" philosophy will continue unless there's changes in the Rules Dev team before the Redux comes out. I've got my fingers crossed for a bad annual report / bad quarterly figures from the DA release so that doesn't happen.


EDIT: I'm optimistic about the High Elf book though. They have a lot of great looking, but overcosted models. Hopefully the book will be able to breathe some life into Elven infantry again.

No redshirts around here to give any money to. It's all brick and mortar indies, and Phil could always use a little more money. He has a great shop and I would like to keep him around, so maybe I should start tipping him.

Still willing to pay more for things that "look nice", and would rather not buy things that are in my opinion ugly.

It would be hard to make the High Elf book worse. Maybe the Dark Elf players will have hope if the High Elf book is good.

I'll take a few balanced options over more unbalanced ones any day.I'll also take a game where you can field any published army and actually have a chance to win a game vs any other army published. That would be nice. Otherwise 40k is just going to slide into oblivion.

Honestly Combat Squads are the best thing for Devs and it's the only way for a Combat Squad based Marine army to get any semblance of survivable heavy wepaons into the list.

2x 10 Man Devs with 4 Lascannons comes to 610 Points. That gives you EIGHT lascannons in 4 separate targets of 5 Marines.

Contrast this with say, 5 6 Man Las/Plas squads, which costs 575 under the current Marine rules.

You pay an extra 35 Points for the combat squads, but get more Lascannons. The downside is it's 10 less marines and in 4 Targets not 5, but it's still not bad since they're a lot better at 48" which lets you use range to your benefit better than before. I think you're better off with the old rules, but at least with Combat squads you still get the firepower to deal with Godzilla/Skimmer/MEQ's that you need, even more of it actually. You just have to be a lot more careful since it's in less targets with less bodies now.

But the only way you're going to get an equivalent to the shooting power that SAFH Marines used to get is going to be through Dev's. Termies are gutted, Preds with Lascannons are more expensive, and Las/Plas 10 Man squads are too expensive that you're better off with the Devs anyway.

The real problem is that you don't satisfy troop requirements with this. But your troops have entirely different roles now. Shooty Tac squads are now probably better off with a Heavy Bolter & Plasma than anything else, since you want all those bolter shots to count for something, and you get plenty of Anti-Tank from the Devs anyway. Though with all your static heavy weapons being stuck in Dev squads, you probably want the Tac Squads advancing with a PF Sarge and supporting the near now mandatory Assault Squad that you'll need for counter charge and/or Offense.

With Combat Squads I think that the new lists are going to focus on being CC oriented Drop Pod armies, or they'll have a trick like Blood Angels look to like with an army of Jump Packs.

Also I don't expect to see Chaos get hit with Combat squads. Comments from Dev Team members has so far been that armies that don't pay lip service to the Codex Astartes won't use them (BT's, SW, Chaos).

I think that Combat Squads is an attempt by Jervis to do a few things. First, stop the 5-man lasplas armies that seem to be almost compulsory. Space Marines are set up as 10 man squads with one heavy and one assault weapon in each. But people don't run fluffy armies at tournaments. They tend to minmax as much as possible. Army comp scores just weren't doing much to mitigate this.

The second thing it seems that Combat Squads were designed to do is increase the utility of Devistators and Veterans. Both these were generally lacking in SM armies - at least in my area. Only Space Wolves fielded them regularly due to split fire rules. Now everyone gets to do this.

The third thing that Jervis seems to wanted to accomplish is allow players greater tactical choices on the table. Whether Combat Squads help with this, I don't know. I've never maxed out my slots on the Force Organization chart to make splitting an option. But, it seems that two split Devistator squads and a Whirlwind (five Heavy units, basically) allows more options on the table than three units do. Scouts also seem to get a boost, being able to spread the power of pinning over a much greater area than otherwise.

As a Marine player, I can certainly sympathize with people who don't like being forced into an "all or nothing" circumstance with their army list. Often my squads will be seven or eight strong as I find the need to drop a model and put the points elsewhere. I really wish this would be a trait - or perhaps a trait to not use Combat Squads. Then there's things with the traits that really need to be reworked, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

Posted By Toreador on 04/30/2007 7:17 AM


I'll take a few balanced options over more unbalanced ones any day.I'll also take a game where you can field any published army and actually have a chance to win a game vs any other army published. That would be nice. Otherwise 40k is just going to slide into oblivion.

Around here, 40k already has become irrelevant.  All the silverback/tourney gamers have long switched to WFB or even better, FOW.   I can count on 1 hand how many games of 40k I have seen played in the last few months by any of the so-called "serious" gamers.

Gets old seeing the same Tau& Eldar airforce/drop pod/lysanderwing/Godzilla lists over and over again, in friendlies or tourney games.  *shrug*

Agreed. Saturday nights were always 40k nights around here with all the tables filled with games until wee hours of the morning. Now it is a few die hards playing "friendly games" where we have a gentleman's agreement on lists. A good chunk of people have wandered off to WOW and some play other games on Sat night. WHFB, WM, FOW and boardgames. Without some major changes, 40k will fade into obscurity.

The fact that the changes are obvious to me at least make my blood boil.
Proper, tight management of releases and overall rules.
Cessation of the power armoured madness.
And getting rid of the annoying rules from the basic game.

I would love if they went back to the WHFB style system. Getting rid of march moving or running along with the way the armour saves and no modifiers for shooting really took a lot out of the game. It also killed most foot based armies. Can't hardly turn a flank with troops on the hoof anymore.

The current rules make sense for 3+ save armys and gaurd vs. gaurd or LATD.
Everyone else needs stupid tricks to balance them which lead to ridiculous or over complicated armys.
Wonder how long it'll take for the arrogant swine to admit they were wrong?

Posted By Toreador on 04/30/2007 9:19 AM
Agreed. Saturday nights were always 40k nights around here with all the tables filled with games until wee hours of the morning. Now it is a few die hards playing "friendly games" where we have a gentleman's agreement on lists. A good chunk of people have wandered off to WOW and some play other games on Sat night. WHFB, WM, FOW and boardgames. Without some major changes, 40k will fade into obscurity.

Posted By Toreador on 04/30/2007 9:39 AM
I would love if they went back to the WHFB style system. Getting rid of march moving or running along with the way the armour saves and no modifiers for shooting really took a lot out of the game. It also killed most foot based armies. Can't hardly turn a flank with troops on the hoof anymore.

Now I know the apocalypse is upon us. Not one, but two posts by Toreador criticizing GW's ham-fisted handling of 40k! Welcome to the tribe brother! Seriously, this right here, along with the continuing dumbing down of the lists (for a system that was already "dumbed down" for simplicity sake) at the expense of even a modicum of individuality is a considerable source of discontent. Couple this with all of GW's other unfavorable business practices and you're on to why so many of us are displeased with the direction they've been heading in the past several years.

Posted By Da Boss on 04/30/2007 9:54 AM
Wonder how long it'll take for the arrogant swine to admit they were wrong?

Jervis basically already did, in so many words, at adepticon.
Atleast according to reports.

Hmmm.
I'll wait and see.
And continue to play WFB.
(Which is great)

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 04/30/2007 3:03 AM

Posted By skyth on 04/30/2007 2:26 AM
The question is, will Chaos Space Marines get the combat squad rule too?

Of course. Don't you know that after the Heresy, Abbadon and ... uhh... let's say Alpharius, as he never got to do anything cool, well they got together and wrote the Codex Diabolicus, a ancient and evil tome that dictates how all Legions would operate.

The tome had three tennents:

1. Field 5 and 10 man squads - by copying our loyalist brothers on purposes we are being non-conformist conformists, thereby we remain Chaotic.

You jest, but let us remember that the "Ancient Enemies" rule is now gone (allegedly). Sacred numbers are probably next on the chopping board of "Fluff-based rules" that Jervis seems to have a problem with (despite his words to the opoosite).

Nyarly: It would only be the apocalypse if you said something positive about GW.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Would you be upset if they said that 1kSons could only come in squads of 9 or 18, and got no Free Aspiring Champ?

Apply that throughout the marked squads, and take away the free champ upgrade.

Your rule is still there, but your not getting a decent benefit from it. What about Demons getting marks to make them different from eachtoher but no one has Power Weapons or Rending. They'd all be different but at the same time not all that super-effective like Demonette/Bloodletter Demon Bombs are now.

How much of this is about being upset because the nerfhammer is falling and power options are being limited, and how much of it is about having to change your army, and how much is it because of something in between?

One thing that gets me, from BOTH sides of this argument is that in actuality Fluff means little to nothing. Fluff changes to fit whatever GW wants it to be. And you know what, that's how it should be, so things don't stay stale and get old.

They wrote up two pieces of fluff to describe "Godzilla Nids" armies and what they're for - using rippers as troops and nothing but big bugs. So now that's "fluffy" but it's still an annoying army to play against and I'm pretty sure most players would agree it could use a good bit of the nerf stick. But it's "fluffy".

GW is balancing the game. I think it's actually good for the most part. The only problem is that they're doing it ONE FREAKIN CODEX AT A TIME. And there are already power and abusive codex's released for 4th edition that will not be revisited to get toned down like Marines (Nids & Eldar).

That's the only problem with this really, some armies will be gimped while the rending clowns from outer space will get to fly around in unkillable falcons with impunity and the 8 Monsterous Creature Nid army is in the background laughing away getting high on shrooms...err Orks.

nyarlathotep667 No one plays a game for 20 years and is happy with it. Here is a secret. When they changed the rules in 3rd, I dropped the game like a hot coal. I still painted, but I didn't play after my first several games. I hated it with a passion. I could see what they "tried" to do with the system, but I disliked the way it played. I was out of it for at least a year.

The new Epic also made me stop playing that and sell it all off. I liked my modifiers.

My hope for 40k is that it is going to be on a quick release schedule for codexes. It looks like 4 this year alone! If they can get a redux out the door, a redo of Chaos and a new ork list out, that will do a lot to even out the game. There will still be some issues, but they could be fixed. Myself, I would like to see hits on fast vehicles work the same as hull down. 1-3 pen, 4-6 glance. That is pretty much instant eldar falcon balance.

Then we have Zilla nids....

See my "Give everyone rending" thread for how we'll fix that baby.

4 Codex books? We're going to get TWO (the second will be Chaos, a year after the Eldar). With MAYBE the Ork Army Box in late December. but probably not until the DA slot next year.

With this release schedule, 5th edition will be out well before some of the Codicies.

Posted By Toreador on 04/30/2007 12:01 PM
nyarlathotep667 No one plays a game for 20 years and is happy with it. Here is a secret. When they changed the rules in 3rd, I dropped the game like a hot coal. I still painted, but I didn't play after my first several games. I hated it with a passion. I could see what they "tried" to do with the system, but I disliked the way it played. I was out of it for at least a year.

The new Epic also made me stop playing that and sell it all off. I liked my modifiers.

My hope for 40k is that it is going to be on a quick release schedule for codexes. It looks like 4 this year alone! If they can get a redux out the door, a redo of Chaos and a new ork list out, that will do a lot to even out the game. There will still be some issues, but they could be fixed. Myself, I would like to see hits on fast vehicles work the same as hull down. 1-3 pen, 4-6 glance. That is pretty much instant eldar falcon balance.

Then we have Zilla nids....

Three posts in the same thread! And I agree on all counts! AIEEEE!!!!!!!!! I took a hiatus mid-way through 2nd ed for a mixture of reasons, mostly social, and was shocked when I returned a few years later after 3rd ed had been out for a couple years. But by the late 90's, Chambers & Co. had reintroduced a lot of the fluffy goodness and enough granularity to the ruleset to make it at least enjoyable as a simple beer & pretzel game. But the lack of modifiers (both armor saves and to hit), standardized movement, and excessively dumbed down vehicle rules killed it for all the adult gamers. I still love the 40k Universe with it's broad, encompassing ridiculously dystopian sci-fi imagery and I continue to model, but damn do I despise the current state of the rules.

Posted By Ozymandias on 04/30/2007 11:31 AM
Nyarly: It would only be the apocalypse if you said something positive about GW.

Then perhaps you need to work on your reading comprehension as I have said plenty positive about GW in the past when they do something right.