Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

vogelfrei wrote:Excuse me, but do you actually ever played a game with or against a WH force?

Yes I have played with SoB (not as a WH force) and against WH with Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard. Cheaper transports will help SoB get their short ranged heavy weapons into range. I'm not talking about how SoB operate with their current list I'm talking about how they could operate with a fairer heavy weapon distribution i.e. Immolator and multi Melta equipped Troops choices. They shouldn’t be tournament stomping hard but they should be a reasonable challenge in a game with your mates.

SoB shouldn't lose Allies and not gain any advantages.

vogelfrei wrote:What's the reason for puritan Inquisitors not being able to take allies?

They shouldn't need them if their lists are beefed up a bit (radicals are another matter). I believe that allies are in the SoB and GK lists because the troops in those lists are deliberately nerfed, probably to make them play less like vanilla Space Marines. IG allies in the WH book meant that Fraternus Malitia were dropped from their list. IG allies didn't help beef up some list variants either Radical Inquisitors (WH or DH) with IG allies is probably the weakest list combination that can be played, unless I was missing something when I played them.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Inquisition would still be playable as a "pure" force, just as SM would still be playable as a "pure" force. Nothing would force the player to take Allies. But the option would be available.

Yeah, because the new GW design philosophy is all about giving the player lots of options...

JohnHwangDD wrote:Inquisition models date back to Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition, as Imperial Allies, and the Allies model carries all of the way through today. To suddenly take Allies away entirely just wouldn't work because those armies are designed to be fielded as part of a combined force.

Daemon models date back to Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition too. So does that mean the upcoming Daemonic Legion codex will let me ally my Bloodletters and Daemonettes with my CSM?

C'mon JohnHwang - let's be realistic here. If they're not willing to let Daemonic Legion units ally with CSM outside of Apocalypse, what makes you think they'll let Imperial armies take Inquisition units? If you want allies you'll have to use Apocalypse, just like everybody else.

I hate to break it to you, but if you think the Inquisition codex will allow cross-codex allies you're living in Fantasyland. Unfortunately for you, JohnHwang, when it's released in The Real World, it almost certainly will not allow allies - and neither you nor all your '80s movie montages can stop it!


Now to see what an Inquisition codex would really look like I think we should just look at what happened to the Chaos legions in the new Chaos codex. Take Emperor's Children for example. In the old codex they used to be able to give sonic weapons to their terminators, havocs, bikers, dreadnoughts, and predators in addition to their CSM Troops units. All that has been reduced to a single noise marine entry in the new codex. Now apply the same scheme to SoB and GK and you'll see where this is going. Here are my predictions:

Expect to see Celestians, Dominions, and Retributors eliminated in favor of a single Battle Sisters unit entry. Seraphim will maybe get their own entry, but Repentia will become "counts as" or go to Apocalypse. Acts of Faith will be rolled randomly at the beginning of each turn from a table similar to the one below:

1 - Scouts.
2 - Furious Charge.
3 - Fleet of Foot.
4 - Rending.
5 - Feel No Pain.
6 - Power Weapon.

Inquisitors and Inquisitor Lords will be combined into single "Inquisitor" HQ entry (if you want a Canoness just take an Inquisitor in power armor and use "counts as"). The retinue will become a unit of generic "Henchmen". Arco-flaggellants will be absorbed into the Inquisitor's retinue as "Henchmen" or go to Apocalypse. Alternatively maybe there will be a generic "Zealots" entry to cover Repentia, Arco-flaggellants, Redemptionists, and other rabble? Or maybe save that for Apocalypse. Penitent Engines and Exorcists will be combined under "Inquisitorial War Machine" entry or go to Apocalypse. The Eversor, Vindicare, Callidus, and Culexus will be combined with Death Cult Assassins under a single generic Assassin entry (counts as Elites but takes up no slots on the FOC and enters play by Deep Strike). Grey Knights in power armor will lose Teleport Attack, but they'll keep Purgation Squads because they are Spase Marienz (hurr!).

The armylist will look something like:

HQ
Saint Celestine (Battle Sisters count as Troops)
Brother-Captain Stern (Grey Knights count as Troops)
Deathwatch Special Character (Deathwatch Squads count as Troops)
Inquisitor Lord Karamazov
Inquisitor Lord Torquemada Coteaz
Inquisitor
Henchmen

Elites
Assassins
Deathwatch Squad
Battle Sisters
Grey Knights
Grey Knight Terminators

Troops
Zealots
Inquisitorial Stormtroopers

Fast Attack
Seraphim

Heavy Support
Inquisitorial War Machine (option for Walker or Tracked)
Grey Knight Purgation Squad
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader
Dreadnought

Abba, I'm going to have nightmares because of how incredibly accurate and scary those predictions are.

Sure beats the hell out of my old ones about the snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Inquisition would still be playable as a "pure" force, just as SM would still be playable as a "pure" force. Nothing would force the player to take Allies. But the option would be available.

Inquisition models date back to Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition, as Imperial Allies, and the Allies model carries all of the way through today. To suddenly take Allies away entirely just wouldn't work because those armies are designed to be fielded as part of a combined force.

Daemon models date back to Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition too. So does that mean the upcoming Daemonic Legion codex will let me ally my Bloodletters and Daemonettes with my CSM?

If they're not willing to let Daemonic Legion units ally with CSM outside of Apocalypse,

Your post is predicated on the falsehood that you cannot have Bloodletters and Daemonettes with CSM. However, if you were to review your Codex, you would find an entry for "Summoned Lesser Daemons" that covers Bloodletters and Daemonettes. What you lost were the Stupid Rules that made Lesser Daemons better than CSM.

If you want to follow the analogy properly, it would be more accurate to predict that C: Inquisition would have the following:

Troops
- Inducted Imperial Guardsmen (AF Squad entry)
- Allied Space Marines (vanilla SM entry with Combat Squads, Rhino, Razorback)

Then high-detail books like C: Dark Angels and C: Blood Angels match nicely with C: Daemonic Legions.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The only downside to Combat Squads for Storms is that you can't take 6 to 9 models. You still have the option to take ten and field them as such. But as Storms are currently fielded as 5-man throwaways with 2 Specials, Combat Squads and Razorbacks wouldn't hurt at all.

I would hope a new codex would seek to remove this 'option' as the new SM codices have with minimum sized scout squads as troops. Allowing two squads of five ST's just to fill the mandetory troops choices strikes me as bad design.

Who mentioned Razorbacks?

JohnHwangDD wrote:If you want to follow the analogy properly, it would be more accurate to predict that C: Inquisition would have the following:

Troops
- Inducted Imperial Guardsmen (AF Squad entry)
- Allied Space Marines (vanilla SM entry with Combat Squads, Rhino, Razorback)

Then high-detail books like C: Dark Angels and C: Blood Angels match nicely with C: Daemonic Legions.

But that's not streamlined enough! The focus should be on the Inquisition, not on their allies. And why do you need allied space marines anyway? You already have Deathwatch and Grey Knights - just use "counts as". The same for inducted guard - "counts as" stormtroopers. But if you absolutely must have a separate entry for them then I guess you could have "lesser allied troops" (IG statline) and "greater allied troops" (SM statline). But that's already getting pretty complicated IMHO.

.

Codex: CASE: Counts As Something Else

George Spiggott wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The only downside to Combat Squads for Storms is that you can't take 6 to 9 models. You still have the option to take ten and field them as such. But as Storms are currently fielded as 5-man throwaways with 2 Specials, Combat Squads and Razorbacks wouldn't hurt at all.

I would hope a new codex would seek to remove this 'option' as the new SM codices have with minimum sized scout squads as troops. Allowing two squads of five ST's just to fill the mandetory troops choices strikes me as bad design.

Presuming that 5th Edition says that only Troops may be Scoring, I would agree.

The new Eldar can field as little as 2x 5 Dire Avengers (at 12 pts per model), and they have much better stuft to spend their points on, so this really isn't any different.

Who mentioned Razorbacks?

I did. Storms have a problem in that there's no Heavy Weapon capability. Razorbacks would make Storms much more competitive and an excellent complement to the Sisters Immolators. If the Inquisition can obtain Rhinos for them, they Razorbacks would be just as easy. And very fair.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:If you want to follow the analogy properly, it would be more accurate to predict that C: Inquisition would have the following:

Troops
- Inducted Imperial Guardsmen (AF Squad entry)
- Allied Space Marines (vanilla SM entry with Combat Squads, Rhino, Razorback)

Then high-detail books like C: Dark Angels and C: Blood Angels match nicely with C: Daemonic Legions.

But that's not streamlined enough! The focus should be on the Inquisition, not on their allies.

And why do you need allied space marines anyway? You already have Deathwatch and Grey Knights - just use "counts as". The same for inducted guard - "counts as" stormtroopers.

But if you absolutely must have a separate entry for them then I guess you could have "lesser allied troops" (IG statline) and "greater allied troops" (SM statline).

I fail to see how 2 generic entries in a Codex of what will likely be roughly 20 total entries takes the focus away from the Inqusition. Particularly as they would lose the cool sexy stuff that they currently have with all of their restrictions and requirements.

I need Allied SM and IG for the same reason that CSM players need Greater & Lesser Daemons - for flavor. Your "counts as" proposal fails by analogy, as nobody counts a Daemonette as a Noise Marine - they count it as a Lesser Daemon.

I must have separate entries. Thank you for understanding.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I did. Storms have a problem in that there's no Heavy Weapon capability. Razorbacks would make Storms much more competitive and an excellent complement to the Sisters Immolators. If the Inquisition can obtain Rhinos for them, they Razorbacks would be just as easy. And very fair.

And this role can't be filled by the existing Chimera because? If it's a points cost thing it is reasonable to assume that the Chimera would receive a reduction in cost just as the Rhino and Razorback have received. Also all the fluff for Razorbacks make them SM only. My estimate for the Chimera profile would be.

Chimera + Smoke launchers & Searchlight = 55 points (sans weapons @ 15 points).

My personal build of Chimera (Chimera + weapons + extra armour + smoke) would be reduced by 8 points each an gain a free searchlight. In regard to Deep-strike for ST's there's talk of a plastic Valkyrie in the works This would become the transport of choice for ST's IMO.

George Spiggott wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I did. Storms have a problem in that there's no Heavy Weapon capability. Razorbacks would make Storms much more competitive and an excellent complement to the Sisters Immolators. If the Inquisition can obtain Rhinos for them, they Razorbacks would be just as easy. And very fair.

And this role can't be filled by the existing Chimera because?

No Twin-Lascannon.

I always thought it odd that Forgeworld never produced a Lascannon turret for the Chimera. IIRC the Valkyrie comes with a Lascannon option.

George Spiggott wrote:I always thought it odd that Forgeworld never produced a Lascannon turret for the Chimera. IIRC the Valkyrie comes with a Lascannon option.

I'd love it if they did. My various Baneblade Lascannons can sort-of substitute for it, but they're all very small. A Chimera Lascannon would be fantastic, as it means I could do a different type of MechInf (ie. the squads wouldn't all be armed with Lascannons).

BYE

I have a command Chimera that I knocked up with VDR a few years ago that fills the gap nicely.

Hell, I'd settle for a ML option for the Chimera - it's not like it'd be unfair.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Hell, I'd settle for a ML option for the Chimera - it's not like it'd be unfair.

And fluffy, it's one of the Epic Chimera variants, it comes with a multi-shot Hunter-killer missile launcher, along with the quad-Autocannon and Battlecannon variants. Again I'm surprised that Forgeworld haven't produced these yet.

BTW: Why is this thread on two forums?

JohnHwangDD wrote:Hell, I'd settle for a ML option for the Chimera - it's not like it'd be unfair.

A Missile Launcher option would be a waste. The Autocannon turret already exists, and is superior to a missile launcher in all respects except taking on AV14 targets (because it can't) and a Lascannon would be better at killing AV14 than the missile launcher.

The Missile Launcher just isn't a weapon the Guard need at all. It does nothing they need.

BYE

I think an AP3 ML is better against Sv3+ Power Armour than AP4 Autocannon.

But yeah, an Autocannon would be fine, also.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I think an AP3 ML is better against Sv3+ Power Armour than AP4 Autocannon.

Battlecannon trumps 'em both, and that's exactly what should be hunting MEQ's. In a MechInf army, the old saying of 'Tanks kill infantry, Infantry kill tanks' rings ever-true. The squads have the Lascannons, the Chimeras have the Multi-Lasers/Heavy Bolters. Anything heavier than Sv4+ gets taken care of by Deep Striking units with Plasmas and Battlecannons.

Missile Launchers are only ever useful if your local metagame features lots of troop heavy MEQ armies and/or lots of Necron players, otherwise stick to the Holy Trinity of Guard weapons - Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannon.

BYE

JohnHwangDD wrote: (@Wehrkind) Totally agreed

....

Does this mean Chuck Norris just round house kicked an immovable object or something? Black is white, up is down, dogs and cats, living together... AHHHHH!

Hehehe seriously though, I would really like to see them get rid of the "take X to get access to Y" business in the Codex. I just don't think that we should be forced into taking certain units (which usually suck) to get other units (which might also suck.) Much better to just spread the fluff on pretty thick to make it obvious these sorts of things go together.
The main problems I see with requiring X for Y is that is makes certain unit types you might want extra expensive, since you have to pay for the parts you don't. Sort of like getting a car for 500$, but you have to spend 250$ for a permit for it. It effectively makes the car cost 750$ since you didn't want the permit, but didn't have a choice.
The other issue is that depending on what the units and sub-units do, you can easily channel the list into having only a few decent builds, in so far as one HQ is needed for a certain unit that makes the list run well, which leaves only 1 slot for a second, etc. I think that made sense for the old Chaos with marks etc. due to the opposing gods, but you could still take 90% of the unit types anyway. It only affected the "specialty" marines. The Imperium seems to work a lot closer together, so it doesn't seem to have a really good fluff reason. The big issue would be Radical vs. Puritan DH Inq's, which would have the general "daemon host not compatible with Grey Knights" issue.

Personally, I think the HQ choices should give benefits to the army as a whole. Minor things, but little benefits. Say a Cannoness gives all units a 6+ save vs. psyker abilities. A GK hero gives +1 Ld vs moral checks caused by Daemons. Inquisitors get either of those. Something like that (but actually good, not just crap off the top of my head.)

Wehrkind wrote:Does this mean Chuck Norris just round house kicked an immovable object or something? Black is white, up is down, dogs and cats, living together... AHHHHH!

Yar! It's the coming of Gozer!

I would really like to see them get rid of the "take X to get access to Y" business in the Codex.

Yup. If you look at C: CSM, that's pretty much what they did. 0-1 for Individuals, and the rest is wide open. No more unit dependencies or restrictions.

So if you translate that over to C: Inq, you would dump all of those rules and take the risk of the occasional player fielding:
HQ: Inquisitor (Inquisition) & Priest (Ecclesiarchy),
Elite: Grey Knights (Malleus), Deathwatch (Xenos), & Temple Assassin (Sicarus)
Troops: Sisters (Hereticus), Stormtroopers, Arbites, Allied Marines (Astartes), Inducted Guard Platoon
Heavy: Orbital Strike (Navy)

It's no big deal, nor would it be overpowering in any way. But it would look cool and be very flexible.

I just don't think that we should be forced into taking certain units (which usually suck) to get other units (which might also suck.) Much better to just spread the fluff on pretty thick to make it obvious these sorts of things go together.

Yes. As with Chaos, nothing forces the player to restrict choices for theme. But why not allow a "Black Legion" combined force for the Inquisition?

The big issue would be Radical vs. Puritan DH Inq's, which would have the general "daemon host not compatible with Grey Knights" issue.

I don't even see that as an issue, as the player should remodel the either the Daemonhost to be non-Daemonic or the Knights to be non-Grey if he wants to be well-themed.

Personally, I think the HQ choices should give benefits to the army as a whole. Minor things, but little benefits. Say a Cannoness gives all units a 6+ save vs. psyker abilities. A GK hero gives +1 Ld vs moral checks caused by Daemons. Inquisitors get either of those. Something like that (but actually good, not just crap off the top of my head.)

It'd be more sensibile if the HQ choices gave small benefits to just *their* elements. So a Cannoness gives +1 to all Faith checks. This encourages a mostly / pure Sisters led by a Cannoness, but doesn't require it. An Inquisitor can give Ld to everyone like a SM Commander.

There is no Wehrkind, only Zuul!

I like those ideas a good bit. I can really see an Inquisitor like Goatcheese (or whatever his name is) with all sorts of influence going to battle with completely disparate elements based on who he knows in the area and what he can get.
Maybe the thing to do with the HQ's would be a bigger bonus for their "class" of troops, and a smaller for everyone. A Cannoness gives a bonus die on faith checks for Sisters in LOS, and +1Ld to other units in LoS. Grey Knights give +1 Ld to everyone, but allow GK focused troops to reroll morale within LOS. Something like that. Inquisitors could select from a list maybe. Nothing killer, but a nice bonus.

One thing I would focus on with GKs especially is getting rid of abilities that hurt a specific enemy in favor of general bonuses for the troops. Things like "Daemons all cry when in LOS" is great for fighting Daemons, but really pointless the other 95% of the time, so pricing it is a big problem. A 5+ save vs Psykic powers is pretty pointless since most good/common powers are not targeted (Conceal, Fortune, etc.) The issue I have is that those abilities become more or less useless based on codex changes (what happened to minor powers?) and who you are playing, making an army either way over powered, or more likely vastly underpowered.

Yup, the specific enemy thing is a mess to balance, and should go away.

Personally, I don't think big bonuses are needed. The game is streamlining, so less is more. In a game with minimal rules, +1 to Faith test is plenty enough.

For example, right now, Faith is kind of wierd. It's high detail with having to track Faith Points. Ugh. Why can't Faith be Psyker lite?

Once per turn, Sisters may make a Faith (Ld) test at risk of a penalty - Fleet of Foot (difficult ground on failure); Sv5+ Invulnerable (armor saves only on failure), etc. If Ld10 Canoness is present, all Sisters may use her Ld for Faith regardless of range.

This kind of thing would be a lot easier and faster to play.

I gotta disagree with you there. I don't think streamlining is necessarily good. There are special rules that make things fun if a little more complicated (Faith being on of them) and special rules that are just needlessly complicated.
Keeping track of Faith points is very easily solved by using a d6 or two. GW could make a few dollars by selling those little spinny card looking counters WotC does for M:TG life totals.

The trouble with putting Faith back to the old version of many minor Faith abilities that are used all the time for very little effect is that it stops being exciting. It becomes something you roll every turn in every phase, just adding more rolls for minor effects. I really like the current system since it let's one really make an effect on the game at pivotal times, requiring cleverness to use well. In other words it makes a tool that must be used carefully to be really effective, and can play a big role in how the army works. That is something that is really lacking in 40k, in my opinion.

So I think in this case it would actually gum up the game more to have a "psyker lite" version of faith, adding time to every phase of every turn, instead of just a few times a game as it is now.

The trouble with really stream lined rules is that they have to be pretty darn elegant to allow for a complex interplay that makes things interesting. Some games pull this off, but I don't think GW can. Certainly not without completely resetting everything. Better I think to have a fairly complicated rules set with the needless bits scraped out and made USR's. Necrons for instance will benefit greatly by removing WBB and getting FNP instead.

Honestly, I think GW could also improve things a lot by improving the lay out of the BGB and Codexes. WH especially could use some bullet points to clarify all the special rules for their units. Repentia and Penitent engines have so many special rules that are hidden in blocks of text it is silly. Give me a block of fluff, then a bulleted list of special abilities and I would be much happier.

Faith is a real problem though.
- Faith pool shrinks with use and grows with death.
- tests are on variable numbers, some high, some low.
- wide variety of effects
- effects are large and swingy.
- no risk

Comtrast with Psykers
- no pool
- always a Ld test
- limited effects, one per psyker
- narrow effects.
- risk of attack

Moving to a Psyker type approach would be better, I think.

I just can't agree with that...

- Faith pool shrinks with use and grows with death.

So? It isn't terribly complicated to keep track of. Even in giant games it isn't difficult.

- tests are on variable numbers, some high, some low.

That gets a little awkward, I agree. I keep the reference sheet with me, though, and that is easy enough to check. It isn't as though I don't need it for keeping track of psykic abilities anyway.

- wide variety of effects

Uhm... that's good right? The amount of choices are directly proportional to the amount of goodness. Even if one only uses 3 of them, having the others is a nice thing.

- effects are large and swingy.

I agree here; most are a little weak compared to the big three of DG, SotM and TP. Still, I have used LotE a few times to good effect, and ther others at least once. There is work to be done equalizing them a bit though.

- no risk

There is the risk of failing and burning a faith point for nothing. When you have like 6 in a 2000 point army that's a real concern. It is part of the tough decision of squad composition and in game use of Faith.

Compare with psykers where you have fewer choices, you have to select before the game leading to the "wait, did this unit take this power" shell game problem. The effects can still swing in power for the same cost, just look at the IG sanctioned psyker abilities. Not that anyone takes those, so I understand.

This is one case where I don't think streamlining is good, at all. The current system works, is unique and interesting, and really defines the army. I think the Acts themselves need a little tweaking to all be on par with each other, but by and large I think the system is very good.

One must be careful not to stream line all the rules and armies to the point the game becomes indistinguishable from checkers, after all.

If you did want to make it a little more clean cut, make all Sisters units automatically Faithful. That way you don't have to worry about Veteran Superiors in some squads, but not others, and you don't have to check "can I just martyr the Vet for a faith, or do I need to wipe the squad?"

Forcing character upgrades for squads for SoB squads (just like GK and Dark Angels) would be a good move along with making all the tests work in the same way. Comparisons with the clunky Imperial Guard psyker rules are a little unfair as their rules are pretty pointless.

The IG Sanctioned Psyker is good as a bulletcatcher, not as a Psyker.

I'm talking about the Psykers that people *do* take (e.g. Lash Prince, Eldrad, Mephiston). You buy a Psyker with known effects, and then you use them when it's time to do so.

The Deathwatch would likely have DW terminators as their elites, and DW kill teams (Sans character) as troops.

What I think is missing form these lists is a good way to show your Inquisitor is a radical. There should be a selection of heretical units, mutants, psychers, aliens, that you can take.

However, combined with the Sisters, DW, and GH units, you would have a huge selection in each category. A minimum of 8 different units in each force org slot aside from HQ in order to allow a "Pure" version of each force.

That just seems a bit unwieldy for GW to implement. So far, no codex has more then six choices for any given slot, and the INQ codexes have all been around three. So it seems far more likely that the Ordos would remain seperate for now.