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.

Hey Russ

Ep9 of the D6 podcast made me go back into the archives.

Listened to your thoughts in Ep1b regards what GW need to do to 40K as a game system.
Memory Jogger - please forgive the paraphrasing:

"GW need to put the current ruleset into specialist games. If 5th ed is just a rules tweak, then it wont fix the game."

Is that a fairly good summary of what was said?

4 months have gone by....

What's your opinion now? I guess I am asking - Is the new ruleset enough of a change? Have GW done enough to fix 40K? Are you guys going back to 40K?


Also found your discussion on PP vs. GW interesting.
If I might comment about pricing from an overseas viewpoint?

There is a huge disparity between what the US gamer pays for their gaming and what the Aussie gamer pays.
eg. Baneblade tank in US costs $95. In Australia, that same tank is $160 !! Aust dollar currently buys about 95c US.
For price parity, Aust gamers should be paying around $100 ?

I am not an economist, maybe I am missing something? BUT how can such a difference be justified?
I have heard the argument that the price charged in any particular market is what the local market will bear?
In other words Aussies are prepared to pay 40% more for the same products as the Yanks?

This is doing nothing for my local game store. I am a firm believer in supporting local business. BUT there is supporting local business and then there is being stupid.
At the moment, I have the new rulebook on backorder with GW US. Combining postage with a few other local gamers, we are landing the book at between 30 to 35% cheaper than we can buy it locally....

The local GW attitude to the stockists is "too bad". Perhaps their thinking is "a GW sale is a GW sale regardless of where it originates?".
What are the long term effects of this attitude?

I should point out that GW are not alone in this price disparity. Computer/console games have a similar problem.
Again, I have heard marketing types state that price charged is what the local market expects to pay.
Perhaps we need to be cleverer? Perhaps more consumers need to boycott the local market and shop elsewhere to put pressure on the local price?
Instead of all shrugging our shoulders and accepting the local price?

I know this doesn't really effect the US market. But bear in mind that you guys have it pretty good price wise by comparison!

Great Questions GavDorro, definitly needs to be in a future mail bag episode. But I'll answer what I can here too...

GavDorro wrote:Ep9 of the D6 podcast made me go back into the archives.

Listened to your thoughts in Ep1b regards what GW need to do to 40K as a game system.
Memory Jogger - please forgive the paraphrasing:

"GW need to put the current ruleset into specialist games. If 5th ed is just a rules tweak, then it wont fix the game."

Is that a fairly good summary of what was said?

4 months have gone by....

What's your opinion now? I guess I am asking - Is the new ruleset enough of a change? Have GW done enough to fix 40K? Are you guys going back to 40K?

Well, to be fair, 5th edition is more than a rules tweak. The changes to wound allocation, LoS, and HtH combat are substantial. In fact it is one of the reasons in Episode 9 I said that I think the existing 40k fans would be less likely to enjoy 5th than new and/or returning players.

I really do think GW did as radical changes as possible within the framework that "all current codexes must still work."

That said, I DO still believe that the game could benefit from a 'reboot,' i.e. a ground up redesign of all mechanics. I like what I see in 5th, but I don't think it will pull me away from my new found love of WM. WM just plays so clean.

Also found your discussion on PP vs. GW interesting.
If I might comment about pricing from an overseas viewpoint?

There is a huge disparity between what the US gamer pays for their gaming and what the Aussie gamer pays.
eg. Baneblade tank in US costs $95. In Australia, that same tank is $160 !! Aust dollar currently buys about 95c US.
For price parity, Aust gamers should be paying around $100 ?

I am not an economist, maybe I am missing something? BUT how can such a difference be justified?
I have heard the argument that the price charged in any particular market is what the local market will bear?
In other words Aussies are prepared to pay 40% more for the same products as the Yanks?

To be clear, when we mentioned the price of the Baneblade we were talking about the NEW PLASTIC Baneblade, not the old Forgeworld one. (which is much more expensive) Hope that helps explain it.

I just listened and was curious about one thing. I believe Yak said he was satisfied with 85% of the changes made in 5th Edition. What would the other 15% be that they could have addressed and didn't?

I wasn't sure if his mention and concern about future FAQs was the remaining 15%, or if there was something else he wished would have been addressed.

Very interesting show - I enjoyed it.

Mez

RussWakelin wrote:To be clear, when we mentioned the price of the Baneblade we were talking about the NEW PLASTIC Baneblade, not the old Forgeworld one. (which is much more expensive) Hope that helps explain it.

Hi Russ

Yes, I realise you were talking about the new kit....The prices I am quoting ARE for the new kit !! So, say I wanted to buy a Baneblade. I would probably log onto GW US and land it in Australia for about $130 including postage. $30 cheaper than I can buy it local? It just doesn't make sense.....

It's interesting that GW US's answer to this seems to be that they are now adding 10% VAT (actually GST in Australia) to my purchases where they previously did not.

This change occurred with the recent "fix" of the GW site. So I would say, we have seen a couple of major changes with the website(none of them good). You mentioned the demise of the bits service. How cool was that service!? Now, we have what would amount to about 4 pages in a bits catalogue.....Question? What happened to all those bits overnight? Did GW Tennessee warehouse just throw all those bits away? Are they stockpiling them? Even if you are culling the range. If you have the stock, why not continue to sell them through? I bought the "Battle of five armies" box set on special from my LGS. I had intended to buy some of the extras for it over time. I landed some elven calvary for it late last year. Now it seems I cant get a single extra unit for the game. This has occurred overnight! Very strange way to do business.....

Mezmaron wrote:I just listened and was curious about one thing. I believe Yak said he was satisfied with 85% of the changes made in 5th Edition. What would the other 15% be that they could have addressed and didn't?

I wasn't sure if his mention and concern about future FAQs was the remaining 15%, or if there was something else he wished would have been addressed.

Very interesting show - I enjoyed it.

Mez

85% was a pretty rough estimate, and yes most of the things I wish they'd change stem from the fact that those ideas are 'locked into' the existing codices.

I too would really like a full 'reboot' of the system (wiping out all the existing codices), but I understand that such a thing is very unpopular with many players and is pretty much a disaster from a marketing standpoint of the game (codices, besides containing rules, are also a tool for retailers to sell models).

One of the most fundamental flaws with the game, IMHO is the force organization chart. I would love to see it changed to something similar to fantasy, but of course doing so would contradict all the existing codices.

I'd ike to see vehicle fire arcs written into vehicle codex entries, as well as a descriptor in each vehicle's codex entry telling what weapons were "main" or "defensive" rather than having them on a rigid Strength based system. This would allow individual vehicles within a codex to be balanced at the designer's whims rather than having to create special rules to allow a vehicle to fire more than one weapon on the move.

I like the idea of 'Kill Points' (i.e. a simplified version of victory points) but I think they would need to be assigned on a unit by unit basis in each codex to make them really truly balanced. But again, this is something that really should be tackled in each codex rather than the main rules.


When it comes to the main game rules, I am quite pleased but I really would have liked to see them address the issue (IMHO) of Monstrous Creatures (and other multi-wound models that ignore instant death) being far too resilient. I would have *loved* for them to include a rule that weapons which always inflict instant death regardless of a model's toughness cause models who ignore the instant death rule to suffer D3 wounds instead of just one.

That way, something like a Force weapon would still be useful against creatures who are immune to instant death but wouldn't necessarily be completely lethal. I think it would have been a good balance.


Also, I'm not entirely happy with how they attempted to balance vehicles by making them have to stay still in order to fire all their weapons. I think a balance *was* necessary, but with everything else in the game gaining mobility with the inclusion of the 'run' rule, vehicles really seem to be an oddity now.

Good stuff!!!

Well done Gents... Kudos.

It's good to see that even the self proclaimed grumpy gamers see the changes as welcome and positive overall. Nice to see that 5th adds more dynamics and simplicity to the game.

On a side note... I think we should start a letter writing campaign to have Yakface added to the GW pay-roll... Your FAQ is outstanding and GW has certainly benefited from all of your hard work.


-beef