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Warmachine and Hordes nuff said.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And it's absolutely not an attempt to sell more models, and more evenly across each range is it? OH no.

It's always about the little kiddies.

Their target audience hasn't changed in over 12 years!

Actually, its just due to decreased expectations on our children. Most of them could've understood the more complicated set ups. We just don't expect it anymore. Thus the thought their kids, so give them pablum. Not the kids fault just a society that increasingly coddles their children and business models that say mainstreaming=dumbing down to get more people in buying their product.

Nonsense.

Any Wargame stil requires an awful lot of reading in order to play it properly, plus various other skills which develop from playing them.

What GW has done, is to streamline the rules so games can be played within a more convenient timescale. I rarely have 3-4 hours for a game (well, maybe not anymore now I have my own board) but 2 hours? That I can often spare.

Sure, you could do the same in earlier editions, but the scale of the battle was smaller. To sell more models, you take away some of the more finnickity details, and produce a slicker system. This is *not* dumbing down.

Why is it heading toward hero hammer?

Because no one is at the helm.

GW clearly has no Editor with authority, and no production team with consistency in mind. I use to think there were plans, machiavellan or otherwise, but nowadays, I think there is just no single editorial element that controls the design during publication cycles. Which is essentially random and left up to whoever is publishing at the moment. Each publication being a snapshot of the staff and the thinking at the time with little to no thought of future or past work, thematicly or in practice.

I suspect that later 40k releases will not be done in the same design paradigm as the marine codex (with regards to changing FOC and heros) and we will get some other mechanisms.

I don't think GW has been able to remain consistent in any edition of any of it's rules and there is no reason to expect the current pattern to be definitive either.

Things like "Universal Special Rules" are an amusing irony every time they get published. The core rule book rules integrity lasting about as long as it takes to get the next book out.

Time will tell.

At least it is dramatic to find out!

I gotta agree with Augustus.

Re: Special Characters allowing FoC changes, I kind of wish they let you just purchase the changes when building an HQ. Maybe do it like the 'nid version of "Pick up to 2 from List A, and 3 from List B." Especially for IG I think that would really allow for some flexible and interesting characters that are player created.

For Tau, I can definitely see "Commander T'Ank Shu'Ta" who makes all tank weapons master crafted, or "Sni'Kei" who lets stealth suits be troops or something.
Less tongue in cheek, it would be neat to see two choices of Mont'Ka or ... the other one, where it gets you additional force org choices, sort of like in DoW. One gets you an extra heavy slot for a price, the other more elites or fast attack. Something like that.

Still, Tau would probably benefit most by having something other than firewarriors and kroot as troops choices. Even one deep striking suit unit being scoring would be huge.

I find the specials in Space Marines a little restricting fluffwise (unless you're fielding Smurfs). Maybe you want to play Salamanders but not have Vulkan as your HQ? You can't anymore, unless you're just playing them as green Smurfs (which is no fun at all).

Chapter Traits/Doctrines and the like made more sense to me and they didn't really dominate the game either.

I think GW saw the financial's between special characters that really benefit an army versus those that are "Generic HQ + some nifty weapon". I am sure the difference between sales is signficant enough to quantify.

Although I agree this is similar to warmachine, it is not like GW hasn't had characters affect an FOC or an army prior to PP. I just think this hero focused paradigm resulted from financial considerations and a desire to streamline the rules away from the Pete Haines style of codexes.

winterman wrote:I think GW saw the financial's between special characters that really benefit an army versus those that are "Generic HQ + some nifty weapon". I am sure the difference between sales is signficant enough to quantify.

Exactly! Metal Ghazghkull Thraka: $35.

Flashman wrote:I find the specials in Space Marines a little restricting fluffwise (unless you're fielding Smurfs). Maybe you want to play Salamanders but not have Vulkan as your HQ? You can't anymore, unless you're just playing them as green Smurfs (which is no fun at all).

Chapter Traits/Doctrines and the like made more sense to me and they didn't really dominate the game either.

I think we're getting to the point where we just have to say, "Counts as Vulkan, but
his name is Commander Worf."

malfred wrote:I think we're getting to the point where we just have to say, "Counts as Vulkan, but
his name is Commander Worf."

But Worf was a Klingon, not a vulcan...

PS-You misspelled "Vulkan."

ZamboniKnight wrote:

malfred wrote:I think we're getting to the point where we just have to say, "Counts as Vulkan, but
his name is Commander Worf."

But Worf was a Klingon, not a vulcan...

PS-You misspelled "Vulkan."

That was part of my joke :(

Ha ha ha

If you play Iron Hands, you have to call him Data.......

Augustus wrote:I don't think GW has been able to remain consistent in any edition of any of it's rules and there is no reason to expect the current pattern to be definitive either.

I would disagree with the "any" part as the 2nd edition Black Codex was consistent. Albeit a "complete snapshot", which is ironic in a way.

Ah yes, when they included ALL the army lists in the core release in the little black appended attachment you mean?

I forgot about that!

Hasn't 40k always been all about hero hammer to some degree? Look at Chaos Space Marine daemon princes and Space Marine Librarians from 4e as an example. It's not as easy now since you cannot consolidate into a fresh assault.

G

Does anybody know if the stats/points from the Black 'dex are available somewhere? I've got the Rulebook/Wargear/Codex Imperialis books, but for some reason I must have discarded the Black Codex I know the cardboard ork dread is long gone!

Augustus wrote:Ah yes, when they included ALL the army lists in the core release in the little black appended attachment you mean?

I forgot about that!

Just Johnson and Chambers, no staff.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And it's absolutely not an attempt to sell more models, and more evenly across each range is it? OH no.

It's always about the little kiddies.

Their target audience hasn't changed in over 12 years!

I think the kiddies thing ties into trying to sell more models.

I stand by what I said. If they were that concerned about selling models evenly across ranges they would have updated Dark Eldar long ago.

ZamboniKnight wrote:Does anybody know if the stats/points from the Black 'dex are available somewhere? I've got the Rulebook/Wargear/Codex Imperialis books, but for some reason I must have discarded the Black Codex I know the cardboard ork dread is long gone!

There's this to start

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/RETRO%20REVIEW%20-%20The%20Black%20Codex%20(2nd%20Edition)

I've found a couple of sites that you could download it from, but I find their front page rather dubious due to the porn on the side bar.

Also, 40k is not hero hammer,as i haved killed several of these heros, with the prime example being kantor, who, inless he sits in a rhino, never survives a game in my flgs.

It's certainly not HeroHammer in the way it was in 2nd Ed. I have fond memories of fighitng off a unit of 12 Berzerker Terminators using nothing but my Inquisitor Terminator Lord and a pair of Commissars, or the titanic struggles between Calgar and Yarrick. Those were fun.

What's not fun is GW's current trend of making Special Characters more important with their army altering effects. This is only made worse when something you could do previously without a special character is changed so that you have to bring the special character. This is made even worse when said special character rides the last Jetbike EVER in the WHOLE IMPERIUM and he rides it to every battle, no matter how minor the skirmish - getting spare parts for that thing must be a bitch.

I don't think I've seen a Blood Angel army in recent times that doesn't start:

Dante
Corbulo (or whatever his name is)

How many Marine armies start with Shrike/Lysander/Vulkan/Cantor? How many Daemon armies come to the table with Fateweaver or the Blue Scribes or the Changelling - if not all 3. Snikrot sure shows up a lot in Ork armies these days. And there's always the ever-present (everywhere, at once, all the time) Eldrad.

The only army that doesn't use special characters is Chaos because their Codex is a load of total boring BS and Lash Princes are soooooo much better.

GW will continue this trend in the new Guard Codex, except they won't be named special characters, they'll just be unique 0-1 characters that you'll need to alter your army. As I said in that thread, 'a rose by any other name' is still a damned special character. Just because he's called "Fleet Commander" rather than "Major Grav McChute of the 2888th Gravvy Grav Chuters" doesn't change the fact that it's a special character being required to do something that we did before without them.

Anyway, 40K isn't turning into HeroHammer with its reliance on Special Characters. It's turning into Warmachine.

The only bright spark in all of this is the Captain entry in the Marine Codex that allows you to bring Bikes as Troops if you take a Bike for your Commander. That is the only flavourful thing GW has done in a recent Codex to date.

BYE

Indeed!

All hail HBMC, with his well timed & always accurate posts. cutting straight to the heart of the debate like a powersword through so much useless flak armour!

H.B.M.C. wrote:

GW will continue this trend in the new Guard Codex, except they won't be named special characters, they'll just be unique 0-1 characters that you'll need to alter your army. As I said in that thread, 'a rose by any other name' is still a damned special character. Just because he's called "Fleet Commander" rather than "Major Grav McChute of the 2888th Gravvy Grav Chuters" doesn't change the fact that it's a special character being required to do something that we did before without them.

And what I want to know is, how is this different from the fact that you're probably going to
use the same options for your commander from game to game anyway, and other people are
going to do the same thing?

"Lt. Worf, of the Imperial Guard Regiment Enterprise, is a heroic junior officer."

The difference is what and who my commander was makes no difference to my current force. The Doctrines I choose determine my force, not the guy giving the orders. This May, when Doctrines go the way of the Chaos Legions and get thrown out in favour of IC-driven doctrines, then it's different. I am no longer driving the army's choices, the IC is.

It's no longer "What sort of army do I want to take". In stead it is "What sort of special character do I have to take to bring the army I want to take". And, as I just said, whether he is 'Generic Fleet Command' or 'Fleetus Von Commanderus of the Segmentum Blandus Fleet Command Commander's Academy of Fleet Command Fleet Commanders' makes no difference. It's still tying the army list to special characters.

BUE

I don't think I've seen a Blood Angel army in recent times that doesn't start:

Dante
Corbulo (or whatever his name is)

How many Marine armies start with Shrike/Lysander/Vulkan/Cantor? How many Daemon armies come to the table with Fateweaver or the Blue Scribes or the Changelling - if not all 3. Snikrot sure shows up a lot in Ork armies these days. And there's always the ever-present (everywhere, at once, all the time) Eldrad.

To be fair, if its a dark angels army it's in all likelihood going to have one of the special characters. Its a thousand dudes, the special characters lead those thousand dudes. If you are playing a fluff chapter with a special codex like the dark angels or blood angels it's actually pretty part in parcel for the special characters that give that army flavor to be there.


That said, the special character inclusions in the marine codex could have probably been better served as nameless generics (like in the ork codex). I like the character differentiation system, it's better than traits because its a physical thing. It exists on the table. I don't need to look at a marine player in puzzlement wondering how get gets to break the army comp rules any more like I still do with imperial guard.

Should they all have been lumped into special characters? Questionable, since counts as conversions defeats the point of there being a visible link in the chain that at a glance can tell you what the army is about without requiring you to delve your opponents codex.

Eldrad isn't indicative of this, he's just too cost effective. The ork codex has done it best so far in my mind. A mekboy and warboss are easy to diferentiate, and each has an army comp effect without forcing a special character. I just wish that you weren't forced into wazdakka to get a bike force (The boss can be on a bike, I don't see why it would be so hard to make that the impetus for force org like it is in the marine book).

I am no longer driving the army's choices, the IC is.

But it's your independent character to (hopefully) convert and equip as you will with. A tank commander in the imperial guard is going to be the guy in charge of the tanks, just as a warboss on a bike is the guy thats going to lead the speed freaks. It does somewhat constrain possibilities, but by the same token it makes forces more thematic (and more sensible) and doesn't force codex diving every time you don't understand what doctrine is being used.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Nonsense.

Any Wargame stil requires an awful lot of reading in order to play it properly, plus various other skills which develop from playing them.

What GW has done, is to streamline the rules so games can be played within a more convenient timescale. I rarely have 3-4 hours for a game (well, maybe not anymore now I have my own board) but 2 hours? That I can often spare.

Sure, you could do the same in earlier editions, but the scale of the battle was smaller. To sell more models, you take away some of the more finnickity details, and produce a slicker system. This is *not* dumbing down.

I, absolutely, agree that they streamlined the system and it is now much slicker in game play.

I, also agree that the overall reason and mission is to sell more models(Never disagreed on that, It's what my last sentencce stated).

But, I disagree as to the dumbing down. The Green movement/damage/wound counters set they sell says it all for me. Yes they're making money off of it. But your not expected to pay attention any more. I need a marker to tell me how far I moved? I need a marker to tell me how far my opponent moved?

It may not occur in your country but over here we're battling a sliding baseline in almost every aspect of our society. And it is showing up at the FLGS. I saw this at the local GW when playing in a tournament. On the one free pick up table. A lego WarHound Titan and A non-painted, non-modeled, plain cardbord box as a "counts as" for a Baneblade. It was only a few years ago that you didn't get to play if your army was unpainted. I'm not a stickler about this myself(the lego warhound was kinda cool) but the change in GW stance says something about the companies expectation of its perspective customers.

In that tournament was a young man who's had enough time to collect, paint, and customize a sizable Tau army. This young gent didn't know that (unles your a SM, or something with special rule/character allowing such) you can't regroup when within 6" of the enemy. He actually demanded to see it in the rulebook. A lot of the kids don't read the rulebooks. They learn the game mechanics through gameplay and lightly read their own codexs'.

But if we disagree on this 2 outta 3 things agreed upon isn't bad.

catch ya later

dietrich wrote:It's a change in design philosophy. GW tried Doctrines with IG and Traits with SM. They were very popular, but not well balanced. Some Doctrines and Traits are 'no-brainers' and most of the penalties - you could build your SM list so the disadvantage didn't matter.

They're using special characters more because:
1) They like the models and want to sell the models.
2) It's a way to provide limited customization. If you fielding a special HQ, you can only have one other HQ, and their wargear is limited, which helps to limit the abusiveness.

I think it's better than the other options: 1) No customization (third edition) or 2) Penalties that didn't matter.

I hear this said a lot, but I don't believe it.

There's no reason for the penalties of traits and doctrines to not matter. That was purely a result of GW not doing enough in that regard, and it has nothing to do with the system itself.

Also, how does it limit abusiveness by taking up an HQ slot and disallowing customization of their weapons, when half the time Special Characters are better than any comparable HQ choice?

How many new Space Marine lists are there that are every bit as 'no-brainer' as the ones made with chapter traits? White Scars armies that outflank everything. Salamander armies with sisters as allies.
There's just as much abuse possible with the special character system as there is with the trait system. The only difference is saddling armies with the same tired characters, and telling people to 'counts-as' when people want to play any chapter that's different but not one of the 10 or so chapters GW recognizes.