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H.B.M.C. wrote:So why did the Soviet branch of GW get the scoop first?

Blame :

Bush/Obama/Gun Control/Religion...wait! Oh, sorry, thought I was on the OT board again.

Timing I guess, or maybe GW are trying to make a push there ? Has to happen somewhere, and it's as good of a place as any. For this sort of thing anyway.

In fairness this might not be about SPace HUlk, perhaps it's some other super secret project they've got or been working on.

...but I doubt it.

It seems that I owe you an apology and a retraction, HBMC. Evidently I DIDNT put the question mark in question into the subject heading, and I apologize for having a gakky attitude about it. I didnt remember typing it at all (I'm sure you can understand with all the posts you've made, not remembering every subject line), but looking at it after you brought it to my attention.

Alpharius wrote:

grizgrin wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:Questions marks Grizgrin! Question marks! You've been here long enough to know that.

I thought that the single question mark I put at the end of the message subject conveyed inquisitiveness as opposed to being declaritive just fine. No offense, but dont look for punctuation upgrades on my part soon, especially when the current state and usage ref: Engrish language are just fine and have been for quite a while.

Just so you know, I put the question mark in the title after I saw that you forgot to add it in.

Of course, H.B.M.C. replied to your post before I could finish editing it in, so, there you have it!

(Just want you to be sure that you're not losing your mind or anything... )

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:

Majesticgoat wrote:I think that there was a Blood Angels Codex released as 5th Edition updated Chapter Approved articles that were shown in White Dwarf?

Yes and it sucked almost as badly as the Dark Angels codex.

But at least DAs got a proper codex....

Huh? It was FREE, and is among the more playable SM Codies to come out from GW.

I hardly call that "sucking".

I hardly call the White Dwarf free. Wasn't the Codex in two separate WD's? And what are they? 7$ Each? Call it free if you like, but even for a "free" one it wasn't that cool.

Greets
Schepp himself

Some of us waited for the download on GW's website. For us, it was effectively FREE.

It is "free" now online at GW, and has been for some time.

Unless you factor in the cost of the paper and ink involved in printing it out, but that is a bit on the insignificant side, especially considering the cost associated with most GW products...

EDIT: Ninja'd by JHDD!

And while some think it is great-o-licious, others think you certainly get what you pay for.

Flashman wrote:Yes and it gave them a lot more character than the DA Codex afforded the Dark Angels.

Blood Angels got Assault Squads as Troops

Dark Angels got accurate teleporting for Deathwing Squads. Very "Hunt the Fallen" that was.

MARGINALLY more character than DA. However this "codex" still suffered from, "The Great Creative Drought" circa 2007-08"

Things they did well:
Assault squads as troops
Stopped treating super-charged engines like bombs
Brought some of the vehicle prices up to date.
Made BA pay for DC so every other player could get their panties out of knots.

What they did poorly:
Removed all Sanquinary High Priests. They all went on holiday I guess since there was nothing in the storyline explaining this. The lowly Sanquinary Priests are still available in the overpriced Honor Guard squads, but their superiors? Magically Gone.

Got rid of furious charge and gave it to orks. I can see making them pay for it, but just snipping it all out except for Corbulo? Again, doesn't make any sense.

Gave a psychic power that is difficult to use- Wings of Sanquinius. Tying your HQ to your unit via repeated dice rolls = the dice will fail out at some point. Not well thought out- the ability to attach HQ units to squads should not be based on chance. Chaplains & Captains get a jump pack. Librarians? Nope.

Almost all options removed. This plagued several codexs and it's a horrible thing to do. Every unit looks cookie cutter because it only has one good option to upgrade. Only plasma pistol upgrades for assault troops? Really? The overpriced pistol that isn't worth taking? What happened to the flame throwers or other... you know... ASSAULT weapons? Again, while this was not specific to just the Blood Angels codex, it crushed the life out being creative with it; had about as much flexibility as the Necron codex does. Because of this, there are almost no Blood Angels players in our area now, especially after the new SM codex came out with 1.2 billionty upgrade options.

Combat Squads... so many horrible horrible things associated with those two words, but we'll keep it to just a few points. First: Because all my basic units were bought in 5 OR 10 man squads I found myself getting 1530 out of a 1550 pt list. Normally I could add or drop A SINGLE marine out of a squad to make up the points, but the inflexibility of combat squads made me have to dump entire units instead. Brutally slowed. Lastly, it cut back on the ability to attach a ground HQ choice (named characters) to a unit since a Rhino only had 10 seats. It was a land raider, hoofing it, or wait for someone to die so the HQ could hop in the transport with the other 9 marines.

When you have a codex, you want your players to struggle to make their lists awesome, not to have them struggling to make the lists work.

@Moopy: I generally agree; however, on balance, the BA Codex is still "good", despite the shortcomings you listed.

The "fixes" like AM Troops and bundling in the DC cost more than outweigh the limited options and so forth.

JHDD and I have had a few discussions before on this subject, so I'll keep it to just one reply.

Every codex gives the army something more than what it had before. Counting fixes for old problems should not count as one of those things. Those are fixes, not perks. It's like saying, "We now can sell you Dawn of War 2: It's the exactly the same as Dawn of War but without the bugs!"

General design: When you add MORE options to a list, it inspires creativity. People spend more time thinking about customizing their lists outside of the game. This generates more unique looking lists, and promotes the hobby since people are excited about what they're doing. It's up to the designers to make sure that they think through the new stuff and to make sure that the combos they put in the codex can not be exploited. More is always better than less.

Moopy wrote:JHDD and I have had a few discussions before on this subject, so I'll keep it to just one reply.

Every codex gives the army something more than what it had before. Counting fixes for old problems should not count as one of those things. Those are fixes, not perks. It's like saying, "We now can sell you Dawn of War 2: It's the exactly the same as Dawn of War but without the bugs!"

General design: When you add MORE options to a list, it inspires creativity. People spend more time thinking about customizing their lists outside of the game. This generates more unique looking lists, and promotes the hobby since people are excited about what they're doing. It's up to the designers to make sure that they think through the new stuff and to make sure that the combos they put in the codex can not be exploited. More is always better than less.

I 100% agree with you moopy. I have suffered through the loss of many an options as a DA player, and feel like they lost the character of the army.
Oh great, I get to take bikes as troops if I take the 205 point special character, same as vanilla marines now.
But I also get to take termies as troops? I had that before but didnt have to pay for another special character.

Look, no more Hunt the Fallen, distrust allies, or anything else. Its not adding things to make them better, its taking away for god knows what reason.

I really dont mind loosing some special characters, but loosing the rules that make the army FEEL like the army they are trying to sell makes no sense. I feel bad for BA players, and if this trend continues, Ill feel bad for SW players as well....unless they get all the stuff from the vanilla codex, then Ill just despise them more.

Fair enough, Moopy, and I'll stop with just this counterpoint.

As I see it: costing DC is definitely a fix, along with removing the Stupidity tests; AM as Troops are a perk, as no other MEQs have JP Troops.

I see the MEQ design space segmented into different flavors: BA, BT, DA, SM, SW, CSM, and Necrons before secondary options are applied. Too much overlap is stifling (as in 2E, carrying through to 4E), and the different flavors might as well not exist.

Too many options (e.g. Traits, Doctrines, Craftworlds, and Legions), and GW cannot balance them adequately, to make them sufficiently attractive to the point that they are used - I call this "false choice". I'd rather see GW make 3 or 4 really good, well-thought out options, than several dozen poorly-conceived options of which only 3 or 4 end up being used.

Moopy wrote:
Things they did well:
Assault squads as troops

I don't get why BA get assault squads as troops. They are supposed to be a codex chapter with a geneseed flaw, not a flying circus.

Codex chapters have assault squads. Hell, codex chapters have a whole company of nothing but assault squads.

Craftworlds and Legions were not 'False Choices'. They played differently, and while some mightn't've been any good (1KSons being a shining example), they were actual choices, inspired a variety of armies, and that's all gone now.

Doctrines and Traits were a false choice, because while they were great concepts they were executed horribly.

But don't try to lump them together DD, that's just being disingenuous (which we know you never are).

If some were clearly superior than others and this resulted in some rarely being taken (1k Sons) and some almost always being taken (Iron Warriors, whichever craftworld had the super snipers that put your army in reserve), then they were false choices.

I'd rather have a codex that allows me take a Sam Hainn or World Eaters army but doesn't force me into a box.

Exactly.

Saim-Hann Jetbikes vs. Biel-Tan Aspects? False choice.

Night Lords 4th Fast vs Iron Warriors 4th Heavy? False choice again.

Ozymandias wrote:If some were clearly superior than others and this resulted in some rarely being taken (1k Sons) and some almost always being taken (Iron Warriors, whichever craftworld had the super snipers that put your army in reserve), then they were false choices

Uhh... no.

A false choice is when you're forced to give something up that you were never going to take in the first place or choose between something you want or something you were never going to take. Two examples:

eg 1. Restricted Troop Types for Guard - I was never going to take Ogryn, SWSs, Ratlings, Priests, Psykers and so on, but by 'giving them up', I get CoD and Drop Troops for free. This is a false choice.
eg 2. 'We Stand Alone' Negative Trait - I was never planning on taking any Inquisitorial allies in my army, but by taking this option that forbids me from doing something I wasn't going to do anyway, I gain a beneficial Trait. This is a false choice.

Choosing to play World Eaters when you weren't planning on playing Slaaneshi is as much a false choice as choosing to play Black Templars when I didn't want any Wolf Guard in my army...

Ozymandias wrote:I'd rather have a codex that allows me take a Sam Hainn or World Eaters army but doesn't force me into a box.

I don't remember either of the last Chaos or Eldar armies 'forcing' anyone into a box. Or are you buying into that 'less is more' nonsense that DD's been spouting for 2 years now?

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
I don't get why BA get assault squads as troops. They are supposed to be a codex chapter with a geneseed flaw, not a flying circus.

BA were designed as a chapter with a fearsome reputation for devastating assaults. Take a look at most of the pictures of BA since the codex and you have a majority of them being an assault squad hopping about being assaulty. For better or for worse this has translated into the Red Thirst being swapped for assault squads as troops.

JohnHwangDD wrote: Too many options (e.g. Traits, Doctrines, Craftworlds, and Legions), and GW cannot balance them adequately, to make them sufficiently attractive to the point that they are used

I'm sorry, but that's the design team's JOB. It's done in other games, it's done in video games, it's done all the time. Yes, it's hard, but not impossible, and it's something they signed up for. This is an area that has been lax for a long time- not enough play testing the units to see what works on the board and what looks good on paper.

Moopy wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote: Too many options (e.g. Traits, Doctrines, Craftworlds, and Legions), and GW cannot balance them adequately, to make them sufficiently attractive to the point that they are used

I'm sorry, but that's the design team's JOB.

It's done in other games, it's done in video games, it's done all the time. Yes, it's hard, but not impossible, and it's something they signed up for. This is an area that has been lax for a long time- not enough play testing the units to see what works on the board and what looks good on paper.

Hey, I thought you were done!

Exactly right. And part of that job is to decide what options to offer, and not to offer things that they cannot support, rather than to just throw stuff out and see what sticks.

It's interesting that you choose video games as an example. If you look at a "classic" like Warcraft 2, how many different choices were there, and how much balancing was required? IIRC, there was only one slot that differed, and the difference was healing vs extra damage. Otherwise, the balance was identical. And when Blizzard strayed from the identical army design in Starcraft, they had to patch and rebalance after the game was released. I guess Blizzard's designers must suck, and not know gak about playtesting or balance if they can't release with perfect balance out of the gate...

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Hey, I thought you were done!

Oh I was all done with Blood Angles. We've had our go-around with that.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Uhh... no.

A false choice is when you're forced to give something up that you were never going to take in the first place or choose between something you want or something you were never going to take. Two examples:

eg 1. Restricted Troop Types for Guard - I was never going to take Ogryn, SWSs, Ratlings, Priests, Psykers and so on, but by 'giving them up', I get CoD and Drop Troops for free. This is a false choice.
eg 2. 'We Stand Alone' Negative Trait - I was never planning on taking any Inquisitorial allies in my army, but by taking this option that forbids me from doing something I wasn't going to do anyway, I gain a beneficial Trait. This is a false choice.

Choosing to play World Eaters when you weren't planning on playing Slaaneshi is as much a false choice as choosing to play Black Templars when I didn't want any Wolf Guard in my army...

Fair enough. I think we may have different opinions on False Choice but that's a good point.

Ozymandias wrote:I'd rather have a codex that allows me take a Sam Hainn or World Eaters army but doesn't force me into a box.

I don't remember either of the last Chaos or Eldar armies 'forcing' anyone into a box. Or are you buying into that 'less is more' nonsense that DD's been spouting for 2 years now?

Using the cult lists forced me to use only the units allowed. The new Chaos dex I can still pretty much make a cult list but if I want my Noise Marines to have some Berzerkers, that is still an option. My memory is fuzzy with the Eldar Craftworld list but I believe it was pretty much the same, my choices were restricted if I wanted to play Iyanden for example. The new dex allows me to play Iyanden but still gives me more flexibility.

Ozymandias wrote:If some were clearly superior than others and this resulted in some rarely being taken (1k Sons) and some almost always being taken (Iron Warriors, whichever craftworld had the super snipers that put your army in reserve).

Was the Alaitoc ranger army really that good? I never saw anyone play that army... ever. I played eldar in 3rd (Biel Tan) and always wanted to try the ranger army, but shied away because of the lack of anti tank.

GG

All I remember is that every time I played against it my army was sent to reserve and then destroyed by Starcannons as I came on the board.

generalgrog wrote:Was the Alaitoc ranger army really that good?

Against non-Mech?

Yes!

I fielded it a couple of times with 2x5 Pathfinders and 8x3 Rangers for a whopping 10 rolls on the disruption table.

It's not that it's so strong per se, but that it is incredibly annoying.

Ozymandias wrote:

Using the cult lists forced me to use only the units allowed. The new Chaos dex I can still pretty much make a cult list but if I want my Noise Marines to have some Berzerkers, that is still an option. My memory is fuzzy with the Eldar Craftworld list but I believe it was pretty much the same, my choices were restricted if I wanted to play Iyanden for example. The new dex allows me to play Iyanden but still gives me more flexibility.

Not to sound all Preachy over fluff(Fluffeachy? Preluffy?). Chaos Cult lists were supposed to be Fluffy, that was the point. In GW fluff you would never find Zerkers working along side NoiseMarine's. The only way to make that option was to take a basic Black legion army, then you could take anything.
Not to be insulting but it sounds like you want to make an army with all the great choices and non of the drawbacks, A) where is the fun in that? B) If you know your army is going to win no matter what.. why play?(just an over exaggeration for effect).


Have we gone off topic?

Ozymandias wrote:Using the cult lists forced me to use only the units allowed.

What, like how playing Codex Dark Angels 'forces' me to only use the units allowed by Codex Dark Angels? Do you actually consider this a real line of thought Ozy? Really? By that 'logic' all Codices 'force' you to use the units that are only in that Codex.

Which is of course the intent of a Codex, so what's the problem?

Ozymandias wrote:The new Chaos dex I can still pretty much make a cult list but if I want my Noise Marines to have some Berzerkers, that is still an option.

Oddly enough, using the real Chaos Codex you could do that as well. You could have Noise Marines and Berzerkers in the same army. The only thing that could stop you were the rules for the rival Gods, which was a wonderfully fluffy rule that now seems absent from even the damned Daemons Codex.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people who claim that the new Chaos Codex has given them more options when, in fact, it's just taken away 8 different lists and left the 9th remaining list less fluffy than it was before. Oh well... at least you're not 'forced' into obeying the fluff and only taking Khornate units in a Khornate army.

Ozymandias wrote:My memory is fuzzy with the Eldar Craftworld list but I believe it was pretty much the same, my choices were restricted if I wanted to play Iyanden for example.

You really truly believe this, that these sub-dexes somehow 'forced' you to play a certain way and that this is somehow different from the Space Wolf or Dark Eldar Codices requiring you to use units only from the Space Wolf of Dark Eldar Codices (respectively). Was this some sort of epiphany you had that I haven't had yet? Did you wake up one morning and go:

"Feth me, I can't take Noise Marines in my Death Guard army! I'm... restricted! This Codex is terrible because it forces me to play a list to the fluff of that army!!!!!".

Really?

You can't argue forcing anything with the Craftworld Eldar Codex. There was the 3rd edition Eldar Dex, and the Craftworld Codex. You could use either of 5 lists. The Vanilla, or each of the 4 specialists that switched around the force org charts and had a couple of special rules or units unique to them. I don't own the second 3rd edition Chaos Codex but I have read through it plenty of times, and it gave you a vanilla list, with several side lists that gave you fluffy single legion armies that lost some choices for signature advantages. They may not have all been the best balanced, but they existed, and noone was forced to take anything unless you wanted to be by choosing a variant army list.

Oh cmon this thread is almost two months dead. Please read the date before posting.

It wrote:

and Reds8n, there is no Space hulk coming out. Its going to be an IG 2nd wave.

aahhh...good times.