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But why would tournaments do that? It leaves space for people to complain "The ONLY reAson U kilLleD mY VeTErAN WOlF SaBErSawS iS bEcaUSE of ToURnaMENT HoMEBreW"

 Eonfuzz wrote:
But why would tournaments do that? It leaves space for people to complain "The ONLY reAson U kilLleD mY VeTErAN WOlF SaBErSawS iS bEcaUSE of ToURnaMENT HoMEBreW"

I specificly said outside of tournments.

It's the same outside of tournament really.

 Jidmah wrote:
It's the same outside of tournament really.

depends on your situation, I'm assuming a scenerio where you have a play group of friends willing to take the odd house rule to improve the game.

BrianDavion wrote:

Outside of tournies it's easy eneugh to house rule "ok so a burna is basicly just a flamer so we'll update it's range accordingly. a fusion lance is a melta so we'll treat it like a melta"

but some armies have totally differant weapons etc. and simply errataing the weapons might not exactly work.

so this Edition is 2 Months old and we are back at writing our own rules to play the game
and instead of everyone is playing 40k, we have (again) everyone is using 40k minis to play a different kind of game and if you don't have a "house-rule group" it is better to get a new Marine army or wait for the next edition

you could also say that people should just use their models to play Star Wars Legion (they have delivery issues for their minis anyway so it perfectly fits), Warpath (you get your 2000 points game done in less than 2 hours) or OnePage Rules (for those who like smaller games anyway).

because outside of tournaments with your fixed group, you can do anything you want and don't need to wait for GW to fix their game at all.

 kodos wrote:

so this Edition is 2 Months old and we are back at writing our own rules to play the game
and instead of everyone is playing 40k, we have (again) everyone is using 40k minis to play a different kind of game and if you don't have a "house-rule group" it is better to get a new Marine army or wait for the next edition

Not really. We don't know the related points changes so we don't know if we'd even want the rule changes to apply to other armies.
If you feel the need to write house rules for something that's not even fully known that's not an issue with the rules.

We will see how balance will be affected by the upcoming changes, but let's be honest - balance right now is already fubar, so how much worse could it really get?

What we know for now:

There will be an Index like Errata for all Imperium Weapons with the same name
Marines get 2 Wounds with their Codex

the change to other Weapons will come with the new Codex
as will the change to other units

So we are at the same situation as we were at the start of 6th Edition with Flyers and AA-weapons

Point changes can fix some issues but not all.
Specially now with Anti-Horde rules there is no easy fix in points 10 Orks with 2 Wounds, are much better than 20 Orks with 1 Wound, even if the 20 would be cheaper

And point change is tricky anyway, as a new CA 21 in December might only add new points, but those would be just random number as there is no time to test anything
releasing a free Errata with the amount of changes needed will go against the current buisness model

So there will be at least a year for most factions to be broken until a fix happens

and if people now suggest to either use house rules or just play Marines (using Marine rules for Orks/Eldar/Tau/CSM) until GW might fix the problem is no real solution
as we are back to the old problem again, that the community is not able to agree to one set of house rules that will fix the problems


PS: by talking about "the rules" it is always the "Core" + "Codex" and never the Core Rules alone
the core was never broken or a problem, but always the factions rules
hence why massive change in the core did not solve much because the faction rules stayed the same
and while it is now a different game again, the problems are the similar to those we had in the past.

the re-work of Marines now is a chance to finally fix problems that are there since 3rd, but instead of doing it for all MEQ now but doing it via Codex release means that during this edition there are 2 different designs playing against each other and this never worked out well (as we have seen during past editions)

Yup, pretty much. Balance is screwed until everyone gets a new codex. Except I think maybe chaos will have the weapons we share with the Corpse Worshippers updated in the errata. And our fw stuff will get updated with the new books, whenever that happens.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
It's the same outside of tournament really.

depends on your situation, I'm assuming a scenerio where you have a play group of friends willing to take the odd house rule to improve the game.

That's some high hurdles you have to take there though:
1) Group of friends, not just a club or a store where you play
2) Willingness to adapt house rules at all beyond some things which are in dire need for such things (obvious typos, rules which make no sense
3) A common agreement on what will improve the game
4) People actually versed in rules-writing enough to create house rules

And then there is the issue of "if burnas get +4 range, then my hemlocks should get +4" as well".

So it's not as easy as many people make it out to be. I'm playing in a group with roughly 16 friends and friends-of-friends, and the suggestion of buffing flamers across the board would almost definitely get some vetos.

Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

It's a bit of a shame that the only solution is "make houserules".

Especially in consideration that we pay for the rules. It should NOT be our job to fix up the rules on a basic level because GW once again, as Kodos had said, allowed for 2 design philosophies to run into each other headlong.

As bad as some indexes were, ATLEAST they all shared predominatnly the same bloody design philosophy.

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

Except you have people buffing their own army, instead of a space monkey randomly pressing buttons to buff and nerf things.

Not to mention that the vast majority of fan made rules have even worse balance than GW's stuff.

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

I'd argue the balance was pretty ok (ofc not perfect) before the marine 2.0 dex.

 Ordana wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

I'd argue the balance was pretty ok (ofc not perfect) before the marine 2.0 dex.

after casttelan nerf?

I guess, some unit types like MEQ or PEQ did indeed struggle, but nothing that couldn't have been fixed with propper points and the application of a few rules like bolter discipline, etc

By the time those changes have been released to the public for proper testing, they're so far ahead of where they were that it doesn't matter.

The only feedback that has any effect is from the playtesters from months ago that were given the rules before release.

GW would be multiple iterations ahead of those times when any mass public feedback comes in.

IMO community feedback is thus pretty useless and GW do little with it, except maybe go back and tweak point values as those are outside of the rest of the design cycle they're in.

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's a bit of a shame that the only solution is "make houserules".

Especially in consideration that we pay for the rules. It should NOT be our job to fix up the rules on a basic level because GW once again, as Kodos had said, allowed for 2 design philosophies to run into each other headlong.

As bad as some indexes were, ATLEAST they all shared predominatnly the same bloody design philosophy.

you make it sound like the indexes where perfect, am I the only person who remembers that not everyone got a codex immediatly and some armies there stuck using the index until they got a new codex? am I the only one who remembers that also had a power imbalance?

BrianDavion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's a bit of a shame that the only solution is "make houserules".

Especially in consideration that we pay for the rules. It should NOT be our job to fix up the rules on a basic level because GW once again, as Kodos had said, allowed for 2 design philosophies to run into each other headlong.

As bad as some indexes were, ATLEAST they all shared predominatnly the same bloody design philosophy.

you make it sound like the indexes where perfect, am I the only person who remembers that not everyone got a codex immediatly and some armies there stuck using the index until they got a new codex? am I the only one who remembers that also had a power imbalance?

How you get from my statement, to yours that i claim indexes were perfect, is a bit of a wonder to me.

And frankly, the upgrade to dex vs index armies is the perfect exemple of the same issue, design philosophies hitting each other again, and no i remember these times pretty well, considering i still remember people claiming that the mainline warlord traits were good enough for orkzs, or how much "fun" GSC players had. And for maximum fun you could play a FW index army, through 8th. I did. I know pretty well how utterly slowed that is.

The truth is, GW artificially spreads out rules releases for monetary reasons only (spread the earnings evenly amongst quartals). Which then makes it miserable for the players that have to wait to the end to get an dex, and at that stage half the edition is basically over.
This time, we didn't even get an index clock reset, but also the allready existing discrepancies taken over into 9th, with what looks like a shoddy job of CA/ FAQ pts update, ontop of a further shift of design paradigm.
Not only that but some changes feel like they were done to fight against issue that were 2 meta shifts behind. Quite commonly infact over the recent history of CA's.

Indices were imbalanced, but they were all on the same level design wise and also the first Codizes released followed the same design (the change in design came later, hence why Marines 8.5 was necessary)

Imbalance coming from points is a different thing, always has been there and only easy to fix if it is not a design problem
eg: 2 Wounds for Marines creates imbalance by design and can only be fixed with all MEQ get 2 Wounds and with a pure point adjustment (looking at Brimstones as best example, the problem came with the design choise that all had the same amount of Wounds and the same Save, so the cheapest 1W 4++ was the best no matter the points)


the last time 2 designs clashed was mid 7th edition, were "free points via formations" came up and updates happened with new books only
this created an imbalance between old and new designs as well as between good and bad formations

the difference between formations could have been fixed with restrictions/point costs for those (a reason why Age of Sigmar went with points for formation instead of giving them away for free) while the imbalance between having them and not could only be fixed by adding them to all, or removing them


the one thing that is different from the past is now that the change in design does not happen in the middel of an edition but at the beginning, yet it does not happen for all of the armies but only for some
so we again have the problem that there are 2 designs that need to be balanced against each other and the imbalance of random points

the only easy solution for now would be that everyone just uses the Marine rule as a base for "count as" rules until their Codex is released

BrianDavion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's a bit of a shame that the only solution is "make houserules".

Especially in consideration that we pay for the rules. It should NOT be our job to fix up the rules on a basic level because GW once again, as Kodos had said, allowed for 2 design philosophies to run into each other headlong.

As bad as some indexes were, ATLEAST they all shared predominatnly the same bloody design philosophy.

you make it sound like the indexes where perfect, am I the only person who remembers that not everyone got a codex immediatly and some armies there stuck using the index until they got a new codex? am I the only one who remembers that also had a power imbalance?

No, you're not, thats exactly why I hate this new bs they're pulling, I played with an index vs a codex many times throughout 8th, and everybody acted like you suggested they eat a cat if you ask "Hey, I don't get an army-wide bonus rule just for existing, do you mind either we use one for my army from your book that makes sense, or you don't use yours?"

Their usual response would be "W-well but you get 'ere we go! That's BASICALLY the black templars trait! I mean it's only a 6++ on everything it hardly ever happens. And marines are sooooooooo underpowered without CTs and strats!"

I think when people talk about indexes they mean the 3-4 month halcyon period when you played with your friends with *reasonably* balanced mixes of whatever you wanted performing... kind of average.

"Didn't your meta just have Guilliman and 5 Stormravens"? Answer: No, perhaps surprisingly no one owned 5 Stormravens."

Clearly it wasn't perfect, but most armies felt like a 6-7 out of 10, and so it wasn't too obnoxious even if it started to be "solved" over time. See similar with Ravening Hordes 20 or whatever years ago. I don't think anyone thinks it was great that people were still using the index into 2018 as the power of new books rose higher and higher.

Tyel wrote:
I think when people talk about indexes they mean the 3-4 month halcyon period when you played with your friends with *reasonably* balanced mixes of whatever you wanted performing... kind of average.

"Didn't your meta just have Guilliman and 5 Stormravens"? Answer: No, perhaps surprisingly no one owned 5 Stormravens."

Clearly it wasn't perfect, but most armies felt like a 6-7 out of 10, and so it wasn't too obnoxious even if it started to be "solved" over time. See similar with Ravening Hordes 20 or whatever years ago. I don't think anyone thinks it was great that people were still using the index into 2018 as the power of new books rose higher and higher.

Yup. right now, everyone who already had the most optimized army at the end of 8th...surprise surprise, they're still unbeatable in 9th. There's no "honeymoon period" of people not knowing what's good and what's bad, because marines are blatantly and obviously still top dog, and even more so.

 Jidmah wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

Except you have people buffing their own army, instead of a space monkey randomly pressing buttons to buff and nerf things.

Not to mention that the vast majority of fan made rules have even worse balance than GW's stuff.

I mean, sure the houserules people are proposing are all about buffing yoru army. We're talking about giving stuff that will most probably happen in the future right now.
Making ALL autohitting weapons 12" minimum for example. Or making Chaos Space marines dreadclaws able to arrive on the board turn 1 just like the loyalist ones, or give legion traits to our vehicles too.

These are all things that will probably happen when our codexes release.

Ideally we wouldn't need to have these rules but once the new codex come out and you face 12" flamers when yours are only 8", its gonna suck big time

Tyel wrote:
I think when people talk about indexes they mean the 3-4 month halcyon period when you played with your friends with *reasonably* balanced mixes of whatever you wanted performing... kind of average.

"Didn't your meta just have Guilliman and 5 Stormravens"? Answer: No, perhaps surprisingly no one owned 5 Stormravens."

Clearly it wasn't perfect, but most armies felt like a 6-7 out of 10, and so it wasn't too obnoxious even if it started to be "solved" over time. See similar with Ravening Hordes 20 or whatever years ago. I don't think anyone thinks it was great that people were still using the index into 2018 as the power of new books rose higher and higher.

It's not like Gulliman with a storm raven, a storm talon, three razorbacks and a pair of predators was vastly more fun to play against. In fact, playing index orks was so much fun that I started Death Guard.

 Jidmah wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think when people talk about indexes they mean the 3-4 month halcyon period when you played with your friends with *reasonably* balanced mixes of whatever you wanted performing... kind of average.

"Didn't your meta just have Guilliman and 5 Stormravens"? Answer: No, perhaps surprisingly no one owned 5 Stormravens."

Clearly it wasn't perfect, but most armies felt like a 6-7 out of 10, and so it wasn't too obnoxious even if it started to be "solved" over time. See similar with Ravening Hordes 20 or whatever years ago. I don't think anyone thinks it was great that people were still using the index into 2018 as the power of new books rose higher and higher.

It's not like Gulliman with a storm raven, a storm talon, three razorbacks and a pair of predators was vastly more fun to play against. In fact, playing index orks was so much fun that I started Death Guard.

TBF, that didn't really change later on, the only decent thing the dexes did was allow back some customizability and choice, if well done internally, or actually do x, with trait y and then z. if done badly.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think when people talk about indexes they mean the 3-4 month halcyon period when you played with your friends with *reasonably* balanced mixes of whatever you wanted performing... kind of average.

"Didn't your meta just have Guilliman and 5 Stormravens"? Answer: No, perhaps surprisingly no one owned 5 Stormravens."

Clearly it wasn't perfect, but most armies felt like a 6-7 out of 10, and so it wasn't too obnoxious even if it started to be "solved" over time. See similar with Ravening Hordes 20 or whatever years ago. I don't think anyone thinks it was great that people were still using the index into 2018 as the power of new books rose higher and higher.

It's not like Gulliman with a storm raven, a storm talon, three razorbacks and a pair of predators was vastly more fun to play against. In fact, playing index orks was so much fun that I started Death Guard.

TBF, that didn't really change later on, the only decent thing the dexes did was allow back some customizability and choice, if well done internally, or actually do x, with trait y and then z. if done badly.

No what changed was Chapter Master came into the equation, and the Marine players realized they can do what Guilliman does for 200 pts less by paying 2CP.

Well, that and they could do it with their Custom Chapter that cherrypicked the best traits.

Realistically, what needs to happen is the Chapter Master stratagem needs to be locked from certain setups. Ultramarines shouldn't be able to take it, Raven Guard shouldn't be able to take it, Wolves, BA, DA.

 Ordana wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

I'd argue the balance was pretty ok (ofc not perfect) before the marine 2.0 dex.

To be honest, I don't think balance was too bad even after Marines 2.0. Granted, it was a kick in the teeth for Chaos, given that their own 2nd codex was a pale shadow in comparison, but overall I don't think it caused a massive imbalance to the game.

IMO the real problems were the successions of supplements that followed for each of the SM factions. Not only did we have a pile of specifically SM supplements, we then had Psychic Awakening - most of which were also effectively Marine Supplements, thinly disguised as universal bonuses.

I think it was this piling on of more and more options and abilities that really started to cause issues with balance.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
I mean, sure the houserules people are proposing are all about buffing yoru army. We're talking about giving stuff that will most probably happen in the future right now.
Making ALL autohitting weapons 12" minimum for example.

That's just an educated guess though, and one that is very likely to be wrong.

What range will plaguespurt gauntles have (currently 6")? Heavy D-scythes?
So it's not as simple as just making all of them 12" or giving all of them +4" range.

Or making Chaos Space marines dreadclaws able to arrive on the board turn 1 just like the loyalist ones, or give legion traits to our vehicles too.

Ever actually tried arguing the last one?
"Well, you've got a primarch"
"Your actual legion trait is disgustingly resilient"
"Those PBC would be too strong if they could shoot and move"
"You've got other things that loyalists don't have"
"There probably is a good reason for that"
*tzeench daemon player just laughing hysterically*

Ideally we wouldn't need to have these rules but once the new codex come out and you face 12" flamers when yours are only 8", its gonna suck big time

I'm fairly sure that DG heavy flamers and flamers will be in that exact situation - because their variants have different names and the plague weapon ability.

 vipoid wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well balance is always screwed so nothing new there ;-)

I'd argue the balance was pretty ok (ofc not perfect) before the marine 2.0 dex.

To be honest, I don't think balance was too bad even after Marines 2.0. Granted, it was a kick in the teeth for Chaos, given that their own 2nd codex was a pale shadow in comparison, but overall I don't think it caused a massive imbalance to the game.

IMO the real problems were the successions of supplements that followed for each of the SM factions. Not only did we have a pile of specifically SM supplements, we then had Psychic Awakening - most of which were also effectively Marine Supplements, thinly disguised as universal bonuses.

I think it was this piling on of more and more options and abilities that really started to cause issues with balance.

Exactly. Balance before sm2.0 was not fine, from a marine PoV. Balance with sm2.0 seemed fine, as a salamanders player I got to play without a supplement for a while and that was fun. The supplements then pushed marines from a good place to ridiculous levels, and the nerfs since then have been very conservative, but they were getting there prior to 9th, thanks in part to PA.

The current CA is just fubar, nothing to do with marines specifically.

All we can hope for now is that gw listened to their testers this time, and that while individual units and wargear might go up in power, marines as a faction are reduced in power. I'll certainly miss the hit roll for my salamanders, but it shows that gw is willing to put straight up nerfs into the new codex.

Its a bit of a moving feast - but yes, if you *just* had the SM book, I think it would have been competitive, but not so game warping.

SM 2.0+Supplements+Faith and Fury (admittedly for the few months) however created a runaway train with seemingly no breaks.

FWIW I think they should just get rid of the Chapter Master stratagem. If you want to buy Guilliman - or your faction's chapter master, cough up the points. If you don't, or can't because they don't exist, that sucks to be you.

Maybe it can be replaced with a stratagem to let you reroll all misses in 6" of a Captain for a single phase once per game.