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 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
They're separate publications, they need monitoring separately, likewose if the core rules hugely promoted dark eldar and hurt eldar you'd see those 2 publications shift in the win rates. These aren't a minor change ot an army in a codex, each packs a full set of warlord traits, powers, relics and strats unique to each of them.

How many unique units do Salamanders have compared to Iron Hands?
Now, how many unique units do Eldar have compared to Dark Elder?

That's a poor example by me really, how many unique units/powers/strats/traits are different between ulthe and iyanden, then salamanders and ultramarines is a better example.

You are the one who brought up Eldar and Dark Eldar.

Eldar and Dark Eldar should 100% be tracked separately. Because they have incredibly minimal overlap. I believe they share one Stratagem (Lightning Fast Reflexes) and a few pieces of equipment (Power Swords and whatnot, mostly).

Whereas Salamanders and Iron Hands share...

76 Units
12 Warlord Traits
34 Strats (Minus one or two, actually-I believe a few have been errata'd away)
15 Relics
12 Psychic Powers
6 Litanies

They also don't share 3 characters, 6 warlord traits each, 6 psychic powers each, 1 litany each, their chapter doctrine, chapter tactics, 11 relics each, 14 or so strats each.

Difference between ulthe and iyanden: 1 warlord trait, 1 strat, 1 relic, 1 character each.


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the_scotsman wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
They're separate publications, they need monitoring separately, likewose if the core rules hugely promoted dark eldar and hurt eldar you'd see those 2 publications shift in the win rates. These aren't a minor change ot an army in a codex, each packs a full set of warlord traits, powers, relics and strats unique to each of them.

How many unique units do Salamanders have compared to Iron Hands?
Now, how many unique units do Eldar have compared to Dark Elder?

That's a poor example by me really, how many unique units/powers/strats/traits are different between ulthe and iyanden, then salamanders and ultramarines is a better example.

It's almost as though this is something that's brought up as a fundamental problem with Space Marines.

You know, how they not only get 6x what every other codex gets in terms of options for selecting their subfaction, but that they also get to use custom subfaction traits AND still get their choice of the core subfaction goodies.

That this distinction is what makes balancing the marines book such a goddamn nightmare as well as trying to play against them because every time you do, they can pull out some crazy stratagem from their pool of 54 or psychic power out of their pool of nearly 60 that utterly transforms the effectiveness of a unit.

There's a reason GW applies those kind of limitations to literally everybody else. You know, stuff like "1 warlord trait per character" and "you want the subfaction relic/strat/trait, you can't choose the best combo of two custom subfaction traits".

But for some reason we ignore this stuff for marines. Oh, and turn 1 deep strike too, for good measure. Remember when we stripped that out of the game because getting charged by 60 Tzaangors or 10 khorne bezerkers or 30 bloodletters before you got to do anything at all was fething stupid?

And we're back onto generic marine and gw bashing.

Which is why I didn’t say you should have Ulthwe and Biel-Tan separate.

I said Eldar and Dark Eldar.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Which is why I didn’t say you should have Ulthwe and Biel-Tan separate.

I said Eldar and Dark Eldar.

And I corrected myself as it was a bad example, however I fel the differences are great enough to warrant separate tracking still.

The majority of EVERYTHING is shared between Marine chapters.

Units. Strats. Powers. Litanies. Warlord Traits.

I really do not get how you can go from

"This subfaction and that subfaction get 6 warlord traits, 12 stratagems, 1 litany, 1 army-wide superdoctrine, 6 relics, and 6 psychic powers, and these other ones only get 1 relic 1 trait and 1 strat"

and have someone agree with you, adding that there's an additional complication of being allowed to have all that distinction AND be able to use custom chapter traits while still keeping those distinctions AND stacking not one but two warlord traits on one dude (Creating the current Salamander monstrosity character of the week)....

.....oh but that's just "generic marine bashing."

We're bringing up the same point.

You're just arguing that it's....good actually?

I mean it seems to me the most obvious, easy way to make it easier to balance the various marine chapters is to reduce the number of unique things and remove the unique rules loopholes they get. Limit successor chapters to the generic codex lists like everyone else, and trim down the number of chapter-specific unique things.

The only two alternatives I can see are, A, bloat everyone else's rules out to that level, or B, have separate point costs for every unit/wargear option affected by those unique abilities within the space marine arsenal.

 JNAProductions wrote:
The majority of EVERYTHING is shared between Marine chapters.

Units. Strats. Powers. Litanies. Warlord Traits.

Yup they are. I will leave this be and just accept that no additional volume of content in a supplement will cause it to not be umbrella'd into "space marines".


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the_scotsman wrote:
I really do not get how you can go from

"This subfaction and that subfaction get 6 warlord traits, 12 stratagems, 1 litany, 1 army-wide superdoctrine, 6 relics, and 6 psychic powers, and these other ones only get 1 relic 1 trait and 1 strat"

and have someone agree with you, adding that there's an additional complication of being allowed to have all that distinction AND be able to use custom chapter traits while still keeping those distinctions AND stacking not one but two warlord traits on one dude (Creating the current Salamander monstrosity character of the week)....

.....oh but that's just "generic marine bashing."

We're bringing up the same point.

You're just arguing that it's....good actually?

I mean it seems to me the most obvious, easy way to make it easier to balance the various marine chapters is to reduce the number of unique things and remove the unique rules loopholes they get. Limit successor chapters to the generic codex lists like everyone else, and trim down the number of chapter-specific unique things.

The only two alternatives I can see are, A, bloat everyone else's rules out to that level, or B, have separate point costs for every unit/wargear option affected by those unique abilities within the space marine arsenal.

You didn't agree, you observed it as a negative fundamental problem and went off on a rant about how unfair it is that marines get all x y and z.

Of your 2 solutions B seems best for me, I'd rather the supplement system hadn't happened but then again we'd have separate books for BA etc still.

The general issue is that Marines are mad powerful, and whatever random flavour you stick on them still leaves them mad powerful. Arguably we saw this in July last year when tournaments were flush with UM/WS placings, that promptly evolved into IH/RG placings because they were even better and nothing stops you doing it at will.

By contrast once you stripped Ynnari out a lot of the CWE units became decidedly meh, and nerfing Alaitoc has probably done the same to the rest (along with some silly points hikes). No one cares about Iyanden and Biel-Tan because they brought nothing of value. Much like the meta impact of all those Dal'yth Sept or Hive fleet Hydra players is zero.

BrianDavion wrote:
do NEW players come to the game expecting it to be like esports? Most of the "esports" comparisons I've seen mostly come here not from new faces so much as the long time "tourny playing tryhards"

Yes, you can see it on this very board based on the nomenclature used (which boils my piss BTW, keep this gak out of wargaming...), when you have users referring to armies or factions as "teams" or the board as a "map".

You never saw this years ago, and now its all over the place. It can't be a coincidence that with the explosion of Fortnite-esq games and 8th bringing in new players we get esport language bleeding in to our hobby?

 Grimtuff wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
do NEW players come to the game expecting it to be like esports? Most of the "esports" comparisons I've seen mostly come here not from new faces so much as the long time "tourny playing tryhards"

Yes, you can see it on this very board based on the nomenclature used (which boils my piss BTW, keep this gak out of wargaming...), when you have users referring to armies or factions as "teams" or the board as a "map".

You never saw this years ago, and now its all over the place. It can't be a coincidence that with the explosion of Fortnite-esq games and 8th bringing in new players we get esport language bleeding in to our hobby?

so "map" is exclusively an esports term? AND it triggers you to see it used?

You do realise that (computer) gamers and (war)gamers are the same group?

 Grimtuff wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
do NEW players come to the game expecting it to be like esports? Most of the "esports" comparisons I've seen mostly come here not from new faces so much as the long time "tourny playing tryhards"

Yes, you can see it on this very board based on the nomenclature used (which boils my piss BTW, keep this gak out of wargaming...), when you have users referring to armies or factions as "teams" or the board as a "map".

You never saw this years ago, and now its all over the place. It can't be a coincidence that with the explosion of Fortnite-esq games and 8th bringing in new players we get esport language bleeding in to our hobby?

I have literally never seen this ever, but, to give you a helping hand here, you could go for the term "Meta" which is huge in terms of esports language...

the_scotsman wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
do NEW players come to the game expecting it to be like esports? Most of the "esports" comparisons I've seen mostly come here not from new faces so much as the long time "tourny playing tryhards"

Yes, you can see it on this very board based on the nomenclature used (which boils my piss BTW, keep this gak out of wargaming...), when you have users referring to armies or factions as "teams" or the board as a "map".

You never saw this years ago, and now its all over the place. It can't be a coincidence that with the explosion of Fortnite-esq games and 8th bringing in new players we get esport language bleeding in to our hobby?

I have literally never seen this ever, but, to give you a helping hand here, you could go for the term "Meta" which is huge in terms of esports language...

I see it on here all the time, and once you too spot it you cannot unsee it. To me, it's a good indication of the background of a player. Been in this hobby since 1997 and it is only very very recently have I started to see the game board be referred to as a "map" for example.

EDIT- Some examples from this very forum to show I'm not going mad.

 Grimtuff wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
do NEW players come to the game expecting it to be like esports? Most of the "esports" comparisons I've seen mostly come here not from new faces so much as the long time "tourny playing tryhards"

Yes, you can see it on this very board based on the nomenclature used (which boils my piss BTW, keep this gak out of wargaming...), when you have users referring to armies or factions as "teams" or the board as a "map".

You never saw this years ago, and now its all over the place. It can't be a coincidence that with the explosion of Fortnite-esq games and 8th bringing in new players we get esport language bleeding in to our hobby?

I have literally never seen this ever, but, to give you a helping hand here, you could go for the term "Meta" which is huge in terms of esports language...

I see it on here all the time, and once you too spot it you cannot unsee it. To me, it's a good indication of the background of a player. Been in this hobby since 1997 and it is only very very recently have I started to see the game board be referred to as a "map" for example.

When I hear about players "teching" for something, I.e. tech tree, that also triggers it for me.

Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

I've seen people playing wargames refer to the board as the map....pretty much forever, but I guess I've just never noticed it on this forum.

Honestly I've found that occurs more commonly with older, beardier historical wargamers. It doesn't seem like a hip zoomer term to me.


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 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

There is an exponential correlation between someone's tendency to complain about sensitivity to what they see as minor things and being sensitive to minor things.

the_scotsman wrote:
I've seen people playing wargames refer to the board as the map....pretty much forever, but I guess I've just never noticed it on this forum.

Honestly I've found that occurs more commonly with older, beardier historical wargamers. It doesn't seem like a hip zoomer term to me.

i call it a map because thats what it is. A representation of a battlefield somewhere where the fight actually is taking place while i command my forces.

Getting triggered over a term that you associate with "fortnite" seems petty.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've seen people playing wargames refer to the board as the map....pretty much forever, but I guess I've just never noticed it on this forum.

Honestly I've found that occurs more commonly with older, beardier historical wargamers. It doesn't seem like a hip zoomer term to me.

i call it a map because thats what it is. A representation of a battlefield somewhere where the fight actually is taking place while i command my forces.

Getting triggered over a term that you associate with "fortnite" seems petty.

Pretty much. I still refer to it as a board but people have been calling things "maps" for decades. Im thinking back to the original Starcraft/Brood War. Hardly "fortnite" era speak

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

Not sure if you want a sincere answer here but for me, it's more that "40k as League of Legends" is a really bad endgame for 40k. Sure, more parity between factions (and I'm certainly a fan of more parity between factions!) but as others have said, it's this idea of playing to win and teching exclusively with the optimal build that is anathema to "healthy 40k", IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wait, the Zoomers play Valorant now, I've got to get with the times!

 Billagio wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've seen people playing wargames refer to the board as the map....pretty much forever, but I guess I've just never noticed it on this forum.

Honestly I've found that occurs more commonly with older, beardier historical wargamers. It doesn't seem like a hip zoomer term to me.

i call it a map because thats what it is. A representation of a battlefield somewhere where the fight actually is taking place while i command my forces.

Getting triggered over a term that you associate with "fortnite" seems petty.

Pretty much. I still refer to it as a board but people have been calling things "maps" for decades. Im thinking back to the original Starcraft/Brood War. Hardly "fortnite" era speak

actually i probably call it "Map" because french is my main language and "board" doesnt really have a good translation (table is the closest one for the context its used in).
So in my case it has zero correlation to gaming


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 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

Not sure if you want a sincere answer here but for me, it's more that "40k as League of Legends" is a really bad endgame for 40k. Sure, more parity between factions (and I'm certainly a fan of more parity between factions!) but as others have said, it's this idea of playing to win and teching exclusively with the optimal build that is anathema to "healthy 40k", IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wait, the Zoomers play Valorant now, I've got to get with the times!

I see what you mean but thats more of an individual problem rather than a generic one. You can "play to win" and "tech" no matter if you come from a videogame background. Just like you can play strictly casual.

Personally, all the younger people that i see starting the game only play it casually, they bring the models they find cool rather than the ones that are the FOTM.

I think most users on here need to realise that the vast majority of players are casuals that dont go in dedicated 40k forums to voice their opinions like we do on dakkadakka. This gives us the impression that everyone is tryharding when in reality its just that theres maybe 50 active users on here that are quite vocal and create an echochamber( im guilty of this )

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Personally, all the younger people that i see starting the game only play it casually, they bring the models they find cool rather than the ones that are the FOTM.

I think most users on here need to realise that the vast majority of players are casuals that dont go in dedicated 40k forums to voice their opinions like we do on dakkadakka. This gives us the impression that everyone is tryharding when in reality its just that theres maybe 50 active users on here that are quite vocal and create an echochamber( im guilty of this )

You make a good point -- the younger folks in my meta play what they like. It's the 30-somethings with the disposable income to switch between armies and pay for soulless 3 color minimum airbrush paintjobs.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Personally, all the younger people that i see starting the game only play it casually, they bring the models they find cool rather than the ones that are the FOTM.

I think most users on here need to realise that the vast majority of players are casuals that dont go in dedicated 40k forums to voice their opinions like we do on dakkadakka. This gives us the impression that everyone is tryharding when in reality its just that theres maybe 50 active users on here that are quite vocal and create an echochamber( im guilty of this )

You make a good point -- the younger folks in my meta play what they like. It's the 30-somethings with the disposable income to switch between armies and pay for soulless 3 color minimum airbrush paintjobs.

^this 100%. meta-chaser types that switch between armies every 6 months, couldn't give two gaks about the lore and commission 3-color minimum paintjobs are generally young professionals who don't have families.

There are three types of person you typically see getting into the hobby. That's one of them - just out of college, got a good paying job, and have their first real disposable income to play the game they always fantasized about as a broke college kid.

The second one is the broke kid, in high school or college, who generally either plays kill team or buys stuff secondhand. Typically more likely to look up what's good online but plays what they can get their hands on.

And the third one is most typically a parent whose kids have gotten old enough that they get to have nostalgia hobbies. Empty nester or late thirties early forties whose kids have just stopped being really little/needing constant attention who get back into the hobby they had when they were younger. These guys tend to be the most "Casual at all costs" players, because everything they play is typically the collection they had 10 years ago.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

I'm the oldest person on this forum. None of this bothers me.

I have definitely noticed a difference in how new players approach the game over the years, and it does track pretty well with the comparison to videogames.

The overwhelming majority of younger players aren't doing meta-chasing three-color churn-and-burn routine, but they do tend to approach the game from more of a competitive angle than I anecdotally experienced with my peers a decade or two decades ago. Online gaming is inherently competitive; understanding the meta and playing to win is just how you play the game. They're bringing that same mindset to tabletop wargaming, even if they just play casually with friends.

I see this a lot in social media posts: I am constantly seeing topics like 'just started the game, help me build a competitive list', where the player may have chosen their army for lore or aesthetic reasons, but they're still approaching it from at least a semi-competitive perspective.

In contrast, the wargamer approach of 'just started the game, help me replicate a typical Imperial Fists force composition' is basically dead. I mean, it's still around (particularly with Heresy players), but I rarely ever see new players getting into the game by trying to replicate the fiction rather than optimizing for the tabletop.

I'm not saying it's good or bad. Just different from the people who came to the game with more of a wargaming background, or in an era where you didn't have competitive recommendations or the latest meta hotness right at your fingertips.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Damn, i never realised how some older people are triggered by their own hobby being popular

I don't think anyone's actually triggered by the game becoming more popular. The issue here is that people perceive the changes to the game as GW cannibalizing the game they like to try and copy games they don't like. It isn't a case of "nobody else is allowed to have fun", it's a case of "I want to have fun but I'm being told that my fun doesn't matter." And if you do complain about changes to the game you get jumped on by people telling you that you're just a hipster who hates everything and can only have fun if you're being miserable.

I can't speak for everyone here, of course, but I think most people find being dismissed and strawmanned more triggering than Warhammer becoming more popular.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
...I see this a lot in social media posts: I am constantly seeing topics like 'just started the game, help me build a competitive list', where the player may have chosen their army for lore or aesthetic reasons, but they're still approaching it from at least a semi-competitive perspective.

In contrast, the wargamer approach of 'just started the game, help me replicate a typical Imperial Fists force composition' is basically dead. I mean, it's still around (particularly with Heresy players), but I rarely ever see new players getting into the game by trying to replicate the fiction rather than optimizing for the tabletop.

I'm not saying it's good or bad. Just different from the people who came to the game with more of a wargaming background, or in an era where you didn't have competitive recommendations or the latest meta hotness right at your fingertips.

I think part of the difficulty here is the increasing distance between the competitive list and the fluffy list. The gap between a good list and a bad list these days is so wide that you can easily build the fluffy list and get wiped off the table in two turns by the person who did the netlisting, and people are aware that the game isn't very fun if they just get steamrolled every game with no chance to do anything. Spend any time on any forum discussing the game and you'll notice that you have to have a "competitive" list or you'll just get blasted off the table.

I can't claim that the Horus Heresy is perfectly balanced or that there are lists that aren't going to walk all over other lists, but if you take a "fluffy" list and someone else takes a "competitive" list you can still play the game to a much greater degree than you can in 8e/9e, which I think contributes to the playerbase caring more about building fluffy lists.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I've seen people playing wargames refer to the board as the map....pretty much forever, but I guess I've just never noticed it on this forum.

Honestly I've found that occurs more commonly with older, beardier historical wargamers. It doesn't seem like a hip zoomer term to me.

i call it a map because thats what it is. A representation of a battlefield somewhere where the fight actually is taking place while i command my forces.

Getting triggered over a term that you associate with "fortnite" seems petty.

Also, historically wargames have been played on maps and used as training exercises for military commanders. You know, where you have a massive map on a table and are pushing your little rectangles around which represent divisions/army groups etc. with your long pushy sticks.

For example, the division commanders of the german seventh army were on their way to play war-games to test out responses to allied invasion on the morning of D-Day.

Honest question because I have no experience in this beyond my local tournament scene.

But is there any reason meta chasers can't just use 1 space marine army and not even bother repainting it? If I showed up with a beautifully painted Smurfs army but the current hotness was salamanders, is there any actual rule that could stop me from just saying "These are my smurf blue Salamanders" and just fill out units with more flamers/meltas?

I've had local people do this all the time and we just give them a pass. Nothing like watching a Space furry player having his army led by girlyman

Marine subfactions don't have to have as many unique rules as they do and ulthwe and iyanden aren't limited to the minimal amount they have.

There is no intrinsic quality to these factions that makes them just naturally have hyper detail or little detail.

Given that key word Ultramarines covers around 1000 individual soldiers, even a single craftworld is going to have more separate warhosts with their own distinct history and training, as well as aspect shrines with Thier own history.

ORKS should have more variety than marines because each warband is heavily shaped by its boss and the klans that make it up, so no two warbands will act or look the same.


It's a purely arbitrary convention that GW have created and people accept, but it is not an objective truth.

The only thing separating the Ork codex from the variety and uniqueness of the marine codex is EFFORT on the part of GW. Thats it. If they chose to pick the pen up tomorrow and give you custom warband rules around your warlord, plus unique unit options for each Klan that stacked with these, then they would be just as unique.


This argument is just people trying to justify GWs lack of effort in other factions, that's all.

Compare the number and type of units in each codex from 2nd Ed to now and you will see the stark amount of 'lack of effort' and 'deliberate creation' of units to see how GW decided to spend it's time.

Nothing in 2nd ed justified the addition of anything in the marine books in subsequent editions, but because they decided to add them, they got them.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
[We can't know if those armies are good, we can't draw any conclusions on anything until every codex is out and 9th is fully completed. We must hold the current game balance as a complete, unknowable mystery, 'lest someone might form an opinion on the relative strength of Loyalist Space Marines in comparison to something else!

You know those comments almost always come out in response to somebody else saying, "OMG the Xenos are t3h unplayable I may as well just throw my models into the woodchipper becausd GW hatse me!!!111!!" type comments.

I do. The reason I find it funny is because it's almost a perfect flowchart.

IF COMMENT = "Marines are OP"

THEN RESPOND = "We can't know anything, it's all a mystery, the tournaments are too small, the edition is too early, we don't have the codexes, this is just the beta version of 9th!"

IF COMMENT = "Xenos are bad"

THEN RESPOND = "But LOOK, at this 20 man invitation-only tournament in the covid-free antarctic research station where they trained penguins to play, xenos list won, so you're not ALLOWED to have that opinion!"

Personally, my favorite is the "nope, hard solipsism, you can't know anything, you could be a brain in a jar, the universe is a simulation, I hit myself on the head with a brick every time I finish reading a marine statblock so I can't compare it to anything else in the game" response. It's more blatant than the usual smokescreen.

I take pretty strong issue with this descent into the un-critique-able. You're either on the hate train or you're not these days.

As a process of understanding things it is often required to ingest information at all levels to build a better understanding, but this process is often mocked ("hurr hurr you got to know thing A, but then they'll say you also have to know thing B, too!"). People are happy to consume information at a high level that indicate something they agree with (e.g. marines are OP) but let us not review the details of that. Yet when we have details of things like Xenos and the ability to win with a "150 point gretchin handicap", well, we don't agree with that so toss it out. Oh, but when marines do badly, well, it must be because the good players all traded into a different army!

In either case we have super tiny sets of data from a weird wishy-washy game state and you should be capable of recognizing that and incorporating it into the way you internalize data.

SemperMortis wrote:
Honest question because I have no experience in this beyond my local tournament scene.

But is there any reason meta chasers can't just use 1 space marine army and not even bother repainting it? If I showed up with a beautifully painted Smurfs army but the current hotness was salamanders, is there any actual rule that could stop me from just saying "These are my smurf blue Salamanders" and just fill out units with more flamers/meltas?

I've had local people do this all the time and we just give them a pass. Nothing like watching a Space furry player having his army led by girlyman

I've never seen anyone complain, but if I were doing this I'd try for an original Chapter that didn't look specifically like any of the others to avoid confusion. That or you could play Blood Ravens and justify hopping books with DoW2 "bloody magpies!" jokes.

Well, we could allways start enforcing the painting rule on such armies.
Is it a dick move, hell yes, but so is FOTM switching of subfactions.

Which will only lead to a more toxic atmosphere.

If you are playing casual, then talk with the other person / don't play them.

If you are playing in a competitive tournament, then deal with it.