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 Lord Damocles wrote:
, and swords and halberds shouldn't have had different rules for Grey Knights), removing medic options (medics shouldn't be able to heal from bikes), and adding an extra step to wound allocation so that wounds are allocated in order of AP - which would mostly prevent stacking of instant death/armour ignoring wounds on single models rather than being spread across units.

*Really I'd argue that Nob bikers should be an entirely different unit to Nobs, and Paladins shouldn't exist...

Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason. Custodes have halbards and axes or halbards and swords. Armies have options for chainswords, power weapons, power fists, L.Claws, thunder hammers etc.

What would be the reason to make GK, so special that they should have the option to take a Thunder Hammer in a melee army or have a force staff, with specific GK rules? The eldar autarch has more weapon options then the entire GK army right now.


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tneva82 811321 11588290 wrote:

Every rule results in abuse.

At least current one blame goes to owner. Don't be dumb leaving 1guy in open.

Okey, but you can't fight the "dumbness" of how designs the models. If attaching Crow to a unit suddenly makes it impossible to hide, because it require a wall higher then a dreadnought, then I think, there is something wrong happening. What ever people value and what rules people prefere, a player should not be punished because of how the company that made the game shaped his models. I don't want to see paladins shot in the books above their armour.

Karol wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
, and swords and halberds shouldn't have had different rules for Grey Knights), removing medic options (medics shouldn't be able to heal from bikes), and adding an extra step to wound allocation so that wounds are allocated in order of AP - which would mostly prevent stacking of instant death/armour ignoring wounds on single models rather than being spread across units.

*Really I'd argue that Nob bikers should be an entirely different unit to Nobs, and Paladins shouldn't exist...

Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason. Custodes have halbards and axes or halbards and swords. Armies have options for chainswords, power weapons, power fists, L.Claws, thunder hammers etc.

What would be the reason to make GK, so special that they should have the option to take a Thunder Hammer in a melee army or have a force staff, with specific GK rules? The eldar autarch has more weapon options then the entire GK army right now.

It's funny how Grey Knights got on just fine with swords and halberds being the same stat-wise prior to the 5th edition codex...

And Custodes having different rules for which angle the blade of their polearm is attached at is pretty much peak bloat.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for Crow to make his unit much easier to spot than any other GK character. But viewing the game as a stop-motion theatre is pretty insane from my POV. "Every time a Necrons unit finishes its turn a new guy goes out and picks up the lascannon". What the hell is a turn in your theatre of the mind? Space Marines should be out shooting their bolters, not hiding in a ruin and taking turns to pick up the squad lascannon.

You already have the abstraction of being able to assign wounds in most editions to represent picking stuff up (on top of not being a hassle).
Why are so few arguing in favour of bullets hitting the closest visible enemy? How does it make sense the defender gets to choose? It's a tabletop game! You can't make it into a perfect simulation.

Try writing a game for realistic space combat in the 40k universe, it's madness, does Battlefleet Gothic make sense from a physics perspective? No, it'd be unplayable if you had to calculate vectors for 4-15 spacecraft changing in real-time, so you have turns and spaceships acting like naval ships and it's a well-loved game. The sword thing is nothing more than a common pet peeve. I think GW should try to appeal very broadly, so if they did a poll and swords being considered part of the miniature was hated by a majority then I'd be in favour of changing it and working out clarify what parts of a model count as part of the model and what parts of a round model counts as its corners, things GW haven't done well in the past but whatever.

The reason to make GK have fewer weapon types would be to eliminate wound juggling, something the rules thankfully removed, I hope it never returns, yay for modern targeting and wound distribution rules that allow for the full breadth of 40k to be displayed in a fun way. Another reason is because GW cannot balance anything and having them all use the same rules prevent any of them being trap choices for newbies.

Karol wrote:
Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason.

Oh yes, I love the variety afforded to my Dark Eldar.

The Archon gets a Huskblade and that's it.
The Succubus gets a Glaive and that's it.
The Haemonculus gets Tools and that's it.

Wyches don't even have Wych Weapons anymore.

But sure, Grey Knights are the only army to have lost weapon options.

 vict0988 wrote:
Edit: misinformation about 30k removed.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
But what we'd like from GW is that they made fun rules, that try to balance reasonavle gameplay and allow for its varied universe to be aptly represented.

It's a tough question and they'll never ever get over it if they don't stop changing stuff in strange fashion or disregard any wiser alternative all the time instead of building it up.

I feel like your statements contradict. When GW tries to make fun and reasonable rules they get screamed at for changing things too much. At the same time they have to change things because people are always screaming that the rules are unthematic, unfun or unbalanced.

Absolutely criticize GW for changing things that were near-perfect that few disliked, that's silly and GW should stop. Criticize GW for releasing points with new editions and codexes in a broken state that leads to 30% and 70% win rates for different factions and needing half of the edition to fix. Criticize current rules you don't like and ask they be changed next edition and discuss what the best changes could be. But GW cannot make good changes without also accidentally making bad changes going from a 3/5 to a 2/5 is okay and part of the process, criticize the 2/5 rule, not the process of changing rules or the amount of rules changes because 10th is still built on the scaffolding of 8th and that is close enough that GW should be mostly upgrading things. Be specific about problems and send polite and properly worded feedback directly to GW.

It might actually be useful to have a community voting platform for each ability and datasheet to get deeper understanding of what needs to be improved once every codex has been released. 10th is not for me, but I still want GW to slow down by a year or two if it makes 11th that much better on release instead of having to wait for 12th for the game to become good.

On the one hand I agree that GW will forever be yelled at whatever they do because people need to complain anyway. So you'll always have got at least a few people on your hands bitching and you can't do anything about this. To sort the mess out, I also agree that there should be a platform, where people fill in a formular of some sort, explaining what they think is a problem and then have a team play testing to check and play test fixes.

However I don't think I'm contradicting myself, because, as is the original topic, GW doesn't seem interested in these gradual tweaks of the rules to refined them and fix them to a point when most problems would have been more or less dealt with. Instead, they take to path of brutally punching the table upside down regularly and starting the learning and refining curve from zero. This indeed means changes will have to be made to accomodate fixes and remove/wholesale reinvent that rule or mecanic identified as detrimental to the game's enjoyment or balance.

For that reason i say again: in my view, GW should strive to achieve a balance between lore and solid mechanics. No system is perfect, even Bolt Action, for as good as it is, has got it's little oddities and downsides, like the 1 man squads running around wreaking havoc in late game or how heavy tanks are utterly at disadvantages compared to armoured cars. But on the whole, the rules ar emore than solid and do a decent job at protraying their timeframe. Why couldn't GW achieve the same? Because it seems they won't dedicate the time and efforts it needs to go from point A all the way to point B by improving. Not having the dedicated voting platform we both agree it should have got is a symptom of this churning mentality in a sense.

On a final note, to address again the idea of adding new stuff in order to enhance the lore aspect, I think that for what it's worth they supplement way is not the worst for the game's health at large. If you have got a solid set of rules, then you can use appendices and optionnal supplements to attach fluffier rules (duels, strange unit types, and the like) for player to use if they so wish. This way, it is possible to mitigate the effect on the overall balance and the competitive scene because as it will only ever be optionnal, they won't change drastically how the game works in and of itself and can be dismissed entirely if they end up being to strange. While adding ideas and ready to use depth for players eager to bring into their games RPG mecanics, fluffy units and characters, environment special rules... or whatever fancy stuf you can come up with.
The only downside is that this could get costly. At the same time, you wouldn't need to own any of these additions to the game to actually play.

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason.

Oh yes, I love the variety afforded to my Dark Eldar.

The Archon gets a Huskblade and that's it.
The Succubus gets a Glaive and that's it.
The Haemonculus gets Tools and that's it.

Wyches don't even have Wych Weapons anymore.

But sure, Grey Knights are the only army to have lost weapon options.

Both are tragic and the loss that results of the way GW designed the game now.
Just got to send lots of emails and hope there is some player creative space left for some of these factions when the next editions comes.

tneva82 wrote:


And then we are back to rhinl sniping with bullet wider than 1mm flying through 1mm gap to kill lascannon/warlold/whatever opponent wants to kill.

Every rule results in abuse.

At least current one blame goes to owner. Don't be dumb leaving 1guy in open.

Yeah. It’s the owners fault of someone can draw LoS to a sword tip or singular hand through terrain. If anyone wants to play with something other than solid L-shaped blocks for terrain, such as structures with windows or fields of trees, it’s their own fething fault and war gaming is clearly not for them.

Karol wrote:
Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason.

Most unique melee weapons in the Tyranid army just got made generic. Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Stop moaning about your GKs like they're the only army GW gaks on. I mean, have you ever played CSM? GK ain't got nuthin' on the crap CSMs have been through.

*Death Guard wave and say hello*

wave with our equally generic weapons, yes those ones, next to the tyranid ones by the entrance to the bar where we all cry together

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Wait, what?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Wait, what?

you used to have a tyranid warrior, standard load out then a whole slew of stuff you could equip them with

you now have "melee tyranid warrior" and "ranged tyranid warrior"

see also Death guard who lost most of the different melee weapon options for plague marines, or how combi-weapons became a single profile

simpler yes, blander, also yes

leopard wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Wait, what?

you used to have a tyranid warrior, standard load out then a whole slew of stuff you could equip them with

you now have "melee tyranid warrior" and "ranged tyranid warrior"

see also Death guard who lost most of the different melee weapon options for plague marines, or how combi-weapons became a single profile

simpler yes, blander, also yes

It's very weird though to make specific weapon parts on the sprue only to move away from that level of specificity. It's fair to say that most players have an easier tme recognizing like a melta from a plasma than the more esoteric nid weapons but in a game all about detail they're ironing over the wrong parts.

They consider that there's enough difference between a Deathspitter, Devourer, Fleshborer, Spinefist, Spike Rifle and so on (unless you're a Ravenet or a Sporocyst!) but Swords and Claws and Talons and Whips?

All the same!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason.

Most unique melee weapons in the Tyranid army just got made generic. Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Stop moaning about your GKs like they're the only army GW gaks on. I mean, have you ever played CSM? GK ain't got nuthin' on the crap CSMs have been through.

DW got the same treatment. They got rid of everything but the Missile Launcher, frag cannon, infernus bolter, Heavy thunder Hammer, xenophase blade, shield and the bolter, everything else got rolled into "Long vigil melee weapon" and "Long vigil ranged weapom" Which are just combi-weapons and Power Weapons in statline. We went from 35 Weapon options to 11. Like, half the fun of deathwatch was the wargear.

It's too hard to write Shotguns as a separate weapon.

Or "Heirloom Weapons" on Vanguard.

To nobz, everything is a klaw or a big choppa now. Knife? Big Choppa. Tiny axe? Big Choppa. Stabby Harpoon thing? Big Choppa. Mechanical arm with a saw? Klaw.

It's fairly obvious that GW wanted to go back to 5th edition style close combat weapons and isn't picking on anyone in specific, for the better or the worse.
As usual, a great idea which has been poorly executed.

 Jidmah wrote:
To nobz, everything is a klaw or a big choppa now. Knife? Big Choppa. Tiny axe? Big Choppa. Stabby Harpoon thing? Big Choppa. Mechanical arm with a saw? Klaw.

It's fairly obvious that GW wanted to go back to 5th edition style close combat weapons and isn't picking on anyone in specific, for the better or the worse.
As usual, a great idea which has been poorly executed.

But if a Nob puts on mega-armour suddenly his arm with a saw actually becomes a saw...
Also, klaws have different profiles whether they are carried on a trike, by a beastsnagga or by someone else.
The general idea wouldn't be that bad if GW wasn't highly inconsistent.

In some ways simplification of weapon systems was not a shock to me. As model lines got bigger and bigger it becomes a lot harder to balance in new models without tripping over the features of existing ones.

Either that generic tactical squad that can do everything with weapon options has to become a lot weaker; or their weapon profiles need cutting down or simplifying so that their role is more constrained to give room.

I think the issue is alongside this there's clearly a mandate to make 10th edition MUCH simpler mechanically on multiple fronts. It's likely driven by lots of complaints on how complicated it's been to build armies for a few editions - however many of us can boldly see that a huge reason for that is GW scattershot their rules material and writing style. Not just between books but within the codex themselves the rules were shot all over the place making it much more fiddly.

So they've solved it - by reducing options drastically. Rather than a smarter layout of detailed information they've kept the same format and simply reduced the amount of options and information.

the removal of options fits right alongside the removal of points for options, here have a generic profile that on average over the units is meant to have roughly the same outcome

the net result is roughly the same as what essentially killed the epic scale a while back, you have a "better" game but one thats so bland its not worth playing, or so bland there are much cheaper options that are equally bland

its not so much the GenericMcGenericName naming that bothers me, GW equipment naming hasn't been good in a long while, its the lack of flexibility

e.g. with tactical marines, you can have a small cheap unit, or a larger one, or a smaller one kitted for a specific job etc

all that has gone

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why is that, other armies gets different type of weapons for their units. In fact all other armies do, it is just GK that got punished with the nerf to weapon types for some reason.

Most unique melee weapons in the Tyranid army just got made generic. Tyranid Warriors lost all their melee options.

Stop moaning about your GKs like they're the only army GW gaks on. I mean, have you ever played CSM? GK ain't got nuthin' on the crap CSMs have been through.

Yes I did play vs chaos armies. Multiple times and chaos armies in 8th, 9th and 10th always had more options, more models, multiple books, higher win rates, carry units like abadon or demons etc. The number of models, updates, and high win rates various chaos armies had is mind blowing considering what GK had. And that is assuming someone played power armour spam in 8th and 9th.

Tyranids have more weapon option on a termagaunt unit then I have for my entire army. One would assume that if GW gives some faction more units options, then armies they don't have those, but have weapon options should have those options. Are you seriously saying a melee army should not have a Thunder Hammer as an option, even if it has it as an option on the unit sprue AND on a special character? That makes sense? A melee army without melee gear, and a psychic army without psychic powers? CSM or Tyranids at least feel like the armies, good or bad.

leopard wrote:
the removal of options fits right alongside the removal of points for options, here have a generic profile that on average over the units is meant to have roughly the same outcome

the net result is roughly the same as what essentially killed the epic scale a while back, you have a "better" game but one thats so bland its not worth playing, or so bland there are much cheaper options that are equally bland

its not so much the GenericMcGenericName naming that bothers me, GW equipment naming hasn't been good in a long while, its the lack of flexibility

e.g. with tactical marines, you can have a small cheap unit, or a larger one, or a smaller one kitted for a specific job etc

all that has gone

Still advocating appendices here.

It's not necessarily bad to limit the number of different weapons and their special rules and stuff in the base rules, because that's easier to make a better balanced game .

Then for people who are out there for lore and giggles, release optional free pdf list called advanced Armoury or whatever to bring back variety.

Only need to actually bother to play test them preporly before hand of course, and to put that same disclaimer as on Stalker Anomaly launcher : installed add ons may causes
bugs or crashes.


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Removing points for options is still outrageous though, don't get me wrong.

See I agree I don't mind losing some options across some armies. Take Tyranids - I can well see that its hard to balance in new models to an army where many of the core models - Tyrant, Warriors, Carnifex- were originally designed to be modified with weapons and upgrades to fit multiple roles.

That worked great back in the 3rd edition era where that was basically your entire army. Tyranids didn't have 5 monstrous creatures; they had the Carnifex. It did your close combat; artillery; anti tank; anti-infantry etc... all in one model.


As the number of models has grown over the years it can be tricky to find new niches to put models into without removing some of the weapon variety that older models had so that there are tactical slots. The other option is ending up with units that trip over each other doing the same role for the same cost in points; or units that are just flat out better than another option.


I think GW has been too heavy handed and likely had some policy to try and make power values work so just decided to merge points and power into one monster.

Eg Tyranid Warriors lost all their close combat weapon variety. That honestly doesn't feel like GW was creating slots and more that they just heavily over simplified.

tneva82 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Errgghh. I take a while off from the sight only to see that we're still on LoS issues. Lemme throw a bit of rules on you guys:

If at any point while allocating Wounds, there is no model in the target unit that is within line of sight or range of the attacking unit then all remaining Wounds in the Wound Pool are lost.

Absolutely astounding. No "hiding lascannons". No killing models out of LoS. Solid rules writing from gw. Why are all of the competent rules writers over at 30k? Don't know. No idea. But there you go. Have fun with this mess folks.

And then we are back to rhinl sniping with bullet wider than 1mm flying through 1mm gap to kill lascannon/warlold/whatever opponent wants to kill.

Every rule results in abuse.

At least current one blame goes to owner. Don't be dumb leaving 1guy in open.

The underlined is absolutely true. But what do you want to be "open for abuse"? The wiping of entire squads because of a single model being within LoS/range, which will happen all of the time in any system that allows it, or "Rhino sniping", which will happen much more rarely in any system that allows it, due to it being a much more difficult maneuver/trick to pull off. And I personally prefer a system that allows rare edge case abuses over one that allows the abuses to be both constant and prevalent.

 Overread wrote:
As the number of models has grown over the years it can be tricky to find new niches to put models into without removing some of the weapon variety that older models had so that there are tactical slots. The other option is ending up with units that trip over each other doing the same role for the same cost in points; or units that are just flat out better than another option.

But it's not consistent.

Again, Tyranid Warriors still have Deathspitters and Devourers, but it's somehow a bridge too far to to show the difference between a Bonesword and a Lashwhip? And then on Raveners, who used to have ranged weapon options similar to Warriors... and all their guns are consolidated.

Even the Combi-Weapon consolidation makes no sense: We know what Flamers, Plasma Guns and Meltaguns do. They weren't unique weapons. They were just Bolters and the other gun, both of which have already well-established rules.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
As the number of models has grown over the years it can be tricky to find new niches to put models into without removing some of the weapon variety that older models had so that there are tactical slots. The other option is ending up with units that trip over each other doing the same role for the same cost in points; or units that are just flat out better than another option.

But it's not consistent.

Again, Tyranid Warriors still have Deathspitters and Devourers, but it's somehow a bridge too far to to show the difference between a Bonesword and a Lashwhip? And then on Raveners, who used to have ranged weapon options similar to Warriors... and all their guns are consolidated.

Even the Combi-Weapon consolidation makes no sense: We know what Flamers, Plasma Guns and Meltaguns do. They weren't unique weapons. They were just Bolters and the other gun, both of which have already well-established rules.

Aye and I agree, hence why I think its not just a push to make slots for more models in the tactical sense but also a general push to get power-level as the main way the game is played. This is just the ham fisted approach coupled to resolving "its too complicated" complaints mostly created by GW's scattershot style of writing within a codex let alone between books.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
As the number of models has grown over the years it can be tricky to find new niches to put models into without removing some of the weapon variety that older models had so that there are tactical slots. The other option is ending up with units that trip over each other doing the same role for the same cost in points; or units that are just flat out better than another option.

But it's not consistent.

Again, Tyranid Warriors still have Deathspitters and Devourers, but it's somehow a bridge too far to to show the difference between a Bonesword and a Lashwhip? And then on Raveners, who used to have ranged weapon options similar to Warriors... and all their guns are consolidated.

Even the Combi-Weapon consolidation makes no sense: We know what Flamers, Plasma Guns and Meltaguns do. They weren't unique weapons. They were just Bolters and the other gun, both of which have already well-established rules.

Exactly. Again, with Orks you usually had CC weapons aside from the choppa: big choppa, klaw, saw. Most units could take these so it was well established what they do. Then you got the trike with its own (weaker) klaw. And Beast Snaggas with two bespoken klaws. And a new meganob with another unique big Choppa.
Also, the old options are now arbitrarily spread, some units can take them, others don’t, besides there always being the same nob with the same base profile (kits dictating rules). In the end it got more complicated and the only thing rightfully removed was the Power stabba.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
As the number of models has grown over the years it can be tricky to find new niches to put models into without removing some of the weapon variety that older models had so that there are tactical slots. The other option is ending up with units that trip over each other doing the same role for the same cost in points; or units that are just flat out better than another option.

But it's not consistent.

Again, Tyranid Warriors still have Deathspitters and Devourers, but it's somehow a bridge too far to to show the difference between a Bonesword and a Lashwhip? And then on Raveners, who used to have ranged weapon options similar to Warriors... and all their guns are consolidated.

Even the Combi-Weapon consolidation makes no sense: We know what Flamers, Plasma Guns and Meltaguns do. They weren't unique weapons. They were just Bolters and the other gun, both of which have already well-established rules.

Consistency isn't something that gw does well. It's obvious that the various indexes were written by different people with different perceived goals, both in their rules and layouts. I completely understand and agree with your complaints, but we have to understand that they stem from GW's complete lack of an overall comprehensive plan and any overarching individual that enforces said plan. They need an enforced plan, and someone that will make sure that the plan is followed. Instead, they allow the individual index/codex writers to just do "what they want".

the indexes were certainly a very poor rushed effort likely from a brief that only had one or two lines and in some cases apparently done by people who either outright hate the faction assigned or just had never actually played them

its not unique to 40k either

leopard wrote:
the indexes were certainly a very poor rushed effort likely from a brief that only had one or two lines and in some cases apparently done by people who either outright hate the faction assigned or just had never actually played them

its not unique to 40k either

While they could have implemented summarised army lists in the rulebooks like in 3rd in the meantime but no instead they had to inflict another layer of mandatory books

Anyone knows whether the staff composition (how many people and at what posts) of GW is available somewhere? Wonder how they're actually organising themselves to seemingly have got very little coordination.

I think all we know is that there are two codex teams working on contents. Another thing we've picked up is that rules writing is really underfunded at GW in terms of how many resources they get compared ot other departments and how much workload/time they get.

Plus on top of that even if GW had good resources and a good attitude the 3 year cycle is insane for the size and complexity of game they produce. Throwing all the work of 3 years out the window for a new edition is honestly nuts. Esp when the actual time you can work on the rules is likely way way way less than those 3 years.

Until GW sheds either the 3 year cycle or the concept of rebuilding the rules from the ground up for each new edition; we will continue to have major issues and the same problems rearing their head all the time.