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In light of my loathing for 6th edition 40k, and the laughable release of 7th edition, I am currently undertaking an adjustment of 5th for games with my immediate group - using those core rules with adjustments for the stupider elements (like wound allocation, for example). This also includes reverting to earlier versions of some of the Codices, for various reasons (the more ridiculous later ones like Grey Knights for their obscene power and violation of the background, and the more boring ones such as the 4th-ed Chaos book still in use at the time).

This means, of course, that there will still be a fair amount of Codex imbalance, that I hope to correct on an individual basis. Given that I lack game experience with quite a few of the books that I'm proposing using in this 'refined' ruleset, we come to the purpose of this thread: I'm hoping to gather as much information as I can about the set of books I'm using in terms of their performance: what was good about them (and too good), what was bad about them (and unusably awful), and what changes (in broad or specific terms) they would benefit from in order to be toned up/down appropriately to balance with the others.

Here's the list, for clarity:

From 5th Edition:
Dark Eldar
Imperial Guard
Space Marines
Tyranids

From 4th Edition:
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Eldar
Orks
Tau Empire

From 3rd Edition:
Blood Angels
Chaos Space Marines (3.5)
Daemonhunters
Necrons
Space Wolves
Witch Hunters

[I know I'm likely to catch a bit of flak for the use of the Chaos 3.5 book, but other than the Iron Warriors list, which is undoubtedly broken, it doesn't strike me as having any choices or builds that are way too strong, as well as allowing for fantastically customisable forces to be built.]

Any information that can be provided is greatly appreciated.

Ok just to begin with you are not alone. I know some people is getting back to 5th. Actually, I played 5th a lot while in 6th. I prefer 6th-lite (no flyers, no fortifications, no allies, no Lookoutsir…), but to 5th is good too.

So here is my opinion. I am not a competitive player so I expect someone to step in and point out some blatant mistakes. I am ignoring FW and named characters. Sorry for the many mistakes.

From 5th Edition:
Dark Eldar: usually the winner in “best Codex ever” polls. I find it quite good.
External Balance: Good.
Internal Balance: Good.

Imperial Guard: the most broken one. Not at the level of GK in late 5th or any ‘star’ from 6th, but this is the one to be wary about.
External Balance: Very bad.
Internal Balance: bad.

Space Marines: I played with it and against it a lot, never found a problem. I will consider using the current codex without the new awful stuff. Or, even better, adding Chapter traits to the 5th Codex.
External Balance: very Good.
Internal Balance: very Good.

Tyranids: lack of internal balance. Too many good units in the Elite section. Most players will ask you to turn back to the previous Codex (which I don´t know). I liked this one anyway and played it a lot.
External Balance: good (a lot of people will disagree with me).
Internal Balance: very bad.

From 4th Edition:
Black Templars: played some times, never found a problem. Too similar to SM, that´s all. Apart from some little things about termis and initiates, they seemed quite the same to me.
External Balance: Good. Slightly less powerful than vanilla.
Internal Balance: very Good. ?

Dark Angels: never played against it. They were more or less the same as vanilla. It was said they were slightly less powerful than vanilla.

Eldar: I played against it a lot, never found a problem. It was broken in 4th, but not in 5th.
External Balance: Good.
Internal Balance: Good.

Orks: I played against it a lot, never found a problem. One of my fav codexes.
External Balance: Very Good.
Internal Balance: Very Good.

Tau Empire: never played against it. It was bad (I was told). Some people playing 5th are using an adaptation of the 6th edition Codex, tweaking some units (and no Riptides / Flyers).

From 3rd Edition:
Blood Angels 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.

Blood Angels 5th edition: significantly better than SM. Not too broken. Played against it some times, liked it. Some really strong combos.
External Balance: Bad. It is not broken, but it is clearly better than Vanilla.
Internal Balance: Good.

Chaos Space Marines (3.5): I really don´t know, I re-started playing in 4th when I bought the Codex CSM 4th, which I really like. I remember people saying the Emperor´s Children were broken too. I will recommend using the 4th or 6th Codex adding some Legion traits. You can use one of the many fan-made attempts or take them from CSM 3.5

Daemonhunters: played against it a couple of times. It was really broken if you get allies, specially with IG (mystics + leman russ, the ‘leafblower’ list): I would take this option out.
External Balance: Very Good.
Internal Balance: Good. About bad units, the Orbital Bombardment thing was something I never understood. And the Culexus was only useful against psykers, so nobody used it, but that´s the way the unit is.

Necrons: Liked it a lot, but lacks variety. Played against them a few times. It seemed broken to me, but the general consensus was that it was weak. I will consider getting the late 5th Codex, rip off the background part (and burn the pages after a proper exorcism) and add some of the new units. The Codex was not that broken in 5th, it was only in 6th when it became unplayable (flyer spam). Wraiths were scary.
External Balance: Good.
Internal Balance: Good.
Elites: Flayed ones and Pariahs are too weak.
Heavy: Heavy destroyers were too weak.

As I said, I will use the 5th Codex instead.
Necrons (5th edition)
External Balance: Very Good.
Internal Balance: Very Good.

Space Wolves 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.

Space Wolves 5th : usually regarded as broken. Long Fangs and Razorbacks. Rune Priests with Jaws and Thunderwolf Cavalry. Played against them a lot, and then with them.
They suffer from the same problem as Blood Angels: same as Vanilla, just better.
External Balance: Bad.
Internal Balance: Good.

Witch Hunters: loved it.
External Balance: Very Good.
Internal Balance: Bad.

Hope it helps-

Firstly, thank you for your input

 da001 wrote:

Imperial Guard:
Valkyries were too good and Vendettas were one of the most broken units of the game.

Absolutely true, and I'd bet money on the Vendetta having transport capacity as a copy/paste error from the Valkyrie - certainly the first change would be to remove that, making the Valkyrie the 'transport' variant, and the Vendetta the 'gunship'. With that said, my group would be unlikely to take either of them, but is the problem with them one of undercosting, or overeffectiveness?

 da001 wrote:

Tyranids:
Troops: Tervigon. This thing is a Troop if you take termagants and it is broken. Way too good. Warriors and Genestealers were slightly too weak.
Elites: full of stuff. The best units in the Codex are all here. The Doom is too good, and Zoanthropes and Hive Guard are more or less needed to get things done. The Pyrovore is one of the weakest units in the game, and Lictors are too weak too.

Is the Tervigon only broken as a Troops choice? Or in general terms? I've faced them and they do seem to have everything (very tough to bring down, no slouch in combat, synapse and psychic abilities), but perhaps if only allowed as HQs? Would moving the 'extra' ones to another slot other than Troops help?
I'd count the Doom as a special character (so it's disallowed on that basis), and I'd consider Zoanthropes fitting in Heavy Support. Lictors surely just need to be able to assault after arriving? Though perhaps that makes them then too far in the other direction?

 da001 wrote:

Blood Angels 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.
Space Wolves 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.

Here I disagree - the 5th ed Blood Angels and Space Wolves really jumped the shark, and introduced some very silly units that broke or over-exaggerated the theme of each chapter (Psychic dreadnoughts?!). I wouldn't want to use them as a basis, leaving only the more minimal 3rd ed codices for these chapters. I think using the Vanilla book with alterations (not straight up improvements, as was the case with the 5th books) and additions (like the Baal Predator) would be the best solution for these.

 da001 wrote:
Chaos Space Marines (3.5): I really don´t know, I re-started playing in 4th when I bought the Codex CSM 4th, which I really like. I remember people saying the Emperor´s Children were broken too. I will recommend using the 4th or 6th Codex adding some Legion traits. You can use one of the many fan-made attempts or take them from CSM 3.5

I've been playing some 5th ed games using the 3.5 book, and I must admit, I love it too much to abandon it! By comparison, both the 4th and 6th Chaos books felt very bland, so perhaps I've been spoilt. The Emperors Children do seem very strong at a glance, though.

 da001 wrote:
Necrons: Liked it a lot, but lacks variety. Played against them a few times. It seemed broken to me, but the general consensus was that it was weak. I will consider getting the late 5th Codex, rip off the background part (and burn the pages after a proper exorcism) and add some of the new units. The Codex was not that broken in 5th, it was only in 6th when it became unplayable (flyer spam). Wraiths were scary.

Yes, variety was definetely the problem I'd heard most. I think the book was incredibly powerful when it came out, but as other armies ramped up in power to match, and then exceed, it, it became one of the weaker ones. I'd thought about adding in some of the units (like the Ghost Ark, to give them some form of mobility for their Troops, and the Praetorians with the shields are quite tasy, model-wise) from the newer book, but it seems it might be hard to divorce them from the newer fluff (which, by the way, I agree with you entirely about). It seems that Troops choices were the biggest complaint in the original book, having only one - what units would be fair to move there, if any?

You are welcome!

I play 5th occasionally, so I am interested too. I hope other people step in.

Vendettas:
1: I think it is undercosted. 150 - 170 points seems ok.
2: I think the same about being a transport. It is supposed to exchange transport capacity for massive firepower.
I used to play with a friend in 5th who used a 100% fluffy Elysian army with 3-6 Vendettas. He was ok with 150 pts and no transport capacity.

Tervigons:
It was the Troop thing. Two Tervigons are dangerous. Five Tervigons, if they get some good rolls during the first and second turns, are able to flood everything with bugs and are almost unstoppable. If unlucky, they were acceptable, because they are unreliable. But this is not a good thing: the other player had no viable tactic against a lucky 5-tervigon list.
The Lictors are in dire need of help and that would be fine for me.
Zos in Heavy sounds ok.
Do not forget Carnifexes. A lot of veteran players have some of them (they were awesome right until the 5th Codex).

I completely understand your point about Wolves and Blood Angels. They started the 'silly' trend. I still like both books though, apart of some dumb things.

Using the same book for all loyalist Space Marines (save GK) is the optimal, obvious solution for anyone who has ever tried to fix this game. Just add some rules, a few colourful units and it is done: fluffy, fun, balanced, easy and fair. Prepare yourself for an all-out war against BA, DA, BT and SW players though.

Regarding the CSM 3.5, the Emperor´s Children had some gear that made some HQ units completely broken. I don´t remember the details. It was like you were unable to attack them (Lure of Slaanesh?). I don´t have the book around (totally awesome book by the way).

Necrons:
More Troops are needed: Immortals are the obvious one. Flayed Ones were used in a FW book as troops and they worked really well too. I would give them rending and you have an interesting Elite unit or move them to Troop and give Rending as an option you have to pay for.
Triarch Stalkers look great if you take off the driver. Arks (Doomsday and Ghost) look ok, and the same go for the Croissants (both Doom and Night Scythe).
Deathmarks do not look sillier than Warriors (imo), and there is one spider-looking Cryptek (Szeras, the named character) who I find rather sexy.
Pariahs need some love too.

 da001 wrote:
You are welcome!

I play 5th occasionally, so I am interested too. I hope other people step in.

Agreed - the more discussion and information, the better!

 da001 wrote:

Vendettas:
1: I think it is undercosted. 150 - 170 points seems ok.
2: I think the same about being a transport. It is supposed to exchange transport capacity for massive firepower.

Agreed. 150pts, no transport capacity would be the change to the Vendetta. What other areas need addressing in the IG book, and how might we resolve them?

 da001 wrote:

Tervigons:
It was the Troop thing. Two Tervigons are dangerous. Five Tervigons, if they get some good rolls during the first and second turns, are able to flood everything with bugs and are almost unstoppable. If unlucky, they were acceptable, because they are unreliable. But this is not a good thing: the other player had no viable tactic against a lucky 5-tervigon list.
The Lictors are in dire need of help and that would be fine for me.
Zos in Heavy sounds ok.
Do not forget Carnifexes. A lot of veteran players have some of them (they were awesome right until the 5th Codex).

Yes, I can see how that would be troublesome. Fortunately, our resident Tyranid player would be highly unlikely to ever run such a list - but a caveat to prevent it would still be the best approach. How about limiting the Troop-vigons to one? A slight change of wording to the rule is all this would take. The only trouble I see with allowing Lictors to assault when they arrive is it leaves no counter to them, given they can appear anywhere - thus practically guaranteeing the Tyranid player the destruction of a unit of their choice (Lictors are nasty in close combat, after all) with no reprisal. What happened to Carnifexes to so drastically reduce their effectiveness? They still seem very dangerous in terms of their abilities in the 5th book - was it merely a cost issue?

 da001 wrote:

I completely understand your point about Wolves and Blood Angels. They started the 'silly' trend. I still like both books though, apart of some dumb things.
Using the same book for all loyalist Space Marines (save GK) is the optimal, obvious solution for anyone who has ever tried to fix this game. Just add some rules, a few colourful units and it is done: fluffy, fun, balanced, easy and fair. Prepare yourself for an all-out war against BA, DA, BT and SW players though.

It certainly seems the most sensible solution - Blood Angels can have their Black Rage/Red Thirst rule, Honour Guard, Assault Marines in Troops, Death Company, and Baal Predators, for example (Wolves I'm less clear on, but it would be a similar deal). As for the backlash, it's unlikely - to my knowledge the group contains no BA or SW players at present, and certainly none who would lament the loss of Wolfy McWolf riding a wolf with his Wolf Claws, or psychic bloody Dreadnoughts! (No, I can't get over that! )

 da001 wrote:

Regarding the CSM 3.5, the Emperor´s Children had some gear that made some HQ units completely broken. I don´t remember the details. It was like you were unable to attack them (Lure of Slaanesh?). I don´t have the book around (totally awesome book by the way).

It is a fantastic book - a wonderful representation of the Chaos legions, and with staggering customisability. As for the Allure of Slaanesh, I can't remember the exact rules offhand, but I have a feeling that it requires a Ld test? Wargear like that never struck me as particularly effective, given the prevalence of Ld9 and 10. Perhaps it's less a problem in a 5th ed environment than it was originally?

 da001 wrote:

Necrons:
More Troops are needed: Immortals are the obvious one. Flayed Ones were used in a FW book as troops and they worked really well too. I would give them rending and you have an interesting Elite unit or move them to Troop and give Rending as an option you have to pay for.
Triarch Stalkers look great if you take off the driver. Arks (Doomsday and Ghost) look ok, and the same go for the Croissants (both Doom and Night Scythe).
Deathmarks do not look sillier than Warriors (imo), and there is one spider-looking Cryptek (Szeras, the named character) who I find rather sexy.
Pariahs need some love too.

Immortals could certainly be moved to Troops without much trouble, as could Flayed Ones (I remain uncertain as to Rending for them). I can't say I'm a fan of the Triarch Stalkers, Doomsday Ark or the flyers, however - I don't feel that they fit the aesthetic of the 'old' Necrons properly. The Ghost Ark is iffy but could be made to work, if the 'driver' was removed. What was the problem with Pariahs? Model wise they were excellent, and on paper at least they seemed quite nasty.

I don´t know the answers to most of your questions... For example, I don´t know what was the problem with the Emp Children in 3.5. It was some form of combo that played with the Ld, somebody explained it to me but I don´t remember.

I hope a veteran player steps in to answer this and other questions.

About IG: it was the most powerful Codex during most of 5th, together with Wolves.
I am quoting myself:

"Elite: never seen a single Ogryn or Ratling (too weak). Stormtroopers and psyker squad slightly too weak. Not many options here.
Troops: Veterans and big Infantry Platoons were good, some would say too good. Penal Legion pales in comparison (too weak).
Dedicated Transport: Chimera. Extremely cost-efficient, one of the most broken units at the time. Chimera spam (full of veterans) was everywhere.
Fast: total lack of internal balance. Sentinels (both), rough riders, hellhounds, Banewolves and Devil Dogs were nowhere to be seen. Valkyries were too good and Vendettas were one of the most broken units of the game. "

- I am unsure about how to fix Ogryn and Ratlings, because I have never used them or played against them.
- Penal Legion could be tweaked by allowing the player to pick the special rule they get at the beginning of the game (instead of being random) and giving them Explosive Collars: if they fail a Ld test, retire one model as a casualty and re-roll the Ld test. If they fail again, retire another model as a casualty and the unit flees. I tried this fix and it works. They would stay a worse Troop option than the rest, but they would be usable, fluffy and fun to play.
- The Chimera is quite good but just undercosted. 70/75 pts and it is ok.
- About the Fast options, for most of them is the same situation as Ogryns: never used them, never fought against them. I tried Sentinels a few times and I am unsure what is their problem, apart from not being at the same level than Vendettas.
- Do not forget the Valkyrie. She is the Vendetta´s little sister. 120/125 pts would be fair.

Nids.
The problem with the Carnifex was the price. I think they wanted to sell the new Heavy options, so they made the unit quite overcosted. It went back to normal in 6th.

Tervigons: I will just take off the possibility of beign a Troop. This way you don´t get scoring MCs and they are capped to two. The unit is good enough (I would say still slightly too cheap).

You are right: it is too much to give the Lictor the ability to assault when coming from DS.
Some other options:
- Changes in the Chamaleonic Skin rule, making the Lictor more difficult to kill at range. Use the Night Fighting (or similar) rule, or give any model a -2 BS modificator when shooting at it. Another option could be the Harlequin´s rule.
- Changes in the cost: in 5th it was a silly 65 pts. In 6th is 50 pts and still not good enough. I don´t think lowering the cost below 50 does justice to the unit, so I will keep it at 50 and give it some extra buff.
- An interesting option comes from the Leviathan (really awful) Dataslate: "Mind Eater: Your army gains 2 Victory Points for each enemy model with the Independent Character special rule slain by the Lictor in close combat. Killing an Independent Character as the result of a sweeping advance does not award these Victory Points." A really fluffy bit in an otherwise quite dull product. A little re-wording and testing would be needed.

Another unit that could use some love is the humble Genestealer. Also moving the Broodlord to a HQ option to allow for Genestealer vanguards.


The Necron thing:
- Try the Flayed with rending or scoring. They are not usable now and they work well with that.
- New Necrons doesn´t look that bad if properly modelled. The 'a robot driving a robot' sillyness can be physically ripped off.
Look:



Anyway, this requires a lot of work, so it may be better to completely ignore them. Forgeworld has a couple of not silly units to add some color.

I don´t know the problem about Pariahs, but they were never taken. I think it was a combination of:
1) Not being "true" Necrons, thus not counting for a really nasty rule that made the Necron player lose the game if the number of Necron models went below x. I will recommend to get rid of that rule, it was hated for all Necron players.
2) Being too expensive for what they did, or too ineffective for what they costed.
Unfortunately, I never played with/against them.

 da001 wrote:
I don´t know the answers to most of your questions... For example, I don´t know what was the problem with the Emp Children in 3.5. It was some form of combo that played with the Ld, somebody explained it to me but I don´t remember.

Having looked again at the 'Book of Slaanesh' section, I think the combo revolves around the Allure of Slaanesh (which forces one unit to pass a Ld test or move towards the champion) and several Leadership reduction items such as the Warp Amp (given to vehicles dedicated to Slaanesh) and Blasphemous Rune. There was also a 'minor' psychic power that made the psyker untargetable by shooting or assault, which I can see being a touch ridiculous.
That said, the 'minor' psychic powers are rules I have not used, nor intend to. For now, I think the 3.5 book is stable enough to not need any tinkering - unless more light can be shed on the power of the Emperors Children builds.

 da001 wrote:

Elite: never seen a single Ogryn or Ratling (too weak). Stormtroopers and psyker squad slightly too weak. Not many options here.
I am unsure about how to fix Ogryn and Ratlings, because I have never used them or played against them.

From my brief experiences, it seems both Ogryns and Ratlings are fine in terms of their abilities and niches - I'd wager that points reductions are all they really need.

 da001 wrote:
Troops: Veterans and big Infantry Platoons were good, some would say too good. Penal Legion pales in comparison (too weak).
Dedicated Transport: Chimera. Extremely cost-efficient, one of the most broken units at the time. Chimera spam (full of veterans) was everywhere.
- Penal Legion could be tweaked by allowing the player to pick the special rule they get at the beginning of the game (instead of being random) and giving them Explosive Collars: if they fail a Ld test, retire one model as a casualty and re-roll the Ld test. If they fail again, retire another model as a casualty and the unit flees. I tried this fix and it works. They would stay a worse Troop option than the rest, but they would be usable, fluffy and fun to play.
- The Chimera is quite good but just undercosted. 70/75 pts and it is ok.

I like the idea of choosing the specialisation of Penal Legion squads - the less random charts to roll on, the better, and precedent is already set for this by the Stormtroopers. It'd certainly make it possible to plan for their use when including them in a list.
I appreciate that the Chimera is a great transport, and needs a points increase, but is it worth the same as two Rhinos? I should point out here that, in the 'refined' core rules I've been working on, only open-topped transports allow firing from the passengers inside - the concept of 'fire points' is scrapped entirely. Is this a determining factor in a Chimera points adjustment?
I'd also put forward the suggestion of making Conscripts 3 points each, since their poor stats make the existing discount versus regular Guardsmen somewhat negligible.

 da001 wrote:
Fast: total lack of internal balance. Sentinels (both), rough riders, hellhounds, Banewolves and Devil Dogs were nowhere to be seen. Valkyries were too good and Vendettas were one of the most broken units of the game.
- About the Fast options, for most of them is the same situation as Ogryns: never used them, never fought against them. I tried Sentinels a few times and I am unsure what is their problem, apart from not being at the same level than Vendettas.
- Do not forget the Valkyrie. She is the Vendetta´s little sister. 120/125 pts would be fair.

I'd imagine that the drastically undercosted Valkyrie and Vendetta were the main reason for overshadowing the other Fast choices. That said, it seems to be a commonly held opinion that Rough Riders should be reduced in points. The rest, perhaps, would be viable with the two skimmers increased to 125/150pts respectively.

 da001 wrote:
Nids.
The problem with the Carnifex was the price. I think they wanted to sell the new Heavy options, so they made the unit quite overcosted. It went back to normal in 6th.

Fair enough - in which case I'd propose putting the cost of them closer to the 6th ed version. Was it just the base cost that needed changing, or did some of the upgrades become prohibitively expensive in the 5th ed book too?

 da001 wrote:
Tervigons: I will just take off the possibility of beign a Troop. This way you don´t get scoring MCs and they are capped to two. The unit is good enough (I would say still slightly too cheap).

I'm in two minds about this one - I appreciate (and agree at least partially) that having a scoring monstrous creature is a little much, but at the same time our resident Tyranid player loves Tervigons and I would not want him to feel I was singling out his choice for a nerfing (the most he's ever used is two in a single game). I'm thinking perhaps a compromise - keep the option to take them as Troops, but specifically disallow them from scoring?

 da001 wrote:
You are right: it is too much to give the Lictor the ability to assault when coming from DS.
Some other options:
- Changes in the Chamaleonic Skin rule, making the Lictor more difficult to kill at range. Use the Night Fighting (or similar) rule, or give any model a -2 BS modificator when shooting at it. Another option could be the Harlequin´s rule.
- Changes in the cost: in 5th it was a silly 65 pts. In 6th is 50 pts and still not good enough. I don´t think lowering the cost below 50 does justice to the unit, so I will keep it at 50 and give it some extra buff.
- An interesting option comes from the Leviathan (really awful) Dataslate: "Mind Eater: Your army gains 2 Victory Points for each enemy model with the Independent Character special rule slain by the Lictor in close combat. Killing an Independent Character as the result of a sweeping advance does not award these Victory Points." A really fluffy bit in an otherwise quite dull product. A little re-wording and testing would be needed.

I'm of the mind that simple and elegant rules are the best ones, so I'd be inclined to go with a boost to the Lictor's survivability rather than the 'Mind Eater' rule. While applying the Night Fighting rules fits from a background standpoint, it makes spotting/damaging the Lictor dependant on luck, which I am not a fan of. A combination of Stealth, Fleet (provided he doesn't already have these two), and a -1 'to hit' modifier for shooting attacks against him might do the trick for 50pts?

 da001 wrote:
Another unit that could use some love is the humble Genestealer. Also moving the Broodlord to a HQ option to allow for Genestealer vanguards.

I'm not entirely familiar with the Broodlord - where is he in the FoC right now? And are Genestealers merely overpriced or lacking in functionality?

 da001 wrote:
The Necron thing:
- Try the Flayed with rending or scoring. They are not usable now and they work well with that.

Fair enough - of the two options I'd be inclined to go with Rending for them, thus I would suggest not therefore moving them to Troops - Immortals can be placed there instead.

 da001 wrote:
- New Necrons doesn´t look that bad if properly modelled. The 'a robot driving a robot' sillyness can be physically ripped off.

Anyway, this requires a lot of work, so it may be better to completely ignore them. Forgeworld has a couple of not silly units to add some color.

They certainly look better without the drivers, but the newer kits just don't fit with the older Necron aesthetic, and so I'd be tempted to go with your suggestion of ignoring them! Of the Forge World units, I'd suggest the Tomb Stalker as the most transferable, but know nothing of its capabilities. Where would it fit in the FoC, and what are its roles/weapons/ideal targets?

 da001 wrote:
I don´t know the problem about Pariahs, but they were never taken. I think it was a combination of:
1) Not being "true" Necrons, thus not counting for a really nasty rule that made the Necron player lose the game if the number of Necron models went below x. I will recommend to get rid of that rule, it was hated for all Necron players.
2) Being too expensive for what they did, or too ineffective for what they costed.
Unfortunately, I never played with/against them.

I believe the 'Phase Out' rule (the one where the army auto-loses if it has insufficient 'true' Necrons left) was introduced to counterbalance the high power of the book at the time of release, but I agree that it's a rather stupid rule and definitely one that should go. If we dropped the points of the Pariahs alongside that, that sounds as if it might fix them.


Any further commentary regarding other armies?

For the old third edition tau, it was not "bad" per-say, but it was hard. It had a very steep learning curve compared to the other codexes. It could be very good when handled properly, but you had to be careful.

Chaos 3.5
Yeah, that was it!! A minor power in the Emperor´s Children list that made impossible to target or assault your Daemon Prince. I remember now.

IG.
No Fire Points? That´s a big change... I am gonna try it for my own custom-made system, it makes sense and simplifies a awful lot of rules.
Chimeras are dangerous because of the Veterans with 3 plasma guns inside. In 5th it was far worse due to the high durability of vehicles. Without Fire Points, I would keep the original price, at least until some proper playtesting is done.

Nids.
1: Carnifex. I don´t remember the changes in gear from 4th to 5th, but I am currently using 6th prices for everything Carnifex-related both in 6th and in 5th.
2: Tervigons. I am not sure about making them Troops but not scoring. What´s the point? The reason a Troop is important is because it is scoring. By doing that, you are forcing the player to take aditional Troops while allowing MCs everywhrere. Anyway, I would try not to upset the nid´s player, it is hard to find people to test this stuff.
3: Lictor: that´s a tricky one. It already has Stealth and Fleet. And on a second thought, using a BS modifier sets a really bad precedent, it is too easy to start giving modifiers to attributes for everything. What about the Harlequin rule, minus the random part: 'the Lictor cannot be targeted unless the model is within 12 UM' (instead of XD6).
I am still thinking on the Brain Eater rule though... I like the rule a lot.
4: Broodlord: it has become an upgrade for a single Genestealer, a sergeant equivalent. But the Broodlord is far, far better than the average Genestealer, and there was a time it was an HQ. It is a psyker, and a killing machine in close combat, and it costs 60 pts, instead of the 15 pts genestealers. I would move it to HQ.
5: Genestealers: I wouldn´t say it is overcosted at all. They are supposed to be extremely efficient close combat killers. So I would buff them up a bit. Their main problem is that they are fragile, and do not get into close combat, and if they do they do not survive the enemy´s reaction because they lack frag-grenades equivalent. I will give them frag-g equivalent and call it a day, in 5th they were not that weak. It was 6th what killed them.

Necrons:
About the Tomb Stalker, you can download its rules directly from Forgeworld: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/tstalker.pdf
You do not even need to adapt it to 5th, the rules are for 5th.
What about Acanthites? http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/a/acanthrite.pdf

About other armies, look at the first post I made in this topic.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
For the old third edition tau, it was not "bad" per-say, but it was hard. It had a very steep learning curve compared to the other codexes. It could be very good when handled properly, but you had to be careful.

I appreciate your contribution, but unfortunately the 3rd ed. Tau book is not the one being used - it is in fact the 4th edition Tau Empire book that followed it - unless that is the one you meant? Certainly in 5th, that book struggled, with only one or two viable builds for it.

 da001 wrote:

IG.
No Fire Points? That´s a big change... I am gonna try it for my own custom-made system, it makes sense and simplifies a awful lot of rules.
Chimeras are dangerous because of the Veterans with 3 plasma guns inside. In 5th it was far worse due to the high durability of vehicles. Without Fire Points, I would keep the original price, at least until some proper playtesting is done.

It is - I made it for two main reasons. First, infantry remaining in their 'mobile bunker' was a problem I heard complained about a fair amount in 5th (particularly IG Veterans in Chimeras). Secondly, I never liked the idea of it - the whole point (in my mind) of a transport is to keep the troops inside safe from enemy fire - so having them pop out to shoot seems counterproductive! For open-topped vehicles, though, it makes some sense.

 da001 wrote:

Nids.
1: Carnifex. I don´t remember the changes in gear from 4th to 5th, but I am currently using 6th prices for everything Carnifex-related both in 6th and in 5th.

Fair enough - I should have access to all three books in due course, so I'll compare the costs across them.

 da001 wrote:
2: Tervigons. I am not sure about making them Troops but not scoring. What´s the point? The reason a Troop is important is because it is scoring. By doing that, you are forcing the player to take aditional Troops while allowing MCs everywhrere. Anyway, I would try not to upset the nid´s player, it is hard to find people to test this stuff.

I suppose the reasoning behind it was to still allow Tervigons to be taken fairly freely without using up HQ slots, but given their power I can see how that is a balance problem. I've considered an alternative: taking a unit of Gaunts (as per the current requirement) allows a Tervigon to be taken as an Elite choice - with the possible caveat that these Elite-vigons can't take the psychic abilities available to the HQ variant.

 da001 wrote:
3: Lictor: that´s a tricky one. It already has Stealth and Fleet. And on a second thought, using a BS modifier sets a really bad precedent, it is too easy to start giving modifiers to attributes for everything. What about the Harlequin rule, minus the random part: 'the Lictor cannot be targeted unless the model is within 12 UM' (instead of XD6).
I am still thinking on the Brain Eater rule though... I like the rule a lot.

The Harlequin rule sounds about right (I presume you mean 12 inches as the distance). As characterful as the Mind Eater rule is, it seems to be a little complex to keep track of, and can run into compatibility problems with Victory Point games (as in the 'refined' edition, these are based on unit points values rather than the inherently flawed 'Kill Points'), so I think it perhaps safer to keep things simple.

 da001 wrote:
4: Broodlord: it has become an upgrade for a single Genestealer, a sergeant equivalent. But the Broodlord is far, far better than the average Genestealer, and there was a time it was an HQ. It is a psyker, and a killing machine in close combat, and it costs 60 pts, instead of the 15 pts genestealers. I would move it to HQ.

I'm inclined to agree.

 da001 wrote:
5: Genestealers: I wouldn´t say it is overcosted at all. They are supposed to be extremely efficient close combat killers. So I would buff them up a bit. Their main problem is that they are fragile, and do not get into close combat, and if they do they do not survive the enemy´s reaction because they lack frag-grenades equivalent. I will give them frag-g equivalent and call it a day, in 5th they were not that weak. It was 6th what killed them.

I have vague memories of players lamenting the ineffectual nature of Genestealers even in 5th. Flesh Hooks should definitely be given to them, but is that all they need? Did they have Rending or Fleet? As either or both could be fair additions if not.

 da001 wrote:
Necrons:
About the Tomb Stalker, you can download its rules directly from Forgeworld: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/tstalker.pdf
You do not even need to adapt it to 5th, the rules are for 5th.
What about Acanthites? http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/a/acanthrite.pdf

So you can - I'd assumed it's rules were in one of the many FW supplement books. Having looked at them, the Stalker seems like an absolute beast, and I think it would need toning down before inclusion. Reducing its Toughness to a more manageable 5 or 6, and it's Wounds to 3, would be a good start.
As for the Acanthrites, I can't say I'm hugely fond of their design at all, let alone as part of the Necron force. For now at least I'd put them to one side.

 da001 wrote:
Dark Eldar: usually the winner in “best Codex ever” polls. I find it quite good.
[spoiler]HQ: never seen a Succubus (slightly too weak).
Elite: Mandrakes quite bad (too weak), Harlequins (slightly too weak)
Fast: Beastmasters (slightly too good)
Heavy: lack of internal balance in the Heavy section, always Ravagers. This is mostly due to design problems (most reliable anti-tank option by far).

I've certainly heard a lot of praise for the Dark Eldar book, and probably would not adjust it beyond tweaking points values for the under/overcosted units.

 da001 wrote:
Space Marines: I played with it and against it a lot, never found a problem. I will consider using the current codex without the new awful stuff. Or, even better, adding Chapter traits to the 5th Codex.
Elite: Terminators and Legion of the Damned: Slightly too weak.
Heavy: Whirlwind: Slightly too weak.
Dedicated Transport: Razorback was too good.

I suspect that the apparent 'weakness' of Terminators might have been the result of overshadowing by the Assault Terminators - one of the changes I would certainly make here is to make the Storm Shield a 4+ Invulnerable, not a 3+ - possibly even only in melee, though that may be tipping the scale too far the other way again. I'm not sure I see what makes the Razorback so much better than the Rhino, though - they share the same armour values, and 5 points extra for a TL Heavy Bolter at the expense of some transport space seems reasonable at a glance. Would allowing Whirlwinds to be taken in squadrons of 1-3 help their issues?
By 'awful stuff' I assume you mean the fluff-breaking Thunderfire Cannon and the needless Land Speeder Storm; I agree entirely in which case, and personally, I'd also drop the Land Raider Redeemer from the book (it overshadows both other variants considerably).

 da001 wrote:
Black Templars: played some times, never found a problem. Too similar to SM, that´s all. Apart from some little things about termis and initiates, they seemed quite the same to me.

Agreed - I'm not entirely sure they ever needed their own book. As with the other Space Marine chapters, I'd be looking to make them more like 'add-ons' to the Marine codex rather than entire Codices in their own right. The Black Templars, for example, would gain the Emperors Champion, mixed Marine/Scout squads with higher numbers, and perhaps the Vow special rules.

 da001 wrote:
Dark Angels: never played against it. They were more or less the same as vanilla. It was said they were slightly less powerful than vanilla.

It seems that the Dark Angel book was the testing ground for similar rules that then appeared in the vanilla Marine book - unfortunately, the DA book ended up much weaker. All that would really be needed is an amalgamation between the two to fix the discrepancies (such as DA Drop Pods being more expensive for no real reason) - this is something I've already begun work on.

 da001 wrote:
Blood Angels 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.
Blood Angels 5th edition: significantly better than SM. Not too broken. Played against it some times, liked it. Some really strong combos.
Quite similar to vanilla SM, only better here and there.
Furioso Dreads, Sanguinary Priests and Death Company were scary (too good)
Vindicators scared me a lot (too good)
Whirlwinds were usable!
I really hate the stormraven, ugly model, breaking the scale. The worst looking thing until Codex: GK. I think it was way too good but I may be biased.
Dedicated Transport: Razorback was too good.

The 5th ed Blood Angels book was particularly galling for me, as they were the army that got me into 40k in the first place way back in the early 90's - so to see them reduced to such asinine levels of stupid practically broke my heart. I'm currently working on a rewrite for them with the 3rd ed book as a basis: so randomly assigned Death Company, being a characterful rule, is back, Fast vehicle status is acquired via an upgrade, and the idiocy that is the Stormraven, Sanguinary Guard, Librarian Dreadnoughts and 'Bloodfists' are gone. I'm thinking of reducing Sanguinary Priests to only give FnP to their own squad, and I'll be looking at the Dreadnoughts in due course. 'Standard' Space Marine units won't be any different from their counterparts in the Vanilla book - there's no reason Blood Angels should have differing costs there.

 da001 wrote:
Space Wolves 3rd. Didn´t play it. I would play 5th instead after some fixes.
Space Wolves 5th : usually regarded as broken. Long Fangs and Razorbacks. Rune Priests with Jaws and Thunderwolf Cavalry. Played against them a lot, and then with them.

Aside from various anecdotes about their power, I don't know much about the Space Wolves. As with the Blood Angels, though, I'll be going back to the 3rd ed book as the basis for a rework - automatically getting rid of the Thunderwolves, for starters.

 da001 wrote:
Eldar: I played against it a lot, never found a problem. It was broken in 4th, but not in 5th.
HQ: Never seen an Avatar. Not sure about it, it was more that it didn´t work well with the rest of the army.
Elite: Harlequins, Wraithguard and Banshees were slightly too weak.
Fast: never seen a swooping hawk (too weak) or shining spears (slightly too weak)
Heavy: never seen a weapon battery… I don´t remember what was their problem

I think the only problem with theAvatar and the weapon batteries were their relative immobility compared with the rest of the Eldar force, leaving them poorly fitting in most armies. I'd advocate some kind of AoE buff for the Avatar, in promote a 'combined arms' approach. I'm unsure about the rest, though - the Shining Spears at least seem to only need a points reduction.

 da001 wrote:
Orks: I played against it a lot, never found a problem. One of my fav codexes.
Elites: Lootas were the by-default unit for competitions (slightly too good), but I saw most units used.
Heavy: Flash boyz: the only bad unit in the Codex. Too weak.

It does seem that Lootas end up in every Ork list I've ever seen. I'd consider reverting them to their 3rd ed state, where they actually had weapons looted from other forces, and offering the current Loota weapon as a limited upgrade (say 3 per mob or so). They'd almost certainly need a points drop, or some other upgrade, to compensate. What was wrong with Flash Gitz?

 da001 wrote:
Tau Empire: never played against it. It was bad (I was told). Some people playing 5th are using an adaptation of the 6th edition Codex, tweaking some units (and no Riptides / Flyers).

Certainly it seems that the jump in power between the 4th ed Tau book and the current one was gigantic. I'll most likely try to do the same, and adapt some of the changes backwards.

 da001 wrote:
Daemonhunters: played against it a couple of times. It was really broken if you get allies, specially with IG (mystics + leman russ, the ‘leafblower’ list): I would take this option out.
External Balance: Very Good.
Internal Balance: Good. About bad units, the Orbital Bombardment thing was something I never understood. And the Culexus was only useful against psykers, so nobody used it, but that´s the way the unit is.

The inducted unit rules were characterful, I feel, so perhaps they just need tighter restrictions to prevent the more abusive combinations.

 da001 wrote:
Witch Hunters: loved it.
[spoiler]HQ: Never seen a Palatine. At least slightly too weak, didn´t offer any real reason to take her.
Elites: Celestian and Arco-flagellants are too weak, and Repentia were worse.
Heavy: Penitent Engines: too weak. Never understood the point of the Orbital Strike.

The fact that I'm not even sure what a Palatine is, despite having gotten the book a few weeks back, shows how much of an impact it must have had! Repentia clearly need a LOT of work (FnP might be a good start), but I'm not certain what's wrong with Celestians and Arco-Flagellants.

Thank you for your continued contributions!

From 5th Edition:
Dark Eldar - Almost all good, almost nothing overpowered. Mandrakes and Bloodbrides are the only two units I can't ever see taking, although the 7th edition addition of scoring to everything makes Bloodbrides suck much less. (So, if you're removing that, then Bloodbrides are back to riding the pine.)
Space Marines - Chapter differentiation through the addition of a single hero character was one of the best ways of handling this I've ever seen. Loved it.
Tyranids - Part of me (the rational, reasonable part) still insists that there is very little imbalance between the codexes, and that this one was just fine. Unfortunately, the part of me that seeks to find patterns in real-world observations can't help but notice that in over ten years of playing 40k I have never once seen a Tyranid army defeated.

From 4th Edition:
Black Templars - Weak, nigh unplayable, especially compared to standard Marines from 5th ed.
Dark Angels - See above.
Orks - No book aged better than this one. Still viable today.
Tau Empire - I understand that losing to a new codex can give us a desire to punish a player group with an underpowered one, but nobody deserves to have to use this 'dex.

From 3rd Edition:
Necrons - This codex is a strange balance of completely ineffective and unbelievably broken. Without 7th ed psychic mechanics, Pariahs are too nasty. "D-weapon Lite" Warscythes also beg to be hit with a nerfbat. But in all my years in this game, NOTHING has made me question my faith in game balance more than the 3rd ed Monolith. A vehicle which can never be glanced to death, is almost impossible to get a penetrating hit on, and ignores most of the vehicle rules is just too nasty to allow on the table. Dislike the fluff all you want, but mechanically the new codex was the best thing to happen to the Necrons since ever.

Those are just my opinions.

I strongly urge you, however, to just adapt with the times. Going through this list of yours actually helped me to cement my belief in forward progress. Without the ONE possible exception of Tyranids, every book on your list that I have more than a passing familiarity with was replaced by a codex that was better both for the players of that army AND the community as a whole. I think the pros of change outweight the cons, and that the game is enriched more by moving forward than it is by stagnation.

Come one, I loved my old tau dex.

 Jimsolo wrote:
(...)
I strongly urge you, however, to just adapt with the times. Going through this list of yours actually helped me to cement my belief in forward progress. Without the ONE possible exception of Tyranids, every book on your list that I have more than a passing familiarity with was replaced by a codex that was better both for the players of that army AND the community as a whole. I think the pros of change outweight the cons, and that the game is enriched more by moving forward than it is by stagnation.

No way.

1: The nids´ Codex went from really good to bad in 5th, then to awful.
2: The CSM Codex followed the same pattern, but in hardcore mode: 3.5th in a legend in the history of this game, 4th was meh and 6th is a pile of **.
3: The Daemon Codex went from really good to an endless stream of random tables and broken stuff, completely lacking any form of internal balance and changing the fluff about Daemons. Let alone the lack of external balance, started with the infamous White Dwarf addenda.
I play nids, CSM and Daemons, and I always ask to use the 5th edition Codex. I still play all these armies, but I am using the old books, because they are far, far better.

4: Comparing the Sisters´... 'thing' with the Codex: Witch Hunters is like a really, really bad joke.
5: Then we have the most hated abomination ever, the most reviled Grey Knights Codex. On the other side, Codex: Daemonhunters was really good.
6: The Necron Codex is considered an abomination for many fluff-players, regardless of being 'better' regarding the game. While I may agree that there was some form of 'mechanical' improvement here, it is by far the Codex that did more for destroying the community as a whole: I personally know many players than saw it as the last straw, and quit the game.
The new books for these three factions are far worse for the community as a whole, and regarded as such for many players.

7: The new Eldar Codex broke the game.
8: The new Tau Codex broke the game.
9: I am yet to read the new Codex: Imperial Guard .
You may be partly right with these three. Number 7 and 8 are broken though, so they require a lot of tweaking to be played in a non-competitive environment.

The only faction that has been improved since 5th is the Codex: Space Marine.

For most factions, late 5th and 6th involved a brutal drop in the quality: Codex after Codex with 95% copy-paste, some arbitrary fluff-butchering, random tables and a total lack of consideration for internal or external balance. The same problems were there in 5th, but 6th pushed them to an entire new level. To all effects, the Codex GK set the new standard.

And don´t forget that the goal is to play 5th. It is easier to play 5th with 5th Edition books.

 Jimsolo wrote:

Dark Eldar - Almost all good, almost nothing overpowered. Mandrakes and Bloodbrides are the only two units I can't ever see taking, although the 7th edition addition of scoring to everything makes Bloodbrides suck much less. (So, if you're removing that, then Bloodbrides are back to riding the pine.)

Certainly it seems Dark Eldar will perhaps be the easiest book to work with, then. I'll admit to not being sure what the problem with Bloodbrides is - perhaps a simple points reduction to 12., in line with the Trueborn?

 Jimsolo wrote:
Space Marines - Chapter differentiation through the addition of a single hero character was one of the best ways of handling this I've ever seen. Loved it.

Mechanically yes - but on the flip side, I hated that said mechanic pushed players into using special characters (I've never been fond of them as part of standard games). I think it would be better if the Captain could unlock similar traits (though less powerful - something at the level of Vulkan He'Stan's boost, for example, should not be repeated) through wargear choices - for example, if he takes a jump pack, he could unlock the option for squads to take Fleet as a paid upgrade. This would give him a reason to be taken over the Chaplain (a better fighter) and the Librarian (better for support).

 Jimsolo wrote:
Black Templars - Weak, nigh unplayable, especially compared to standard Marines from 5th ed.
Dark Angels - See above.

That certainly seems to be the concensus - in both the above cases, I will be taking steps to 'merge' the books with the 5th Ed standard Marine book, to equalise the differences while maintaining the individual Chapter flavour of each.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Tyranids - Part of me (the rational, reasonable part) still insists that there is very little imbalance between the codexes, and that this one was just fine. Unfortunately, the part of me that seeks to find patterns in real-world observations can't help but notice that in over ten years of playing 40k I have never once seen a Tyranid army defeated.

It's funny you should say that - I have rarely seen them lose either, and certainly don't see any crippling flaws with the 5th Ed book. All it needs is some tweaks to make its internal balance better (improvements to the Tyrannofex, Lictor, Genestealers etc, while trying to reduce the omnipresence of the Tervigon)

 Jimsolo wrote:
Tau Empire - I understand that losing to a new codex can give us a desire to punish a player group with an underpowered one, but nobody deserves to have to use this 'dex.

That's not the intention of the change. The 40k I'm attempting to create has its basis in 5th edition, and so it makes sense to try and base the codices around what was available then, as well as trimming off some of the sillier units that came with later books. To my knowledge, there was nothing really wrong with the 4th Ed Tau Empire book at the time of its release, it simply languished for too long while other armies became exponentially more powerful. Certainly I don't intend to leave it as-is, but by the same token I won't be introducing anything nearly as obscene as the Riptide.
For reference, I've not once played against 6th edition Tau.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Necrons - This codex is a strange balance of completely ineffective and unbelievably broken. Without 7th ed psychic mechanics, Pariahs are too nasty. "D-weapon Lite" Warscythes also beg to be hit with a nerfbat. But in all my years in this game, NOTHING has made me question my faith in game balance more than the 3rd ed Monolith. A vehicle which can never be glanced to death, is almost impossible to get a penetrating hit on, and ignores most of the vehicle rules is just too nasty to allow on the table. Dislike the fluff all you want, but mechanically the new codex was the best thing to happen to the Necrons since ever.

It seems we have met our first disparity between contributors to the thread - Pariahs were described as 'never taken' earlier. I'm not sure I see why they are 'too nasty' without the current psychic mechanics - the 'Psychic Abomination' rule seems minimally effective (many of the more dangerous Psykers are Ld10), and requires them to be very close to the Pariahs (6"). The 'Soulless' rule, on the other hand, does seem to have too large a range for the strength of its effect,. so I'd propose either reducing it to 8", or reducing the effect to Ld8, rather than 7.
I'm amazed I had not before noted the power of the Warscythe - personally I'd advocate taking away the ability to ignore Invulnerable saves, as that really makes very little sense given the flavour text.
And yes, I agree entirely about the Monolith. Did it simply lose the 'Living Metal' rule, or were the Hull Point rules perhaps sufficient to make it more vulnerable? Either way, something certainly needs to be done.
It isn't merely the fluff of the Newcrons that I dislike (though I very much do), it was the change in feel for the army, and the new aesthetic - particularly on models like the Stalker, new Wraiths, and barges.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I strongly urge you, however, to just adapt with the times. Going through this list of yours actually helped me to cement my belief in forward progress. Without the ONE possible exception of Tyranids, every book on your list that I have more than a passing familiarity with was replaced by a codex that was better both for the players of that army AND the community as a whole. I think the pros of change outweight the cons, and that the game is enriched more by moving forward than it is by stagnation.

I must vehemently disagree. 'Better' is subjective, after all, and even though in pure mechanical terms each army might have gotten stronger, there is an increasing tendency to 'jump the shark' in their units (the Sanguinary Guard, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Dreadknight, Riptide, Centurions etc) and their fluff (Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Necrons), as well as drifting from elements of their character that I consider 'core' (Space Marines mysteriously gaining new weapons repeatedly, or the equivalency of Daemons with 'randomness'), or simply became incompatible by moving to the 6th Ed ruleset, which I find bloated and overly complex, with many rules that have been added for their own sake, making the game less mechanically elegant and (for my group) much less enjoyable as a result - and 7th Ed only makes this worse.
If I had any doubts about my course of action in rejecting the march of progress, I'd not have begun this thread! Certainly I will not purchase an expensive rulebook for a ruleset I do not enjoy simply in the interests of maintaining the 'progress' of 40k.
Edit: da001, in the post above this one, echoes my sentiments, as well as hitting on a few more particular points.

Regardless, thank you for your contributions.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
(...)

Lictor & Harlequin rules: yeah I meant 12".
Genestealers: I know people said they were too weak, but I played them a lot and never really found any really big problem. They have both Rending Claws and Fleet. I would try them with a frag-grenades equivalent. 'Flesh Hooks' are a bio-weapon used by the Lictor, and have aditional rules. I would use another name, rule or gear for the genestealers.

The Razorback was a cheap way to get twin-linked lascannons. By spamming it, you flooded the field with tanks with enough firepower to be a problem.
The Whirlwind: I would increase its firepower, keeping the price. For fluffy reasons, the AP should stay the same: the Whirlwind´s weapons are supposed to be used while the Astartes charge, and do not easily go through power armour.
Interesting point about Terminators...
When I talked about 'awful stuff' I was talking about the current Codex. Centurions, Stormraven...

I am not sure about what was the problem with Flash Gitz, never played with/against them.

Palatines share an HQ entry with Canonesses. They are like two flavors of the same unit. The Canoness is 10 points more expensive, but better: +1 faith, +1 wound, +1 attack, +1 Ld. I think it is just a matter of cost: they are too similar. 5 points less for the Palatine (30 instead of 35) or giving the Canoness WS 5 and 5 points more expensive (50 instead of 45) may do the trick.
Celestians were quite bad if not properly geared up and quite expensive if geared up. Way to fix them? I would let them get up to two special weapons, two power weapons or two heavies. Currently they can take one special and one heavy. Also, Ld 10.
Arch-Flagellants were not that bad, but they didn´t get along with the rest of the army. They needed a Priest, did not work with faith, could not get into vehicles, could not be joined by a IC... They are better that way, actually, that´s what they are. But I would buff them up a little to compensate. I am not sure how.
Important! I forgot the price for Rhinos!! It is a staggering 50 pts, instead of the 35 pts for everyone else. Immolators for 50 pts could be a possibility too.

As a longtime Guard player, you might want to take a good look at the 4th edition book. It was the last time we got to actually customize our regiments, able to make Steel Legion, Death Korps, Catachans, Cadians, Mordians, etc all out of the base book's traits system. Very few of them were actually cost effective, but they added flavour to the Guard which has been missing for a very, very long time. Applying them to the 5th edition codex, alongside some suitable nerfs to a few balance outliers, and point drops to some of the weaker choices would doubtlessly be welcome to anyone wanting to play Guard in your experiment, especially if CSM 3.5 will be present. Bland is boring, after all, and the 5th edition Guard book is exceptionally bland.

 MalusCalibur wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:

Dark Eldar - Almost all good, almost nothing overpowered. Mandrakes and Bloodbrides are the only two units I can't ever see taking, although the 7th edition addition of scoring to everything makes Bloodbrides suck much less. (So, if you're removing that, then Bloodbrides are back to riding the pine.)

Certainly it seems Dark Eldar will perhaps be the easiest book to work with, then. I'll admit to not being sure what the problem with Bloodbrides is - perhaps a simple points reduction to 12., in line with the Trueborn?

I just don't know. A 1 point reduction wouldn't (to me) make them any more attractive. They would still be taking up valuable FOC space that could be going to Incubi, Grotesques, or Trueborn. Wyches would be almost as good (and scoring!) while still being fewer points. Maybe--and I'm just brainstorming--increase their points but make them troops? Alternately, what if taking a Succubus MADE them troops? (Or made any squad of Bloodbrides SHE joined Troops?)

 Jimsolo wrote:
Space Marines - Chapter differentiation through the addition of a single hero character was one of the best ways of handling this I've ever seen. Loved it.

Mechanically yes - but on the flip side, I hated that said mechanic pushed players into using special characters (I've never been fond of them as part of standard games). I think it would be better if the Captain could unlock similar traits (though less powerful - something at the level of Vulkan He'Stan's boost, for example, should not be repeated) through wargear choices - for example, if he takes a jump pack, he could unlock the option for squads to take Fleet as a paid upgrade. This would give him a reason to be taken over the Chaplain (a better fighter) and the Librarian (better for support).

Ah. Well, this is a common view, although one I vehemently disagree with. (The very, very short version of my view on it boils down to this: I have a custom built Salamander captain I like to run sometimes. If he was cooler than Vulkan He'Stan, then the story would be about MY guy, not about Vulkan. Part of the grandeur of 40k is getting to include, and thus tell part of the story of, the titanic heroes that stride the landscape. Taking that away diminishes the game, at least to me.)

 Jimsolo wrote:
Tyranids - Part of me (the rational, reasonable part) still insists that there is very little imbalance between the codexes, and that this one was just fine. Unfortunately, the part of me that seeks to find patterns in real-world observations can't help but notice that in over ten years of playing 40k I have never once seen a Tyranid army defeated.

It's funny you should say that - I have rarely seen them lose either, and certainly don't see any crippling flaws with the 5th Ed book. All it needs is some tweaks to make its internal balance better (improvements to the Tyrannofex, Lictor, Genestealers etc, while trying to reduce the omnipresence of the Tervigon)

Just as long as they don't get 'Numbers Without End' back. That special rule paid for my therapist's car...

 Jimsolo wrote:
Tau Empire - I understand that losing to a new codex can give us a desire to punish a player group with an underpowered one, but nobody deserves to have to use this 'dex.

That's not the intention of the change. The 40k I'm attempting to create has its basis in 5th edition, and so it makes sense to try and base the codices around what was available then, as well as trimming off some of the sillier units that came with later books. To my knowledge, there was nothing really wrong with the 4th Ed Tau Empire book at the time of its release, it simply languished for too long while other armies became exponentially more powerful. Certainly I don't intend to leave it as-is, but by the same token I won't be introducing anything nearly as obscene as the Riptide.
For reference, I've not once played against 6th edition Tau.

Okay, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but don't you think you should at least play a couple of games before you give the codex up as a lost cause? As someone who didn't play Tau, I thought it was a great codex. It gave what had previously been an army I considered a push-over enough teeth to be competitive again. It seems like people have become truly offended that Tau might be able to win a game. But the Riptide is far from being an unstoppable killing machine. I honestly think that if you played a few games against it (or with it) with an open mind you might change your opinion.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Necrons - This codex is a strange balance of completely ineffective and unbelievably broken. Without 7th ed psychic mechanics, Pariahs are too nasty. "D-weapon Lite" Warscythes also beg to be hit with a nerfbat. But in all my years in this game, NOTHING has made me question my faith in game balance more than the 3rd ed Monolith. A vehicle which can never be glanced to death, is almost impossible to get a penetrating hit on, and ignores most of the vehicle rules is just too nasty to allow on the table. Dislike the fluff all you want, but mechanically the new codex was the best thing to happen to the Necrons since ever.

It seems we have met our first disparity between contributors to the thread - Pariahs were described as 'never taken' earlier. I'm not sure I see why they are 'too nasty' without the current psychic mechanics - the 'Psychic Abomination' rule seems minimally effective (many of the more dangerous Psykers are Ld10), and requires them to be very close to the Pariahs (6"). The 'Soulless' rule, on the other hand, does seem to have too large a range for the strength of its effect,. so I'd propose either reducing it to 8", or reducing the effect to Ld8, rather than 7.
I'm amazed I had not before noted the power of the Warscythe - personally I'd advocate taking away the ability to ignore Invulnerable saves, as that really makes very little sense given the flavour text.
And yes, I agree entirely about the Monolith. Did it simply lose the 'Living Metal' rule, or were the Hull Point rules perhaps sufficient to make it more vulnerable? Either way, something certainly needs to be done.
It isn't merely the fluff of the Newcrons that I dislike (though I very much do), it was the change in feel for the army, and the new aesthetic - particularly on models like the Stalker, new Wraiths, and barges.

The Living Metal rule was nasty, but the real problems were twofold - first, you couldn't ever get extra penetration dice against it (like Melta or whatnot) and it literally could not be glanced to death. (It had a weapon which couldn't be destroyed via glancing hits, and you could only glance something do death once all the weapons were destroyed.) The only time I've ever quit a game before it began was when an opponent set down three monoliths.

The Pariahs were very finicky. They weren't like Doomscythes or GK Paladins where you could just point and kill. But used effectively they could be a serious force multiplier. I can't count the number of times I got boxed into the Pariah radius, only to have the Deceiver use his automatic 'make a Morale test' power to send my guys fleeing for the hills.

And it might just be memory playing tricks on me, but back when I played the old 'dex, I feared the C'Tan a lot more than I do now...

Personally, I loved the fluff change, by the way. An army with no fluff (Tyranids and old Necrons) is a siren song to WAAC players who want to show up and ruin everyone else's good time without ever having to get involved in the game world in any significant way. Every player of those armies isn't necessarily a WAAC d-bag, but every d-bag I met when I first started out in this game played one of those two armies. (And if you're that one guy from my game store thinking "Is it me?" then the answer is probably not.) I only wish they'd give Tyranids a similar fluff overhaul.


Now, all that being said (because I'm totally willing to assist with an intellectual exercise), I'm going to take one more shot at talking you out of this.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I strongly urge you, however, to just adapt with the times. Going through this list of yours actually helped me to cement my belief in forward progress. Without the ONE possible exception of Tyranids, every book on your list that I have more than a passing familiarity with was replaced by a codex that was better both for the players of that army AND the community as a whole. I think the pros of change outweight the cons, and that the game is enriched more by moving forward than it is by stagnation.

I must vehemently disagree. 'Better' is subjective, after all, and even though in pure mechanical terms each army might have gotten stronger, there is an increasing tendency to 'jump the shark' in their units (the Sanguinary Guard, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Dreadknight, Riptide, Centurions etc) and their fluff (Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Necrons), as well as drifting from elements of their character that I consider 'core' (Space Marines mysteriously gaining new weapons repeatedly, or the equivalency of Daemons with 'randomness'), or simply became incompatible by moving to the 6th Ed ruleset, which I find bloated and overly complex, with many rules that have been added for their own sake, making the game less mechanically elegant and (for my group) much less enjoyable as a result - and 7th Ed only makes this worse.
If I had any doubts about my course of action in rejecting the march of progress, I'd not have begun this thread! Certainly I will not purchase an expensive rulebook for a ruleset I do not enjoy simply in the interests of maintaining the 'progress' of 40k.
Edit: da001, in the post above this one, echoes my sentiments, as well as hitting on a few more particular points.

Regardless, thank you for your contributions.

While I'd never be so ludicrous as to say 7th edition is perfect (and in all honesty, I preferred 6th), I don't think we do ourselves or the hobby community as a whole any good by fracturing ourselves further along edition lines. Gamers as a whole tend to be resistant to change purely for comfort's sake, and I think a little self-awareness is helpful here.

I know I for one would never want to go back to the fifth edition hell where infantry models use bizarre frag grenades that are apparently covered in adhesive since they cannot be thrown. Or where the forces of the Imperium never actually arrive to reinforce one another. For all the great things it had, 5th edition had some hideous, glaring flaws as well. (Dawn of War. I tend to get labeled a GW apologist here on Dakka, but I'd sure like to find whoever came up with this 'drip feed your army into a blender' scenario and run their face across a cheese grater...)

How will this play for your gaming club? If someone new shows up to join, fresh faced and excited because they just bought a Battleforce, the BRB, and their Codex, will you guys just shrug and say "Sorry, kid. You're going to have to slog through ebay to find and buy two out-of-print books, and then pray that all the units you own were in them back then, in order to play with us." Running a community where people play by a collection of out-of-date rules based on the weight of nostalgia seems like it wouldn't be good for a healthy gaming group. Discouraging people from playing the new edition not only seems like it would be bad for your group, but that it would be bad for your local game store(s). If you only buy online and only play in someone's basement, then I guess that wouldn't be a concern. But most people are beholden to the good graces of some local proprietor in order to have any space to game, and without business, that retailer is going to have to look at giving space and time priority to a facet of the gaming community that's going to be a little more profitable to them.

Just some things to mull over. I'm not trying to start a ten-page debate on this idea. You've clearly got a strong viewpoint, and I just wanted to toss out a few considerations to make sure you'd taken them into account.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

there is an increasing tendency to 'jump the shark' in their units (the Sanguinary Guard, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Dreadknight, Riptide, Centurions etc)

Out of nothing more than personal curiosity, what is your specific problem with the Sanguinary Guard and the Thunderwolf Cavalry? You're literally the first person I can remember expressing an issue with them.

 da001 wrote:

Lictor & Harlequin rules: yeah I meant 12".
Genestealers: I know people said they were too weak, but I played them a lot and never really found any really big problem. They have both Rending Claws and Fleet. I would try them with a frag-grenades equivalent. 'Flesh Hooks' are a bio-weapon used by the Lictor, and have aditional rules. I would use another name, rule or gear for the genestealers.

Ah, my apologies - I was working under the assumption that Flesh Hooks were the equivalent of Frag grenades (I'm sure they were at some point). I agree entirely that they should get them.

 da001 wrote:
The Razorback was a cheap way to get twin-linked lascannons. By spamming it, you flooded the field with tanks with enough firepower to be a problem.

I hadn't thought of that - but I can't think of a way to correct that problem without either making the Razorback, or the TL Lascannon upgrade, prohibitively expensive. Did the 6th Ed book correct the problem in any way?

 da001 wrote:
The Whirlwind: I would increase its firepower, keeping the price. For fluffy reasons, the AP should stay the same: the Whirlwind´s weapons are supposed to be used while the Astartes charge, and do not easily go through power armour.

Agreed - but by 'increase its firepower', do you mean higher Strength, or more shots? I'd assume the former, but clarity is important

 da001 wrote:
When I talked about 'awful stuff' I was talking about the current Codex. Centurions, Stormraven...

Ah, of course. I agree entirely!

 da001 wrote:
Palatines share an HQ entry with Canonesses. They are like two flavors of the same unit. The Canoness is 10 points more expensive, but better: +1 faith, +1 wound, +1 attack, +1 Ld. I think it is just a matter of cost: they are too similar. 5 points less for the Palatine (30 instead of 35) or giving the Canoness WS 5 and 5 points more expensive (50 instead of 45) may do the trick.

Thats a holdover from the older editions - having multiple 'levels' of HQ types in a single army list entry. Since that is no longer done, I'd suggest simply ditching the Palatine altgoether.

 da001 wrote:
Celestians were quite bad if not properly geared up and quite expensive if geared up. Way to fix them? I would let them get up to two special weapons, two power weapons or two heavies. Currently they can take one special and one heavy. Also, Ld 10.

Surely if they are expensive when geared up currently, allowing them to take more options but not adjusting the points costs would have the same net result?

 da001 wrote:
Important! I forgot the price for Rhinos!! It is a staggering 50 pts, instead of the 35 pts for everyone else. Immolators for 50 pts could be a possibility too.

Yes, the 'transferable' entries like the Rhino would need to be adjusted in line with the newer books that share them.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
As a longtime Guard player, you might want to take a good look at the 4th edition book. It was the last time we got to actually customize our regiments, able to make Steel Legion, Death Korps, Catachans, Cadians, Mordians, etc all out of the base book's traits system. Very few of them were actually cost effective, but they added flavour to the Guard which has been missing for a very, very long time. Applying them to the 5th edition codex, alongside some suitable nerfs to a few balance outliers, and point drops to some of the weaker choices would doubtlessly be welcome to anyone wanting to play Guard in your experiment, especially if CSM 3.5 will be present. Bland is boring, after all, and the 5th edition Guard book is exceptionally bland.

I'm not sure I'd describe the 5th Ed book as bland, but I'd certainly look back at the doctrines to see what might be workable.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I just don't know. A 1 point reduction wouldn't (to me) make them any more attractive. They would still be taking up valuable FOC space that could be going to Incubi, Grotesques, or Trueborn. Wyches would be almost as good (and scoring!) while still being fewer points. Maybe--and I'm just brainstorming--increase their points but make them troops? Alternately, what if taking a Succubus MADE them troops? (Or made any squad of Bloodbrides SHE joined Troops?)

Of the three suggestions, I like the second - that taking a Succubus made them Troops. This serves a double purpose of making the Succubus a more worthwhile choice, too.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Ah. Well, this is a common view, although one I vehemently disagree with. (The very, very short version of my view on it boils down to this: I have a custom built Salamander captain I like to run sometimes. If he was cooler than Vulkan He'Stan, then the story would be about MY guy, not about Vulkan. Part of the grandeur of 40k is getting to include, and thus tell part of the story of, the titanic heroes that stride the landscape. Taking that away diminishes the game, at least to me.)

But surely the whole endeavour is more engaging if the 'titanic heroes' are ones you have created, named and customised yourself, rather than the pre-packaged ones with no room for personal taste? It also has the side effect of breaking fluff, if hugely important individuals and leaders are showing up to every small battle - surely someone like Azrael or Kharn would only be present in battles of dire significance? These special characters are almost always flat-out better versions of more 'generic' HQ', also - thus allowing them just as part of the army list stifles creativity. Yes, you can always have your own character but use them as a 'counts-as' of the relevant special character, but that feels like a cop-out, and certainly allows for no customisation in the wargear of said character.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Okay, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but don't you think you should at least play a couple of games before you give the codex up as a lost cause? As someone who didn't play Tau, I thought it was a great codex. It gave what had previously been an army I considered a push-over enough teeth to be competitive again. It seems like people have become truly offended that Tau might be able to win a game. But the Riptide is far from being an unstoppable killing machine. I honestly think that if you played a few games against it (or with it) with an open mind you might change your opinion.

You seem to have misconstrued my sentiments on the matter. The power level of the current Tau book is not a relevant factor - the fact remains that it is incompatible with 5th edition, and includes the Riptide - a unit I dislike conceptually, aesthetically, and competitively. I've nothing against Tau being competitive, but it makes much more sense to work from the 4th Ed book than the 6th.

 Jimsolo wrote:

The Living Metal rule was nasty, but the real problems were twofold - first, you couldn't ever get extra penetration dice against it (like Melta or whatnot) and it literally could not be glanced to death. (It had a weapon which couldn't be destroyed via glancing hits, and you could only glance something do death once all the weapons were destroyed.) The only time I've ever quit a game before it began was when an opponent set down three monoliths.

The lack of extra penetration dice is part of the Living Metal rule, isn't it? It seems to me that taking that caveat out of the rule would work out - preventing Lance weapons working on it is characterful enough without being overpowering, I'd say. I'd also change the Power Matrix to not count as a weapon for the purpose of 'stacking' damage (i.e. destroying all the weapons on a vehicle, immobilising it, and then rolling either of these results again), and count the Gaus Flux Arc as four weapons as shown on the model (each Weapon Destroyed result reducing the D6 shots by 1, as before, until all four are gone).

 Jimsolo wrote:
The Pariahs were very finicky. They weren't like Doomscythes or GK Paladins where you could just point and kill. But used effectively they could be a serious force multiplier. I can't count the number of times I got boxed into the Pariah radius, only to have the Deceiver use his automatic 'make a Morale test' power to send my guys fleeing for the hills.
And it might just be memory playing tricks on me, but back when I played the old 'dex, I feared the C'Tan a lot more than I do now...

I can't help but feel that shows a good use of unit synergy rather than being plain overpowered (beyond the changes to the Pariah aura I suggested above) - but it is rather a moot point in any case, since the C'Tan are special characters, and these are not used as a 'standard' part of the list but instead require prior discussion and agreement to be used, in this refinement.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Personally, I loved the fluff change, by the way. An army with no fluff (Tyranids and old Necrons) is a siren song to WAAC players who want to show up and ruin everyone else's good time without ever having to get involved in the game world in any significant way. Every player of those armies isn't necessarily a WAAC d-bag, but every d-bag I met when I first started out in this game played one of those two armies. (And if you're that one guy from my game store thinking "Is it me?" then the answer is probably not.) I only wish they'd give Tyranids a similar fluff overhaul.

Grey Knights had plenty of fluff, too - but I don't imagine that stopped the players you describe from using them as a curb-stomping excercise, most likely without investing the game world either. There will always be players not willing to engage in the fluff - I don't understand that, but I don't deny it. I maintain my disagreement about it, though - the Necrons were something of a Lovecraftian horror that genuinely inspire a sense of powerlessness and dread even just from reading the old book - as it becomes apparent that there is not a lot that can be done to stop or permanently destroy them. It's not perfect (I'm not a fan of the C'Tan's role as sudden uber-gods, for example), but I think it could have made for a better baseline than the newer fluff, which just feels like transplanting the WHFB Tomb Kings into space. Tyranids, on the other hand, are more of a 'classic' alien menace, and I really see no need for them to have any more to them than they already do - you can't really personify such creatures in a meaningful way, and it fits them to remain that way.

 Jimsolo wrote:
While I'd never be so ludicrous as to say 7th edition is perfect (and in all honesty, I preferred 6th), I don't think we do ourselves or the hobby community as a whole any good by fracturing ourselves further along edition lines. Gamers as a whole tend to be resistant to change purely for comfort's sake, and I think a little self-awareness is helpful here.

7th edition is very far from perfect indeed, and I don't see the connection between buying into it and the health of the hobby community. Wargaming is, after all, much bigger than just GW, and if 7th edition (and 6th before it) does not appeal to me as a game, I see no reason to buy into it, or support the company for having made it.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I know I for one would never want to go back to the fifth edition hell where infantry models use bizarre frag grenades that are apparently covered in adhesive since they cannot be thrown. Or where the forces of the Imperium never actually arrive to reinforce one another. For all the great things it had, 5th edition had some hideous, glaring flaws as well. (Dawn of War. I tend to get labeled a GW apologist here on Dakka, but I'd sure like to find whoever came up with this 'drip feed your army into a blender' scenario and run their face across a cheese grater...)

5th Edition did have flaws, yes, but I remain of the view that its core rules were the most stable and sensible of all 40k editions, and so made the most sense to work from in refining the game. The flawed elements, like wound allocation, are being fixed or otherwise changed. (you'd be glad to know that the Dawn of War deployment type is one of the things I have altered - it's simply to deploy on the short table edges now). Certainly I'd argue that 5th has less overall flaws, and less catastrophic ones, than 6th or 7th.

 Jimsolo wrote:
How will this play for your gaming club? If someone new shows up to join, fresh faced and excited because they just bought a Battleforce, the BRB, and their Codex, will you guys just shrug and say "Sorry, kid. You're going to have to slog through ebay to find and buy two out-of-print books, and then pray that all the units you own were in them back then, in order to play with us." Running a community where people play by a collection of out-of-date rules based on the weight of nostalgia seems like it wouldn't be good for a healthy gaming group. Discouraging people from playing the new edition not only seems like it would be bad for your group, but that it would be bad for your local game store(s). If you only buy online and only play in someone's basement, then I guess that wouldn't be a concern. But most people are beholden to the good graces of some local proprietor in order to have any space to game, and without business, that retailer is going to have to look at giving space and time priority to a facet of the gaming community that's going to be a little more profitable to them.

Luckily, these are largely non-issues since the group in question is a small group of like-minded friends, founded fairly recently with the express intent of not following the 'current' ruleset. I'd argue that it is not nostalgia that fuels this refinement, but a desire for better, clearer, and more elegant rules such that we can play 40k without constantly having to buy new models and books to 'keep up' with a game that is rapidly devolving in quality and extending in required time and needless complexity. I'd also add that, were we to play in a shop (we don't) discouraging people from playing the new edition, and thus having a negative effect on the sales of the products, is far more GW's fault than ours, and the lack of profitability that results is the consequence they must face - no one owes them any loyalty in that regard (least of all us), nor do we have any obligation to perpetuate their game for them, or speak positively about it if we don't like its direction.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Just some things to mull over. I'm not trying to start a ten-page debate on this idea. You've clearly got a strong viewpoint, and I just wanted to toss out a few considerations to make sure you'd taken them into account.

Your conviction is laudable, but you are fighting a losing battle - the decision to pursue this rewrite has already been made, and agreed on by all the participants. If we attempt to bring other players in (which we might), they'd almost certainly be of the same mindset, or at the very least made aware that we were playing a heavily modified version of the game that isn't 'current', and all effort would be made to accomodate their armies and models, proxying if need be.

Now, lets keep things on topic, shall we?

 MajorStoffer wrote:
As a longtime Guard player, you might want to take a good look at the 4th edition book. It was the last time we got to actually customize our regiments, able to make Steel Legion, Death Korps, Catachans, Cadians, Mordians, etc all out of the base book's traits system. Very few of them were actually cost effective, but they added flavour to the Guard which has been missing for a very, very long time. Applying them to the 5th edition codex, alongside some suitable nerfs to a few balance outliers, and point drops to some of the weaker choices would doubtlessly be welcome to anyone wanting to play Guard in your experiment, especially if CSM 3.5 will be present. Bland is boring, after all, and the 5th edition Guard book is exceptionally bland.

^This sounds good.

The 3rd ed nids and CSM were all about customization & feeling the background. I heard the Codex IG 4th was about customization too, but I also heard it was too 'weak'... perhaps a mix between 4th and 5th may be interesting.

 MalusCalibur wrote:
(...)
It seems we have met our first disparity between contributors to the thread - Pariahs were described as 'never taken' earlier.

This was bound to happen.... but the disagreement is not to last, because I played very few games against Necrons, so I am not a reliable source. By the way, they always obliterated me, but I heard everywhere they were supposed to be weak.

I never saw Pariahs doing anything, but that may be anecdotal. The main reason for not taking them was the 'Phase Out' rule, so if the rule is no longer there, they are no longer a never-take unit.

By the way: are the Necron C´tans in? I assumed they got the Special Character treatment and so they are disallowed. If they are in, they need some nerfing. And I´d like to add the Monolith to the units-to-fix list, I admit I forgot how hard was to kill them.

 Jimsolo wrote:
(...)
I just don't know. A 1 point reduction wouldn't (to me) make them any more attractive. They would still be taking up valuable FOC space that could be going to Incubi, Grotesques, or Trueborn. Wyches would be almost as good (and scoring!) while still being fewer points. Maybe--and I'm just brainstorming--increase their points but make them troops? Alternately, what if taking a Succubus MADE them troops? (Or made any squad of Bloodbrides SHE joined Troops?)

I completely forgot about Bloodbrides!

I like the Succubus making them scoring. That would help both units.


About Thunderwolf Cavalry and Sanguinary Guard being 'jumping the shark', I am partly with Jimsolo here. Well, the Thunderwolf Cavalry is a Space Marine riding a giant wolf (who may be or may be not a Space Marine himself), which is actually pretty silly, but the Sanguinary Guard is just a Vanguard Veteran with some rules, some weapons and a new look. The only silly thing I see is the name, and only because it is repeated over and over in the book (Sanguinary Guard, Sanguinary Priest, Sanguinor, Sanguinius...).

 MalusCalibur wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
I just don't know. A 1 point reduction wouldn't (to me) make them any more attractive. They would still be taking up valuable FOC space that could be going to Incubi, Grotesques, or Trueborn. Wyches would be almost as good (and scoring!) while still being fewer points. Maybe--and I'm just brainstorming--increase their points but make them troops? Alternately, what if taking a Succubus MADE them troops? (Or made any squad of Bloodbrides SHE joined Troops?)

Of the three suggestions, I like the second - that taking a Succubus made them Troops. This serves a double purpose of making the Succubus a more worthwhile choice, too.

I'd consider them a worthwhile choice in that instance.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Ah. Well, this is a common view, although one I vehemently disagree with. (The very, very short version of my view on it boils down to this: I have a custom built Salamander captain I like to run sometimes. If he was cooler than Vulkan He'Stan, then the story would be about MY guy, not about Vulkan. Part of the grandeur of 40k is getting to include, and thus tell part of the story of, the titanic heroes that stride the landscape. Taking that away diminishes the game, at least to me.)

But surely the whole endeavour is more engaging if the 'titanic heroes' are ones you have created, named and customised yourself, rather than the pre-packaged ones with no room for personal taste? It also has the side effect of breaking fluff, if hugely important individuals and leaders are showing up to every small battle - surely someone like Azrael or Kharn would only be present in battles of dire significance? These special characters are almost always flat-out better versions of more 'generic' HQ', also - thus allowing them just as part of the army list stifles creativity. Yes, you can always have your own character but use them as a 'counts-as' of the relevant special character, but that feels like a cop-out, and certainly allows for no customisation in the wargear of said character.

I don't think I explained well enough. This is the problem with any game set in a franchise world. If you set down to play the Star Wars RPG, then what do any of your characters matter? They don't. The most important story has already been told, and your character isn't in it. Likewise, if we play a game of 40k with none of the canon characters anywhere in it, then what does this battle matter? Answer: it doesn't.

That's a personal preference though, and I'm not going to fault anyone for feeling opposite. Lots of folks do. HOWEVER, did you say later on that you guys are making a house rule that no one can use special characters without special permission (essentially the same as Forgeworld stuff used to be)?

While that strikes me initially as unfairly punitive--essentially requiring that everyone play according to one set of preferences--I think it also creates a boat load more work. Consider Dark Eldar, for example. With no special characters, Grotesques become a 'maybe at games over 2k' selection, and that's REALLY iffy. Hellions go out the window as characters not even worth taking. Many staples of their respective codexes (Sergeant Bastonne, Duke Sliscus, Saint Celestine, Chenkov, both C'Tan, all the Phoenix Lords, and I'm sure others besides) cannot be replicated with any generic characters. Many of them are the key to unlocking additional play styles or to being able to use them with any kind of efficiency (Hellion lists, Carnival of Pain lists, DE Deep Strike lists, Valhallan conscript lists, or any Codex: Space Marine faction other than Ultramarines) and without those special characters you either have to A) choose to let those lists be a distant memory of the forgotten past, or B) create another body of rules to compensate for them with generic characters. It seems like getting rid of them would either make WAY more work for you, or stifle far more creativity than allowing the characters in would.

If you go with the 'voluminous amount of work' route, and don't mind it, then I'm sure Dakka would be willing to help you there too. I'd certainly have some useful suggestions. (Give Archons the ability to take skyboards, and unlock Hellions as troops! )

 Jimsolo wrote:
Okay, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but don't you think you should at least play a couple of games before you give the codex up as a lost cause? As someone who didn't play Tau, I thought it was a great codex. It gave what had previously been an army I considered a push-over enough teeth to be competitive again. It seems like people have become truly offended that Tau might be able to win a game. But the Riptide is far from being an unstoppable killing machine. I honestly think that if you played a few games against it (or with it) with an open mind you might change your opinion.

You seem to have misconstrued my sentiments on the matter. The power level of the current Tau book is not a relevant factor - the fact remains that it is incompatible with 5th edition, and includes the Riptide - a unit I dislike conceptively, aesthetically, and competitively. I've nothing against Tau being competitive, but it makes much more sense to work from the 4th Ed book than the 6th.

Do you have any proposals on how to make them competitive? (Other than just using the new codex?) The only things that really occur to me are to give them select things from the 6th ed 'dex, like Fireblades, Invocation of the Elements, and ion weapons, . (Honestly, in the environment you're talking about, taking away their flyers, Riptides, and Supporting Fire might be enough, and then just let them use the new codex.)

 Jimsolo wrote:

The Living Metal rule was nasty, but the real problems were twofold - first, you couldn't ever get extra penetration dice against it (like Melta or whatnot) and it literally could not be glanced to death. (It had a weapon which couldn't be destroyed via glancing hits, and you could only glance something do death once all the weapons were destroyed.) The only time I've ever quit a game before it began was when an opponent set down three monoliths.

The lack of extra penetration dice is part of the Living Metal rule, isn't it? It seems to me that taking that caveat out of the rule would work out - preventing Lance weapons working on it is characterful enough without being overpowering, I'd say. I'd also change the Power Matrix to not count as a weapon for the purpose of 'stacking' damage (i.e. destroying all the weapons on a vehicle, immobilising it, and then rolling either of these results again), and count the Gaus Flux Arc as four weapons as shown on the model (each Weapon Destroyed result reducing the D6 shots by 1, as before, until all four are gone).

I think that'd balance it quite nicely! (Although with all those reductions, a small drop in points would probably be fair to the Necron players, since they're already being crippled by a codex with such few options in it...)

 Jimsolo wrote:
The Pariahs were very finicky. They weren't like Doomscythes or GK Paladins where you could just point and kill. But used effectively they could be a serious force multiplier. I can't count the number of times I got boxed into the Pariah radius, only to have the Deceiver use his automatic 'make a Morale test' power to send my guys fleeing for the hills.
And it might just be memory playing tricks on me, but back when I played the old 'dex, I feared the C'Tan a lot more than I do now...

I can't help but feel that shows a good use of unit synergy rather than being plain overpowered (beyond the changes to the Pariah aura I suggested above) - but it is rather a moot point in any case, since the C'Tan are special characters, and these are not used as a 'standard' part of the list but instead require prior discussion and agreement to be used, in this refinement.

Oh, no, I agree, good synergy. (Although I am a little confused where we draw the line between 'broken combo' and 'unit synergy.' Both of them seem to be the same thing, at least to me: using the strengths from two separate units to create a combination that is more powerful than the sum of it's components.) I think a small point increase might be justified, though.

Since we seem to be looking at such a huge re-write, have you considered adding in new rules entirely? Or importing some of the "positive" changes from later editions? (Like the ability to throw grenades...)

Razorback.
The change to 6th fixed nothing. The basic cost was increased, but the cost of the weapons decreased. So the upgraded Razorback, the thing that was causing the problem, was left the same. The change just punish those who wanted to field the basic Razorback.

The only exception was the Razorback + Heavy Flamer, getting 10 pts cheaper.

I prefer the base cost of 5th (40 pts), for everyone who just want a tranport with some fire power. I would change the cost of the weapons:
Option A: Twin Linked Heavy Flamer: before: +10 pts. (-15)
Option B: Twin-linked assault cannon: before: no changes.
Option C: Twin-linked lascannon: +45 pts. (+10)
Option D: Lascannon and twin-linked plasma gun: no changes

Perhaps +40 pts for Options B and D would be better. But I never saw these options, it was always TL lascannons.


Whirlwind.
This issue was addressed in 6th, with the Wirlwind getting 20 pts cheaper. I think it is OK, but there are still better options in Heavy and the unit is not used. Adding a rule to allow taking multiple Whirlwind or Predators in a single choice will no doubt make them far more interesting. But it is unfluffy for most Chapters and most situations.

Keeping the 5th price and buffing the weapon was my first choice. I was thinking about more shots. Artillery 2.


Palatines.
I would keep them! They are Captain-equivalents, just with less options. Just by making them 5 pts cheaper the player may field a really cheap basic HQ, if that is his thing. Or he can take the more expensive Canoness and buff her up.

Celestians.
Allowing two weapons of the same kind is big. It helps you to customize a unit to play a particular role in your army. Also two power weapons for 10 pts each is interesting.

Re-reading the entry, I got it wrong: they can take two Specials or 1 Special & 1 Heavy. So I would push it a little harder: 2 weapons of any kind (special, heavy or power weapons), but if the unit is made of 10 models, then 4 weapons of any kind.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Out of nothing more than personal curiosity, what is your specific problem with the Sanguinary Guard and the Thunderwolf Cavalry? You're literally the first person I can remember expressing an issue with them.

I find them both to take the name and overarching theme of their respective chapters to a literal and ludicrous extreme - Space Wolves riding giant space wolves, ludicrously over-decorated Blood Angels with 'Angel' guns and 'Encarmine' (i.e. blood) swords. A Space Marine riding any living creature as a mount is hard to accept, as the beast would have it's spine crushed by the massive weight of their Power Armour, and there is really no need for the Sanguinary Guard to go to such decorative extremes - having Assault Marines with gold helmets was plenty to represent their veteran status.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I don't think I explained well enough. This is the problem with any game set in a franchise world. If you set down to play the Star Wars RPG, then what do any of your characters matter? They don't. The most important story has already been told, and your character isn't in it. Likewise, if we play a game of 40k with none of the canon characters anywhere in it, then what does this battle matter? Answer: it doesn't.

I disagree. The universe is a big place, and the named characters cannot be everywhere nor affiliated with every sub-faction - indeed a large part of the appeal of 40k, from a modelling and army building perspective, is the freedom for players to create their own Space Marine chapters, Imperial Guard regiments, Eldar craftworlds etc. There is no reason at all why meaningful battles cannot be fought by player-created characters, and despite their in-universe importance not every battle revolves around named characters.
Since special characters are almost always flat-out better than generic equivalents in codices, why even have those generic options? It creates the Warmachine problem of removing personal investment in a force and of merely using a playing piece, instead of a model or army that truly feels like your own.I don't think a franchise world automatically negates the potential for player creativity nor the validity of 'non-canon' characters, and personally I much prefer fighting battles with characters I have myself customised.

 Jimsolo wrote:
HOWEVER, did you say later on that you guys are making a house rule that no one can use special characters without special permission (essentially the same as Forgeworld stuff used to be)?While that strikes me initially as unfairly punitive--essentially requiring that everyone play according to one set of preferences--I think it also creates a boat load more work. Consider Dark Eldar, for example. With no special characters, Grotesques become a 'maybe at games over 2k' selection, and that's REALLY iffy. Hellions go out the window as characters not even worth taking. Many staples of their respective codexes (Sergeant Bastonne, Duke Sliscus, Saint Celestine, Chenkov, both C'Tan, all the Phoenix Lords, and I'm sure others besides) cannot be replicated with any generic characters. Many of them are the key to unlocking additional play styles or to being able to use them with any kind of efficiency (Hellion lists, Carnival of Pain lists, DE Deep Strike lists, Valhallan conscript lists, or any Codex: Space Marine faction other than Ultramarines) and without those special characters you either have to A) choose to let those lists be a distant memory of the forgotten past, or B) create another body of rules to compensate for them with generic characters. It seems like getting rid of them would either make WAY more work for you, or stifle far more creativity than allowing the characters in would.

Precisely correct - and it should be noted that I am not draconically handing down decrees of what will and will not be in this rewrite - all changes are discussed by all members and agreed upon before implementation. As far as special characters go, we all share the viewpoint I expressed above. Having the special characters so closely enmeshed with alternate force organisations is problematic, yes, but I disagree that a lot of work would be needed to shift those alterations to more generic options. It can be linked to wargear (like the jump pack example I mentioned before), or simply given as an optional upgrade (Chenkovs 'Send in the Next Wave' rule for Conscripts), to name but two examples. Special characters unconnected with FoC alterations are generally just better versions of existing HQ's, and so no work is needed to simply axe them. Special characters are fine for one-off games or special scenarios, but should not be a part of the standard army lists.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Do you have any proposals on how to make them competitive? (Other than just using the new codex?) The only things that really occur to me are to give them select things from the 6th ed 'dex, like Fireblades, Invocation of the Elements, and ion weapons, . (Honestly, in the environment you're talking about, taking away their flyers, Riptides, and Supporting Fire might be enough, and then just let them use the new codex.)

I repeat - rules wise it makes more sense to take the 4th Ed book and improve it, rather than trying to take the 6th Ed book and scale it back, for issues of compatibility. I might well take ideas from the 6th book, but the basis will always be the previous one. As for current ideas, no, I do not have anything specific in mind for Tau (Blood Angels and Tyranids are currently at the forefront of my thoughts), but then that's what this thread is for.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I think that'd balance it quite nicely! (Although with all those reductions, a small drop in points would probably be fair to the Necron players, since they're already being crippled by a codex with such few options in it...)

I agree it should probably be reduced in points with those two changes; as for a codex crippled by lack of options, that's one of the things I hope to address. I already intend to move Immortals over to Troops, and add in extras like the Tomb Stalker and (maybe) Ghost Ark.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Oh, no, I agree, good synergy. (Although I am a little confused where we draw the line between 'broken combo' and 'unit synergy.' Both of them seem to be the same thing, at least to me: using the strengths from two separate units to create a combination that is more powerful than the sum of it's components.) I think a small point increase might be justified, though.

Personally, I'd be happier with the change to Pariahs I mentioned earlier, rather than simply adjusting their points. To my mind, a broken combo is one that requires little thought or precision to work and has a combined effect too far in excess of the components.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Since we seem to be looking at such a huge re-write, have you considered adding in new rules entirely? Or importing some of the "positive" changes from later editions? (Like the ability to throw grenades...)

Yes, and I have already gone through the core rules with a draft list of changes. For example, 'Weapon Destroyed' results randomise the weapon lost, rather than allowing either player to choose it (perhaps one of the only changes in 6th I liked), and wound allocation is just axed entirely - the owning player removes casualties as they like. This does tend to leave sergeants and specialised weapons alive til last, but every single attempt to make casualty removal more 'realistic' or less prone to those results has just added needless complexity and a different kind of rules abuse.
I'm really not sure why you're so keen on throwing grenades as ranged weapons - it makes sense, yes, but in the interests of keeping the game moving at a decent pace I find it better that grenades are incorporated in other mechanics. They'd be fine for a skirmish level game, but not a mass battle one that 40k is (allegedly) supposed to be.

 da001 wrote:
The 3rd ed nids and CSM were all about customization & feeling the background. I heard the Codex IG 4th was about customization too, but I also heard it was too 'weak'... perhaps a mix between 4th and 5th may be interesting.

Yes, the 4th Ed IG book had a list of 'doctrines' - little bonuses or access to specialised units (like Ogryns) thay you could choose up to 5 of, or just use the book as it stood. It was a neat way to add flavour, and is something I'll revisit when I get to work on the Guard.

 da001 wrote:
I never saw Pariahs doing anything, but that may be anecdotal. The main reason for not taking them was the 'Phase Out' rule, so if the rule is no longer there, they are no longer a never-take unit.

By the way: are the Necron C´tans in? I assumed they got the Special Character treatment and so they are disallowed. If they are in, they need some nerfing. And I´d like to add the Monolith to the units-to-fix list, I admit I forgot how hard was to kill them.

Fair enough - it does seem that Phase Out might have been the biggest deterrent. As for the C'Tan, no, they are definitely out; not only are they special characters, but rather horrendously good ones at that. The proposed solution to the Monolith is covered in my previous post.

 da001 wrote:
About Thunderwolf Cavalry and Sanguinary Guard being 'jumping the shark', I am partly with Jimsolo here. Well, the Thunderwolf Cavalry is a Space Marine riding a giant wolf (who may be or may be not a Space Marine himself), which is actually pretty silly, but the Sanguinary Guard is just a Vanguard Veteran with some rules, some weapons and a new look. The only silly thing I see is the name, and only because it is repeated over and over in the book (Sanguinary Guard, Sanguinary Priest, Sanguinor, Sanguinius...).

I find the Sanguinary Guard daft-looking, and bogged down with far too much 'bling' - I'm not sure where the idea that Blood Angels decorate every piece of wargear to such extremes originated. And yes, the repeating of 'blood' and its synonyms throughout the codex really is bafflingly stupid. Blood Fists? Bloodstrike Missiles?! It borders on the parodical.