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I personally am looking forward to Witch Hunter codex (or Inquisition codex, as I'm hoping). A lot will probably change, but who knows... maybe those units that got somewhat gimped by new rules will be fixed... Maybe repentias will have a chance to reach their target, survive the first half of assault and actually do some damage...

On the other hand, things like planetstrike don't do much for me. Mostly because I'm more of a skirmish/cityfighting type. So Cities of Death is something I might get... but I'm not specially thrilled with Apocalypse and Planetstrike.. though they do look good, from a less personal point of view.

gw just plain fails with codex's of late.
i'm an orc player and bar the 2 exceptions (tank bustas cause they are fail and nob bikers cause people think they are op'd... but points wise i dont see them like that)
everythings turned out great.
and it's ironic. they tryed so hard with the "serious" armys but then give us a unit that has a 1/5 chance to fire is fire-er at the enemy rather than amunition and the army turns out fine.

I am unhappy with GW's choice to shaft librarians in the SM codex. The rest of the codex is alright, but why! oh why?did librarians lose a wound, and exchange their awesome psychic powers for the eldar-wannabe ones? I still miss Fury of the Ancients, where I may run a line through my opponent's entire army while he's hugging a rock.
GW needs to smarten up and fix the neccessary, rather than kill all the stuff which we had going so well...

Post deleted because typed into wrong thread.

DOH

I play Chaos and hate the codex for one specific reason. All fluff has been cast aside. I have always hated the idea of a Tzeench lord leading Khorne troops. Or a more pertain ant example of a Slaneesh lord leading Nurgle troops. I believe that the mark of the lord should "unlock" a specific type of troop and maybe the corresponding daemon. If not they are elites. Maybe the mark of chaos glory could give some benefit to those who choose otherwise or allow Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, or Alpha Leagon. Either way this would make for more interesting armies that would make exponentially more sense. This would also encourage some variety as well.

The current codex is boring. How many lists just use the standard Lash, PM, Oblit spam?. It is because these options are the best bang for the buck so to speak. Sure, by making different leagon rules some ways to make more unbalanced lists will happen. As long as there are power gamer douches this is inevitable. I'd gladly accept this cost and the benefit of variety and fluff.

On to another aspect of codices that I dislike: the wait. Why does it take so long? I know that GW likes to release new models, but two a year is far too slow for a multi million dollar business. There obviously isn't an insane amount of playtesting so what's the holdup? I'd like to see one per 3 months. As others have stated a legitimate FAQ wouldn't be much to ask either.

@JGrand: If you don't like it, don't field it. Nothing in the CSM book forces anybody to play any of those sorts of forces. And for the record, I own no Oblits.

As for the WFB side -

There are less chances of units being invalidated, as WYSIWYG is less adamant and there aren't as many weapon options for individual troops.

In 40k, you have a Space Marine squad that has a Sergeant with weapon options, a heavy weapon trooper with weapon options and a special weapon trooper with weapon options. All of these options have to be represented on the individual model. If one of those weapon options goes away, models are invalidated and can't be used, especially since 40k is more WYSIWYG dependant.

In WFB, units have upgrades (Bows, shield, etc). If a unit can't take that upgrade any more, you just ignore that they have it. WYSIWYG only really matters for base size as the individual models aren't as important. Plus, GW has not been in the 'take away unit options' for Fantasy like they do in 40k. They also generally don't take away units or they can easily be used as something else.

Changes in WFB tends to be of the 'more options' when coming out with a new book and most of the changes are in magic, which does not in any way have to be represented on the model. When units get 'nerfed' in fantasy, they can usually do the same job as before, just not as well.

A good example of this is my skinks. I have old skinks with Short Bows (Which are not a usable unit option any more). I use them as either blowpipe or jav skinks and no one bats an eye. I just let them know what the unit has (And if I have multiple units of skinks in my army, all of them are one way or another).

I guess GW doesn't do this sort of thing anymore... but how about releasing PUBLIC trial rules for new codices? Either online, or to their stores/affiliated stores (which would, btw, be a pretty sweet way of getting people to want to visit them).

Every game beta tests stuff these days, sometimes they even have beta-tests for patches (which is the closest thing to a codex I guess), like WC3 or DoW2.

I don't even think it's necessarily that GW doesn't care, it could just be that they simply aren't capable of ensuring perfect balance when all the testing they can do is internal. Look at WC3 or SC - how many patches did it take to reach the balanced states these games are in today? SC is at patch 1.16, WC3 at patch 1.24 - and this is not accounting for the dozens of beta versions, then the dozens of beta versions of their respective expansions.
Granted, there have not been any balance changes made to either game for a good number of years (last SC balance patch was 1.07 I believe, the rest are bug fixes or feature updates), WC3 I'm not sure about, but a few years back as well, so the number isn't as big as it seems. But still - it takes iteration, even with the feedback of MILLIONS of players. Blizzard, being a computer game company, also has the luxury of being able to make lots of experimenting more freely (ie they are fond of taking a bad unit and making it drastically more powerful, just to make sure players start using it, then toning it down until it's a viable but not overpowered unit), which doesn't work as well when you release new rules for an army once every 5-10 years, but could be done if you had a beta test!

skyth wrote:As for the WFB side -

There are less chances of units being invalidated,

You mean like the Albion units? Or Fimir?

Or are you ignoring the loss of entire armies like Dogs of War, Chaos Dwarves, the various Storm of Chaos armies, and the War of the Beard armies?

Not to mention an entire host of pre WFB-5 Regiments of Renown. For example, "Scarlock" might ring a bell to some old-timers.

Just use 'Counts As', John.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have to bring this up, because I find the inconsistency of it all so wonderfully hilarious.

JohnHwangDD wrote:LatD has the most legitimate complpaint, and is actually worthy of a proper Codex - you'll get relatively little argument from me there.

He said that in this thread.

When the Chaos Codex came out, he said the following:

LatD is now and forever merely Imperial Guard, no more, no less.

*That* is your list

And, and this is just amazing:

I might suggest that the bulk of the blame might be laid squarely at the feet of the LatD players themselves, as to why their list got canceled.

It's all here for those who are interested. Makes entertaining reading. Even Stelek makes an appearance!

I think as far as the releases themselves go, I'm a very happy camper. I play Orks mainly, but I have a small force of Plague Marines. Orks, well, I was delighted with the codex. It lets me try a lot of fun builds, all of them pretty viable. I've done truck heavy KOS, battlewagon rush, mega-horde, elite orks...and I've still got a lot of stuff I want to try. For someone playing the old codex since it came out, that was a real shot in the arm for my enthusiasm for 40K. And they're FINALLY filling out the model range! So, yeah, estatic, like most ork players.

The chaos codex makes me more of an odd one out. I'm pretty happy with it. I think the changes to plague marines make them work much better and also make them very interesting to play. I enjoy the tactical flexibility of being able to take bikes and raptors and "weenie" plague marines if I want. I feel like the book works pretty well for a plague marine player. I do with Lash hadn't been put in, and you could mark generic daemons to make them somewhat fluffy, but on the whole I'm quite happy with the way it works. (I use Zombies for my Daemons, I think it works nicely with them clawing their way out of the ground etc )
I must be one of the only chaos players who feels that way ! (I should point out that my plague marines were a corrupted Loyalist chapter, not Deathgaurd, so it makes a bit more sense for them to have the extra options.)

The only other things I have models for are Blood Angels and a small amount of Crimson Fists I got from AOBR. I'm pretty happy with the space marine codex too, I think it makes for very interesting play and I enjoy the variety of builds. I especially like Combat Tactics, I find it makes games with my Horde orks very cinematic and close fought, which I love. I'm a big fan of podding marines ever since DoW (the game that made me want to collect space marines for the first time since I turned 14).

So all the actual releases have made me happy. But if you check my posting history, you can see that I was an angry, angry player back before the orks were released. I was really despondant after waiting so long for a release. THAT is the worst thing about the release schedule, it takes so bloody long! It shouldn't either, with half the codices being variations on an MEQ theme. It's a damn travesty, and I reckon it's the single worst thing about GW. If PP go the same way, I'll be very dissapointed.

JGrand wrote:I play Chaos and hate the codex for one specific reason. All fluff has been cast aside. I have always hated the idea of a Tzeench lord leading Khorne troops. Or a more pertain ant example of a Slaneesh lord leading Nurgle troops. I believe that the mark of the lord should "unlock" a specific type of troop and maybe the corresponding daemon. If not they are elites. Maybe the mark of chaos glory could give some benefit to those who choose otherwise or allow Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, or Alpha Leagon. Either way this would make for more interesting armies that would make exponentially more sense. This would also encourage some variety as well.

I don't understand. You said you're all in favor of restricting unit choices based on what Chaos God the army generally worships, then you say it would encourage variety?

My own personal "what's not fun" would be having to wait years before generic items of your armory are brought in line with the same items from another codex for your army. A storm shield is a storm shield is a storm sheild. I could see a chapter with lore explaining a higher level of craftsmanship like the Salamanders or Ironhands having better stuff but that's another discussion. Standard equipment for an army should be updated in the FAQ for that army if it's changed in another codex. That's not the case though so players are left to wait until their codex is released again before the equipment is brought in line with the updated gear.

I hear a lot of complaints about Chaos and how they don't feel right in the new dex. The complaints that I've heard seem to be mostly that themed armies aren't as strong or viable anymore.

Themed armies have taken that hit across the GW product line. Could this be a part of everyones problem?

Could the sense of dread a lot of you are feeling be that you feel the flavor of your armies is becoming vanilla?


PS. I must admit that I find the concept of chaos following a strict organized theme "Ironic".

H.B.M.C. wrote:... Planetstrike though opens up a whole new avenue for games, and takes us away from the monotony of Kill Points and Victory Points which, IMO, are dull and boring ways to play the game. ...

Seriously? You have a huge number of combinations you can make with the basic 40k rules. Three kinds of deployment, three kinds of victory conditions, and infinitely variable ways to set up terrain. Do you think Chess needs an update because "take the king" is boring? The fun of 40k is not from adding scores of new rules that turn the game upside down, IMO. The fun of 40k is that every game is a different challenge with different parameters. Maybe if you play the same opponents all the time I could see where you're coming from, but honestly I don't think it's justified to say that normal 40k is boring. IMO, the only way a game like this is boring is when it's not a challenge, and as long as you have good opponents, it's always a challenge.

focusedfire wrote:I hear a lot of complaints about Chaos and how they don't feel right in the new dex. The complaints that I've heard seem to be mostly that themed armies aren't as strong or viable anymore.

Themed armies have taken that hit across the GW product line. Could this be a part of everyones problem?

Could the sense of dread a lot of you are feeling be that you feel the flavor of your armies is becoming vanilla?


PS. I must admit that I find the concept of chaos following a strict organized theme "Ironic".

Look at it from this point of view,say hypotheticly that when the new Spezz Woofs codex is released ,players that have spent considerable time/money find that Ragnar Blackmane,Login Grimnor etc,are all now generic HQs,Long Fangs are gone,Blood Claws are ST 2,Grey Hunters are the same,Leman Russes can no longer be taken and the best HQ you can take for your army is Lion'el.
I'd belive this would irk SW players just a bit,and it should,just as the neutralization of Legion armies has irked many Chaos players.
I do feel that there is a distinct leaning towards "vanilla/WAaC "builds,with theme,flavor and substance being left behind.

Ixe wrote:Are you serious? You have a huge number of combinations you can make with the basic 40k rules. Three kinds of deployment, three kinds of victory conditions,

So by "huge" you mean 27, most of which are just minor vatiations of the same 3 missions, a third of which will be unbalanced and idiotic KP games?

So yes - I'm serious.

Ixe wrote:Do you think Chess needs an update because "take the king" is boring?

No, I think Chess needs an update because Queens are broken.

Ixe wrote:The fun of 40k is not from adding scores of new rules that turn the game upside down, IMO. The fun of 40k is that every game is a different challenge with different parameters.

To you perhaps. Don't presume to tell me what the fun of 40K is. Everyone plays this game for different reasons.

I don't understand. You said you're all in favor of restricting unit choices based on what Chaos God the army generally worships, then you say it would encourage variety?

I'm in favor of ending the ability to take stupid unfluffy armies and encouraging people to build ones that use other units based on incentives. How many Choas builds do you see running the old standard Lash, PM, Oblit spam? It's because there is no reason not to. What if by taking a Slanessh prince a player couldn't use plague marines as a troop choice and had to take them as elites though? Wouldn't that put an interesting trade off that would spawn different armies? What about those who want Berzerker troops? Wouldn't we see more of this if there was some incentive to running a World Eaters army? Maybe some new wargear or different options to make up for losing some units. Or the ability to take a squad of Bloodletters or a Bloodthirster? How many people who are getting into the game now look at becoming cool legions like Iron Warriors or Alpha legion only to find out there is no reason to be them? What if there was still the four heavy support choices for Iron warriors and some cool servo arm and wargear for lords to make up for a lack of mark? Or the ability to infiltrate all alpha legion? I feel that these would prompt people to actually use different factions and tactics. Sure, you couldn't just "go crazy" and take whatever you like, however as we have seen this mentality just leads to people picking the best option at each FOC and going with it, no matter how stupid it looks.

@JGrand: If you don't like it, don't field it. Nothing in the CSM book forces anybody to play any of those sorts of forces. And for the record, I own no Oblits.

I don't play them. Look at my sig, I take no lash or no Obliterators. There is no way I'd have a differently marked Daemon Prince leading my Plague Marines just because it's better. I wouldn't spam Oblits because their models are hideous and because they are boring and decently overpowered; not to mention they don't fit into a Death Guard army. Still, I don't like seeing it. And it can easily be avoided by having incentives for being certain legions. Allow for a basic unnammed chaos army to be made still, just don't allow the garbage of Khorne leading 2k sons with Nurgle marked terminators. It's just lame.

It's worse in Daemon armies - Legions of Nurgle-led Tzeentch Daemons, or Slaanesh-led Khornate Daemons. Uhhgh... horrible.

It's worse in Daemon armies - Legions of Nurgle-led Tzeentch Daemons, or Slaanesh-led Khornate Daemons. Uhhgh... horrible.

Yeah, it's really bad there as well. I understand why people do it, it just doesn't seem right to me to sacrifice the rich back story of the game. To me the fluff and models of 40k and the interesting races and factions are the reason to play it over playing a different tabletop game. It just doesn't seem right to play armies that make no sense in the confines of the game just to win. Again, I understand why people do it, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Full customization is an amazing aspect of the game, but if there were some incentives for maintaining the context of the back story on the battlefield I think everyone would win. More variety makes the game much cooler and more fun.

Well, folks, I'm going to drop 2 pence/pennies of ugly reality into this discussion.

GW doesn't give a Skaven's butt about any of this. HONEST. They are a publically traded company, which means they are driven to appease stockholders who, for the most part, don't play any GW games!

GW is in the business of moving product, and you can break all of us down, thusly:

80% - Churn. Buy an army, fool around, leave.
15% - Stay. Buy an army, maybe a second army. And that's it.
5% - Burn. Go through armies like a hot knife through butter.

GW is only interested in the 85%, which are new players and pure tourney knights. They buy a bunch, and GW makes a heap of profit from them. Codex changes are made by people sitting in ivory towers, and those changes are made a year before release, and locked into the printers SIX MONTHS before the release date. Which means, yes, anything you say about a new Codex in the six months before release means nothing, because it has already been put to bed, sent to the printers, printed, boxed, and put into containers on big cargo ships.

GW eliminates an entire army (Legions) or messes up a Codex (Dark Angels)? They don't care. New codex, new models, more money.

All they care about, first, is what the 80% Churn wants. Easy to pickup rules and codexes with FIXED OPTIONS. Got it? So new players can put together an army easily, by playing a short game of obvious mix-and-max. All those extra options, wargear choices, and such? TOO CONFUSING.

After the new players, it is the Tournament Players whom GW cares about, because they pay money (not as much as the Burn group). That's the bottom 5%, by the way.

Codexes are going to continue to become simpler and simpler, and you will have less and less options. Can't wait for the pre-painted GW 'squad paks' that are, assuredly, on the horizon.

--Brian.

I fear he maybe correct in those assumptions. (Briancj that is.)

As to myself, after CSM and the grand annoyance of Icons, I've been a lot less excited for changes. New plastics still probably excite me.

Although with the talk in the reports indicating GW now reckons plastic should be priced like metal, maybe that will fade as well.

I think the only armies I am really looking forward to atm, are Tyranids for my wife, because right now, they seriously can't get any worse.

She plays a balanced force by her own choice, no Nidzilla, no Genestealer spam, yeah you can guess how well that goes atm. Don't think her nids have won a game in 3yrs. Although she has just moved into her Space Marines army as I'm using Orks. It occured to us that if facing CSM with her Tyranids was bad, Orks would be a pointless excersise.

The second being Dark Eldar, also for the other half, although partially the excitement is there as Jes is redesigning them.
She waited 10yrs for Wood Elves as well, although on noting that. The new Book for Wood Elves didn't turn out too good either, she disliked the spirits. Wouldn't field a treeman, one unit of Dryads and as my main army was Druchii.

We discovered real quick that a Wood Elf army with hardly any spirits isn't that hot against an army that can almost out shoot it and Asrai then have virtually no armour saves to fall back on.

She's still hopeful though.

Oh and going back to CSM for a second, I've shelved mine for the time being. Had enough of Icons, and feeling the need to take a DP everytime to have any kind of chance against my main Ork opponent.

Gone back to Orks myself (mainly as I had some figs lying about and it was the cheapest jump in army I could create.) Orks v's Orks though is pretty fun.

@Brian: I'm not quite sure that's the right customer model, because it kind of ignores the whole Apoc / PS thing which seems to cater mostly to the players who hang around long enough to buy large armies.

N00bs are just getting in, so they won't be able to play Apoc because they just won't have enough stuff.

Pure tournament players don't grow or keep armies to reach Apoc size, nor do they play Apoc or PS in the first place.

So, if your customer model is correct, GW is wasting time with all of the cool stuff that seems to drive actual sales.

Perhaps there is a larger long-term player base that doesn't appear to play at the FLGS? Say, adults who have their own spaces that they can host their own games at without having to deal with newbie kids or tournament play? Maybe?

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Brian: I'm not quite sure that's the right customer model, because it kind of ignores the whole Apoc / PS thing which seems to cater mostly to the players who hang around long enough to buy large armies.

Apoc/PS is interesting, because, yes, it aims at the 'high end player' who can roll out a decade of collection, Forge World, etc. However, that is still the 'bottom 5%'. These folks are burning through product, and Apoc/PS is aimed squarely at them. So, my estimates stand.

While we're on it, Apoc/PS also appeals to 2nd edition style players.

--B.

Alright I'll go against the opposition here and say I look forward to every new codex that comes out. Honestly, after having the same book for 8 years I want a change in the army.

This may be colored by the fact that I have an army out of every codex so if something is really just not going to work I can just hop to a different dex.

I actually don't have an issue with the codex rules or anything like that. The only thing I have an issue with is when they reduce fluff. My main example there is why did they get rid of the sacred numbers. I don't care if there is an in-game buff, at least just mention it in the fluff. Also keep the old rivalries in there. Or I'll even go back to the original black legion fluff, who the f** is abaddon, and why aren't my black legion still running around on a space hulk avoiding imperial and other chaos marines.

I see when every codex comes out some people say units are Op others say some options suck, its a never ending thing like the IG codex everyone thought tanking 3 tanks was Op except for the squadron rules, the hydra seem the perfect way to kill those pesky nob bikers or eldar skimmers. People said that you shouldn't even think of fielding rough riders. I just don't take an interest anymore.

However, when every codex comes out people can look forward for cool new models and such

JGrand wrote:I play Chaos and hate the codex for one specific reason. All fluff has been cast aside. I have always hated the idea of a Tzeench lord leading Khorne troops. Or a more pertain ant example of a Slaneesh lord leading Nurgle troops. I believe that the mark of the lord should "unlock" a specific type of troop and maybe the corresponding daemon. If not they are elites. Maybe the mark of chaos glory could give some benefit to those who choose otherwise or allow Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, or Alpha Leagon. Either way this would make for more interesting armies that would make exponentially more sense. This would also encourage some variety as well.

The current codex is boring. How many lists just use the standard Lash, PM, Oblit spam?. It is because these options are the best bang for the buck so to speak. Sure, by making different leagon rules some ways to make more unbalanced lists will happen. As long as there are power gamer douches this is inevitable. I'd gladly accept this cost and the benefit of variety and fluff.

A-Freakin'-men! That, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem with the new C:CSM to me. Sacred numbers? What's that? Rivalry between the Chaos gods? Gone...

And it's not even that you can "chose not to field unfluffy combos if you don't want to". It's that the entire corpus of fluff is gone. I've talked with new players about sacred numbers and the rivalry between the chaos gods and got blank stares. No wonder Lash/PM/Oblit spam is so common. The fact that there was ever a reason not to do it is being lost. As long as there's no effort to show people a reason to take "fluffy" lists, you end up driving down the road of everything being driven by raw effectiveness whether you want it or not.

'Course I'm a grumpy old grognard who read the Realms of Chaos books cover-to-cover. But for me, and (naturally) I can't speak for anyone else, the fluff is about the most important part of the game.

And, to get back on thread, yes... I do, now, fear new Codicies coming out because of what they're losing...

Vale,

JohnS

So how about you take your fluffy army and don't tell other players what they can and can't do? I love building fluffy armies and if I ever make a CSM or Daemons force it will be pure Slaanesh but what about a guy who wants to tell the story of a Champion of Khorne killing a Nurgle Champion and incorporating his units into his warband? Or a Slaanesh sorcerer tricking an Iron Warriors Lord into assaulting an enemy fortification? A broad codex allows the fluff bunnies to make their own armies without placing restrictions on what other people can take.

So did the other one (exceptions being Khorne/Slaanesh & Nurgle/Tzeentch). The basic Chaos list allowed for any combination of units except for those that blatantly went against the fluff (K/S, T/N).

What about a Khorne Champion who killed a slaanesh champ and forced the members of the Slaanesh warband to fight for him?

Restrictions are restrictions. Some are arbitrary and some are based on arbitrary fluff.