How popular is PA amongst 40k Hobbyist?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Kcalehc**

So far have not even looked at them. If there was a Guard one, maybe I would consider just that.

Though I'd much rather they did an "Astra Militarum Regiments" supplement book, that gives more flesh to the current regiments, adds a few more perhaps, and does something like the SM doctrines for a 'pure' AM army.

**oni**

Kanluwen wrote:
No, I'm understanding completely. Anytime any kind of extraneous material(White Dwarf extra rules, CA, Vigilus, etc) is published, you've constantly talked about it as though it was absolutely 100% required. You're not the only person, but it's exceedingly tiresome to constantly see it.

And frankly, they've never made it sound like Psychic Awakening was "required" for anyone. It's, as usual, the fanbase that has done that. The same thing was constantly harped about with regards to the Marine Supplements and people "needing to own them all".
Chapter Approved has an argument to be made, since it updates point values.
The WD stuff hasn't ever really been super impressive.

But then there's wonderful threads like this. "It's not popular!", yadda yadda yadda. We're maybe a quarter of the way through Psychic Awakening and it's still being better handled than Gathering Storm, Vigilus, or Realmgate Wars were. The books aren't stupid big, there's no "locking" of characters behind books, no "locking" of things like the Specialist Detachments, etc.

I disagree. PA is absolutely a required purchase for players whose faction(s) are in the book. Additionally, the PA books are absolutely "locking" characters to them. Blood of Baal is a prime example of both these things.

If you're a BA player you must purchase Blood of Baal to get all of the added BA rules (e.g. Combat Doctrines, Angels of Death, Stratagems, etc.). Additionally, if you want to use Maphisty-Prime you must purchase Blood of Baal.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/25/blood-of-baal-chapter-focus-the-blood-angelsgw-homepage-post-2/

GW could have simply updated the BA codex with all of these things, but they didn't.

GW didn't update the BA codex because they had an opportunity to sell an additional book. Change my mind; I'm all ears (well, eyes in this case).

**Kanluwen**

oni wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
No, I'm understanding completely. Anytime any kind of extraneous material(White Dwarf extra rules, CA, Vigilus, etc) is published, you've constantly talked about it as though it was absolutely 100% required. You're not the only person, but it's exceedingly tiresome to constantly see it.

And frankly, they've never made it sound like Psychic Awakening was "required" for anyone. It's, as usual, the fanbase that has done that. The same thing was constantly harped about with regards to the Marine Supplements and people "needing to own them all".
Chapter Approved has an argument to be made, since it updates point values.
The WD stuff hasn't ever really been super impressive.

But then there's wonderful threads like this. "It's not popular!", yadda yadda yadda. We're maybe a quarter of the way through Psychic Awakening and it's still being better handled than Gathering Storm, Vigilus, or Realmgate Wars were. The books aren't stupid big, there's no "locking" of characters behind books, no "locking" of things like the Specialist Detachments, etc.

I disagree. PA is absolutely a required purchase for players whose faction(s) are in the book. Additionally, the PA books are absolutely "locking" characters to them. Blood of Baal is a prime example of both these things.

If you're a BA player you must purchase Blood of Baal to get all of the added BA rules (e.g. Combat Doctrines, Angels of Death, Stratagems, etc.). Additionally, if you want to use Maphisty-Prime you must purchase Blood of Baal.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/25/blood-of-baal-chapter-focus-the-blood-angelsgw-homepage-post-2/

GW could have simply updated the BA codex with all of these things, but they didn't.

GW didn't update the BA codex because they had an opportunity to sell an additional book.

And if they had "simply updated the BA codex with all of these things", people would have complained exactly like they did with the CSM book when it became clear that there was more stuff coming later or another book came out with a different design setup.

It's literally something we saw with the CSM and then actual Marine codices. There was nonstop complaining that is still going on that CSM didn't get all these big, sweeping changes that Marines did get--while ignoring that Marines were given completely new styles of traits(which, BTW, were echoed with the Eldar stuff from their book's "Create a Craftworld" system--which is something I kept harping on while getting constantly called a white knight by the usual suspects) that arguably weren't as good as the original, more common variations(Raven Guard vs Alpha Legion, for example: counting as cover for infantry/non-vehicles and getting the -1 to be hit while on/in cover vs flat -1 to be hit) that the CSM retained.

**harlokin**

Tokhuah wrote:
I am surprised at the apparent lack of interest in the PA supplements considering the amount of hype. Typically these polls do not have a 50% "not interested" response from the faithful here on Dakka. I wonder if the rolling out of so much product by GW has finally saturated the Kool-Aid to the point where there is a mound of sugar gathering on the bottom of the glass.

From my perspective as a Drukhari player, the PA supplement was awful. The Kabal options seemed to have been written by someone with no idea of how Kabalite Warriors play (i.e. they want to stay at range), and while there were some nice ideas for Cult and Cabal, there were no corresponding Warlord Traits, Stratagems, or Relics.

It basically feels worse than no update at all, because this disinterested-seeming sop will almost certainly be all my faction gets for the next 18 months. They may be rolling out a lot of product, but not much comes the way of Xenos.

**Amishprn86**

harlokin wrote:
Tokhuah wrote:
I am surprised at the apparent lack of interest in the PA supplements considering the amount of hype. Typically these polls do not have a 50% "not interested" response from the faithful here on Dakka. I wonder if the rolling out of so much product by GW has finally saturated the Kool-Aid to the point where there is a mound of sugar gathering on the bottom of the glass.

From my perspective as a Drukhari player, the PA supplement was awful. The Kabal options seemed to have been written by someone with no idea of how Kabalite Warriors play (i.e. they want to stay at range), and while there were some nice ideas for Cult and Cabal, there were no corresponding Warlord Traits, Stratagems, or Relics.

It basically feels worse than no update at all, because this disinterested seeming sop will almost certainly be all my faction gets for the next 18 months. They may be rolling out a lot of product, but not much comes the way of Xenos.

Yep... the only part that truly was good was Drazhar. And then i would rather have gotten HQ's with Bikes/wings, Vect and just made Drazhar cheaper. We get a new model and its not what anyone really wants, the new Archon F'ed up the rules for him so we lost options but not the Succubus... wtf? All DE players that i know would rather have had some more HQ options than Drazhar buffed.

And yeah the PA for Kabal is completely pointless.

**Cryonicleech**

oni wrote:

Psychic Awakening has no real purpose. GW should have just revised the codex's. Instead PA is an obvious gimmick to sell you more books.

I wouldn't say there's no purpose (rules updates), but I definitely agree that they don't really feel meaningful, and it comes off to me as an attempt to sell books. It feels like, as the supplements continue to come out, that there is less and less effort put into each book. Even comparing Chapter Approved 2019 to previous iterations, I feel like GW books are starting to have less value within the rules themselves.

That being said, I am still likely to pick up any books with rules relevant to my factions, if only because I plan to keep playing 40k.

**Psionara**

I play Ultramarines and Black Legion, so unfortunately the only thing I have got going for me is Faith and Fury, of which there is only a small sliver of rules for me (i.e. upgraded chaplains, librarians, techmarines and ancients).

**Wolf_in_Human_Shape**

I’m done buying books; way too expensive for what they are, and outdated sometimes immediately after purchasing. Spending money on the minis/etc. is far more worthwhile to me.

**zerosignal**

Whilst they feel like a bit of a waste of money (looks at shelf of 7th ed campaign books and cries), I have picked them all up so far.

faction balance is of course still off, because geedubs.

**Gadzilla666**

Kanluwen wrote:
oni wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
No, I'm understanding completely. Anytime any kind of extraneous material(White Dwarf extra rules, CA, Vigilus, etc) is published, you've constantly talked about it as though it was absolutely 100% required. You're not the only person, but it's exceedingly tiresome to constantly see it.

And frankly, they've never made it sound like Psychic Awakening was "required" for anyone. It's, as usual, the fanbase that has done that. The same thing was constantly harped about with regards to the Marine Supplements and people "needing to own them all".
Chapter Approved has an argument to be made, since it updates point values.
The WD stuff hasn't ever really been super impressive.

But then there's wonderful threads like this. "It's not popular!", yadda yadda yadda. We're maybe a quarter of the way through Psychic Awakening and it's still being better handled than Gathering Storm, Vigilus, or Realmgate Wars were. The books aren't stupid big, there's no "locking" of characters behind books, no "locking" of things like the Specialist Detachments, etc.

I disagree. PA is absolutely a required purchase for players whose faction(s) are in the book. Additionally, the PA books are absolutely "locking" characters to them. Blood of Baal is a prime example of both these things.

If you're a BA player you must purchase Blood of Baal to get all of the added BA rules (e.g. Combat Doctrines, Angels of Death, Stratagems, etc.). Additionally, if you want to use Maphisty-Prime you must purchase Blood of Baal.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/25/blood-of-baal-chapter-focus-the-blood-angelsgw-homepage-post-2/

GW could have simply updated the BA codex with all of these things, but they didn't.

GW didn't update the BA codex because they had an opportunity to sell an additional book.
And if they had "simply updated the BA codex with all of these things", people would have complained exactly like they did with the CSM book when it became clear that there was more stuff coming later or another book came out with a different design setup.

It's literally something we saw with the CSM and then actual Marine codices. There was nonstop complaining that is still going on that CSM didn't get all these big, sweeping changes that Marines did get--while ignoring that Marines were given completely new styles of traits(which, BTW, were echoed with the Eldar stuff from their book's "Create a Craftworld" system--which is something I kept harping on while getting constantly called a white knight by the usual suspects) that arguably weren't as good as the original, more common variations(Raven Guard vs Alpha Legion, for example: counting as cover for infantry/non-vehicles and getting the -1 to be hit while on/in cover vs flat -1 to be hit) that the CSM retained.

The new space marine traits "arguably " aren't as good as the original csm traits? Are you serious? Because the Alpha Legion trait is better than Raven Guard? That makes the Word Bearers and Night Lords traits better how?

On topic I'm torn on whether to get Faith and Fury as I really want the new Night Lords rules but don't want to spend ten dollars a page on them. Especially when it's pretty likely they'll be released in either a new codex or supplement later.