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Karol wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but claiming that assembling the models according to the instruction manual leads to illegal models or units is just false.

There is plenty reason to hate this course of action, and there is absolutely no need to invent alternative facts.

well there is that thing where there isn't enough bolters and basic weapons for a unit of termintors in a single box, practicaly making taking of upgrades obligatory.

I wonder how this was playtested though. Someone set down with multiple army set ups of nurgle termintors, running one plasma, one flamer and one melta, played a few dozen games with them, and then the conclusion was that it is okey enough of a load out? Because the randomness of a single weapon vs running 5 of the same in a unit is huge.

I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

 Jidmah wrote:


I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

See and this shows how stupid I am, I didn't even imagine such a possibility. Well I hope the army is strong enough to be run even with those odd set ups. At worse 3ed party and recasters are going to be having a field day making combi bolters.

I Just realized that this also forces you to longer games. One of the thing I like in my army is to keep things consistent to be faster in rolling dices, choosing targets and such... Having 4 different weapons profile in the same squad is bordering a nightmare scenario.

Hope they take a hint from the backlash and don't to that with future codexes

 Jidmah wrote:
There, I fixed it:

Spoiler:

(Champion options unchanged)
If this unit contains 6 or less models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list or 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltguns can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Heavy Weapons list.
If this unit contains 7 or more models, up to 2 Plague Marine's boltgun can each be replaced with 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
All Plague Marines in the unit can have their boltgun replaced by 1 option from the Melee Weapons list.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun or a pair of plague knives can have an icon of despair. That boltgun cannot be replaced.
1 Plague Marine with a boltgun can have a sigil of corruption. That boltgun cannot be replaced.

Heavy Weapon List:
Plague Spitter
Blight Launcher

Special Weapon List:
Plasma gun
Plague belcher
Meltagun

Melee Weapon List:
Bubotic axe
Plague knife
Mace of contagion and Bubotic axe*
Plague cleaver*
Flail of corruption*

*no more than two of these weapons can be in a unit

Ta-da, everyone is happy.

That isn't any clearer than GW's rules.

Karol wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


I'm fairly sure that this was not tested at all, but someone just sat down and turned the model assembly instructions into rules because play testers pointed out that they need more bits to properly test all the combinations.

See and this shows how stupid I am, I didn't even imagine such a possibility. Well I hope the army is strong enough to be run even with those odd set ups. At worse 3ed party and recasters are going to be having a field day making combi bolters.

Push comes to shove I'm sure the units will still work fine but lack focused drive. Other armies not held to such conditions, will have an edge at the top levels because they can get all the third party bits to their hearts content for army set up. There is no way around it, these dumb set up limitations are just bad. I get that it sucks to feel like you need extra bits to run certain set ups but I'd rather have the options and work to getting them as opposed to having them just stripped away or set up strangely. Like would it really kill them to have 2 plasmas in a less than 10 man squad on the troops ? Two blight launchers ? Either way you need to buy two boxes, but having versatility of choice in army set up lets you use all the models you bought, being forced to do that only in 10 man squads means you waste some models no matter what, it's just dumb. As for terminators it's not impossible to find or make combis for them.

In casual games these changes won't much matter, in competitive, it still mostly benefits those with the most cash to make the min maxed squad set ups by just buying more and more boxes to make it possible or maybe just force people out of using the old squads which didn't come with blight launchers.

The 7 model sized box is really not a fun thing to have, with the price and with the rules set not being based around 7, but 5 models.I don't envy DG players about that.

I'm going to ignore them. When the rules basically say:

"You can have an axe by itself, but not a mace by itself. If you want a mace, you have to take an axe as well!"

... I just give up. I can't combat that level of inane insanity, so I'll make my Plague Marines however the feth I want.

As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling. However, when it's introduced in the middle of an edition into game with totally inconsistent rules and model ranges, I can totally understand the gakstorm. It works fine in Age of Sigmar because the whole system is built upon hard reset and half of the armies are brand new but 40k is too big and bloated for similar paradigm shift to be introduced or it will end up in players burning their Dark Eldar armies on Reddit.

Plague Marine unit entry is a beautiful mess caused by several separate smaller issues. Seven model box size, too many unique weapon options and GW's attempt to write clear and precise rules which makes them more difficult to read instead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm going to ignore them. When the rules basically say:

"You can have an axe by itself, but not a mace by itself. If you want a mace, you have to take an axe as well!"

... I just give up. I can't combat that level of inane insanity, so I'll make my Plague Marines however the feth I want.

Exactly. GW rules are becoming “suggestions” like the recipe on the side of a bag of rice. “You might prepare your rice this way....”. I have had enough of idiots in high places making rules for their benefit at the expense of everyone else in every walk of life on this festering planet. GW aren’t the highest of idiots, but are to be ignored just the same. Homegrown rules. Repulsors are ugly land raiders, restartes are tall marines without the lower back pain, etc.


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jullevi wrote:
As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling. However, when it's introduced in the middle of an edition into game with totally inconsistent rules and model ranges, I can totally understand the gakstorm. It works fine in Age of Sigmar because the whole system is built upon hard reset and half of the armies are brand new but 40k is too big and bloated for similar paradigm shift to be introduced or it will end up in players burning their Dark Eldar armies on Reddit..

Why not play the card game? Is Ao$ that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

 jeff white wrote:
Is AoS that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

No, it is more like WHFB was
eg: all models in you unit take either Hammer+Shield, 2 Hammers, Sword+Shield or 2 Swords, up to 1 model per 5 can take a special Hammer or Special Sword, the Unit Leader can take a Special Hammer or Special Sword

not as free as 40k once was, but also not as strict as DG now and you also have all the weapons needed for the unit in the box

some special Equipment is there as well limited to a special loadout (but more like replacing a hand weapon and therefore cannot be taken with a 2-handed weapon)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. Customization in 40k has been dying a slow death as long as I've been playing. In five years they'll probably have removed options entirely so they can print Sigmar-style stat cards (only three times the size so they can fit the paragraphs of special rule required to explain how your Intercessors' three different gun models actually all do the same thing).

Nah, they'll just change it to:

Bolt Weapon: 30 Inches Rend 1 Hits on 3+ Wounds on 4+ Damage 1.

What is a "Bolt Weapon?" Well, it's anything with the word Bolt in it! Flee the hobby while you still can! There are lots of other interesting competing games out there.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Hope they take a hint from the backlash and don't to that with future codexes

Even if they do 1-1.5 year of codexes in meantime means most codexes would be affected before 10th ed

jullevi wrote:
As a general rule I am in favour of unit options matching what can be built from the box. It's more user friendly approach and doesn't give advantage to players with large bits box, 3D printers or more experience in modelling.

And why shouldn't they gain an "advantage"? A new player won't complain that their more experienced opponent's army is better painted than theirs, will they? Kitbashing and converting are just as much learned skills as painting is, why should I now be penalised for being able to do the fairly simple task of swapping out weapons? Even, so it is a trivial thing to do- Let's take the BLT kit for example, every single gun is half and half. All you need to do to get multiples of the same combi weapon is to either trade with someone or, say you want two units? Well you can just put two combi plasmas in one and two combi meltas in the other.

Even then, it is such a trivial thing to do. Why does GW think that slapping a readily available from multiple kits plasma/melta/flamer bit on a bolter is difficult? It isn't, and it hasn't ever been. Nowadays, it is even easier given GW's wealth of plastic bits but for whatever reason they don't want people to delve deeper into this side of the hobby.

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

...and this should be a problem... Why? Because following GW logic they should have bought another box instead?

 Grimtuff wrote:

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

I guess this isn't a problem for parts in the world where people advocate to start a collection by getting double the avarge game size. It is a problem though in places where people get 2000pts or 2250pts, and that is it. I have nothing against convering, and some people are super talented at it, but units realy shouldn't be build around the idea of either, this is a bad load out we are selling in the box you are now stuck with it, or go buy recasts or get 4 boxs to get one unit.

 Jidmah wrote:
Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

And the Assault Marines kit doesn't come with multiple plasma pistols. Oh wait, it does. If you (and several other kits where they are super cheap plasma in abundance) cannot figure out how to put those pistols on the other half of the bolter then you're in the wrong hobby.


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Karol wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Scourges are another that keep being brought up. Guess what? There are enough bits in other DE kits to make a full squad with the same heavy weapons, and I'm not talking about buying multiple boxes of Scourges. The Talos kit contains the same weapons. If you are suggesting it is now too difficult for someone to make some quick snips with pairs of clippers to mate the Talos barrels together with the backs of the Scourge weapons I don't know what to say...

I guess this isn't a problem for parts in the world where people advocate to start a collection by getting double the avarge game size. It is a problem though in places where people get 2000pts or 2250pts, and that is it. I have nothing against convering, and some people are super talented at it, but units realy shouldn't be build around the idea of either, this is a bad load out we are selling in the box you are now stuck with it, or go buy recasts or get 4 boxs to get one unit.

Dude, if you bought an army like a normal person did you will have a ton of bits left over. This is quite common.

 kodos wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
Is AoS that restrictive about unit equipment and composition?

No, it is more like WHFB was
eg: all models in you unit take either Hammer+Shield, 2 Hammers, Sword+Shield or 2 Swords, up to 1 model per 5 can take a special Hammer or Special Sword, the Unit Leader can take a Special Hammer or Special Sword

Wasn't there whole armies that were build around taking of one specific weapon, and then GW changed it so the squads have to have one of each, exactly the way it is on the cover of box, and people got stuck with armies that lost power and were illegal at the same time. And as a bonus had ton of money spent on recasts and bits?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Yeah, because people totally didn't sell the plasma bit for blightlords at 12€ for a tiny piece of plastic. No wait, they did. And it sold.

And the Assault Marines kit doesn't come with multiple plasma pistols. Oh wait, it does. If you (and several other kits where they are super cheap plasma in abundance) cannot figure out how to put those pistols on the other half of the bolter then you're in the wrong hobby.

That's not how DG plasma looks. Might as well slap the melta on it and paint it blue.

Even if it did, this is still a pistol and not a gun. That is like saying that a tentacle guy has a thunder hammer or powerfist.

Karol wrote:
Wasn't there whole armies that were build around taking of one specific weapon, and then GW changed it so the squads have to have one of each, exactly the way it is on the cover of box, and people got stuck with armies that lost power and were illegal at the same time. And as a bonus had ton of money spent on recasts and bits?

Kharadron Overlords Grundstok Thunderers. They have a basic weapon and a choice of 4 upgrade weapons to replace it - originally you could have them all with the same upgrade weapon but GW changed it to match what's in the box (link).

Karol wrote:
Even if it did, this is still a pistol and not a gun. That is like saying that a tentacle guy has a thunder hammer or powerfist.

Not really though?

You'd cut off the parts that make it a pistol to build a combi-bolter. It's more like using an ork big choppa as a chainaxe for your chaos lord. If you like it that way, run wild, but it's definitely a different style.

TBF to GW that situation was different--it was only months after the kit released for one, and it was immediately clear there were balance issues with weapons being stacked like that. There wasn't much surprise when the change happened.

Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

I understand why GW would want to only provide rules for what they sell. But I also think removing rules is a lot worse than adding bits, especially on units that already existed for some time.

 LunarSol wrote:
Personally I'm a fan of fewer bespoke rules in general. I really enjoy the modeling and customization, but so often it turns into a mess of trying to acquire enough of whatever weapon winds up on top to load out a squad based on efficiency.

I'd rather just have generic rules like "power weapons" and if I want to make them swords, and maces, or claws or whatever. I want models with cool bits and all, I just don't need them locked down by the rules.

I fully agree, and really, with the scale 40k works at the difference between all the slightly different bolt or power weapons would be far too small to be represented by different weapons. It would be so much easier to just have a 'power weapon' (sword, mace, spear, spoon) and 'heavy power weapon' (fist, thunder hammer, two-handed weapons in general) profile. That not only gives much more freedom, but also helps with making it much easier to know what's going on. And yes, it would make the different kinds of intercessors the same, but then again, for most purposes, they already are. There is very little difference between the different bolters. Just things to forget.

And don't get me started on the mountains of special rules for everything. Every little pouch on the models doesn't need rules. For special/heavy weapons it might be a bit harder because the differences are greater, but there you also see that very few are actually taken. I mean, has anyone ever even seen a grenade launcher in the flesh (or plastic)?

Grubsnik wrote:Jesus, I drop out of the hobby for a year or two and this is what happens?

Back to 2nd Ed. it is, then.

d

Welcome to the team, our group went back to playing 5th a couple years ago, and we are back to thoroughly enjoying the game again. although we do use index 8th for playing epic scale and it seems to work fine.

I agree that I'd like more consistency in weapons.
We really don't need 18 distinct types of bolter or whatever it is nowadays. It doesn't really add a whole lot other than complexity to the game.
Especially when you're talking about something as simple as a boltgun. Let people make their own differences, without the shackles of worrying about hindering themselves or making illegal units or whatever.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Timmy haphazardly gluing a plasma pistol to the side of his boltgun is not a good look though, and it's requiring a separate skill.
You should not be required to be a converter in order to be a wargamer.

I understand why GW would want to only provide rules for what they sell. But I also think removing rules is a lot worse than adding bits, especially on units that already existed for some time.

I get this, when I started in 3rd edition I played orks and half units/loadout in their codex was only available thorugh conversions or even scratch building. 12yo me loved to convert and kitbash stuff and it was one of the main reasons why I started orks but it was a real pain to field an optimized army back then, in fact I never played without proxying during that edition. It was also a period in which second hand armies weren't common, let alone sites that sold bitz. We didn't even have internet at home in 2000.

But now current kits, and I mean even the older ones, already come with most of the possible legal combinations and everything else can be kitbashed quite easily. I don't get why being able to convert shouldn't be a required skill while painting is. Heck there's even a rule that penalizes those who aren't be able to paint properly as "battle ready" level is definitely harder to achieve for a 12yo kid than kitbashing a few combi weapons.

Kitbashing also incentivized buying more kits. When I wanted to add Scourges to my Drukhari no way I was going to buy 4 boxes of them, and now way I was going to buy a single box with messed up weapons. I ended up buying multiple different kits from the same faction in order to kitbash properly. If Scourges had a datasheet like the one Plague marines currently have I would probably never have bought them, and if I did I would never have bought other kits at the same time unless I really wanted those specific units in that moment anyway.

kitbashing and conversions were the main reason I started 40k in the first place
as without that I would have gone the historical route (but there are not many conversions to be done in those settings)

and I spend way more money on metal bits and single sprues from the GW mail order than on actual kits for that army

 Dolnikan wrote:

I fully agree, and really, with the scale 40k works at the difference between all the slightly different bolt or power weapons would be far too small to be represented by different weapons. It would be so much easier to just have a 'power weapon' (sword, mace, spear, spoon) and 'heavy power weapon' (fist, thunder hammer, two-handed weapons in general) profile. That not only gives much more freedom, but also helps with making it much easier to know what's going on.

the funny thing here is that we already had this, but during a time were the standard 2000 point 40k game was half the size it is now and were those details would have made much more sense

but GW thought it is a good idea to add more rules and small differences to the equipment (so the Bolter with the Scope has a different profile than the Bolder with the silencer) at the same time they went from Patrol size to Company size games as "standard"