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When I got interested in 30k, it was mostly because the difference between power levels of the major factions was pretty flat (which was kinda normal, since there wasn't differences between them). However, as time passed, I noticed some players on the web complaining about some legions beginning to be obsoletes (mostly Word Bearers and Emperor's Children). Since I haven't finished painting my current 30k army, I haven't had the chance to play it (Word Bearers). A friend of mine told me it was possible I get rekt at first since I had no real experience and that most other players of 30k at our local store were Dark Angels and Iron Hands. What is your opinion on the subject ?

A lot of people have been complaining about obvious creep with the latest piblication Book VII: Inferno. I personally feel that the points costs represent the benefits bestowed upon Thousand Sons and Space Wolves.

As for the first few legions covered such as Death Guard and World Eaters, people seemed to take notice of them losing pace and power when Word Bearers and Iron Hands started to show up (Lorgar had to be altered in a later FAQ as he was able to squish melee centric Primarchs with Invisibility up). However Chain Axes were given +1S to make them worth taking, and Power Scythe rules were made more effective.

I am quite fortunate as my group's players all tend to prefer All comer lists and when something appears to be quite strong we tend to discuss how we would deal with it. The meta is huge and there are some very obvious counters to certain elements of peoples armies; Night Lords rely on forcing a lot of fear tests and Salamanders & Death Guard will just ignore them wholesale. Word Bearers are a very strong army and capable of powerful assault phases and a decent Psychic phase.

Don't be deterred, if you are enjoying the project you are working on, continue with it and have fun. The internet is hating on Thousand Sons right now but I truly don't care for most of its juvenile grievances, I have been working on them since Christmas and will continue to do so, I have yet to lead them into battle.

Power creep is real...we just have to wait and see how bad it gets. Will those older armies feel like having chaos dex in 40k.

Damn, you "end is nigh" people start quick. As someone said, its a balance; smaller, more elite armies that are more costly. I don't care how psychically awesome a squad of 1ks psychic arse bolt throwing termies is, they'll die just the same when I drop phosphex and 20 grave warden templates on them. Bring it, space egyptians!

The equality between legions disappeared in the first book legions appeared.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
The equality between legions disappeared in the first book legions appeared.

Perhaps expound on that instead of a driveby hyperbole one liner?

Not sure about power creep. I find that any army can build wildly different lists and that means that you don't often play the same list even if you play against the same army. There are some bad match ups but there always will be. I find HH games to be really interesting and fun. I've lost badly and won handsomely over quite a few games now.

Answer is yes...period....is extremely obvious with the new Book 7.

You can compare and contrast like legion abilities and special weapons and see very plainly that xxx points in one legion does not buy as cool of abilities as xxx points in the new legions/forces.

Is there certain units that are overall cheap and very effective for all legions than can somewhat balance the power creep....yes as well...but that doesnt change the fact that the newer forces are getting cooler kit for basically cheaper point costs as far as their legion special goes.

In same cases you can compare direct wpns....scythes for DG same points but not as good as the new greatsword of the wolves for exact same point cost......also the wolves get a ton of other wpn options not just one.

Many people dont math well so its hard for them to see the creep.

Power Creep is just an inevitable part of a game. s designers hve more and more ideas, things just get stronger.

chaos45 wrote:
Answer is yes...period....is extremely obvious with the new Book 7.

You can compare and contrast like legion abilities and special weapons and see very plainly that xxx points in one legion does not buy as cool of abilities as xxx points in the new legions/forces.

Is there certain units that are overall cheap and very effective for all legions than can somewhat balance the power creep....yes as well...but that doesnt change the fact that the newer forces are getting cooler kit for basically cheaper point costs as far as their legion special goes.

In same cases you can compare direct wpns....scythes for DG same points but not as good as the new greatsword of the wolves for exact same point cost......also the wolves get a ton of other wpn options not just one.

Many people dont math well so its hard for them to see the creep.

If you are comparing a frost blade to the scythe the frost blade is available to far fewer units no unit wide either and actually costs more on characters then a power scythe. The wolves weapon options are also the worst part of their list lol. 2 of the options are identical but 1 has shred the other doesn't. 1 is the same points as a power fist but gives +2s instead of ×2 like they are bad.

yes, there's some power creep, but it's more "doom and gloomers" rather than based in any actual fact.

Word Bearers are pretty strong, and most legions are close enough in power scale. people are too busy freaking over SW and TS to look at it fairly objectively.

Iron Warriors do well, Word Bearers do well, Emperors Children do well. Ultramarines and Imperial Fists are also solid. Blood angels also seem doing well, even without having special characters.

All you kids and your fancy Legion wargear. We here in the XVI th get by with just our bolters and combat blades! *Abbadon shakes power fist in the air*

More and more ideas shouldn't matter in a point based game. As they should be pointed appropriately to like items in the game....is really easy in all honesty....what it is, is either purposely doing something for sales = most likely, or just incompetent game designers.

Which based on the stuff I have seen posted from Book 7, it may even be both....as some of the rules are fairly poorly written as well.....as trying to generate sales the newest and bestest while at the some time needed to proof read and maybe even theorycraft why some of the new units/rules are existing.

The issue becomes that if you don't have some sort of bonus for you legion special unit, why bother? But if you have too good a legion special unit bonus, it makes them too strong and imbalanced against other legions. It's all about finding that midpoint where each legion has its strengths which is represented either through a mild boost to their special unit or a legion rule that applies to the relevant thing (ie Thousand Sons getting a mastery level on a veteran squad, World Eaters getting furious charge etc).

I'd like to think that many people would collect their legion of choice regardless of the rules and that the relative power of one legion compared to another would have very little influence on it, but then I'm not driking the "HH is all perfectly balanced and everyone plays for fluff only" koolaid, so it doesn't surprise me when I see phospex rapiers in every list, Librarians in a DG and WE army and all the other fluff crimes that people do because rules sell models and cheese wins games.

Not sure about power creep. All legions can take phosh quad motors, scorpius, leviathans, spartans etc...

chaos45 wrote:
More and more ideas shouldn't matter in a point based game. As they should be pointed appropriately to like items in the game....is really easy in all honesty....what it is, is either purposely doing something for sales = most likely, or just incompetent game designers.

Which based on the stuff I have seen posted from Book 7, it may even be both....as some of the rules are fairly poorly written as well.....as trying to generate sales the newest and bestest while at the some time needed to proof read and maybe even theorycraft why some of the new units/rules are existing.

Easy? You do realize getting points correctly is actually impossible? No matter who does them or how much is spent there's still going to be imbalance.

No they are all very balanced. The people complaining about the two new Legions are forum warrior chicken littles. Now there are inconsistencies in unique units that hopefully will be updated once we get the remaining three Legions fleshed out, but most of the good stuff is in the core list.

Custodians and Mechanicum are probably a tad stronger than Legions unless the Legion list is tailored, but it is nothing compared to 40K's mess.

So, now that time has passed, I guess we had some games against the Thousand Sons etc
What are your thoughts now ?
Is Inferno balanced or do you feel the power creep ?
(NOTE: I did not begin an other thread as it is the direct continuation of this one, now with some more experience to discuss it).

Really interested to hear what people think of the TS.... Love their look and feel but haven't run them or played against them myself before

 Aetare wrote:
Really interested to hear what people think of the TS.... Love their look and feel but haven't run them or played against them myself before

I haven't seen them in action yet, but a friend of mine played a game against them today, Wolves vs Sons. Says he had Russ cut through 15 TS Termies and Ahriman, like they weren't even there.

 djones520 wrote:

 Aetare wrote:
Really interested to hear what people think of the TS.... Love their look and feel but haven't run them or played against them myself before

I haven't seen them in action yet, but a friend of mine played a game against them today, Wolves vs Sons. Says he had Russ cut through 15 TS Termies and Ahriman, like they weren't even there.

I'm not terribly surprised...... I have Wolves as one of my 40k armies and after reading Inferno Russ is every bit the monster I imagined him to be.

In regards to the Thousand Sons being part of the power creep, I've fielded my TSons using Pride of the Legion giving me a Vet Tac squad, Khentai squad, Sekhmet squad and a ML squad, for 1,500 points.

Admittedly every unit has a Psychic Mastery level of at least one, but still the eliteness is at a cost. I can't see it as any other way to field them.

Threw down against Tsons a week or so ago. Their terminators are just mean. Telekinesis cult, Cataphracti armor, and they're just 2W 3+ invul rompers. I was running Ironwing RoW Dark Angels and it took my army's combined shooting to bring squads down to manageable size, and even that didn't work all the time. A few lucky shots early taking out a pair of vindicator laser destroyers was the only thing that kept me in the game, as he couldn't take out my armor fast enough after that (though Objurum Mechanicum did a real good job nickel and diming hull points off).

I was am running mine with Telekinesis cult but using Tartaros armour instead (so only a 4++). Just because I love the look of the new 40k Tson models.

 Thymais wrote:
I was am running mine with Telekinesis cult but using Tartaros armour instead (so only a 4++). Just because I love the look of the new 40k Tson models.

Gives you the durability of anyone else's Cataphracti but the mobility of a Tartaros and double the wounds to boot (space magic aside). Nothing wrong with that! They're the clear star of their Legion in my eyes, next to asphyx divination sniper vets.

 obsidiankatana wrote:

 Thymais wrote:
I was am running mine with Telekinesis cult but using Tartaros armour instead (so only a 4++). Just because I love the look of the new 40k Tson models.

Gives you the durability of anyone else's Cataphracti but the mobility of a Tartaros and double the wounds to boot (space magic aside). Nothing wrong with that! They're the clear star of their Legion in my eyes, next to asphyx divination sniper vets.

Oh that's what my Veteran squad is. A 10-man unit with no special weapons (so they can be used as normal Tacs, just in case), with Asphyx rounds, Divination and Sniper. It's just nasty!

So, nothing game breaking, apparently ?
What about Magnus ?

Thousand Sons players everywhere will vouch for the fact that there's nothing wrong with nova D powers or an unhittable Magnus.

How much money do we want to put down on Invisibility not being in the new rulebook?