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Because armour modification is better

But people still fall for the trap no matter how good the idea is, GWs implementation is worse as the previous system was

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, they could just go back to the old AP system and then they wouldn't need to, but seems a lot of people wanted armor modifiers

I like AP values because a binary AP system never sat right with me on the immersion scale.

Now that's not to say that it can't be done better. Maybe AP negation could use the Toughness value giving that stat two purposes when trying to wound models (like maybe you negate AP equal to half your Toughness rounded down).

There are interesting ways to apply AP, I just don't know if GW has found the one that works best yet.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, they could just go back to the old AP system and then they wouldn't need to, but seems a lot of people wanted armor modifiers

That's because the all-or-nothing system was garbage. It stopped entire statlines of weapons being useful. You either needed high strength and/or AP2.

Armor mods was the best thing to have been added to the game for making sure your weapons weren't useless.


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 kodos wrote:
Because armour modification is better

But people still fall for the trap no matter how good the idea is, GWs implementation is worse as the previous system was

And this is true. I am one of the only people I know that was okay with the removal of the Initiative stat to a degree. However having to choose who fights is super silly for prolonged melee engagements.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Do we really want 2 stats to represent pretty much exactly the same thing though?

People keep wanting USRs so badly. Armor Quality is a great place to bring them in!

And yet nobody ever complained about the game being "too lethal" when it was all or nothing.

If you want AP mods then you need to accept the idea that the vast majority of weapons should be AP0, with some weapons being AP-1 and a select few AP-2. Anything more than that should be so exceptionslly rare as to be unheard of.

But then you would complain that there isn't enough differentiation between weapons or that it doesn't make sense that a lasgun, a bolter,a heavy bolter, and an autocannon all have the same AP mod, etc.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Now that's not to say that it can't be done better. Maybe AP negation could use the Toughness value giving that stat two purposes when trying to wound models (like maybe you negate AP equal to half your Toughness rounded down).

hmm, that might have some legs but T4/5 would negate 2 points of AP off the bat which is even more extreme than what armour of contempt does. Maybe if they made AP negation a factor of the difference between toughness and weapon strength instead (i.e. S4 v T5 = negate 1 pt of AP), but that would require profile adjustments to a number of weapons but wouldn't turn the game on its head either.

lol, just tie the AP negation to Leadership if we're desperately trying to give it a second thing.

If you want to contempt me so badly, you better EARN IT! LD check!

chaos0xomega wrote:
And yet nobody ever complained about the game being "too lethal" when it was all or nothing.

Yes we did, in fact we constantly complained about the game being too lethal when it was all or nothing.

Codex creep is not some new illness of the 9th edition, it has been an issue of GW's rules writing since the days of Rogue Trader. Under the old binary system we saw a constant creep towards AP2 large blast weapons, and eventually we saw the introduction of Grav weapons and D weapons.

If you want AP mods then you need to accept the idea that the vast majority of weapons should be AP0, with some weapons being AP-1 and a select few AP-2. Anything more than that should be so exceptionslly rare as to be unheard of.

But then you would complain that there isn't enough differentiation between weapons or that it doesn't make sense that a lasgun, a bolter,a heavy bolter, and an autocannon all have the same AP mod, etc.

Personally I would prefer an overal buff to armor saves so AP modifiers have the space to be different without being overpowering. Better yet move to a D12 system for greater granularity.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, they could just go back to the old AP system and then they wouldn't need to, but seems a lot of people wanted armor modifiers

Armor modifiers are a better system, but it means that Marine players need to accept that their infantry shouldn't be indestructible. Unfortunately that's been a hard sell.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive been calling for Armour of Contempt since very early in 8th. Im not a marine fanboy and only recently started playing TSons (last week in fact, first time ive touched marines in 20 years), but it never sat right with me that their armor was now so easily negated. Yonow, it was unfluffy and immersion breaking.

Frankly "Armour Quality" should be a stat alongside armour save, where quality = the amount of AP that the model can offset before it impacts their save.

IE AQ2 , Sv 3+ means the model gets a 3+ save vs AP0, AP1, and AP2, and 4+ save vs AP3, etc.

It opens up a ton of design space in terms of both weapons and model characteristics and allows for much greater differentiation than is otherwise possible

Credit where credit is due, chaos. That is an interesting idea and I'll definitely think about that one. The major problem right now is that Marines are just far outpacing other infantry in durability against small arms in places they really shouldn't. Shuriken Catapults just got their much needed boost, finally, and then they're thrown back to square one after a month. It's tiresome, and I say this as a marine player who doesn't play Eldar.

. . .

As for the old vs. New armor debate: The immediate and obvious thing to note for both the old AP system and the current mod system is that both systems failed in the same way. Designers couldn't restrain themselves and handed out far too much AP.

Part of the issue is the fact the Marine pays for durability that it doesn't get to use in a game where it's being knocked down a bit. Either Marines need to get cheaper (boo) or everything needs to go.up in points, we shrink the model count a fair bit and the points they pay doesn't feel so far out of bounds when they should expect to be saving on a 4+ or worse in practice.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Part of the issue is the fact the Marine pays for durability that it doesn't get to use in a game where it's being knocked down a bit. Either Marines need to get cheaper (boo) or everything needs to go.up in points, we shrink the model count a fair bit and the points they pay doesn't feel so far out of bounds when they should expect to be saving on a 4+ or worse in practice.

Surely it depends what's shooting at them?

As an example, in 8th it took 9 splinter shots to kill a single Marine. That's 54pts of Kabalites at 24" or 27pts (more like 30 as you can't have half a Kabalite) if they can get into rapid-fire range.

Now it takes 18 splinter shots to down a Marine and Kabalies have gone up in price, such that it now takes 144pts of Kabalites to kill a single Marine at 24", or 72pts of Kabalites in rapid-fire range.

That's almost three times as many points as in the previous edition. And heaven help you if the Marines are in cover.

The AP system worked because in 8th a "normal" damage line was S4 AP-.

Unfortunately with the 9th codexes its probably closer to S5 AP-2 2 damage. (Its also why I think Ork's T5 is such a non-issue.)

You look for example through those Harlequin lists - I think literally everything has at least one point AP. And vast amounts of AP-2, -3 and -4. Eldar, Tau, Custodes its all the same thing.

So something did need to be done - but it screws over anyone who was legitimately paying for their AP.

The problem is this is probably a swing too far - although it will be fun to see some tournaments to prove it. I think the Goonhammer guys for example are being far to conservative on the impact of Armour of Contempt change.

I think Tau for example might really be quite screwed. Before you'd a shoot a 3+ "power armour unit" with say AP-1 (plenty of options). Then get another from Mont'ka. Now that marine is on a 5+ save and they die in droves. Now however you don't the bonus from Mont'ka and they ignore one point of AP so its a 3+ save. So they can expect to take twice as many shots before dying. Which isn't a small change, its a massive change.

I can't say I'm weeping over the death of SMS & Airbursts - but a gun which may have been giving you only a 5+ save now giving your power armoured factions a 2+ save is for all intents and purposes dead. Combined with the -1 BS the odds are just catastrophic.

chaos0xomega wrote:
And yet nobody ever complained about the game being "too lethal" when it was all or nothing.

You clearly haven't met many veteran marine players then. Constant complaining about power armour and terminator dudes being killed like flies has been their mantra for ages. To the point that GW tried to compensate them but letting them play with 300+ points of free tanks.

chaos0xomega wrote:
And yet nobody ever complained about the game being "too lethal" when it was all or nothing.

I stopped reading here because, bro, what?

Yea. There have definitely been lethality problems in past edition. In fact, every edition since 4th has had armies that were significantly more lethal than was warranted.

Tyel wrote:
The AP system worked because in 8th a "normal" damage line was S4 AP-.

Unfortunately with the 9th codexes its probably closer to S5 AP-2 2 damage. (Its also why I think Ork's T5 is such a non-issue.)

You look for example through those Harlequin lists - I think literally everything has at least one point AP. And vast amounts of AP-2, -3 and -4. Eldar, Tau, Custodes its all the same thing.

I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

But it's fine - I'm sure letting all Marines also ignore a point of AP will definitely, definitely not cause any further escalation in future codices and supplements.

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The AP system worked because in 8th a "normal" damage line was S4 AP-.

Unfortunately with the 9th codexes its probably closer to S5 AP-2 2 damage. (Its also why I think Ork's T5 is such a non-issue.)

You look for example through those Harlequin lists - I think literally everything has at least one point AP. And vast amounts of AP-2, -3 and -4. Eldar, Tau, Custodes its all the same thing.

I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

But it's fine - I'm sure letting all Marines also ignore a point of AP will definitely, definitely not cause any further escalation in future codices and supplements.

Who knows, maybe 10th will take the game in a new direction and bring back Instant Death mechanics so 2 wound Marines will die instantly to S8+ weaponry again.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The AP system worked because in 8th a "normal" damage line was S4 AP-.

Unfortunately with the 9th codexes its probably closer to S5 AP-2 2 damage. (Its also why I think Ork's T5 is such a non-issue.)

You look for example through those Harlequin lists - I think literally everything has at least one point AP. And vast amounts of AP-2, -3 and -4. Eldar, Tau, Custodes its all the same thing.

I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

But it's fine - I'm sure letting all Marines also ignore a point of AP will definitely, definitely not cause any further escalation in future codices and supplements.

Who knows, maybe 10th will take the game in a new direction and bring back Instant Death mechanics so 2 wound Marines will die instantly to S8+ weaponry again.

Make force weapons great again!

Lammia wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The AP system worked because in 8th a "normal" damage line was S4 AP-.

Unfortunately with the 9th codexes its probably closer to S5 AP-2 2 damage. (Its also why I think Ork's T5 is such a non-issue.)

You look for example through those Harlequin lists - I think literally everything has at least one point AP. And vast amounts of AP-2, -3 and -4. Eldar, Tau, Custodes its all the same thing.

I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

But it's fine - I'm sure letting all Marines also ignore a point of AP will definitely, definitely not cause any further escalation in future codices and supplements.

Who knows, maybe 10th will take the game in a new direction and bring back Instant Death mechanics so 2 wound Marines will die instantly to S8+ weaponry again.

Make force weapons great again!

Sorry, best they can do is AP+1, -1dmg.

Feth no, feth Force Weapons the damn things shouldn't be trivializing entire codexes of multi-wound models.

 vipoid wrote:


I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

Yes and no. With more AP -1 coming into the game we did see quite a few units improve their save by one to count for the proliferation of the extra AP. Saw it at least with Drukhari and Aeldari, but not existing power armor who usually got the extra wound instead(except for sisters).

At this point I do wonder if GW tends to look at army size as a holy number. When I mean army size I am not referring to the point size, but how many bodies they expect in a single force. It does feel like their reluctance to give out pure point updates for balancing stems from the idea that they want 2000 points to have X amount of marines and so on.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 vipoid wrote:


I'm sure no one wants to hear this but I'm 99% sure the reason for all the extra AP and damage is because Marines were given an extra wound with zero thought for the wider impact.

Yes and no. With more AP -1 coming into the game we did see quite a few units improve their save by one to count for the proliferation of the extra AP. Saw it at least with Drukhari and Aeldari, but not existing power armor who usually got the extra wound instead(except for sisters).

At this point I do wonder if GW tends to look at army size as a holy number. When I mean army size I am not referring to the point size, but how many bodies they expect in a single force. It does feel like their reluctance to give out pure point updates for balancing stems from the idea that they want 2000 points to have X amount of marines and so on.

Honestly I can believe it. Part of the game's appeal is the visual aspect and I'm sure that model count is considered as part of that.

Well they're apparently aiming for "no Boyz" in an Ork army so I think their thinking is somewhat off.

Anyone want to comment on how unwaveringly stupid and broken the Nids codex is now on release? 2 days after this "BALANCE" patch?

 Insectum7 wrote:
Well they're apparently aiming for "no Boyz" in an Ork army so I think their thinking is somewhat off.

I doubt that's their intent.


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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Anyone want to comment on how unwaveringly stupid and broken the Nids codex is now on release? 2 days after this "BALANCE" patch?

I wonder if they'll lose some teeth because of the Armour of Contempt rule and Marines being such a meta staple, but I'm not jumping to conclusions either way.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Anyone want to comment on how unwaveringly stupid and broken the Nids codex is now on release? 2 days after this "BALANCE" patch?

Please elaborate, how are they broken?

 CKO wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Anyone want to comment on how unwaveringly stupid and broken the Nids codex is now on release? 2 days after this "BALANCE" patch?

Please elaborate, how are they broken?

Probably best for its own thread. The only thing really (further) broken (and NOT in an OP way) by the balance sheet is the poor Hive Guard, punished for prior sins despite a hefty nerf AND now requiring a synapse spotter to do IF in the first place.
The main thing that jumps out is some of the point costs seem really odd (especially warriors). And not just in a 'too low' way (gants are too high, especially devourers), and some things got shuffled in and out troops based on 'GW thinks that people who play that way are WRONG'

I for one think Hammer of the Emperor is amazing for Scions. FRFSRF hotshots gives you 6 autowounds at AP-2 or AP-3 if LL.

OR the HQ Psyker unit that can do upwards of 20MWs per turn. Or their leviathan group that can spam just Heavy Monstrosity units like popcorn. Auspex Tactics has a whole 15 minute video about how stupid the new codex is.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Ive been calling for Armour of Contempt since very early in 8th. Im not a marine fanboy and only recently started playing TSons (last week in fact, first time ive touched marines in 20 years), but it never sat right with me that their armor was now so easily negated.

This is why I liked 3rd-7th's AP system.

I've said this on numerous occasions, but as a long-time 2nd Ed player, when I finally saw 3rd Ed for the first time at a demo game in a GW store I was absolutely shocked that Marines actually got to take 3+ saves. From my perspective it was such a rare thing to see (like Gretchin Autoguns let Marines have 3+ saves, but almost everything else took them to at best a 4+).

Now there are a lot of arguments against the AP system, but GW have never found a balance between showing the dominance of power armour, whilst also allowing for a modifier system. It was all or nothing, or what we have now, where 3+ saves are what you need minimum to maybe get a 4+ or 5+ save.

Armour of Contempt is a massively clunky and bloated way of fixing this, with built-in exceptions to exceptions that are there for balance reasons but don't make conceptual sense (why would having a Storm Shield make your somehow less durable?) but it is better than the system that existed before it. Of course, if they just reduced the AP of most weapons by 1, and made basic weapons having AP-1 something special (like for ShuriCats), then that would be a far more elegant solution that didn't involve a layer of rules on top of an existing layer of rules.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yonow, it was unfluffy and immersion breaking.

But 6's to hit auto-wounding Titans is a-ok?

 Kanluwen wrote:
People keep wanting USRs so badly. Armor Quality is a great place to bring them in!

In chaos' proposal that would be a stat, not a USR.

Your completely unfounded hate-boner for USRs really is based on a complete lack of understanding on how they work, isn't it? Or, more likely, your only exposure to a USR system is that one GW had in previous editions, and because they didn't do it right, and your only frame of reference is GW, you assume that it can't ever be done right.