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Made in gb
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This isn't me having a go at gw! This is a genuine thread to discuss the evidence behind if GW play tests.

The story:

The necron codex beta was leaked a few weeks ago (the full codex) and it was supposedly given out to play testers or at least to internal testing/corrections. With the new info regarding the finalised Necron Codex we can finally start to compare the two and determine if play testing actually affected the rules in any way.

How do we do this?

Basically we look at the differences between the two books and see what has changed from the beta and the final versions. If nothing has changed then that shows us that (at min the beta versions) don't affect the codex in any way. If we find changes in points, rules, stats, ect... from the beta to the final codex then we will know that play testing does go on and it does shape how the game plays.

So what have we found out so far? Well I don't know enough about necrons to comment on the major differences so feel free to discover and discuss below!
   
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 lolman1c wrote:
This isn't me having a go at gw! This is a genuine thread to discuss the evidence behind if GW play tests.

The story:

The necron codex beta was leaked a few weeks ago (the full codex) and it was supposedly given out to play testers or at least to internal testing/corrections. With the new info regarding the finalised Necron Codex we can finally start to compare the two and determine if play testing actually affected the rules in any way.

How do we do this?

Basically we look at the differences between the two books and see what has changed from the beta and the final versions. If nothing has changed then that shows us that (at min the beta versions) don't affect the codex in any way. If we find changes in points, rules, stats, ect... from the beta to the final codex then we will know that play testing does go on and it does shape how the game plays.

So what have we found out so far? Well I don't know enough about necrons to comment on the major differences so feel free to discover and discuss below!


Well a no change could also mean that it was a minimum good enough to function between normal play against a variate of opponents. or alternatively they aren't looking at win % but instead asking the beta testers to find wording that may break the game or was to ambiguous.


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 Scott-S6 wrote:
And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

Oh my god I'm becoming martel.
Send help!

 
   
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UK

Isn't this thread sort of stuck in limbo until next week at least (when we can expect reliable leaks from the pre-release to be accessible); since it hinges on comparing two products when we've only seen one and the other is not yet out (and leaks are iffy at best from what I gather).

If the earlier version was balanced up enough then it might well be that there weren't huge changes or many made to the final document.

Also even with large-scale testing (eg in computer games where you can viably test and gather in the data from the whole user population) balance is still a near impossible state (and that's in an environment where all factors are controlled - wargames on the tabletop have huge variety in elements such as terrain density and type).

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Or this was basically the final version of the beta codex, which is why it's the one that the guy leaked. You really can't conclude anything from the codex being the same as the leak.
   
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Is the leaked material actually watermarked "beta"? If not, then we have no idea what 'stage' of development the leaked material comes from.

Seriously problematizes what you're trying to do.
   
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I honestly find it hard to believe that GW actually play tests. I think they use local, regional, and national tournaments as their play test environment and then make changes as needed.

This same tactic has been used a lot recently in Magic The Gathering, but in my opinion that's just because of some absolutely horrible design choices by their design team. For several years before current Standard, WotC didn't ban any cards in Standard (if they did, it was a very big deal). Current MTG Standard is a dumpster fire.

That said, I think most editions when launched by GW are a dumpster fire of rules thrown together that probably don't work as they most likely haven't been play tested (or so little that it's insignificant). They make changes based on how people have played those armies since the release of the original rules/codices.

SG

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/20 18:00:14


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UK

Tournaments are likely the only way to viable test wargames and the like because they generally, esp at the upper levels, attract people who can actually play the game properly and well. You also have a more manageable pool of data and you've also got potential to attend/review/record more than just the winning result (you can even record the whole match).

Wide scale public testing would be very hard to achieve and you'd have to spend a long time investing in training up a large number of local supporters skilled in the game to officiate such a scheme. otherwise you've got data coming in from people who can play and those who can't through to those who might just be miss representing to try and get an advantage for their faction.


As for GW I think this edition they are doing more playtesting and adjusting; but that they've also a huge body of factions which complicates the matter; plus there's the time limit of them wanting to get all armies at least on the same rules edition and codex system. After that I think we'll see what comes of their long term plans.

I've long thought that 8th edition might be the last big edition change of the general game rules. That from now on we might see more campaign based starter sets (like the new Necron and Ad Mech set) and trickle out rules with a codex release that collects together all the previous released info for that faction every so often (since codex act not only as rules, but also miniature guides for new players and lore for the factions as well).

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Tournaments are a terrible way to test the codexes.

Tournaments are going to show exploitative flaws, but they are only going to show them one at a time. To meaningfully play test the codexes you need to understand why a unit isn't being taken at all. Is it because the unit is bad/has problems that need addressing? Or is it because it's well balanced but not as effecient as this broken option over here thats being spammed in tournaments. That looks exactly the same in tournaments.

Tournaments will never show a big enough or clear enough picture to gather any meaningful data on any army.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/20 18:17:15



These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
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Most public betas primarily act as sanity tests. They don't find small advantages that break the game in competitive play, but they often find speling errers.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Let's be real: GW shouldn't be worrying too much about the fine details of how to playtest well until they can spot problems that are apparent to many players simply from reading the rules and doing some simple math. It's pretty striking just how good the community was at identifying problem units from the index leaks alone, before 8th had even officially launched. A consensus formed extremely quickly about which units were too good, and this panned out insofar as these units are either still considered quite good or have gotten nerfed.
   
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Tampa, FL

I think the problem with GW's playtesting is they seem to be entirely reacting to big tournaments, without actually understanding WHY. They don't seem to get why some things are always taken and some things are never taken, it's entirely kneejerk reactions to what is abusing/dominating the ITC scene, when some of that comes from ITC using deviated missions and part is the scoring mechanism that ITC uses.

Until they understand why something is good/bad, they aren't actually testing they are just seeing "Oh, X is abused at tournaments let's nerf it". They are at the mercy of ITC tournament players.

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 LunarSol wrote:
Most public betas primarily act as sanity tests. They don't find small advantages that break the game in competitive play, but they often find speling errers.


Not sure if intentional...


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Of course GW play tests. It's just this communities definition of play testing and the one that GW will invariably use is different.


 
   
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Here's a clear example of GW playtesting: GW added a restriction on Tau Coldstar Commanders, specifically banning them from taking Cyclic Ion Blasters. The kit actually has an Ion Blaster included, so that's not an issue here.

It's pretty clear GW realized at some late stage of the Tau codex that Coldstars with Ion Blasters were too strong, so they included a rule at the last minute banning them from taking any.
   
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Regular Dakkanaut




I think it's pretty clear GW does plenty of play testing especially for 8th ed. Between all the folks like FLG and so many others discussing how they play tested for GW that should be clear. I think most folks that complain about GWs lack of play testing it are just bashing GW due to sour grapes. They didn't get what they wanted in a codex so instead of see why it's actually good or why GW did what they did it's easier to bash GW for a lack of play testing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/21 03:42:35


 
   
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I think they do, but I think they also do it to their standards as opposed to what we the rabid masses may think?
   
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Reminds me of 4th Ed CSM - when one of the developers was questioned several years later, what the hell they were thinking when they wrote Lash of Submission they replied with "huh... well we hadn't actually thought people would take more than one!" (paraphrasing)

Sometimes broken combos or rule flaws don't show to the design team or whoever is testing the codex as they already have preconceived ideas of what the rule meant or the intention behind the rule was obvious to them.

I believe they play test - but not to the degree some people expect them to.

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dkoz wrote:
I think it's pretty clear GW does plenty of play testing especially for 8th ed. Between all the folks like FLG and so many others discussing how they play tested for GW that should be clear. I think most folks that complain about GWs lack of play testing it are just bashing GW due to sour grapes. They didn't get what they wanted in a codex so instead of see why it's actually good or why GW did what they did it's easier to bash GW for a lack of play testing.


That comes across as extremely dismissive to everyone with valid concerns about the quality of GW's writing. GW has a long history of putting out codexes/content with wildly varying degrees of balance, proof reading/clarity, and quality of care. Its really not hard to see why people are quick to see GW as haphazardly throwing this content together because frankly they have been doing it for years and even their 8th edition stuff has the look of inconstancy and insufficient thought put into the final product. Up until the past year or two GW admitted they didn't even do market research which is kinda important for a multi national company that makes and sells products to consumers. Its not hard to see the lack of care put into their rules content when in the past they can barely be bothered to poke their head out of ivory tower to find out what their customer base wants to buy or what matters to them. Granted that has changed recently but I do feel that while marketing and community outreach has improved, their writing department is still managed in a somewhat similar way as before.

8th's cover and terrain rules are a good "modern" example of GW's rules writing. as either they didn't use those rules as written when testing them or they just put a low effort into developing them while also ignoring any feedback they must of gotten from playtesters. Going back to the beginning of 7th and you have the golden example of the Flash Gitz formation where you have a unit of 21 Gitz armed with assault 3 MASTER CRAFTED guns (in 7th that means you reroll 1 miss from each weapon) so your rolling 21 sets of 3 dice and able to reroll 1 miss from each set. There is no way anybody at GW actually played that formation out and said "yep that is exactly the experience we want to have with this formation" unless they are zogging insane or a massive troll. The drop pod doors FAQ was another gem where you could have a battle company with drop pods that took up most of the board with an AV12 wall because the doors when folded down counted as the hull of the pod and thus would block movement. Again seems like somebody asked them a question and they just made up an answer in a few seconds without thinking about how that ruling would impact the game.

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Dionysodorus wrote:
Let's be real: GW shouldn't be worrying too much about the fine details of how to playtest well until they can spot problems that are apparent to many players simply from reading the rules and doing some simple math. It's pretty striking just how good the community was at identifying problem units from the index leaks alone, before 8th had even officially launched. A consensus formed extremely quickly about which units were too good, and this panned out insofar as these units are either still considered quite good or have gotten nerfed.


You mean like when half the ork community was whining about ork boyz being useless due to losing an attack compared to 7th?

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
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Tampa, FL

Part of it too is they seem to be letting FLG/ITC stuff dictate the rules/balance, which I think is overall a mistake. Not that having tournaments find loopholes, but GW continually doesn't seem to understand the WHY, just the result (i.e. this is broken, we must nerf it, but don't understand WHY it's broken)

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Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
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 ServiceGames wrote:
I honestly find it hard to believe that GW actually play tests. I think they use local, regional, and national tournaments as their play test environment and then make changes as needed.

This same tactic has been used a lot recently in Magic The Gathering, but in my opinion that's just because of some absolutely horrible design choices by their design team. For several years before current Standard, WotC didn't ban any cards in Standard (if they did, it was a very big deal). Current MTG Standard is a dumpster fire.

That said, I think most editions when launched by GW are a dumpster fire of rules thrown together that probably don't work as they most likely haven't been play tested (or so little that it's insignificant). They make changes based on how people have played those armies since the release of the original rules/codices.

SG


Speaking to players and FLG owners, Magic standard is at it's healthiest it's been at for a while, with a variety of top tier decks, and attendence at my most recent PPTQ was the highest they've _ever_ had. [And yes, it was a standard PPTQ].

My History teacher would grade your post, 'Unsupported Assertion.'

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Bergen

 ServiceGames wrote:
I honestly find it hard to believe that GW actually play tests. I think they use local, regional, and national tournaments as their play test environment and then make changes as needed.

This same tactic has been used a lot recently in Magic The Gathering, but in my opinion that's just because of some absolutely horrible design choices by their design team. For several years before current Standard, WotC didn't ban any cards in Standard (if they did, it was a very big deal). Current MTG Standard is a dumpster fire.

That said, I think most editions when launched by GW are a dumpster fire of rules thrown together that probably don't work as they most likely haven't been play tested (or so little that it's insignificant). They make changes based on how people have played those armies since the release of the original rules/codices.

SG


You are quite uninformed about your magic information. Both design and development playtest cards. The future future league try to playtest cards from being to powerfull as well.

Cards have been banned before. Even in standar. Tempest / Urza block memoryjar megrim comes to mind. In fact every artifact sett has a lott of bannings. (Even though urza was designed as en enchantment sett.) The current standar ban list only contains card currently standar legal. For a full breakdown i would recomend the link below. Mtg has been going for 25 years. I would be supriced if mistakes where not made. Also, the current standar is not a dumster fire. With the clearly to strong cards reiled in a lot of profesional players is praising standar for being very good.

https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Banned_and_restricted_cards/Timeline

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




 Jidmah wrote:
Dionysodorus wrote:
Let's be real: GW shouldn't be worrying too much about the fine details of how to playtest well until they can spot problems that are apparent to many players simply from reading the rules and doing some simple math. It's pretty striking just how good the community was at identifying problem units from the index leaks alone, before 8th had even officially launched. A consensus formed extremely quickly about which units were too good, and this panned out insofar as these units are either still considered quite good or have gotten nerfed.


You mean like when half the ork community was whining about ork boyz being useless due to losing an attack compared to 7th?

I'm not sure what your point is. Is it supposed to be a problem for what I'm saying that you can find lots of people who will argue that even the best stuff in their own faction is too weak? I'm sure you can find Eldar players now who will tell you that Dark Reapers aren't a problem. For a long time you could find Guard players saying that Conscripts were just fine. But actually lots of people were pointing out that 8th edition had buffed hordes considerably, and people were talking like Guard, Tyranids, and Orks might be big deals. People very quickly identified Conscripts, Brimstone Horrors, Stormravens, Guilliman, Celestine, and Scions as problematic units -- that's why there was such a strong Conscript defense force from early on. People very quickly pointed out that Razorbacks and Manticores were very good tanks, especially compared to Predators and Russes. IIRC the only really big misses -- the only units that turned out to be super-powerful but which didn't get much attention early on -- were Razorwing Flocks and Malefic Lords. And I feel like that's probably because no one bothered to actually look at them and ask "is this any good" than because people looked at them and decided they weren't good. Meanwhile I'm having a hard time coming up with a unit that the community as a whole thought was way too good which turned out to be just fine. People got "army tiers" wrong -- lots of people thought Tyranids would be the best index army -- but that's not really what we're talking about (and Guard was a strong runner up in an early poll about that). I do remember a significant minority of people who were down on flyers like the Stormraven or Hemlock because they thought their losing the "only hit on 6s" rule was a big nerf, but I do think they were a minority, and of course even at the time you had the people who could actually use a calculator pointing out that they were really quite durable.

Really it's astonishing how well the community did here. Like, even though huge numbers of people talking about this game clearly have absolutely no idea how to evaluate units and no mathematical skill or intuition whatsoever, there was a really remarkable amount of agreement from very early on about what specifically was too good, and GW seems to have ended up mostly agreeing with this given Chapter Approved and various FAQs. Just imagine what a subset of those people selected for their ability to think well and clearly about this stuff could have told you from day 1! There were just lots and lots of really, really obvious problems in the index rules, apparent to lots of people despite their having minimal experience with the rules.
   
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No, I'm saying that players in general are just as terrible at finding strong things as GW are.

We just have the advantage of numbers, aka "swarm intelligence".

And yes, a lot of people actually had a complete melt-down over how terrible ork boyz would be, just dig for the posts around the release of 8th in the ork tactica threads. Also see the people calling eldar useless trash after their release of the codex and keep a close eye on the tau calling their army useless trash right now.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/21 13:54:22


7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Jidmah wrote:
No, I'm saying that players in general are just as terrible at finding strong things as GW are.

We just have the advantage of numbers, aka "swarm intelligence".

And yes, a lot of people actually had a complete melt-down over how terrible ork boyz would be, just dig for the posts around the release of 8th in the ork tactica threads. Also see the people calling eldar useless trash after their release of the codex and keep a close eye on the tau calling their army useless trash right now.

Sure, but this just seems totally uninteresting. Like, your point here is that GW is doing perhaps a slightly better job with each faction than you would expect a completely random player from the faction to do without any playtesting at all, what with the typical player's incompetence and bias. That's... not impressive. My point is that you can identify subsets of the community who did really a great job, relative to GW, at figuring out what's good and bad very, very quickly, with minimal playtesting. That's a little surprising, right?

I don't think that this is a "wisdom of crowds" thing. Actually I think most people who contribute to discussions about balance are probably actively unhelpful to the conversation -- it's easy to find people in threads here who are just crazy. But here's the thing: it's obvious that they're crazy. There are lots of posters that everyone just knows should be completely ignored when talking about balance. What's actually happening is that a significant number of players are actually capable of comparing units to other units and noticing when one is just much better than another, and their arguments are then sufficiently convincing to enough other players who are perhaps not capable of doing the work themselves but are at least not un-persuadable that you get a consensus. You can go identify individual people who had just a fantastic hit rate at picking out the overpowered units very early on. And this doesn't look like survival bias either -- if you go look at what they were saying they're just clearly the people who understood the rules and could do basic math. And what's more, they did create a consensus.

That just doesn't seem to me like a high standard to set for GW's own process. Rather than hiring people who are no better than the typical high schooler with hundreds of dollars invested in a particular faction at dispassionately evaluating various units, hire people who are actually good at estimating point values for things. Surely the people in charge of this process should be competitive with, say, the most competent 20% of the community, even if GW doesn't want to pay to hire people as good as the most competent of the community.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/21 14:28:27


 
   
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 meleti wrote:
Here's a clear example of GW playtesting: GW added a restriction on Tau Coldstar Commanders, specifically banning them from taking Cyclic Ion Blasters. The kit actually has an Ion Blaster included, so that's not an issue here.

It's pretty clear GW realized at some late stage of the Tau codex that Coldstars with Ion Blasters were too strong, so they included a rule at the last minute banning them from taking any.


But is it that, or maybe there would be no reason to take the regular commander at all, so they imposed an artificial limit, just like they did on commanders per detachment.
   
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Dionysodorus wrote:
 Jidmah wrote:
No, I'm saying that players in general are just as terrible at finding strong things as GW are.

We just have the advantage of numbers, aka "swarm intelligence".

And yes, a lot of people actually had a complete melt-down over how terrible ork boyz would be, just dig for the posts around the release of 8th in the ork tactica threads. Also see the people calling eldar useless trash after their release of the codex and keep a close eye on the tau calling their army useless trash right now.

Sure, but this just seems totally uninteresting. Like, your point here is that GW is doing perhaps a slightly better job with each faction than you would expect a completely random player from the faction to do without any playtesting at all, what with the typical player's incompetence and bias. That's... not impressive. My point is that you can identify subsets of the community who did really a great job, relative to GW, at figuring out what's good and bad very, very quickly, with minimal playtesting. That's a little surprising, right?

I don't think that this is a "wisdom of crowds" thing. Actually I think most people who contribute to discussions about balance are probably actively unhelpful to the conversation -- it's easy to find people in threads here who are just crazy. But here's the thing: it's obvious that they're crazy. There are lots of posters that everyone just knows should be completely ignored when talking about balance. What's actually happening is that a significant number of players are actually capable of comparing units to other units and noticing when one is just much better than another, and their arguments are then sufficiently convincing to enough other players who are perhaps not capable of doing the work themselves but are at least not un-persuadable that you get a consensus. You can go identify individual people who had just a fantastic hit rate at picking out the overpowered units very early on. And this doesn't look like survival bias either -- if you go look at what they were saying they're just clearly the people who understood the rules and could do basic math. And what's more, they did create a consensus.

That just doesn't seem to me like a high standard to set for GW's own process. Rather than hiring people who are no better than the typical high schooler with hundreds of dollars invested in a particular faction at dispassionately evaluating various units, hire people who are actually good at estimating point values for things. Surely the people in charge of this process should be competitive with, say, the most competent 20% of the community, even if GW doesn't want to pay to hire people as good as the most competent of the community.


Ah, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending GW or anything. Unlike posters on these forums, the people working as developers, designers or rule authors at GW are getting paid to have a good grasp of their rules and there is no excuse for them to not have it. It's their job.
Even if you assume they started their learning curve with the release of 8th (which is sad, considering some of them are playing and working on 40k for decades), I expect them to get better with every single release until they reach a level of professionalism that is common for other big gaming companies. The sooner, the better.

The only thing I was trying to say is that the average forum poster is not better any at balancing than the people at GW.
The amount of ridiculously idiotic suggestions for "fixes" to the ork codex I have read just in the past few month is testament to that. I'd say no more than 15 active posters on dakkadakka have any idea about what makes ork work. I'm not talking about playing orks - I'm talking about understanding how and why the army works or doesn't work.
Some select experts in the community are a lot better at analyzing the game than GW is, and it would be good practice for GW to identify those people and put them under contract to develop their games. That's exactly what WotC has been doing for MtG for two decades now.

7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
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United Kingdom

They must play test. To think otherwise is just silly. Do they test to the fullest? Probably not. I imagine they play lots of games in house although not terribly competitive, probably just casual levels to make sure everything works.

With 8th edition I think that they are sort of relying on us to find the problems that they miss. Players are probably better than they are in finding those problems.

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They don't. That much is obvious.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/22 20:03:07


 
   
 
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