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I looked for this topic already and didn’t see it, but It’s been a few weeks since I was on here so apologies if it was covered and I missed it.

My question is pretty simple - are you currently planning on getting the new campaign books? I ask because one of the biggest negative criticisms of 8th (even amongst people who loved 8th) was things like Psychic awakening and the two Vigilus books. Personally, I was really hoping we had seen the end of that type of pay-wall for match play rules. I was really hoping the books would be true campaign books with special rules specific to that campaign and legal only for open and narrative play. Looks like it will have those as well, but I’m loathe to give GW money for this as I’d rather see them move away from this type of “update”, so it will probably be a pass from me, and if this kicks off a trend of a lot of books in the same vein, that will probably put my group off of 9th. We’ll likely just move back to 8th for a while or shelve 40k for a bit.

Curious what you all think?

I like reading lore books so I'll probs nab it for the story and to try any missions it has.

Nope.

Pretty much everything about the sales model they're going with hacks me off.

It doesn't change any of my opinions about the edition, just that I have no particular reason to chase the latest handful of pages of DLC content, in an overpriced, thin and fairly content-less book.

I'd rather have a single extra codex and battletome done this year than half a dozen war zone and 'broken realms' books.

If I want a 'lore' or narrative book, I'll pick up something from black library. The $60 paywall is way too high for 30-odd pages of a random campaign that amounts to nothing. 'Planet Steve is under attack and concludes inconclusively!' got old more than 20 years ago.

Voss wrote:
Nope.

Pretty much everything about the sales model they're going with hacks me off.

It doesn't change any of my opinions about the edition, just that I have no particular reason to chase the latest handful of pages of DLC content, in an overpriced, thin and fairly content-less book.

I'd rather have a single extra codex and battletome done this year than half a dozen war zone and 'broken realms' books.

If I want a 'lore' or narrative book, I'll pick up something from black library. The $60 paywall is way too high for 30-odd pages of a random campaign that amounts to nothing. 'Planet Steve is under attack and concludes inconclusively!' got old more than 20 years ago.

A similar no here. I don't mind the narrative stuff, but I just don't use it enough and if my army were in it I would not spring for it. I don't mind paying more for stuff not made in China, but this still seems like too much if it is made in the UK.

Looks at book shelf with Vigilus and obsolete Psychic Awakening books...Pass on Charadon...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Voss wrote:
Nope.

Pretty much everything about the sales model they're going with hacks me off.

It doesn't change any of my opinions about the edition, just that I have no particular reason to chase the latest handful of pages of DLC content, in an overpriced, thin and fairly content-less book.

I'd rather have a single extra codex and battletome done this year than half a dozen war zone and 'broken realms' books.

If I want a 'lore' or narrative book, I'll pick up something from black library. The $60 paywall is way too high for 30-odd pages of a random campaign that amounts to nothing. 'Planet Steve is under attack and concludes inconclusively!' got old more than 20 years ago.

A similar no here. I don't mind the narrative stuff, but I just don't use it enough and if my army were in it I would not spring for it. I don't mind paying more for stuff not made in China, but this still seems like too much if it is made in the UK.

Exactly. My group actually plays narrative and match play, and if this had been a really well focused book with all those pages lovingly devoted to a cool story (like some of the better I:A books) with really unique and fun campaign specific rules we’d have probably been psyched. But to keep repeating the thing that invariably makes each edition unwieldy and problematic (namely the whole “your army’s rules are in these 12 seperate locations thing ...) is an issue for us. Hopefully this is just a once or twice a year occurrence and not the start of the 9th Ed “bloating”.

A big no from me. Crusade play hasn't picked up here because we prefer to wait until all players have their new codex. For GW to then go and say: actually some armies get double plus new crusade rules over other armies because they got a campaign book on top of their codex does not sit right with me. Which then leaves fluff and matched play rules. I was thoroughly underwhelmed with the PA fluff and if worst comes to worst I can just look it up on Lexicanum. So I'm looking at a 40 euros-ish investment for 4 pages of rules for my army. Rules which look pretty lackluster and leave me unable to play half my models. So again, this is a hard pass for me. It holds next to no value for me, and frankly I consider it a slap in the face to a bunch of players who haven't even gotten a codex for their faction at the moment even as mine gets a DLC/update 2 months after my Codex dropped.

People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

Personally, I'd WAY rather have a campaign cycle every year that releases some new content for every faction- a model or two, a handful of new rules or whatever. And once enough campaign cycles go by, there's a reason to reprint the dex. No edition reset necessary.

Lately, a lot of folks have praised AoS design, creativity and release schedules, which they see as better than 40k. But weren't Morathi and her crew released as part of a story? Isn't the big Teclis thing dropping this weekend also part of an ongoing story? I don't play AoS, so I genuinely don't know... But a lot of their stuff seems to be connected to a narrative.

I think that supplements and Armies of Renown work better than specialist detachments; they don't have the same weight. I also thing the dexes are getting to be strong enough on their own that the additional content truly is "optional." It is certainly true that some of the PA content was mandatory, and I can see how that turned folks off.

I will definitely be picking up these books. I've seen summaries of the rules for the Cult of Strife supplement- now I want to read the flavour of it; some of the relics are named after the Cultists who use it, and now I want to know more about those Cultists; I know we aren't getting datasheets for them, but they can still be interesting modelling projects.

As for the Crusade Mission Pack... Well, I'm a Crusade cheerleader, so it goes without saying.

I highly recommend the Goonhammer review of the BoR. It will help any fence-sitters figure it out.

People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

It doesn’t HAVE to be that way though. We actually have seen them change course in response to lack of demand. I’m not one to call for overly dramatic boycotts or anything like that, but if the community stops buying these, they will walk away from them. 8th edition, the return of the regular White Dwarf (after the horrific weekly run version) are some notable examples.

I’d be more open to campaign books if they were either more limited, and prioritized for AFTER everyone has their dex, OR if they are going to be a regular thing and contain match play rules, make ‘em cheaper, make ‘em paperback, OR just release them as what they are. Actual true campaign books that are focused on the campaign, tell a cool story, have fun missions and special rules, but don’t apply to anything outside of that campaign. I think part of the issue is that so far, since 8th, their “campaign supplements” have worked poorly as both “campaigns” and as “codex supplements.”

No

You mean the Day 1 DLC that people have shunned other games for? feth no I won't buy it. I know a bunch of you will do so anyway so it gives GW excuse to keep doing this gak anyway.

No, the value proposition is even worse than for the usual GW book. Stuff like day-1 $60 DLC for Drukhari (or pre-LC for ad mech and presumably knights) is just too blatant, I can't in good conscience support that level of milking. I think it is moving in exactly the wrong direction. They should be reducing barriers to entry by moving to a free or much lower cost rules model, not cranking up the cost of the rules even more.

I hate the idea that my $50 codex is incomplete a few weeks or months after release. Very reminiscent of certain video game companies. Model DLC just feels bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wow I didnt even realize this book has Dark Eldar stuff in it, lmfao thats actually the greediest gack I've seen in awhile.

Tycho wrote:

People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

It doesn’t HAVE to be that way though. We actually have seen them change course in response to lack of demand. I’m not one to call for overly dramatic boycotts or anything like that, but if the community stops buying these, they will walk away from them.

But that's my problem. Because then in another 2-3 years- edition reset and the whole damn thing starts over again. Including the non-stop grind of rereleasing ALL of the Space Marines from their half of the starter box before anyone else gets a thing.

What I'm saying is I'll buy all the campaign books to prevent another @$#*ing edition, because I hate edition resets more than campaign books, and I believe edition resets are more responsible for "Have" and "Have not" armies than campaign books are. I think campaign books could be the key to a persistent edition. They provide a way for GW to drive a release schedule without reinventing the same wheel that we've used on 9 different bikes.

GW knows they screwed up PA; they tried to use it to deliver a patch to the game, but the patch that was needed was big enough that they couldn't get it done. In the end, not only did they have to reset the edition to pull it out of the fire, the attempt to use PA as patch maligned the concept for everyone.

That's why these books are different; Armies of Renown and the sub-faction supplements are so narrow in focus that they don't upset the rest of the game. They provide interesting options to really focus in on the sub-factions of particular armies in ways that have previously only been available to a very small and exclusive set of factions. I believe that Eldar had a book or two once upon a time about specific Craftworlds; I think in the same era there were one or two for specific Regiments of the Guard. And then, of course, the Marines. But that's it. Now everyone can get a taste.

And it only deals with a single subfaction in your dex, and it doesn't modify, it merely adds. This is how it avoids invalidating your Codex. I will agree that doing this WHILE the Codex cycle is still in full swing is bad optics, and I do understand the concerns. I think that GW decided it was worth the risk because they need to make sure they've got the recipe right before they have to use it to drive releases without the Codex cycle as a back-up plan.

No, value too low.

They haven't even got the initial codexes out yet, so I dunno how this can be spun as "this is instead of 10th edition." From where I'm sitting, it seems more like "this is instead of actually releasing 9th edition books for everybody. Have some more deathguard rules, that's what everyone was crying out for!"

PenitentJake wrote:
People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

I don't regard any of this as content though. A brief narrative, some vague campaign thing, and a couple back-of-the napkin lists of traits/strats/relics/whatever for a couple factions that likely won't last a year or two. That's just junk. They do more with White Dwarf on occasion, and that is a really low bar to clear.

What I'm saying is I'll buy all the campaign books to prevent another @$#*ing edition, because I hate edition resets more than campaign books, and I believe edition resets are more responsible for "Have" and "Have not" armies than campaign books are. I think campaign books could be the key to a persistent edition. They provide a way for GW to drive a release schedule without reinventing the same wheel that we've used on 9 different bikes.

You are, respectfully, entirely wrong. Buying campaign books doesn't do a single blessed thing to _prevent_ another edition, it keeps this hamster wheel spinning. Like Vigilus and PA, all this 'stray content' has to be folded back in to real books sooner rather than later. And then those need to be replaced and a new edition has to happen so more can... yeah. It just keeps going.

All you really convince GW of by buying this shlock is that they should keep selling all the things- campaign books, new codexes, new editions and more. Faster and faster, just dump it out, because people will buy it regardless of any perceived or real value.

If you really want the editions to stop spinning, you need to convince GW to release _fewer_ books, not more. Give things time to breathe.

And it only deals with a single subfaction in your dex, and it doesn't modify, it merely adds.

Yes.. and in terms of game design, 'merely adding' still tilts balance. Its one of the problem of space marines. They have so many options 'added,' they can cover all the bases. Horizontal progression (rather than vertical) still adds power choices. There are more options to min/max with, so it becomes easier to do.

PenitentJake wrote:

Tycho wrote:

People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

It doesn’t HAVE to be that way though. We actually have seen them change course in response to lack of demand. I’m not one to call for overly dramatic boycotts or anything like that, but if the community stops buying these, they will walk away from them.

But that's my problem. Because then in another 2-3 years- edition reset and the whole damn thing starts over again. Including the non-stop grind of rereleasing ALL of the Space Marines from their half of the starter box before anyone else gets a thing.

What I'm saying is I'll buy all the campaign books to prevent another @$#*ing edition, because I hate edition resets more than campaign books, and I believe edition resets are more responsible for "Have" and "Have not" armies than campaign books are. I think campaign books could be the key to a persistent edition. They provide a way for GW to drive a release schedule without reinventing the same wheel that we've used on 9 different bikes.

GW knows they screwed up PA; they tried to use it to deliver a patch to the game, but the patch that was needed was big enough that they couldn't get it done. In the end, not only did they have to reset the edition to pull it out of the fire, the attempt to use PA as patch maligned the concept for everyone.

That's why these books are different; Armies of Renown and the sub-faction supplements are so narrow in focus that they don't upset the rest of the game. They provide interesting options to really focus in on the sub-factions of particular armies in ways that have previously only been available to a very small and exclusive set of factions. I believe that Eldar had a book or two once upon a time about specific Craftworlds; I think in the same era there were one or two for specific Regiments of the Guard. And then, of course, the Marines. But that's it. Now everyone can get a taste.

And it only deals with a single subfaction in your dex, and it doesn't modify, it merely adds. This is how it avoids invalidating your Codex. I will agree that doing this WHILE the Codex cycle is still in full swing is bad optics, and I do understand the concerns. I think that GW decided it was worth the risk because they need to make sure they've got the recipe right before they have to use it to drive releases without the Codex cycle as a back-up plan.

I get what you’re saying, and I agree that campaign books could be a good way to extend the edition, but to me, Charadon feels a lot more like PA than it really should. You make a good point that the match play rules are additive rather than a redo, but this fits way too comfortably in the “PA” mold for me. Like another one of those books where it is going to do everything average to below average, but be very expensive in the process and start the bloat cycle all over again.

I’d just rather they get the codexes out, then start doing stuff like this. That, or at least make it a little more logical. Like “Hey! We know you “xyz” army players are suffering w/old rules, and that your codexes are still a ways off yet, but hey! Here’s a campaign book w/new rules to help get you by until then. Although in this case it’s also fair to assume COVID has buggered up the schedule so who knows.

Mmm, maybe? I dunno. Maybe if one of the later books has something for my primary army, the greenskins. Sadly the PA books were a little meh in regards to content. A quick bit of fluff, some blubs and then some okay rules stuff. It could have been better.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't buy GW printed material for 40k in the first place, yet this one seems worse somehow.

Maybe it's the price. Maybe it's the ultra-low page count for said price. Maybe it's because it contains rules for an army that got their Codex pre-order on the same day.

No, wait, it's all of those reasons.

Yeah, it's a real "greatest hits reel" for all the scummy ways you can rip people off.

Like all GW stuff beyond Main Rulebook + the Codex I'll need, these books fall into the Maybe/Maybe not category.
It depends upon if I decide the content is worth it/something I need.

This volume?
Additional stuff for Dark Eldar - so what. I don't play DE. I've no interest in them at all.
Additional stuff for Admech + Knights = maaaybe? I've built two Knights & some Admech stuff just because I liked the models. Will be the inspiration to finally field them?
I'm a bit more interested in seeing this "Armies of Renown" stuff.

Next volume??

Bloat for the bloat god.

Its a big no for me.
Even if it was for my faction, id still refuse on principle. Just like any other future publications. Enough is enough.

The content is just not worth it and expecting people to pay £35 for 4 pages of rules is beyond ludacris. Not to mention most people still cant even play the blimmin game...

Tycho wrote:

I’d just rather they get the codexes out, then start doing stuff like this. That, or at least make it a little more logical. Like “Hey! We know you “xyz” army players are suffering w/old rules, and that your codexes are still a ways off yet, but hey! Here’s a campaign book w/new rules to help get you by until then. Although in this case it’s also fair to assume COVID has buggered up the schedule so who knows.

It did, but not that way. The book order of DG->DA->DE was definitely intended before the schedule got fethed. Ad Mech are next in April, so that still tracks. This book was intended to be alongside or shortly after those books (I do suspect it wasn't originally intended to come out BEFORE Ad Mech).

The only real question mark is knights, and well, whatever. They could just do us all a favor and toss those 5-6 (or whatever) datasheets into the Ad Mech book, as a separate but related subfaction, like the abhumans and stormtroopers are for guard.

PenitentJake wrote:
[
What I'm saying is I'll buy all the campaign books to prevent another @$#*ing edition, because I hate edition resets more than campaign books, and I believe edition resets are more responsible for "Have" and "Have not" armies than campaign books are. I think campaign books could be the key to a persistent edition. They provide a way for GW to drive a release schedule without reinventing the same wheel that we've used on 9 different bikes.

LOL....

I hope you aren't too surprised/disappointed come about 2024* when you're buying your new 10th ed book.



*I'd have said 2023, but I figure the disruptions of 2020/21 have bought us a year.

ccs wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
[
What I'm saying is I'll buy all the campaign books to prevent another @$#*ing edition, because I hate edition resets more than campaign books, and I believe edition resets are more responsible for "Have" and "Have not" armies than campaign books are. I think campaign books could be the key to a persistent edition. They provide a way for GW to drive a release schedule without reinventing the same wheel that we've used on 9 different bikes.

LOL....

I hope you aren't too surprised/disappointed come about 2024* when you're buying your new 10th ed book.



*I'd have said 2023, but I figure the disruptions of 2020/21 have bought us a year.

I don’t think he literally means this specific book is going to help with that. Just that they COULD help. Other game systems have done this to extend editions, and 40k could too. I don’t think they will, and more often than not, their campaign books and codex supplements end up being a partial CAUSE of a new edition, but again, they COULD be used that way.

I don't see them pushing an edition back. They've settled in to the start of fiscal cash influx every three years for their flagships.

Last 4 editions between them have all been 3 years and they didn't adjust being right in the midst of Covid last summer. With them announcing the Broken Realms books all the way to book 4 already I see them pushing AoS 3.0 out this summer on schedule.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Looks at book shelf with Vigilus and obsolete Psychic Awakening books...Pass on Charadon...

This. The fluff looks interesting, but the stuff for the Death Guard just looks a bit too restricting for me at the moment. The codex that I have right now is perfectly fine for my needs, and on top of that, I don't need more clutter in my place.

Tycho wrote:

People are either going to have to get used to content being release by campaign books, or be resigned to the fact that GW has to blow up the entire game with an edition reset.

It doesn’t HAVE to be that way though. We actually have seen them change course in response to lack of demand. I’m not one to call for overly dramatic boycotts or anything like that, but if the community stops buying these, they will walk away from them. 8th edition, the return of the regular White Dwarf (after the horrific weekly run version) are some notable examples.

I’d be more open to campaign books if they were either more limited, and prioritized for AFTER everyone has their dex, OR if they are going to be a regular thing and contain match play rules, make ‘em cheaper, make ‘em paperback, OR just release them as what they are. Actual true campaign books that are focused on the campaign, tell a cool story, have fun missions and special rules, but don’t apply to anything outside of that campaign. I think part of the issue is that so far, since 8th, their “campaign supplements” have worked poorly as both “campaigns” and as “codex supplements.”

Honestly, I think someone should. I plan on Boycotting these books and I've asked others in my area to do so with a lot of good success in convincing them. This kind of stuff is absurd, my PA books never even saw any play before they were obsolete.

If they have rules for one of the armies I like + are competitive, sure, as long as we aren't near an edition change.

I wish they'd move to a subscription model though -and- go back to letting me buy digital only. I'm less inclined to play multiple factions when my shelves are cluttered with physical books.

I think I'll get the mission book. Scenarios are always nice, it's cheaper and a book is much more convenient to handle in game than a Phone. The big book I'd get if it was cheaper. But just to have the fluff in german and for two pages of rules? Nah...