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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

Let's examine a situation: You have an infantry unit. Let's say, a unit of Ork Nobz. And you want to know how concerned you need to be about an enemy unit, a minimum-sized squad of Assault Intercessors if you put your Nobz out in charge range.

Let's say that your opponent is playing Iron Hands, and it's turn 2.

That unit charges you, and they make 16 S4 AP-1 D1 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 5s, saving on 5s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 2.4 - they kill one nob on average, and might wound a second, and morale is not a factor.

Now let's say you're playing against Black Templars, a successor chapter of course because your opponent is competitively minded, Born Heroes and Hungry for Battle, and theyve chosen the "Accept Any Challenge" vow. That unit then makes 16 S4 Ap-2 D1 attacks, hitting on 2s and 6s to hit cause 2 auto-wounds, wounding on 5s, saving on 6s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 7.5 damage - killing 3-4 nobs, with a decent chance to cause the remaining member/members of the squad to flee during the morale phase.

If they choose, then, the Black Templars player might at the end of the phase choose to use the stratagem Honor the Chapter for 2cp, allowing those Assault Intercessors to fight a second time, allowing them to cause 15 wounds, killing 7.5 W2 ork models.

the distinction between this unit causing 18pts of damage, versus causing 135pts of damage, all comes down to you the opponent recalling the following rules distinctions, none of which are present on the model or, since it is a successor chapter, in the paint scheme of the model:

-6s cause an extra hit
-+1 to hit on the charge
-The unit is always in the assault doctrine if in engagement range
-The assault doctrine causes their melee attacks to have an additional AP
-They are from a successor chapter of the Black Templars, so their assault doctrine also causes 6s to wound automatically
-This particular unit has a special stratagem enabling them to fight again for 2cp

As an opponent of this particular player, there is a burden of knowledge on me that I need to recall that the offensive power of this particular unit among the 140 datasheets present within codex:Space Marines can augment its offensive power by a factor of more than 7 times from the statline present on the datasheet.





...Does this enhance your gaming experience?

If so, why? What are the positives for a miniatures game for there to be this degree of stat differentiation between what could actually be literally the same exact model fielded by the same opponent in two different sessions of play?

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in ca
Veteran Wolf Guard Squad Leader






The Black Templar are already a successor chapter, I don't think you can be a successor to them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 16:29:43


Wolfspear's 2k
Harlequins 2k
Chaos Knights 2k
Spiderfangs 2k
Ossiarch Bonereapers 1k 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 jaredb wrote:
The Black Templar are already a successor chapter, I don't think you can be a successor to them.


We've found the nit, and now that it has been picked, nothing else needs be discussed! So quickly too, damn, you really got me.

HOLD THE NIT ALOFT LIKE ITS A MELEE WEAPON IN AN OLD PIECE OF CODEX COVER ARTWORK! YOU ARE TRIUMPHANT, EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in at
Longtime Dakkanaut




 the_scotsman wrote:
A thought occurred to me when reading the new Black Templars rules previews. Please note, this is not a 'black templars op' thread, just pointing something out regarding how much of a unit's power budget currently resides within rules external to the model itself.

Let's examine a situation: You have an infantry unit. Let's say, a unit of Ork Nobz. And you want to know how concerned you need to be about an enemy unit, a minimum-sized squad of Assault Intercessors if you put your Nobz out in charge range.

Let's say that your opponent is playing Iron Hands, and it's turn 2.

That unit charges you, and they make 16 S4 AP-1 D1 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 5s, saving on 5s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 2.4 - they kill one nob on average, and might wound a second, and morale is not a factor.

Now let's say you're playing against Black Templars, a successor chapter of course because your opponent is competitively minded, Born Heroes and Hungry for Battle, and theyve chosen the "Accept Any Challenge" vow. That unit then makes 16 S4 Ap-2 D1 attacks, hitting on 2s and 6s to hit cause 2 auto-wounds, wounding on 5s, saving on 6s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 7.5 damage - killing 3-4 nobs, with a decent chance to cause the remaining member/members of the squad to flee during the morale phase.

If they choose, then, the Black Templars player might at the end of the phase choose to use the stratagem Honor the Chapter for 2cp, allowing those Assault Intercessors to fight a second time, allowing them to cause 15 wounds, killing 7.5 W2 ork models.

the distinction between this unit causing 18pts of damage, versus causing 135pts of damage, all comes down to you the opponent recalling the following rules distinctions, none of which are present on the model or, since it is a successor chapter, in the paint scheme of the model:

-6s cause an extra hit
-+1 to hit on the charge
-The unit is always in the assault doctrine if in engagement range
-The assault doctrine causes their melee attacks to have an additional AP
-They are from a successor chapter of the Black Templars, so their assault doctrine also causes 6s to wound automatically
-This particular unit has a special stratagem enabling them to fight again for 2cp

As an opponent of this particular player, there is a burden of knowledge on me that I need to recall that the offensive power of this particular unit among the 140 datasheets present within codex:Space Marines can augment its offensive power by a factor of more than 7 times from the statline present on the datasheet.





...Does this enhance your gaming experience?

If so, why? What are the positives for a miniatures game for there to be this degree of stat differentiation between what could actually be literally the same exact model fielded by the same opponent in two different sessions of play?


I get that space marines have a lot of rules if you take every chapter into account, but realisticly you don't need to know every rule when playing against them. I mean you can just ask your opponent, right? What does that unit do if it charges me and what stratagems are there broadly speaking.

As to the question of why space marines have many rules differentiating the same unit across different chapters like assault intercessors: I think we have to acknowledge that the different space marine chapters are just a very big part of 40k and its history. Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels have had a seperate codex since 2nd edition and it has been this way ever since. For good or bad, GW has decided to provide these chapters with special rules and units to more clearly differentiate them from each other in order to better monetize the multitude of very popular space marine chapters.

Would I personally like to see all chapters rolled into one codex so the only difference between different space marine armies is the color scheme? No, absolutely not. I believe the different chapter cultures, special units and the different ways they play are a big part of 40k.

Does GW often release too much for marines and too little for xenos players? Yes, but maybe next year we'll truly get the big eldar release that's been overdue for so long.
   
Made in gb
Witch Hunter in the Shadows





 the_scotsman wrote:
the distinction between this unit causing 18pts of damage, versus causing 135pts of damage, all comes down to you the opponent recalling the following rules distinctions, none of which are present on the model or, since it is a successor chapter, in the paint scheme of the model:
You say that like it's a new thing, and that we haven't had years and editions full of it. Like all those 8th edition characters that cost around 100pts and could out of the blue kneecap a titan if you threw enough cards at them.

There are players that vocally want it and feel that rules bonuses are what make an army and that is not a new thing (i.e. "Night Lords aren't Night Lords with Infiltrate!" - some CSM player circa 2007).

Does it enhance my personal experience? No. But ultimately GW have decided that their target audience is the rules heavy kind - or at least that they make the most money selling a game with lots of supplementary rules sold separately. Can't please everyone.
   
Made in us
Warp-Screaming Noise Marine




... as a chaos space marine player I don’t see a problem with doing away with custom and successor chapters in competitive play, and maintaining that they exist purely for narrative play. Or deleting them altogether. If you want a custom home brew chapter bring a fandex and ask for permission or pick a chapter that most closely resembles your custom chapter’s style. It’s basically what we chaos space marines have to do. Bridge the gap between inner codex balance and bridge the gap between supplements and entire codices...

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. -Kurt Vonnegut 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







 the_scotsman wrote:
 jaredb wrote:
The Black Templar are already a successor chapter, I don't think you can be a successor to them.


We've found the nit, and now that it has been picked, nothing else needs be discussed! So quickly too, damn, you really got me.

HOLD THE NIT ALOFT LIKE ITS A MELEE WEAPON IN AN OLD PIECE OF CODEX COVER ARTWORK! YOU ARE TRIUMPHANT, EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

Well, that was a mature way to address the potential counter-point.

Admittedly, for this specific counter-point, I imagine we'll need to see the wording within the 'dex.

And jealousy doth not become thee, macluvin.

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in us
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!






Sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Are both units also 5PL? If so, that's utter madness and just another nail in the coffin against 40K for me. Pray to the Omnissiah such madness never reaches KT21
   
Made in at
Longtime Dakkanaut




macluvin wrote:
... as a chaos space marine player I don’t see a problem with doing away with custom and successor chapters in competitive play, and maintaining that they exist purely for narrative play. Or deleting them altogether. If you want a custom home brew chapter bring a fandex and ask for permission or pick a chapter that most closely resembles your custom chapter’s style. It’s basically what we chaos space marines have to do. Bridge the gap between inner codex balance and bridge the gap between supplements and entire codices...


30 years ago that decision could have been made when the setting and the chapters were not as engrained as they are now. GW could not and will not roll all space marines into one codex, not ever...it would be bad business.

Why not have both? What's to say that chaos marines can not have codex supplements for world eaters, night lords and word bearers with one special unit for each? I'd be much more for that than basically saying: "because my faction doesn't have that right now, marines also should not have it"
I understand chaos players are pissed off right now considering the state of their faction and rightly so, but its still a bad argument.
   
Made in no
Liche Priest Hierophant





Bergen

You are essentialky asking if ha int different hivefmeets leads to better gaming experiences. The awnser is yes, for me at least.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 the_scotsman wrote:

Let's say that your opponent is playing Iron Hands, and it's turn 2.

That unit charges you, and they make 16 S4 AP-1 D1 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 5s, saving on 5s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 2.4 - they kill one nob on average, and might wound a second, and morale is not a factor.

Now let's say you're playing against Black Templars, a successor chapter of course because your opponent is competitively minded, Born Heroes and Hungry for Battle, and theyve chosen the "Accept Any Challenge" vow. That unit then makes 16 S4 Ap-2 D1 attacks, hitting on 2s and 6s to hit cause 2 auto-wounds, wounding on 5s, saving on 6s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 7.5 damage - killing 3-4 nobs, with a decent chance to cause the remaining member/members of the squad to flee during the morale phase.


This is what we call a strawman carefully constructed to make this all seem lopsided.

The crux of course isn't the comparison, but the layers of rules. And to that I'd ask Black Templars players on whether or not those rules make them feel like Black Templars or not.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut



Bamberg / Erlangen


I think the core of the question is really how much information do you personally feel you need to make a meaningful decision during the game. Everyone of us lands somewhere between "[0] BT are a melee focused army" and "[10] knowing the exact damage probability against a unit" like in your post.
The closer you are to [10], the more unhappy you will feel about lack of information or amount of overall information used by the game imho.

Personally, I am happy in general to have more rules to be able to make it feel different wether you play against subfaction x or y.

 the_scotsman wrote:
We've found the nit, and now that it has been picked, nothing else needs be discussed! So quickly too, damn, you really got me.

HOLD THE NIT ALOFT LIKE ITS A MELEE WEAPON IN AN OLD PIECE OF CODEX COVER ARTWORK! YOU ARE TRIUMPHANT, EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

I think that was needlessly harsh for a neutral remark.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/10/06 17:24:39


   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

No, this would not enhance my game experience. It's a big part of the reason why I'm not playing 40K at the moment. I prefer universal special rules where possible and don't really feel we need so many kinds of space marines in the game, and I've felt like that consistently since 3e.

   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

Ill say that 40k would greately benefit from having less moving parts that add 0 decision making to the Game.

But Ill say here, and again , you dont need to know every single Rule of your opponent because you arent Jimmy Neutrón and are not gonna do mental mathematics mid Game outside the most basic ones.

In this example, you only realistically need to know two things:
-My opponent IS playing a meele céntric subfaction
-How much has he buffed that unit.

Generally when my opponent starts telling me all the buffs he IS giving to a unit I stop him.
Most people dont control and go full overkill with their buffing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 17:59:20


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in ca
Pestilent Plague Marine with Blight Grenade





The Frozen North

Iron Hands also have access to Honour the Chapter. I feel it's unfair to act as if they don't.

Furthermore, we don't know if Black Templars will keep Knights of Sigismund, or if Vows will replace that rule.

And finally, as has been pointed out, Black Templars cannot be Successors - one might posit that their Chapter Tactic, which includes no offensive buffs, is so weak that they deserve the buffs provided by their supplement.

Addendum - 6s to hit would cause one automatic wound, and one additional hit. Not two automatic wounds.

Triggerbaby wrote:In summary, here's your lunch and ask Miss Creaver if she has aloe lotion because I have taken you to school and you have been burned.

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:I too can prove pretty much any assertion I please if I don't count all the evidence that contradicts it.
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Dysartes wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 jaredb wrote:
The Black Templar are already a successor chapter, I don't think you can be a successor to them.


We've found the nit, and now that it has been picked, nothing else needs be discussed! So quickly too, damn, you really got me.

HOLD THE NIT ALOFT LIKE ITS A MELEE WEAPON IN AN OLD PIECE OF CODEX COVER ARTWORK! YOU ARE TRIUMPHANT, EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!

Well, that was a mature way to address the potential counter-point.


I have never self-identified as mature.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





I remember when orks used to have neat secondary armies. An entire army list just for dread waaaaghs, speed waaaaghs, even feral gitz. Now it’s the unstoppable power armored tide it seems.

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 MinMax wrote:
Iron Hands also have access to Honour the Chapter. I feel it's unfair to act as if they don't.

Furthermore, we don't know if Black Templars will keep Knights of Sigismund, or if Vows will replace that rule.

And finally, as has been pointed out, Black Templars cannot be Successors - one might posit that their Chapter Tactic, which includes no offensive buffs, is so weak that they deserve the buffs provided by their supplement.

Addendum - 6s to hit would cause one automatic wound, and one additional hit. Not two automatic wounds.


this is true, they both do. Primarily, however, i was intending to highlight the multiplicative nature of the power difference between a melee chapter and a shooting chapter - the Iron Hands squad could choose to double their attacks, in theory, but in practice if theyve killed only 1 of my nobz and I swing back with a unit that's probably armed with big choppas, that unit is dead, while in the hands of a melee chapter, that unit will probably kill 3 of my nobz and wound 1, and then could use HtC to clear out the remaining 3W worth of nobz.

Regardless, the burden of knowledge on me, as an opponent still exists - I cannot look at that model, the assault intercessor, and know what it does to any degree of accuracy because of the massive distinction in various capabilites caused by subfaction, stratagem, what turn it is, what relics it may have, etc.

if it makes you feel better, lets think about it as a White Scars successor - I need to recall that that unit of assault intercessors is going to go from something that is very well countered by my nobz (aha, this unit is highly dangerous to my single-wound boyz, but I can counter their anti-chaff weaponry with my tough multi-wound nobz with good armor!) to something that will instantly obliterate my nobz come turn 3, because suddenly they will be swinging at AP-2 and D2 on the charge.

....I also, thanks to the Successor Chapter system, need to recall that the passive bonuses on that unit of white scars are not fixed, but could in fact be any combination of various capabilities, with all the same "d2 on the charge" nastiness thrown in turn 3+.

I would put forth that the reason miniature games are in any way playable is because the miniatures serve as visual representations of their general capabilities to both players, that if you tried to play any miniature game substituting the various miniatures with identical board game meeples and just put it on the players to recall what each unit was and what it did, even the simplest game would be rendered basically impossible. You couldn't play chess, let alone warhammer.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 17:59:54


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






The assumption is that BT can be used as a Successor Chapter, which they won't be. The Inheritors of the Primarch Trait lets you pick from the original Legions, not any Chapter you want. So if you're using the BT rules, you're using the BT rules, with no access Successor Traits, just like the Flesh Tearers, Crimson Fists and, you guessed it, Black Templars.
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Daedalus81 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:

Let's say that your opponent is playing Iron Hands, and it's turn 2.

That unit charges you, and they make 16 S4 AP-1 D1 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 5s, saving on 5s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 2.4 - they kill one nob on average, and might wound a second, and morale is not a factor.

Now let's say you're playing against Black Templars, a successor chapter of course because your opponent is competitively minded, Born Heroes and Hungry for Battle, and theyve chosen the "Accept Any Challenge" vow. That unit then makes 16 S4 Ap-2 D1 attacks, hitting on 2s and 6s to hit cause 2 auto-wounds, wounding on 5s, saving on 6s, dealing 1 damage for an average of 7.5 damage - killing 3-4 nobs, with a decent chance to cause the remaining member/members of the squad to flee during the morale phase.


This is what we call a strawman carefully constructed to make this all seem lopsided.

The crux of course isn't the comparison, but the layers of rules. And to that I'd ask Black Templars players on whether or not those rules make them feel like Black Templars or not.


I'm curious why you feel like this is a strawman.

A unit armed with Chainswords - weapons with low strength, low AP, and many attacks designed to kill chaff infantry - should be able to be countered defensively by putting a high-toughness multiwound elite unit with a comparatively better save in front of them and arming them with melee weaponry designed to kill marines - like say, presenting a unit of Nobz with Big Choppas as opposed to equivalent points of Ork Boyz.

Having systems present in the game whereby that unit's combat threat is on a sliding scale from "This is an extremely good tactic, and you will be rewarded by losing roughly 1 nob and then swinging back and murdering the unit of assault intercessors" to "this is an extremely bad idea, and that unit of assault intercessors will carve through your nobz like butter because you silly goose dont you remember that this is turn 3, and your opponent has selected White Scars as the parent chapter for their purple space marines today??" is a perfect example of how the current state of the game piles a massive amount of burden of knowledge on a player.

Before the pandemic, when I was playing 40k basically every weekend like clockwork, I was able to keep up with this burden and didnt notice it. 40k was able to exist as my hyperfixation game, to the exclusion of essentially every other system, so it was possible for me to know most of the general capabilities of opposing armies and how to tactically assess standard situations on the table.

Post-pandemic, and now with a more unforgiving schedule and a child on the way, 40k is massively less accessible as a system. Players are punished MASSIVELY for failing to keep up with the huge number of rules layers, and GW does not seem to be slowing down. A Black Templars opponent will need to track:

1) Shock Assault
2) bolter discipline
3) ATSKNF
4 and 5) two-part chapter tactic
6) Doctrines
7) Superdoctrine
8 9 and 10) 3-part rules from Vows

across the opponent's entire army, the entire game. The primary balancing mechanic of the vows as advertised is that I, as an opponent, must keep track of the drawback rule to the two positive rules and play in such a way to maximise it against my opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gert wrote:
The assumption is that BT can be used as a Successor Chapter, which they won't be. The Inheritors of the Primarch Trait lets you pick from the original Legions, not any Chapter you want. So if you're using the BT rules, you're using the BT rules, with no access Successor Traits, just like the Flesh Tearers, Crimson Fists and, you guessed it, Black Templars.


Change the assumption to White Scars successors then. The distinction between 'Iron Hands Assault Intercessors on turn 3 in front of my army' and 'White Scars Successors Assault Intercessors on turn 3 in front of my army' is either, putting an elite infantry unit out in front of them like Nobz is a good idea, they are an anti-chaff unit and my high-tough W2 unit will mostly withstand their attacks and kill them with the counterswing, or, putting an elite infantry unit out in front of them is suicide because these two subfaction traits from Codex: Space Marines and this superdoctrine from Supplement: White Scars combine to make them 3x as effective in combat and their survival will allow them to use a stratagem specific to that unit (1/140 datasheets in Codex: Space Marines, and 1/roughly 50 stratagems my opponent could use) to finish off my unit at the end of the fight phase.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 18:14:49


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

I disagree with the idea that subfactions should not affect how units play. I think subfactions, thematic army lists (like legendary legions in ESDLA or sectorils on Infinity) is something most people like and that when done well can give a ton of life to factions. I mean, look at Chaos Marines, both 3.5 and 7th Traitor Legions completely change how you play your army going from the same baseline and applying different special rules and altering army composition.

And I, as a player, like to have more life out of my models if I can play my custom marines as a gunline one game, as a meele elite force another, a fast attacking strike squad in other tournament, etc... thats why I'll never support the "You must play your units with the paintscheme they have" because I reject the notion than my paintscheme makes me unable to use 3/4 of the rules of my Codex. As someone that has never had a "main" in any game because I grow bored very fast, I need the variey

But I agree with the amount of overlaping stuff that we are using right now with stratagems, buffs from characters from auras from targeted buffs from prayers from psychic powers, etc...

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/10/06 18:17:28


 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in at
Longtime Dakkanaut




What is this constant babble about burden of knowledge? Just ask your opponent what his unit does before you decide to send your nobz in or not.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 18:16:38


 
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




The dark hollows of Kentucky

So, I need to remember that Iron Hands are primarily a shooting/durability focused Chapter that focuses on vehicle buffs, and that they're dedicated melee units are generally no nastier than the "average" dedicated melee units of other loyalist Chapters, and that Black Templars are a melee focused Chapter, and getting into a fistfight with one of their melee focused units is a Bad Idea. I think I can do that.

Does having special rules that reflect sub factions various in lore abilities and tactics enhance my gaming experience? Yes. Playing games that reflect the lore of the 40k universe is kind of what I want out of the game. I got into this because I wanted to play a bunch of Nihilistic Godless Psychopathic Transhuman Super Soldiers that rely on fast hit and run tactics and do "Vlad Tempes stuff" to their enemies, not "spikey dudes team #8". I'm fairly sure many people got into the game for similar reasons.
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






A.T. wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
the distinction between this unit causing 18pts of damage, versus causing 135pts of damage, all comes down to you the opponent recalling the following rules distinctions, none of which are present on the model or, since it is a successor chapter, in the paint scheme of the model:
You say that like it's a new thing, and that we haven't had years and editions full of it. Like all those 8th edition characters that cost around 100pts and could out of the blue kneecap a titan if you threw enough cards at them.

There are players that vocally want it and feel that rules bonuses are what make an army and that is not a new thing (i.e. "Night Lords aren't Night Lords with Infiltrate!" - some CSM player circa 2007).

Does it enhance my personal experience? No. But ultimately GW have decided that their target audience is the rules heavy kind - or at least that they make the most money selling a game with lots of supplementary rules sold separately. Can't please everyone.


Part of me wonders whether GW could possibly leverage Open Play into a slightly less useless form than they currently have it.

Make it clear that things like Subfactions, Purity Bonuses, Stratagems, Relics, etc are intended to be used with Matched Play and the points costs printed in Chapter Approved are intended for Matched Play and Tournament Play. Construct a simplified mission set, and balance the points costs as printed in the codexes explicitly for this stripped down version of play.

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





macluvin wrote:
... as a chaos space marine player I don’t see a problem with doing away with custom and successor chapters in competitive play, and maintaining that they exist purely for narrative play. Or deleting them altogether. If you want a custom home brew chapter bring a fandex and ask for permission or pick a chapter that most closely resembles your custom chapter’s style. It’s basically what we chaos space marines have to do. Bridge the gap between inner codex balance and bridge the gap between supplements and entire codices...


Incidentally one thing i was happy about new stormcast book was that custom stormhosts were for aos crusade.

And overall lots of rules and buffs were reduced.

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






 Galas wrote:
I disagree with the idea that subfactions should not affect how units play. I think subfactions, thematic army lists (like legendary legions in ESDLA or sectorils on Infinity) is something most people like and that when done well can give a ton of life to factions. I mean, look at Chaos Marines, both 3.5 and 7th Traitor Legions completely change how you play your army going from the same baseline and applying different special rules and altering army composition.

And I, as a player, like to have more life out of my models if I can play my custom marines as a gunline one game, as a meele elite force another, a fast attacking strike squad in other tournament, etc... thats why I'll never support the "You must play your units with the paintscheme they have" because I reject the notion than my paintscheme makes me unable to use 3/4 of the rules of my Codex. As someone that has never had a "main" in any game because I grow bored very fast, I need the variey

But I agree with the amount of overlaping stuff that we are using right now with stratagems, buffs from characters from auras from targeted buffs from prayers from psychic powers, etc...


Clearly there is nuance to this. You would find a game of 40k where instead of miniatures, players simply needed to remember the capabilities of all their units and you used identical tokens or meeples impossible to play. You would also find a game of 40k where all miniature differences were purely aesthetic and all models had the same rules horribly boring.

My argument is that the current edition punishes players for not keeping up-to-the-minute with the GW release grind incredibly hard by placing vastly too much of a model's power budget into things that are variable based on invisible factors.

most other games do not reflect 'the melee skew subfaction' by making their melee units twice as powerful than identical melee units from a different subfaction. Usually, they are given special allowance to skew their list and take more melee units as a greater percentage of their army (Different miniatures, because, you know, it's a miniatures game), and then maybe given a small 5-10% bonus with some kind of slight drawback to shooting or restriction on shooting units.

40k has a simply untenable level of 'invisible rules' at this point, in my opinion. It's getting similar to the end of 7th. How many shots do you need to kill that necron wraith? is it one amount, or is that wraith in a formation, and a super-formation, and therefore it is actually 6x that first amount?

"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in us
Waaagh! Warbiker





 Da Boss wrote:
No, this would not enhance my game experience. It's a big part of the reason why I'm not playing 40K at the moment. I prefer universal special rules where possible and don't really feel we need so many kinds of space marines in the game, and I've felt like that consistently since 3e.


+1 Pretty much the exact words I was just about to write. As much as GW and others want to make 40k into some kind of competitive tournament "e-sport" game, the game's rules simply do not work well for that (they actually never have, across all editions in my opinion). With the current edition's layering upon layering of codex rules like those discussed in the original post, there are too many game elements to remember and manage and too many "x" factors (ex. stratagems) that directly impact a unit's value beyond its stated points. You cannot realistically attempt to balance a game with that much rules bloat (not that GW ever makes a full-hearted effort to truly balance the game . . .). A competitive tournament-level game should not require that much bookkeeping.

Treat 40k like the "beer and pretzels" game it really is, and it can actually be a lot of fun with good-natured opponents. But that means ignoring/discarding/forgetting much of the current edition's rules bloat, playing alternate game types like the new Apocalypse or Kill Team (I've only played the previous version of KT, and cannot speak to the current version), or going back to earlier editions that kept the majority of game rules in the main rulebook and did not attempt to add too many additional rules via the codexes.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 18:26:30


 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

I will forever maintain that this is why Dataslate Cards should be a thing, permanently, for every army--and that the Datacards should include a "Reminder Card" for each subfaction.
   
Made in us
Warp-Screaming Noise Marine




Tiberias wrote:
macluvin wrote:
... as a chaos space marine player I don’t see a problem with doing away with custom and successor chapters in competitive play, and maintaining that they exist purely for narrative play. Or deleting them altogether. If you want a custom home brew chapter bring a fandex and ask for permission or pick a chapter that most closely resembles your custom chapter’s style. It’s basically what we chaos space marines have to do. Bridge the gap between inner codex balance and bridge the gap between supplements and entire codices...


30 years ago that decision could have been made when the setting and the chapters were not as engrained as they are now. GW could not and will not roll all space marines into one codex, not ever...it would be bad business.

Why not have both? What's to say that chaos marines can not have codex supplements for world eaters, night lords and word bearers with one special unit for each? I'd be much more for that than basically saying: "because my faction doesn't have that right now, marines also should not have it"
I understand chaos players are pissed off right now considering the state of their faction and rightly so, but its still a bad argument.


I never said anything about supplements. I am talking about the custom chapter table. The one that lets you pick and choose two pretty awesome abilities for your chapter trait. Scrap that for competitive. I would concede this point if marks of chaos gave free bonuses and if the list of legion tactics weren’t so god awful. Or if they gave us mechanics to shift elites like chosen or possessed to the troops slot for black legion and word bearers, maybe give night lords raptor troops... something, anything to offset marines having chapter tactics that consist of half the tactic being superior to most chaos space marine legion traits, let alone the other half, or combat doctrines, or access to war gear like heresy era terminators and storm shields, etc. also they got to keep their bike mount hq’s...

So no, this is nowhere near the argument “my faction doesn’t have it so marines should not have it.” I would say that the presence of primaris makes for an awesome foil to chaos innovating with new daemon engines, even if neither are to my particular taste. The issue is that there is a fat list of advantages marines have that chaos has no compensation for, and this was true from 8th editions space marine codex 2.0 to now, and the 9th edition has only widened that gap. And the OP did a bang up job of how these advantages can synergize exponentially to make a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

It seems a fairly minor concession that hardly hurts the game to make custom chapter rules a narrative only mechanic. It seems a major boon to the monumental task of trying to maintain some sort of balance. Narrative games aren’t for balance, and neither are the custom chapter traits. Leave them where they belong.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/10/06 18:34:48


Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. -Kurt Vonnegut 
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




I think that nowadays you need be a lawyer to be able to play 40K.

The complexity of the rules expressed in multiple sources kinda remind all the none sense of jurisprudence that you can find in any legal system.

mmm nah! screw that. In fact, the lawyers are pushovers in front of a Warhammer 40K player. If they want to know what is real complexity of laws and rules contradicting each other they have to try to play 40K 9th edition.
   
 
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