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 Crimson wrote:
But some of those Index options are not terrible, so why should those be removed?

I never said that all index options should be removed. Please don't build straw men.

Furthermore, an answer to an option being terrible in not to remove, it is to improve it!

Not necessarily. If it's terrible because it's redundant and another option already fills its intended role then the solution is to remove the rules bloat. Buffing it would just mean making the other option obsolete instead, for zero net progress. A buff is only appropriate if the option is one that is conceptually good and necessary but struggling because of poor balancing.

Your argument was that options should not exist merely for fluff reasons, they should serve a function in the game. You seem to utterly fail to understand the modus operandi of the Forge World. Do you really think they sit down and think what the game needs in gameplay sense and then proceed to design a model for that fulfils that role? Of course they don'! The whole fething subdivision exist exactly for the purpose to you oppose: to design cool looking gak, often based on some vague and almost forgotten fluff reference, and then splat some half-assed rules on them, completely irrespective of whether such unit was 'needed' in the gameplay sense.

What's your point? I don't care about what the designers are thinking, I care about the end result. Some FW units have a reason to exist, some don't. Whether the designer got it right because their process was good or because they got lucky with a broken process is irrelevant to me, only the final outcome matters.

 Lance845 wrote:


Agreed. I want a game with interesting choices. You want to paint plastic soldiers and put them on a table because it looks like the stories you read and the game be damned.

Everyone basically agrees that 40k is at the very least not a great game and is only kind of carried on by nostalgia, the quality of the models, and fluff.

The difference is YOU think thats a reason to go all in on the fluff and abandon the game to what it currently is and I think that it's a reason to start building a foundation stronger than a pillar of sand by making a better game.

I agree on your goals and I want to improve the game, as long as it is not on expense of removing options! Ultimately it really doesn't matter if some options are mostly redundant, or exist mainly for legacy or fluff reasons. They might make the game a tad more confusing and harder to master (as it takes longer to optimise stuff) but I really don't think that it makes the game ultimately worse. Now, if some option is just plain too good, then make it more expensive or nerf it, don't remove it altogether. The stuff that was removed in the codices and now only exist in the index should have never been removed.

 Crimson wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

The situation is not the same in any way. Banning FW units is about which word is on the cover of the book, not whether those options add anything to the game. Removing the LR Vanquisher and using the model to represent a LR Annihilator is about removing an utterly terrible option that nobody is ever going to take over a unit that is far superior in the same role, cutting out the redundant rules that add nothing to the game. The reasons for removal are entirely different, and applying one to the other is nonsense.

But some of those Index options are not terrible, so why should those be removed? Oh, I guess it was the name on the cover of the book! (Not to mention that there are loads of terrible FW units.)

Furthermore, an answer to an option being terrible in not to remove, it is to improve it!

Your argument was that options should not exist merely for fluff reasons, they should serve a function in the game. You seem to utterly fail to understand the modus operandi of the Forge World. Do you really think they sit down and think what the game needs in gameplay sense and then proceed to design a model for that fulfils that role? Of course they don'! The whole fething subdivision exist exactly for the purpose to you oppose: to design cool looking gak, often based on some vague and almost forgotten fluff reference, and then splat some half-assed rules on them, completely irrespective of whether such unit was 'needed' in the gameplay sense.

"They are bad at design so they game should continue to be poorly designed because they are bad! I like things the way they are!"

Is that really the argument you want to be making?

We are talking about what SHOULD be. In a perfect world what gets cut isn't about whats in a Index, FW, or Codex, it's about what build the most refined and interesting army choices and options within those armies. But things NEED to get cut and right now the thing causing the most bloat is the allowance of legacy. FW shouldn't be run like it is it's own company. It need to get a dedicated team of rules writers working on HH and their modelers need to be told what models to make by the game designers. The modelers making models for 40k need to get placed under the same direction as the modelers for GW 40k.

Again, there is a limited amount of viable interesting design space by the very nature of the games rules structure. We don't need 30 guns in our shooter. We need 12 really great ones that all have a place.

 Lance845 wrote:
We are talking about what SHOULD be. In a perfect world what gets cut isn't about whats in a Index, FW, or Codex, it's about what build the most refined and interesting army choices and options within those armies. But things NEED to get cut and right now the thing causing the most bloat is the allowance of legacy. FW shouldn't be run like it is it's own company. It need to get a dedicated team of rules writers working on HH and their modelers need to be told what models to make by the game designers. The modelers making models for 40k need to get placed under the same direction as the modelers for GW 40k.

Again, there is a limited amount of viable interesting design space by the very nature of the games rules structure. We don't need 30 guns in our shooter. We need 12 really great ones that all have a place.

The cat's out of the bag. If there are 30 different guns that exist, then there's someone out there that wants to use them. I'm not using a Leman Russ Defoliator because it does not exist, and I don't use Leman Russ Eradicators because they're just bad Russes (and they came out after I finished building my tank company anyways).

But I know several people that use Leman Russ Eradicators for fluff reasons, and I don't begrudge them the choice. Nor would I advocate for it to be slashed out of sheer misguided "simplification."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Vanquishers and Annihilators are as different as Guardsmen and Marines depending on your point of view.

They really aren't. They're both anti-tank Leman Russes, with rules that are 95% identical in gameplay function except for the fact that the poor Vanquisher has trash stats for its gun. If you buff the Vanquisher to a point where it is useful then all you accomplish is making the Annihilator redundant. Guardsmen and marines, on the other hand, occupy completely different strategic roles. Guardsmen are a cheap horde unit, space marines are heavy infantry with a generalist role.

Make the vanquisher a gambler, e.g. you have to hit, wound, and pass the save, but it does something monstrous like 3d6 damage or something, and make the Annihilator a more reliable tank, and boom, two similar vehicles with different roles: one that responds very well to buffs (Vanquisher) and one that is more reliable if left alone (Annihilator).

That just makes a trash unit, and a failure of game design. A unit that swings wildly between "useless paperweight" and "blatantly overpowered" is an incredibly frustrating experience for both players, and is almost guaranteed to be a balance problem. If you can remove the randomness with buffs then you have an overpowered game-wrecker, if you're stuck with hoping for blind luck to do anything you have a unit hardly anyone is going to take. And then you still have to deal with the fact that the basic LRBT also makes the Annihilator obsolete now that having D6 shots instead of a blast template allows it to make up for its weaker per-shot damage by having a lot more shots.

And let's say you by some miracle succeed at making this work and not be a balance nightmare. You haven't even done anything worth doing. The two units are still mostly identical in how you use them on the table, and the differences are primarily interesting to the obsessive list builders who calculate out every possible option to optimize the last 5% efficiency from their choices. That's well into bloat territory, piling up lots of rules that have very little impact on the game experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
But I know several people that use Leman Russ Eradicators for fluff reasons, and I don't begrudge them the choice.

But why does that fluff have to be represented with different rules? Why does that particular tank need a different stat line, instead of calling it the Fluff-pattern LRBT with its Fluff-pattern battle cannon instead of the more common Cadian pattern (a difference which has no on-table relevance)? You still have the fluff of using that alternate model, it just doesn't diverge far enough from the LRBT to get different rules, just like IG veterans probably don't shoot quite as well as sternguard, but both are BS 3+ due to the limits on granularity in the D6 system.

Well to be fair

Some say 'feth the old models"

Old models 'may' not be an issue.

To be a fair game designer....you could just as easily say:

"feth the new models"

Yup some of the new stuff may just be crap in the game.
So If you are going by game play....throw out a lot of the current stuff.

Now how will that go over?
About as good as throwing old stuff out I'm guessing.

Once you get over that obstacle to your line of thought then you can see what you are actually suggesting.

Anything you say to keep all the current NEW models in the game....can be applied to the old models as well.

 Crimson wrote:
I agree on your goals and I want to improve the game, as long as it is not on expense of removing options!

That's like saying you agree with the goal of eating enough to avoid starving to death, but not if it requires eating. If the game has pushed into rules bloat territory then removing options is required to accomplish those goals.

 Peregrine wrote:

Not necessarily. If it's terrible because it's redundant and another option already fills its intended role then the solution is to remove the rules bloat. Buffing it would just mean making the other option obsolete instead, for zero net progress. A buff is only appropriate if the option is one that is conceptually good and necessary but struggling because of poor balancing.

The answer to your particular Leman Russ dilemma was already provided. They can be differentiated, at least somewhat.

What's your point? I don't care about what the designers are thinking, I care about the end result. Some FW units have a reason to exist, some don't. Whether the designer got it right because their process was good or because they got lucky with a broken process is irrelevant to me, only the final outcome matters.

It is just bizarre that you'd champion a subdivision that does exactly the sort of thing you here oppose. Whole point of FW is to create unnecessary options and contribute to the rules bloat. Even that whole Annihilator/Vanquisher overlap if FW's doing.

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


Agreed. I want a game with interesting choices. You want to paint plastic soldiers and put them on a table because it looks like the stories you read and the game be damned.

Everyone basically agrees that 40k is at the very least not a great game and is only kind of carried on by nostalgia, the quality of the models, and fluff.

The difference is YOU think thats a reason to go all in on the fluff and abandon the game to what it currently is and I think that it's a reason to start building a foundation stronger than a pillar of sand by making a better game.

I agree on your goals and I want to improve the game, as long as it is not on expense of removing options! Ultimately it really doesn't matter if some options are mostly redundant, or exist mainly for legacy or fluff reasons. They might make the game a tad more confusing and harder to master (as it takes longer to optimise stuff) but I really don't think that it makes the game ultimately worse. Now, if some option is just plain too good, then make it more expensive or nerf it, don't remove it altogether. The stuff that was removed in the codices and now only exist in the index should have never been removed.

Again, an answer born of ignorance. The bloat is part of whats making it worse. The imperium looks at missile launchers, melta, plasma, and las cannons and they go... which is best for which situation. And now nobody ever takes a Melta. Because it has no real place. It's niche is so niche that it's unreliable or just plain worse then the other options. It's all plasma and las cannons. because too many things are trying to do the same job. Bloat.

I am not talking about the game being confusing or harder to master. I am talking about interesting choices. When one is categorically better than the other than it's not interesting. Even if you decide to take the worse one your just taking a different advantage your just, through ignorance or preference, making yourself worse.

"Just make them all good!" is a dumb statement. There is a limited amount of space where things can actually shine with different advantages and disadvantages. It's why lower point games tend to be more interesting than higher point games. At 1500 points I have to make hard choices about what I bring to the table while at 3000 points I can bring everything so you will fight everything. One makes me really think about my list and choose interesting options to stay alive. The other is just a wall of bs running down the table. Your armys options should be like that 1500 point game with every option being good and having to make some hard choices. Your army selection should be the same with each army having different pros and cons.

The more options you throw in the wider you need to spread what they do to keep any of them relevant. The wider you spread them the more overlap they have with other options in their own army and other army. The more overlap you have the more homogenization you create until the there really isn't much of a difference at all.

Trim the fat.

 Crimson wrote:
The answer to your particular Leman Russ dilemma was already provided. They can be differentiated, at least somewhat.

But why do they need to be differentiated? If you're at the point of having to redesign the rules completely to justify having them be separate rules then the conclusion should be that you don't have two different design concepts, and that you should remove one of them.

It is just bizarre that you'd champion a subdivision that does exactly the sort of thing you here oppose. Whole point of FW is to create unnecessary options and contribute to the rules bloat. Even that whole Annihilator/Vanquisher overlap if FW's doing.

Again, that is nonsense. FW does not necessarily create rules bloat just because they create new units. For example, my Vulture with punisher cannons is a unit that is clearly different from anything in the IG codex.

 Peregrine wrote:

But why does that fluff have to be represented with different rules? Why does that particular tank need a different stat line, instead of calling it the Fluff-pattern LRBT with its Fluff-pattern battle cannon instead of the more common Cadian pattern

You tell me! You tell me why you have for years insisted that you must be allowed to use FW rules instead of using those models as counts as codex stuff!

 Lance845 wrote:
There is a limited amount of space where things can actually shine with different advantages and disadvantages.

This, FFS. Design space is a finite resource.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
You tell me! You tell me why you have for years insisted that you must be allowed to use FW rules instead of using those models as counts as codex stuff!

Because the design concepts are different, and no counts-as option exists. Why is this so hard for you? No codex equivalent to my Vulture exists. Nothing is even close in how it plays on the table, nothing is even close to WYSIWYG. My DKoK infantry, on the other hand, have very often been used as codex units and I wouldn't care one bit if all of the special snowflake regiments were consolidated back into the codex and a single army list (along with the removal of special snowflake chapter tactics, etc).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
I agree on your goals and I want to improve the game, as long as it is not on expense of removing options!

That's like saying you agree with the goal of eating enough to avoid starving to death, but not if it requires eating. If the game has pushed into rules bloat territory then removing options is required to accomplish those goals.

Well that was complete non sequitur. Your starting point is that more options make the game worse (except if they're FW options...) and I do not agree. If I were able to give my Primaris Lieutenant a power fist, it would not make the game worse, to me it would make it better!

 Peregrine wrote:


Again, that is nonsense. FW does not necessarily create rules bloat just because they create new units. For example, my Vulture with punisher cannons is a unit that is clearly different from anything in the IG codex.

Nah, just rename it to "Vulture-pattern anti-infantry Valkyrie" and give it the same stats as the missile pods of the Valkyrie.

 admironheart wrote:
Well to be fair

Some say 'feth the old models"

Old models 'may' not be an issue.

To be a fair game designer....you could just as easily say:

"feth the new models"

Yup some of the new stuff may just be crap in the game.
So If you are going by game play....throw out a lot of the current stuff.

Now how will that go over?
About as good as throwing old stuff out I'm guessing.

Once you get over that obstacle to your line of thought then you can see what you are actually suggesting.

Anything you say to keep all the current NEW models in the game....can be applied to the old models as well.

I agree! it's not just the old models that are bloat. The game in general is a fething mess.

But the legacy rules are an anchor that won't let the game move forward. As long as the FAQ exists that says you can pull any option from any publication that hasn't been updated by just using the old publication the game is going to just get worse and worse. The moment they cut that out they can refine and balance going forward. Dropping the indexes is step 1. It's not the whole process.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


Again, that is nonsense. FW does not necessarily create rules bloat just because they create new units. For example, my Vulture with punisher cannons is a unit that is clearly different from anything in the IG codex.

Nah, just rename it to "Vulture-pattern anti-infantry Valkyrie" and give it the same stats as the missile pods of the Valkyrie.

This is exactly what Peregrine is advocating, I am glad you understand.

Just run the Vulture as a counts-as "Fluff-pattern Valkyrie" and run the punisher cannons as MRPs. That's the same as using a Vanquisher as an Annihilator or an Eradicator as a basic Russ. Fundamentally, it's the same as using a Guardsman as a Space Marine, because after all, the only difference in wargear is fluff-based and we wouldn't want that to get in the way of a balanced game.

 Lance845 wrote:

Again, an answer born of ignorance. The bloat is part of whats making it worse. The imperium looks at missile launchers, melta, plasma, and las cannons and they go... which is best for which situation. And now nobody ever takes a Melta. Because it has no real place. It's niche is so niche that it's unreliable or just plain worse then the other options. It's all plasma and las cannons. because too many things are trying to do the same job. Bloat.

I am not talking about the game being confusing or harder to master. I am talking about interesting choices. When one is categorically better than the other than it's not interesting. Even if you decide to take the worse one your just taking a different advantage your just, through ignorance or preference, making yourself worse.

That no one takes melta is not because it has no role, it has a role, it just is bad at it. The classic special weapons melta, plasma and flamer all have distinct roles of being anti-tank, anti-heavy-infantry and anti-horde. That the rules fail to represent this adequately is not due the lack of roles.

Furthermore, sometimes it is fine to have stuff for just for legacy reasons. It is just there for variety, or if you are a WYSIWYG fanatic (like me) and what to use that certain old model. It's fine. Not everything needs to be 100% cut-throat competitive all the time.

 Crimson wrote:
Your starting point is that more options make the game worse

No it isn't. Stop making straw man arguments.

If I were able to give my Primaris Lieutenant a power fist, it would not make the game worse, to me it would make it better!

But what about giving your primaris lieutenant a volcano cannon? Would that also be a good idea?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

This is exactly what Peregrine is advocating, I am glad you understand.

Just run the Vulture as a counts-as "Fluff-pattern Valkyrie" and run the punisher cannons as MRPs. That's the same as using a Vanquisher as an Annihilator or an Eradicator as a basic Russ. Fundamentally, it's the same as using a Guardsman as a Space Marine, because after all, the only difference in wargear is fluff-based and we wouldn't want that to get in the way of a balanced game.

Indeed. It is pure hypocrisy. Stuff that Peregrine cares about should remain while the stuff he doesn't care about should be removed.

 Peregrine wrote:
But what about giving your primaris lieutenant a volcano cannon? Would that also be a good idea?

As long as it's in the fluff and appropriately balanced, why not?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Just run the Vulture as a counts-as "Fluff-pattern Valkyrie" and run the punisher cannons as MRPs. That's the same as using a Vanquisher as an Annihilator or an Eradicator as a basic Russ. Fundamentally, it's the same as using a Guardsman as a Space Marine, because after all, the only difference in wargear is fluff-based and we wouldn't want that to get in the way of a balanced game.

No, it really isn't the same at all.

A Vulture is a pure gunship with massive RoF on anti-horde weapons. A Valkyrie is a transport that can also throw some dice while it delivers troops. Not the same unit, at all.

A guardsman is a horde model, with cheap stats but the ability to be taken in huge numbers. A tactical marine is an elite model, with much better stats but a higher point cost. Not the same unit, at all.

A LR Vanquisher is an anti-tank LR. A LR Annihilator is an anti-tank LR. They're essentially the same unit, they play exactly the same way on the table, and the only difference is that the Vanquisher has a bad stat line and is utter trash while the Annihilator does the job well.

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Again, an answer born of ignorance. The bloat is part of whats making it worse. The imperium looks at missile launchers, melta, plasma, and las cannons and they go... which is best for which situation. And now nobody ever takes a Melta. Because it has no real place. It's niche is so niche that it's unreliable or just plain worse then the other options. It's all plasma and las cannons. because too many things are trying to do the same job. Bloat.

I am not talking about the game being confusing or harder to master. I am talking about interesting choices. When one is categorically better than the other than it's not interesting. Even if you decide to take the worse one your just taking a different advantage your just, through ignorance or preference, making yourself worse.

That no one takes melta is not because it has no role, it has a role, it just is bad at it. The classic special weapons melta, plasma and flamer all have distinct roles of being anti-tank, anti-heavy-infantry and anti-horde. That the rules fail to represent this adequately is not due the lack of roles.

Furthermore, sometimes it is fine to have stuff for just for legacy reasons. It is just there for variety, or if you are a WYSIWYG fanatic (like me) and what to use that certain old model. It's fine. Not everything needs to be 100% cut-throat competitive all the time.

Once again! I am not cut throat competitive. I am a very casual player. Once again! WYSIWYG is on you. There is no rule that requires it and it's your choice to be that way. Your personal preferences for modeling that is not even supported by the rules and has not been for several editions is entirely on you.

Melta is not BAD at it's role. It's only bad by comparison to plasma.

 Peregrine wrote:

No it isn't. Stop making straw man arguments.

It is hard to see what your argument is as it is so incoherent.

But what about giving your primaris lieutenant a volcano cannon? Would that also be a good idea?

I mean, speaking of incoherent...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
As long as it's in the fluff and appropriately balanced, why not?

Then why even have army lists and upgrade choices at all? Just let the players write their own stat lines, putting whatever upgrades they want on whatever models they want. I mean, 8th edition now has separate point costs for the model and its weapons, so why not put volcano cannons on every model in a squad of guardsmen? Why not put power fists on a tank? Why not put Tau drones on a Tyranid monster?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
It is hard to see what your argument is as it is so incoherent.

I've made it perfectly clear that my argument is not "more options make the game worse". My objection is to rules bloat and redundant options, not to having options that are genuinely different and interesting and occupy legitimate new design space.

I mean, speaking of incoherent...

What is incoherent about it? You said that having more options is always a good thing, and can't seem to understand that not every model gets to take every weapon in the game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
As long as it's in the fluff and appropriately balanced, why not?

Then why even have army lists and upgrade choices at all? Just let the players write their own stat lines, putting whatever upgrades they want on whatever models they want. I mean, 8th edition now has separate point costs for the model and its weapons, so why not put volcano cannons on every model in a squad of guardsmen? Why not put power fists on a tank? Why not put Tau drones on a Tyranid monster?

Because those aren't in the fluff?

I mean really, we're saying "allow things to operate like they do in the fluff" and you're strawmanning so hard it's ridiculous.

If there is a regiment of guardsmen in the fluff where every single one has volcano cannons, and also a Chaos warband known for festooning their tanks with powerfists, then why not allow it? So long as its appropriately balanced, that sounds badass.

I mean heck, in 30k, there are literally tanks in the game with powerfists (well, servo-arms)! Just look at the Macrocarid Explorator's servo-array. That's a thing that exists, and it's appropriately balanced and fluffy, so... what's the problem?

 Lance845 wrote:

Once again! I am not cut throat competitive. I am a very casual player. Once again! WYSIWYG is on you. There is no rule that requires it and it's your choice to be that way.

It is convention supported by pretty much every GW publication and battle report ever.

Your personal preferences for modeling that is not even supported by the rules and has not been for several editions is entirely on you.

Isn't this whole thread about your personal preferences which are not supported by the rules?

Melta is not BAD at it's role. It's only bad by comparison to plasma.

That's what being bad means. Plasma is too good, melta is too bad. The same thing. Melta should be better against vehicles than plasma while plasma should be better against heavy infantry than melta and flamer should be better against hordes than either. Those are their roles, if rules do not reflect that then the rules should be fixed, not just remove melta and flamer.

 Crimson wrote:
The classic special weapons melta, plasma and flamer all have distinct roles of being anti-tank, anti-heavy-infantry and anti-horde. That the rules fail to represent this adequately is not due the lack of roles.

No, it is due to lack of roles in 8th. It's due to GW combining vehicles and heavy infantry/MCs into a single unit type. The two roles that used to be separate in previous editions have been merged into a single "anti-not-hordes" weapon type, and it is very difficult for both melta and plasma to be effective. The old differentiating factor that plasma could murder elite infantry but couldn't even attempt to fire against AV 14 is no longer in the game. If plasma is good at putting out lots of no-save wounds then it wrecks tanks. If it is worse then melta at wrecking tanks then it's almost certainly not putting out enough wounds to effectively deal with elite infantry, unless you massively over-buff melta to the point that a single melta hit destroys a tank.

The correct response to the situation, assuming a complete overhaul of the 8th edition rules is not acceptable, is to admit that melta and plasma now fill the same role and get rid of one of them.

The wrong response is to stubbornly keep them as separate weapons, just because back in 2nd edition that's how it worked.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Because those aren't in the fluff?

According to who? Maybe they're in my fluff, even if they aren't in yours? After all, it's vitally important that every minute detail of your tank company gets special rules to represent it on the table, so why shouldn't my guardsmen with volcano cannons get the same respect?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Because those aren't in the fluff?

According to who? Maybe they're in my fluff, even if they aren't in yours? After all, it's vitally important that every minute detail of your tank company gets special rules to represent it on the table, so why shouldn't my guardsmen with volcano cannons get the same respect?

If your fluff was good enough and the game was balanced enough, I'd be all for it, honestly. It'd be especially cool if you modeled them hooked up to huge generators or something, meaning they were purely a over-equipped defensive army.

It'd be even funnier if they were guarding a Vraks-style munitions world, and that's why they had a bunch of Volcano Cannons. Heck, we could do a game vs. my Mechanicus trying to come get the cannons, since they're trying to learn (again) how to build them.

 Crimson wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Once again! I am not cut throat competitive. I am a very casual player. Once again! WYSIWYG is on you. There is no rule that requires it and it's your choice to be that way.

It is convention supported by pretty much every GW publication and battle report ever.

Your personal preferences for modeling that is not even supported by the rules and has not been for several editions is entirely on you.

Isn't this whole thread about your personal preferences which are not supported by the rules?

Melta is not BAD at it's role. It's only bad by comparison to plasma.

That's what being bad means. Plasma is too good, melta is too bad. The same thing. Melta should be better against vehicles than plasma while plasma should be better against heavy infantry than melta and flamer should be better against hordes than either. Those are their roles, if rules do not reflect that then the rules should be fixed, not just remove melta and flamer.

Haha. Ok come up with some rules to make all that true.

Lets have Melta be better against vehicles. Plasma better against heavy infantry. And flamers better against hordes without any overlap. In addition, they cannot be TOO niche either. Because otherwise flamers will just never be taken because you won't know for sure if your fighting hordes or elite armies. So best not to take an option thats useless for half your games. ALSO figure out what should be different between missile launchers and las cannons.

When your done doing that move over to Tau and figure out how their weapons should accomplish the same goals while being different from IoM.

And when your done with that head over to the NIds.

Remember, we want to keep everything fluffy and interesting! not just carbon copies of other armies profiles.

Finally, your convention is in your head. It's worth exactly nothing.

 Peregrine wrote:

I've made it perfectly clear that my argument is not "more options make the game worse". My objection is to rules bloat and redundant options, not to having options that are genuinely different and interesting and occupy legitimate new design space.

Redundant as defined by you. Obviously people who want to use those options do not see them as redundant.

And by the way, I agree with your idea of combining some options, I preferred power weapons that you could model how you liked over the current setup. But as long as swords and axes have different rules, then most models which can reasonably have power weapons should be able to have either. Furthermore, I really don't think that Vanquisher cannon and twin-linked lascannon are similar enough weapon systems that they should share rules. I am sure a niche could be created for both, even if the difference ended up being pretty situational.

What is incoherent about it? You said that having more options is always a good thing, and can't seem to understand that not every model gets to take every weapon in the game.

Reasonable options. A titan weapon is not a reasonable option for a lone space marine. Stop straw manning. But yes, I liked the old style armouries with a bunch of weapons and items you could equip your characters and squad leaders with. I like that sort of stuff, it is interesting to me.