Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Togusa wrote:
Datasheets should be uploaded in PDF (or some other format) to an application with a subscription fee or published for free online. As someone who bought the CSM codex with my new CSM army, I definitely feel as though I got sold a second hand print of something they put zero effort into.

Alternative Solutions: Include a model's tabletop data with the model. A "Start Collecting" box should have everything you need to start playing those models, except dice and a measuring tape. It would be far too easy to include the rules and actual points cost with it.

Want to know what other units do so you can plan the rest of your army? Every faction has a 'Datacard' set, with all the units and their points costs- along with any special things like Strategems, Psyker powers, Tactical Objectives, etc.

I used to be a real stickler for having a Codex for your models, so I can see the rules. Now, I don't even care. I don't really expect people to keep throwing out $40-$60 for a book, especially if they're only using 20% of the actual units in that book (and sometimes less). I settle for a Battlescribe printout, and I will probably use the same thing. If I'm that concerned about them blowing smoke up my ass over a rule- I'll check the same source we're both using, and that'll resolve it.

GW could charge people for an App that does exactly what Battlescribe does, and update that app consistently instead of putting out FAQ's that don't always get read. This app could be connected, with an account, capable of validating and totaling up a player's list, forwarded to an opponent or TO to make reviewing their army take less than a minute, and it could betied to actual official events where the TO could annotate the winnings online- and this could be reviewed by GW, so they could see if some combination is winning disproportionately and determine if something is broken. But they won't- because we're the morons that will go and buy an entire $50.00 book of pictures and fiction we've already seen and read, and that book costs more than 4 of the 5 units we're using from it.

Jesus, man- every time I try to be brutally honest and critical of GW it makes me feel dumber and I can hear the GW Barons cackling from their villain tower in Nottingham.

I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

I mean, I'd assume you could probably just pay a one-time fee for the service, and could use your phone for it. The AoS app is cheap. I've never used it, but it does the job and there's no monthly fee or anything. Plus, you can always save your lists and email/print.

 Ishagu wrote:
Yep, some really fun and crafty stuff witn the IW in particular, very strong too. I don't have enough experience with the others to comment yet but there's some juicy looking stuff for each of the legions.

The problem is "crafty" rules don't really cut it when certain armies can just remove your models from the tabletop in huge swathes with little you can do in return. Or when they get huge numbers of bonuses that you don't get while costing less. Honestly, this whole "you haven't played with it properly yet, there are hidden depths, honest" is kind of insulting in a game as simple as 40k is at the moment.

It's disingenuous to pretend some armies don't take more skill to pilot than others.

Yoyoyo wrote:
It's disingenuous to pretend some armies don't take more skill to pilot than others.

marines generally beyond some niche things most certainly DO NOT fall under difficult to pilot though.
Difficult to pilot are GSC f.e.

Not Online!!! wrote:
marines generally beyond some niche things most certainly DO NOT fall under difficult to pilot though.
Difficult to pilot are GSC f.e.

Oh absolutely, it makes sense. Marines are like an introduction army, so it makes sense they should be relatively straightforward, forgiving, and powerful so new players don't get regularly curbstomped off the table.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
marines generally beyond some niche things most certainly DO NOT fall under difficult to pilot though.
Difficult to pilot are GSC f.e.

Oh absolutely, it makes sense. Marines are like an introduction army, so it makes sense they should be relatively straightforward, forgiving, and powerful so new players don't get regularly curbstomped off the table.

For that alone the army should not be powerfull it should be the medium (but then overall balance should be tighter):
Because A: if the introduction match is just curbstomping then the introducer is the issue more often then not and B: if they ever take another fancy they expect the same powerlevel and or will get easily frustrated.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
I'd prefer the same. As it it stands right now Marks are mostly useless.

There is a bit of a problem in that unmarked units would be at a disadvantage.

Undivided has always been an option alongside dedicated. It was usually crappy, but it doesn't hurt to have all different sorts of marks in a non-dedicated army like Black Legion.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
I'd prefer the same. As it it stands right now Marks are mostly useless.

There is a bit of a problem in that unmarked units would be at a disadvantage.

Undivided has always been an option alongside dedicated. It was usually crappy, but it doesn't hurt to have all different sorts of marks in a non-dedicated army like Black Legion.

What about a bonus for no marks? And nothing with daemon keyword? Night lords should get that.

They really shouldn't balance the core unit around marks any more than they should balance core units around doctrines.

40k players need to stop treating free rules like crack. They can be min-maxed with little opportunity cost to help your army win over others but it's not good for the balance of the game.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
I'd prefer the same. As it it stands right now Marks are mostly useless.

There is a bit of a problem in that unmarked units would be at a disadvantage.

Undivided has always been an option alongside dedicated. It was usually crappy, but it doesn't hurt to have all different sorts of marks in a non-dedicated army like Black Legion.

What about a bonus for no marks? And nothing with daemon keyword? Night lords should get that.

no marks is fine but nothing with the deamon key word is silly, that just punished anyone who wants to run a undivided deamon engine list.. ohh and conveniantyl screws over word bearers (ok what else is new?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Datasheets should be uploaded in PDF (or some other format) to an application with a subscription fee or published for free online. As someone who bought the CSM codex with my new CSM army, I definitely feel as though I got sold a second hand print of something they put zero effort into.

Alternative Solutions: Include a model's tabletop data with the model.

You left out the necessary "... and try to pretend that the model's stats will never ever change or need to be updated" which is necessary to consider that a solution.

Counter examples to "Putting model data in boxes is a good idea" include:
* XWing 2nd edition, and the need for XWing 2.0 Conversion kits.
* Privateer Press's Warmachine/Hordes balance updates causing them to give up on including cards with models.
* Wyrd Games publishing the third edition of their 'cards in the boxes' game Malifaux
* The inevitable conversion kits that you see for board games that become popular enough to warrant a 2nd edition.

Now look at 40k, and the various discussions about what should or should not be done with Marines, and try to convince yourself that it would be a good idea to put a 40k model in a box with a stat sheet.

And just ask the XWing players how they felt about "Please pay $X for the new model that has the updated upgrade for that model you bought last week" that was happening before the edition change.

BrianDavion wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:
I'd prefer the same. As it it stands right now Marks are mostly useless.

There is a bit of a problem in that unmarked units would be at a disadvantage.

Undivided has always been an option alongside dedicated. It was usually crappy, but it doesn't hurt to have all different sorts of marks in a non-dedicated army like Black Legion.

What about a bonus for no marks? And nothing with daemon keyword? Night lords should get that.

no marks is fine but nothing with the deamon key word is silly, that just punished anyone who wants to run a undivided deamon engine list.. ohh and conveniantyl screws over word bearers (ok what else is new?

I said "for night lords ". It would be our drawback to getting a mono faction bonus. It's fluffy for night lords. They don't dig daemons.

And drawbacks for getting bonuses are good. See hh rites of war.

Imagine if marines had drawbacks besides just "no allies " in order to get doctrines.

Apparently Thunder Hammers have gone up to 40 points. Where previously I was excited about CSM going down in price, my regular chaos lord with a thunder hammer now has made it to where I am paying even MORE points to use the same army I had used previously, so any points I saved on the CSM squads are now wasted on an absurd tax for one single Chaos Lord. I can't even.

Daemon Hammer?

FERRUMITE wrote:
Apparently Thunder Hammers have gone up to 40 points. Where previously I was excited about CSM going down in price, my regular chaos lord with a thunder hammer now has made it to where I am paying even MORE points to use the same army I had used previously, so any points I saved on the CSM squads are now wasted on an absurd tax for one single Chaos Lord. I can't even.

Honestly if you were only using him to babysit you can switch to the Power Fist and you won't notice a difference.

FERRUMITE wrote:
Apparently Thunder Hammers have gone up to 40 points. Where previously I was excited about CSM going down in price, my regular chaos lord with a thunder hammer now has made it to where I am paying even MORE points to use the same army I had used previously, so any points I saved on the CSM squads are now wasted on an absurd tax for one single Chaos Lord. I can't even.

Comes with the risk of not being able to swing it though.

FERRUMITE wrote:
Apparently Thunder Hammers have gone up to 40 points. Where previously I was excited about CSM going down in price, my regular chaos lord with a thunder hammer now has made it to where I am paying even MORE points to use the same army I had used previously, so any points I saved on the CSM squads are now wasted on an absurd tax for one single Chaos Lord. I can't even.

Is that the same price that Imperial characters are paying for it?

 Dysartes wrote:

FERRUMITE wrote:
Apparently Thunder Hammers have gone up to 40 points. Where previously I was excited about CSM going down in price, my regular chaos lord with a thunder hammer now has made it to where I am paying even MORE points to use the same army I had used previously, so any points I saved on the CSM squads are now wasted on an absurd tax for one single Chaos Lord. I can't even.

Is that the same price that Imperial characters are paying for it?

Yes.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

Do you not have a phone?

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

Do you not have a phone?

nope I don't. I know shocking isn't it not everyone does...

Also research into digital only distribution for games suggests that it hurts growth. as you don't have people picking up the rules in store and taking em home. this is lessoned by GW having their own stores etc yes but it's certainly an issue

For once, and I don't say this lightly or often, but for once I agree with the Chaos salt mine, they were done so dirty by GW this time around. We all kind of saw it coming but I doubt any of us could have known then exactly how bad they were being treated. Sorry guys, GW has been bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

Do you not have a phone?

nope I don't. I know shocking isn't it not everyone does...

Also research into digital only distribution for games suggests that it hurts growth. as you don't have people picking up the rules in store and taking em home. this is lessoned by GW having their own stores etc yes but it's certainly an issue

I almost want to say that other guy was doing a Diablo Immortal meme on you but as shocking as it may be, I agree with you. One of the reasons I would rather have print media is while I do have a phone and a tablet, I don't want everything in my phone and reading on it isn't exactly what I'd do for fun or relaxing times. As for the tablet, I don't like bringing it all around to game events with me, for one thing, they are tasty theft targets, for other concerns I'd rather avoid any spills or breaks or careless placements of it. Way too easy for accidents to happen and I'd much rather replace or just have damaged a codex, than risk an expensive tablet in the same circumstances.

Print media may not be perfect, but I'm old fashioned and would rather avoid digital when I can for the mentioned reasons.

 xeen wrote:
other than 3.5

The problem in a nutshell. One year GW let Pete Haines write a horribly imbalanced Codex and the players have expected that level as the norm ever since.

 Just Tony wrote:

 xeen wrote:
other than 3.5

The problem in a nutshell. One year GW let Pete Haines write a horribly imbalanced Codex and the players have expected that level as the norm ever since.

Maybe because other than a few things that were too much, that has been the only book to ever properly let chaos play in the way that made sense.

Every other book has been weaksauce garbage clearly written by folks who weren't too interested in chaos as a faction.

If by "a few things" you mean "the fundamental design of the entire Codex" then yeah, sure.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
For once, and I don't say this lightly or often, but for once I agree with the Chaos salt mine, they were done so dirty by GW this time around. We all kind of saw it coming but I doubt any of us could have known then exactly how bad they were being treated. Sorry guys, GW has been bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

Do you not have a phone?

nope I don't. I know shocking isn't it not everyone does...

Also research into digital only distribution for games suggests that it hurts growth. as you don't have people picking up the rules in store and taking em home. this is lessoned by GW having their own stores etc yes but it's certainly an issue

I almost want to say that other guy was doing a Diablo Immortal meme on you but as shocking as it may be, I agree with you. One of the reasons I would rather have print media is while I do have a phone and a tablet, I don't want everything in my phone and reading on it isn't exactly what I'd do for fun or relaxing times. As for the tablet, I don't like bringing it all around to game events with me, for one thing, they are tasty theft targets, for other concerns I'd rather avoid any spills or breaks or careless placements of it. Way too easy for accidents to happen and I'd much rather replace or just have damaged a codex, than risk an expensive tablet in the same circumstances.

Print media may not be perfect, but I'm old fashioned and would rather avoid digital when I can for the mentioned reasons.

It is probably the circles I am in, but I haven't seen a tablet in 4 years since I used them in the work I did. I agree that using a phone is less than ideal. I personally, would rather write my stuff out on a scrap of paper or cocktail napkin over checking my phone for every little thing. I have to do it with AoS as a new battletomb is arriving within a month of me starting. It saps a good deal of fun out me as I don't like to have to refer to books very often in a game. I am an old rpg player that would rather have the rule wrong than lose the momentum of the moment.

Wayniac wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 xeen wrote:
other than 3.5

The problem in a nutshell. One year GW let Pete Haines write a horribly imbalanced Codex and the players have expected that level as the norm ever since.

Maybe because other than a few things that were too much, that has been the only book to ever properly let chaos play in the way that made sense.

Every other book has been weaksauce garbage clearly written by folks who weren't too interested in chaos as a faction.

This is about as disgenuine as possible, unless by "made sense" you meant "get to have your cake and eat every other army's bakery too."

I was a Chaos player during 3rd-5th, so I know exactly what was viable or not. I had equal showings under the brown codex. Once the Index Astartes articles started hitting, my Iron Warriors got much more of a buff than was necessary, with little to no down sides. When it came time for them to consolidate the rules and cram all the IA stuff into a new revamped codex, they chose the one writer who wrote the one completely skiffed IA entry and gave him carte banche. It really is an indefensible codex.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:If by "a few things" you mean "the fundamental design of the entire Codex" then yeah, sure.

This guy gets it.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
I'd rather not pay a fething subscription and be forced to buy a tablet to play 40k,

Do you not have a phone?

nope I don't. I know shocking isn't it not everyone does...

Also research into digital only distribution for games suggests that it hurts growth. as you don't have people picking up the rules in store and taking em home. this is lessoned by GW having their own stores etc yes but it's certainly an issue

Seriously. I was against the whole tablet thing (mainly due to already owning an iPhone and a laptop so seeing an iPad as somewhat redundant...) but I got a cheap tablet for about £50/£60 (which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot in this hobby) for using War Room and other such apps on it as to not drain my phone during a game. It works a treat. Everything is there in front of you on a big(ger) screen than a phone and it is not really clunky. It fits right in the case with my minis and does the job.

This is the way the future is going and given they have an AoS one I'm honestly shocked 40k does not have one yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 xeen wrote:
other than 3.5

The problem in a nutshell. One year GW let Pete Haines write a horribly imbalanced Codex and the players have expected that level as the norm ever since.

Maybe because other than a few things that were too much, that has been the only book to ever properly let chaos play in the way that made sense.

Every other book has been weaksauce garbage clearly written by folks who weren't too interested in chaos as a faction.

This is about as disgenuine as possible, unless by "made sense" you meant "get to have your cake and eat every other army's bakery too."

my Iron Warriors

Now who's being disingenuous? "CSM were super powerful because I played the most powerful list in the codex therefore they are powerful."

Try using TS from the same book. Remember, an army with two wounds has a lot going for it, right?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
This is about as disgenuine as possible, unless by "made sense" you meant "get to have your cake and eat every other army's bakery too."

my Iron Warriors

Now who's being disingenuous? "CSM were super powerful because I played the most powerful list in the codex therefore they are powerful."

Try using TS from the same book. Remember, an army with two wounds has a lot going for it, right?

I had a TSons army as well, and I played under both codices. Once again, EVERYTHING was amped up under the 3.5 dex with no downsides at all.

Wait, I take that back. The VERY next codex had the "build your own Marines" version where your people came with bolters AND bolt pistol/Chainsword. So the downside was they had to choose between using their bolter OR their bolt pistol, which is what every Marine came with in that dex.

Tell you what, I'm overly bored so if I wind up having slow time at work I'll line by line every single broken everything in that dex.