James Workshop on Votann

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**Lord Zarkov**

EightFoldPath wrote:
Souleater wrote:
Would it be better to be testing against the codexes that come out during the first six months of each edition in order to keep to a baseline?

It begs the question, what did they test Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights, Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons against? They were all significantly weaker than release Dark Eldar, Custodes, Craftworlds (are Harlies), Tau, Tyranids and Votann.

I find this wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_(Warhammer_40,000)#9th_Edition to be very helpful in visualising this kind of question, as the testing "buckets" claim/theory still doesn't really make much logical sense to me. It seems like a really poor deliberate design choice to make.

Each other probably if they’ve siloed their play testing to a small number of books (to identify leaks?)

**Dudeface**

kodos wrote:
yeah, so GW would need 5 months for playtesting if they are doing the minimum with 2 people, or 2 months for 6 people

given that you need the full 3.5 hours to find out that rules are broken and not tabling an army within 1 hour

and this need to be done anyway as they need the data to actually write their yearly balance update

yeah, so 2 months work to get 2 very important products right which are the main selling points of the main product

or skip it, throw gak on the wall because there are enough people saying that it is not possible anyway and pay for bad rules because the models look nice

Give they release 1 new product a month, you're looking at a minimum of 12 full time playtesters, all of which get time for 1 pass. If they need to feedback and alter the points/rules they should start again. That's also just 2k current mission pack, not crusade or pl, nor 1k, and you'd want 1 list assumingly for control.

It's still not good enough for the quality people expect.

**xttz**

skeleton wrote:
We all shoud ask a refunt for the lov codex.

"Hello GW. You know that one section in the codex you've repeatedly amended several times a year since 2017? Yeah that points bit which was scheduled to be replaced in about a couple of months time. Well updating it today with a single page PDF download has RUINED my gaming experience. Wait why are you laughing? This is super serious!"

**kodos**

Dudeface wrote:
Give they release 1 new product a month

does not change things as the ongoing testing is done anyway
it just means that they need dedicated testers and not the devs doing it themselves

and smaller companies with less money and people can do it as well, difference is just that there are people who instead of not buying bad products just search for excuses why it is impossible to make it better and give GW the money

**Souleater**

It shouldn’t take long to realise that ‘hit rolls of 4+ autowound’ is overpowered. That shouldn’t need okay testing- someone should just look at that and decide that completely bypassing the wound roll by dumping some tokens on it may not be the most balanced thing.

**Dudeface**

kodos wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
Give they release 1 new product a month
does not change things as the ongoing testing is done anyway
it just means that they need dedicated testers and not the devs doing it themselves

and smaller companies with less money and people can do it as well, difference is just that there are people who instead of not buying bad products just search for excuses why it is impossible to make it better and give GW the money

Souleater wrote:It shouldn’t take long to realise that ‘hit rolls of 4+ autowound’ is overpowered. That shouldn’t need okay testing- someone should just look at that and decide that completely bypassing the wound roll by dumping some tokens on it may not be the most balanced thing.

You're both right, but I was just trying to highlight that unless they hire dozens of people they cannot provide the level of in-depth play testing people expect. It's always said that events like the WTC, ATC and LVO etc will provide more playtest data, faster, than GW can manage in house and whilst this book undoubtedly had some blind eyes turned to it or high levels of ignorance, some peoples standards are too high for GW to meet.

Sadly as above, they gak the bed on this one for one reason or another.

**Lord Damocles**

Corporation technically apologised.

Corporation is good.

Corporation is my fwend.

**crumby_cataphract**

This whole debacle is embarrassing. I feel like such a chump being as optimistic as I've been about this release. The models are great, but what the f-ity f is this design studio doing?!

Why the Christ would I pay through the nose for such an amateurish hack job of a rule set? Christ almighty...

**kodos**

Dudeface wrote:
hey cannot provide the level of in-depth play testing people expect..

no one is asking for in-depth testing on expert level, just simply testing the stuff at all and having people who not wrote the rules play a normal game against normal factions

and you cannot tell me that a person playing the factions ones against Orcs or Marines would tell the designers that everything is fine and can be released

**The Black Adder**

bullyboy wrote:
So my group are doing a Crusade starting Oct 1st. What about Power Level? Surely some of these points increases warrant a PL change too?

I'd suggest scaling the power level based on the increases the units got. There are a few instances of PL being wildly different to the 20 points = 1 PL ratio (specifically one of the ork fliers and the kratos) We just amend the PL accordingly. Hopefully GW catches up eventually.

**lord_blackfang**

Billion pound corporation continues putting out a less developed product than one random dude publishing free pdfs on Wargame Vault in his spare time, news at 11.

**EviscerationPlague**

xttz wrote:
skeleton wrote:
We all shoud ask a refunt for the lov codex.

"Hello GW. You know that one section in the codex you've repeatedly amended several times a year since 2017? Yeah that points bit which was scheduled to be replaced in about a couple of months time. Well updating it today with a single page PDF download has RUINED my gaming experience. Wait why are you laughing? This is super serious!"

They made it defunct before it was even released. It doesn't matter changes happen when it's that quick.

**Charax**

Who would have thought that if you give an army an ability that triggers on wound rolls of 6, and a rule that explicitly triggers abilities that activate on a wound roll of 6, these two things might interact in some way?

I mean, these rules are two whole paragraphs apart from each other!

Surely the only thing that could possibly have caught this unforeseen rules interaction is more extensive playtesting and not, for example, a quick glance from anyone who got a C+ at GCSE English

Keep on GWing, GW.

**crumby_cataphract**

Charax wrote:
Who would have thought that if you give an army an ability that triggers on wound rolls of 6, and a rule that explicitly triggers abilities that activate on a wound roll of 6, these two things might interact in some way?

I mean, these rules are two whole paragraphs apart from each other!

Surely the only thing that could possibly have caught this unforeseen rules interaction is more extensive playtesting and not, for example, a quick glance from anyone who got a C+ at GCSE English

Keep on GWing, GW.

Seriously. They really need to offer a decent compensation package to attract some competent game designers. I suppose the other alternative is that the higher-ups are directing the design team to build deliberately over-powered armies, and this is just a reaction to the community backlash.

Either way, this is inexcusable. I don't think I'll be spending anything on this release for a while at least.

**Boosykes**

Dudeface wrote:
kodos wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
Give they release 1 new product a month
does not change things as the ongoing testing is done anyway
it just means that they need dedicated testers and not the devs doing it themselves

and smaller companies with less money and people can do it as well, difference is just that there are people who instead of not buying bad products just search for excuses why it is impossible to make it better and give GW the money

They are an extremely wealthy corporation. They should have triple the playtesters.

However I'm glad they did something with th Op rules.

Souleater wrote:It shouldn’t take long to realise that ‘hit rolls of 4+ autowound’ is overpowered. That shouldn’t need okay testing- someone should just look at that and decide that completely bypassing the wound roll by dumping some tokens on it may not be the most balanced thing.

You're both right, but I was just trying to highlight that unless they hire dozens of people they cannot provide the level of in-depth play testing people expect. It's always said that events like the WTC, ATC and LVO etc will provide more playtest data, faster, than GW can manage in house and whilst this book undoubtedly had some blind eyes turned to it or high levels of ignorance, some peoples standards are too high for GW to meet.

Sadly as above, they gak the bed on this one for one reason or another.

**privateer4hire**

lord_blackfang wrote:
Billion pound corporation continues putting out a less developed product than one random dude publishing free pdfs on Wargame Vault in his spare time, news at 11.

In a late breaking update, to this unusual item, incensed customers vow to show the company what for while continuing to buy their products at record setting pace. It’s counterintuitive, Steve. Back to you.

**NAVARRO**

I would buy Zoats for sure regardless of rules.

**tneva82**

crumby_cataphract wrote:
This whole debacle is embarrassing. I feel like such a chump being as optimistic as I've been about this release. The models are great, but what the f-ity f is this design studio doing?!

Why the Christ would I pay through the nose for such an amateurish hack job of a rule set? Christ almighty...

Thing is it was intentional. They just messed up on how blatantly obviously op it was.

It being OP and the nerf were preplanned. It just backfired when there started to come danger of bans for army hurting sales.

**Memnoch**

This is an absolute shambles to say the least.

At least they have acknowleged that they got it wrong and tried correcting it somewhat.

**GaroRobe**

Maybe they'll get it right when they release Squat 2.0s

**kodos**

I think they have already given up on rules

just put out as much as possible before 10th hit, make another Edition like 8th Fantasy to get as much money as possible and than revert to "the game does not matter, it is all about collecting models and painting them, because it is impossible to make a good game anyway"

**Kid_Kyoto**

NAVARRO wrote:
I would buy Zoats for sure regardless of rules.

If Zoats don't have an army-wide 2++ I'm burning my Zoat army.

**Arbitrator**

Lord Damocles wrote:
Corporation technically apologised.

Corporation is good.

Corporation is my fwend.

We should stop being so entitled and THANK Games Workshop for getting it wrong, these 'mistakes' (or FEATURES as I think we should call them) is technically time spent engaging with The Hobby. A night out would cost more than the pleasure I get from scribbling out points (or 'errors' as the whiners call them *eyeroll*) in my new £35 codex, so it's well worth it!

Thank you James!

**MinscS2**

Dendarien wrote:

Also lol, lmao thinking Votann will be a low tier army because of these changes.

I guess we'll find out, won't we?
Increasing the pointcost of models across the entire codex (bar troops) by 25-35% is massive, not even Tyranids got nerfed this hard.

Souleater wrote:
It shouldn’t take long to realise that ‘hit rolls of 4+ autowound’ is overpowered. That shouldn’t need okay testing- someone should just look at that and decide that completely bypassing the wound roll by dumping some tokens on it may not be the most balanced thing.

You make it sound like dumping 3 JT's on everything the LoV-player wants dead is super-easy. It's not.
If LoV always did autowound on 4+, then they would be completely busted. Luckily that mechanic is gated by events that's not always in the LoV-players hands.

**Gregor Samsa**

"Most Play Tested Edition Ever"

**stonehorse**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote:
They did this on purpose, and knew exactly what they were doing.
Hanlon's Razor. I just don't think they care if they create unbalanced things, unless it potentially impacts sales in a negative manner.

They were fine when people were buying 9 Voidweavers because it never reached the point where people were about to wholesale ban Harlis on a massive scale. Here they have a new army to sell, and it being banned before it even comes out? Can't have that!

This about sums it up. Might as well close the thread now.

GW are a company (based in the financially wobbly UK... the BoE has had to step in to attempt to 'fix' the mini budget disaster), about to enter what is looking to be a bleak winter for businesses (energy costs, inflation, lower disposal income, etc) so I think they are more vigilant about anything that could potentially disrupt their sales which they can control.

**H.B.M.C.**

GaroRobe wrote:
Maybe they'll get it right when they release Squat 2.0s

This is a very good point. A new Votaan Codex with the other half of their miniature range is only 12-18 months away, so maybe they'll get that one right.

But they probably won't. Because GW is GW.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
So differently that they don't understand how strong having a widely available ability that skips a step in the long standing: hit-wound-save system for damage resolution is? I mean, they do have at least some rules writers that understand that stuff, they just work on other games. Maybe they should, I don't know, talk?

I think you put more time into writing the above than they did into really considering the ramifications of auto-wounds that count as a natural 6. I doubt that that thought even crossed their minds as they were writing it, and if it did, it was probably accompanying by either a complete lack of understanding at how that would play out or a "Well, it's just a fun rule. I doubt it'll be abused".

**Prometheum5**

It's been apparent for years to anyone who played both AoS and 40k that the rules teams cannot possibly interact in any fashion whatsoever, lest they risk sharing ideas.

**cuda1179**

With the points hike of most of the units it looks like I'm going Hearthkyn spam.

**dan2026**

Why are they nerfing everything before the majority of the models are even out?

This makes no sense.