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 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

 ShatteredBlade wrote:
Not all of the flyers need to be game breaking awesome you know. They can be good, but I don't think they need to be broken.

And not all flyers have to be the same. The Heldrake and the Nephilim are created by different groups for different reasons, requiring different tactics.

But the Nephilim is just really bad at what it does. It's horrendously overcosted, "tactics" has nothing to do with it. You pay a ton of points for something that shoots like a land speeder.

Give it 6 months. I'll bet not a lot of DA players will be crying about having two new flyers as much by then...

I was a bit dissapointed, was going to build mine last night(well at least start) the box I got from GW came opened(there was no plastic wrap) and when I opened the actual box to look for the instructions there weren't any

Griever wrote:


But the Nephilim is just really bad at what it does. It's horrendously overcosted, "tactics" has nothing to do with it. You pay a ton of points for something that shoots like a land speeder.

Perhaps. But it's not a total Mandrake/Mutilator-style brain-fart either. It's alright for some beer-and-pretzel gaming.

There'd be far more urgent things to fix.

It is definatly good for friendly non-competitive games, it could make a very nice anti infantry flyer but definitely fell short of the air superiority fighter it was billed as. Not saying it needs to be changed(would be fine if they did though), I will just have to find a way to make it work in some lists because I do like the model.

Now if I can just get GW to send me the instructions for mine.

 Zweischneid wrote:

Griever wrote:


But the Nephilim is just really bad at what it does. It's horrendously overcosted, "tactics" has nothing to do with it. You pay a ton of points for something that shoots like a land speeder.

Perhaps. But it's not a total Mandrake/Mutilator-style brain-fart either. It's alright for some beer-and-pretzel gaming.

There'd be far more urgent things to fix.

Agreed like i said earlier something as small as a +1 stg increase to the missile to make them similar to skyhammers is more than enough

Hey Ixe, my BAs codex used to be #1, but now its not. Could you please make one of those form letters for me? I think it would be fair to reduce the cost of a storm raven by 40 to 50 points, bcause I don't think its as bad @ss as it used to be. I mean at my beer & pretzels game each week I want to pay more attention to the beer, but still win A LOT. I want to be able to pick myself up off the floor covered in puke & see that I still won. Could you add some of those links too? Thanks in advance.


Sorry had to. In all seriousness though, DAs players got a flyer kit that makes not 1 but 2 flyers. Complainig about that practicaly spits in the face of all the armys that don't have flyers or desperatly need an update.

I don't know Red, I think I'd rather be still hoping for a good update than know I was stuck with a gakky one for the next seven/ten years. I'm looking at you Tyranids.

I would like to say that I hope that GW doesn't FAQ the Nephilim to play differently unless there is an error in the English language codex that nobody has caught yet (ie, like Hellbrutes being 115 points instead of 100 in the English CSM codex) UNLESS they decide to issue widespread balance FAQ's across all codices. Any balancing they should do should be for the sake of the game, not because some customer cries.

 RedAngel wrote:
Hey Ixe, my BAs codex used to be #1, but now its not. Could you please make one of those form letters for me? I think it would be fair to reduce the cost of a storm raven by 40 to 50 points, bcause I don't think its as bad @ss as it used to be. I mean at my beer & pretzels game each week I want to pay more attention to the beer, but still win A LOT. I want to be able to pick myself up off the floor covered in puke & see that I still won. Could you add some of those links too? Thanks in advance.


Sorry had to. In all seriousness though, DAs players got a flyer kit that makes not 1 but 2 flyers. Complainig about that practicaly spits in the face of all the armys that don't have flyers or desperatly need an update.

Here's this common fallacy: that GW "gave" as something. No. GW created a product, which we may now purchase if we choose. The product costs money. It is not unreasonable for us to wish that it be worth the money. It simply isn't right now. You're right, it's a great kit. Many armies would wish for such a nice kit. But if it had such gimpy rules, they also wouldn't buy it, just like me. Or at least, they'd be dupes if they did so. It insults our intelligence that GW would slap a 180 point price tag on this thing and expect us to eat it up. Maybe the beer and pretzels crowd will go nuts, but competitive gamers like myself aren't fooled. Just because it's new and shiny, and just because other armies aren't so new any shiny, doesn't mean we have to just swallow it and say "thank you sir may I have another?" when they slap us with garbage rules.

 Ixe wrote:

 RedAngel wrote:
Hey Ixe, my BAs codex used to be #1, but now its not. Could you please make one of those form letters for me? I think it would be fair to reduce the cost of a storm raven by 40 to 50 points, bcause I don't think its as bad @ss as it used to be. I mean at my beer & pretzels game each week I want to pay more attention to the beer, but still win A LOT. I want to be able to pick myself up off the floor covered in puke & see that I still won. Could you add some of those links too? Thanks in advance.


Sorry had to. In all seriousness though, DAs players got a flyer kit that makes not 1 but 2 flyers. Complainig about that practicaly spits in the face of all the armys that don't have flyers or desperatly need an update.

Here's this common fallacy: that GW "gave" as something. No. GW created a product, which we may now purchase if we choose. The product costs money. It is not unreasonable for us to wish that it be worth the money. It simply isn't right now. You're right, it's a great kit. Many armies would wish for such a nice kit. But if it had such gimpy rules, they also wouldn't buy it, just like me. Or at least, they'd be dupes if they did so. It insults our intelligence that GW would slap a 180 point price tag on this thing and expect us to eat it up. Maybe the beer and pretzels crowd will go nuts, but competitive gamers like myself aren't fooled. Just because it's new and shiny, and just because other armies aren't so new any shiny, doesn't mean we have to just swallow it and say "thank you sir may I have another?" when they slap us with garbage rules.

Agreed.

Looking at the codex, i am disappointed by the rift cannon, but more than the blackswords: they are not horrible, but are not good enough for the nephilim's role. I believe that it should be s7 and thats it. Glances av10 flyers on 3s & pens on 4s; glances av12 flyers on 5s and pens on 6s. The rift cannon should probably be s6/7 based on the description, and it justifies the cost and the lack of other weapons.

What kills me is that on top of the str 6, the black sword missels are only range 36" lol. Less range, worse AP, and lower str.

So the DA flyers are not the best flyers in the game, so what...

Is the rest of the codex really THAT bad? So bad that you want GW to start changing rules just because enough people whined about 1 unit not being as good as they wish it was?

Sorry, I don't want that from GW.

Here's the big thing about most of the kvetching and ringing of hands, I think it is way too bloody early. Consider for a second that there are only three flyers that didn't start life as something with the type (Fast, Skimmer) in the game. Now make all of the justifications you wish about "made with 6E in mind", but all that will ever be is speculation. Even the Necrons had to be out the door long before 6E was fully cemented. And while it may seem like some oddities fit we will never know whether they were inspired by 6th Edition in development or whether they inspired the development of 6th Edition. So leave out all of that crap. Forget the codices that were released before 6E.

That gives us the Dark Talon, Nephelim and Helldrake. Now, it is pretty clear the Helldrake is better in this relationship (though it is debatable with the DT since it has some funky effects in its corner that support and buff the army as a whole). So with this in mind we need to ask ourselves: "which one of these flyers is the aberration in terms of design".

So GW say they designed the Neph as anti-flyer, and considering the only other flyer in the game, it is easy to call bs on that. But stop and think for a second. How long has 6E actually been out, yup, still less than a freaking year. Still only two armies actually designed for it. What if the next codices out the door are stocked with AV10/11 flyers with 2 HP (maybe 3 if they are really beefy). Suddenly the assertion of the Nephelim being a great anti-flyer are actually true!

In the end, my point is that I think people are jumping the gun. Unless you have prescient visions of future codices, you don't actually know whether the Neph is a good anti-flyer unit yet. Because all we have to compare it with is a dedicated ground-attack unit and a unit that is considered by many to be more than a little overpowered. So if the Helldrake is an aberration, and new flyers will hew closer to the Neph and Dark Talon, then boosting them would merely leave us with two overpowered flyers that wipe the floor with the new ones. Which then creates a lovely feedback loop of new codices needing flyers to help take on the flyers from the last codex that were boosted to deal with the flyers from the one before it.

And if the Helldrake is already considered the top of the heap in its own book's internal balance scheme (being an auto-include for many) then how is that a good thing for other codices to mirror?

So if new flyers drop and the Nephelim is actually effective against them and begins to pull its own weight then we are left with one poorly thought-out flyer instead of many. Now, GW may screw the pooch and flyer balance could go out the window as AV12 3HP with invulnerable saves become the new black. In which case we may want to think about a petition. But now, after two codices? Too damn early.

When dealing with a new edition, the meta will shift like crazy for the first year or two. Hell, remember that the mech-heavy meta of 5th Edition didn't cement until a year or two in to it when people finally started pegging on it and realized how powerful it was. So I'm going to prefer to wait until 6E has more than two codices published for it before I call for a revamp of a unit that may or may not be sub-par in an otherwise very good codex. If the Nephelim is defined by its anti-air capability then its relative worth (and thus point cost) is not yet reflected because we only have one point of data to compare it to. Until we know whether the Helldrake is on the line of best fit or an outlier, we can't know whether that 180 point cost and stats actually make the Neph a good flyer in 6th Edition. Sure it isn't a very good one in the current stop-gap hybrid-quasi-5.6th edition meta; but who the hell gives a crap about that? That will change significantly with every new codex, so making fixes based on it is, at best, a Sisyphean task that I wouldn't wish on anyone. So we can either roll our boulder up the hill so we can drop it on the next poor sod in line, or we can wait at the bottom of the hill, have a beer and wait to see if a crew comes in to blast the sheer slope down to a gentle hill [/forcedmetaphor].

I don't know about anyone else, but I like beer and I am just fine with being patient (waited 17 years for a good codex didn't I?).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Yes the valk/ven is av12, but anyone who thinks it will stay that way when the new dex drops... Well there kidding themselves

Yeah, Vendettas in the next IG codex will be AV 14/14/14 and the kit will be increased in price to $150.

And be 50 pts.

In all honesty, all I think the Vendetta will get is a significant point increase and that is it.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
What if the next codices out the door are stocked with AV10/11 flyers with 2 HP (maybe 3 if they are really beefy). Suddenly the assertion of the Nephelim being a great anti-flyer are actually true!

Not really, because having lots of extra flyers doesn't really mean much if they just add more units to the "not a Vendetta, not going to use it" pile. Being good against the bad flyers that nobody takes doesn't make a unit good if it's worthless against Vendettas/Helldrakes/etc. Unless GW kills the existing AV 12 flyers the Nephilim is still going to be a terrible unit.

Of course that's not really the issue here. There are two relevant factors:

1) Should the Nephilim be good? Should DA have a good flyer, or should DA players have to accept that, just like Tau players don't and shouldn't have a good assault unit, space marines don't always get to be the best at everything?

2) Should GW give in to whining and immediately change a unit's rules because people complained loud enough, or should they have to deal with it just like every other player has to deal with having balance problems and weak units until a new codex arrives?

The answers, of course, are "not really", and "no".

While we're at it can I get a 5 point cost reduction for DC, Dante fixed back to strike at initiative (Astorath also), make Mephiston an IC and allow DC Tycho to join a squad of DC. This is my first set of demands, if they are not met within the hour I will start executing guardsman!

 Ixe wrote:
Here's this common fallacy: that GW "gave" as something. No. GW created a product, which we may now purchase if we choose. The product costs money. It is not unreasonable for us to wish that it be worth the money. It simply isn't right now. You're right, it's a great kit. Many armies would wish for such a nice kit. But if it had such gimpy rules, they also wouldn't buy it, just like me. Or at least, they'd be dupes if they did so. It insults our intelligence that GW would slap a 180 point price tag on this thing and expect us to eat it up. Maybe the beer and pretzels crowd will go nuts, but competitive gamers like myself aren't fooled. Just because it's new and shiny, and just because other armies aren't so new any shiny, doesn't mean we have to just swallow it and say "thank you sir may I have another?" when they slap us with garbage rules.

Here is your problem Ixe: You are equating your opinion with the one and only way everything should be in this situation and with respect to GW and what they put in the codex, your opinion really doesn't even enter into the equation. You will refuse to use the nephilim and plenty of other people will still use them and be happy and your protest of not using it will not make the slightest blip on GW's radar. It also isn't as if customer service doesn't hear some variation of the "Unit X should have a cheaper point cost so it is more usable to me, a competitive player" at least 100 times a day either.

Just because people don't complain about it doesn't immediately make them beer and pretzel players either. My friends and I are quite competitive in our games, but don't feel the need to try to force GW to change points values for units to specifically please our playing styles. We compete quite well within the context of the rules and codecies as they are written.

Besides the only thing "garbage" about the rules for the nephilim is really in the fluff and not the rules anyway: The fluff says it is an air superiority fighter, when really it is more of a ground attack fighter. Kind of the difference between the F16 and the A10 in the real world. Given how most armies might have 1 flyer in their force I find a ground attack fighter much more useful in my local meta than an air superiority fighter that has limited usefulness after taking out my opponents single flyer...

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:
Given how most armies might have 1 flyer in their force I find a ground attack fighter much more useful in my local meta than an air superiority fighter that has limited usefulness after taking out my opponents single flyer...

Well, to be fair good anti-air tends to be good anti-armor as well. Of course, if the opponent doesn't bring any tanks and such either, then shooting at ork boyz or something might not be optimal

 tvih wrote:

 Skriker wrote:
Given how most armies might have 1 flyer in their force I find a ground attack fighter much more useful in my local meta than an air superiority fighter that has limited usefulness after taking out my opponents single flyer...

Well, to be fair good anti-air tends to be good anti-armor as well. Of course, if the opponent doesn't bring any tanks and such either, then shooting at ork boyz or something might not be optimal

Lets be brutally honest here. Warhamemr is a game of dice, and the best way to achieve anything is to throw lots of dice at it, ie, Weight of fire. In that respect, a single unit/ vehicle/ flyer is never going to be "good" at a specific role.We also need to realise that fluff does not equate gameplay, so because something says "air superiority" doesn't actually mean thats what it will do.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
While we're at it can I get a 5 point cost reduction for DC, Dante fixed back to strike at initiative (Astorath also), make Mephiston an IC and allow DC Tycho to join a squad of DC. This is my first set of demands, if they are not met within the hour I will start executing guardsman!

Im sure Gw wouldn't care for a few(million) dead guardsman.

make them ultrasmurfs and maybe ward might take notice.

but really can we has tau sky rays with sky fire with missiles that don't hit on 6s only?

 Peregrine wrote:
1) Should the Nephilim be good? Should DA have a good flyer, or should DA players have to accept that, just like Tau players don't and shouldn't have a good assault unit, space marines don't always get to be the best at everything?

You're presenting a false equivalency here. You ask whether DA have a good flyer, or whether Space Marines accept that they can't be the best at everything? Having a "good" flyer isn't the same as having the "best" flyer. I don't think it needs to be the best flyer in the game, and nobody should expect GW to make it such. It just needs to be not terrible. There is a middle ground between having a non-terrible unit and having an omgwtfbbq unit. Just knocking 40 points off the Nephilim's cost would fix it. But to make it worth 180, it's got to be at least as useful as other things in the same codex that fill the same role that also cost 180 points. It isn't. So it needs a buff, or it's gonna rot on the shelf except for beer and pretzels players.

2) Should GW give in to whining and immediately change a unit's rules because people complained loud enough, or should they have to deal with it just like every other player has to deal with having balance problems and weak units until a new codex arrives?

Players only "have to deal" with horribly designed rules because they decide to swallow it and say "thank you sir, may I have another?" This is the fallacy that's been presented over and over and over and over in this discussion, here and on other boards. Staying quiet is a choice. You assert that every other player "has" to swallow badly designed units, but you're wrong. If they do keep quiet, it's on them. It's not an argument for why I should sit down and shut up, and it's not an argument for why GW shouldn't correct what seems to be a big mistake in their brand new book. Another's voluntary decision to accept the lousy status quo does not bind me. It doesn't bind you, either. The only way that GW won't hear us is if we don't speak up. The only way to be guaranteed not to have a better game is not to ask for one.

In any other consumer product situation, we would view ourselves as customers, and we would express dissatisfaction if the product weren't up to our expectations. But somehow people have formed this idea of GW as a special institution which neither can nor should attempt to produce quality products that its customers will definitely want. I suspect that a lot of this is just pettiness--people feel like it's good if another person's book gets boned, because that's what happened to them, so share the misery. But isn't it obvious that the game would be better for everyone if we put petty bickering aside and collectively demanded that GW adhere to some basic standards of game design? That they not take lovely model kits and slap them with the most back-assward rules they could come up with? If we work together, we can improve the game. If we spend all our time trying to inflict the same misery on each other that GW has inflicted on us already, then we won't get anywhere. What's so hard to grasp about this?

I'm just going to leave the Eldar codex in this thread.

Please, I dare you to cry about "the problems" with your little flier after reading it.

No offence intended by this, but it's just my opinion here.

I don't think this will work and I personally hope it doesn't.

I think this because if GW listened to everyone who emailed them about units they dislike, feel are under/over-powered or generally want change for some arbitrary reason, we would end up in a terrible constant flux of rubbish rules/games and whining players.

This could quickly devolve into wishlisting and the like.

All the best with this though, I like the idea of more constant updates and changes to broken or stupid rules but it needs to be done in a standard format not by petitions or surveys.

I'm a Black Templar player also, believe me I know what it feels like to hope/want updates and changes to stupid/under powered units, but patience and common sense in my book overwrites my desire to start an online revolution, mainly because I know it won't work and also that I don't believe it would work nor do I want it to go that way.

 Rysaer wrote:
No offence intended by this, but it's just my opinion here.

I don't think this will work and I personally hope it doesn't.

I think this because if GW listened to everyone who emailed them about units they dislike, feel are under/over-powered or generally want change for some arbitrary reason, we would end up in a terrible constant flux of rubbish rules/games and whining players.

This could quickly devolve into wishlisting and the like.

All the best with this though, I like the idea of more constant updates and changes to broken or stupid rules but it needs to be done in a standard format not by petitions or surveys.

I'm a Black Templar player also, believe me I know what it feels like to hope/want updates and changes to stupid/under powered units, but patience and common sense in my book overwrites my desire to start an online revolution, mainly because I know it won't work and also that I don't believe it would work nor do I want it to go that way.

Pretty much. This whole thread belongs in the file named "why the fans shouldn't write the rules."

I'm with Solofalcon on that, don't get me wrong I have seen some fan made rules and updates to some units in this game and others that were actually pretty balanced or fun but in general its best left to the professionals.

Hopefully GW will hire some more professionals at some point.

 Ixe wrote:
I don't think it needs to be the best flyer in the game, and nobody should expect GW to make it such. It just needs to be not terrible.

Why? Why are DA required to have a decent flyer? It isn't in the basic concept of the army (ravenwing and deathwing), so why does your army have to be good at everything instead of good at some things and weak at others? For example, if a Tau player demanded a good assault unit they'd be told to shut up and stop being stupid, and for good reason. Tau just don't have good assault units. They have Kroot and Vespids if you really really want to assault occasionally, but they're never going to be good at it. Maybe DA and flyers are just in the same situation, it's not something they're supposed to do well.

What you have is an adequate flyer. It's there if you really want to use a flyer or don't feel that flak missiles are good enough, but maybe it's just not supposed to be a top-tier unit. If you want to only use top-tier units, fine, but you'll just have to accept that some units are only appealing to the "beer and pretzels" crowd and aren't meant to be a major part of the army.

But isn't it obvious that the game would be better for everyone if we put petty bickering aside and collectively demanded that GW adhere to some basic standards of game design?

Of course, I'd love it if GW learned how to design and balance a game properly, but that's not what we have here. This isn't one step in a comprehensive plan to reform GW's game design methods and balance every army, it's a demand to fix a single unit with a threat to stop buying it if GW doesn't. There's no attempt to serve the greater good of the game, it's just another "make my army powerful" whine, but with a new expensive model's sales at stake. If GW gives in and changes the rules to make sure they don't lose any sales they set a dangerous precedent where anyone who wants a more powerful army just has to whine loud enough and GW will make their new toys more powerful, regardless of what impact it will have on overall game balance.

So it needs a buff, or it's gonna rot on the shelf except for beer and pretzels players. [As stated by Ixe]

You've got something very very very wrong. GW doesn't care about your competative games. They dont. They want to "forge the narrative", and have "fun" battles. Nowhere in the BRB does it mention how to make things properly "balanced" or "competative". You send GW an email saying something is only good for "beer and pretel" players, and GW will rub their hands and say job done.

Hetelic, you'd better watch that f-word. Lots of people aren't into Warhammer for that. It is a requirement for some that GW make these armies as balanced as possible so that everyone has a fair chance at winning in tournaments. People who believe in the f-word don't know what Warhammer is all aboit. This is a serious business...

These are.also the same people who believe that poker and blackjack don't favor the house.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Hetelic, you'd better watch that f-word. Lots of people aren't into Warhammer for that. It is a requirement for some that GW make these armies as balanced as possible so that everyone has a fair chance at winning in tournaments. People who believe in the f-word don't know what Warhammer is all aboit. This is a serious business...

These are.also the same people who believe that poker and blackjack don't favor the house.

Yeah, because being well balanced for competitive tournaments and being fun are mutually exclusive. Ignore the companies that produce balanced competitive games that are also fun. Do not question the GW Hobby. Buy more GW Products like a good little customer.