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It's not possible to put every weapon option in every kit for some kits, without having to pack those kits into a bigger box. You'd also end up with way too much wasted plastic.

What would you do with 5 extra missile launchers, heavy bolters, heavy plasma, etc. ? On a Sternguard box, are they supposed to pack like 60 weapons for 5 models?

A much better route would be special weapons frames for the most popular special weapons that people are short on. Let's be honest: It's combo meltas, grav guns and grav cannons we want. Nobody is looking for 3 more missile launchers and heavy bolters, nobody wants 4 more power swords, nobody wants a full set of storm bolters for their sternguard.

What you're really asking for is a full set of the cheapest, the most effective, and the most powerful weapons, the rest be damned. Which isn't going to even be possible, because those change much more frequently than the models do. For example, today infernus pistols suck. But make them cheap upgrades, and soddenly, they are the best thing ever.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Your argument, however, does not hold weight. What benefit is there for gw to give you all the specific weapon options you want in the Devastator kit for example? If you want all the options that badly you will pay for the privilege. Ergo it is beneficial for them not to put every possible set up in the box. Will they lose players? Possibly. Will they sell more kits? Most definitely.

It may anger you, yet you still play.

I feel like we're arguing different things. I'm not making value judgments, nor am I having any sort of emotional response. Games Workshop tells you that you can equip a 5 man Devastators kit in a variety of ways. They then offer to sell you a 5 man Devastators kit. Presumably, this kit is intended to be used to build 5 Devastators. In reality, this kit can only be used to build SOME of the potential load outs. At best (and most likely, I think), this is just a disconnect between the rules studio and the design studio. At worst, this is intentional false advertising as the kit is only SOMETIMES suitable for use as a 5 man Devastator Squad.

I understand that they're looking to maximize profit, but at what point are we OK with this? By your reasoning, GW should only have included 1 of each heavy weapon in the Dev kit. That way, if you want a unit with 4 Grav Cannons, you can 'pay for the privilege' to the tune of 184 USD for 5 guys. What a steal at a cost of only 36.80 USD per model!

As an FYI, I don't tend to buy into this nonsense and don't, in fact, play with these types of kits in a vacuum or when starting a new army. 92 USD is simply too much money to spend for 5 Power Armored dudes with big guns. 117 USD is too much for a fully equipped 10 Skitarii Rangers.

So vote with your feet. Don't like their business practices? Don't buy their stuff. Don't like it enough to play their game any more? Don't. It's really easy.

Obviously it doesn't bother you enough to not play anymore and you can always buy the bits you want elsewhere. So, I'm not sure what you're really complaining about. They have to make choices, and choices cost money. To them, having fewer of more weapon types means they can cut fewer sprue molds while still providing options. Otherwise, why not just cut a sprue of grav guns and 5 marines and call it a day?

Everything comes down to what it costs them as a business to keep things in production vs what they can bring in from sales vs providing options to customers vs not wasting money on things that will never be bought while still turning a profit.

As I said, if it pisses you off, stop giving them money. It's easy.

*shrug*

New Tyranid Warriors have every option for each Warrior.

And who even uses Warriors?

 Orrus wrote:
Anyone else concerned by the 3+ armour save?

If this only has a 3+ why would a broadside or a riptide have anything better?

We havent seen the new codex, but riptides might be getting a nerf. They might be going down to 3+ as well.

Total guesswork.

I agree with Exergy , since the stormsurge has a 3+ save. I won't be surprised if the riptide also drops to a 3+. Which will make me very sad. Though this is all speculation.

vitae_drinker wrote:
So vote with your feet. Don't like their business practices? Don't buy their stuff. Don't like it enough to play their game any more? Don't. It's really easy.

Obviously it doesn't bother you enough to not play anymore and you can always buy the bits you want elsewhere. So, I'm not sure what you're really complaining about. They have to make choices, and choices cost money. To them, having fewer of more weapon types means they can cut fewer sprue molds while still providing options. Otherwise, why not just cut a sprue of grav guns and 5 marines and call it a day?

Everything comes down to what it costs them as a business to keep things in production vs what they can bring in from sales vs providing options to customers vs not wasting money on things that will never be bought while still turning a profit.

As I said, if it pisses you off, stop giving them money. It's easy.

You guys are funny. I'm not pissed. Like I said previously, this isn't an emotional response. I don't actually play more than a handful of games every year. I can't remember the last game I played. I'm more of a painter/hobbyist. My point is that GW markets a kit to be used as XYZ in their game and this is only true sometimes. For people like me who don't play, it matter not at all. For long time gamers with deep bitz bins, it matters not at all. For new players or players starting a new army, this can be a bitter pill to swallow. They may purchase a kit thinking (fairly) that it will build the unit they spent time designing from their Codex, but then be shocked and disappointed to find that it won't.

For a company that is experiencing consistent reductions in year over year same store sales as well as overall revenue, you'd think they'd want to make customers happy and not antagonize them. How hard would it have been to write rules that allow a Dev Squad up to 2 (instead of 4) of the same weapon? Boom. All of a sudden the rules match the kit.

That's a really good question. Why don't you raise a few hundred millions of pounds, buy the company, and ask them rather than random people on the internet?

I can only explain theory.

vitae_drinker wrote:
That's a really good question. Why don't you raise a few hundred millions of pounds, buy the company, and ask them rather than random people on the internet?

I can only explain theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question

Note that product picture, magazine picture and even codex picture Crisis suits are frequently modeled with a pretty random assortment of weapons instead of two of the same.

Thats because they typically cant have the same weapon twice unless its twinlinked. The current rules is more of a loophole than direct allowance for dual nontwinlinked weapons. Lot of people still dont do dual same weapons on them, but they use similar weapons (burst/mp for best RoF at 18" or plasma/fusion for high AP)

Honestly im surprised it never got FAQ'd, and im gonna be a bit upset if it changes lol. I like my dual-burst cannon commanders with a drone controller attached to the 10 drones my piranhas dumped off rofl

It did get FaQ'd...
... to say it was intended

vitae_drinker wrote:
That's a really good question. Why don't you raise a few hundred millions of pounds, buy the company, and ask them rather than random people on the internet?

I can only explain theory.

Someone tried that on dakka. The mods locked the thread. Now that is settled, can we get back to the Tau?

Yeah, and dual configs are very common. And very effective, it means that you can have teams focused on certain roles.

 Exergy wrote:

 Orrus wrote:
Anyone else concerned by the 3+ armour save?

If this only has a 3+ why would a broadside or a riptide have anything better?

We havent seen the new codex, but riptides might be getting a nerf. They might be going down to 3+ as well.

There is no evidence for this, and is total speculation. There are in fact reasons for it, both crunch and fluff ones. Crunch-wise, it makes both the Stormsurge and Ghostkeel more resistant to grav, which has become the weapon of choice for hunting anything that's not Orks, Gaunt hordes, or DE. The 3+ armor makes it a bit harder for grav to kill these guys while still affording them a decent save against lighter weaponry. So while these guys are more vulnerable to AP3 weapons, they are stronger against the new go to for imperial armies, while Broadsides and Riptides can stand up to AP3, but are weaker to grav. It's a tradeoff, you decide what you want to be safer against, since Riptides and Stormsurges fill the similar roles fairly long range anti-everything guns with some AT potential and horde clearing capabilities), as do Ghostkeels and Broadsides (either AT with S8 AP1 weapons or light vehicle/medium infantry hunting with S7 AP4 and S5 AP5).

Fluff-wise, well the Broadside is basically just a Crisis Suit frame with the jetpack stripped off and as much armor as can be carried by the frame strapped onto it. While the Ghostkeel and Stormsurge may be bigger, the Broadside has much thicker armor, thus the better armor save. The Riptide, meanwhile, uses a new form of armor plating, nanocrystalline alloy or something like that, that is extremely difficult, expensive, and time consuming to produce, leading to it only being used on Riptides. As for why Ghostkeels and Stormsurges don't get any, Ghostkeels have their stealth fields and ECM suite to disrupt enemy fire and make it harder to hit, meaning it doesn't need as heavy armor since it shouldn't even be getting hit in the first place. And Stormsurges are backfield artillery units who shouldn't really be targeted by enemy fire at all, while Riptides are frontline shock and awe units meant to get in the enemy's face and mow them down.

There is no reason beyond fearmongering or wishlisting to believe that Riptides or Broadsides will get a nerf down to a 3+. Beyond the reasons I just talked about, the most logical reason is that GW didn't want a codex to have 5 different units with a 2+ save (Riptides, Broadsides, Iridium Commanders, Stormsurges, and Ghostkeels). Now we get choices as far as what we want to be more protected from, either AP3 or grav, and to be perfectly honest, we as Tau didn't need another pair of 2+ MCs/GMCs.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

No sane player would ever build a 10 man squad with 3 different special weapons. Ignoring synergy BETWEEN units, you definitely want synergy WITHIN units. It doesn't make sense to take different weapons with different ranges, strengths and AP values in one squad. Depending on the target, half of your weapons aren't being used effectively.

The recent Space Marine Devastators box is another example of a box that can't actually make all of the options a unit can take. It would need to come with 4 of each heavy weapon and it doesn't. If I want to have a unit with 4 Grav Cannons, I need to acquire extras either by scouring eBay/bits sites or by paying for an extra Devastators box and not using the overwhelming majority of the kit. It would be better if the kit just came with all of the options or if the rules mirrored what was in the kit.

Here's the problem:

Players want duplicates, insisting that if it does not allow you to build 4 of the exact same Heavy Weapon then it is misleading.
GW is going by what the wording of the actual option is:
"Special Weapons" or "Heavy Weapons"

Does it suck? Hell yes it does. But realistically, they live up to what they say. You can build enough Special or Heavy Weapon options from the boxes.

You would have a case if those entries were written as "Up to three Transauranic Arquebus/Grav Cannon/Superwin Button Option", but I kinda feel like this whole circular logic about "Does it come with all the options or not?" is why they implemented the "Special" and "Heavy" lists in the first place.

You're arguing semantics. Four Grav Cannons is clearly a valid option for a Devastators kit. It's impossible to build this optional load out with the current kit. Your defense seems to be that GW promised four weapons but that when you asked where your four Grav Cannons were they steepled their fingers and said "Muhahaha... I never said four of the SAME weapons. FOOLED YOU."

Ultimately, a 10 man Skitarii Rangers unit with 1 Trans. Arquebus costs 39 USD and will leave you with a host of leftover bits. A 10 man Skitarii Rangers unit with 3 Trans. Arquebuses costs 117 USD and comes with a lot more leftover bits. You're talking an increase of 300% in actual price to get the valid, game legal load out you want. If your want more Rangers or Vanguard, you're in luck because your bits box now has enough to make 20 guys... so long as you don't want to give any of them an Arquebus.

Similarly, a 5 man Dev Squad with 2 Grav Cannons costs 46 USD. A 5 man Dev Squad with 4 Grav Cannons costs 92 USD, a 200% increase in actual price. Again, you'll have extra dudes, but I hope you don't want to equip any of them with a Grav Cannon.

Argue semantics all you want. The reality of the situation is that GW sells many kits that don't contain all of the legal game options. To get all of the legal game options frequently requires the purchase of more of the same kit with potentially quite a few models going to waste.

Imagine how GK feel that they get one hammer per Term box and you can load a full group of paladins out with them. Need too purchase 4 more boxes to get a group of 5 hammers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Ravajaxe wrote:

changemod wrote:
Well, let's face it: HQ Lords of War are just there to normalise the slot to try to make people more readily accept superheavy units.

THIS !

One of the ways GW uses to push us to apocalypse-size our games. Just for the sake of the ca$h.

I don't agree. HQ Lords of War are a means of freeing up the HQ slot for expensive characters. Comparing Dante with a Wraithknight is not fair to Dante, or Ghazgull, or any other HQ character.

I feel like they should have just made 2 different opions, one for HQ LOW and one for the Big Stompy Units. Lord of War for HQ and I don't know, Heavy War Machines for everything else?

 Kriswall wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Orock wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
What boxed sets lately, that were not just repackages, have not come with all of the options?

Skitarii vanguard/rangers for one. You can have three special weapons in a squad, and it comes with only one of each.

If you really want to bring that up, then you need to bring it up for every single boxed set ever done that did not include enough for you to do multiples of a single option.

You can do one of each special weapon option and you get three special weapon options, ergo it comes with enough parts to fulfill the criteria.

No sane player would ever build a 10 man squad with 3 different special weapons. Ignoring synergy BETWEEN units, you definitely want synergy WITHIN units. It doesn't make sense to take different weapons with different ranges, strengths and AP values in one squad. Depending on the target, half of your weapons aren't being used effectively.

The recent Space Marine Devastators box is another example of a box that can't actually make all of the options a unit can take. It would need to come with 4 of each heavy weapon and it doesn't. If I want to have a unit with 4 Grav Cannons, I need to acquire extras either by scouring eBay/bits sites or by paying for an extra Devastators box and not using the overwhelming majority of the kit. It would be better if the kit just came with all of the options or if the rules mirrored what was in the kit.

No, absolutely not, gw have been heading down that route for a while, we have lost a lot of cool units, items, wargear etc because gw only wants to do rules for what's in the kit or what models they already have.

 Vineheart01 wrote:

Thats what makes it dumb though. LoWs are limited heavily unless you go Unbound. If you are playing where LoW are allowed, why on earth would you bring a named HQ thats a LoW for some reason instead of a Wraithknight or Imperial Knight? Said named characters should get a buff because theyre in LoW, especially with the current game mentality of more than one CAD or Unbound eliminating the crowded HQ slot problem. Ghazzy is the only one that could easily fit the big nasty unit idea that is LoW, but his rules dont reflect it (even though the fluff does). The rest simply arent amazing enough compared to the multitude of options.

In the case of Wraithknights, you're forgetting that you do not even need to "go Unbound" to bring Wraithknights and another Lord of War.
Wraithknights are part of the Wraith Host formation or are able to be taken as a Wraith Construct in the Host detachment.

They could easily slap Farsight into LoW for this logic alone since technically Tau have a lot of HQs, just not many that are used commonly. Yes it frees up an HQ slot, but it removes a Stormsurge/Ta'unar/Tigershark option, which are infinitely the better choice. One could argue the Farsight Bomb would be the reason for him being LoW, but honestly i can easily see that being removed as a rule and added as a Formation anyway since it easily hits 1000pts or so.

It really does not, because like you just said...

"it could be added as a Formation", meaning that if you take the "Farsight Bomb Formation" you have taken it and not needed to give up a Lord of War slot since it likely is going to be a decurion styled Detachment where Farsight and Friends as a formation might take up a Command slot.

Yeah, like I said earlier. People need to forget the CAD. It's not the way the game is played anymore, really.

No reason why the Tau won't get more than 1 LOW

Farsight is an obvious candidate as one - hope he gets better treatment than the Orks.........

But then this seems to be another power Codex so likely.

I would disagree, because what I've seen so far has been fairly underwhelming in my opinion. Unless the formations for some of these units are pretty stellar, they're very meh.

 Talys wrote:
It's not possible to put every weapon option in every kit for some kits, without having to pack those kits into a bigger box. You'd also end up with way too much wasted plastic.

What would you do with 5 extra missile launchers, heavy bolters, heavy plasma, etc. ? On a Sternguard box, are they supposed to pack like 60 weapons for 5 models?

A much better route would be special weapons frames for the most popular special weapons that people are short on. Let's be honest: It's combo meltas, grav guns and grav cannons we want. Nobody is looking for 3 more missile launchers and heavy bolters, nobody wants 4 more power swords, nobody wants a full set of storm bolters for their sternguard.

What you're really asking for is a full set of the cheapest, the most effective, and the most powerful weapons, the rest be damned. Which isn't going to even be possible, because those change much more frequently than the models do. For example, today infernus pistols suck. But make them cheap upgrades, and soddenly, they are the best thing ever.

Or make rules where all weapon options are actually viable and not just the exact wasted plastic you mention? Or how about making mixed weapon squads not degrade in usefulness in some way (split fire for heavy weapons would help a bit)? There are ways of making their one weapon of each type boxes less wasteful.

It's combo meltas, grav guns and grav cannons we want. Nobody is looking for 3 more missile launchers and heavy bolters, nobody wants 4 more power swords, nobody wants a full set of storm bolters for their sternguard.

Why shouldn't a full set of storm bolters be viable? Why do they include all the other options when people only want the three you mention? That's something GW can influence with their rules writing by making options that are game-wise not useless (in comparison to all the other options). Isn't including or creating useless options and rules the epitome of wasted plastic? They can create boxes that people want to buy (without needing two or three) or create rules that correspond with the boxes. One can't just excuse it with "there is no space on the sprue or they will need bigger boxes" when the problem is something GW made themselves and the solution is actually in their hands.

As it is now people buy more but don't like to do that once their bits box has swollen to a certain size and the rest gets sold for cheap on ebay or swapped for something else (both solutions kinda tarnish their premium brand reputation).

They could make one cheaper basic marine box with all the normal type legs, chest, heads, arms, bolters, and backpacks. Nothing of the fancy stuff like a chainsword/bolt pistol option or a bare head (people don't get all the options now so just really streamline it). Just have a heavy support upgrade box (same size as todays squad boxes but without all the basic parts) with all the special stuff you need (heavy and special weapons), a veteran box (with stuff for characters), and an assault box with jump packs and running legs and torso variants. Then just create another box or two for each chapter (one for special squads and more flavour bits and one that creates special characters when combine with some of the other boxes) and you save huge amounts of shelf-space.

As if creating a Blood Angles tactical squad when there is already a normal one isn't wasted plastic and shelf-space (with most of the stuff being the same (albeit with slight finer detail in the new box), excluding some BA specific iconography and whatever weapon selection they provide). With such a streamlined portfolio they could sell more of each box which in turn would make it possible to regularly upgrade their mould with finer detail versions instead of just adding another tactical box. And the average selling price per squad would probably rise (you need two boxes which might be individually cheaper but together could be priced higher than one squad box today because of all the bits).

Why is it that the biggest company in this industry can't manage to make a box universally useful in their own games without the need to buy extra boxes or people wishing for weapon sprues?

 Tombard wrote:
And i WANT to know if the new crisis suits have two of every weapon options available...

I'm going to guess no. The Centurion box (for $78) has a full set of weapons for each of 3 suits, but that was only 4 different weapon options- HB, Las, Grav, and drills. To fully load out a crisis team with any build, you are looking at 6x flamer, plasma, fusion, burstcannon, missile pods, plus 3 each of support systems like shield generators. And crisis suits are larger models than centurions.

LighthouseM wrote:
Just in case it hasn't been reported yet.

Drone Squad and Shield Drone Upgrade kit are listed as "Sold Out/No Longer Available".

Probably because they are removing the old "single drone frame" bits, now that drones are part of the sprue of larger kits- Broadsides come with 2 drones that can be built as shield, missile, or gun drones. Pathfinders come with parts for shield and marker drones, plus their special ones. The new Fire Warriors will probably come with 2 drones that can be built as gun, marker, or the new ones, while the new Crisis suits will probably have like 2-6 drones.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Yeah, like I said earlier. People need to forget the CAD. It's not the way the game is played anymore, really.

Not entirely true. Plenty of lists that have the option to use large formations regularly still opt for CAD. Most competitive minded Eldar and KDK players still use CAD despite having access to superformations. The ones you really see use the superformations on a regular basis are Necrons, Space Marines, and AdMech, the latter two of which is only because those formations offer an abundance of free points AND special rules. Not to mention that there are plenty of strong Space Marine builds still using CADs. Plus theres Daemons, CSM, Tyranids, AM, DE, Orks that all dont have access to superformations.

I don't see Riptides/Broadsides losing their 2+. Stormsurge has a 3+ because it's too big for the smaller plates of the former suits, Ghostkeel because 2+ is too heavy for a stealth model.
Or, at least, is how I see it. Riptides and Broadsides are ok with 2+, no reason to change that.

Most of those don't have new codixes with formations, either. Once they get new codixes that will change.

vitae_drinker wrote:
I would disagree, because what I've seen so far has been fairly underwhelming in my opinion. Unless the formations for some of these units are pretty stellar, they're very meh.

Wow, I guess this is the post-Eldar metagame. If it isn't pants-destroyingly broken it's 'meh' or 'underwhelming'.

The ghostkeel is fantastic, with a 2+ save in the open almost all the time and the ability to almost entirely mitigate the shooting of an entire unit once per game. It's also the Tau's best CC unit now, and cheap enough to run in units.

The breacher FWs are niche, certainly, but I don't think anyone who takes them and uses them properly will be disappointed. They do require greater finesse than regular FWs, you can't just stand them up the back and shoot all game, but when the Tau book comes out I fully expect a tsunami of Space Marine players to complain that the breachers are too good. Honestly, wounding on 2s and ignoring 3+ armour, on a unit in an army that is famous for upgrading BS and ignoring cover? Yeah, the first time these hop out of a devilish and wipe an entire unit of (insert SM squad here), you're gonna start hearing complaints. The turret that can't be affected by anything is just icing on the cake, take a minimum unit of breachers, pop them in LOS-blocking cover and have the turret hanging out in front to fire with impunity, the opponent can't do anything except get really close, which is exactly what you want...

Finally, I know a lot of people have been ragging on the Stormsurge, but looked at objectively there's a lot to like. For my part, it's going to replace a couple of FW squads in my army who were only there to provide str 5 shooting. Now with the Surge putting out 4d6 str 5 shots + the SMS, I no longer have to include FWs in my army and can go full-suit like I've always wanted. The Surge also offers you a pretty clear choice: either take the long range driver, stabilise in the first turn and put out an ungodly amount of firepower, or take the blastgun and run around midfield like a maniac, shooting D shots or str 10 ap 3 blasts. Hell, even charge some squads if you want to - with a 3+ save, 5+ FNP, and 8 wounds, you can take on nearly anything that isn't dedicated to melee and feel pretty confident you're going to take them out with stomps. For utter hilarity give it a shield generator and vectored retro-thrusters so you can hit and run out of combat, sure you're only doing it at init 2, but the concept of something as fat as the Surge hitting and running is too good to pass up for only 5pts.

Yeah they're almost certainly not going to allow us to take VRTs on Surges in the new book, but I'm taking these units as they exist -currently-. Who knows what kind of formation-related shenanigans we'll be able to do in the new book? They'll probably vastly overshadow the synergy we use now, if any of the previous 'Decurioned' books are anything to go by.

Yeah, after the last few release people hoped for a tau dex that would rage all the neck beards. But its actually turning out to be quite balanced looking so far. No OP units but a lot of things that are different and add another layer of play to the army.

I dont like breachers because theyre a terrible melee unit like all tau and are in permanent charge threat range. If you get that S6 AP3 shots on anything that isnt overwatch either your opponent flopped a charge or opted to fire with a unit that cant charge after firing their guns rather than just charging.

5" is ridiculously short. If it was 10" for that OR the breachers were at least average in melee it wouldnt be as bad. Especially since odds are nobody is going to be able to supporting fire for them.

And i have the same point of view on the Stormsurge you do. I regularly field a rate of fire type playstyle rather than high damage, so the gakload of damage this thing puts out outweighs its lack of insane single shots.

Far as i can tell the new tau dex is pretty balanced, and not in an Ork way either. Ork codex is pretty well balanced...among itself. Very few things in the ork codex are outshined completely by another unit in the codex, it all depends on the tactic. Problem is their best is vastly overshadowed by every other codex, which is why im kinda flustered with them. Back to my usual biker list or im lucky if i win mentality, which is why i stopped using them in the old dex to begin with (bikernobz instead of warbikers though).
This is entirely Codex specific, not talking forgeworld. Forgeworld orks is an entirely different army imho
Nothing in the Tau codex is all wraiths getting Str D weapons level of OP, but its still pretty damn strong.