ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:

He has a point. Ratlings, rough riders and plenty of things that still exist in the model range are really only there because they made sense when Rogue Trader/ 2nd ed was much more overtly "WFB but in space." Ratlings made a lot more sense back then. Right now, they are more of a random throwback to the 90s.

Right. I personally don't like Ratlings. But I don't want them to be removed; I understand that some people like them and have models for them. Having more options is better than having less options. No one is forcing you to include stuff you don't like.

Veterans with Sniper Rifles are a fair option if you don't want to run Ratlings too. Plus some of them look pretty good

Unfortunately, it isn't the same thing.

If you're wanting to field a full unit of snipers, the only Guard option currently is Ratlings.
Veterans and Special Weapon Squads can only take 3 models with Sniper Rifles.

And the other models in the unit can split fire a other targets instead of solely being ablative wounds.

tneva82 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daedalus81 wrote:
It doesn't limit anything as long as their effectiveness is commensurate with cost.

Yes it does. Or how you suggests they create smallish sized model(ie something that you can't snipe) with say 15 wounds? You don't.

With keyword you apply keyword(or don't put depending does keyword allow you to hide or be targeted) and put 15 wounds.

Seriously why you even try to defend that? Guess you just defend everything GW does even when it's obvious it's not defendable. There is ZERO drawback to having this on keyword. None whatsoever. But there's drawbacks in having it on wounds.

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those defending gw on this, could you give us one reason why this method is preferable to using a keyword?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Powerfisting wrote:

He has a point. Ratlings, rough riders and plenty of things that still exist in the model range are really only there because they made sense when Rogue Trader/ 2nd ed was much more overtly "WFB but in space." Ratlings made a lot more sense back then. Right now, they are more of a random throwback to the 90s.

Right. I personally don't like Ratlings. But I don't want them to be removed; I understand that some people like them and have models for them. Having more options is better than having less options. No one is forcing you to include stuff you don't like.

Veterans with Sniper Rifles are a fair option if you don't want to run Ratlings too. Plus some of them look pretty good

Unfortunately, it isn't the same thing.

If you're wanting to field a full unit of snipers, the only Guard option currently is Ratlings.
Veterans and Special Weapon Squads can only take 3 models with Sniper Rifles.

And the other models in the unit can split fire a other targets instead of solely being ablative wounds.

Which still doesn't make it the same thing.

A unit of purely snipers(Ratlings) is not the same thing as a unit of Guardsmen with some snipers in there(Veterans, Command Squads, or Special Weapon Squads).

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
My wonder is if ICs can embark on transports that already have another unit on it. Otherwise, they'd need to bring their own transport. For orks, I guess this is fine since we have 35 point transports, but it still seems a bit tough on armies with more expensive transports.

 daedalus wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Yes they will likely have but you notice how again this ties up their hands with what kind of characters they CAN design? Forget creating 11W character unless you also give him tons of survivability in other words. Something like T8 2+ save is practically paper if he's worth any decent amount of points and has 11W.

I don't understand why you think that.

Okay, to elaborate, I don't understand two thing:

The above, for one.
Where the "wounds determine if you can 'hide'" thing came from, for another.

I didn't notice that in the reading.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those defending gw on this, could you give us one reason why this method is preferable to using a keyword?

I already have: if it applies to all models then the keyword method is useless. We need the full rules to know more. Fresking out now does no one any good.

Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Astra Militarum
Who is Reece, and why should I care?

Reece helps runs some of the biggest independent Warhammer 40,000 events in the world, including the Las Vegas Open and the recently announced Southern California Open. Like Frankie, he’s also been part of the playtest team for the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, putting in hundreds of hours to make sure this new edition will be great for all you gamers out there (Thanks Reece!).

He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Warhammer 40,000, so let’s see what he has so say…



Listen up, Guardsmen! Reecius here to talk to you about the Astra Militarum in the new version of Warhammer 40,000. If your heart beats to the rhythm of boots marching and you love the smell of promethium in the morning, then this article is for you.

The Astra Militarum have a long and storied history. They’re comprised of the nameless, faceless billions of brave souls that take up arms in defence of the Imperium. You have to love the idea of a human having the guts to go toe-to-toe with the myriad horrors the 41st Millennium has to offer, armed only with a trusty lasgun and faith in the Emperor.



Currently, Astra Militarum forces often take to the field with big, sprawling infantry platoons sporting numerous attached Characters to give them bonuses or, at the other end of the scale, as largely mobilised tank armies firing massive guns and obliterating the enemy. This combination of hordes of men and powerful machines is a distinctive aspect of the Astra Militarum playstyle.

However, at the moment, they don’t always play on the tabletop the way they’re represented in the background. Wouldn’t it be awesome if some of those units you so rarely see like Scout Sentinels were suddenly not only good, but great? What if Bullgryns and Rough Riders were actually scary in combat? How about Heavy Weapon Squads that actually provide covering fire to the rest of your men instead of just acting as distractions for enemy units? I am here to tell you that all of these things are true in the new edition!



And the hype train just rolls on! Veterans now are truly seasoned warriors that–while no Adeptus Astartes–are soldiers to be respected. Your squads will no longer pop out of their Chimera, shoot one thing, and then die or run away immediately after the enemy returns fire. Nope, now, with the added “encouraging” presence of a nearby Commissar – which limits the losses of a bad Morale test – Astra Militarum are downright stalwart. Even Ratlings – with their sniper weapons allowing them to pick out and target Characters – will now be reaping a tally on your enemy’s leaders in the name of the Emperor!



But it’s not all about the ground pounders. The tanks of the Imperium have had a rough go of it in the current version of the Warhammer 40,000 ruleset, prone to getting destroyed in one shot or ingloriously throwing a tread going over a bush. But no longer. The tanks are back and better than ever. Leman Russes, for example, have Toughness 8 and a 3+ save, so they won’t be slowing down until they’ve lost half of their 12 Wounds. The tanks of the Imperial Guard will definitely be making their mark on battlefields across the Imperium.



There’s so much more to say! Those of you who are long time Astra Militarum players, like me, are going to be thrilled with what is coming. Models you haven’t used in ages, or perhaps those you’ve had your eye on for years, will now be shining stars in your collection.



But here’s one last little tidbit for you, as no conversation about the Guard would be complete without mentioning Orders. One of the Astra Militarum’s most well-known rules mechanics, Orders work automatically now and provide a variety of bonuses. You have 7 to choose from, but the one I want to discuss is ‘First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!’. This now makes a unit of Astra Militarum infantry treat their lasguns and hot-shot lasguns as Rapid Fire 2; that’s 4 shots per Guardsman at half range! Combined with the fact that every weapon has a chance to hit any target, the much-derided lasgun can now be the deadly laser weapon the Emperor’s armies need.

That’ll be all! Dismissed.

tneva82 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
How many characters with 10 or more wounds you really think there is, if Guilliman has 9? And how many of those wouldn't be so big that not being able to shoot them would be ridicilous?

Not many especially now but whatabout in future?

Thing is they would have lost NOTHING by putting it into keyword. There's no drawback whatsoever and this one has illogical side effects like wounds being actually detrimental. Assuming Magnus has say 16 wounds he would be better off by giving up 6 of those...That's pretty odd result. You get hurt by getting more wounds. Don't remember many games where you are worse off by having more wounds.

If there was drawback in having protection/deprotection by keyword sure but there isn't. So they made illogicality and hamstrung their choices for future for no benefit. That's not good game design.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Well unless the Tau have received a huge overhall the meta against them will be to take as much melee characters as you can possibly cram into an army and make sure to keep as much of them just behind the front wave and then have them go in and destroy it.

If we can't even shoot at them they are basically mini deathstars. They didn't get rid of deathstars they just spread it out over a huge area and made them even more strong and annoying.

I think this is the single worst rule they've previewed from a balance perspective. A simple penalty to shooting at them would have sufficed, but nope. Has to be invincibility. Stronger than any other factions previewed stuff.

This is false. The deathstars were rerollable 2+ for every puppy/screamer in the unit, or a tanking unit like Ghazghkull absorbing everything you throw at it. That is all gone.

Now you can just shoot the meatshields, which Tau is really good at, and pick off some of the characters with your big stuff. I'm surprised you're not thrilled at this, as this is a huge buff for Tau.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I have a feeling much of this may follow the same logic that they already are. I mean Magnus is 3x taller than RG and has at least four more wounds to match. The models who are likely going to have more han ten wounds are likely to be biiger than RG. I mean R G oukd at least take a knee to gain some over, what can Magnus do amongst most armies?

 davou wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those defending gw on this, could you give us one reason why this method is preferable to using a keyword?

when your doing game design, its easy to assign points values to things you design when they have numeric values.

example

A unit with t3 is worth 5 points, bump to t4 and its worth 10, t5 and it becomes worth 25. Add a wound for 15 points, 4+save, 5 points, 3+ 8 points, 2+ save 15 points.

Make a model have MV 4, 1 point. mv 5, 2 points, mv 6 4 points.....

You can have a chart in the design studio that says how much a model is worth when it has 10 wounds, x save, x toughness etc etc... You cant really assign a value to keywords.

This is why design is so balanced in games like X wing and STAW, the costs are married to the stats and gear. Models that have keywords make it harder to keep a balanced design.

You asked for ONE REASON why this way might be preferable, well there it is. I could probably come up with more, but I dont want too and won't because I dont think that the cant target models with less than 10 wounds is good, nor do I think its bad.... but Im excited to see it work in a game.

 lessthanjeff wrote:
If they give a new character 11 wounds it seems like they'd still be better off to me than the numerous monstrous creatures and walkers that we've been playing with.

 lessthanjeff wrote:
He has 9 and gets to hide and I can't think of another character that would have more wounds but should still be allowed to hide.

 kronk wrote:

Q: > Guilliman standing further away than a single guardsman.
> Enemy cannot target the huge dude that towers over vehicles, because single Guardsman is closer.
Makes sense.
A: If your army can't kill that one Guardsman first, what exactly were you going to shoot at Guilliman that was going to worry him?

Lurve the snark!

 lessthanjeff wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those defending gw on this, could you give us one reason why this method is preferable to using a keyword?

I suspect they're trying to reduce the number of keywords that they have to type up rules in other places for. As it is now, think how many pages are tied up with flipping through the pages of bikes, jetbikes, infantry, jetpacks, jump packs, monstrous creatures, independent character, transports, skimmers, etc. I've been under the impression they're trying to do away with references to external rules to reduce that kind of thing. All rules on the data sheet and what not.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Also, this new trend to praise companies for what used to be called "bad customer service" seems really wierd to me - is it a "I got mine, Jack" situation where the praisers just genuinely think they're never going to be on the recieving end? Because that's silly - show companies they can deflect criticism with a sufficiently witty put-down and it won't be long before they're using it to deflect all criticism, valid or otherwise.

 streetsamurai wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
For those defending gw on this, could you give us one reason why this method is preferable to using a keyword?

I already have: if it applies to all models then the keyword method is useless. We need the full rules to know more. Fresking out now does no one any good.

No it aint, and we already gave you reason why. But then, you seem to prefer to ignore the issue

 Gamgee wrote:
Unless they balance our STR 5 Ap5 weapons differently the str 5 actually puts us at a disadvantage to wounding human targets now compared to before. It's harder for them to wound now. So it will take longer to kill off blobs. Let alone the big dudes themselves.

Edit
There is no benefit for our pulse rifle to be str 5 anymore if it has the same effect as Str 4 gun on humans. I really hope they realize this. They are ever so slightly better at wounding vehicles than bolters and lasguns, but who cares? I want dedicated any-tank for that anyways. Against their intended targets they are nerfed.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 nintura wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

I don't think it is at all weird that Guilliman can hide behind infantry while Magnus can't.

Put RG up next to a regular marine though. Then tell me how he hides in the middle of that lol

He wears a really big camo cloak.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 kronk wrote:

Q: > Guilliman standing further away than a single guardsman.
> Enemy cannot target the huge dude that towers over vehicles, because single Guardsman is closer.
Makes sense.
A: If your army can't kill that one Guardsman first, what exactly were you going to shoot at Guilliman that was going to worry him?

Lurve the snark!

I'd "lurve" it a lot more if they weren't deploying it against perfectly valid comments.

Assuming, as seems safe, that the controlling player will decide which models are casualties, you'd have to throw half an army's worth of shooting into that Guard unit if it's a blobsquad before you can "worry" Girlyman. And that is BS when three Guardsmen would have to stand one atop another to even tickle Rowboat's chin.

Also, this new trend to praise companies for what used to be called "bad customer service" seems really wierd to me - is it a "I got mine, Jack" situation where the praisers just genuinely think they're never going to be on the recieving end? Because that's silly - show companies they can deflect criticism with a sufficiently witty put-down and it won't be long before they're using it to deflect all criticism, valid or otherwise.

tneva82 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I have a feeling much of this may follow the same logic that they already are. I mean Magnus is 3x taller than RG and has at least four more wounds to match. The models who are likely going to have more han ten wounds are likely to be biiger than RG. I mean R G oukd at least take a knee to gain some over, what can Magnus do amongst most armies?

Yes it doesn't create huge issues with current characters. Well there might be some characters that are otherwise fairly similar but one has say 8 wounds and other 12 wounds where 12 wounds actually is cheaper(assuming appropriately costed) as 8 wounds is almost certain to be better. That's unintuitive and it restricts kind of models they CAN do.

And the thing is current effect without above limitations could have been done _with_ keywords. That's the thing. There's no drawback for using keywords to do effect. But by using wounds they removed flexibility of the core rules for no benefit.

 kestral wrote:
Snipers killing characters makes me happy. On the other hand, the math is probably terrible. Assuming S4, BS 3 you need what, 200+ shots to kill Rowboat? Maybe they will be better than that against characters. Not thrilled to see characters jacked up with more wounds and such myself.

 Galas wrote:
Gamgee, I'm a Tau player too, but God. You are more apropiate in a Apocalyptic cult, stop being so dramatic.
No, not every new rule in 8th is designed to destroy Tau's

 labmouse42 wrote:

 En Excelsis wrote:
I don't recall ever presenting 'derisive criticism' for these folks. All I am saying is that the coming edition will including rules born of their bias. And I bring that up to illustrate that their bias is the bias a very small minority. I suspect (and could be wrong but...) a large portion of the 40k playerbase are not in fact large scale tournament/event organizers.

This is the undefinable argument about trying silent majorities and vocal minorities. I think it's fair to say that the majority of 40k players are hobbyists, and only a very small few (by %) have turned that hobby into a profession. the nature of that profession, i.e. hosting tournaments and other events, will create a natural bias to make those parts of the game better as the cost of other parts of the game. To be a store owner or event organizer you are almost forced to be more vocal in the community than a hobbyist who plays occasionally with friends at home or at their FLGS. Hence the vocal minority...

A poll was ran a few years ago asking that very question (along with a myriad of others) While some of the meta has changed since the poll was ran, other questions are fairly static.

Spoiler:

Most of the players have played in and enjoyed competitive play.


Most players seem to think that organizations like the ITC add value to 40k.


Most players seem to think game balance and updating old rules are the most important things GW should be doing.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 kronk wrote:

Q: > Guilliman standing further away than a single guardsman.
> Enemy cannot target the huge dude that towers over vehicles, because single Guardsman is closer.
Makes sense.
A: If your army can't kill that one Guardsman first, what exactly were you going to shoot at Guilliman that was going to worry him?

Lurve the snark!

I'd "lurve" it a lot more if they weren't deploying it against perfectly valid comments.

Assuming, as seems safe, that the controlling player will decide which models are casualties, you'd have to throw half an army's worth of shooting into that Guard unit if it's a blobsquad before you can "worry" Girlyman. And that is BS when three Guardsmen would have to stand one atop another to even tickle Rowboat's chin.

Also, this new trend to praise companies for what used to be called "bad customer service" seems really wierd to me - is it a "I got mine, Jack" situation where the praisers just genuinely think they're never going to be on the recieving end? Because that's silly - show companies they can deflect criticism with a sufficiently witty put-down and it won't be long before they're using it to deflect all criticism, valid or otherwise.

Spoiler:

 streetsamurai wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 kronk wrote:

Q: > Guilliman standing further away than a single guardsman.
> Enemy cannot target the huge dude that towers over vehicles, because single Guardsman is closer.
Makes sense.
A: If your army can't kill that one Guardsman first, what exactly were you going to shoot at Guilliman that was going to worry him?

Lurve the snark!

I'd "lurve" it a lot more if they weren't deploying it against perfectly valid comments.

Assuming, as seems safe, that the controlling player will decide which models are casualties, you'd have to throw half an army's worth of shooting into that Guard unit if it's a blobsquad before you can "worry" Girlyman. And that is BS when three Guardsmen would have to stand one atop another to even tickle Rowboat's chin.

Also, this new trend to praise companies for what used to be called "bad customer service" seems really wierd to me - is it a "I got mine, Jack" situation where the praisers just genuinely think they're never going to be on the recieving end? Because that's silly - show companies they can deflect criticism with a sufficiently witty put-down and it won't be long before they're using it to deflect all criticism, valid or otherwise.

Agreed with you. That was a ridiculous rebuttal, even thought I liked most of the rest of the Q&A

 Gamgee wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Gamgee, I'm a Tau player too, but God. You are more apropiate in a Apocalyptic cult, stop being so dramatic.
No, not every new rule in 8th is designed to destroy Tau's

These rules most likely kill off shooting army viability as well. Also have you seen me complain about every other rule prevfiew? No I've been on board with almost all of them. Stop acting like I hate everything they've done. I hate this rule because it is undercutting a lot of the work they've done to this point to make the game more balanced. All they needed to do was make it a penalty to hit special characters who were not the closest target. Instead they make them invincible and this will be abused.

So stop trying to form the anti-Gamgee mob again please.