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Davor wrote:

Infantryman wrote:It's to entice you to buy the latest and greatest army.

GW is a figurine company, not a games company.

M.

Really? Someone is still sour on GW and still following them. Or maybe you didn't know that GW has released a few products now that are based on games. If GW was just a figurine company they wouldn't be offering these games with cheaper minis in them. That would mean GW is wasting money on the other parts than minis then.

MagicJuggler wrote:On a more serious note, the fact that so many tournament armies are Soups rather than complete armies could be a sign that many armies were not designed as coherent wholes, so much as individual groups of units in isolation with relatively little forethought to the "bigger picture."

I don't understand this. What is ment by soup? I have read this a few times referring to something in 8th edition and it makes no sense to me.

Soup armies consist of detachments from various codices and indexes to make it competitive. What hes saying is that the codexes felt like they weren't designed to cover threats from other armies, and so a single army needs to pick from various places to make it work on the table against any threat.

I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Wayniac wrote:
I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Definitely agree with this; it has always been this way. Honestly the FOC helped to dull this a bit because you couldn't fill a list with a million of the same unit. I mean, there still was spam, and min-maxing, but I think had they balanced the armies and options a bit better you would have had less of that. Now you can spam whatever you want

 Kanluwen wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Sorry to hear you're not happy with the state of your army. I'm curious as to what flavor your felt was lost though. I haven't really looked at their new book yet, but from what I've heard, the stuff we lost was...

* The non-outflanking scout. Which I never really got to work the way I wanted it to in 7th. It was flavorful, but it mostly boiled down to, "Can I sprint up to that next piece of cover turn 1, and if not, can I redeploy behind a wall to hide?"

Truthfully, this part was fine to lose. It should have been accompanied by vehicles or alternate deployment methods but c'est la vie.

*The doctrines. I know these were kind of "our thing," but they always felt a little... bland to me. It was nice to have, but it was basically a shoot/punch better/worse slider. The canticles m like a flashier sort of scientific technomagic, which seems a bit more flavorful to me. I assume you disagree?

This is the biggest part. The Skitarii aren't the Magi. They're the military arm of the Mechanicus. The "shoot/punch better/worse" thing was a great reflection of the fact that even though they have arcane weaponry...they're still ground troops. They're trained/programmed to be military units and were introduced to us with no HQ to represent the fact that the Tech-Priest commanding their forces/operating logistics for them was too valuable to potentially lose in combat so was kept in orbit to uplink data to the forces.

They were not disposable corpses with weapons(Servitors) or flocks of Zealots relying on their faith and tech that can potentially kill them(Electro-Priests) or relics of a lost age of technology regarded as walking divine symbols that are shepherded into battle by a priest(Kastelans) and were ultimately led into battle by a priest initiated deep into the mysteries of the Cult(Tech-Priest Dominus).

The fact that now they're required to have an HQ in and of itself isn't an issue. It's the hamfisted way that it was done and how not even a year or two ago it was "too dangerous" for Skitarii to be accompanied by their Priests, instead being led by a specially chosen Alpha or Princeps within the units on the field or in extreme cases by a Cohort Commander who commands the forces with no outside input from a Priest.
It's the hamfisted way that they're now forced to use the "zealot" side of things for special rules instead of having their own special rules remaining in play for the Skitarii side of things. Remember that they separated Canticles and Doctrina Imperatives because DI was a "static" benefit that would affect your Skitarii no matter the number of units you had on the field while Canticles got better and better based upon the number of models you had in play.

* The ability to run all "skitarii" units, which admittedly is pretty lame. I play my harlequins more often than I play my skitarii, and I can imagine being quite perturbed if I was forced to field an autarch or something just to fill up an HQ slot. Turning our sargeants into HQs harlequin style would have made a lot of sense. However, I'm not sure the chaplain analogy is completely fair. In the marine scenario you've described, players have lost unit options. In our case, we've actually gained options (without doing ally shenanigans) but also been forced to fill an HQ slot. Do the rules for a techpriest not allow us to make a passably skitarii HQ? My rangers are generally lead by guys with arc mauls and pistol weapons. Surely we can make something comparable out of a tech priest. Or perhaps I'm mistaken?

That's the reason I made the comparison I did. A Skitarii Warlord, as fielded in 7th edition, was a guy who could have exactly the same as any other member of his squad. He had Doctrina Imperatives, he could tote a Galvanic Rifle or Rad-Carbine, etc.

Can an Enginseer do any of that? No.
Chaplains have a unique ability and unique wargear. A Captain doesn't have the ability or the wargear, but you can make a "close enough" and call it a day...but it's not the same thing as fielding a Chaplain.

Honestly there needs to be a Skitarii HQ. I'm mad I had to use as many Dominus models as I do.

The question is what the guy would do. I'm personally opting for a Leautenit role where units nearby reroll 1's to wound. I know it's a direct copy-paste but it would work.

 Zid wrote:

Soup armies consist of detachments from various codices and indexes to make it competitive. What hes saying is that the codexes felt like they weren't designed to cover threats from other armies, and so a single army needs to pick from various places to make it work on the table against any threat.

Specifically, what "soup" tends to refer to are armies that initially were forming a single Detachment that had one keyword in common(Detachments can consist of any armies as long as there is at least one shared keyword--such as Imperium). It's only once the codices started filling in the whole <insert fancy name here> that we started seeing multiple detachments I feel.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Honestly there needs to be a Skitarii HQ. I'm mad I had to use as many Dominus models as I do.

The question is what the guy would do. I'm personally opting for a Leautenit role where units nearby reroll 1's to wound. I know it's a direct copy-paste but it would work.

Honestly, I'd have it so that he grants +/- to Hit and Wound rolls for either the Fight or Shooting phase so that we can get Doctrina Imperatives back without having to blow CP...at least for starters.

I'd do two different levels of Skitarii HQs, at least, to start with.
Cohort Commander or Princeps(dunno which exactly I'd go with) and give him some wide-ranging abilities that affect everything within a bubble around him. Definitely would give him something inspired by that great piece of fluff in the Skitarii Codex about them igniting the clouds to prevent Tyranid spore pods from landing--something that would allow for the Skitarii to either penalize Fly heavy armies or mitigate Deep Strikers on demand for a turn.

Cohort Primus would be an HQ or Elite choice that granted some benefits in an aura around him, but it could depend based on his kit. Outfit him as a Ranger, benefits to shooty units. Outfit him with the same gear as a Ruststalker and he grants something to let Ruststalkers and Infiltrators be more effective, Vanguard gets the "poison" etc etc.

I'd also say that Stygies should get an assassin-ish character for their Skitarii, but given that Stygies has been fairly popular I dunno anymore.

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Definitely agree with this; it has always been this way. Honestly the FOC helped to dull this a bit because you couldn't fill a list with a million of the same unit. I mean, there still was spam, and min-maxing, but I think had they balanced the armies and options a bit better you would have had less of that. Now you can spam whatever you want

Yeah. I kinda dislike the new detachments because they let you screw around; I get the point of them, but I think they should limit it so you have to completely fill out one detachment to take another (e.g. if you wanted a Battalion, you would have to take every slot allowed before you could add a second Detachment to your list), maybe excluding the Auxiliary Detachments (which on that note I think the superheavy one needs to cost -1 CP like all the others), and find some way to limit traits/tactics so you don't have things like taking a Mars detachment with Cawl and Kastelans and then a Stygies detachment with Dragoons, to maximize the benefits of both.

I also think that they have drifted from what they said CP would be in the previews; they said it would be a reward for playing "fluff" armies but all it's turned into is who can spam the most point-effective unit to take the most detachments to get the most CP to spend on stratagems.

 Zid wrote:
I think the largest problem with balancing 40k in general is just that; new editions

Strong agreement. 4th to 5th transformed Rhinos from deathtraps to annoyingly resilient metal boxes, to redundant in 6th to usable in 7th to pointless in 8th, all due to core rule changes!

5th removed Ordnance Penetrating Hits, made it so only Troops score (even in a dedicated transport), and lowered the vehicle damage chart so glances didn't autokill.

6th added Hull Points, and made it so vehicles couldn't score, even if carrying troops. It also removed the ability to assault from stationary rides.

7th allowed for universal scoring, while lowering vehicle damage some.

Then 8th shifted the rules around, removing Fire Points altogether, upping the cost of Rhinos, and making it so you can only disembark from static vehicles, effectively reducing their "mobility" advantage. In fact, with Orders, it's possible for Guardsmen to outrun their own Chimeras!

Thus, while in 7th you could make the case for a Chimera versus a Taurox, a Rhino versus a Razorback, in 8th, it's a no-contest.

There are plenty of cases of units being screwed by rules updates. Dark Eldar lost a lot of their oomph from 5th to 6th, Killa Kans went from powerful in 5th to near-useless in 6th...And GW arguably adjusts and rebalances points based off the previous edition!

Wayniac wrote:

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Definitely agree with this; it has always been this way. Honestly the FOC helped to dull this a bit because you couldn't fill a list with a million of the same unit. I mean, there still was spam, and min-maxing, but I think had they balanced the armies and options a bit better you would have had less of that. Now you can spam whatever you want

Yeah. I kinda dislike the new detachments because they let you screw around; I get the point of them, but I think they should limit it so you have to completely fill out one detachment to take another (e.g. if you wanted a Battalion, you would have to take every slot allowed before you could add a second Detachment to your list), maybe excluding the Auxiliary Detachments (which on that note I think the superheavy one needs to cost -1 CP like all the others), and find some way to limit traits/tactics so you don't have things like taking a Mars detachment with Cawl and Kastelans and then a Stygies detachment with Dragoons, to maximize the benefits of both.

I also think that they have drifted from what they said CP would be in the previews; they said it would be a reward for playing "fluff" armies but all it's turned into is who can spam the most point-effective unit to take the most detachments to get the most CP to spend on stratagems.

I actually like that -1 CP idea. Right now theres no other cost (other than points) for Lords of War. I also agree that filling out detachments should be a prerequisite. Aux attachments were made so you can tack in a little host of other armies, which is neat and all, but if your going to do that you open yourself to all sorts of rules abuse.

MagicJuggler wrote:

 Zid wrote:
I think the largest problem with balancing 40k in general is just that; new editions

Strong agreement. 4th to 5th transformed Rhinos from deathtraps to annoyingly resilient metal boxes, to redundant in 6th to usable in 7th to pointless in 8th, all due to core rule changes!

5th removed Ordnance Penetrating Hits, made it so only Troops score (even in a dedicated transport), and lowered the vehicle damage chart so glances didn't autokill.

6th added Hull Points, and made it so vehicles couldn't score, even if carrying troops. It also removed the ability to assault from stationary rides.

7th allowed for universal scoring, while lowering vehicle damage some.

Then 8th shifted the rules around, removing Fire Points altogether, upping the cost of Rhinos, and making it so you can only disembark from static vehicles, effectively reducing their "mobility" advantage. In fact, with Orders, it's possible for Guardsmen to outrun their own Chimeras!

Thus, while in 7th you could make the case for a Chimera versus a Taurox, a Rhino versus a Razorback, in 8th, it's a no-contest.

There are plenty of cases of units being screwed by rules updates. Dark Eldar lost a lot of their oomph from 5th to 6th, Killa Kans went from powerful in 5th to near-useless in 6th...And GW arguably adjusts and rebalances points based off the previous edition!

Most definitely. I left the game at the beginning of 6th when the Harlequin/Dark Eldar/Warlock BS deathstar was around (2++ w/ rerolls). I actually lost a game to a horrible player because of it, failed a Ld 10 morale, the unit overran me (I was necrons) and he won the game with that single unit. I felt cheated, and supposedly it didn't get much better after I had left!

When shifting to a new edition it should be rules tweeks, not completely rewriting the game every single time.

It wasn't a complete rewrite every time though.

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Definitely agree with this; it has always been this way. Honestly the FOC helped to dull this a bit because you couldn't fill a list with a million of the same unit. I mean, there still was spam, and min-maxing, but I think had they balanced the armies and options a bit better you would have had less of that. Now you can spam whatever you want

Yeah. I kinda dislike the new detachments because they let you screw around; I get the point of them, but I think they should limit it so you have to completely fill out one detachment to take another (e.g. if you wanted a Battalion, you would have to take every slot allowed before you could add a second Detachment to your list), maybe excluding the Auxiliary Detachments (which on that note I think the superheavy one needs to cost -1 CP like all the others), and find some way to limit traits/tactics so you don't have things like taking a Mars detachment with Cawl and Kastelans and then a Stygies detachment with Dragoons, to maximize the benefits of both.

I also think that they have drifted from what they said CP would be in the previews; they said it would be a reward for playing "fluff" armies but all it's turned into is who can spam the most point-effective unit to take the most detachments to get the most CP to spend on stratagems.

I actually like that -1 CP idea. Right now theres no other cost (other than points) for Lords of War. I also agree that filling out detachments should be a prerequisite. Aux attachments were made so you can tack in a little host of other armies, which is neat and all, but if your going to do that you open yourself to all sorts of rules abuse.

Cool, you want a penalized LoW Auxiliary?

Then put a 0-2 LoW option in the Brigade, Battalion, Vanguard, Spearhead, and Outrider Detachments. As it stands your options for a LoW are:
Supreme Command Detachment (3-5 HQs, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 LoW), Super-Heavy Detachment (3-5 LoW), and Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment(1 LoW).
You don't want that?
Remove the 0-2 Flyers from everything else and make it so the Air Wing Detachment and a Flyer Auxiliary Detachment are the only ways to get them.

There's a reason why the Lord of War Auxiliary has no detriment to your Command Points. It is one of two ways to field a LoW without having to bring a Supreme Command Detachment.
You can field Flyers easier than LoW at this juncture.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Zid wrote:
I think the largest problem with balancing 40k in general is just that; new editions

Then 8th shifted the rules around, removing Fire Points altogether, upping the cost of Rhinos, and making it so you can only disembark from static vehicles, effectively reducing their "mobility" advantage. In fact, with Orders, it's possible for Guardsmen to outrun their own Chimeras!

Sad buuut truuuuuuuueuuuauh!

 Kanluwen wrote:
Cool, you want a penalized LoW Auxiliary?

Then put a 0-2 LoW option in the Brigade, Battalion, Vanguard, Spearhead, and Outrider Detachments. As it stands your options for a LoW are:
Supreme Command Detachment (3-5 HQs, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 LoW), Super-Heavy Detachment (3-5 LoW), and Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment(1 LoW).
You don't want that?
Remove the 0-2 Flyers from everything else and make it so the Air Wing Detachment and a Flyer Auxiliary Detachment are the only ways to get them.

There's a reason why the Lord of War Auxiliary has no detriment to your Command Points. It is one of two ways to field a LoW without having to bring a Supreme Command Detachment.
You can field Flyers easier than LoW at this juncture.

Good, flyers should be fielded easier than LOW. If you want a LOW, lose 1 command point to do it just like any other "I want to add 1 of X without having to add anything else" detachment. Why should LOW alone be "free" other than points, while if I want to add a 4th heavy support to a Battalion or whatnot I have to lose a CP to do it?

A Supreme Command Detachment gives you a CP, and allows the use of 3 HQ Choices. For Guard, that costs a whooping 90 points, and provides 3 models you'd likely want to use anyway. In fact for almost every army the HQ 'Tax' on fielding a Lord of War, are units you'd very likely want to bring.

While a little off topic I take huge issue with this editions desire to ram HQ choices down our throats as a mandatory tax on everything. A Space Marine Captain is supposed to be in charge of 100 [Or 100+ these days] Space Marines, not the 30 odd you seem to need him for these days. Having half a dozen company commanders overseeing a Platoon is equally bizzare, or these small swarms walking around with four or five Hive Tyrants.

ryzouken wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Can you explain A)? are you talking about just imperial guard forge world or all forge world, if its the latter you be having a laugh me bucko arrr

Why take drop pods when I can make my marines Raptors chapter and take Lias Issodon, saving 150ish points? (I lose access to Guilliman, I guess?)
Why take Codex Craftworlds anti infantry selections (banshees, scorpions, swooping hawks, etc.) when shadow spectres do the job better for cheaper?
Why take basilisks when I can take earthshaker batteries for cheaper and lose nothing I care about?
Why take plasma scions when elysians are cheaper?

These are four easy examples of hyper efficient things that stand out as superior to their codex counterparts. It's not an exhaustive list, just what I know of off the top of my head.
If Forgeworld weren't superior to the readily available codex options, people wouldn't generally bother going through the hoops and hurdles of international shipping costs and delays to order them, to say nothing of the pains of working on resin casts or the even higher prices on these models. I say that as someone who just procured two units of shadow spectres; they are simply the optimal selection compared to codex options in terms of anti infantry.

But go on ahead and argue why you believe it's balanced. Please provide specific examples.

Soooo you make a sweeping statement that all forge world is op, provide a couple of admittedly better units, but does that mean all fw is op?

Nope is the answer.

Sicarion venetor, powerful but costs a lot, not op, chaos one is objectively worse, not op.

Doreto dread, pretty good, but costs a lot, rifleman can do a similar job for a lot less, chaos version is better but still costs a lot, not op.

Spartan is not op due to being a lord of war now and this limited in number, oh and costs a hell of lot.

Lolviathans are hella expensive and pretty good, but it's a choice between one of these or 3 standard dread (give or take), situational as to which I'd prefer but not op due to high cost and almost no deployment method anymore.

Comtemptors are solid, but dum dum duuuum, cost a lot of points (relatively), but still the normal dread is better (doesn't degrade).

So yes I contest your sweeping statements that fw is all op, but not that some is defo op, same as regular gw.

Wayniac wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Cool, you want a penalized LoW Auxiliary?

Then put a 0-2 LoW option in the Brigade, Battalion, Vanguard, Spearhead, and Outrider Detachments. As it stands your options for a LoW are:
Supreme Command Detachment (3-5 HQs, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 LoW), Super-Heavy Detachment (3-5 LoW), and Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment(1 LoW).
You don't want that?
Remove the 0-2 Flyers from everything else and make it so the Air Wing Detachment and a Flyer Auxiliary Detachment are the only ways to get them.

There's a reason why the Lord of War Auxiliary has no detriment to your Command Points. It is one of two ways to field a LoW without having to bring a Supreme Command Detachment.
You can field Flyers easier than LoW at this juncture.

Good, flyers should be fielded easier than LOW. If you want a LOW, lose 1 command point to do it just like any other "I want to add 1 of X without having to add anything else" detachment. Why should LOW alone be "free" other than points, while if I want to add a 4th heavy support to a Battalion or whatnot I have to lose a CP to do it?

And why should Flyers be fielded easier than LoW?

You'd have a point if the other Detachments allowed for 0-1 LoW like they allow for 0-2 Flyers...but they don't, and as such you have no leg to stand on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
A Supreme Command Detachment gives you a CP, and allows the use of 3 HQ Choices. For Guard, that costs a whooping 90 points, and provides 3 models you'd likely want to use anyway. In fact for almost every army the HQ 'Tax' on fielding a Lord of War, are units you'd very likely want to bring.

Sure, but the point remains:
Flyers, something complained about in years past, got a new slot made for them(remember they used to be LoW, FA, HS, whatever) but promptly got rolled into the Detachments themselves. The only Detachments that can't take Flyers are the Supreme Command Detachment and the Super-Heavy Detachments.

While a little off topic I take huge issue with this editions desire to ram HQ choices down our throats as a mandatory tax on everything. A Space Marine Captain is supposed to be in charge of 100 [Or 100+ these days] Space Marines, not the 30 odd you seem to need him for these days. Having half a dozen company commanders overseeing a Platoon is equally bizzare, or these small swarms walking around with four or five Hive Tyrants.

Ehhh...there's precedent for multiple Captains in the same force. They don't pull everyone from the same Company and the different Companies do have different skill sets/specialties on paper.

The Company Commanders thing is annoying but that's what happens when you've decided to make different grades of Officers rather than just calling them "Officers".

Not to mention the guy talked about Lias being OP when in the fact the regular Drop Pod is SO bad you don't take it anyway.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not to mention the guy talked about Lias being OP when in the fact the regular Drop Pod is SO bad you don't take it anyway.

To be fair, Lias has always been a stand-out character...I wonder if it's just because most non Ultramarine characters are just awful?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not to mention the guy talked about Lias being OP when in the fact the regular Drop Pod is SO bad you don't take it anyway.

Yeah haha, noticed that, but ignored it as it was so ludicrous

Flyers are also stupid in a Skirmish level game as anything other than abstracted air support.

But this is a product of GW making models people think are cool, and then as a result of having made them deciding they _Have_ to be shoehorned into the game they made as well, despite the scale the game is designed for being wildly inappropriate for such things.

This is on topic at least, because New Codex - New Models, and new models need to be good to increase sales. [Some people buy pretty models, some people buy good models, everyone buys pretty models that are also good.]

The no model no rules thing is simply an extension of this core marketing concept. Rough Riders can no longer be OP, because they're no longer provided with rules. Thus the 'Hot Unit' this year can't be rough riders, therefore people arn't buying them, which is what GW wants because those sales don't come direct from them.

Codex Creep is always just a symptom of GW providing lesser used, [Or more specifically, lesser purchased] models with better rules to drive sales and down toning good models [which have had high sales runs and minimal back stock], to continue to keep our armies expanding [Or at the very least, rotating.]


None of this is ever seemingly done with the aim of creating a good/competitive/realistic game, let alone one which in any way is an accurate representation of the setting. [Space Marine chapter masters getting in fistfights and dying every two seconds, Imperial Guard Platoons hosting the local Astropath conference, Unsupported Shadowswords showing up to every small scale skirmish, and so on.]


The new Detachments chart is part of the same principle. The old FOC was designed to force you to field a balenced force. The new one is designed specifically to allow you to field _Anything you Own_ regardless of balence, or realism or anything else. GW does not want your purchases hindered by rules. They want you to be able to play with anything in your collection at once, even if your collection is just thirty space marine captains. It isn't about balence, or realism or the setting they designed. It's about encouragement to buy.

It's really, geninuely saddening me, [While I might have only recently acquired a Dakka account again, I've been a player since second Ed.] to watch 40k's slow decline from a gaming system designed to reflect and simulate the warhammer universe [For which GW sold really cool models] to the rules set just becoming a sales medium for the models, and the setting be damned.

 Formosa wrote:

ryzouken wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Can you explain A)? are you talking about just imperial guard forge world or all forge world, if its the latter you be having a laugh me bucko arrr

Why take drop pods when I can make my marines Raptors chapter and take Lias Issodon, saving 150ish points? (I lose access to Guilliman, I guess?)
Why take Codex Craftworlds anti infantry selections (banshees, scorpions, swooping hawks, etc.) when shadow spectres do the job better for cheaper?
Why take basilisks when I can take earthshaker batteries for cheaper and lose nothing I care about?
Why take plasma scions when elysians are cheaper?

These are four easy examples of hyper efficient things that stand out as superior to their codex counterparts. It's not an exhaustive list, just what I know of off the top of my head.
If Forgeworld weren't superior to the readily available codex options, people wouldn't generally bother going through the hoops and hurdles of international shipping costs and delays to order them, to say nothing of the pains of working on resin casts or the even higher prices on these models. I say that as someone who just procured two units of shadow spectres; they are simply the optimal selection compared to codex options in terms of anti infantry.

But go on ahead and argue why you believe it's balanced. Please provide specific examples.

Soooo you make a sweeping statement that all forge world is op, provide a couple of admittedly better units, but does that mean all fw is op?

Nope is the answer.

Sicarion venetor, powerful but costs a lot, not op, chaos one is objectively worse, not op.

Doreto dread, pretty good, but costs a lot, rifleman can do a similar job for a lot less, chaos version is better but still costs a lot, not op.

Spartan is not op due to being a lord of war now and this limited in number, oh and costs a hell of lot.

Lolviathans are hella expensive and pretty good, but it's a choice between one of these or 3 standard dread (give or take), situational as to which I'd prefer but not op due to high cost and almost no deployment method anymore.

Comtemptors are solid, but dum dum duuuum, cost a lot of points (relatively), but still the normal dread is better (doesn't degrade).

So yes I contest your sweeping statements that fw is all op, but not that some is defo op, same as regular gw.

Yeah, it's pretty much "lets pick out a handful of units from FW's catalog, and ignore the entire rest of the FW line, and then pretend it's somehow worse than the main studio".

Looking over briefly just the IG stuff, I think people would be rather hard pressed to argue that the Atlas, Salamander (either kind), Hades, Centaur, Trojan, Tauros (again, both kinds), Armageddon pattern vehicles, Bombards, Cyclops, Griffon, Heavy Mortar, Leman Russ Annihilator, Malcador (any variant), Macharius (any variant), Rapiers, Sabres, Medusas, Destroyer Tank Hunters, Sentinel Power LIters, Thunderers, Stormblades, Tarantulas, CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT VEHICLES, Dominus Bombards, Gorgons, Minotaurs, Marauder Bombers, Praetors, Valdors, Avengers, Thunderbolts, Lightnings, Vendettas, anything DKoK, etc are in any way broken or overpowered

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Not to mention the guy talked about Lias being OP when in the fact the regular Drop Pod is SO bad you don't take it anyway.

To be fair, Lias has always been a stand-out character...I wonder if it's just because most non Ultramarine characters are just awful?

Not all them are, and in fact any Ultramarine character not Calgar and Tigger aren't note worthy. As far as I can recollect from 6th-7th...
1. Asterion provided a clutch to give PE against Marines, meaning that you had a potential edge against mirror Gladius lists
2. Sevrin had auto-access to several powers, making him one of the ideal candidates for Centurionstar
3. Iron Hands could take two generic Chapter Masters with EW, so there ya go
4. Khan gave Scout effectively for free
5. Naverez could do a Deep Strike strategy sorta, but he used Ultramarines Chapter Tactics so I don't know If you wanna count that or not.

That's maybe it off the top of my head.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

ryzouken wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Can you explain A)? are you talking about just imperial guard forge world or all forge world, if its the latter you be having a laugh me bucko arrr

Why take drop pods when I can make my marines Raptors chapter and take Lias Issodon, saving 150ish points? (I lose access to Guilliman, I guess?)
Why take Codex Craftworlds anti infantry selections (banshees, scorpions, swooping hawks, etc.) when shadow spectres do the job better for cheaper?
Why take basilisks when I can take earthshaker batteries for cheaper and lose nothing I care about?
Why take plasma scions when elysians are cheaper?

These are four easy examples of hyper efficient things that stand out as superior to their codex counterparts. It's not an exhaustive list, just what I know of off the top of my head.
If Forgeworld weren't superior to the readily available codex options, people wouldn't generally bother going through the hoops and hurdles of international shipping costs and delays to order them, to say nothing of the pains of working on resin casts or the even higher prices on these models. I say that as someone who just procured two units of shadow spectres; they are simply the optimal selection compared to codex options in terms of anti infantry.

But go on ahead and argue why you believe it's balanced. Please provide specific examples.

Soooo you make a sweeping statement that all forge world is op, provide a couple of admittedly better units, but does that mean all fw is op?

Nope is the answer.

Sicarion venetor, powerful but costs a lot, not op, chaos one is objectively worse, not op.

Doreto dread, pretty good, but costs a lot, rifleman can do a similar job for a lot less, chaos version is better but still costs a lot, not op.

Spartan is not op due to being a lord of war now and this limited in number, oh and costs a hell of lot.

Lolviathans are hella expensive and pretty good, but it's a choice between one of these or 3 standard dread (give or take), situational as to which I'd prefer but not op due to high cost and almost no deployment method anymore.

Comtemptors are solid, but dum dum duuuum, cost a lot of points (relatively), but still the normal dread is better (doesn't degrade).

So yes I contest your sweeping statements that fw is all op, but not that some is defo op, same as regular gw.

Yeah, it's pretty much "lets pick out a handful of units from FW's catalog, and ignore the entire rest of the FW line, and then pretend it's somehow worse than the main studio".

Looking over briefly just the IG stuff, I think people would be rather hard pressed to argue that the Atlas, Salamander (either kind), Hades, Centaur, Trojan, Tauros (again, both kinds), Armageddon pattern vehicles, Bombards, Cyclops, Griffon, Heavy Mortar, Leman Russ Annihilator, Malcador (any variant), Macharius (any variant), Rapiers, Sabres, Medusas, Destroyer Tank Hunters, Sentinel Power LIters, Thunderers, Stormblades, Tarantulas, CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT VEHICLES, Dominus Bombards, Gorgons, Minotaurs, Marauder Bombers, Praetors, Valdors, Avengers, Thunderbolts, Lightnings, Vendettas, anything DKoK, etc are in any way broken or overpowered

Yep, it basically sounds like the age old BS propaganda "FW IS OP AND MUST THE BEE BANEED!!!!" lol

Formosa wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

ryzouken wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Can you explain A)? are you talking about just imperial guard forge world or all forge world, if its the latter you be having a laugh me bucko arrr

Why take drop pods when I can make my marines Raptors chapter and take Lias Issodon, saving 150ish points? (I lose access to Guilliman, I guess?)
Why take Codex Craftworlds anti infantry selections (banshees, scorpions, swooping hawks, etc.) when shadow spectres do the job better for cheaper?
Why take basilisks when I can take earthshaker batteries for cheaper and lose nothing I care about?
Why take plasma scions when elysians are cheaper?

These are four easy examples of hyper efficient things that stand out as superior to their codex counterparts. It's not an exhaustive list, just what I know of off the top of my head.
If Forgeworld weren't superior to the readily available codex options, people wouldn't generally bother going through the hoops and hurdles of international shipping costs and delays to order them, to say nothing of the pains of working on resin casts or the even higher prices on these models. I say that as someone who just procured two units of shadow spectres; they are simply the optimal selection compared to codex options in terms of anti infantry.

But go on ahead and argue why you believe it's balanced. Please provide specific examples.

Soooo you make a sweeping statement that all forge world is op, provide a couple of admittedly better units, but does that mean all fw is op?

Nope is the answer.

Sicarion venetor, powerful but costs a lot, not op, chaos one is objectively worse, not op.

Doreto dread, pretty good, but costs a lot, rifleman can do a similar job for a lot less, chaos version is better but still costs a lot, not op.

Spartan is not op due to being a lord of war now and this limited in number, oh and costs a hell of lot.

Lolviathans are hella expensive and pretty good, but it's a choice between one of these or 3 standard dread (give or take), situational as to which I'd prefer but not op due to high cost and almost no deployment method anymore.

Comtemptors are solid, but dum dum duuuum, cost a lot of points (relatively), but still the normal dread is better (doesn't degrade).

So yes I contest your sweeping statements that fw is all op, but not that some is defo op, same as regular gw.

Yeah, it's pretty much "lets pick out a handful of units from FW's catalog, and ignore the entire rest of the FW line, and then pretend it's somehow worse than the main studio".

Looking over briefly just the IG stuff, I think people would be rather hard pressed to argue that the Atlas, Salamander (either kind), Hades, Centaur, Trojan, Tauros (again, both kinds), Armageddon pattern vehicles, Bombards, Cyclops, Griffon, Heavy Mortar, Leman Russ Annihilator, Malcador (any variant), Macharius (any variant), Rapiers, Sabres, Medusas, Destroyer Tank Hunters, Sentinel Power LIters, Thunderers, Stormblades, Tarantulas, CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT VEHICLES, Dominus Bombards, Gorgons, Minotaurs, Marauder Bombers, Praetors, Valdors, Avengers, Thunderbolts, Lightnings, Vendettas, anything DKoK, etc are in any way broken or overpowered

Yep, it basically sounds like the age old BS propaganda "FW IS OP AND MUST THE BEE BANEED!!!!" lol

No ones arguing that a lot of FW is fine, however, there are a few items that are legitimately broken; Forgeworld models are made to be impressive and have fun with. They are excellent, excellent models, and I loved buying them in my old armies to have fun with. However, they aren't balanced properly. We all know that 40k has a bit of pay to win in it, forgeworld exacerbates that tremendously; many players are unfamiliar with the dozens of units forgeworld has, and even fewer own models from FW. Even if the units were properly balanced, the knowledge difference between players creates a huge gap, and in wargames knowledge is power.

Kanluwen wrote:

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Zid wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I think part of the issue is the game just breaks down at "competitive" play when you only care about optimal choices; half the options in a codex go away because there's something better. While you have solid codexes like Guard and Eldar, they get extreme when you only look at min/maxing and not the entire codex. I think a lot of these issues just aren't there if you are playing in a casual/narrative style where you might take Unit A just because you own/like Unit A, even if Unit B is better and spamming Unit B makes the army "competitive".

Definitely agree with this; it has always been this way. Honestly the FOC helped to dull this a bit because you couldn't fill a list with a million of the same unit. I mean, there still was spam, and min-maxing, but I think had they balanced the armies and options a bit better you would have had less of that. Now you can spam whatever you want

Yeah. I kinda dislike the new detachments because they let you screw around; I get the point of them, but I think they should limit it so you have to completely fill out one detachment to take another (e.g. if you wanted a Battalion, you would have to take every slot allowed before you could add a second Detachment to your list), maybe excluding the Auxiliary Detachments (which on that note I think the superheavy one needs to cost -1 CP like all the others), and find some way to limit traits/tactics so you don't have things like taking a Mars detachment with Cawl and Kastelans and then a Stygies detachment with Dragoons, to maximize the benefits of both.

I also think that they have drifted from what they said CP would be in the previews; they said it would be a reward for playing "fluff" armies but all it's turned into is who can spam the most point-effective unit to take the most detachments to get the most CP to spend on stratagems.

I actually like that -1 CP idea. Right now theres no other cost (other than points) for Lords of War. I also agree that filling out detachments should be a prerequisite. Aux attachments were made so you can tack in a little host of other armies, which is neat and all, but if your going to do that you open yourself to all sorts of rules abuse.

Cool, you want a penalized LoW Auxiliary?

Then put a 0-2 LoW option in the Brigade, Battalion, Vanguard, Spearhead, and Outrider Detachments. As it stands your options for a LoW are:
Supreme Command Detachment (3-5 HQs, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 LoW), Super-Heavy Detachment (3-5 LoW), and Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment(1 LoW).
You don't want that?
Remove the 0-2 Flyers from everything else and make it so the Air Wing Detachment and a Flyer Auxiliary Detachment are the only ways to get them.

There's a reason why the Lord of War Auxiliary has no detriment to your Command Points. It is one of two ways to field a LoW without having to bring a Supreme Command Detachment.
You can field Flyers easier than LoW at this juncture.

Flyers have been part of the game since 5th and, honestly, during 5th they were just like any other vehicle other than the skimmer rules (which skimmer rules were bs...). Then 6th came along, made them actual fliers, which was cool and all, and they did some pretty unique things. But the rules were unwieldy. I think fliers should be more common than LoW because, lets be honest, a battalion of valk's would be more common than imperial knights stomping everywhere.

Essentially the game allows fielding super-heavies for no trade off. Which would be fine, but the addition of CP's kind of changes things. You should have to think before adding in a LoW instead of it being an auto include for many armies currently (Gulliman, Morty, Magnus....). A -1 CP isn't a lot, but its enough to make people think about what they build.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:It wasn't a complete rewrite every time though.

No, not a complete rewrite, but enough that it drastically changes the way the game is played each edition. Rhinos shouldn't go from usable one edition, to worthless the next, just as much as any other unit. Also, removing wargear from models points value was a huge misstep, and now you need to calculate individual wargear; so before when your standard librarian had a power staff on his model, but now a power sword is 6 points cheaper, you either have to destroy your old model to make it WYSIWYG, or pay extra points for something you don't want to use your ages old model. Some people even have "illegal" models because they came with chainswords that are no longer options, etc. Honestly have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with how to calculate points in the new dexes, its way more convoluted than 5th.

 Zid wrote:

Flyers have been part of the game since 5th and, honestly, during 5th they were just like any other vehicle other than the skimmer rules (which skimmer rules were bs...). Then 6th came along, made them actual fliers, which was cool and all, and they did some pretty unique things. But the rules were unwieldy. I think fliers should be more common than LoW because, lets be honest, a battalion of valk's would be more common than imperial knights stomping everywhere.

Essentially the game allows fielding super-heavies for no trade off. Which would be fine, but the addition of CP's kind of changes things. You should have to think before adding in a LoW instead of it being an auto include for many armies currently (Gulliman, Morty, Magnus....). A -1 CP isn't a lot, but its enough to make people think about what they build.

Just so we're clear, Flyers were present before 5th. They were a FW only thing though...same as LoW were at the time.

So once again: why is one thing acceptable but the other isn't? Because you think that one would be more common?
There are entire Houses of Knights, with some sworn to the Mechanicus and some sworn to the Imperium and a third group that operate as individuals sworn to a specific task.
You're about as likely to run into an Imperial Knight, considering those circumstances, than you are "a battalion of Valkyries"--which are primarily earmarked for special Regiments or high ranking Imperial officials.

Hell there are regiments of Super-Heavy Tanks for the Imperial Guard...but rarely are they ever fielded en masse. They usually are (shock and gasp...) placed under the command of an Armoured Regiment or attached as part of its order of battle.

TLDR: -1 CP for a Superheavy is stupid when you can't place them into a normal FOC. It's a points heavy investment for something that usually can't claim Cover saves easily and in the case of the Primarchs is vulnerable to being singled out barring some gimmicks like the Deathshroud.

Neither should be acceptable, to be honest. They don't belong in 40k (outside of apocalypse that is), and are a big part of why the game is so fethed up (Forgeworld being usually imbalanced is another issue, for everything that's fine you get garbage like Malefic Lords), you shouldn't be able to just add it for nothing. Flyers don't belong in a "normal FOC" either if you ask me, but superheavies sure as hell don't.

Flyers and superheavies are both fine when costed appropriately.

"are a big part of why the game is so fethed up"

Not at all. Most of the problems are on cheap models, not expensive ones.

I think some flyers are really nice like Deffkotpas and small things like those. Transport flyers like for example the ultra cool Republic Low Altitude Assault Transport are fine too.

The ultra-sonic jets, bombers, etc... in the other hand... meh.

Close air support is a mainstay of combined arms warfare.

Supersonic jets can drop all kinds of munitions all over a battlefield.

 Zid wrote:


No ones arguing that a lot of FW is fine, however, there are a few items that are legitimately broken;

Sure, but not really any moreso or at any greater rate than main Studio stuff.

Forgeworld models are made to be impressive and have fun with. They are excellent, excellent models, and I loved buying them in my old armies to have fun with. However, they aren't balanced properly.

Less well than mainline studio stuff? I don't see that there's any data for that, most tournaments allow it and FW stuff isn't routinely dominating tables or required to win by any means, certainly wasn't the case in previous editions.

We all know that 40k has a bit of pay to win in it, forgeworld exacerbates that tremendously; many players are unfamiliar with the dozens of units forgeworld has, and even fewer own models from FW. Even if the units were properly balanced, the knowledge difference between players creates a huge gap, and in wargames knowledge is power.

In theory I can get that argument, but in practice I just can't lend it a lot of credence. The internet exists, and, like it or not, the FW rules stuff is just as accessible as anything else (legally or illegally) unless you're somehow unable to use the internet and can only ever buy stuff from a brick and mortar store, so are forums and discussion groups where people talk about them,etc. Furthermore, not everyone is familiar with everything from the main studio, I've had people flummoxed by Obliterators and Hellhounds and Wave Serpents before, relatively common mainline units. I just can't bring myself to be terribly sympathetic to the ignorance issue, and, looking at tournament results for both 7E and 8E, the pay2win stuff hasn't generally been in the FW court. Do they have a few stinkers? Yes. If you banned FW would the game be appreciably more balanced? Not really. In fact, in general, when the main studio writes rules for FW models, they usually make them dramatically more powerful.

Wayniac wrote:
(Forgeworld being usually imbalanced is another issue, for everything that's fine you get garbage like Malefic Lords).

Hrm, it's usually more "for every stinker like Malefic Lords, there's two dozen units that are just fine or underpowered". Even most of the IG stuff that people complain about, like Earthshaker platforms, aren't unreasonably costed next to their tracked counterparts (you save 21pts but are much easier to kill, are vulnerable to morale, lose a heavy weapon, and are immobile) but rather the issue is more of an inherent metagame alpha strike issue where if that goes off right everything else becomes irrelevant.

The unfamiliarity with FW argument is bad because you could've used that excuse with new armies that just came out like Genestealer Cults and both AdMech armies, and the internet exists to everyone a little easier.

Not to mention any time you see something new for the first time you're unfamiliar...