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@Slayer
Yes, I honestly prefered how the CWE Index stacked up to other Indexes over how the Codex stacks up to other codexes.

Further, I think a lot of the additions actually take away from the game, instead of add to it. For instance, the CWE attributes. Game was better without them.

I'm just here to talk about the existing indexes and the cost/balance therein. Not theoretical 50$ indexes. Adding fluff to a rulebook and jacking the price has always seemed like a waste to me as wikipedia exists, and GW just copy/pastes the same fluff sections for each edition.

 Galef wrote:
This is about more than just having to buy less books just to play "YOUR" army/armies.
It has to do with the ability to access all the rules for the entire game.

FYI, I do not play DE or Harlies, only CWE. But I have played/owner all the books at one point just to get a feel for how they play together.
Not knowing the full capabilities of my opponent's army can be very frustrating, but it is some thing GW has forced upon us in the last few years by essentially "pricing out" access to 100% of the rules for this 1 game.

Even when codices were $20 a pop in 3rd edition, I can't think of anyone who genuinely had 100% of the books and supplements and brought them with them.

When I use my Eldar to play against an opponent, I need more than just the main rules and my codex...I also need the opponent's codex, unless they too are playing Eldar.

Since when do you "need" your opponent's codex? I ask to see the opponent's book or to have them show me a specific rule if it seems off.
It's one thing if you're running demo games or the like then yeah, you should have a copy of both armies that you're running on hand but this is such a bizarre mentality I don't understand why you need to have your opponent's codex.

The Indexes gave this a real chance of being a reality, but if every single faction and sub-faction (which BTW Skitarii were always means to be a SUB-faction to Ad-Mech, just like Harlequins are a sub-faction to CWE & DE) gets its own fully priced book, it will essentially be impossible to know all the rules

And yet Harlequins had an HQ choice added to them, proving your statement wrong. The fact that the book was "Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarii" like Cult Mechanicus was "Adeptus Mechanicus: Cult Mechanicus" suggests that it wasn't meant to be a "subfaction" but an army in its own right, like how "Adeptus Astartes" is a faction umbrella as well.
But all the whining brats complaining about needing "three books" for their War Convocations sure did fix that huh?


Additionally it's not on you to "know all the rules", it's on you to "know all the rules relevant to your army and to have your material handy if a dispute arises".

Another major point we are trying to make is that each Codex so far actually has TOO many extra rules and is coming dangerously close to 7E levels of convoluted.
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What? "TOO many extra rules"? Are you serious?

I will say that I prefer the Eldar Codex to the Index, but if the Index had the CORRECT points from the start, as the Codex now does (or at least comes closer to), than yes, I would have preferred the Index.

I mean really, you can add all the CW attributes, relics, WL traits and a handful of Stratagems on 3 pages.
This could have easily been added in the Index from release.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galef wrote:
This is about more than just having to buy less books just to play "YOUR" army/armies.
It has to do with the ability to access all the rules for the entire game.

FYI, I do not play DE or Harlies, only CWE. But I have played/owner all the books at one point just to get a feel for how they play together.
Not knowing the full capabilities of my opponent's army can be very frustrating, but it is some thing GW has forced upon us in the last few years by essentially "pricing out" access to 100% of the rules for this 1 game.

Even when codices were $20 a pop in 3rd edition, I can't think of anyone who genuinely had 100% of the books and supplements and brought them with them.

Back in 4E/5E, I owned all but the Orks and IG codices. I knew my enemies well.

 Kanluwen wrote:

What? "TOO many extra rules"? Are you serious?

Dead serious. If I have to keep reminding my opponent what my stuff does, or ask them, it's too many rules. It's also very frustrating to think you know what an army is capable of, but then they pull out some stratagem you've never heard of that screws up your entire strategy and makes the game unfun for you (not because it was OP, but because you were unprepared for it)

One of the major reasons 8E is one of the better editions in years is because the rules have been concise and easy to follow. With each new Codex, FAQ, Chapter Approvved, etc that gets released, this ease of play will decrease.

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 Galef wrote:
I will say that I prefer the Eldar Codex to the Index, but if the Index had the CORRECT points from the start, as the Codex now does (or at least comes closer to), than yes, I would have preferred the Index.

I mean really, you can add all the CW attributes, relics, WL traits and a handful of Stratagems on 3 pages.
This could have easily been added in the Index from release.

So where's the fluff at?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galef wrote:
This is about more than just having to buy less books just to play "YOUR" army/armies.
It has to do with the ability to access all the rules for the entire game.

FYI, I do not play DE or Harlies, only CWE. But I have played/owner all the books at one point just to get a feel for how they play together.
Not knowing the full capabilities of my opponent's army can be very frustrating, but it is some thing GW has forced upon us in the last few years by essentially "pricing out" access to 100% of the rules for this 1 game.

Even when codices were $20 a pop in 3rd edition, I can't think of anyone who genuinely had 100% of the books and supplements and brought them with them.

Back in 4E/5E, I owned all but the Orks and IG codices. I knew my enemies well.

So you didn't own all the codices? You might think that's nitpicky, but when I said that I couldn't think of anyone genuinely owning 100% of the books and supplements I wasn't kidding.

 Kanluwen wrote:

What? "TOO many extra rules"? Are you serious?

Dead serious. If I have to keep reminding my opponent what my stuff does, or ask them, it's too many rules. It's also very frustrating to think you know what an army is capable of, but then they pull out some stratagem you've never heard of that screws up your entire strategy and makes the game unfun for you (not because it was OP, but because you were unprepared for it)

If you're that concerned about stratagems, just buy the cards then? It includes the stratagems.

One of the major reasons 8E is one of the better editions in years is because the rules have been concise and easy to follow. With each new Codex, FAQ, Chapter Approvved, etc that gets released, this ease of play will decrease.

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Wildly disagree with this.

Too many rules is definitely a potential problem. Now that every datasheet had unique special rules, there's no way every player can be expected to have memorized literally thousands of datasheets. Add in Forge world, group tactics, traits, relics and hundreds of stratagems and you're getting some serious bloat.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I will say that I prefer the Eldar Codex to the Index, but if the Index had the CORRECT points from the start, as the Codex now does (or at least comes closer to), than yes, I would have preferred the Index.

I mean really, you can add all the CW attributes, relics, WL traits and a handful of Stratagems on 3 pages.
This could have easily been added in the Index from release.

So where's the fluff at?

Fluff? Whats that? Some type of asian food? Fluff's bad! I only want rules!

 MattKing wrote:
Too many rules is definitely a potential problem. Now that every datasheet had unique special rules, there's no way every player can be expected to have memorized literally thousands of datasheets. Add in Forge world, group tactics, traits, relics and hundreds of stratagems and you're getting some serious bloat.

Good thing you don't need to memorize "literally thousands of datasheets" since the rules are right fricking there.

Not everyone has the cash to buy Every single rulebook to know what they're opponents are playing.

I was at a tourney a few weeks ago and I ran into a player running a guilliman/shadowsword list. FW isn't big in our meta so I asked at the beginning what he had. When he rattled off the stats I asked if it had grinding advance, he said no. Next turn he moved/shot at normal BS telling me that it had POTMS. I asked if it anything else special, he said no. Next turn I discover it has an ability that lets it fire if locked in combat. Ugh. The turn after that it can fire at flying things with +1BS. I called BS and demanded to see the rules. He didn't have them, nobody else had them so I let it slide, and Morty went down in a hurricane of 2+ cannon fire. It really isn't reasonable to expect everyone to know everything and it leaves a huge opening for cheating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The rules aren't always "right freekin there"

Here, if somebody doesn't has the rules with him in a tournament, can't use whatever he is trying to use. Thats not a problem of Index vs Codex.

I'd actually be ok with each faction having their own special snowflake codex if the books were smaller, paperback and around $10-15 each (Space marines being acceptable at around $20).
But no, every codex must be a minimum hardback $40.
If I just want a few of the main factions (Marines, Chaos, Guard, Eldar, Nids, etc) that's getting very expensive.

Maybe this is simply a trust thing for me. Not that I cannot trust my opponent not to cheat, but that I have "corrected" too many of my opponent's in the past because the rules were too much for them to remember in a game.
And I am serious about them not cheating, it was very clear that my opponent was being genuine, but I just know their rules better than they did. This includes me reminding them of something that helped them
I should not be spending most of my games either constantly correcting my opponent, or "not playing by the rules" because I don't want to be that guy. Both situations are not fun for me or the opponent.

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Well, I mean If all the rules were in 4 convenient cheep books it wouldn't be much of a problem.

 MattKing wrote:
Well, I mean If all the rules were in 4 convenient cheep books it wouldn't be much of a problem.

You're fooling yourself if you think having all the rules in one place will stop people from misremembering, misreading or forgetting rules.

The main 40k rules are only 8 pages and people still mess the up.

 MattKing wrote:
Not everyone has the cash to buy Every single rulebook to know what they're opponents are playing.

I was at a tourney a few weeks ago and I ran into a player running a guilliman/shadowsword list. FW isn't big in our meta so I asked at the beginning what he had. When he rattled off the stats I asked if it had grinding advance, he said no. Next turn he moved/shot at normal BS telling me that it had POTMS. I asked if it anything else special, he said no. Next turn I discover it has an ability that lets it fire if locked in combat. Ugh. The turn after that it can fire at flying things with +1BS. I called BS and demanded to see the rules. He didn't have them, nobody else had them so I let it slide, and Morty went down in a hurricane of 2+ cannon fire. It really isn't reasonable to expect everyone to know everything and it leaves a huge opening for cheating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The rules aren't always "right freekin there"

If you're at a tourney, you should have asked to see the unit's entry in the book before the game started. If he didn't have the book, call the TO over and explain it and have him rule whether or not your opponent can include the unit, or at least iron out the rules it has before the game starts. Everything I read above totally puts you at fault for being naive.

This is also why I have a digital copy of every index, codex, rulebook, and faq on my phone. I didn't spend much on them either.

Ah yes, the good ol tfg standard to fixing the rules problems. Blame people for being ignorant of the rules and illegally download everything. Good show.

I'm still hung up on the minor price differences in what you are arguing, though. $75 or $120, neither are very much for something that'll last for quite a while. I mean hell, at least a few of us have thrown a couple hundred away for a single textbook, yeah?

M.

People check textbooks for inaccuracies though.
I'd be willing to pay a lot more for codexes if they had an entire educational board checking over every single word and problem.


deviantduck's probably right though, why quibble about the availability and price of everything if we can just download it instead?

 MattKing wrote:
Not everyone has the cash to buy Every single rulebook to know what they're opponents are playing.

I was at a tourney a few weeks ago and I ran into a player running a guilliman/shadowsword list. FW isn't big in our meta so I asked at the beginning what he had.

Shadowswords aren't Forge World, nor is Guilliman.

Are you trying to tell me that nobody had an Imperial Guard or Space Marine book at that tournament?

When he rattled off the stats I asked if it had grinding advance, he said no. Next turn he moved/shot at normal BS telling me that it had POTMS. I asked if it anything else special, he said no. Next turn I discover it has an ability that lets it fire if locked in combat. Ugh. The turn after that it can fire at flying things with +1BS. I called BS and demanded to see the rules. He didn't have them, nobody else had them so I let it slide, and Morty went down in a hurricane of 2+ cannon fire. It really isn't reasonable to expect everyone to know everything and it leaves a huge opening for cheating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The rules aren't always "right freekin there"

If the guy didn't have the two codices that he needed to run that stuff? That's on you for not calling him out right then and there.

Oh, and for the record? Either he cheated or you're lying.
A Shadowsword has:
Shadowsword Targeters--+1 BS when firing at Titanic keyworded units.
Steel Behemoth--It can fire Heavy weapons with no penalty if it moves and fire. It can still fire if it Falls Back during the Movement phase. It can also still fire its weapons if enemy units are in 1" of it (only the Heavy Bolters or Heavy Flamers can target units within 1" of it, the Volcano Cannon has to target something else). Also it only gains a bonus to its save in cover if at least half of the model is obscured from the firer.
And it has Smoke Launchers and Explodes. Also never hits on 2's.

Honestly though, this seems like something that wouldn't get fixed by cheaper books. It seems like something that you'd need fixed by not playing in half-cocked tournaments that don't require people to have the rules.

What is the name of this tank? https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3d/a6/e2/3da6e2b5f89c699d1865c9b27b0e9642.jpg That's what he brought. I thought it was shadowsword.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Fellblade that's the one

 MattKing wrote:
What is the name of this tank?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3d/a6/e2/3da6e2b5f89c699d1865c9b27b0e9642.jpg
That's what he brought. I thought it was shadowsword.

Your link doesn't work.

If it's Forge World and a Marine superheavy? Can't help you there. Most of it is just Heresy stuff ported over. Probably the Sicaran or Fellblade though.

Fellblade that's the one

And you let him use it without being able to show you the rules?

I have been somewhat disappointed by the codices. They mostly removed options rather than added them. I really can't get exited about the faction traits; they just add internal imbalance between the subfactions, and many of them don't even make sense for faction's that they're supposed represent. Having relics is nice, but even there GW has gone with their conversion killing insanity, and no model can take any stuff that doesn't look like the stuff they already come with.

I really don't care about the price though, I will gladly pay about interesting codices, but these really are not that. I think it would have been fine to leave armies using indices for longer, and only release codices when they have something substantial (like rules for new models) to add.

It's a damn minatures game. what was I supposed to throw a tantrum? Y'all need to calm down and take a step back.

 MattKing wrote:
It's a damn minatures game. what was I supposed to throw a tantrum? Y'all need to calm down and take a step back.

"Hey, can you show me the rules for that thing? It seems kind of cool and I'd like to read them."

Wow. What a tantrum!

 MattKing wrote:
Ah yes, the good ol tfg standard to fixing the rules problems. Blame people for being ignorant of the rules and illegally download everything. Good show.

This is 20% your fault and 80% the TO's fault. Shadowswords have rules in the dude's index and codex (hint: IT'S NOT A FW MODEL), so if that guy didn't have a codex, he should have been DQed for not having the necessary materials to compete AND for attempting to cheat. However, you allowed him to continue with fabricated rules, and you did not bring the attention of the TOs to the issue, so you deserve the loss. You should probably also learn from this that studying the meta is an integral part of competing in a wargame, and no one is to blame for your ignorance but yourself.

Tournaments aren't a forgiving environment, so don't compete and expect to have a good time with no preparation and no effort. Yes the codices and Indices cost money to acquire a copy of, but plenty of people have their copy and are willing to either let you take a gander at it or just play games with you so that you become familiarized with their rules. Tournaments are usually organized to help minimize instances of cheating, take advantage of that by calling out questionable behavior and enforcing the preparation rules (bring your rules and supplies to the event, etc).

You'll note that I DID ask to see the rules. He didn't have them. I asked the store, nobody had them. The TO shrugged and life went on. Still a fun game overall.

 MattKing wrote:
I feel the same way. For the most part the indexed were fantastically balanced, internally at least. And while they were a bit bland they covered all the models without having to bring 5 or 6 books to every game.

The indexes get a lot of hate (mostly from power gamers who are still buthurt they lost the invisible 2+/3++/4+++ wraith-knights that shot three or four times a turn) But they accomplished a monumental task of balancing EVERY MODEL in 40k's eclectic history.
They still make a solid game by themselves.

They absolutely didn't balance it. St. Celestine, Magnus, Guilliman/Devastators, Conscripts/Commissars, Razorflocks, Wave Serpents, Tau Commanders, and Malefic Sorcerers, to name a few, were/are all horribly imbalanced. The meta was just reforming, which it did at the NOVA Open.

Nvm not worth it.

 Elbows wrote:
Play Indexhammer. Shouldn't be an issue. Those rules and books didn't disappear.

Of course this limits you out of random pick up games, leagues, tournaments etc. For many basically all games.

The indexes were only ever intended to be a temporary stopgap measure.

 MattKing wrote:
You'll note that I DID ask to see the rules. He didn't have them. I asked the store, nobody had them. The TO shrugged and life went on. Still a fun game overall.

Ok, my mistake. TO did not conduct the event properly then, that's no fault of yours. Mr. Fellblade user should have the datasheet, if not the book, of the models he's using available to review at a moment's notice in a tournament, though with Battlescribe available for free, you should be able to pull his rules up in 5 minutes or less for him.

40k has relatively simple datasheets to digest given the simple nature of the core rules, so I don't think you absolutely need to memorize and remember every unit in the game, though it helps. WM/Hordes requires that you know a good deal about much more complicated individual models/units + their interactions with other models in order to not lose on Turn 2/3, so you complaining about having to remember easy stuff like this is... interesting, to say the least.