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 alextroy wrote:
I find it interesting that everyone goes on and on about the Basilisk having a move (which you don't want to use), a Heavy Bolter (that doesn't really matter for why you purchased it), and more durability (when you really want it out of LOS to avoid all attacks if possible), but no one mentions the Earthshaker Battery's ability to fire when within 1" of enemy models (which is much better than needing to run away from pesky chargers) and the fact you can shoot models that are within 1" of the ESB (much better way to get rid of pesky infantry than running away). So unless engaged by infantry that can actually do much damage to a T7 4+ AS target, the Battery is better able to do it's job and be rescued than a Basilisk.

This is blatantly inconsistent and biased. You're dismissing the advantages of the Basilisk on the assumption that you're always out of LOS and never moving or using your secondary weapons or taking shot, but then you give the static artillery credit for an ability that only works if your opponent not only gains LOS, but successfully charges the battery. You can't have it both ways. And you certainly can't just handwave away the durability issues by assuming that it's somehow rare for units to be able to hurt T7/4+ models in an edition where everything wounds on at least a 6+ and deep striking is easy. I certainly know which unit I'd rather have when my opponent can drop plasma units directly into rapid fire range of my artillery...

Maybe they decided that there is really no place for conscripts -- that the unit was a mistake in the first place -- and so just opted to effectively remove them.

Alcibiades wrote:
Maybe they decided that there is really no place for conscripts -- that the unit was a mistake in the first place -- and so just opted to effectively remove them.

In which case they should have just made a point of actually saying that. A statement to say that this was not how they intended on designing the game to be played, and an explanation of the direction they do want to move forward in, in order to encourage some actual faith in their decisions, which now just come off as either entirely senseless, to outright malicious.

They also should have said that of every god damned Forgeworld entry in the book.

 Fafnir wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Maybe they decided that there is really no place for conscripts -- that the unit was a mistake in the first place -- and so just opted to effectively remove them.

In which case they should have just made a point of actually saying that. A statement to say that this was not how they intended on designing the game to be played, and an explanation of the direction they do want to move forward in, in order to encourage some actual faith in their decisions, which now just come off as either entirely senseless, to outright malicious.

They also should have said that of every god damned Forgeworld entry in the book.

Agree with this; GW's design team needs to be a bit more open about things. When I played Warmachine/Hordes I liked how they would have an article before a nerf explaining WHY it was being nerfed and saying their vision; you still got the people gnashing teeth over it, but at least they could see the reasons behind it. GW's logic and adjustments seem to be just random potshotting with neither rhyme nor reason to them, so people are left scratching their heads at just why X was nerfed but the similar Y was not, or why X was increased by 50% and Y was increased by 35%. If they explained their logic and reasoning it might assuage some of the fears... of course, GW being GW it might equally just out them for being clueless incompetents.

EricDominus wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
90% stuff we've seen so far is heading in the right direction.

This kind of behavior is exactly why we ended up with this book.

Let me get it, you are Marine/Death Guard/Wolf Wolfer?

I will bet on the 3rd one. Congrats, GW has given you some bone to chump, clap-clap.

I'm an ork player. I got nice price cuts for poer klaws. You can't realistically have 'everything' viable. Get happy with what good you actually get. Like for me there's now a way to field part of those 15 meganobz that i have in casual games without auto-loosing. 12 pt price cuts per model is nice. Who cares if those other price cuts don't fix anything and strategems are close to useless. I got something good and i'm gona use it.

 koooaei wrote:

EricDominus wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
90% stuff we've seen so far is heading in the right direction.

This kind of behavior is exactly why we ended up with this book.

Let me get it, you are Marine/Death Guard/Wolf Wolfer?

I will bet on the 3rd one. Congrats, GW has given you some bone to chump, clap-clap.

I'm an ork player. I got nice price cuts for poer klaws. You can't realistically have 'everything' viable. Get happy with what good you actually get. Like for me there's now a way to field part of those 15 meganobz that i have in casual games without auto-loosing. 12 pt price cuts per model is nice. Who cares if those other price cuts don't fix anything and strategems are close to useless. I got something good and i'm gona use it.

It was a step in the right direction, but it was a tiny step. PKs are still crap, they just aren't expensive crap anymore.

Better than nothing.

Price reductions for the SW units were absolutely needed. I couldn't see a SW army being played like it was a SM one with tons of razorbacks and long fangs and no sign of wulfen or TWC. SW are suppposed to be an assault oriented army, not a gunline.

Only dreads were quite effective and they now cost more, which is appropriate.

Making wulfen, wolf guard terminators and TWC more viable was necessary. Just like making razorbacks with twin assault cannons 15ish points more expensive.

Looks like the IG haters got their wish. And facebook has been dreadful with all the people gleefully using Chapter Approved as some kind of way of proving the IG codex was OP.

Anyways, the vast majority of these changes are either token, or downright insulting or done to appease certain players. While I'm not personally affected much by these "balances" it's certainly eye opening to the eye of insanity...

 koooaei wrote:
Better than nothing.

Very true, I am just done with GW's "Better then nothing" approach to orkz. Last year I said I would not buy a single item from GW until they unfethed themselves. So far ive spent a grand total of $0 on GW in over a year. I have bought models, but only from players quitting. I will gladly support a hobby that is doing good work, but right now I feel they aren't.

On the Earthshaker vs Basilisk discussion, I see 2 things.

1.) The battery obviously needed a points increase. If spamming being able to take 4 for every 3 basilisks (or just have more points for other things) is a pretty big deal. I would rather have 4 of the main gun then 3 heavy bolters. As the main gun is the reason I'm buying the thing.

2.) The reason they got over nerfed(and I think this may apply to Malefic lords and even conscripts, which don't have models) is that many people were not using the official models instead buying cheap ww2 artillery models as stand ins. If I can spam 4 carriages for the monetary cost of 1 basilisk why buy the GW model? From GWs standpoint why would they want that to be a thing? At their current point cost so one who bought the FW model because they love the model can still use it and it will be an effective though slightly suboptimal choice, but the competitive scene that is min maxing aren't going to fill the board with cheap replacement models.

Why are people saying the Earthshaker has the same statline as a Basilisk?

I haven't seen anyone say the statlines are the same. The guns are the same, but as everyone has generally acknowledged the Earthshaker is less durable. It has 4 fewer wounds, and a 4+ save instead of 3+, and of course a movement value of 0".

What people have been saying is that none of those stats justify paying *more* than a Basilisk would cost. Which is of course absolutely right, because they're all lower!

Breng77 wrote:
2.) The reason they got over nerfed(and I think this may apply to Malefic lords and even conscripts, which don't have models) is that many people were not using the official models instead buying cheap ww2 artillery models as stand ins. If I can spam 4 carriages for the monetary cost of 1 basilisk why buy the GW model? From GWs standpoint why would they want that to be a thing? At their current point cost so one who bought the FW model because they love the model can still use it and it will be an effective though slightly suboptimal choice, but the competitive scene that is min maxing aren't going to fill the board with cheap replacement models.

This is a profoundly stupid reason if it is true. Model sales should never determine game design, period. If GW genuinely did this then everyone involved should be fired for incompetence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
1.) The battery obviously needed a points increase. If spamming being able to take 4 for every 3 basilisks (or just have more points for other things) is a pretty big deal. I would rather have 4 of the main gun then 3 heavy bolters. As the main gun is the reason I'm buying the thing.

It's not just the heavy bolters. It's greatly reduced durability if anything gets to shoot at your artillery, zero ability to move if they're in a bad position, and the missing secondary weapons. If you're regularly playing games where the negatives of the earthshaker batteries never apply then you probably need to find opponents that better understand the 8th edition meta and bring things like deep striking plasma, non-LOS weapons of their own, etc. You can dispute whether the 4:3 ratio is exactly correct, but at most we're talking about a small point increase that still leaves the earthshaker battery significantly cheaper than the Basilisk, and certainly not more expensive for a weaker unit!

But +1T and it doesn't degrade. Leaving that out looks biased. They are different, claiming they are identical except for what the Basilisk has extra is disingenuous. Proxy your carriage as a Basilisk, convert it, pay the extra 5, whatever. Just move on. It's not a big deal. Not trying to be flippant, but as someone who has both Basilisks and Carriages, this really is much ado about nothing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EricDominus wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
90% stuff we've seen so far is heading in the right direction.

This kind of behavior is exactly why we ended up with this book.

Let me get it, you are Marine/Death Guard/Wolf Wolfer?

I will bet on the 3rd one. Congrats, GW has given you some bone to chump, clap-clap.

As a guard player, I'm gonna go ahead and say you are out of order, stand down soldier. This was a mostly good points adjustment. The fact that GW is actively involved is a huge improvement over the last few years. All you are doing with all this sabre rattling is proving that you can't make everyone happy. It's a very good thing we ended up with this book, that they had planned to release before 8th even came out. Give your feedback, then go have a beer and paint something. But not something from FW.

Spoletta wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Why ig plasma left untouched?
.

What else do you want from IG plasma? It already received a big price hike. Do you no longer want to see it around?
This melta change was 100% expected, it brings it in line with the cost of plasma.

Plasma shouldn'tbe default and only viable. Melta was already worse and now it got price hikd? Wtf? Worse weapon than plasma got price increased while plasma umtouched. Guess gw had sold enough melta models so wants to sell more plasma models

xmbk wrote:
But +1T and it doesn't degrade. Leaving that out looks biased. They are different, claiming they are identical except for what the Basilisk has extra is disingenuous. Proxy your carriage as a Basilisk, convert it, pay the extra 5, whatever. Just move on. It's not a big deal. Not trying to be flippant, but as someone who has both Basilisks and Carriages, this really is much ado about nothing.

+1T, but that doesn't really matter. The relevant anti-tank weapons are going to wound it on the same 3+ either way, and by the time the Basilisk has taken enough wounds to degrade the battery is probably dead. In virtually all situations the Basilisk is significantly more durable.

And no, "just proxy it as the better unit" does not excuse poor design. This is a bad decision that says bad things about the incompetence of GW's rule authors, regardless of the fact that you can get around the change by pretending that your models are the superior unit.

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Why ig plasma left untouched?
.

What else do you want from IG plasma? It already received a big price hike. Do you no longer want to see it around?
This melta change was 100% expected, it brings it in line with the cost of plasma.

Plasma shouldn'tbe default and only viable. Melta was already worse and now it got price hikd? Wtf? Worse weapon than plasma got price increased while plasma umtouched. Guess gw had sold enough melta models so wants to sell more plasma models

Melta is not a worse weapon than plasma, it's a different weapon, specialized in taking down things that cost a lot and for the economy of the game that means that it has an high cost. Melta gun at 12 points for bs3+ models was an anomaly, since the bs3+ models of other factions pay more than that.
You could say that the plasma is a better weapon than melta FOR SCIONS that can deepstrike, which puts the model inside the rapid fire range but outside the melta range.
On all the other guys that can carry this weapon, melta is actually a better choice in a lot of situations, does not require a source of rerolls and doesn't blow up the moment that the enemy inflicts an hit penalty. Now, you could say that the other melta platforms, like veterans, suck. I could agree with this, but the blame there is in the model, not in the weapon. Altering the weapon balance to cover a model issue is bad design.

Can we change the title.of this thread to "Crying about conscripts and earthshaker platforms" so everyone knows what is in here and so I can remember to stop checking this thread?

 Peregrine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
2.) The reason they got over nerfed(and I think this may apply to Malefic lords and even conscripts, which don't have models) is that many people were not using the official models instead buying cheap ww2 artillery models as stand ins. If I can spam 4 carriages for the monetary cost of 1 basilisk why buy the GW model? From GWs standpoint why would they want that to be a thing? At their current point cost so one who bought the FW model because they love the model can still use it and it will be an effective though slightly suboptimal choice, but the competitive scene that is min maxing aren't going to fill the board with cheap replacement models.

This is a profoundly stupid reason if it is true. Model sales should never determine game design, period. If GW genuinely did this then everyone involved should be fired for incompetence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
1.) The battery obviously needed a points increase. If spamming being able to take 4 for every 3 basilisks (or just have more points for other things) is a pretty big deal. I would rather have 4 of the main gun then 3 heavy bolters. As the main gun is the reason I'm buying the thing.

It's not just the heavy bolters. It's greatly reduced durability if anything gets to shoot at your artillery, zero ability to move if they're in a bad position, and the missing secondary weapons. If you're regularly playing games where the negatives of the earthshaker batteries never apply then you probably need to find opponents that better understand the 8th edition meta and bring things like deep striking plasma, non-LOS weapons of their own, etc. You can dispute whether the 4:3 ratio is exactly correct, but at most we're talking about a small point increase that still leaves the earthshaker battery significantly cheaper than the Basilisk, and certainly not more expensive for a weaker unit!

The reason is not profoundly stupid from a buisiness standpoint, encourage people to
Buy your models over proxying things which gain you nothing.


As for the rest the thing has functionally unlimited range, it is never in a bad position, and if people
An deepstrike plasma and hit it you need to play against better opponents. Literally non-Los shooting (so other guard primarily) is the only good
Answer. If you ignore the +1 T we can also ignore the +1 armor save since most anti-tank will make it pretty meaningless. It will degrade before the carriage dies based on durability. All that said the thing should basically be similar in cost due to its main purpose being the same. To deny that means the game can never be balanced because mi-max units will reign supreme. What you are arguing for is upcosting units for being better at things they never want to do in the first place. If I deepstrike plasma on either unit your losing already. If I assault either again you are already losing, you are making an argument that something that has a slight advantage when you are losing should be 20-30 points less expensive. All that does is mean those units are better when you are not losing. There is no debate offensively that you would rather have 4 earthshaker cannons than 3. I agree they should not cost more (my second reason is why they probably do). But they should
be within 10-15 points max probably around 100 points. Otherwise you end up with the prior issue with command squads where they are the auto tak because they are better at their job for the points.

Right - I even said earlier 100 or 105 would be fine.

But costing more is just dumb.

Alcibiades wrote:
Maybe they decided that there is really no place for conscripts -- that the unit was a mistake in the first place -- and so just opted to effectively remove them.

no, they underestimated the fact that meta gamers will turn every stone in order to find the moust cheesy and broken unit combos in order to win. THAT is the biggest issue of ALL games.
as stuch GW faild to place restrictions to conscripts the moment the indexes was released, and are now forced to inderectly remove the conscripts from the meta untill they can remake the rules for them.

conscripts do belong in the codex, but not they way they was, or currently is.
they are a filler unit, something you bring just to add in the last missing points. they are not ment to be more important or effective in ANY task then a normal 10 man infantry unit.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Right - I even said earlier 100 or 105 would be fine.

But costing more is just dumb.

It is as I said I think that may be due to the mass proxying of the unit. Which is a common problem for cheaper FW units in the competitive scene. People want the powerful rules but don't want to spend the extra money if easy good looking alternatives exist. Other games avoid this by disallowing "conversions" but 40k has a history of encouraging them so it is a tough position to be in.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
no, they underestimated the fact that meta gamers will turn every stone in order to find the moust cheesy and broken unit combos in order to win. THAT is the biggest issue of ALL games.

I'm not sure that's necessarily true, but supposing that it is for a moment, GW looks even worse - they've had literally decades to learn that simple lesson!

Spoletta wrote:

Melta is not a worse weapon than plasma, it's a different weapon, specialized in taking down things that cost a lot and for the economy of the game that means that it has an high cost. Melta gun at 12 points for bs3+ models was an anomaly, since the bs3+ models of other factions pay more than that.
You could say that the plasma is a better weapon than melta FOR SCIONS that can deepstrike, which puts the model inside the rapid fire range but outside the melta range.
On all the other guys that can carry this weapon, melta is actually a better choice in a lot of situations, does not require a source of rerolls and doesn't blow up the moment that the enemy inflicts an hit penalty. Now, you could say that the other melta platforms, like veterans, suck. I could agree with this, but the blame there is in the model, not in the weapon. Altering the weapon balance to cover a model issue is bad design.

It's marginally better in highly specialised situation that's hard to get to while notably worse in all else. Anybody that has done elementary school math knows it's worse.

Even on optimal situation it only slightly outperforms. All other situations it's worse. That does not make it worth more. If melta is better weapon why no serious list used it? All but you incapable of seeing it's worth?

 Peregrine wrote:

xmbk wrote:
But +1T and it doesn't degrade. Leaving that out looks biased. They are different, claiming they are identical except for what the Basilisk has extra is disingenuous. Proxy your carriage as a Basilisk, convert it, pay the extra 5, whatever. Just move on. It's not a big deal. Not trying to be flippant, but as someone who has both Basilisks and Carriages, this really is much ado about nothing.

+1T, but that doesn't really matter. The relevant anti-tank weapons are going to wound it on the same 3+ either way, and by the time the Basilisk has taken enough wounds to degrade the battery is probably dead. In virtually all situations the Basilisk is significantly more durable.

And no, "just proxy it as the better unit" does not excuse poor design. This is a bad decision that says bad things about the incompetence of GW's rule authors, regardless of the fact that you can get around the change by pretending that your models are the superior unit.

Again, saying +1T doesn't matter but a HB does is a misrepresentation. There are certainly much more egregious examples of GW's incompetence. As has been pointed out in this thread, this is not the strict comparison detractors make it out to be. It's a difference of a few points, and is easily circumvented. Just be glad you aren't trying to field a Stompa.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Right - I even said earlier 100 or 105 would be fine.

But costing more is just dumb.

I think the problem of the Earthshaker Battery vs Basilisk is the same problem as Grey Knights. Is not something you can fix with only points, they need a redesign from the rules stand-point.

But I have already explained why I think that in a previous post. You shouldn't have units that are +1 or -1 versions of other units without a different tactical role.

Clearly, as long as we have just one good unit we can field anything is okay. All glory to the monobuild.

Sure, none of the complained about changes have much of an effect on me because they're either on units I didn't use in the first place (the Russ variants that got hit, the factions I don't play) or are absolutely trivial to convert to something else at basically no cost (conscripts are literally the same model as 80% of the guard's other infantry options, an Earthshaker can easily be switched between an SPG chassis and a battery stand as long as you didn't glue them in place).

But neither of those makes nuking those units from orbit a *good* thing.

I'm pretty happy with a lot of the changes myself. I love the new missions and some added terrain rules are always welcome.
I also like the new battlezones and the planetstrike stuff.
I'm also kinda happy to see a lot of the FW stuff pointed to remove a large amount from non-narrative play. FW was always for the Acpoc players and such and I always did hate having it in normal pointed games. The points costs now make it less viable to bring those models and better to stick to the basic GW models instead.

Things I'm disappointed about are the lack of rules reducing smite casts per turn and the convoluted rules for targeting characters.

On the topic of the thread I'm overall a bit disappointed in CA I was hoping they would re-print the points for any army with changes so that the points tables would just be replaced, and was hoping for a few more tweaks, though I can see reasons not to make a ton of tweaks to armies that don't have books yet.