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I wouldn't go that far. It takes a lot of practice & patience to use an army with severe limitations well. You're going to lose a lot of games in the meantime.
And the reward for all that is.... you'll lose less often than you were.

how often should GK armies win then on avarge in GWs opinion? Because they can go in depth about army tactics on their twitch channel, when they talk about armies like eldar. Their articles about GK are full of cool, awesome and other words, but no real ways how to play a good GK army. Plus most of their articles about armies were writen by people playing the actual armies, in GK case it was some guy, if I remember right, who wasn't a desinger and started GK a few weeks before that wrote the write up for "how to GK" on their community site.

So either everyone playing GK is stupid or GK should at least tell people how they thought GK should have been build as an army, even if the army ended not working as intended in the end. I even read and watched some of the stuff the army testers said about the codex, and ignoring most of the grunts and funny faces, the whole good stuff came down to NDKs chapter masters and deep striking stuff turn1. So if the codex was designed to work with turn one deep strike in mind, GW should have done something to replace the rule, if they were taking it away from everyone. BA lost their deep strike stuff too, and I do feel for them, but at least they can still stock up on scouts, razorbacks and devastators. They do end up a weaker version of other marines, but at least the build works, it just works better with other marines.
With GK there is no mechanic to replace the turn one deep strike or turn one shunt. Without scouts or some other cheap troop, they can't even build a gunline with re-rolls.

Hope you detected the sarcasm in that post.

Not really, but in have problems in general to notice stuff like that. So no hard feelings on my part. Wouldn't change my view on the anwser either.
I just hope there was some world class GK player that knew how to build a working GK list that wins at least 50/50 against armies being played around right now.

I think we'll see a big point reduction in various Astartes units across all books. Particularly the Grey Knights.
The Space Marine in GK codex in particular have really fallen behind. Things like Centurions need to have their points reduced to a third of what they currently are.
If we're lucky we might see some new universal stratagems.

I expect we'll see a hike in certain Imperial Knights, Eldar units and cheap hordes across he various books. There's currently a disparity in the rules and cheap infantry is favoured ahead of elite units.

Ideally armies should all have a win ratio between 45 - 55%. Currently Eldar are winning 75% of the time, Grey Knights around 20% (Based on FLG tournament data)

Karol wrote:
I just hope there was some world class GK player that knew how to build a working GK list that wins at least 50/50 against armies being played around right now.

One issue is world class players in tournaments are not aiming for 50/50 so they would go for factions that allow better than that.

tneva82 wrote:

Karol wrote:
I just hope there was some world class GK player that knew how to build a working GK list that wins at least 50/50 against armies being played around right now.

One issue is world class players in tournaments are not aiming for 50/50 so they would go for factions that allow better than that.

Well they had to have someone who is good at playing GK to write the codex or at least test the rules. I fully understand that being good at playing GK, is not going to give the same as being good at playing eldar. But there has to be some people that are good at it, at least at the design studio there should be people or at least a person that knows how they should work. I mean they seem to get some factions fine or even more then fine. I don't know who they have to write and test eldar rules, but that dude has to be a great. And am not just talking here in terms of power, but how the various options fit in to other options. Imperial soups seem very cumbersome, maybe even random, while something like DE is plain created with the idea in mind that there should be an ally eldar farseer in that army. You can even see it in to how the points click, no stupid left overs or over spils.

Karol wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Karol wrote:
I just hope there was some world class GK player that knew how to build a working GK list that wins at least 50/50 against armies being played around right now.

One issue is world class players in tournaments are not aiming for 50/50 so they would go for factions that allow better than that.

Well they had to have someone who is good at playing GK to write the codex or at least test the rules. I fully understand that being good at playing GK, is not going to give the same as being good at playing eldar. But there has to be some people that are good at it, at least at the design studio there should be people or at least a person that knows how they should work. I mean they seem to get some factions fine or even more then fine. I don't know who they have to write and test eldar rules, but that dude has to be a great. And am not just talking here in terms of power, but how the various options fit in to other options. Imperial soups seem very cumbersome, maybe even random, while something like DE is plain created with the idea in mind that there should be an ally eldar farseer in that army. You can even see it in to how the points click, no stupid left overs or over spils.

Ummm...Who says they have good GK player writing rules? They don't have 1 writer per faction.

Well the writer doesn't have to be good at just GK. But from little I understand about doing work for hire, they have to pick the best person for the job.

And a person who knows well how to play an army is the best person to writes it the rules. As I said just looking at something like eldar rules, one clearly sees that the person who wrote those had a very good idea what he, or maybe even she, wants the army to work, and how the army is suppose to end up working in various eldar soups.

GW don't care about having a good player writing their books. They'd possibly would struggle to recognise a good player in the first place. There's never been any requirement that the developers are actually any good at the game. GW are much more concerned with the background and flavour of an army than its performance on the tabletop.

That said, it probably helps to have a big advocate for an army on the design staff as they'll probably put more effort into writing those rules, even if only subconsciously.

Slipspace wrote:
GW don't care about having a good player writing their books. They'd possibly would struggle to recognise a good player in the first place. There's never been any requirement that the developers are actually any good at the game. GW are much more concerned with the background and flavour of an army than its performance on the tabletop.

That said, it probably helps to have a big advocate for an army on the design staff as they'll probably put more effort into writing those rules, even if only subconsciously.

Perhaps in the past but not now.

GW's rule team is about as competent as a barrell full of apes with excactly 1 banana in it.

Karol wrote:
Well the writer doesn't have to be good at just GK. But from little I understand about doing work for hire, they have to pick the best person for the job.

And a person who knows well how to play an army is the best person to writes it the rules. As I said just looking at something like eldar rules, one clearly sees that the person who wrote those had a very good idea what he, or maybe even she, wants the army to work, and how the army is suppose to end up working in various eldar soups.

BWAHAHAHA. You serious? GW game designers are basically enthusiastic amateurs who have no idea of even basics of game design. That's how you end up with overexcited fanboy of faction creating total bonker good rules and then come faction no interest gets suck.

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ishagu wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
GW don't care about having a good player writing their books. They'd possibly would struggle to recognise a good player in the first place. There's never been any requirement that the developers are actually any good at the game. GW are much more concerned with the background and flavour of an army than its performance on the tabletop.

That said, it probably helps to have a big advocate for an army on the design staff as they'll probably put more effort into writing those rules, even if only subconsciously.

Perhaps in the past but not now.

Only thing that has changed is more PR. Smoke&mirror.

Slipspace wrote:
GW don't care about having a good player writing their books. They'd possibly would struggle to recognise a good player in the first place. There's never been any requirement that the developers are actually any good at the game. GW are much more concerned with the background and flavour of an army than its performance on the tabletop.

That said, it probably helps to have a big advocate for an army on the design staff as they'll probably put more effort into writing those rules, even if only subconsciously.

If they didn't care about writing books all of their stuff would be totaly random. Which is not the case. They clearly knew what they wanted to achive with books like custodes or knights or all the eldar ones, even with BA they seemed tohave know what to do, they just errated it later one and now the codex doesn't really work.

BWAHAHAHA. You serious? GW game designers are basically enthusiastic amateurs who have no idea of even basics of game design. That's how you end up with overexcited fanboy of faction creating total bonker good rules and then come faction no interest gets suck.

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.

I don't know what the benchmark for profesional is that you are using. And while am not advocating the your paid, so your are a pro point of view, the people at the studio seem to be working there for many years and many editions. You can't be an amatuer if you work at some place for 20 years and you never get fired. Same like you can't re enter university league just because you suddenly decied to go back to school when your 38. I understand that something may have gone wrong durning the creating the book process. Stuff happens, a guy at my store, and I know how much weight a guy-at-my-store type of argument has weight, told me that in AoS a full new updated plastic faction got removed, because someone forgot to add them. Maybe someone forgot to add an important rule GK were suppose to have, and now GW is now not willing to say what it was. Am cool with that, and it is not like w40k is a car engine that may blow up and kill people. But it would be nice if GW explained how they think . In the FAQ I found it nice that they did explain why they think some stuff has to be changed. It sucked to GK players to not get any FAQ, so no explanation. But they could have at least write an article. They have a web site, a communit page etc it takes max a few hours to write one and get it approved by who ever is boss there.

I don't know what the benchmark for profesional is that you are using. And while am not advocating the your paid, so your are a pro point of view, the people at the studio seem to be working there for many years and many editions. You can't be an amatuer if you work at some place for 20 years and you never get fired. Same like you can't re enter university league just because you suddenly decied to go back to school when your 38. I understand that something may have gone wrong durning the creating the book process. Stuff happens, a guy at my store, and I know how much weight a guy-at-my-store type of argument has weight, told me that in AoS a full new updated plastic faction got removed, because someone forgot to add them. Maybe someone forgot to add an important rule GK were suppose to have, and now GW is now not willing to say what it was. Am cool with that, and it is not like w40k is a car engine that may blow up and kill people. But it would be nice if GW explained how they think . In the FAQ I found it nice that they did explain why they think some stuff has to be changed. It sucked to GK players to not get any FAQ, so no explanation. But they could have at least write an article. They have a web site, a communit page etc it takes max a few hours to write one and get it approved by who ever is boss there.

Ohhh boi, duration of employment does not equate competency, infact in terms of rules it leads to a fossilization of these, and that's one of the core problems 40k has.

tneva82 wrote:

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.

Surely balance changes like the Rule of 3 make it more difficult for GW to sell people lots of stuff?

 nurgle5 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.

Surely balance changes like the Rule of 3 make it more difficult for GW to sell people lots of stuff?

Maybee they saw that gak went south to an unbearable level and they'd end up with a 7th ed 2.0 ?
I memeber the Malefic spam, i shudder to imagine what would've happened if they would not have thrown out that band-aid.

Not Online!!! wrote:

I don't know what the benchmark for profesional is that you are using. And while am not advocating the your paid, so your are a pro point of view, the people at the studio seem to be working there for many years and many editions. You can't be an amatuer if you work at some place for 20 years and you never get fired. Same like you can't re enter university league just because you suddenly decied to go back to school when your 38. I understand that something may have gone wrong durning the creating the book process. Stuff happens, a guy at my store, and I know how much weight a guy-at-my-store type of argument has weight, told me that in AoS a full new updated plastic faction got removed, because someone forgot to add them. Maybe someone forgot to add an important rule GK were suppose to have, and now GW is now not willing to say what it was. Am cool with that, and it is not like w40k is a car engine that may blow up and kill people. But it would be nice if GW explained how they think . In the FAQ I found it nice that they did explain why they think some stuff has to be changed. It sucked to GK players to not get any FAQ, so no explanation. But they could have at least write an article. They have a web site, a communit page etc it takes max a few hours to write one and get it approved by who ever is boss there.

Ohhh boi, duration of employment does not equate competency, infact in terms of rules it leads to a fossilization of these, and that's one of the core problems 40k has.

This is 100% not the case, but an additional point to take into account.

Due to employment law etc over here in the UK, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to fire someone on simply “incompetence” grounds.

I think the problem we are currently seeing with the codex creep is the same as it’s been for years at GW. Hell, I even called out codex creep 100% going to happen shortly after the Marines Dex came out, even though everyone, at that point, was on the “most play tested edition ever etc” bandwagon (even I was…). All this does is imply that somewhere along the line, GW are getting things very wrong when it comes to professional game design. They are however getting incredible business results off the back of it though.

GW have shown, this edition, that they have no issues with changing things they got wrong. If something big was accidently missed out of the GK codex, then, they’d simply just errata it, like they did with the SW WL traits. Sure, it gives us all another thing to moan about for a couple of weeks, but, at least they seem to be rolling with it most of the time.

The early codices were simply just not done with a view to the future. Whether this was intentional, or later on they got more license to do things for the other dexs, who knows. All we can do is wait for them to fix it, whilst providing continuous feedback on the issues.

The early codices were simply just not done with a view to the future. Whether this was intentional, or later on they got more license to do things for the other dexs, who knows. All we can do is wait for them to fix it, whilst providing continuous feedback on the issues.

I have had a suspicion that they were more cautious with the monodex powerlevels at the start. Maybee from their perspective they thought that people would not soup as much and therefore missed some rather nasty combinations of the early 8th edition.

As for my point above, you still have some of the skirmish nature of the rogue trader days, and often times they just built up on the editions (5th-7th ) were in essence quite similar in their basic function, and ofcourse suffering from some of the same problems.

I agree however that their CA policy, whilest also a cashgrab, atleast shows that they are willingly working to get a certain level of balance.

Not Online!!! wrote:

The early codices were simply just not done with a view to the future. Whether this was intentional, or later on they got more license to do things for the other dexs, who knows. All we can do is wait for them to fix it, whilst providing continuous feedback on the issues.

I have had a suspicion that they were more cautious with the monodex powerlevels at the start. Maybee from their perspective they thought that people would not soup as much and therefore missed some rather nasty combinations of the early 8th edition.

As for my point above, you still have some of the skirmish nature of the rogue trader days, and often times they just built up on the editions (5th-7th ) were in essence quite similar in their basic function, and ofcourse suffering from some of the same problems.

I agree however that their CA policy, whilest also a cashgrab, atleast shows that they are willingly working to get a certain level of balance.

I think that Games Workshop really needs to use this Chapter Approved as a showcase for how much they are willing to change. It's the perfect opportunity to prove that they are willing to make alterations and fix their past mistakes. We'll see when we start getting hints as to what's to come.

This thread seems to have devolved into armchair games design again.

Everyone's a critic.

Lemondish wrote:
This thread seems to have devolved into armchair games design again.

Everyone's a critic.

Probably.
But A: i am a customer, i pay they provide, if the product is bad i am allowed to complain/ provide Feedback.(bad rules, unbalanced, etc. Are valid points for criticism)

This is the core principle of a market, just as when they don't change i can go to another Provider, problem there though is that Gw got the market monopoly to a degree atleast.

Lemondish wrote:
This thread seems to have devolved into armchair games design again.

Everyone's a critic.

Because gw cant do simple arithmetic.

Karol wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
GW don't care about having a good player writing their books. They'd possibly would struggle to recognise a good player in the first place. There's never been any requirement that the developers are actually any good at the game. GW are much more concerned with the background and flavour of an army than its performance on the tabletop.

That said, it probably helps to have a big advocate for an army on the design staff as they'll probably put more effort into writing those rules, even if only subconsciously.

If they didn't care about writing books all of their stuff would be totaly random. Which is not the case. They clearly knew what they wanted to achive with books like custodes or knights or all the eldar ones, even with BA they seemed tohave know what to do, they just errated it later one and now the codex doesn't really work.

I didn't say they didn't care. There's obviously a design brief for each Codex, with certain play styles they want to promote. That doesn't mean they're successful at promoting those styles, or even that those styles are worth promoting in the first place. Grey Knights, for example, definitely fit the basic brief they would have had for the army: more elite than even Space Marines and psychically strong. The problem is the balance of the Codex in comparison to others is terrible. That's where you need playtesters and designers who are actually good enough at the game to understand it on a more fundamental level than GW's designers seem to.

Karol wrote:

BWAHAHAHA. You serious? GW game designers are basically enthusiastic amateurs who have no idea of even basics of game design. That's how you end up with overexcited fanboy of faction creating total bonker good rules and then come faction no interest gets suck.

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.

I don't know what the benchmark for profesional is that you are using. And while am not advocating the your paid, so your are a pro point of view, the people at the studio seem to be working there for many years and many editions. You can't be an amatuer if you work at some place for 20 years and you never get fired. Same like you can't re enter university league just because you suddenly decied to go back to school when your 38. I understand that something may have gone wrong durning the creating the book process. Stuff happens, a guy at my store, and I know how much weight a guy-at-my-store type of argument has weight, told me that in AoS a full new updated plastic faction got removed, because someone forgot to add them. Maybe someone forgot to add an important rule GK were suppose to have, and now GW is now not willing to say what it was. Am cool with that, and it is not like w40k is a car engine that may blow up and kill people. But it would be nice if GW explained how they think . In the FAQ I found it nice that they did explain why they think some stuff has to be changed. It sucked to GK players to not get any FAQ, so no explanation. But they could have at least write an article. They have a web site, a communit page etc it takes max a few hours to write one and get it approved by who ever is boss there.

Professionalism isn't just about being paid to do something, it's about the approach to the process too. GW's biggest problem has always been a lack of direction for each edition. Even when they had people like Gav Thorpe in charge of WH or Andy Chambers in charge of 40k, you never get the impression they have a proper vision for the system. That's how you end up with things like Formations appearing halfway through 7th edition. If they had proper design briefs and goals things like that wouldn't happen. Sure, you can make mistakes, but I feel like a lot of GW's bigger problems come from a lack of oversight of the process as a whole.

ccs wrote:


I wouldn't go that far. It takes a lot of practice & patience to use an army with severe limitations well. You're going to lose a lot of games in the meantime.
And the reward for all that is.... you'll lose less often than you were.

The reward is it makes you a better player faster if you stick with it.
I started in 5th edition with Eldar (coincidentally probably the only time Eldar were a low tier army in their entire history, Eldar kept their 4th edition codex all through 5th edition, and the reign of terror did not begin until the 6th edition book was released). As an army, Eldar were easily out-shot and out-fought by Space Marines due to the high cost per unit and low average durability. But they could still win through clean play, careful target priority, and using maneuverability to pick fights that favored them. There is a certain appeal to high movement precision armies that require precise play to win, its why I played Bretonnia through 8th edition Fantasy.

Starting with Eldar in 5th caused a lot of trouble early on while I was getting the ropes of the game down, as every mistake I made, and as a new player I made a fair few! Was heavily punished by the precision nature of my army. When every mistake you made is amplified and has devastating consequences for your army you are more easily able to identify what those mistakes are and make a mental note not to do so again in the future. A player using a more forgiving army may not notice a mistake, and thus may not ever have an opportunity to fix that. After 6th edition came around, I fell out of love with Eldar, and largely migrated to my Emperor's Children as my primary army which felt more fun to play and wasn't as frustrating for my opponents.

Anyway, GK are currently in a similar position. Frankly, @Karol, you don't have a good army, winning with Grey Knights requires a huge degree of precision play, making smart decisions with target priority and using the tools at your disposal effectively and efficiently. It requires capitalizing on your opponents mistakes and not making mistakes of your own. Its like training with a weighted vest. You are putting yourself in a situation where you can only win through good play, thus teaching you what good play is faster. If you were to get to a 51% win rate with GK for instance, then switched to Drukhari... you would probably be surprised at your level of play.

Now of course, this doesn't really do any good if you are already a good player , which is why tournament top tier players change armies frequently to keep up with the meta. They already know what good play is, if a player is winning major GTs chances are they are not making mistakes either. They don't need or want to get good "faster" so if they play GK, its for a fun one off game or to give themselves a challenge or a handicap. Also, keep in mind that GK were great once, and could be again. GK were top dogs at the tail end of 5th edition before their fall from grace, and it is entirely possible for them to rise to power again in the future. I wouldn't rule it out.

Wasn't they good for like 6 months in 30 years of w40k? I hope, I won't have to wait another 30 years for GW to make them good. who knows if the game is going to alive then, or even if I am going to be alive.


I still don't understand the arguments people rise that GW is incommpetent in their writing . They clearly knew how to write the codex eldar, dark eldar, harlis if someone wanted to soup them, and Inari are plain great and combining all 3 of those.

But it isn't just eldar. The BA codex, when it did come out was fun and powerful. The SW codex may not be powerful, but it clearly is fun to play with. DW are a great way to play starter set primaris.
Knights, custodes and IG seem to be fine too.

I don't know about other factions as no one plays them here.
But even if all of them are bad, even as bad as GK, which I doubt is the case, the majority of book still seem to be writen well enough. Now am not going in to FAQ killing BAs, but they seem to get at least some of the stuff right.

What could be seen as incompetance is one person messing up something with the GK codex. Some people said that GW bases their changes on feed back from tournaments. And they are able to go in to instant reaction mode, if they see something they hate, like the 0" charge. I just think that maybe, because no one plays GK there, they don't even know that something is missing from the codex, that should have been there. I wouldn't even be suprised if that is why GK didn't get a FAQ like everyone else.

 nurgle5 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Add to that GW's policy of no balance so that people keep buying newest hotness and there you go.

Surely balance changes like the Rule of 3 make it more difficult for GW to sell people lots of stuff?

Logic does not apply here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
Wasn't they good for like 6 months in 30 years of w40k? I hope, I won't have to wait another 30 years for GW to make them good. who knows if the game is going to alive then, or even if I am going to be alive.

Perspective. In prior editions the wait could have been 4 to 6 years.

If GW doesn't throw GK a bone in this CA THEN you riot and get their attention to get in for March FAQ.

There are tools available to communicate with GW and multiple opportunities for them to make the changes - and they HAVE been making changes.

Karol wrote:

What could be seen as incompetance is one person messing up something with the GK codex. Some people said that GW bases their changes on feed back from tournaments. And they are able to go in to instant reaction mode, if they see something they hate, like the 0" charge. I just think that maybe, because no one plays GK there, they don't even know that something is missing from the codex, that should have been there. I wouldn't even be suprised if that is why GK didn't get a FAQ like everyone else.

Part of the problem GK has had is they have very low unit diversity on the whole. Arguably the issue has come from the separation of GK from Inquisition, and before 5th edition, they were linked with Sisters of Battle. Inquisitors and their henchmen gave GK much needed access to troop diversity, war gear accessories, and chaff- all of which would greatly help them this edition. This lack of diversity- especially in wargear- has been the primary thing holding GK back.

GK aren't unsalvagable, they just need to be buffed.
They need 2 attacks base on all of their models to make their expensive force weapons worthwhile and allow players to branch out from over reliance on falcions.
Psybolt Ammo needs to be baked into their bolter weapons, giving their base storm bolters s5 all the time.
Their price needs to go down to reflect that at the end of the day they are still just a 1 wound power armor model. (but this is a change that needs to happen to marines across the board).
Change their Rights of Banishment to scale up similar to Warlock's Smite (d3 at 7+ men,)
Change Psycannons to d2 so they can legitimately threaten vehicles.
Let GK re-roll all failed saving throws against codex daemons to counter the respawn strategem. (sacred armor rule)

I doubt space marines are gonna receive the point reductions people is hoping, and I doubt the units people expect to go up in points will go up in points, at least not in enough numbers for people to be sattisfied.

 Galas wrote:
I doubt space marines are gonna receive the point reductions people is hoping, and I doubt the units people expect to go up in points will go up in points, at least not in enough numbers for people to be sattisfied.

People are expecting more than what they are realistically going to get. I think the game needs some bigger changes, but we're not gonna get it in Chapter Approved. It's already hit the printers about a month ago after all.

 Galas wrote:
I doubt space marines are gonna receive the point reductions people is hoping, and I doubt the units people expect to go up in points will go up in points, at least not in enough numbers for people to be sattisfied.

I'm more than happy to be done with 8th ed, then. Tired of ig auto-wins.

 Galas wrote:
I doubt space marines are gonna receive the point reductions people is hoping, and I doubt the units people expect to go up in points will go up in points, at least not in enough numbers for people to be sattisfied.

I agree people won't get what they want, but they might get what they need - slow deliberate changes that don't immediately cause new issues (other than uncovering issues from other sources).

You can go look at GW's job openings right now, on their own website, and it will say right there in the application form that they do not hire based on skill.