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What about AdMech? They probably have the second worst codex after Grey Knights.

 Bulldogging wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

I thought pure Admech were the worst.

I honestly don't follow rankings much lately, but I thought they were having almost no showing in tournaments.

If GW really cared about their game, they would simply do monthly/bi-monthy updates in PDF form for points for free. Much like PC games. No reason why balancing should take an eternity in the modern age.

There are a few reasons why updating 40k like it's a MOBA isn't a great idea: it's too much to expect more casual players to keep track of extremely frequent updates (as opposed to a video game, where the changes apply whether the player is aware of them or not) and there would be so little data between updates that GW would have little more than gut feeling to base changes on (as opposed to a video game, where literally every played game is recorded for win rate statistics and there are many more total games being played).

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

Not really...its entirely possible necron can be "corrected" with a mere application of point modifications. actually it seems to me to be the case.

Assuming they did indeed say that, the possibility he meant that the rules themselves are fine, even if points are not, seems within reasonable doubt.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

I thought pure Admech were the worst.

I honestly don't follow rankings much lately, but I thought they were having almost no showing in tournaments.

If GW really cared about their game, they would simply do monthly/bi-monthy updates in PDF form for points for free. Much like PC games. No reason why balancing should take an eternity in the modern age.

There are a few reasons why updating 40k like it's a MOBA isn't a great idea: it's too much to expect more casual players to keep track of extremely frequent updates (as opposed to a video game, where the changes apply whether the player is aware of them or not) and there would be so little data between updates that GW would have little more than gut feeling to base changes on (as opposed to a video game, where literally every played game is recorded for win rate statistics and there are many more total games being played).

Bingo. Keeping up with FAQs as it is is a headache; also, I'm sure they have some people playtest their ideas a little before just making points drops. Video games they generally have patches planned in advance, it just takes a little time to implement them, and they automatically go into effect; points changes and erratas actually require players to track them down, read them, and either print or manually change their books after each one.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

Not really...its entirely possible necron can be "corrected" with a mere application of point modifications. actually it seems to me to be the case.

Assuming they did indeed say that, the possibility he meant that the rules themselves are fine, even if points are not, seems within reasonable doubt.

This was probably the intention of what he was saying. Though it was from back in July when I visited Warhammer Wold so opinions could have changed since then. Still, it's all I've got to base my predictions on. The opinions of the playtesters isn't hard to come by if you search for it long enough.

Any signs of life for the inquisition in all of this ?

ShaneMarsh wrote:
The Sisters' kit vis a vi weapons is already limited in a very restricted fashion. It is no shock that a strategem in the nature of the Holy Trinity exists. It just needs a bump in effectiveness. +1 to wound is fine. What else would it need? +1 to hit? +1 to wound, re-rolling wounds?

It just needs to be a reprint of VotLW, not some arbitrarily restricted version of it.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The new Sisters stratagem seems oddly niche, doesn't it? You have to build your squads in a very specific and kinda counter-intuitive way, and as a reward you get the same benefit as the far more flexible Veterans of the Long War. I get what they were going for but I think you'd need more incentive to include an anti-infantry and anti-vehicle special weapon in the same unit.

Not really, literally every sisters squad with a gun has a bolter, and a combi flammer is an auto take on sarge, so now all you need to do is take that melta gun in the unit. The strat is incredibly wordy, but that's because in the past their strats are rules lawyered to death, so I am guessing it was typed out like that in order to avoid needing an errata

So for example a normal sister squad with a combi flamer and melta gun, or combi melta and flamer you pick, can unload on an ork boy squad and everything is getting +1 to wound. Namely it's the bolter death your after. Heck, if it is a melta dominion squad, just put a combi flamer on the sister superior and take one extra bolter model and suddenly all 4 melta guns are wounding tanks on 2's.

Is it more hokey then veterans of the long war? Sure, but VoTLW is absolutely busted at 1cp and won't last an update. This is far more specific to which weapons are benefiting which is a good thing.

A.T. wrote:
Any signs of life for the inquisition in all of this ?

ShaneMarsh wrote:
The Sisters' kit vis a vi weapons is already limited in a very restricted fashion. It is no shock that a strategem in the nature of the Holy Trinity exists. It just needs a bump in effectiveness. +1 to wound is fine. What else would it need? +1 to hit? +1 to wound, re-rolling wounds?

It just needs to be a reprint of VotLW, not some arbitrarily restricted version of it.

Guy on Reddit (has an account here and linked his post too) says GW currently thinks Inquisition and ilk is better for just Kill Teams it seems.

Audustum wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Any signs of life for the inquisition in all of this ?

ShaneMarsh wrote:
The Sisters' kit vis a vi weapons is already limited in a very restricted fashion. It is no shock that a strategem in the nature of the Holy Trinity exists. It just needs a bump in effectiveness. +1 to wound is fine. What else would it need? +1 to hit? +1 to wound, re-rolling wounds?

It just needs to be a reprint of VotLW, not some arbitrarily restricted version of it.

Guy on Reddit (has an account here and linked his post too) says GW currently thinks Inquisition and ilk is better for just Kill Teams it seems.

Good thing GW released such a cohesive and awesome ruleset for inquisition in Killteam, where their model line is indeed much better suited.

Darsath wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

Not really...its entirely possible necron can be "corrected" with a mere application of point modifications. actually it seems to me to be the case.

Assuming they did indeed say that, the possibility he meant that the rules themselves are fine, even if points are not, seems within reasonable doubt.

This was probably the intention of what he was saying. Though it was from back in July when I visited Warhammer Wold so opinions could have changed since then. Still, it's all I've got to base my predictions on. The opinions of the playtesters isn't hard to come by if you search for it long enough.

Oh, if it was from back in July then their opinion has probably changed then. At that point we still thought Extermination Protocols might carry the codex to viability, it wasn't 100% clear that Necrons were bottom tier like it is now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Audustum wrote:

A.T. wrote:
Any signs of life for the inquisition in all of this ?

ShaneMarsh wrote:
The Sisters' kit vis a vi weapons is already limited in a very restricted fashion. It is no shock that a strategem in the nature of the Holy Trinity exists. It just needs a bump in effectiveness. +1 to wound is fine. What else would it need? +1 to hit? +1 to wound, re-rolling wounds?

It just needs to be a reprint of VotLW, not some arbitrarily restricted version of it.

Guy on Reddit (has an account here and linked his post too) says GW currently thinks Inquisition and ilk is better for just Kill Teams it seems.

Good thing GW released such a cohesive and awesome ruleset for inquisition in Killteam, where their model line is indeed much better suited.

It's been essentially confirmed that the next Rogue Trader-esque expansion will have an Inquisition kill team in it.

Unfortunate about the inquisition if true. Would be better to roll them back into the sisters/witch hunters if that is the case.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Is it more hokey then veterans of the long war? Sure

It adds the following restrictions:
-cannot be used in assault, cannot be used by characters, cannot be used on deepstrike, cannot be used by ministorum (whereas VotLW can be used by non-marines), cannot be used against targets more than 8" away, cannot be used with non-trinity weapons, cannot be used with sensible split fire (squad must shoot anti-infantry weapons at tanks, anti-tank weapons and infantry while using it), requires non-optimal and/or additional unit wargear selections.
It's almost as farcical as the warlord trait from the last chapter approved.

Throwing one combi melta into an infantry unit seems a small price to pay for +1 to wound on all the other guns. Or one combi-flamer into a tank/monster to give a melta squad the benefit. 8" range sucks though, maybe there is a way to increase flamer range. I'm not saying it's great but I think it's a bit early to call it bad.

The wordiness is entirely due to translating common speech into legalese. The stratagem is essentially "Pick a unit that is shooting all at one target and the shooting includes at least one flamer, melta, and bolter. It gets +1 to wound with those shots."

Blame rules layers for always trying to bend stuff into advantages they really know they aren't supposed to be getting.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Darsath wrote:
From what I've heard from Games Workshop and a couple of the playtesters that they use for testing changes, they feel that Necrons are already in a decent spot. I wouldn't expect any particularly substantial changes in Chapter Approved. Certainly not a change in rules or mechanics.

That is actually extremely embarrassing. We're the worst major faction in the game by a long shot, our performance is comparable to the Grey Knights they felt they needed to specifically call out as getting buffed in Chapter Approved.

I thought pure Admech were the worst.

I honestly don't follow rankings much lately, but I thought they were having almost no showing in tournaments.

If GW really cared about their game, they would simply do monthly/bi-monthy updates in PDF form for points for free. Much like PC games. No reason why balancing should take an eternity in the modern age.

There are a few reasons why updating 40k like it's a MOBA isn't a great idea: it's too much to expect more casual players to keep track of extremely frequent updates (as opposed to a video game, where the changes apply whether the player is aware of them or not) and there would be so little data between updates that GW would have little more than gut feeling to base changes on (as opposed to a video game, where literally every played game is recorded for win rate statistics and there are many more total games being played).

Well, this could be easily solved if GW partnered with Battlescribe, or put out an equally good app and kept it up to date. Then everyone would know whats up. And if you are a group which wants books only and doesnt care about having bad armys around for ages you can still get the codex and care about nothing else.

A.T. wrote:
Unfortunate about the inquisition if true. Would be better to roll them back into the sisters/witch hunters if that is the case.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Is it more hokey then veterans of the long war? Sure

It adds the following restrictions:
-cannot be used in assault, cannot be used by characters, cannot be used on deepstrike, cannot be used by ministorum (whereas VotLW can be used by non-marines), cannot be used against targets more than 8" away, cannot be used with non-trinity weapons, cannot be used with sensible split fire (squad must shoot anti-infantry weapons at tanks, anti-tank weapons and infantry while using it), requires non-optimal and/or additional unit wargear selections.
It's almost as farcical as the warlord trait from the last chapter approved.

Pretty sure it can be used in deepstrike if it's also used with the stratagem to extend flamers to 12" if I'm remembering it correctly.

 kastelen wrote:
Pretty sure it can be used in deepstrike if it's also used with the stratagem to extend flamers to 12" if I'm remembering it correctly.

Nope - that's a seraphim stratagem and their melta options are limited to a 6" range.

Cinderspirit wrote:
Well, this could be easily solved if GW partnered with Battlescribe, or put out an equally good app and kept it up to date. Then everyone would know whats up. And if you are a group which wants books only and doesnt care about having bad armys around for ages you can still get the codex and care about nothing else.

This solution still doesn't address the overall larger issue, which is sample size. League of Legends has a playerbase of something crazy like 20 million players, which results in a massive amount of data for Riot to pull from when looking for trends. A quick glance at lolalytics.com shows that data for 8 million matches has been collected over the last 7 days alone, with the average champion having 2000 recorded games. That is a LOT of data to look for trends in.

By comparison, 40K has like 50 dedicated playtesters at most. If all they did for 80 hours a month was play 40K you're looking at around 25 matches a month. There's like 14 unique factions, so if you wanted to get gametime with every faction that's 1 match per faction per month. There is no way to get any meaningful information from sample sizes that small.

I'm not trying to absolve GW of fething up when it comes to balancing their game. I'm just pointing out that the tools they have to work with are minuscule when compared to most video games. There are about as many unique units in 40K as there are unique heroes in League, but GW has a fraction of the data and manpower to work with.

There are 91 possible pairings of 14 factions, so if you want to do 5 games of each, that's 455 games. Definitely enough time in a year for 50 players to write a comprehensive Chapter Approved. Hell, with 4 players per faction acting as advocates for the faction, combined with tourney data, there shouldn't be any excuse.

If anything, it's abundantly clear that some factions are just plain underpowered and incoherent. Grey Knights and AdMech need core rule changes, perhaps a new codex. Necrons and Space Marines need points adjustments.

I hope that once all of the codexes are out that they will do all of the balance changes in CA such that every player will only need a codex plus a copy of the most recent CA.

A.T. wrote:
Unfortunate about the inquisition if true. Would be better to roll them back into the sisters/witch hunters if that is the case.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Is it more hokey then veterans of the long war? Sure

It adds the following restrictions:
-cannot be used in assault, cannot be used by characters, cannot be used on deepstrike, cannot be used by ministorum (whereas VotLW can be used by non-marines), cannot be used against targets more than 8" away, cannot be used with non-trinity weapons, cannot be used with sensible split fire (squad must shoot anti-infantry weapons at tanks, anti-tank weapons and infantry while using it), requires non-optimal and/or additional unit wargear selections.
It's almost as farcical as the warlord trait from the last chapter approved.

LOL, man, such a ingenuous way of describing it. That's like me listing all the units that can't utilize endless cacophony. Can't be used by helbrutes, can't be used by demon engines, can't be used by land raiders, can't be used by mauler fiends can't be used by Kharne can't be used by XYZ.... Therefore is sucks.

Pretty sure this stratagem with dominions and the act of faith to move again is terrifying. Jesus, this strat on a 20 man sister squad moving twice is terrifying. You make it sound like having a combi weapon and special weapon in sisters squads is a rarity. Or that shooting a melta gun at infantry in order to get +1 to wound on a potential 36 rapid firing bolter shots is not worth the target selection lol.

 Red Corsair wrote:
LOL, man, such a ingenuous way of describing it.

It is what it is. Veterans of the long war with a whole string of requirements and limitations slapped onto it for no good reason.

So because Heretic Astartes get a no limitation +1 to Wound Stratagem, any other +1 to Wound Stratagem that has any limitations are crap? If you say so.

The stratagem looked strong to me (haven't played a lot of 8th edition games), but apparently the VOTLW stratagem is absolutely bonkers! No restriction on it at all? It's just “Select any unit you want, they get +1 to wound”?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
The stratagem looked strong to me (haven't played a lot of 8th edition games), but apparently the VOTLW stratagem is absolutely bonkers! No restriction on it at all? It's just “Select any unit you want, they get +1 to wound”?

Not quite any unit, but specifically a HERETIC ASTARTES INFANTRY or BIKER unit.

Oh thanks!
So they can't use it on tanks.
Do HA get good shooting infantry units? Havocs? Noise Marines? Are Obliterator infantry? And good?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Oh thanks!
So they can't use it on tanks.
Do HA get good shooting infantry units? Havocs? Noise Marines? Are Obliterator infantry? And good?

Oblits are infantry, and Havocs are decent. I can't speak to Noise Marines. But Oblits become pretty nuts with that Stratagem.

Cinderspirit wrote:
Well, this could be easily solved if GW partnered with Battlescribe, or put out an equally good app and kept it up to date. Then everyone would know whats up. And if you are a group which wants books only and doesnt care about having bad armys around for ages you can still get the codex and care about nothing else.

It wouldn't solve anything, because not everyone uses Battlescribe and not everyone would use Battlescribe if GW sponsored it. You'd still have people showing up at the local store every month only for their opponent to tell them "no, that's not how that works anymore" or "no, your point costs are off as of last week". I wouldn't be affected by this because I do keep up with the latest rules changes, but I know there are many who do not, and it's far less frustrating if that mistake happens twice every year rather than every month.

It also still doesn't solve the other problem that GW would be making these frequent changes by basically throwing darts at a board with how little data they would have to work with. Again, the officially recorded games GW can look at and analyze are dwarfed by the number that Riot, Blizzard, etc. can examine.

Suzuteo wrote:
There are 91 possible pairings of 14 factions, so if you want to do 5 games of each, that's 455 games. Definitely enough time in a year for 50 players to write a comprehensive Chapter Approved. Hell, with 4 players per faction acting as advocates for the faction, combined with tourney data, there shouldn't be any excuse.

If anything, it's abundantly clear that some factions are just plain underpowered and incoherent. Grey Knights and AdMech need core rule changes, perhaps a new codex. Necrons and Space Marines need points adjustments.

I hope that once all of the codexes are out that they will do all of the balance changes in CA such that every player will only need a codex plus a copy of the most recent CA.

There's little time to test and retest amidst the barrage of codexes and beta changes ripping through. I do hope next year is a little more calm.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Cinderspirit wrote:
Well, this could be easily solved if GW partnered with Battlescribe, or put out an equally good app and kept it up to date. Then everyone would know whats up. And if you are a group which wants books only and doesnt care about having bad armys around for ages you can still get the codex and care about nothing else.

It wouldn't solve anything, because not everyone uses Battlescribe and not everyone would use Battlescribe if GW sponsored it. You'd still have people showing up at the local store every month only for their opponent to tell them "no, that's not how that works anymore" or "no, your point costs are off as of last week". I wouldn't be affected by this because I do keep up with the latest rules changes, but I know there are many who do not, and it's far less frustrating if that mistake happens twice every year rather than every month.

It also still doesn't solve the other problem that GW would be making these frequent changes by basically throwing darts at a board with how little data they would have to work with. Again, the officially recorded games GW can look at and analyze are dwarfed by the number that Riot, Blizzard, etc. can examine.

We dont need changes every 2 weeks. But maybe every 2-3 months would be cool. And you will always face guys who dont know all rules and changes. It happens all the time in esports aswell. Someone takes a break for a month, and after that he will have to adapt to new things. I am all for regular updates, and I think GW gets enough data through events and the internet.

I have no idea where you've been Cinder - but here in the real world we've actually been getting changes every 2 to 3 months since 8th dropped due to the fast codex releases. Meta has been shifting after each book, and it affected everyone.

Be clearer on what you want. If it starts to sound like you want your pet faction focused on...well, tough luck kid.

Suzuteo wrote:
What about AdMech? They probably have the second worst codex after Grey Knights.

*laughs in Space Marine*

AdMech are a better combat army than Black Templar...

 themoob wrote:

Suzuteo wrote:
What about AdMech? They probably have the second worst codex after Grey Knights.

*laughs in Space Marine*

AdMech are a better combat army than Black Templar...

Yes but space marines have guilliman parking lot which is a lot better than cawl and admech AT.