April FAQs released (PSA: Castellan points changes and Assassin changes not in the right FAQs)

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**Reemule**

blackmage wrote:
the only real way to kill soup is play monocodex like edition b4 the 7th

See and that isn't what I want. I don't want to kill soup. I want to have soup on an even playing field with Monodex.

**Ishagu**

the_scotsman wrote:
I mean, there is another easy way to fix Guilliman Syndrome for marines and it is...price Guilliman around the unique ability to triple the firepower of anything he's shaking his shiny metal ass for.

If they really REALLY want to give Guililman the ability to twerk in the middle of a space marine army and grant them ALL Guide+Doom with no cast roll against every target in the enemy army, just cost the fething dude like 700 points and fix the rest of the damn marine roster.

Don't price everything in the marine codex and every other unit shared by every other marine codex as if they might be in range to watch guilliman drop it down and make it clap.

He already costs 500+ by the time you bring in another character, and limits the army in mobility and play style, and takes up another detachment.

What Marines need are better strats and unique abilities that encourage other play styles without nerfing existing ones.

**Crimson**

Frankly, I don't think that auras as powerful than Guillimans' should exist. It is an utter balancing hell. There just is no way to cost it appropriately. They should have recognised this a long time ago, and instead of increasing the cost of theoretically buffable units and Guilliman, they should have just nerfed the aura.

**the_scotsman**

Ishagu wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
I mean, there is another easy way to fix Guilliman Syndrome for marines and it is...price Guilliman around the unique ability to triple the firepower of anything he's shaking his shiny metal ass for.

If they really REALLY want to give Guililman the ability to twerk in the middle of a space marine army and grant them ALL Guide+Doom with no cast roll against every target in the enemy army, just cost the fething dude like 700 points and fix the rest of the damn marine roster.

Don't price everything in the marine codex and every other unit shared by every other marine codex as if they might be in range to watch guilliman drop it down and make it clap.

He already costs 500+ by the time you bring in another character, and limits the army in mobility and play style, and takes up another detachment.

What Marines need are better strats and unique abilities that encourage other play styles without nerfing existing ones.

I guess what I find curious about that is:

other than melee marines, what marine playstyle would not be made stronger by adding Guiliman?

Since the inception of 8th, that aura's existence has pretty much precluded the existence of the other...seven? marine codexes. Even when marines were the only codex and top dogs, you had plenty of people saying "well yeah, but where are the non-guilliman marine lists winning tournaments?"

I think it would be collossally stupid to just nerf guilliman and not, alongside that, provide some serious across the board buffs to the rest of the marine codex. They 100% need new stratagems (or at least recosted stratagems), subfaction abilities, psychic powers and unit costs. It just seems like GW decided "OK, this is the aura faction, that's their thing, they take a bunch of characters who stand around and give them bonuses."

Unsurprisingly, the marine codex with the least reliance on auras and the most power built into baseline units seems to be pretty strong, at least in soup - deathwatch. But in the baseline codex, where it seems like every unit is costed around Guilliman, Fight when you Die banner, and the half dozen other aura modifying/enhancing relics and stratagems, everything feels like it underperforms at a baseline level.

**Crimson**

Auras in general are a bad mechanic, and should not be the way to apply most powerful buffs. They encourage castling everything in one lump, which to me goes against the dynamic playstyle marines should have. Counter-intuitively IG-style order mechanic would be better for marines. If a character can apply buffs to a set number of units, then that character and small team of units can form an independently operating 'platoon.'

**the_scotsman**

Crimson wrote:
Auras in general are a bad mechanic, and should not be the way to apply most powerful buffs. They encourage castling everything in one lump, which to me goes against the dynamic playstyle marines should have. Counter-intuitively IG-style order mechanic would be better for marines. If a character can apply buffs to a set number of units, then that character and small team of units can form an independently operating 'platoon.'

Honestly, it'd probably be easier to balance if practically every unit that provided an ability to another unit had to select a unit to buff.

**Drager**

Drager wrote:

Spoiler:

blackmage wrote:
Drager wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Drager wrote:
Did anyone else notice that the new Aircraft rules don't allow you to move through your own Aircraft?

How?

‘If the datasheet for a model says it can Fly, then during the Movement phase it can move across models as if they were not there, and when moving across terrain features, vertical distance is not counted against the total it can move (i.e. moving vertically is free for this model in the Movement phase). If the datasheet for a model says it can Fly, then during the Charge phase it can move across models (other than Buildings) as if they were not there.’

This still applies.

Page 177 – Movement PhaseAdd the following text to the end of the Movement phase section: ‘AircraftIf a unit can Fly and it has a minimum Move characteristic (or if it has a damage table on its datasheet that includes any minimum Move characteristics), that unit gains the Aircraft keyword.Whenever a model makes any kind of move, it can be moved within 1" of enemy Aircraft, and it can be moved across such models (and their bases) as if they were not there, but it cannot end the move on top of another model (or its base), and it cannot end the move within 1" of any enemy units.If, when a unit is selected to move in the Movement phase, the only enemy units that are within 1" of it are Aircraft, then it can still make a move (i.e. it does not have to Fall Back in order to move).’

This speaks nothing against preventing moving across(infact it allows). Just that you can't END over one.
If you have an infantry model is in your army, let's say a Guardian and there is one of your own Hemlocks in front of it, where is the permission to allow the Guardian to walk across the Aircraft's base?

in last design commentary, go there and read, now everyone can move through aircraft bases like if they were not there

You can move through enemy aircraft bases, but I can't find the permission to move through friendly ones. The designer's commentary is quoted above by tnev82 and reading that is what led to me asking the question. If you can point out the permission I'm missing, I'd be grateful. Have another read yourself, I'm sure it's there and I'm just not seeing it.

I've created a thread in YMDC if people are interested in discussing this further.

**Not Online!!!**

Crimson wrote:
Auras in general are a bad mechanic, and should not be the way to apply most powerful buffs. They encourage castling everything in one lump, which to me goes against the dynamic playstyle marines should have. Counter-intuitively IG-style order mechanic would be better for marines. If a character can apply buffs to a set number of units, then that character and small team of units can form an independently operating 'platoon.'

I mean they could exchange the auras with the orders, adapt them a bit and it would be fairly straight forward improvement of the feel of the armies in question.

**The Newman**

Ishagu wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
I mean, there is another easy way to fix Guilliman Syndrome for marines and it is...price Guilliman around the unique ability to triple the firepower of anything he's shaking his shiny metal ass for.

If they really REALLY want to give Guililman the ability to twerk in the middle of a space marine army and grant them ALL Guide+Doom with no cast roll against every target in the enemy army, just cost the fething dude like 700 points and fix the rest of the damn marine roster.

Don't price everything in the marine codex and every other unit shared by every other marine codex as if they might be in range to watch guilliman drop it down and make it clap.

He already costs 500+ by the time you bring in another character, and limits the army in mobility and play style, and takes up another detachment.

What Marines need are better strats and unique abilities that encourage other play styles without nerfing existing ones.

You've both got good points, and really neither of you is wrong. Gulliman probably is at a good price for what he does, and Marines really are priced as though they were always standing next to him. Neither of those things by itself would break the army, but together it's crippling.

Realistically just about everything in the vanilla marine codex still needs to be 15% cheaper even with the CA 2018 price drops, and unfortunately GW seems to be married to the notion that a basic Tac marine should be the same price no matter what army he's in.

**Daedalus81**

The Newman wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
I mean, there is another easy way to fix Guilliman Syndrome for marines and it is...price Guilliman around the unique ability to triple the firepower of anything he's shaking his shiny metal ass for.

If they really REALLY want to give Guililman the ability to twerk in the middle of a space marine army and grant them ALL Guide+Doom with no cast roll against every target in the enemy army, just cost the fething dude like 700 points and fix the rest of the damn marine roster.

Don't price everything in the marine codex and every other unit shared by every other marine codex as if they might be in range to watch guilliman drop it down and make it clap.

He already costs 500+ by the time you bring in another character, and limits the army in mobility and play style, and takes up another detachment.

What Marines need are better strats and unique abilities that encourage other play styles without nerfing existing ones.

You've both got good points, and really neither of you is wrong. Gulliman probably is at a good price for what he does, and Marines really are priced as though they were always standing next to him. Neither of those things by itself would break the army, but together it's crippling.

Realistically just about everything in the vanilla marine codex still needs to be 15% cheaper even with the CA 2018 price drops.

Marines are not priced for Bobby and a 15% cut would up-end the game and just make Bobby and absolute auto-take.

Marines are mostly fine - just let the damn meta shake out after all the changes that just came out.

**The Newman**

If I said Bobby G was properly priced before I said almost everything in the Marine codex needed a price drop, why would you assume Bobby G wasn't part of the "almost"?

15% might be a slight exaggeration, I'll grant you that.

**Drager**

I don't think a price drop would be good for marines, they would stop being anything like Marines at that point, just another horde. They need to be better, not cheaper.

**Daedalus81**

The Newman wrote:
If I said Bobby G was properly priced before I said almost everything in the Marine codex needed a price drop, why would you assume Bobby G wasn't part of the "almost"?

15% might be a slight exaggeration, I'll grant you that.

I meant that the currently priced Bobby with cheaper marines makes Bobby more of an auto-take, because he's buffing more models.

**Ishagu**

Thing about Guilliman is that he isn't performing well. Everyone says he's bad for this and that, but armies built around him aren't competing for the top spot. It's a perception thing. He's a popular model, everyone has Marines so they see him a lot.

I do think that he can get results at a basic level of play however. People that don't understand the true tactics behind movement and deployment, and who don't have access to quality terrain suffer most. To improve their experience they need to look at those things.

Marines also need improvements for sure. I think Primaris are the best chance for this to happen as the new units are all designed for a specifc job from the ground up.

New codex is surely coming soon though.

**Not Online!!!**

He's a popular model, everyone has Marines so they see him a lot.

I wouldn't quite say he is popular, atleast as a model he is somewhat controversial, but overall i agree with your point about terrrain, castles tend to be less off an issue if they can't see you.

**Reemule**

I'm in favor of price drops for some marines.

Intercessors are about right, same with Eliminators.

Rievers and Infiltrators should drop to 17 points also.

Suppressors and Inceptors should drop to 30 points a model.

The entire Primaris character line should be redone.

Should have Captain, then you buy him Phobos, Primaris or Gravis Armor. Same with Librarian, LT, and Chaplain.

And then you can buy them the choices that are appropriate for the armor.

**The Newman**

Daedalus81 wrote:
The Newman wrote:
If I said Bobby G was properly priced before I said almost everything in the Marine codex needed a price drop, why would you assume Bobby G wasn't part of the "almost"?

15% might be a slight exaggeration, I'll grant you that.

I meant that the currently priced Bobby with cheaper marines makes Bobby more of an auto-take, because he's buffing more models.

That's completely backward, Bobby G becomes comparatively less valuable as the size of the army grows once you cross the line where you can't fit everything within his aura. And that's already non-trivial at 2000 points.

Even with two battalions worth of regular Captains and Lieutenants keeping everything in the auras can be a challenge, so it's not just Bobby G either.

**Ishagu**

There are websites that track the performance of armies across thousands of events. Guilliman lists win less than 45% of games.

Not sure how anyone can argue for nerfs?

**Crimson**

Ishagu wrote:
There are websites that track the performance of armies across thousands of events. Guilliman lists win less than 45% of games.

Not sure how anyone can argue for nerfs?

And how are non-Guilliman marine lists doing?

**Ishagu**

Crimson wrote:
Ishagu wrote:
There are websites that track the performance of armies across thousands of events. Guilliman lists win less than 45% of games.

Not sure how anyone can argue for nerfs?

And how are non-Guilliman marine lists doing?

Largely the same. Evething needs improvement. Arguably Guilliman needs it also.

DA are actually the best performing Astartes.

Also, if people don't like auras they should play something other than Marines. The re rolls aren't actually common across armies. Orks, Nids, GSC, Tau, Eldar, etc are all different in this regard.

**The Newman**

Ishagu wrote:
There are websites that track the performance of armies across thousands of events. Guilliman lists win less than 45% of games.

Not sure how anyone can argue for nerfs?

No one is saying Marines need nerfs, some people are saying Marines need buffs, some are saying Marines are fine, and some are saying that Marines are paying for having the option of taking Bobby G and that cost should be on Bobby G and not the units he's potentially buffing.

**Daedalus81**

The Newman wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
The Newman wrote:
If I said Bobby G was properly priced before I said almost everything in the Marine codex needed a price drop, why would you assume Bobby G wasn't part of the "almost"?

15% might be a slight exaggeration, I'll grant you that.

I meant that the currently priced Bobby with cheaper marines makes Bobby more of an auto-take, because he's buffing more models.

That's completely backward, Bobby G becomes comparatively less valuable as the size of the army grows once you cross the line where you can't fit everything within his aura. And that's already non-trivial at 2000 points.

Even with two battalions worth of regular Captains and Lieutenants keeping everything in the auras can be a challenge, so it's not just Bobby G either.

Which becomes easier with non-trivially sized Primaris units.

**Ishagu**

Cross codex and faction units cost the same.. Not sure Guilliman has anything to do with it lol

**Daedalus81**

A captain and lieutenant are in the 140 to 160 range primaris or otherwise. That means two sets in place of Bobby over two battalions. Marines hit and wound more easily so reroll 1s is just fine unless you really want to hurt big things with weaker guns. There are enough quality full reroll hit characters as well that Bobby is not necessary.

**nurgle5**

Reemule wrote:I wish they would make the rules more user friendly, and consolidated.

They probably should be doing annual or semi-annual consolidations of the digital version of the core rules to include the changes from the FAQs, erratas and designer commentaries. It's not difficult for experienced players to miss changes amidst the myriad of documents, can't imagine what it's like for someone starting out in the game.

The 40k rules team should also look at consistent use of language, something the Age of Sigmar rules team have already begun implementing. This should help cut down on quibbling of different interpretations of nearly identical rules across factions and units. It might also help with the verbosity of the rules, which I personally found a tad head-wrecking in this FAQ.

**Crimson**

Ishagu wrote:

Also, if people don't like auras they should play something other than Marines. The re rolls aren't actually common across armies. Orks, Nids, GSC, Tau, Eldar, etc are all different in this regard.

There are other reasons to play the army. But I think it is really unfortunate design choice to make Marines in particular so aura dependent. These are elite soldiers with superior training, they should be able to operate at peak efficiency without needing a bunch of officers constantly babysitting them. Furthermore marine army should function by coordinating different independently operating elements, Reivers or Assault marines sowing chaos at enemy lines, Intercessors and Tacticals holding the midfield and the longer ranged elements providing fire support from the backfield. Auras encourage the exact opposite of this, clumping everything in an immobile firebase is how the Guard should play, not the Marines.

**The Newman**

Daedalus81 wrote:
The Newman wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
The Newman wrote:
If I said Bobby G was properly priced before I said almost everything in the Marine codex needed a price drop, why would you assume Bobby G wasn't part of the "almost"?

15% might be a slight exaggeration, I'll grant you that.

I meant that the currently priced Bobby with cheaper marines makes Bobby more of an auto-take, because he's buffing more models.

That's completely backward, Bobby G becomes comparatively less valuable as the size of the army grows once you cross the line where you can't fit everything within his aura. And that's already non-trivial at 2000 points.

Even with two battalions worth of regular Captains and Lieutenants keeping everything in the auras can be a challenge, so it's not just Bobby G either.

Which becomes easier with non-trivially sized Primaris units.

1) Serious question, what do you mean by "non-trivially sized Primaris units"?

2) At least in my experience Primaris don't really have a smaller per-point footprint. Partially because they don't have weapon options and partially because a lot of them are on larger bases.

**the_scotsman**

Ishagu wrote:
There are websites that track the performance of armies across thousands of events. Guilliman lists win less than 45% of games.

Not sure how anyone can argue for nerfs?

I'd be fine with guilliman going down in price as long as he didn't have a 6" Guide+Doom vs all targets aura. That's just goofy. Like, if they want to give him reroll to hit+reroll 1 to wound? That'd be fine. But if you're going to price stuff in the marine arsenal and factor in an aura that only 1 chapter, instead of all the chapters, can have access to...that's just dumb.

It'd be like pricing shared marine units around access to Azrael's 4++ aura. They aren't priced that way, because Azrael is not a competitive list standard, but Guilliman is.

**Ishagu**

Lol the hate for Guilliman is strong.

He's not to blame for the poor codex guys, seriously. It's nothing more than first codex syndrome.

**Crimson**

Ishagu wrote:
Lol the hate for Guilliman is strong.

He's not to blame for the poor codex guys, seriously. It's nothing more than first codex syndrome.

He is a reason for price increase for several marine units and probably a reason why GW is cautious to give marines really strong units. His buff is simply too potent for it to be possible to balance. Its effectiveness varies by insane amount depending on what else you're bringing, and thus it is not possible to price it fairly. In theory this is an issue with any aura ability, but more powerful the aura is more prevalent the problem becomes, and if the aura is something only one subfaction in the codex has, then it becomes an even worse balancing nightmare. If the wound portion was removed, or made to be just re-roll of ones, then it would be easier, as that's the same buffs all marines can have. Then every time GW makes rules for a marine unit they don't need to think whether the thing becomes too powerful with Guilliman or alternatively too weak without him.