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I still refuse to use Eliminators and Suppressors until I can use them as bigger than groups of 3.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I still refuse to use Eliminators and Suppressors until I can use them as bigger than groups of 3.

Yeah, why the heck did they do this? I converted up a unit of 6 Suppressors before the models or rules were released because I liked the concept of jump pack autocannons. No other infantry unit in the game is limited to what comes in the box for unit size. Having a unit cap of 6 would hardly be broken. Although I don't want any more, releasing a multipart plastic kit would also be nice.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
This is definitely when this awful "No model, no rules" thing is going to hurt...

I think that’s a poor excuse. Reivers, Infiltrators, and Incursors are all ready to go.

Eliminators have the pad sculpted on/covered by cloak? I look at my Militarum Tempestus Scions kit, and all the cables are sculpted on the power packs. What does the instruction booklet tell me to do if I want to equip a Scion with a non-hot-shot weapon that doesn’t use a cable, like plasma, melta, or grenade launcher? It tells me to clip the cable off!

Yeah I'm sorry, where is the separate Dark Angels incursor set? Where is the separate Blood Angels invictus warsuit? Why are people acting like a kit that's already available to 5 codexes somehow would violate NMNR if it went to a sixth?

the_scotsman wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
This is definitely when this awful "No model, no rules" thing is going to hurt...

I think that’s a poor excuse. Reivers, Infiltrators, and Incursors are all ready to go.

Eliminators have the pad sculpted on/covered by cloak? I look at my Militarum Tempestus Scions kit, and all the cables are sculpted on the power packs. What does the instruction booklet tell me to do if I want to equip a Scion with a non-hot-shot weapon that doesn’t use a cable, like plasma, melta, or grenade launcher? It tells me to clip the cable off!

Yeah I'm sorry, where is the separate Dark Angels incursor set? Where is the separate Blood Angels invictus warsuit? Why are people acting like a kit that's already available to 5 codexes somehow would violate NMNR if it went to a sixth?

Yeah, the excuse is especially idiotic when you consider DW variant pad available in various terminator, veteran, captain, chaplain, etc, etc, sets has smooth bottom, and if it was half covered by cloak, it would look essentially identical to what the eliminators or phobos officers are sporting. Just paint the frakking arm silver, there, full WYSIWYG!

 lifeafter wrote:
The stratagems and litanies are in themselves a good enough upgrade for DW to make them competetive.

As of the WD "update" they are literally SM chapter with zero chaper traits, no litanies, warlord traits, stratagems, relics or psychic powers save for small selection of vanilla ones, no superdoctrine, no nothing. Do you think this is competitive? How? Thanks to free lieutenant aura working on a handful of enemy units? Gee, I wonder if all of the above is worth spending extra 60 points on model that also fills your FOC and does useful stuff on table.

Right now, you're far better off throwing your DW book into the trash and running the army as Raven Guard or Ultramarines. Just run veterans as sternguard and primaris as actual troops, you won't be able to take kill teams but funnily enough both armies can replicate their rules with ease

 Irbis wrote:

 lifeafter wrote:
The stratagems and litanies are in themselves a good enough upgrade for DW to make them competetive.

As of the WD "update" they are literally SM chapter with zero chaper traits, no litanies, warlord traits, stratagems, relics or psychic powers save for small selection of vanilla ones, no superdoctrine, no nothing. Do you think this is competitive? How? Thanks to free lieutenant aura working on a handful of enemy units? Gee, I wonder if all of the above is worth spending extra 60 points on model that also fills your FOC and does useful stuff on table.

Right now, you're far better off throwing your DW book into the trash and running the army as Raven Guard or Ultramarines. Just run veterans as sternguard and primaris as actual troops, you won't be able to take kill teams but funnily enough both armies can replicate their rules with ease

I think the unique rules DW currently have (SIA, Mission Tactics, current stratagem doctrines, and unique unit compositions) are like a unique chapter trait/super doctrine. I also think that the army will be more competitive with the vanilla SM combat doctrines, litanies, and stratagems than they currently are without them. Do I wish they had their own librarian discipline? Yes. I also wish they were getting access to the Vanguard units and the current SM relics. I'll agree with everyone in this thread who thinks that the WD update could have made them more powerful than what is currently being previewed. What I don't agree with is the sentiment that the update is so poor it should just be dismissed as worthless.

I'm excited for what the new stuff will do for the army and I'm looking forward to playing with the new rules.

 lifeafter wrote:

What I don't agree with is the sentiment that the update is so poor it should just be dismissed as worthless.

I'm excited for what the new stuff will do for the army and I'm looking forward to playing with the new rules.

I say this entirely seriously: I'm glad that you're deriving enjoyment from this update. Thats what games and hobbys are supposed to provide. But I cannot for a moment understand how you think you're going to deal with anything at the competitive level of play.

Vet squads being able to fall back and shoot, ignore morale and/or fall back and charge arent remotely equivalent to a super doctrine. SIA is not for a second equivalent to a chapter tactic or the current level of chapter specific special rules. There is one Deathwatch WL trait worth taking (and I'll put money down that we wont get the option of taking a second for a CP, or making a named-hero equivalent double trait), and only two or three relics worth considering. Mission tactics are a complete and total waste of breath.

Comparing Deathwatch with these paltry rules updates to supplement-based marines, and concluding that they're equivalent is beyond comprehension..

Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

no, there are way too many dataslates that DW don't use to make that closely viable.

 lifeafter wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 lifeafter wrote:
The stratagems and litanies are in themselves a good enough upgrade for DW to make them competetive.

As of the WD "update" they are literally SM chapter with zero chaper traits, no litanies, warlord traits, stratagems, relics or psychic powers save for small selection of vanilla ones, no superdoctrine, no nothing. Do you think this is competitive? How? Thanks to free lieutenant aura working on a handful of enemy units? Gee, I wonder if all of the above is worth spending extra 60 points on model that also fills your FOC and does useful stuff on table.

Right now, you're far better off throwing your DW book into the trash and running the army as Raven Guard or Ultramarines. Just run veterans as sternguard and primaris as actual troops, you won't be able to take kill teams but funnily enough both armies can replicate their rules with ease

I think the unique rules DW currently have (SIA, Mission Tactics, current stratagem doctrines, and unique unit compositions) are like a unique chapter trait/super doctrine. I also think that the army will be more competitive with the vanilla SM combat doctrines, litanies, and stratagems than they currently are without them. Do I wish they had their own librarian discipline? Yes. I also wish they were getting access to the Vanguard units and the current SM relics. I'll agree with everyone in this thread who thinks that the WD update could have made them more powerful than what is currently being previewed. What I don't agree with is the sentiment that the update is so poor it should just be dismissed as worthless.

I'm excited for what the new stuff will do for the army and I'm looking forward to playing with the new rules.

LOL it really isn't new rules. It's just a bunch of generic stuff that wasn't even the talk of the new Space Marine codex. It was all about the Supplements and Super Doctrines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cuda1179 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I still refuse to use Eliminators and Suppressors until I can use them as bigger than groups of 3.

Yeah, why the heck did they do this? I converted up a unit of 6 Suppressors before the models or rules were released because I liked the concept of jump pack autocannons. No other infantry unit in the game is limited to what comes in the box for unit size. Having a unit cap of 6 would hardly be broken. Although I don't want any more, releasing a multipart plastic kit would also be nice.

Probably because GW is lazy. Who knew?

 bullyboy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

no, there are way too many dataslates that DW don't use to make that closely viable.

This could easily be solved by simply providing a list of prohibited units at the beginning of the datatsheet-section. The same way as it is already done ith BT right now

They could have given DW this copy paste job six months ago. Over those 6 months, I doubt a single person at GW has given Deathwatch more than 5 minutes of thought and even with such a small update, I'll be shocked if all of the rules even work properly.

Pyrosphere wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

no, there are way too many dataslates that DW don't use to make that closely viable.

This could easily be solved by simply providing a list of prohibited units at the beginning of the datatsheet-section. The same way as it is already done ith BT right now

do you have any clue how long that list would be?

 bullyboy wrote:

Pyrosphere wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

no, there are way too many dataslates that DW don't use to make that closely viable.

This could easily be solved by simply providing a list of prohibited units at the beginning of the datatsheet-section. The same way as it is already done ith BT right now

do you have any clue how long that list would be?

Not long enough cry about.

 Chris521 wrote:
They could have given DW this copy paste job six months ago. Over those 6 months, I doubt a single person at GW has given Deathwatch more than 5 minutes of thought and even with such a small update, I'll be shocked if all of the rules even work properly.

They could do rules updates for everybody lot faster than they do. And water is wet.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

I don't really get the outrage in this thread. Before the new SM Codex Deathwatch were considered to be the only "competitive" SM faction. Doesn't that mean they're also the faction that needs the smallest update of all the SM? Also, people keep complaining that SM broke the whole Edition and doktrines would have been enough of an Upgrade for SM to make them good. Now DW get just that and people behave like they're treated like, I don't know, CSM or Dark Eldar who would have been happy to get something similar.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

Of course flipside is next time one of the codexes would be updated the rest would be lagging. Ask veteran dark angel players how it feels when marine codex gets new toys and improvements(3++ stormshields for ultramarines, 4++ for dark angels!) and others are lagging behind.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

That's absolutely a horrible idea. If anything it makes balancing more of a pain. Remember that the Angels have been balanced as though they were Vanilla, which were originally balanced like they had Roboute in every list.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

The goal here is to achieve better maintenance for datasheets, not how many books you have to carry.
Therefore the best solution would be having everything in one book. But since that would result in a way too big book, you have to outsource the faction specific ones => Supplements

For GW goal is # of books you get to sell. When player has to buy 2 books rather than 1 that's much better for GW. Sales of 2 books rather than 1.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

That's absolutely a horrible idea. If anything it makes balancing more of a pain. Remember that the Angels have been balanced as though they were Vanilla, which were originally balanced like they had Roboute in every list.

Just because GW did their job poorly with the Angels books - and, arguably, non-UM chapters in the original 8th ed SM 'dex, given that UM lists with Roboute were the main "competitive" lists that functioned for SM in that period - doesn't mean that SSU's point is horrible. It just means GW need to do better.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I don't really get the outrage in this thread. Before the new SM Codex Deathwatch were considered to be the only "competitive" SM faction. Doesn't that mean they're also the faction that needs the smallest update of all the SM? Also, people keep complaining that SM broke the whole Edition and doktrines would have been enough of an Upgrade for SM to make them good. Now DW get just that and people behave like they're treated like, I don't know, CSM or Dark Eldar who would have been happy to get something similar.

You have a good point, DW were one of the three viable SM factions (UM & BA being the other two) pre-codex. I think they've won a single GT in 8th edition if I remember correctly. So they're not a write off, mainly because they have excellent troops. But that's all they have. If you want to run anything other than their kill teams or fortis teams you're facing an uphill struggle. Kill teams in particular are a competitive soup option, and will remain so for as long as they can field a) hellfire shells b) stormshields c) terminators to ignore morale and add some 2+ beef.

So we were very much looking forward to getting some of those newish units to play with, in the hopes that we'd be able to field a different kind of army... We have four unique kits: a below average named character, the watch master (one of DW's saving graces), the veteran box and the Corvus (a bad transport we desperately want to be good because it looks dope). We like our units, they've served us well, and they remain good at what they do, but they're getting stale, and since the codex & supplements dropped the game has changed considerably, spiking up in power creep. So yeah, having access to transhuman and litanies will boost DW a bit, but it's nothing compared to what's happened to the game in the last two years. Yep that's right, DW haven't changed much in two years. Bolter discipline is irrelevant to us, as it doesn't stack with special ammo - the +1A is all that's changed in that time. Evey other marine faction has received amazing new rules, new relics, new units, new disciplines, around 8 new personalised stratagems, the majority have new characters too, and yeah, ten universal (except for DW) units too. The only exception is GKs who are hardly recongisable as the same army anymore. So is this just a case of faction envy? I guess you could look at it that way. But it's more that we want our lovingly converted armies to be fun, interesting, capable of more than one build (killteam spam).

So no, it's not quite the Drukhari treatment, but it's probably the second-worst update in PA after them. But having said that, at least they got some thought put into them, no matter how scared GW were of over-powering them. DW look to be getting zero new rules. The update could have been contained to a paragraph, if there willing to pass on reprinting the old rules, and just said 'refer to this bit of the codex'. In regard to your other example, it's wayyy below what CSM got, you can't compare them if you have a good handle on both armies (I play AL too).

tneva82 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

Of course flipside is next time one of the codexes would be updated the rest would be lagging. Ask veteran dark angel players how it feels when marine codex gets new toys and improvements(3++ stormshields for ultramarines, 4++ for dark angels!) and others are lagging behind.

And you think they'll just update all the Supplements, next time there is a new Marine Codex? Or scrap them like they did the Black Legion, Iron Hands and Imperial Fists supplements from 7th? And if they were to update all of them, that'd be no less work than updating the same number of stand-alone books with a couple of shared datasheets and stratagems re-printed in each.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

Ideally, all supplements would have been Codexes of their own, instead of doing that stupid two-book thing.

It would've also made it much easier to balance things properly. Maybe Raven Guard don't get access to Centurions, similar to Space Wolves, because it doesn't fit their style of warfare. Not to mention points could be adjusted to balance their relative benefits of different rules. Ultramarine Aggressors should be more expensive if they always double shoot. Iron Hands Dreads should be more expensive if they become characters, hidden Lascannons for Salamanders should be more expensive due to the efficiency improvement, etc..

That's absolutely a horrible idea. If anything it makes balancing more of a pain. Remember that the Angels have been balanced as though they were Vanilla, which were originally balanced like they had Roboute in every list.

??? That'd be an argument to split the books, so they can be balanced on their own terms. Ultramarine shooty units could be priced and balanced around having Guilliman, while Ultramarine assault units could be priced and balanced around not having advance & charge & fall-back-and-charge-and-extra-damage due to possibly being taken as White Scars as well, etc..

 cuda1179 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I still refuse to use Eliminators and Suppressors until I can use them as bigger than groups of 3.

Yeah, why the heck did they do this? I converted up a unit of 6 Suppressors before the models or rules were released because I liked the concept of jump pack autocannons. No other infantry unit in the game is limited to what comes in the box for unit size. Having a unit cap of 6 would hardly be broken. Although I don't want any more, releasing a multipart plastic kit would also be nice.

A unit cap of 6 would be pretty nuts, ngl. That's 18 dirt cheap, endlessly buffable, ignore LoS, multiple damage sniper rifles.

That 1 change alone would likely eliminate support characters from the metagame.

Eliminators are at 3 because they NEED to be at 3.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:

Pyrosphere wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Would it not have been better to have the Deathwatch as a Marine supplement.

no, there are way too many dataslates that DW don't use to make that closely viable.

This could easily be solved by simply providing a list of prohibited units at the beginning of the datatsheet-section. The same way as it is already done ith BT right now

do you have any clue how long that list would be?

Not long enough cry about.

Counting forgeworld it would be. That like 85 units.

You could also make Deathwatch something you add into marines in a limited fashion. Like you take 0-1 units of kill teams etc.

Everybody says they want viable snipers but really no one wants viable snipers because what viable snipers means for most people out there are snipers that are popping out 1-2 characters per turn. And thats just toxic.


In other news, the deathwatch rules:

They managed to get doctrines right, but Bolter Discipline is still fethed. The exclusion is baked into the SIA rule via FAQ, and this doesnt change that.

Also dear fething god they put in the deleted Adaptive Strategy strat. Another thing they're gonna need to day 1 FAQ.

Sterling191 wrote:
They managed to get doctrines right, but Bolter Discipline is still fethed. The exclusion is baked into the SIA rule via FAQ, and this doesnt change that.

Also dear fething god they put in the deleted Adaptive Strategy strat. Another thing they're gonna need to day 1 FAQ.

Presumably they might re-FAQ the SIA / Bolter Discipline, but "technically", the more recent publication trumps the older one (FAQ in this case).

Presumably they'll also FAQ Doctrines (and Adaptive Strategy as well as Duty Eternal), but I doubt it'll be day 1. They haven't done it for Saga of the Beast / Space Wolves thus far.

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Presumably they might re-FAQ the SIA / Bolter Discipline, but "technically", the more recent publication trumps the older one (FAQ in this case).

There are no SIA rules in this publication. The FAQ rules stand. They explicitly modify the underlying SIA ability, which was not addressed in this flaming dumpster fire.

Sterling191 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Presumably they might re-FAQ the SIA / Bolter Discipline, but "technically", the more recent publication trumps the older one (FAQ in this case).

There are no SIA rules in this publication. The FAQ rules stand. They explicitly modify the underlying SIA ability, which was not addressed in this flaming dumpster fire.

Fair enough.

Though they'll probably will kill Adaptive Strategy, it actually might not be a terrible idea to let DW keep it. Since they have no super-doctrine (and souping in DW would kill other Marine's super-doctrine), it'd be kinda semi-fluffy for them to have the flexi-strat.