Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

ccs wrote:

WhiteDog wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Stop referencing Psychic Awakening as mandatory. There is every indication that we will be seeing a new edition or codices within the next year or so.

Stop talking out of your ass, you don't know anything about that. And to effectively play a game nowadays you need PA.

Oh. I didn't get that memo.

And in our last game I still kicked the Death Guard all over the table - using only Codex: Dark Angels (& CA'19 for pts).

Game played just fine, so I'm still not wasting $ on Vigilous, &/or PA.

You NEED to have everything to play "competitively", which is the stupidest thing ever(guess which part of that has the most emphasis). But that seems to be a bed of their own making, not GW.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
So you think that the Dragon's Claws really need Ravenwing Black Knights to be properly represented?

... you have no idea what you are talking about, right? Do you know what Dragon's claws are?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
The Dark Angels are their own faction. They have stuff in common with the Codex Adeptus Astartes but they have their own stuff. It's kinda the point.

The point is, lorewise they are the same as every chapter, each with it's own peculiarities, gamewise they should be the same as every chapter, a selection of custom traits that fit their lore.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
the invisible hand of the marketplace

Woah we found a true believer .

Spoiler:

WhiteDog wrote:
Can we discuss something meaningful to the game and not some drenched out topic that has no relevance whatsoever ?

Yeah, you can. Just click on any other thread in the forum mate, just not on this one if you hate it

.

I was indeed going to stay out, but you really don't know what Ravenwing Black Knights are, do you? They have only ever been available to Dark Angels in the rules and lore. Nobody else has had them in the lore. They are unique models with plasma weapons in accordance with DA lore and not just "veteran bikers." Saying that the Dark Angels are the same lorewise as every other chapter tells me that we have a different operating definition of what lore is.

You can make a custom chapter within the existing rules. You could even make an a Dark Angels Successor Chapter (not that there is an advantage to that besides modeling/lore) with all the Ravenwing Black Knights you could ever want.

Cheers

T2B

So what about Iron Hands terminator sergeants? Why can’t I field them?

Why do DA get special treatment, even above and beyond what other marines get?

 JNAProductions wrote:
So what about Iron Hands terminator sergeants? Why can’t I field them?

For the same reason Raven Guard didn't get special scouts or Vanguard or anything like that. The supplements took existing units over, not adding new ones.

If I had been writing those supplements? You would have seen some more unique stuff added in. Not necessarily Terminator Sergeants in Tactical Squads styled of things--but definitely 'signature units'.

Why do DA get special treatment, even above and beyond what other marines get?

Because they do. Just like how Ultramarines got Tyrannic War Veterans and Black Templars got Crusader Squads.

If you want to argue that Dark Angels should have some of their special units made into generic ones? I won't argue against you on that:


There's 13 unique datasheets that are not named characters. Of those 13? 6(RW and DW Ancient, Champion, and Apothecaries) of them should reasonably be added into the generic list for Marines, with a stratagem/pointed upgrade that could be in a Dark Angels supplement book for Ravenwing or Deathwing.

The argument that Dark Angels/Death Watch/ etc etc should be rolled into the Marine Codex because other subfactions are more unique and deserve their own dexes more, is one of the dumbest goddamn things I've yet read.

By rolling other subfactions into their parent book, you're progressing backwards. You're literally regressing the progress towards other subfactions getting their own dexes - something GW has said they want to do.

Who cares what GW said they want to do? What they want to do right now is what they did in 6th and 7th. That's not progress.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares what GW said they want to do? What they want to do right now is what they did in 6th and 7th. That's not progress.

It's worse. They overly simplified the game and then they piled on layer after layer of bloat from so many sources. I will also say that 6th and to a lesser extent 7th didn't have nearly as many rules sources per army. Discounting forge world stuff, most armies only had their codex which may or may not of had a 6th edition release.

I for one, am of the indifferent opinion. A person will buy the books to his army(s) as he feels are needed. So you only need the Codex/ and BRB to play.

Some folks might feel they are missing out if they do not buy the latest CA, or WD, or what have you publication. I call that hogwash. A person buys the books that interest them, for whatever reason they choose.

The long and short of it is real simple. Folks will make up any number of reasons to buy or not purchase any said book. It is up to the individual to make that decision for themselves.

Because of psychic awakening there is no way to reduce bloat immediately. Looking at marines, taking SW/BA/DA and cutting them to supplements is sensible to reducing errata and reprinting units.

What this doesn't solve is the number of releases or units, those new supplements still take up a release slot the same as a codex would. Those release slots will still want/need accompanying models as well, so if your objective is to make the game less marine centric, it changes nothing.

Psychic awakening imo is less productive than just re-printing a codex, since it just fragments rules, makes people buy unwanted content etc.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
The awesome part is, that the whole problem only exists because GW insist on publishing rules as books.

No, the problem exists because they continue to release items for factions rather than just reach a stopping point.

The whole issue is that all the adeptus astartes factions share a large chunk of their models, but still have unique parts.
Either you have separate books for everyone, then if you update the shared part in any way, you need to re-print all the books.
Or you have the shared part in one book and the unique part in another - which means you need two books to play.
Now you want to give everyone 5-10 pages of updates and suddenly you are running around with three books.
And now we are bloated.

If the rules were digital, an updated or added datasheet or new rules would just directly find their way into your digital rules library and update the entire marine rainbow at once.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I was indeed going to stay out, but you really don't know what Ravenwing Black Knights are, do you?

I know full well what black knights are. You, on the other hand have absolutely no clue what Dragon's Claw are, and you are making a fool of yourself as a result.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They are unique models with plasma weapons in accordance with DA lore

lol "in accordance to DA lore".

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
and not just "veteran bikers."

So, are they not veterans? Or are they not bikers?
Pretty sure they are both. So they are veteran bikers.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
You can make a custom chapter within the existing rules.

There are tons of things I can't make with the existing rules. There are no official rules to use for Dragon's Claws, for instance.
But you don't know what Dragon's claws are, and cannot even be bothered to google it, lol. Or to read my messages, either.
I mean, it's just ridiculous at this point. This is what I wrote :
"it means the custom chapter lose access to having for instance "bestial" marines (mutated marines in a similar vein to the wulfen, the death company or the dragon's claw. Lots of chapters have similar units)"
Adding emphasis to help you understand.
Nobody ever compared Dragon's claw to your precious black knights. I compared them to other "bestial marines" units like the wulfen or the death company. Now none of those units are dark angels, but if they were, you would totally be clutching pearls about how unique your brand of bestial marines are, and how it should totally not be available as a generic option, so only the GW-established chapters (and actually, a subset of them) have access to those options, because feth creativity and feth making your own army, that's why. And that's petty and ridiculous.

But yeah, the "invisible hand of the free market" seems to be coming for you, have you seen how there are no chapter-specific primaris units? Prepare to be rolled into CSM, because those are the future.

DA/SW/BA/BT are the because they are historical grown in the lore

They are unique to a point that a vanilla Marine list could do the same but better
They were "Meta" only if GW was lacy with rules updates, like let them have 2 heavy weapons per 5 Terminators while vanilla had changed to 1 (or new weapon profiles per FAQ while points remaind the same)

there were some unique options to units which were expanded over time as 1-2 different units did not justify a Codex on its own (otherwise we would need one for each Eldar ship and Ork Clan too)

DA are not more different than any other Chapter of the first founding and there was the time people used the SW Codex to play Deathwing as it represented the fuffy list better and stronger than the DA book.


Having one Codex SM with generic options that fit all Chapters, as Eldar or Orks have, would not change the possibilities to field a fluffy list of that Chapter but solve a lot of problems we had over several Editions now

I mean it would be 1 page of rules/units options/upgrades per Chapter to get the unique stuff done

I'd argue that in the case of TS and DG it actually hurt the faction overall (CSM).
TS especially has an uniquely small roster for no reason at all. Because half the stuff that TS had is basically gone poof. You could've easily handled their unique stuff via access on a page.
Same with DG, which have it even worse in some regards. I mean the infantry legion doesn't have dedicated heavy firesuport infantry?

Not Online!!! wrote:
I'd argue that in the case of TS and DG it actually hurt the faction overall (CSM).
TS especially has an uniquely small roster for no reason at all. Because half the stuff that TS had is basically gone poof. You could've easily handled their unique stuff via access on a page.
Same with DG, which have it even worse in some regards. I mean the infantry legion doesn't have dedicated heavy firesuport infantry?

First wave dexes. Look at how GSC looked on it's first release. And their only real played unit was literally just the same kit from the Tyranid range.

We'll see how TS / DG look after their second wave. I have high hopes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also the rules they got added a lot of flavor and fun to them. There's no way TS would be half as fun if they were just a CSM dex subfaction.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
I'd argue that in the case of TS and DG it actually hurt the faction overall (CSM).
TS especially has an uniquely small roster for no reason at all. Because half the stuff that TS had is basically gone poof. You could've easily handled their unique stuff via access on a page.
Same with DG, which have it even worse in some regards. I mean the infantry legion doesn't have dedicated heavy firesuport infantry?

First wave dexes. Look at how GSC looked on it's first release. And their only real played unit was literally just the same kit from the Tyranid range.

We'll see how TS / DG look after their second wave. I have high hopes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also the rules they got added a lot of flavor and fun to them. There's no way TS would be half as fun if they were just a CSM dex subfaction.

DG and TS are now both on their second iteration though?
As for TS, you literally could've rubricaed all the baseline infantry, exempted acess to Legion daemons (aka possessed) and spawn and added in the general psyker HQ and the Invul. In much the same way with specific seperate psy. That would've taken what 2-3 pages and would've given you literally the same quality and larger roster from the beginning.

Also unlike GSC, neither were softsquatted. Which makes them having an actuall legacy as opposed to GSC which only had one far off in the past.
AND GW and FW have proven that they CAN write such dexes competently.Whillest they seem to forget constantly what works how when they have diffrent books all over the shop.

It's also an issue of unequal pikes aswell.

Overall i ain't unhappy with the "bigger" factions that got added or that treatment. I am however unhappy with the overall slopyness and seeming lack of a general document for points and rules , as can probably best be seen with the load of typos in CA 19.

Because it is one thing to have these books and them beeing propperly organized with a decent working foundation. It's another thing when you don^t have that foundation.

I think they are definitely on their first wave of model releases. What was in the second wave? Maybe I'm wrong.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
I think they are definitely on their first wave of model releases. What was in the second wave? Maybe I'm wrong.

Meant cycle iteration because generally rules show up and then new models.


It's also not a far stretch too look at these two dexes and wonder just how much effort really went into them, considering the DG lord with T4 and no FNP
I guess what i want to say is, that i don't or wouldn't take as much issue with it if it were atleast done propperly.

Yeah I can agree with that. I did say in my initial post in this thread a few pages back, that the dexes are a good addition but GW could spend a little more time and quality on writing some of them.

Then again that could be said about most dexes.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Yeah I can agree with that. I did say in my initial post in this thread a few pages back, that the dexes are a good addition but GW could spend a little more time and quality on writing some of them.

Then again that could be said about most dexes.

the issues rarely the dexes themselves but the seeming fact that there is no underlying document that sumarises all rules and all the points.
If you'd had access to such an document and if it had been done propperly you can easily buld from there without that many issues. It' would also allow you to compare design philosophies and would lend it's hand for better understanding.

Also it wouldn't hurt if the designers of the differing dexes would atleast talk to each other about design philosophy... (IH compared to UM supplement?) v.2 marines vs v2. CSM.

Such things shouldn't have happened. Also GW seriously should realise the impact of general releases and the contents of them aswell as the rules for these and the impact that has on ranges and sales figures, so that we don't end up with another SoB debacle with year long desinvestment cycle...

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Yeah I can agree with that. I did say in my initial post in this thread a few pages back, that the dexes are a good addition but GW could spend a little more time and quality on writing some of them.

Then again that could be said about most dexes.

the issues rarely the dexes themselves but the seeming fact that there is no underlying document that sumarises all rules and all the points.
If you'd had access to such an document and if it had been done propperly you can easily buld from there without that many issues. It' would also allow you to compare design philosophies and would lend it's hand for better understanding.

Also it wouldn't hurt if the designers of the differing dexes would atleast talk to each other about design philosophy... (IH compared to UM supplement?) v.2 marines vs v2. CSM.

Such things shouldn't have happened. Also GW seriously should realise the impact of general releases and the contents of them aswell as the rules for these and the impact that has on ranges and sales figures, so that we don't end up with another SoB debacle with year long desinvestment cycle...

Couldn't agree more.

The Death Guard codex seemed really good when it first came out, with interesting well balanced options, but it was obviously a bit rushed. The fairly tame rules however were quickly overshadowed by subsequent dexes, which speaks to the overall lack of a unified design philosophy.

 harlokin wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Yeah I can agree with that. I did say in my initial post in this thread a few pages back, that the dexes are a good addition but GW could spend a little more time and quality on writing some of them.

Then again that could be said about most dexes.

the issues rarely the dexes themselves but the seeming fact that there is no underlying document that sumarises all rules and all the points.
If you'd had access to such an document and if it had been done propperly you can easily buld from there without that many issues. It' would also allow you to compare design philosophies and would lend it's hand for better understanding.

Also it wouldn't hurt if the designers of the differing dexes would atleast talk to each other about design philosophy... (IH compared to UM supplement?) v.2 marines vs v2. CSM.

Such things shouldn't have happened. Also GW seriously should realise the impact of general releases and the contents of them aswell as the rules for these and the impact that has on ranges and sales figures, so that we don't end up with another SoB debacle with year long desinvestment cycle...

Couldn't agree more.

The Death Guard codex seemed really good when it first came out, with interesting well balanced options, but it was obviously a bit rushed. The fairly tame rules however were quickly overshadowed by subsequent dexes, which speaks to the overall lack of a unified design philosophy.

You don't need an unified design philosophy over all factions. You need an unified overal perspective to the design philosophies and the units balance at hand.
I also would like a edition where all the books come out at once and have been clearly playtested at the same time.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They are unique models with plasma weapons in accordance with DA lore

lol "in accordance to DA lore".

Black Knights are a perfect example of bloat.

Generic Marines have bike squads
Dark Angels get better bike squads
Generic Marines get veteran bike squads
Dark Angels get even veteraner bike squads
Generic Marines get Primaris bike squads
Dark Angels will get...

Black Knights are one of the units which exists to justify Dark Angels having their own list separate from generic Marines.

They never existed before 6th edition, and bolting a bunch of plasma guns onto some bikes (looking to make some new Dark Angel background? - just add plasma and/or Fallen. Job done!) doesn't do anything more for Dark Angels than giving them the same veteran bikes as Generics have.

With every cycle of Marine books the Generics list picks up elements of the Variants, and then the Variants pick up elements of the Generics and bolt on more special stuff to differentiate them again.

Not Online!!! wrote:
You don't need an unified design philosophy over all factions. You need an unified overal perspective to the desing philosophies and the units balance at hand.
I also would like a edition where all the books come out at once and have been clearly playtested at the same time.

I believe that when he wrote "unified design philosophy" he meant things like all overheating weapons working the same, all body guards working the same, re-rolls for all/only on missed working the same for everyone, fight twice stratagems all working the same and so on.

Part of such a design philosophy would be what factions can have what, and were each faction's strength and weaknesses lie.

 Jidmah wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
You don't need an unified design philosophy over all factions. You need an unified overal perspective to the desing philosophies and the units balance at hand.
I also would like a edition where all the books come out at once and have been clearly playtested at the same time.

I believe that when he wrote "unified design philosophy" he meant things like all overheating weapons working the same, all body guards working the same, re-rolls for all/only on missed working the same for everyone, fight twice stratagems all working the same and so on.

Part of such a design philosophy would be what factions can have what, and were each faction's strength and weaknesses lie.

Ahh, meant more the overarching theme for a faction beeing diffrent. but yeah the basic ruleset should get some serious fixin'up as the greens would say.
Hence my foundation remark.

 Jidmah wrote:
Part of such a design philosophy would be what factions can have what, and were each faction's strength and weaknesses lie.

Something like this needs to be there at the start to know what future factions may look like and add options for it to core rules, if the core is more than a basic layout.
At the moment, 40k (and AoS) is more of a Sandbox, the core defines the basic rules of the "world" and everything else is free to change

So for GW this solves a lot of problems they had in the past (eg when they needed to change the design philosophy in the middel of an edition because the new releases did not fit the old one).
the less is in the core, the less you have to take care about overall design

a reason why AoS at the moment is the better game, as mini-factions work much better that way as big factions that share a lot of units/rules

 kodos wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Part of such a design philosophy would be what factions can have what, and were each faction's strength and weaknesses lie.

Something like this needs to be there at the start to know what future factions may look like and add options for it to core rules, if the core is more than a basic layout.
At the moment, 40k (and AoS) is more of a Sandbox, the core defines the basic rules of the "world" and everything else is free to change

So for GW this solves a lot of problems they had in the past (eg when they needed to change the design philosophy in the middel of an edition because the new releases did not fit the old one).
the less is in the core, the less you have to take care about overall design

a reason why AoS at the moment is the better game, as mini-factions work much better that way as big factions that share a lot of units/rules

TBF, AoS to my knowledge has a better core aswell?

I mean you can go take a look at the proposed rules forum and alot of discussions happen because of the rather abmisal state the core is in 40k atm. Terrain beeing a hottopic, AA, Killyness overall, Morale.

All these are Core or connected to core mechanics.

SYKOJAK wrote:I for one, am of the indifferent opinion. A person will buy the books to his army(s) as he feels are needed. So you only need the Codex/ and BRB to play.

While I definitely think there's bloat, I can't argue at all with this. In terms of books you *need*, it's only really just the Codex. You can get the core rules for free, if you felt so inclined.

PA, the supplements, the campaign books - all totally optional, and are in no way a "need".

Not Online!!! wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Part of such a design philosophy would be what factions can have what, and were each faction's strength and weaknesses lie.

Something like this needs to be there at the start to know what future factions may look like and add options for it to core rules, if the core is more than a basic layout.
At the moment, 40k (and AoS) is more of a Sandbox, the core defines the basic rules of the "world" and everything else is free to change

So for GW this solves a lot of problems they had in the past (eg when they needed to change the design philosophy in the middel of an edition because the new releases did not fit the old one).
the less is in the core, the less you have to take care about overall design

a reason why AoS at the moment is the better game, as mini-factions work much better that way as big factions that share a lot of units/rules

TBF, AoS to my knowledge has a better core aswell?

Yes and No, the Core is better as it fits the Stats of the units

40k had a big change to the Core but the unit stats/profiles were mostly copy&paste from old editions with light adjustments

a tanky unit from 7th was copy&pasted over to 8th and should have been again a tanky unit but because what is tanky changed within the Core Rules it did not work out well.

for example in the beginning, Thougness was still the main stats for tankiness while took GW more than a year to realise that Thougness is only usefull above a specific treshhold and Ward Saves and/or Wounds per Points are what make a unit "tanky".

and this is also the problem that there was no real design concept for 8th at the beginning because stuff was kept "the same" without working similar (while in AoS everything was new anyway and therefore done better)

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You can get the core rules for free, if you felt so inclined.

Legally? How?
I'm still pissed by the "rules of 40k!" in the Sisters of Battle big box that has nothing on the whole detachment/PC/stratagem thing (which, you know, is kind of a big deal), or that just tells us : "If a whole unit is in a terrain element, it has cover and therefore +1 save" (yeah, no mention of the whole 50% visible if not infantry and all).

Dudeface wrote:
Because of psychic awakening there is no way to reduce bloat immediately. Looking at marines, taking SW/BA/DA and cutting them to supplements is sensible to reducing errata and reprinting units.

What this doesn't solve is the number of releases or units, those new supplements still take up a release slot the same as a codex would. Those release slots will still want/need accompanying models as well, so if your objective is to make the game less marine centric, it changes nothing.

Psychic awakening imo is less productive than just re-printing a codex, since it just fragments rules, makes people buy unwanted content etc.

Depends on your definition of productive. Because of PA, 24 factions got an update in 10 months.

With codex updates, we'd have been very, very lucky to get 8 in a full year. Yeah, each of them would have been bigger updates.

But boy, wouldn't it suck to be playing one of the 16 factions that got nothing?

Rhetorical question; we know it would suck, because that's how this game always used to work, and if you didn't play marines, you could go years or even whole editions without an update. I'm pretty grateful for PA; I love the CWE and DE resculpts, we're getting Talons of the Emperor back, I'm getting Ephrael Stern and Greyknights don't suck anymore. New Fabius Bile and a subfaction to boot?

Yeah, in the old codex update system, I'd be lucky to get half of that in a full year. Instead, I got it all plus more in ten months. Feels pretty productive to me.