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Martel732 wrote:
Marines were 30 ppm in 2nd and -3 AP weapons were common and had high RoF. Ludicrous.

Yeah, armor was a joke in 2nd. A freakin' Musket had -1AP, lol. The difficulty was hitting the target, when you could very frequently stack -2 or -3 to hit on a unit.

"I don't remember seeing all that many high ROF or AP -3 stuff in 2nd though. I think compared to 8th there were far fewer shots fired per model. High RoF had sustained fire dice, so could jam, every model in a unit had to shoot the same target, heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved and models could only "see" in a 90 degree arc in front of them."

Eldar vypers with dual shuriken cannon my friend. And noise marine sonic blasters were -2 AP 32" range. I saw them constantly spammed. I saw multiple marine armies never even get a turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines were 30 ppm in 2nd and -3 AP weapons were common and had high RoF. Ludicrous.

Yeah, armor was a joke in 2nd. A freakin' Musket had -1AP, lol. The difficulty was hitting the target, when you could very frequently stack -2 or -3 to hit on a unit.

Marines struggled to get such penalties.

the_scotsman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
a) GW doesn't care about balance b) that's why they are doing changes now. They want do the periodic shape up to make people buy new models. Current balance isn't worry.

Right, which is why we're seeing point increases across the board. See, if points increase, and you need fewer models to play a 2k game, then GW will...make more...money?

You know it's really weird, sometimes when I fit ideas into my head and every single one of them has to end with "....because GW cynically wants to sell more models" I get this weird, dissonant pain in my head, and I have to hold my temples and scream "BECAUSE GW CYNICALLY WANTS TO SELL MORE MODELS" over and over again to get it to stop.

Like when they do something that would seem to result in GW selling fewer models. Do you ever get that?

We haven't gotten to the news of side boards being introduced to 40k. Even if you only play with 2000 points you'll bring an additional 1000 points for a total of 3000. That's how they're gettin ya.

Martel732 wrote:
"I don't remember seeing all that many high ROF or AP -3 stuff in 2nd though. I think compared to 8th there were far fewer shots fired per model. High RoF had sustained fire dice, so could jam, every model in a unit had to shoot the same target, heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved and models could only "see" in a 90 degree arc in front of them."

Eldar vypers with dual shuriken cannon my friend. And noise marine sonic blasters were -2 AP 32" range. I saw them constantly spammed. I saw multiple marine armies never even get a turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines were 30 ppm in 2nd and -3 AP weapons were common and had high RoF. Ludicrous.

Yeah, armor was a joke in 2nd. A freakin' Musket had -1AP, lol. The difficulty was hitting the target, when you could very frequently stack -2 or -3 to hit on a unit.

Marines struggled to get such penalties.

Uh...how? They can claim soft and hard cover same as anybody else, and that was the most common source of -2 to hit in the game rules. Also, basically every marine vehicle besides the dreadnought could get an extra -1 to hit by moving at Combat or Slow speed, and tons of marine stuff started from 2+ to hit thanks to Targeters.

Overall, I'm happy to see it, but the cost of a naked unit is less important than the cost of the weapons. Back in the stone age, a heavy weapon cost a lot more than the infantryman holding it, for instance, while today it can be quite close, depending on the body. (Marine? yes. Guardsman? Not so much.)

The key is to figure out what the baseline is and go from there.

Are we starting by saying a Grot, the weakest non-swarm around, is worth X and working from there? Are we instead using a Guardsman as the measuring stick? Or do we revolve around the Tactical Marine?

Each one has advantages and disadvantages.

If you start with a Grot at, say, 3 points, and charge more each time any stat increases, you can get basic models shooting up quickly.

With a Guardsman base, points increase more slowly, but you get some squeeze down below when trying to fit Cultists, Termagants, and Grots under there.

With a Marine base, you're using the most common model as the baseline, but that squeeze underneath gets a whole lot tighter.

Personally, and possibly because I'm old, I always considered the Guardsman profile (naked) to be the best place to work from. Call them 5 points, then figure out how much a lasgun, laspitol, CCW, grenades, and armor saves are, then run from there. The squeeze underneath isn't as bad, since an average guardsman with gear winds up 8 points or so, and it lets the more elite units really have room to breathe.

Martel732 wrote:
"I don't remember seeing all that many high ROF or AP -3 stuff in 2nd though. I think compared to 8th there were far fewer shots fired per model. High RoF had sustained fire dice, so could jam, every model in a unit had to shoot the same target, heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved and models could only "see" in a 90 degree arc in front of them."

Eldar vypers with dual shuriken cannon my friend. And noise marine sonic blasters were -2 AP 32" range. I saw them constantly spammed. I saw multiple marine armies never even get a turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines were 30 ppm in 2nd and -3 AP weapons were common and had high RoF. Ludicrous.

Yeah, armor was a joke in 2nd. A freakin' Musket had -1AP, lol. The difficulty was hitting the target, when you could very frequently stack -2 or -3 to hit on a unit.

Marines struggled to get such penalties.

What's funny is I only saw a dedicated Slaanesh/Noise Marine army once in 2nd. and it was in a tournament. I annihilated it almost without taking a casualty, easily my most landslide victory of the tourney. Those Noise Marines were expensive, and still just a T4 3+ like the rest of Marines. Marines had their own share of high ROF weapons, with the benefit of being equipped on high BS models with Targeters to mitigate cover bonuses.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"I don't remember seeing all that many high ROF or AP -3 stuff in 2nd though. I think compared to 8th there were far fewer shots fired per model. High RoF had sustained fire dice, so could jam, every model in a unit had to shoot the same target, heavy weapons couldn't fire if they moved and models could only "see" in a 90 degree arc in front of them."

Eldar vypers with dual shuriken cannon my friend. And noise marine sonic blasters were -2 AP 32" range. I saw them constantly spammed. I saw multiple marine armies never even get a turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines were 30 ppm in 2nd and -3 AP weapons were common and had high RoF. Ludicrous.

Yeah, armor was a joke in 2nd. A freakin' Musket had -1AP, lol. The difficulty was hitting the target, when you could very frequently stack -2 or -3 to hit on a unit.

Marines struggled to get such penalties.

What's funny is I only saw a dedicated Slaanesh/Noise Marine army once in 2nd. and it was in a tournament. I annihilated it almost without taking a casualty, easily my most landslide victory of the tourney. Those Noise Marines were expensive, and still just a T4 3+ like the rest of Marines. Marines had their own share of high ROF weapons, with the benefit of being equipped on high BS models with Targeters to mitigate cover bonuses.

I can almost guarantee you you wouldn't have been able to do that in our play group. We'll never know, but that doesn't jive with what I saw. Although I'm pretty sure they had plague marines in front to handle Nids, so you'd have to shoot them first. Marines weapons were jokes in 2nd ed for the most part. At least compared to the other faction. Let's also not forget the all-terminator chaos army that stays in teleport until the last turn so the worst it can ever do is draw.

Marines weren't the only army losing in a single turn, but they were the most frequent offender. There was also the 1st company list that didn't get to take an action because it spent the whole game pulsa rokkitted by genestealer cults.

^I probably just went first and put down all the hurt before he could fire. Marines had plenty enough firepower. Lord knows you could pack a ton of -2 and -3 save shots into an army.

If he didn't have plague marines, he would autolose to nids anyway.

I'm absolutely shocked at how positive that bar is for points costs going up across the board. Restores some faith in humanity in these dark times

I feel like we're all noticing just how packed tables are these days. Something had to give. My guard armies were regularly fielding over a 100 infantry with 10-12 tanks at 2000pts which is insane. Just carrying that around at a tournament was nerve wracking, let alone trying to play it. Part of the reason I stopped going to tournaments in 8th was because I was sick of lugging so many models around.

I'm sure GW is going to mess up some unit costs and lead to some units being too good or not good enough. That's inevitable. But the intent of lowering the amount of models to make a better game for the players is a good one, even though I'm sure a few players won't be happy they can't fit all their favorite toys in. This is the classic conundrum with all wargames. All gamers want to run all their cool stuff and toys, but in order to let the elite armies bring all their fun stuff you saddle the normal and horde armies with an insane amount of models if you're not careful. Well see how armies like space marines and custodes react to the changes. I personally expect lots of griping from a small section of the massive marine playerbase, just because a playerbase that big will inevitably have someone that hates it, but overall it will be good for the health of the game.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm absolutely shocked at how positive that bar is for points costs going up across the board. Restores some faith in humanity in these dark times

I feel like we're all noticing just how packed tables are these days. Something had to give. My guard armies were regularly fielding over a 100 infantry with 10-12 tanks at 2000pts which is insane. Just carrying that around at a tournament was nerve wracking, let alone trying to play it. Part of the reason I stopped going to tournaments in 8th was because I was sick of lugging so many models around.

I'm sure GW is going to mess up some unit costs and lead to some units being too good or not good enough. That's inevitable. But the intent of lowering the amount of models to make a better game for the players is a good one, even though I'm sure a few players won't be happy they can't fit all their favorite toys in. This is the classic conundrum with all wargames. All gamers want to run all their cool stuff and toys, but in order to let the elite armies bring all their fun stuff you saddle the normal and horde armies with an insane amount of models if you're not careful. Well see how armies like space marines and custodes react to the changes. I personally expect lots of griping from a small section of the massive marine playerbase, just because a playerbase that big will inevitably have someone that hates it, but overall it will be good for the health of the game.

IT's obvious the race to the bottom made it impossible to granulate guardsmen and grots.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm absolutely shocked at how positive that bar is for points costs going up across the board. Restores some faith in humanity in these dark times

I feel like we're all noticing just how packed tables are these days. Something had to give. My guard armies were regularly fielding over a 100 infantry with 10-12 tanks at 2000pts which is insane. Just carrying that around at a tournament was nerve wracking, let alone trying to play it. Part of the reason I stopped going to tournaments in 8th was because I was sick of lugging so many models around.

I'm sure GW is going to mess up some unit costs and lead to some units being too good or not good enough. That's inevitable. But the intent of lowering the amount of models to make a better game for the players is a good one, even though I'm sure a few players won't be happy they can't fit all their favorite toys in. This is the classic conundrum with all wargames. All gamers want to run all their cool stuff and toys, but in order to let the elite armies bring all their fun stuff you saddle the normal and horde armies with an insane amount of models if you're not careful. Well see how armies like space marines and custodes react to the changes. I personally expect lots of griping from a small section of the massive marine playerbase, just because a playerbase that big will inevitably have someone that hates it, but overall it will be good for the health of the game.

I am actually not shocked that GW ,being the behemoth it is, has legions of lemmings willing to do anything GW wants and justify it in any way they can. including things that any other game company would not get a pass on like over costed models, terrible rules writing, bad game mechanics etc... they have built a huge market share, some of the most detailed plastic minis and a compelling game universe in depth and gamers want to game so they eat it up. No other game company is big enough to challenge GWs dominant position. As long as sales are up GW will continue down the same path good or bad.

Plenty of game companies are. Just not miniatures games.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm absolutely shocked at how positive that bar is for points costs going up across the board. Restores some faith in humanity in these dark times

I feel like we're all noticing just how packed tables are these days. Something had to give. My guard armies were regularly fielding over a 100 infantry with 10-12 tanks at 2000pts which is insane. Just carrying that around at a tournament was nerve wracking, let alone trying to play it. Part of the reason I stopped going to tournaments in 8th was because I was sick of lugging so many models around.

I'm sure GW is going to mess up some unit costs and lead to some units being too good or not good enough. That's inevitable. But the intent of lowering the amount of models to make a better game for the players is a good one, even though I'm sure a few players won't be happy they can't fit all their favorite toys in. This is the classic conundrum with all wargames. All gamers want to run all their cool stuff and toys, but in order to let the elite armies bring all their fun stuff you saddle the normal and horde armies with an insane amount of models if you're not careful. Well see how armies like space marines and custodes react to the changes. I personally expect lots of griping from a small section of the massive marine playerbase, just because a playerbase that big will inevitably have someone that hates it, but overall it will be good for the health of the game.

They'll definitely hate it if it means they can't force people who play other factions to buy and paint gigantic hordes of units to play the game at the points value they want to make standard. If horde units are balanced around new point costs (meaning, if they're signfiicantly harder to take out than right now) you can 100% bet the lower model count will be unpopular because people currently looooooooove just schlooping giant blobs of cheap models off the table.

Basically, any time 10 or fewer light infantry models survive a shooting attack, the marine players go "what? That's bs they lived."

Yeah as far as companies go, GW is actually quite small, it just that the tabletop industry is a very small pond.

I love the idea, as my favorite format is and alwyas has been the 1500 points one in every edition since 3rd. But those hikes must be fair and balanced among all the factions.

With 20ppm intercessors I can't really accept boyz being more expensive than 7ppm, they already are 7ppm and they look overcosted.

 Blackie wrote:
I love the idea, as my favorite format is and alwyas has been the 1500 points one in every edition since 3rd. But those hikes must be fair and balanced among all the factions.

With 20ppm intercessors I can't really accept boyz being more expensive than 7ppm, they already are 7ppm and they look overcosted.

Well, we don't know yet.

 aphyon wrote:


It won't make any difference, people will just move the standard game size up to match the points cost increase. this is NOT a skirmish game and has not been since 2nd ed. that is what games like kill teams and necromunda are for in the 40K line. (not to mention all the alternate game systems by other companies). players expect 40K to be played in larger scale. nobody is going to want to NOT use all the minis they have collected for their army.

I strongly disagree, I hate playing the entire collection, part of the fun is making choices in list building and try different combinations. A 1500 points army with 8th edition points values is still pretty big. For very large scale games there's always apocalypse.

Luckily the new minimum table size of a 2001+ points game will discourage from adopting big formats as the new standard.

 Blackie wrote:

 aphyon wrote:


It won't make any difference, people will just move the standard game size up to match the points cost increase. this is NOT a skirmish game and has not been since 2nd ed. that is what games like kill teams and necromunda are for in the 40K line. (not to mention all the alternate game systems by other companies). players expect 40K to be played in larger scale. nobody is going to want to NOT use all the minis they have collected for their army.

I strongly disagree, I hate playing the entire collection, part of the fun is making choices in list building and try different combinations. A 1500 points army with 8th edition points values is still pretty big. For very large scale games there's always apocalypse.

Luckily the new minimum table size of a 2001+ points game will discourage from adopting big formats as the new standard.

I also strongly disagree. I hate this mentality in the game now where you should be able to just stuff everything you want into your list for every game. Having to make choices and compromises about what you put in is far more interesting. I would hate to field my entire collection at once. That would not be fun for me or me the person I'm playing against.