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BrianDavion wrote:
I'd not be too suprised to see GW slide in some restrictions on HQs over all in cases where things just don't make a lot of sense, like "why are there two captains leading this demi company?" etc. I'd not be too suprised to see other factions hit with this.

Other factions dont have HQs that take out knights for like 150 pts.

Yeah limiting to one CAPTAIN per Detachment and two LIEUTENANTS is something I could see coming in.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Yeah limiting to one CAPTAIN per Detachment and two LIEUTENANTS is something I could see coming in.

You mean for all armies? Because for space marines that got spoiled in the early days of the release announcements.

Has anyone ever seen an army with 3 lieutenants?

Tyel wrote:
Has anyone ever seen an army with 3 lieutenants?

First Born Leuitenants can't take storm shields. Wolf Guard Battle leaders however can so it's 50/50 chances I figure that Lts will get stormshields in 9th (or wolfguard battle leaders will lose theirs :( )

if they restricted captains but you could take an unlimited number of Lts, you'd absolutely see multiple Lts, they're a cheap HQ and you can take 2 per detachment HQ slot. put a hard limit on captains and ignore Lts and yeah I could totally see lists built around 6 smash Lts popping up

Captain & Lietenant spam outside of apoc scale games feels totally unfluffy IMO. I much preffer fielding apotecharies and Chaplains, in my mind it fits the backstory of a geneseed-hoarding bunch of warrior monks a lot better. But who I'm trying to kid, its smash captains and Guillimans amirite

My money goes towards Boltstorm Gauntlets counting as one separate weapons each, so the number of shots would stay the same.

Reason: Where would they go to with the Captain in Gravis armour? His Boltstorm Gauntlet has 3 shots.

Would seem very awkward if double the guns would not mean double the shots.

Are there other incidents where "double weapons" have an uneven number of shots?


Bonus: For the Ghost Ark they showed the complete weapon array of one side for which the profile applies, similar to how they only show one fist. We don't expect the Ghost Ark to lose half of it's shots, do we?

"Look at these two big amazing gauntlet-mounted flamers, with their powers combined they become ... a regular flamer!"

Yeah I don't see Aggressors firepower getting cut in half, more likely the sheet just shows the stat for their gauntlet-weapon, but they have two of them.

I can see them loosing the shoot-twice rule, or maybe it getting turned into a stratagem however.

I don't have my SM codex right now, but do Aggressors currently have the same bit as Eradicators where they get double shots but have to target a specific unit?

Cause if they do not, I could see that happening.

Na, they are equipped with one pair of Bolt/Firestorm GauntletS with twice the shots than seen on the datasheet.

If they get the Eradicator rule, then they would have two "shoot twice" rules, which feels clunky.

Stand still: Shoot twice
Target same target: Shoot twice

Methinks thats unlikely

 Kanluwen wrote:
I don't have my SM codex right now, but do Aggressors currently have the same bit as Eradicators where they get double shots but have to target a specific unit?

Cause if they do not, I could see that happening.

They can shoot 2 different units. The catch is that they have to stand still. Personally I'd like to keep my aggressors how they are, they were the Allstars of my lists

Does it explicitly state that they can shoot 2 different units or it just doesn't say the same unit?

Goofy as it sounds, I really do think that might how they be going with it. It might tone down the power of Aggressors while still giving them horde clearing capabilities.

The only thing aggressors absolutely need is to have their double-shoot when not moving rule limited so it only works when you really haven't moved. Coming in from strategic reserves, "counting as stationary" and then double-shooting is ridiculous nonsense that never should have made it through testing.

Really the double shoot rule should just go away period or maybe change into a "+1 to hit or reroll the number of shots" or something instead, but the only thing they really need is not to be able to move and shoot twice through stratagems.

So either marksman ignores flamers, goes away, or we'll have 15" aggressors.

I really have to think that even GW has got to be smart enough to just get rid of the custom traits entirely, they were a massive mistake that created all sorts of problems for the game. Just admit they were a failed experiment and move on IMO. The alternative is nerfing the good ones, but at that point nobody would use them anyway, so what's the point?

Of course, I have have been wrong in the past about GW's self-awareness and competence.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I really have to think that even GW has got to be smart enough to just get rid of the custom traits entirely, they were a massive mistake that created all sorts of problems for the game. Just admit they were a failed experiment and move on IMO. The alternative is nerfing the good ones, but at that point nobody would use them anyway, so what's the point?

Of course, I have have been wrong in the past about GW's self-awareness and competence.

Please don't advocate this. This is the same thing that happened in 5th with it's wonderful custom guard trades that invited converting your entire army, [Warrior weapons] for example, that got erased the next codex leaving people with suddenly invalid entire armies.

You can balence things without removing the entire customisation concept, you know.

In theory? Sure. In reality? GW can't. There isn't a single example of custom traits from 8th that works and is worth having in the game. The Space Marine and Craftworld Eldar ones are overpowered and super problematic for both factions in terms of how it warps the game; the other custom traits are inferior and don't get used.

It's hard enough for GW to come up with 6+ different sub-faction traits, relics and strat combinations that are balanced with one another, it's clearly far beyond their abilities to do it in with a mix and match style.

The PA traits are a failed experiment. There's not much to it. Talking about 5th is silly because this isn't 5th. If they can come up with a custom traits system that works great...but what we got from PA doesn't work and should be binned as the failure it was.

If you follow that logic through to the end, GW should just squat 40k.

 Jidmah wrote:
If you follow that logic through to the end, GW should just squat 40k.

No, not unless you think 40k is not worth playing on balance. In which case...don't play it?

The custom traits aren't worth having on balance. They create more problems than they solve. If you wanted to just squat the overpowered problematic ones and leave a bunch of terrible stuff nobody would use go for it I guess? If that'd really make people happier than just removing it entirely, it doesn't bother me.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
If you follow that logic through to the end, GW should just squat 40k.

No, not unless you think 40k is not worth playing on balance. In which case...don't play it?

The custom traits aren't worth having on balance. They create more problems than they solve. If you wanted to just squat the overpowered problematic ones and leave a bunch of terrible stuff nobody would use go for it I guess? If that'd really make people happier than just removing it entirely, it doesn't bother me.

'The Space Marine factions arn't worth having on balence. They create more problems than they solve. If you want to squat the overpowered space marines and just leave a bunch of terrible stuff nobody would use go for it a guess.
If that'd really make people happier than squatting space marines entirely, it doesn't bother me.'

If you'd like to suggest that to GW go ahead, but I somehow doubt they're going to be interested in squatting half their revenue. In other words, Space Marines obviously are worth it to GW on balance. There is no possible argument they aren't.

If you disagree with the point disagree with the point. Please don't waste everyone's time with dumb straw men.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
If you follow that logic through to the end, GW should just squat 40k.

No, not unless you think 40k is not worth playing on balance. In which case...don't play it?

The custom traits aren't worth having on balance. They create more problems than they solve. If you wanted to just squat the overpowered problematic ones and leave a bunch of terrible stuff nobody would use go for it I guess? If that'd really make people happier than just removing it entirely, it doesn't bother me.

The iasue is Marines have such a rediculously bloated range that they can abuse custome traits, if you take engine war or the greater good they both have cuatome traits for multiple factions, you know how OP thsoe are no-one really feels they are better than the standout one from the codex, because for all those you lose your subfaction specific strategums etc, another "rule" that marines got to igbore in codex 2.0

Anyone saw the datasheet for inceptors ? Apparently they nerfed the plasma version and I'm slightly sad because of that.

Custom traits are even worse for craftworlds than for space marines, EC warps the entire CWE list and makes running anything else non-viable because models are pointed with EC in mind because if they weren't the ~40% increase in DPS it gives to single entity units would make them totally overpowered.

The problem with custom traits is they are either overpowered (CWE/ marines) and everybody uses them except for very specific army types, or underpowered (guard/ DE except for technomancers / GSC) and nobody uses them.

There's not a single example in 8th I'm aware of of GW managing to create a good custom trait system that isn't either overpowered or underpowered relative to the normal choices.

If they want to keep the underpowered versions and make custom traits something you do for fluffy reasons but that are irrelevant competitively that's fine with me. But they really ought to remove the stupid overpowered ones - master crafters, marksmen, always in cover and ignore cover (and the CWE equivalents of those) at a minimum.

The problem with custom traits was not only the balance being all over, but you weren't locked to a particular Parent Chapter. Sure, I could see maybe a couple of Iron Hands successors being Stealthy, but the primary thing is the bionics. That's always been a constant. How it should've worked was that for each Successor, you have to choose the primary first part of the trait (so Iron Hands successors are always stuck with a 6+++ and White Scars always have the Advance/Fall Back and Charge, for example), and then you get a choice of 5-10 secondary ones so to keep everything in check. Even with some Chapters showing tons of deviance, they still shouldn't be THAT far off with fighting style. An Ultramarine Successor that was super aggressive about getting into combat would still retain Fall Back + Shoot, but perhaps they get the exploding 6s in melee or the +1 to Advance/Charge.

Whatever though I'm no designer and people want freedumb.

That would be better, but you'd still end up with people just taking whichever one was better.

And the biggest problem is just that certain ones of them are fundamentally ridiculous and never should have made it into the game. I have no idea how anybody who did the math on master artisans / expert crafters could have thought that was ok to give as a custom trait, much less one that can be comboed with something else too. The only thing I can think of is that nobody actually did the math. Which is itself telling.

Like I said if they want to just remove the good ones and leave the terrible ones that's fine too. I just think it'd be more honest intellectually to admit it was a mistake and go back to the drawing board and find other, better ways to let people customize their armies than a bunch of inferior (because you removed the overpowered ones) custom traits that lock you out of strats and relics (unless you're space marines, and you pay CP in the case of relics).

Not everything in a codex needs to be balanced internally. Some things are just straight fluff. There's a giant player base out there that no gaks about their relic or w/e being crap. If they can model it and have fun with it then there's no harm done. There are some really old relics that are just straight terrible though.

I don't think I've ever met a single player who uses the non-overpowered custom traits for their army for fluff reasons, in my experience people who play for fluff would much rather use the established, more fluffy rules including the relics, strats and characters than give that up in return for some generic bad rules. But if those people do exist and really want their bad custom traits to stay...I have no problem with that, as long as the overpowered ones are removed.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Not everything in a codex needs to be balanced internally. Some things are just straight fluff. There's a giant player base out there that no gaks about their relic or w/e being crap. If they can model it and have fun with it then there's no harm done. There are some really old relics that are just straight terrible though.

You'd think that but literally nobody is going to take the rerolling melee hits on Xenos armies as a Custom trait simply because they won't make up the majority of the armies you'll face.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
That would be better, but you'd still end up with people just taking whichever one was better.

Perhaps, but the more limited number would make it easier to balance the Primary Trait and the Secondary Trait that can be chosen. Nobody should really be fethed over because they chose Bolter Fusilades and Whirlwind of Gore and a Salamanders successor for whatever forsaken reason. As long as each Primary trait can be considered fairly equal, the secondary ones won't matter AS MUCH, if that makes sense.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The problem with custom traits was not only the balance being all over, but you weren't locked to a particular Parent Chapter. Sure, I could see maybe a couple of Iron Hands successors being Stealthy, but the primary thing is the bionics. That's always been a constant. How it should've worked was that for each Successor, you have to choose the primary first part of the trait (so Iron Hands successors are always stuck with a 6+++ and White Scars always have the Advance/Fall Back and Charge, for example), and then you get a choice of 5-10 secondary ones so to keep everything in check. Even with some Chapters showing tons of deviance, they still shouldn't be THAT far off with fighting style. An Ultramarine Successor that was super aggressive about getting into combat would still retain Fall Back + Shoot, but perhaps they get the exploding 6s in melee or the +1 to Advance/Charge.

Whatever though I'm no designer and people want freedumb.

I agree with this. I kinda feel that players wanting to make use of chapter supplements probably shouldn't be allowed to wander that far from their parent's Chapter Tactics. On the other hand, if a player decides to forego the supplements, indicating major deviation from parent chapter or unknown chapter, they should be able to freely mix and match Chapter Tactics. I follow that with my space marines being unknown.

I am well versed in the making the fluff fit the rules players who would get up in arms about that sort of thing. Ultimately, I don't know if it really solves that much for the extra complication either. So I am going to continue going without any of the chapter supplements pick the Tactics I think reflect my chapter best and continue to play games that way not getting mad if I don't do so well either. It does make Battlescribe a little odd for me though as it no longer has generic space marines as an option. It's all based on founding chapters now.