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The explanation didn't make sense. It appears to read "people don't buy models for the rules except in circumstances when they do" (in more competitive metas) Which, in my experience, has been basically every meta I've played in for 20+ years.
That's because you're still taking it as an absolute statement. It's not. Think of it like someone saying 'Nobody wears sandals and socks'. Clearly, some people wear sandals and socks. It's just a casual (and admittedly technically incorrect) way of saying 'very few people'.
That being said, saying 'Nobody does...[whatever]' on an online forum is guaranteed to have someone take it literally and argue that they do, in fact, do that thing, so I should have known better than to phrase it like that.
Also worth pointing out that 'very few' is a relative thing - yes, there are quite a few competitive gamers playing 40k, and I expect a lot of them buy models based on their effectiveness. But from what I've seen over the decades, competitive gamers are a very small subset of 40K players, that just tends to look larger than it is when you spend time on forums.
Ah. The difference is that I'm not saying they "always" do that. I'm saying they could definitely do that from time to time, and it would be an easy and tempting thing to do.
Sure, they could. I'm just yet to see any evidence that they actually do, as opposed to just sometimes winding up in that situation because they don't pay a great deal of attention to game balance when writing rules.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/09/15 20:23:25
^Well I think someone pointed out above that they actually admitted to having done it with the Wraithknight. That could be hearsay, but . . . as a guy having been involved in the game industry, I KNOW tweaking the numbers for $$$ is faaaar from rare.
You could say video games and tabletop are different, and they are. But the financial incentive, and means, is the same.
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
LOL omg I remember that.
They did though. A Couple of Splinter Cannons. They were S4 and Land Speeders were armour 10 all round. The cannons could glance it on 6s.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/09/15 20:23:38
Games Workshop Delenda Est.
Users on ignore- 53.
If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them.
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
LOL omg I remember that.
They did though. A Couple of Splinter Cannons. They were S4 and Land Speeders were armour 10 all round. The cannons could glance it on 6s.
I was thinking that, but hadn't made it to go check the stats in my old black book to confirm it
Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.
Kanluwen wrote: This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.
Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...
tneva82 wrote: You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something...
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
LOL omg I remember that.
They did though. A Couple of Splinter Cannons. They were S4 and Land Speeders were armour 10 all round. The cannons could glance it on 6s.
Hup, you're right. The Splinter Cannons were plastic and on the sprue, weren't they. Only the Dark Lances were metal.
So, I forget, could the DA troops be given haywire grenades or something?
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
LOL omg I remember that.
They did though. A Couple of Splinter Cannons. They were S4 and Land Speeders were armour 10 all round. The cannons could glance it on 6s.
I was thinking that, but hadn't made it to go check the stats in my old black book to confirm it
Oh man, I remember those Splinter Cannons. They were so much fun! S4! Assault 4! So many dice!
+Looks around at current state of game and firepower+
They weren't optimal against the Marines in that starter, but those forces begged to be expanded on both sides. Raiders evened things out nicely.
Yeah, the splinter cannons were plastic in the warrior kit, but the blasters, shredders, and dark lances were metal, along with the all metal troops, which were bought two to a blister.
My Dark Eldar army is 85% 3rd edition models. They certainly show their age, but I find them charming.
Edit Yes, the Sybarite in the 3rd edition Codex in the warrior squad could get Haywire Grenades. I don't remember if that was part of the 3rd ed "book army lists" though
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/09/15 20:52:47
"There is rational thought here. It's just swimming through a sea of stupid and is often concealed from view by the waves of irrational conclusions." - Railguns
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
LOL omg I remember that.
They did though. A Couple of Splinter Cannons. They were S4 and Land Speeders were armour 10 all round. The cannons could glance it on 6s.
I was thinking that, but hadn't made it to go check the stats in my old black book to confirm it
Oh man, I remember those Splinter Cannons. They were so much fun! S4! Assault 4! So many dice!
+Looks around at current state of game and firepower+
They weren't optimal against the Marines in that starter, but those forces begged to be expanded on both sides. Raiders evened things out nicely.
Yeah, the splinter cannons were plastic in the warrior kit, but the blasters, shredders, and dark lances were metal, along with the all metal troops, which were bought two to a blister.
My Dark Eldar army is 85% 3rd edition models. They certainly show their age, but I find them charming.
Edit Yes, the Sybarite in the 3rd edition Codex in the warrior squad could get Haywire Grenades. I don't remember if that was part of the 3rd ed "book army lists" though
DE were THE L2P army in 3rd, too. So easy to mess up, but the players that really got them were nigh unbeatable.
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was
AngryAngel80 wrote: I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "
the_scotsman wrote: The new marine codex and models have been announced and for the first time, I heard a figure for the number of datasheets in the codex, which set me off on one of those "how many Delawares" style research jaunts to try and figure out just how many marines are out there.
Spoiler:
In this thread, if I say "Marines" I'll be referring exclusively to marine chapters traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines. Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Deathwatch, Dark Angels and Blood Angels were considered to be officially full-blooded factions by GW, even if there are some indications they're planning on bringing them at least closer to under the same roof with these releases, so it seems unfair to lump them together when talking about releases, models, and numbers of datasheets.
1) The new marine codex contains 98 datasheets, which is all Codex Space marines datasheets excluding named characters and Forgeworld options. If you exclude Superheavies and named characters, the sum total of the number of datasheets present for all legions in The Horus Heresy is by my count 91. (Based on 1d4chan, I did not comb through all of battlescribe)
2) The new marine codex contains 34 weapons that are or contain variations of boltguns. There is a potential for 2 more if entries in the assembly datasheets are not typos (The single shot heavy bolter on the Invictor, the 30" range normal bolter on Space Marine Veterans). If there are 2 more, there will be as many bolt weapons contained within Codex: Space Marines chapters as there are items in the Tau ranged wargear list.
3) The last model release for Codex Tyranids was November 2014, excluding repackagings such as the reselling of Genestealers as Purestrain Genestealers for Codex Genestealer Cults. Since that time, not counting limited edition releases, there have been 64 kits released for Codex: Space Marines.
4) There was one codex book released between Codex Space Marines 2.0 and Codex Space Marines 3.0. There will be a total of five books containing content for other armies between the release of Saga of the Beast and the release of the new Space Wolves supplement. If one supplement is released per month in 2020 and the Space Wolves supplement is released in november, there will have been 8 months between codex updates for the Space Wolves, almost certainly a warhammer 40k record.
5) If you include the datasheets for chapter-specific units traditionally contained within Codex: Space Marines, there will be more datasheets in Codex: Space Marines than in Codex: Chaos Knights, Codex: Imperial Knights, Codex: Harlequins, Codex: Adepta Sororitas, Codex: Adeptus Custodes, Codex: Genestealer Cults and Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus combined.
Growth for the sake of growth latter day corporate capitalism meets “designers” with associates degrees in business and less real world experience than CCGs and console games, leading to a thousand flavors of power up. Thin rules from shallow minds. Not that every faction should receive the space weenie treatment, but that depth comes from differences making a difference, with an elegant system getting most depth with least complexity and so fewest significant differences. Fifty shades of boltgun is boring.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/09/16 03:52:20
TBH, I don't even play Tyranids- and I likely wouldn't ever do so. I'd be willing to pick them up for a narrative game thing, BUT:
I can see why there's not a lot of enthusiasm over them. Look, I work in a FLGS. Tyranid boxes are one of the boxes I have to dust off periodically, and I just stacked a bunch of them in our bargain bin because... no one buys them.
Honestly with all the crazy stuff going on in the lore, I'm pretty sure the Tyranids could have gobbled up something angry and mean and that warrants a model update. Just something more... alien, evil, mean... something that just looks more aggressive, less... anthromorphic and such, y'know?
I mean I'm pretty sure they could say they gobbled up some Barghesi, Hrud, Warp Karens, Primaris Marines, Ghost Peppers, and some other madness to justify a full overhaul- cosmetically and mechanically.
Maybe something that kills off a massive number of them- but now, they're smaller, more dangerous 'swarms' that periodically 'contact' one another via bioforms packed with genetic material that's been gobbled up.
They just need better rules. Not even exclusively more powerful. Better. Nothing about their current rules imparts the horror of facing them. Get the writers to watch Sci fi films, read their background. It shouldn't be so bland.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/09/16 06:47:47
BlaxicanX wrote: A young business man named Tom Kirby, who was a pupil of mine until he turned greedy, helped the capitalists hunt down and destroy the wargamers. He betrayed and murdered Games Workshop.
Eldarain wrote: They just need better rules. Not even exclusively more powerful. Better. Nothing about their current rules imparts the horror of facing them. Get the writers to watch Sci fi films, read their background. It shouldn't be so bland.
Honestly- if they're as boring to play as they are to play against? Well, I'll bet they make nice shelf decorations.... or, well... you can use their bits to create daemons and mutants or something, I suppose.
I think they should do a cosmetic overhaul with a new rules overhaul. Make them scarier. Gaunts aren't scary, they're annoying and fall over. Of all the armies that should have big scary units, it should be Tyranids.
I mean, FFS- they should have 'build a boogermonster' rules where you can just pick what you want to make some custom monstrosity for whatever you need... and be able to change it up in game as he 'adapts'.
Eldarain wrote: They just need better rules. Not even exclusively more powerful. Better. Nothing about their current rules imparts the horror of facing them. Get the writers to watch Sci fi films, read their background. It shouldn't be so bland.
I think they know the background it's just a matter of making the background work with the rules. I mean TBH tyranids suffer from the problem of "a biiig part of their horror is they don't care about balance, they swarm you!"
that and they need to make shadow in the warp useful while not being stupidly OP. honestly I'd make shadow in the warp two fold. 1: -1 morale penalty bubble on ALL 'nid units. 2: maybe give 'nids some sort of universal deny the witch ability
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
The old Dark Eldar vs Space Marines will forever be the classic though, because it included a vehicle on the marine side, and the dark eldar side had LITERALLY NOT ONE single weapon that could harm the vehicle. It was invulnerable.
The DE had 2x splintercannons, which gave 8 S4 shots to fish for a 6 to glance the landspeeder. But yeah, it was pretty unbalanced, even before you throw in bonus Limited edition HQ's for the Marines.
Unless....
Spoiler:
Since the rulebook never specified what a splintercannon looked like, some players may have fielded them as lascannons( Darklances, the rulebook simplified all weapons to a few statlines) instead
Adeptus Doritos wrote: Look, I work in a FLGS. Tyranid boxes are one of the boxes I have to dust off periodically, and I just stacked a bunch of them in our bargain bin because... no one buys them.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: I mean, FFS- they should have 'build a boogermonster' rules where you can just pick what you want to make some custom monstrosity for whatever you need... and be able to change it up in game as he 'adapts'.
'Cept there's no kit for that, therefore there will be no rules for that, no matter how good the idea is.
BrianDavion wrote: I think they know the background it's just a matter of making the background work with the rules. I mean TBH tyranids suffer from the problem of "a biiig part of their horror is they don't care about balance, they swarm you!"
And the fine folks at GW saw fit to rate anything above 5 models in this edition a "horde", suffering greater effects from blast weapons and coherency rules.
Eldarain wrote: They just need better rules. Not even exclusively more powerful. Better. Nothing about their current rules imparts the horror of facing them. Get the writers to watch Sci fi films, read their background. It shouldn't be so bland.
Well, the game structure prevents the Nids from playing like they do in the fluff. Instead of seemingly endless hordes, we have a discreet amount of Nids fighting over some objectives that should be meaningless to the hive mind. I think the only way to really capture the Nid feel would be narrative games with unbalanced forces where the opposing player has to hold out for x number of turns for y reasons (VIP escape, relic recovery what have you) before succumbing to the mass.
Tyranids used to have that. "Tyranid Attack" in 2nd Ed was a wonderful mission.
Tyranid Objective: Eat Everything.
Opponent Objective: Don't get eaten.
If the enemy was wiped out in 6 turns (2nd Ed games were capped at 4 turns, so this was a long one), the Tyranids one. If any of the enemy were left, the opponent won.
That would make nids more boring to play against. Not less.
honestly the core problem with Nids is the core problem that Necrons had, that GSC have, that Harlequins had, that Grey Knights had, etc, etc etc:
Nobody paid much attention to them during their initial model release, most of their abilities were lazy ports of their 7th ed statlines and rules just redesigned to deal mortal wounds approximately equal to the normal wounds the abilities would usually cause. That was their index rules
Then their codex came out, and yet again, they did not see any kind of in-depth redesign at all, save for a couple of units like the Hive Tyrant. A couple of weapons got a point of AP, or a point of strength, but at no point since 7th edition has anyone at GW actually sat down with the tyranid codex and gone
"OK. Let's take all these critters, and figure out what they do for this, the current edition of warhammer 40,000 that people are playing right now"
They've just been all but forgotten for basically 2 editions in a row, and the framework their rules are built on is incredibly lazy in the first place, where many of their units are just functionally identical except for their special datasheet rules extras.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
the_scotsman wrote: That would make nids more boring to play against. Not less.
HMBC didn't mention that the Nids could recycle units, and that there were tables to roll on before the game to represent the toll that fighting Nids had already taken on the defenders. Models got sick, or infected with life forms that could explode mid-game. Vehicles showed up late to the battle and low on ammunition. Stuff like that. It was pretty rad.
Your theory is that GW broke single entries into many, many entries to try idiotproof for their awful rules team?
My theory is they did it because they think we're not as smart as their rules team.
That is honestly quite insulting but also hillarious in a way.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrianDavion wrote: that narrative ruleset sounds fun, I'd be pretty happy if they included something like that as a narrative crusade rule in the 9E 'nid codex.
Honest suggestion, for narrative stuff, look at such older systems in place and or DIY.
If you got some propper experience in it you can make a way more engaging set of rules then gw for narrative.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/09/16 12:31:06
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Im sure it wasn't editions upon editions upon editions of people figuring out that if you combine Mobility Option A, Durability Option B, and Standard Weapon Option C you can create an uber-character that can one-round triple his points value in a single turn, leading to GW having to choose between nerfing one of those three options that many other units use, or nerfing the character 99.99% of the possible builds for which are fine.
That couldn't be the reason for giving more entries to various wargear combinations at all.
"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"
"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"
"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"
"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"
the_scotsman wrote: The weird thing to me personally is how it always feels like, whenever GW comes out with one of those "army vs army boxed sets" it seems like GW just...doesn't...ever play out the game to make sure it makes for a good game.
I've seen a few people playing out the indomitus box, and it's just like the other box set games I've seen: completely, utterly one-sided. The necrons stand aaabsolutely no chance using the rules that come in the box.
And it's been the same with every one of these box sets, the winner is already pre-decided practically:
Add up the points for both sides, and check for obvious high S vs high T disparities. They make lousy armies for other people to play.
Like, especially with the "new edition" launch boxes, where every mini inside is a brand new sculpt, like DV or DI or Indomitus...what stops you from specifically going out of your way to ensure the game is a balanced matchup? You're literally designing every rule and model from the ground. Most of the time they end up being like 350 points on 600 points or something dumb like that.
Usually needing a higher dollar value of this army to get to equal points of that dollar value of that army. Look at Wake the Dead. Half each of 2 boxes, 1 full box and a character blister for the SM $135. Eldar had three full boxes and a character blister ~$170.
Legio Suturvora 2000 points (painted)
Daemonhunters 1000 points (painted)
Flesh Tearers 2000+ points (painted) - Balt GT '02 52nd; Balt GT '05 16th
Kabal of the Tortured Soul 2000+ points (painted) - Balt GT '08 85th; Mechanicon '09 12th
Greenwing 1000 points (painted) - Adepticon Team Tourny 2013
Eldar- 4436 pts
