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 Castozor wrote:
Imagine thinking adding GSC to the game is similar to the absolute ridiculous amount of primaris releases. GSC are their own army who happen to be able to ally with Tyranids just like Imperial and Chaos factions can with their books. Primaris were nothing more than adding bloat to what was already the most bloated faction in the game.

It's less about bloat and more about keeping pole position. When your main claim to fame is having some of the best mass produced kits on the market, having your main range be as outdated is a serious no no.

So the Space Marine line that was mostly no more than a couple of years old was 'outdated', but Tyranids having basic troops from 2001 is fine because their range is 'complete'.

And GSC count as Tyranids, despite nobody acting like Sisters count as Space Marines, because distinct armies within a superfaction only count as distinct if they're Imperial.

The Marine fanboying is out in full force tonight, it seems.

Edit: Oh yeah, and for the final act, Primaris don't count as new Marine models because they should be thought of as a separate product line. We're going to miss the forest for the trees and act like 'adding yet another Space Marine subfaction product line' is better than 'adding yet more units to existing Space Marine factions'. Amazing.

 LunarSol wrote:
...having your main range be as outdated is a serious no no.

More of a no-no than selling poor-quality resin casts of fifteen-year-old metal minis as core elements of any of your ranges?

 catbarf wrote:
So the Space Marine line that was mostly no more than a couple of years old was 'outdated', but Tyranids having basic troops from 2001 is fine because their range is 'complete'.

And GSC count as Tyranids, despite nobody acting like Sisters count as Space Marines, because distinct armies within a superfaction only count as distinct if they're Imperial.

The Marine fanboying is out in full force tonight, it seems.

Yeah power armor guys, keep it at the Dudeface level where you sort of dance around these points but maintain plausible deniability. Don't jump to the ccs level where you just deny reality like this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
Imagine thinking adding GSC to the game is similar to the absolute ridiculous amount of primaris releases. GSC are their own army who happen to be able to ally with Tyranids just like Imperial and Chaos factions can with their books. Primaris were nothing more than adding bloat to what was already the most bloated faction in the game.

It's less about bloat and more about keeping pole position. When your main claim to fame is having some of the best mass produced kits on the market, having your main range be as outdated is a serious no no.

Outdated, like the firstborn kits that, outside of only a couple things like bikes that are, at most, 5 years old?

 LunarSol wrote:

 Castozor wrote:
Imagine thinking adding GSC to the game is similar to the absolute ridiculous amount of primaris releases. GSC are their own army who happen to be able to ally with Tyranids just like Imperial and Chaos factions can with their books. Primaris were nothing more than adding bloat to what was already the most bloated faction in the game.

It's less about bloat and more about keeping pole position. When your main claim to fame is having some of the best mass produced kits on the market, having your main range be as outdated is a serious no no.

First of all, proper marines are by no means outdated. Secondly the fact that some consider them the "main" line is part of the problem. There is no reason SM should get twice the attention of the next faction. It's a self reinforcing cycle.

 catbarf wrote:
So the Space Marine line that was mostly no more than a couple of years old was 'outdated', but Tyranids having basic troops from 2001 is fine because their range is 'complete'.

And GSC count as Tyranids, despite nobody acting like Sisters count as Space Marines, because distinct armies within a superfaction only count as distinct if they're Imperial.

The Marine fanboying is out in full force tonight, it seems.

Adding Ridgerunners and a Jackal Alpha are going to change how Tyranid army plays far more than adding some Penitent Engines to a space marine army. I only mention it because if I remember correctly, nothing could ally with Tyranids in 7th, and they were the only faction that had no allies. With GSC, they now have a couple of allies to give them something more to work with. I am a GSC player. If they all got rolled into the next nids codex, wouldn't hurt my feelings. Just makes it easier to include more than genestealers.

I never said that loyalist space marine line was outdated. I would say it was even more complete than any other faction to the point the new units (and grav weaponry for that matter) were trying to wedge themselves into already full niches. I will say that if I was GW and I was going to redo a faction's models, I would also probably pick loyalist space marines. They are the face of the flagship setting, they always sell well and they are the entry point for the majority of players given the ease of hobby and play they provide.

When it comes to Tyranids, obviously get rid of the fincast stuff. Also, I think the gants/guants could use a retooling to change out the split face they currently have. Maybe genestealers could use a refresh while being worthwhile as a kit that is likely purchased multiple times. Also, Warriors could maybe use a few more options like wings (for Shrikes) if enough space could be made on the sprues without increasing the number (it's been a while since I build nid Warriors so I don't remember how spacious their sprues are). Probably sacrilege, but consider moving some FW units over to GW main. Especially any of the units balencing on spinely resin legs/tails.

I like the majority of factions in both 40k and AoS. I don't have the time and space to make an army for all of them, though; I do have a kill team of just about everything. I don't see revealing my perception of what space marines are for GW and playerbase is fanboying. What space marines are and how they were setup (read: specialized chapters, etc.) means they are always going to be the lion's share of GW's profit. We can perform whataboutisms if any and every faction had the same or more effort of resources would be at also be at the same level.

I don't think any 40k faction would be equal or exceed space marines even if they were given more promotion and resources as marines. Any faction would certainly be doing better much than they are. Necrons and Sisters of Battle being a pretty strong case for that recently. But they don't have the Je ne sais quoi that space marines do. That's not me as a fan of space marines, that's me being honest with myself. I would rather space marines and Primaris especially be niche so I can be THEE Primaris player at my FLGS.

I also don't think Stormcast Enterals is a fair comparison. There isn't strong following of holy, immortal warriors in the fantasy genre. Sure, there is the paladin which is popular enough, but even in D&D they stand in the shadow of the fighter class. I think the rise in Aelf factions in AoS may be in part that is a far more popular icon in fantasy. Though, I think just maybe knights (a.k.a. Bretonians) could do extremely well. Much to my chingrin as I want AoS to start to put more distance from WHFB not less.

But what I want isn't what I think would work best. Same goes for space marines. They are always going to be a popular idea. There's a reason why large amount of non-GW media feature them. The idea of a space marine was well imprinted in my mind well before I ever heard of 40k. If anything, 40k space marines are less space marine than anything else I would call a space marine. They are space knights really. Which is close enough.

I want everyone to have a glut of model kits they enjoy as much as I have now. As mentioned, some people I want to curse to have to drink from that fire hose. That's not going to happen. If anything, I think I enjoy a much larger swath of the models GW produces than most on DakkaDakka. So it is difficult for over saturation as the OP described to occur with me. If all power armor blinked away and GSC didn't exist, I still could see me having an Admech, Tau and Necron army in their place. I am simply not that enamored with a single faction. Heck, my most played 40k faction is Orks by a lot due to Kill Team. I just don't really want a whole army of them. That sound like a space marine fanboy/girl to anyone?

 Da Boss wrote:


Oh absolutely. They are selling the fantasy to Marine players that they are going to get to smack the crap out of various cool looking aliens, when in reality the game mostly consists of background inaccurate marine on marine battles.

But it is useful to have the odd Xenos player around to promote the fantasy, and sometimes someone on the design team gets excited about it so they let them do something. So they will update the ranges for those armies every so often, maybe every 6-20 years, and that works to keep Xenos players in the game in enough numbers to sustain the Marine players fantasies. In between they just sell as much stuff as possible to Marine players as their bread and butter.

I think they were trying to build the same model in AoS but I am not sure it really worked? They certainly gave Stormcast the majority of the attention but it is not as bad as in 40K. Pretty sad, one of the cool things about WFB was that it was more balanced in that sense.

So do you play 40k? Do you get off on being taken advantage of by a corporation?

I would probably say I have more than my share of 40k armies, including 4 space marine factions to the large list.

You can't say no one would do as well as them given equal treatment as it hasn't been tried, ever. More factions being on equal footing would if anything raise the sea level for everyone might mean less sales for marines but more for others.

Saying " But everyone loves space marines ! " Isn't always true. Sure, I do, but even I can see there is a negative side to this and others are waking up as well, marine vs marine is about the height of boredom, and we do have friends or ourselves play these less focused on factions and find it can be kinda crap.

All this never ending release cycle has done is take out the shadow of doubt about that bias and really cram it home.

There really is a lot of fanboy going around though to say they know beyond all doubt that doubling the marines units and making it years and years of marine releases couldn't have been better served as more rounded love to other factions in that same time period.

Just imagine the finecast removed, updated sculpts put out there more nuanced rules for everyone really, all this marine bloat unchecked will do is, in the end, kill the system as people just get super bored with marine vs marine every game and sooner or later it may turn into just that.

One of the comments here touched on something that I think ties into this.

I think that 40K was supposed to have a reset ala Sigmar in terms of rules and gameplay, and the Primaris were supposed to wholescale replace the firstborn. Then someone got cold feet or whatever and those changes got walked back. That's why you see this weird influx of all these Primaris units, as these were intended to be replacements for firstborn units.

I've no proof of this and it is way to early to tell for sure, but there are a few clues pointing this way. The largest is the retconning of the lore at the start of 8th edition. See this : https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/12/warhammer-40k-gw-just-retconned-8th-edition.html

From the article linked:

We’ve long heard rumors that the 7th to 8th Edition change was supposed to be more dramatic than it was. Rumors persist (the game that never was) that we were going to get something close to an Age of Sigmar style change, with classic Marines being killed off, and Ynnari combining all the Eldar into one faction with the variants done away with, and other such changes. There were a lot of hints pointing to the death of Slaanesh, and other big changes.

Those things didn’t happen, but not it seems, from the rumors and backstage talk, because it was never an option, but because at some point the changes were walked back. It’s possible this was due to Age of Sigmar’s rocky start and people getting cold feet. It’s possible they just decided it wasn’t the way they wanted to go, but at some point, it seems a major adjustment was made. And this fundamentally left the early 8th Edition fluff in the lurch. Given the lead time on publications I’d guess those things, the core rule book fluff, Dark Imperium, etc., were already finished before the change was made and at best could only get minor edits to reflect some of the redirect. I think it’s that change of direction that lead to a lot of the scattered nature of the 8th Edition fluff with stuff not always lining up and factions like the Ynnari being huge in Gathering Storm and then just vanishing for years. It feels like these retcons are now the final corrections from a fundamental change that GW made years ago. Of course, we are unlikely to ever know the truth, but it’s certain that these changes are going to have a big effect on the setting moving forward.

If the author is correct (and his conclusions are EXACTLY what I thought of when I first read about the retconning in the book) then that explains why so many Primaris kits. Remember, Space Marines are the face of 40K, the heroes, and there is absolutely no chance that GW would have rebooted them without having a full product line ready to go.

 Castozor wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I disagree, but that's a difference of opinions about the effectiveness of the ruleset. I've had plenty of very fun games with the system, and it looks like they are putting some effort into fixing Ld (DG losing fearless in exchange for the same ATSKNF effect Loyalists Marines have). I'm not arguing it's perfect, just that it can be fun.

The game is fun enough true, but were did you get the idea DG were fearless? Only poxwalkers ignore morale currently, so really what this new rule does is trivialize morale for YET another army.

Apparently it's been a while since I've paid proper attention to Plague Marines because those used to be fearless, so they're actually getting a buff then.

And we don't know what's happening to Poxwalkers, if anything.


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 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

Even a poll of DakkaDakka demonstrated that plastic updates wouldn't necessarily get veteran players to update their armies. I don't think it is too much of a leap to think that GW also believes that refreshes might not bring in that many new players compared to something completely new. There may be something about the gravity of 40k that GW believes that they can rest on their laurels with factions that are already functional. They seem to be showing the same thing with many of the older factions in AoS too. With the large exception being their poster faction (and strangely Chaos) they want to quickly prop up as the hip, new thing (well, as much as space marines can be anyways). I also think there is something to the gravity of 40k that prevents it from being anywhere close to as daring as AoS which appears to allow far more creative freedom.

GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:


Adding Ridgerunners and a Jackal Alpha are going to change how Tyranid army plays far more than adding some Penitent Engines to a space marine army. I only mention it because if I remember correctly, nothing could ally with Tyranids in 7th, and they were the only faction that had no allies. With GSC, they now have a couple of allies to give them something more to work with. I am a GSC player. If they all got rolled into the next nids codex, wouldn't hurt my feelings. Just makes it easier to include more than genestealers.

And that has more to do with the fact that Space Marines have become "Every Faction" +1. I like to imagine the GW Space Marine design team leader is basically just that guy from the meme talking about copying something but changing it a bit to make it look different.

Hi, I am Speed Freakz, we like Warbikes, buggies and fast transports. Hello Speed Freakz, we are called White scars/Ravenwing. We like the same things, however we are going to get a fethload more new kits than you. Ohh and our rules are going to be vastly superior to yours.

Hi, I am Necrons, I like being incredibly hard to kill. Hi Necrons, I'm Iron Hands, we are incredibly hard to remove...even more so than you, but we also have access to way better toys.

Hi, I am Eldar, I like small units that are extremely specialized at a skillset and whose members practice literally thousands of years with technology vastly superior to that of the imperium of man. Hi Eldar, I'm literally every SM faction in the game. Our new SM's are better, stronger, more durable and cheaper than your guys...also, we have way better tech than you....like a single infantryman with 12 S4 shots for relatively cheap...and power fists in case things get weird, oh, and our melta is better than yours because reasons.

As far as nidz not getting allies, neither did Orkz.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:


Adding Ridgerunners and a Jackal Alpha are going to change how Tyranid army plays far more than adding some Penitent Engines to a space marine army. I only mention it because if I remember correctly, nothing could ally with Tyranids in 7th, and they were the only faction that had no allies. With GSC, they now have a couple of allies to give them something more to work with. I am a GSC player. If they all got rolled into the next nids codex, wouldn't hurt my feelings. Just makes it easier to include more than genestealers.

And that has more to do with the fact that Space Marines have become "Every Faction" +1. I like to imagine the GW Space Marine design team leader is basically just that guy from the meme talking about copying something but changing it a bit to make it look different.

Hi, I am Speed Freakz, we like Warbikes, buggies and fast transports. Hello Speed Freakz, we are called White scars/Ravenwing. We like the same things, however we are going to get a fethload more new kits than you. Ohh and our rules are going to be vastly superior to yours.

Hi, I am Necrons, I like being incredibly hard to kill. Hi Necrons, I'm Iron Hands, we are incredibly hard to remove...even more so than you, but we also have access to way better toys.

Hi, I am Eldar, I like small units that are extremely specialized at a skillset and whose members practice literally thousands of years with technology vastly superior to that of the imperium of man. Hi Eldar, I'm literally every SM faction in the game. Our new SM's are better, stronger, more durable and cheaper than your guys...also, we have way better tech than you....like a single infantryman with 12 S4 shots for relatively cheap...and power fists in case things get weird, oh, and our melta is better than yours because reasons.

As far as nidz not getting allies, neither did Orkz.

Marines have always been like that in the lore, it's only relatively recently that it's actually mattered on the table.

Hecaton wrote:


So do you play 40k? Do you get off on being taken advantage of by a corporation?

I don't play any more no, I stopped in 5th edition. I am interested again (hence being in this thread) but mostly in playing Grimdark Future with my GW stuff. I don't feel GW are taking advantage of me because I only buy the stuff from them I want - their rules are pretty crap so I don't buy those but they make some nice models in start collecting sets so I pick some of those up now and then.

I think only the basic Primaris look good, most of the specialist units look pretty bad to me, and I hate the move to 32mm bases, so I don't buy any of those.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Marines have always been like that in the lore, it's only relatively recently that it's actually mattered on the table.

Eldar are also substantially more competent and dangerous compared to the average well-trained human (Guardsman) than the tabletop rules reflect. So Astartes *are* getting a power boost out of whack with the rest of the game.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Apparently it's been a while since I've paid proper attention to Plague Marines because those used to be fearless, so they're actually getting a buff then.

Considering how this ability is most likely the replacement for Death to the False Emperor, it's not exactly a buff.

DttFE going away isn't a bad thing though. Typhus rolling two sixes and then effectively hulk-smashing a LRBT or predator didn't make too much sense - especially when he suddenly forgets how to do that when the crew defects to chaos or is taken over by genestealers cults. It will be missed, but it mostly caused "feels bad" moments anyways.

i'll be glad when DttFE goes away.
I dislike inherent buffs against certain factions like that because it's impossible to balance.
If you increase the unit's cost to reflect the buff, they're overcosted against anything else. And if you don't they're undercosted against their 'hated enemy'.
Plus it just feels a bit lame for their opponent, as they're being adversely punished by giving buffs away purely as a result of their chosen faction.

Especially when a buff against IMPERIUM is much more likely to come to bear than a buff vs SLANESH or DAEMONs.

Though, I think just maybe knights (a.k.a. Bretonians) could do extremely well

They haven't done well in original Whfb, why would they in AoS when other factions get access to cavalry on gryphons, dragons and other monsters? Idoneth already have eel knights and LRL the dawnriders, and of course chaos knights. Brets had very limited appeal and i doubt that'd change seeing as AoS is hitting more unique not more generic notes when it comes to faction designs.

As for Stormcast-Marine equivalency, GW tried to make SCE the marines of their new game and failed miserably, and they haven't had a new release in 2 years since.

Cronch wrote:

Though, I think just maybe knights (a.k.a. Bretonians) could do extremely well

They haven't done well in original Whfb, why would they in AoS when other factions get access to cavalry on gryphons, dragons and other monsters? Idoneth already have eel knights and LRL the dawnriders, and of course chaos knights. Brets had very limited appeal and i doubt that'd change seeing as AoS is hitting more unique not more generic notes when it comes to faction designs.

As for Stormcast-Marine equivalency, GW tried to make SCE the marines of their new game and failed miserably, and they haven't had a new release in 2 years since.

Bretonia was one of the most misshandled parade exemples of GW's desinvestment cycles and misshandeling.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
[
GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

Careful there Zion, or some angry idiot will be accusing you of being divorced from reality.

If they'd dropped "Codex Primaris" on us as it's own faction, be they more Imperials or something else, we'd have gotten about 25-30 kits in fairly short order. (a matter of months at most). Especially if they were meant to be the flagship product.
Wich, not counting all the Lts, is about what we've gotten steadily trickled out to us over the last 3 years.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Cronch wrote:

Though, I think just maybe knights (a.k.a. Bretonians) could do extremely well

They haven't done well in original Whfb, why would they in AoS when other factions get access to cavalry on gryphons, dragons and other monsters? Idoneth already have eel knights and LRL the dawnriders, and of course chaos knights. Brets had very limited appeal and i doubt that'd change seeing as AoS is hitting more unique not more generic notes when it comes to faction designs.

As for Stormcast-Marine equivalency, GW tried to make SCE the marines of their new game and failed miserably, and they haven't had a new release in 2 years since.

Bretonia was one of the most misshandled parade exemples of GW's desinvestment cycles and misshandeling.

They weren't popular from the start, even when they got full set of brand new plastic kits in 6th ed (or early 7th) to replace the 5 units they had in 5th ed because no one but Perries cared about them.

ccs wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
[
GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

Careful there Zion, or some angry idiot will be accusing you of being divorced from reality.

If they'd dropped "Codex Primaris" on us as it's own faction, be they more Imperials or something else, we'd have gotten about 25-30 kits in fairly short order. (a matter of months at most). Especially if they were meant to be the flagship product.
Wich, not counting all the Lts, is about what we've gotten steadily trickled out to us over the last 3 years.

Why is that? Harlequins works perfectly with 8 datasheets and they're an elite oriented army like SM. How many datasheets do custodes have? Codex Primaris could have been fine with 12-15 new releases at the very beginning of the edition, and the rest "slowly" released over the last three years.

Karol wrote:
Well, they are very good at the deveiving part. I started in 8th and it took me around 2 and a half year to notice that GW doesn't want fix rules or bring balance. Assuming I am half as inteligent as an avarge person, this means a noob my age will get it in a few months to a year. Which oddly is around how long people around here play w40k. Something I notice, when I was writing this sentence.

Those who stick around long enough get clued into GW's business practices. Once you see it, you can't ignore it.

- New models come with highly improved datasheets, getting players to buy more models.

- New books come with special rules, getting players to buy more books.

- New editions come with altered mechanics, getting players to buy more armies.

Basically, their rubric for players can be summed up as: buy more and buy constantly.

What is not part of GW's business practices: making older, iconic units useful in the current meta. They only become useful again by coincidence and it's why we rarely see Dire Avengers in Eldar armies, Meganobs in Ork armies, Chaos Space Marines in CSM armies, etc.

Don't mistake this for a complaint, I like this as a business model a lot. It creates a fascinating, substantial secondary market and the constant churn can be highly entertaining.

But it also leads to oversaturation. Something to remember: every Imperial list that's useful right now will be useless in a few years.

 Jidmah wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Apparently it's been a while since I've paid proper attention to Plague Marines because those used to be fearless, so they're actually getting a buff then.

Considering how this ability is most likely the replacement for Death to the False Emperor, it's not exactly a buff.

DttFE going away isn't a bad thing though. Typhus rolling two sixes and then effectively hulk-smashing a LRBT or predator didn't make too much sense - especially when he suddenly forgets how to do that when the crew defects to chaos or is taken over by genestealers cults. It will be missed, but it mostly caused "feels bad" moments anyways.

Where did anything say DttFE was going away?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hecaton wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Marines have always been like that in the lore, it's only relatively recently that it's actually mattered on the table.

Eldar are also substantially more competent and dangerous compared to the average well-trained human (Guardsman) than the tabletop rules reflect. So Astartes *are* getting a power boost out of whack with the rest of the game.

In the lore a single Astartes can wreck multiple platoons of Guardsmen on his own. Heck, one short story has a Marine killing multiple Dark Eldar faster than they can even react.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

Careful there Zion, or some angry idiot will be accusing you of being divorced from reality.

If they'd dropped "Codex Primaris" on us as it's own faction, be they more Imperials or something else, we'd have gotten about 25-30 kits in fairly short order. (a matter of months at most). Especially if they were meant to be the flagship product.
Wich, not counting all the Lts, is about what we've gotten steadily trickled out to us over the last 3 years.

I'm not saying they handled it well, there is definitely problems in how fast they were rolled out, but GW did roll out replacements for older plastic kits and I can only imagine that they didn't think they were making enough sales off them even with the new Grav weapons being included, likely because it's easier to sell a new army to someone than convince them to replace all the models with slightly better versions of said models, which lead to the decision to turn Jes Goodwin's idea for a revamped and upscaled Marine into a new product line.

ccs wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
[
GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

Careful there Zion, or some angry idiot will be accusing you of being divorced from reality.

If they'd dropped "Codex Primaris" on us as it's own faction, be they more Imperials or something else, we'd have gotten about 25-30 kits in fairly short order.

...Except that all of GW's biggest historical product line flops, the last of which that I recall was the Drukhari relaunch, have been when they drop a billion kits all at once with no breathing time and people just have to pick what they want.

GW has learned that no matter how excited people are for a thing, they get overwhelmed by dozens of 60$ a pop kits turning up simultaneously. Hell, it was overwhelming when they did it back when kits were 30-40$ a pop, it'd be absolutely insane now.

Not even the sisters relaunch was that big. And they got people invested beforehand with the 250$ box.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well, they are very good at the deveiving part. I started in 8th and it took me around 2 and a half year to notice that GW doesn't want fix rules or bring balance. Assuming I am half as inteligent as an avarge person, this means a noob my age will get it in a few months to a year. Which oddly is around how long people around here play w40k. Something I notice, when I was writing this sentence.

Those who stick around long enough get clued into GW's business practices. Once you see it, you can't ignore it.

- New models come with highly improved datasheets, getting players to buy more models.

- New books come with special rules, getting players to buy more books.

- New editions come with altered mechanics, getting players to buy more armies.

Basically, their rubric for players can be summed up as: buy more and buy constantly.

What is not part of GW's business practices: making older, iconic units useful in the current meta. They only become useful again by coincidence and it's why we rarely see Dire Avengers in Eldar armies, Meganobs in Ork armies, Chaos Space Marines in CSM armies, etc.

Don't mistake this for a complaint, I like this as a business model a lot. It creates a fascinating, substantial secondary market and the constant churn can be highly entertaining.

But it also leads to oversaturation. Something to remember: every Imperial list that's useful right now will be useless in a few years.

New models are a crapshoot on if they are good or not. That's a common fallacy that gets tossed around despite countless examples of all the times models came out and weren't good.

New books always try to tweak and refine the armies to keep the game fresh and interesting, which of course helps people buy more stuff, but that's the same for any game system.

I feel you've gone a bit too cynical and only see malice where there isn't any.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

ccs wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
[
GW tried refreshing the Firstborn and I can only guess they felt the sales didn't really reflect the effort because everyone who already had them wasn't going to buy them, which turned Jes Goodwin's refresh/rescale idea into a new product line.

Careful there Zion, or some angry idiot will be accusing you of being divorced from reality.

If they'd dropped "Codex Primaris" on us as it's own faction, be they more Imperials or something else, we'd have gotten about 25-30 kits in fairly short order.

...Except that all of GW's biggest historical product line flops, the last of which that I recall was the Drukhari relaunch, have been when they drop a billion kits all at once with no breathing time and people just have to pick what they want.

GW has learned that no matter how excited people are for a thing, they get overwhelmed by dozens of 60$ a pop kits turning up simultaneously. Hell, it was overwhelming when they did it back when kits were 30-40$ a pop, it'd be absolutely insane now.

Not even the sisters relaunch was that big. And they got people invested beforehand with the 250$ box.

Yeah, I don't hate the idea of the Primaris, but even I've been like "okay, can we calm down now?" everytime they drop a new release.

Heck Sisters didn't even get long enough to actually see all their kits out before GW was banging on about Marines again.

I'm less sure, power creep is a known thing.
I've also heard from people that claim to have been part of the playtesters for 9th that they reported the new units as OP, and GW effectively replied "good".

Sure, not everything is OP at launch, but I would attribute that variance to incompetence before I would claim that powercreep doesn't exist.

I will, however, say that that doesn't necessarily always stem from an intentional to specifically make something more competitive. But a desire to give them new abilities which are cooler than anything that's come before to encourage sales.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I'm less sure, power creep is a known thing.
I've also heard from people that claim to have been part of the playtesters for 9th that they reported the new units as OP, and GW effectively replied "good".

Sure, not everything is OP at launch, but I would attribute that variance to incompetence before I would claim that powercreep doesn't exist.

I will, however, say that that doesn't necessarily always stem from an intentional to specifically make something more competitive. But a desire to give them new abilities which are cooler than anything that's come before to encourage sales.

I've never heard the playtesters talk badly about GW's response to them from their platforms at least. I feel like that's more like scuttlebutt the internet drums up to keep the "GW bad" narrative going.

From what we've seen from the books released for 9th, they've all been pretty well balanced with only one real outlier unit (Eradicators). Most of the abuse the Marine book has are coming from 8th ed supplements, and generally they've done well so far. I'm not saying they're perfect, but we've seen a major improvement this edition and if they keep this trajectory then it'll be one hell of a great edition.

Eradicators are weak-sauce compared to things like the Rites of War WL-Trait, the bike-Chappy, the just-make-all-Necrons ObSec and let them scout (without even needing to stay 9" away) brain-fart, Plasma Inceptors, the entire Dark Angels index, new Vanguard Vet rules, new Lighting Claw rules, Transhuman for 1 fething CP, etc.., etc.., etc..

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Where did anything say DttFE was going away?

Mortarion's datasheet doesn't have it, so unless it's rolled into the DG-specific army trait, I assume it is gone.