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 Kanluwen wrote:
Hey guys, remember when SW/DA/BA/DW players would complain that their items were not the same as the vanilla codex?

Grass is always greener. The minor marine factions have two choices: either they can be lumped into codex: space marines, in which case they are entitled to the pampering and special treatment afforded to the whale consumers, where they get stuff like holdover rules so that you don't even for one second have to play a game with W1 Grey Hunters and don't just get "welp, enjoy your W1 marines vs W2 marines CSM, see ya in....dunno, hang tight!"

Or they can get the Grey Knights treatment, where they're approximately as much a priority as their player numbers would indicate they should be: about on par with the minor xenos factions like harlequins, gsc, etc. But they get to be their own, totally separate codex and odn't have to keep up with the joneses.

Preview of the "Armies of Renown" system.

TLDR: it's Legendary Legions from LOTR. Which are awesome.

So basically army wide specialist detachments.

It reads closer to Warmahordes theme lists, but not busted. In fact the AdMech one seems pretty weak given what you give up.

The return of specialist detachments and formations.

Sigh, going down the same bad road they left earlier because the designers don't know what else they can do to keep churning out gak when a codex is done.

I was exciting for 8th and liked to improvements with 9th but I think I'm done with 40k. Army design is just to aweful.

 Ordana wrote:
The return of specialist detachments and formations.

Sigh, going down the same bad road they left earlier because the designers don't know what else they can do to keep churning out gak when a codex is done.

I was exciting for 8th and liked to improvements with 9th but I think I'm done with 40k. Army design is just to aweful.

That's exactly how they do things because they have to keep books churning out. The only difference now is last time they focused on getting everyone a codex and now they're doing the opposite again like in the 7th edition.

"New" gw indeed. Like the old saying goes a leopard can't change its spots. In GW's case they just covered those spots up with paint that's starting to peel off.

I'm not seeing anything in the AoR stuff that is similar to the problems certain detachments had in 7th. Even the specialist detachments from 8th weren't giving armies 250 odd extra points for free. I get people like having a gripe about rules but we've seen a small snippet of them, not the full picture.
As for GW "focusing" on getting codexes released, 8th was a completely different set of rules to previous editions and the indexes were holding patterns at best. The 8th ed books compared to 9th ed are worse yes but I'll take a slightly worse codex with all the options for army building to an index with no flavour. There is a preview this Saturday where they'll likely show SoB and Admech codexes as well.
For 8th GW averaged about 10 codexes/year and even with a big hit to their release schedule they still managed to get 5 out last year and we're sitting on 3 by mid-March plus a campaign book.

 Gert wrote:
I'm not seeing anything in the AoR stuff that is similar to the problems certain detachments had in 7th. Even the specialist detachments from 8th weren't giving armies 250 odd extra points for free. I get people like having a gripe about rules but we've seen a small snippet of them, not the full picture.
As for GW "focusing" on getting codexes released, 8th was a completely different set of rules to previous editions and the indexes were holding patterns at best. The 8th ed books compared to 9th ed are worse yes but I'll take a slightly worse codex with all the options for army building to an index with no flavour. There is a preview this Saturday where they'll likely show SoB and Admech codexes as well.
For 8th GW averaged about 10 codexes/year and even with a big hit to their release schedule they still managed to get 5 out last year and we're sitting on 3 by mid-March plus a campaign book.

Yes this doesn't look as bad as the worst offenders, but neither did it look horrible from the start in 7th or 8th.

The core of the issue is that I see little reason to have faith in GW managing the balance of this when looking at past results, even recent ones (aka marine 2.0).
I have armies, I will likely keep playing them (when Covid allows it again) but stuff like this really don't make me want to invest any more money into it.

For the record, Vigilus came out before all the Codexes were done.

And also for the record, specialist detachments, being detachments, were able to be used in combination with other detachments, in a system where taking multiple detachments had no costs and was infact encouraged, rendering the limitations imposed by selecting the required units ineffective.

Since Armies of Renown are not detachments, the limitations hit you right in the guts.
Want the bonus? No Skitarri. None. In your entire army. Otherwise you don't get the bonus.
Want to make Lelith and her crew disgusting? Fine. No Kabalites or Covens in your entire army. Otherwise you don't get the bonus.

That is a SIGNIFICANT mechanical difference between specialist detachments and Armies of Renown.

I agree that all campaign books should wait until after all Codexes are out, because armies shouldn't be kept waiting for 9th ed rules. But remember as well that if not for Covid + Brexit, DG would have been out and December, BOTH DA and DE would have dropped in January, with Admech and likely Knights in Feb, which would have meant ALL armies getting Armies of Renown would have already had their dex.

Then another 4 dexes over two months. Then the next campaign book for those 4 factions with their armies of renown.

You know what else is really nice? To get a thing before the space marines get theirs. Haven't their been 5 space marine hate threads on Dakka in the last 3 weeks, and now we finally get something that marines don't have and your knee jerk reaction is:

This is OP bloat and I rage quit cuz reasons?

I mean, I get that you might have wanted something that could have been cooler. Sure there are things that could be better. Every time I eat a meal that isn't same day Bluefin Sashimi, it could always be better. But Sunday's Pizza and last night's Korean BBQ Pork Chow Mien weren't bad, you know?

 Gert wrote:
I'm not seeing anything in the AoR stuff that is similar to the problems certain detachments had in 7th.

Yet. GW's history, especially recent history, has shown they're absolutely terrible at balance in general and one of the things that exacerbates that is all these new ideas they keep throwing out mid-edition. Even if the initial ones are fine I suspect it won't be long before the requirement to produce more and more stuff leads to at least one of these being utterly broken. We saw a similar situation with Formations, which started off powerful, got even worse, then got reined back in as GW over-corrected in the opposite direction.

Except the way detachments work now is completely different to 7th and even 8th. As PenitentJake has said the restrictions are pretty important to army build. To take the Admech one you'll lose out on about half of the codex and for DG you get no hard-hitting tough vehicles.
As for balance . 40k was unbalanced before Formations and was unbalanced after, this won't change anything.

Just for a clarification, the Cult of Strife rules are not an Army of Renown.

They're supplemental rules. The three Armies of Renown are the Death Guard, a Freeblades army, and the Mechanicus Defence Force.

Ahhh yes... Good catch. My bad.

I like the armies of renoun, cool themed forces. I look forward to seeing more of these sorts of things moving forward.

The AdMech army or renown looks terrible both from a power level and NPE perspective. It actually offends me, lol.

Keep on bloating those rules GW . . .

Me, I'm sticking with Apocalypse, older editions of 40k (3rd-5th), and some occasional Kill Team games. This supplement nonsense never ends and will be invalidated shortly when the next codex/edition arrives. But if you lot want to continue throwing your money at GW and supporting this ridiculous system, then you get what you get . . .

Quasistellar wrote:
The AdMech army or renown looks terrible both from a power level and NPE perspective. It actually offends me, lol.

Same for the DG one. This is most likely be on par with Vigilus, mostly trash except for the three things which GW accidentally made OP.

The Death Guard is super garbage Holy gak hahahahahahaha

The fact that they're garbage shouldn't disguise what a bad development this is for the game. Apparently getting rid of specialist detachments wasn't a game design choice, it was just to make way for a new, much more expensive version of the same thing, this time combined with the problems of 7th edition. It's like they've learned nothing...except how to keep bloating the rules with extra books. And since they weren't delivering a big profit at 50 a pop because books don't have a great profit margin...just make them $60!

How is this the same as 7th ed formations? So far we've seen how these AoR reduces the options you can take, don't give you free units, and as far as I can tell aren't spectacularly game-breaking. People keep talking about bloat and honestly, I don't get it. GW is giving people more ways to play their army that are entirely optional and people complain? Nobody expects you to know every rule in every book, that's what talking to your opponent is for.

 Gert wrote:
How is this the same as 7th ed formations? So far we've seen how these AoR reduces the options you can take, don't give you free units, and as far as I can tell aren't spectacularly game-breaking. People keep talking about bloat and honestly, I don't get it. GW is giving people more ways to play their army that are entirely optional and people complain? Nobody expects you to know every rule in every book, that's what talking to your opponent is for.

The initial 7th detachments were also not game-breaking. But give GW some time; based on their track record, I'm sure you will see things like Decurions or worse eventually.

"Wait and see! It'll be fine!" doesn't have a great track record in 40k.

Why are they releasing more rules for DG for another $60 just a couple months after the codex released, when the vast majority of the armies in the game are still working off last-edition books? It's insulting both to the DG players who are being asked to pony up again, and to all the other players who are being told to wait for their basic army books and buy this junk in the meantime.

The base version of 9th isn't even half done yet. Why are they already bloating things up with supplemental releases on a pattern that has created massive problems in the past?

They've got factions like GSC at a 35% win rate and they're pumping out more bloat rules for DG and Ad Mech. It's an absurd allocation of priorities.

Are we all still remembering that Covid and Brexit happened? I get you stateside guys might not get what's happening over here in the UK but its a pretty big mess. GW have constantly said that Covid and Brexit have made a mess of their release schedule and this is them trying to play catchup. The original plan was likely to have the first wave (Marines, main supplements, crons, DG and maybe DE) done by Xmas then War of Rust would be the companion to the most recent books (DG, DE, Admech and Knights). Releasing campaign books alongside new codexes isn't a new idea and the dev team for 40k isn't four guys in a shed, they can have multiple projects running at once. They also don't just have one product line to think of. AoS, Black Library, LotR and the specialist games all need release windows as well.
If you're looking to make money you don't just release everything at once and hope for the best. You show teasers of rules and models to build hype. It's a fairly basic concept that a lot of internet people seem unable to grasp.

Marines and Necrons were delayed by at least two months themselves. DA, SW, BA, DW were all supposed to be done by January. DG was December. Drukhari were January alongside DA.

AdMech, Knights, Sisters, and Orks were likely to be February, March, April alongside of the big Lumineth release and Broken Realms: Teclis.

Some people stateside understand that things are a mess right now. Most don't really care when it comes to their toys though, especially not if it just reinforces their toxic narratives to begin with.

New editions are always summer sellers because kids aren't in school and have the time to buy into the hobby. 9th came out in July but shops weren't widely open with the first codexes coming out in October almost at the same time as the UK went back into restrictions again. If that's not a delay then I don't know what is.

 Gnarlly wrote:

 Gert wrote:
How is this the same as 7th ed formations? So far we've seen how these AoR reduces the options you can take, don't give you free units, and as far as I can tell aren't spectacularly game-breaking. People keep talking about bloat and honestly, I don't get it. GW is giving people more ways to play their army that are entirely optional and people complain? Nobody expects you to know every rule in every book, that's what talking to your opponent is for.

The initial 7th detachments were also not game-breaking. But give GW some time; based on their track record, I'm sure you will see things like Decurions or worse eventually.

Exactly.
Its only a matter of time until we get several Armies of Renown that do have broken rules and no significant downsides. Yes in a perfect world this system would be fine, but we don't live in a perfect world and GW does not have a good track record with these things.

And for me personally its not that this is somehow over the line and the sole reason for having serious doubts. Its a long process of failures and, imo, bad decisions and at some point the bucket runs over.

Gert wrote:Are we all still remembering that Covid and Brexit happened? I get you stateside guys might not get what's happening over here in the UK but its a pretty big mess. GW have constantly said that Covid and Brexit have made a mess of their release schedule and this is them trying to play catchup. The original plan was likely to have the first wave (Marines, main supplements, crons, DG and maybe DE) done by Xmas then War of Rust would be the companion to the most recent books (DG, DE, Admech and Knights). Releasing campaign books alongside new codexes isn't a new idea and the dev team for 40k isn't four guys in a shed, they can have multiple projects running at once. They also don't just have one product line to think of. AoS, Black Library, LotR and the specialist games all need release windows as well.
If you're looking to make money you don't just release everything at once and hope for the best. You show teasers of rules and models to build hype. It's a fairly basic concept that a lot of internet people seem unable to grasp.

Kanluwen wrote:Marines and Necrons were delayed by at least two months themselves. DA, SW, BA, DW were all supposed to be done by January. DG was December. Drukhari were January alongside DA.

AdMech, Knights, Sisters, and Orks were likely to be February, March, April alongside of the big Lumineth release and Broken Realms: Teclis.

Some people stateside understand that things are a mess right now. Most don't really care when it comes to their toys though, especially not if it just reinforces their toxic narratives to begin with.

Gert wrote:New editions are always summer sellers because kids aren't in school and have the time to buy into the hobby. 9th came out in July but shops weren't widely open with the first codexes coming out in October almost at the same time as the UK went back into restrictions again. If that's not a delay then I don't know what is.

...you...you guys... Covid/Brexit has no bearing here. GW had some printing cycles allocated, and they chose to prioritize this... abomination over new codexes, full stop. When this went to the printer, I guarantee we knew both Covid and Brexit were things, we had ample line of sight to supply chain delays, and GW still came out with *this*. You can excuse it all you want but I know oldGW behavior when I see it (without even getting into the fact that this is Day 1 DLC and Formations Take 2). Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

You know nothing. You choose to believe something.

You do know that a large team of developers can work on multiple projects at once? GW isn't prioritising a campaign book just because your army doesn't have a new book. It is literally the same thing as the Broken Realms series and I don't see a whole lot of people complaining that it's being prioritised over updated Stormcast or Nighthaunt books.

Someone writing more DG rules for a $60 book to be released just months after the codex is one person less working on getting other factions their 9th edition codexes. Of course it is prioritizing a campaign book over the new codexes. That's by definition what GW is doing here. That is the definition of the word. If they were prioritizing codexes, they would be releasing them, not campaign books.

Stormcast and Nighthaunt have AOS 2.0 books. They're old, but they have them. The very first Broken Realms book they released had updated rules for...wait for it...a faction that doesn't have an AOS 2.0 codex (as well as for Stormcast, incidentally, which pretty much totally undercuts your point).

"No, you have to share with the other children."

*tantrums*