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 Daedalus81 wrote:
Eh. The Ad Mech one would have been devastating last edition.

That was last edition, and even if it wasn't, it doesn't change my point. Giving people bonuses for giving up something they never intended to take in the first place is bad design.

My old Guard army got +1 Initiative in close combat and Deep Strike for free across every infantry model all because I made the giving up Priests, Sanctioned Psykers, Ratlings and Ogryn. What a 'sacrifice'!

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Giving up all your screens and being more static isn't going to play well. DG can get away with vehicles, but you're going to be forced into Pox and Harbingers isn't exactly the most popular.

No one's being forced to do anything. If you are taking this type of list then you are choosing to play it as the rules, which, again, means you aren't really giving anything up.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Why would you release a base codex AND a rules update on the same day??? Oh, GW....

Is this supposed to be joke? As answer is obvious


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PenitentJake wrote:
People will NEED the rules in the campaign book as much as people NEEDED the rules in PA or Vigilus.

Actually, because these rules only apply to subfactions, they'll be even less necessary than PA and Vigilus rules.

If you play one of the listed subfactions, it is likely that you will want these rules, but they likely come with a disclaimer that says "These rules are intended for this campaign" and even the listed subfactions can function without them.

Seeing you would have to been crazy to not get pa/vigilus for your faction not exactly reassuring post.

TLDR: People defending GW releasing campaign books with rules for new codexes/ not yet released codexes (ad mech) instead of actual codexes?

PenitentJake wrote:
People will NEED the rules in the campaign book as much as people NEEDED the rules in PA or Vigilus.

Actually, because these rules only apply to subfactions, they'll be even less necessary than PA and Vigilus rules.

If you play one of the listed subfactions, it is likely that you will want these rules, but they likely come with a disclaimer that says "These rules are intended for this campaign" and even the listed subfactions can function without them.

I don't get what you mean, most of these rules were just clearly better for the armies they were for. I rarely ever saw those units that benefited from Vigilus and PA rules not take them and in many cases you were just playing the game on hard mode to take those factions without their PA book rules. That made them pretty mandatory if you were playing others unless you all were ignoring the extra books which rarely happened that I saw.

yukishiro1 wrote:

I suppose it's vaguely possible they are saying it's legal for matched play but not tournament play, though they've never made a distinction like that in the past, so I'd need some actual proof.

Legend units can be used in matched play but not in events, as stated in their PDFs for example.
I think we also got some rules added in FAQs in 8th that were "events only". I want to say "rule of 3" for example but I'm not sure I remember correctly, as these rules made sense in matched play anyway.

 Kanluwen wrote:


Genuine question though:
Why does this always become such a big damned deal with GW but nothing gets mentioned for some other companies? CB had core rules scattered across way more books than GW has, yet they get a free pass because "you can just download them"? Is that what I should see as the takeaway--it's No Big Deal that people have to clog up their devices but heavens forbid you take a book?

Because the general attitude and past behaviour of a company is something people remember and reference when evaluating their business practices. Because the core issue may not be how scattered the rules are but how accessible they are. For example, I don't care if the original rules for a system or faction are scattered across dozens of publications if the company provides (or endorses) a resource that collects all that information in one place. These other companies often helpfully provide actual functioning army building tools as well. Something GW took months to get even close to for 40k. Their offering was so bad I'm still not sure if it works properly because I've not bothered to reinstall it after its disastrous launch.

I could equally ask why GW, the biggest company in the hobby, gets a free pass for crappy business practices like releasing expansion content for an army on the very same day their Codex gets released? I don't think anyone here's saying these other companies are perfect but as far as business practices and customer-focussed services go many of them are superior to GW and the reason for that seems to be GW loves their consumer-unfriendly approach to the game.

 AngryAngel80 wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
People will NEED the rules in the campaign book as much as people NEEDED the rules in PA or Vigilus.

Actually, because these rules only apply to subfactions, they'll be even less necessary than PA and Vigilus rules.

If you play one of the listed subfactions, it is likely that you will want these rules, but they likely come with a disclaimer that says "These rules are intended for this campaign" and even the listed subfactions can function without them.

I don't get what you mean, most of these rules were just clearly better for the armies they were for. I rarely ever saw those units that benefited from Vigilus and PA rules not take them and in many cases you were just playing the game on hard mode to take those factions without their PA book rules. That made them pretty mandatory if you were playing others unless you all were ignoring the extra books which rarely happened that I saw.

This. PA and vigilus were as much optional for a most armies as supplements are optional for marine chapters.

^ Agree with this.

Expansion books like these are bad practice and we shouldn't support them.

There is a little sliver of hope that the GT rules don't allow them, but I'm not betting my money on it.

It's also more than a bit "Stossend" (brazen / unfair), that we get an campaign book for piecemeal rulesselling before most factions even had an 9th dex.

I am not opposed to campaign books, f.e. Storm of chaos etc. But i find that we need the armies first with equal long pikes so to speak before we throw out the campaign books/ theme lists.

Also, these themed lists could've easily been in their respecetive dexes either.

So iow, we haven't even had most dexes updated to 9th level standards (neither index nor dex) and already get piecemeal rules shoved down our throat, meanwhile we lost whole factions recently.

Just not a good look. And it wasn't like 8th didn't already have massive issues in regards to rulesource bloat...

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's also more than a bit "Stossend" (brazen / unfair), that we get an campaign book for piecemeal rulesselling before most factions even had an 9th dex.

I am not opposed to campaign books, f.e. Storm of chaos etc. But i find that we need the armies first with equal long pikes so to speak before we throw out the campaign books/ theme lists.

If you wish to release campaign content, it actually makes sense to work on said content while you're still looking at the involved factions' rules.
If those rules should be directly included in the factions' books or not, is another issue though.

tneva82 wrote:

Seeing you would have to been crazy to not get pa/vigilus for your faction not exactly reassuring post.

I played SW almost exclusively in 8th.
Never gave Vigilus a thought.
Recocnized PA to be the end of edition $$ grab that it was & said "pass".
As W/L/D I had perfectly fine games with my SW right up to the end of 8th.... I dont consider that I missed anythibg.

...So one person has linked a PAIR of books with a hardboard case and a miniature....which is incidentally the core rulebook you need to play the game...for the same price as GW's paper thin 100 page DLC book.

And another person has cited EA.

The....the video game company.

How much do their tabletop wargaming rulebooks cost?

dhallnet wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's also more than a bit "Stossend" (brazen / unfair), that we get an campaign book for piecemeal rulesselling before most factions even had an 9th dex.

I am not opposed to campaign books, f.e. Storm of chaos etc. But i find that we need the armies first with equal long pikes so to speak before we throw out the campaign books/ theme lists.

If you wish to release campaign content, it actually makes sense to work on said content while you're still looking at the involved factions' rules.
If those rules should be directly included in the factions' books or not, is another issue though.

Like i said, the campaign book isn't the issue, and neither is working on it during the development of the dex to get a better understanding of the faction design and what the aim is of said campaign should be.

However what is an issue is when it get's used to sell you "totes not the other half of your factions rules"

the_scotsman wrote:
...So one person has linked a PAIR of books with a hardboard case and a miniature....which is incidentally the core rulebook you need to play the game...for the same price as GW's paper thin 100 page DLC book.

And another person has cited EA.

The....the video game company.

How much do their tabletop wargaming rulebooks cost?

You might be interested to know that EA and Activision have recently begun touting the 80$/game model, for their games, citing the "cost of doing business in COVID" I might also add the hefty fee of the base console, PC, or gaming platform. For top end PCs you might as well compare that to a Titan for cost.

That all aside, I think GW is no longer about the hobby. And that sucks. I got into this hobby through the lore and the beauty of the models. Well, 6 years later the lore has not changed at all, but the models are still gorgeous, if not impossible to obtain (Guard colonel). No this is not even about the art now. This is purely about short selling the market and driving up the costs. Even their paint is woefully under competing. Valejho is better by every metric, as is Army Painter, and AP is cheaper. The brushes I can buy at any arts store for half the cost. That leaves their buttplug model holders, snips, and ehhh.....water holder. which is easily replaced by cheap jewelers mirror with clamps, metal nail snippers from the groccery store, and a damn CUP.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Like i said, the campaign book isn't the issue, and neither is working on it during the development of the dex to get a better understanding of the faction design and what the aim is of said campaign should be.

However what is an issue is when it get's used to sell you "totes not the other half of your factions rules"

I was specifically answering the part where you said it was unfair to release it before other codexes.

But since we seem to agree that it is logical to develop campaign content while working on the factions included in it, I dunno why you think it's "the other half of the factions' rules" unless you mean they should sit on finished content for a year before releasing it so you can make a mental distinction like "oh, it's been months since the codex release, it's totally different now".
I'm not particularly fond of supplemental content but campaign books are always going to cover campaign armies (just take your "storm of chaos" example), that's partially what they do and them being released with the codex or 6 months later doesn't change anything at all. There will always be additional content for some armies, it just happens that somehow, for some people it's easier to make an imaginary distinction if the books are released months appart.

If these books ends up being as useful as vigilus was for most armies (even though these weren't campaign books), then you can talk about selling "the other half of your faction rules". In the meantime, we are just upset about something we barely have any details of.

the_scotsman wrote:
...So one person has linked a PAIR of books with a hardboard case and a miniature....which is incidentally the core rulebook you need to play the game...for the same price as GW's paper thin 100 page DLC book.

Discounted prices don't really count as prices. MSRP on that was $77, and the miniature being included or not included does not alter the price.

Frankly? I don't know enough about other games to really throw comparisons out there using those. I used CB as an example because their "Core Book" schtick is not just that. It's the lore book as well as the rulebook, with the lore book being locked in there and containing the kinds of stuff GW puts into codices.

I don't know if we are talking about the same thing, but if Cult of Strife is in the campaign book at the expense of the codex, then that is an example of faction rules being arbitrarily split up.

 Argive wrote:
TLDR: People defending GW releasing campaign books with rules for new codexes/ not yet released codexes (ad mech) instead of actual codexes?

*as well as

dhallnet wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Like i said, the campaign book isn't the issue, and neither is working on it during the development of the dex to get a better understanding of the faction design and what the aim is of said campaign should be.

However what is an issue is when it get's used to sell you "totes not the other half of your factions rules"

I was specifically answering the part where you said it was unfair to release it before other codexes.

But since we seem to agree that it is logical to develop campaign content while working on the factions included in it, I dunno why you think it's "the other half of the factions' rules" unless you mean they should sit on finished content for a year before releasing it so you can make a mental distinction like "oh, it's been months since the codex release, it's totally different now".
I'm not particularly fond of supplemental content but campaign books are always going to cover campaign armies (just take your "storm of chaos" example), that's partially what they do and them being released with the codex or 6 months later doesn't change anything at all. There will always be additional content for some armies, it just happens that somehow, for some people it's easier to make an imaginary distinction if the books are released months appart.

If these books ends up being as useful as vigilus was for most armies (even though these weren't campaign books), then you can talk about selling "the other half of your faction rules". In the meantime, we are just upset about something we barely have any details of.

Knowing GW though it will atleast turn out like supplements or vigilus did.
Because the last ones did the same. There is more then enough reason to be very sceptical about GW's trackrecord in regards to stuff like this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

But there aren't ever proper precautions. Its an exercise in 'wouldn't it be cool if...' and the back-of-the-napkin version is just pasted into a book. Sometimes its terrible and gets ignored, sometimes its meta-changing, and sometimes its just OP broken. And waiting to see how each gamble works out over time is just inherently not good game design.

Voss wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

But there aren't ever proper precautions. Its an exercise in 'wouldn't it be cool if...' and the back-of-the-napkin version is just pasted into a book. Sometimes its terrible and gets ignored, sometimes its meta-changing, and sometimes its just OP broken. And waiting to see how each gamble works out over time is just inherently not good game design.

The problem is that this applies to.. well everything. We had to endure 6th edition Skimmerspam and Wraithknights from a standard codex without any additional rules on top of it to break things. I just enjoy the extra little flavor these sorts of things add even with the risk.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No one's being forced to do anything. If you are taking this type of list then you are choosing to play it as the rules, which, again, means you aren't really giving anything up.

I guess I'm not understanding you here. If you want to use AoR you are being forced into more limited choices. e.g. Ferrymen for The Droning is not available nor are any other plague companies.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

But there aren't ever proper precautions. Its an exercise in 'wouldn't it be cool if...' and the back-of-the-napkin version is just pasted into a book. Sometimes its terrible and gets ignored, sometimes its meta-changing, and sometimes its just OP broken. And waiting to see how each gamble works out over time is just inherently not good game design.

The problem is that this applies to.. well everything. We had to endure 6th edition Skimmerspam and Wraithknights from a standard codex without any additional rules on top of it to break things. I just enjoy the extra little flavor these sorts of things add even with the risk.

Yeah, anything can be broken but you have to admit that the more layers upon layers you add, the bigger the chance becomes that one of those layers breaks it.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

Whut? Gladius formation ring a bell?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

But there aren't ever proper precautions. Its an exercise in 'wouldn't it be cool if...' and the back-of-the-napkin version is just pasted into a book. Sometimes its terrible and gets ignored, sometimes its meta-changing, and sometimes its just OP broken. And waiting to see how each gamble works out over time is just inherently not good game design.

The problem is that this applies to.. well everything. We had to endure 6th edition Skimmerspam and Wraithknights from a standard codex without any additional rules on top of it to break things. I just enjoy the extra little flavor these sorts of things add even with the risk.

I've never seen a flavorful one. It either dials up the power level or its completely ignored and never even talked about.
Enduring problems from the codexes is part of the problem. If they can't solve that- the first layer past the basic rules, they need to put more work in, not waste time on even more rules that can break the game.

I mean, take the DG one. It isn't fluffy. Typhus isn't going to have a conversation with his advisors where he insists on leaving the tanks behind because if they don't, the teleporters on the Terminus Est won't work. If teleporting basic plague marines is an option with his flagship, he'd just do that regardless of what forces are in play.

Similarly Kataphrons and Robots aren't magically more better simply because ALL the skitarii are in the shop. The pretense for these is laughable. Its just rules bloat and bonuses for the sake of selling another book.

I'm not exactly happy with the DLC rulebooks especially since many others haven't even gotten their Codex yet. But so far these things seem pretty tame ruleswise so everyone who's just into good rules can thankfully ignore this book. At least there seems to be an actual price to pay now unlike the PA and Vigilus stuff which were pretty much free (except $$$$ wise) upgrades to your army.
I mean I personally love infantry and think masses of PM is the fluffy way to play DG, but giving up all my vehicles? That's an insane price to pay and the new strats and psychic powers need to be extremely busted before I'd even consider dropping our vehicles.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
...So one person has linked a PAIR of books with a hardboard case and a miniature....which is incidentally the core rulebook you need to play the game...for the same price as GW's paper thin 100 page DLC book.

And another person has cited EA.

The....the video game company.

How much do their tabletop wargaming rulebooks cost?

You might be interested to know that EA and Activision have recently begun touting the 80$/game model, for their games, citing the "cost of doing business in COVID" I might also add the hefty fee of the base console, PC, or gaming platform. For top end PCs you might as well compare that to a Titan for cost.

That all aside, I think GW is no longer about the hobby. And that sucks. I got into this hobby through the lore and the beauty of the models. Well, 6 years later the lore has not changed at all, but the models are still gorgeous, if not impossible to obtain (Guard colonel). No this is not even about the art now. This is purely about short selling the market and driving up the costs. Even their paint is woefully under competing. Valejho is better by every metric, as is Army Painter, and AP is cheaper. The brushes I can buy at any arts store for half the cost. That leaves their buttplug model holders, snips, and ehhh.....water holder. which is easily replaced by cheap jewelers mirror with clamps, metal nail snippers from the groccery store, and a damn CUP.

The sad thing is those companies boast record breaking profits, and pay 0 taxes while also getting millions in tax refunds, and always play the pity card: we need this money to pay the devs! how else will they survive!. No dont look behind the curtain, you will see that we also laid off thousands of workers and give ourselves multi million dollar bonuses and increased dividends to investors! but guys games are too expensive to make we need those 70-80$, and millions of dollars in microtransactions we make per DAY and 15 different premium versions of each game costing anywhere from 70-500$ with no way to get a complete game becuase every version has something cut out! and that 500$ version comes with a 10$ t-shirt we say costs 420 dollars to justify its worth!)

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

You enjoying it makes no difference. The 3.5 Chaos Codex is, I think, my favourite Codex that GW has ever produced. It is the absolute zenith, as far as I'm concerned anyway, of freedom vs structure, of options, power and theme.

And yet, giving things up to get a benefit, as a rules concept, is still awful, for all the reasons already stated.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

People have brought that up, and the rules in the 4th Ed Space Marine Codex are just as guilty of this problem, especially that one of the things was "You can't take allies", and get a bunch of bonuses as a result of that. Well, I never intended to take allies, so I'll "give up" the allies and reap the benefits of not having something I never intended to take in the first place.

If the rule requires you to sacrifice something for a benefit, but the thing you are sacrificing is not something you had any intention of taking, then you're not actually giving anything up. You're just getting a benefit, and the 'balance' for that benefit (the 'giving up' aspect) ceases to be a balance.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

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

Not from a rules design/mechanics standpoint.

Any rule that requires you to give up something you were never going to take in the first place is a bad rule. This is true now. This was true of Guard Doctrines. It was true of 3.5 Chaos Iron Warriors.

Given I enjoy 3.5 Chaos and 30k. I heavily disagree with this. It was only bad because it was overpowered in certain ways and so long as there's proper precautions it doesn't matter.

Nobody brings up the SM based ones for certain because they generally weren't broken.

Whut? Gladius formation ring a bell?

Guard Doctrines and Chaos Iron Warriors were in 3.5, and thus I was also speaking of the SM doctrines that were in that era as well. I was not speaking of 7E's formations.

I've never seen a flavorful one. It either dials up the power level or its completely ignored and never even talked about.

I was using the Rapture Battalion detachment (for as long as that supplement survived 7th anyways..). The boost to Noise Marines and the Combat Drugs was a nice little touch, if nothing that would break the army compared to all those free razorbacks and Taudar.