Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The indexes were not balanced or stable and 40k lacked any flavour whatsoever when they were the rules choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

yeah and it is suppose to bne 350$. the content is great, and I am sure it will be gone from the site in seconds. But even if my store somehow managed to have a spare one just for me, 350$ is 17 months of saving up and spending no money . The box looks nice though. Big tank, dread, 10 terminators and 40 marines, plus characters. Very nice set.

Who's saying it's going to be $350? That's Austrialia levels of expensive.
Considering BaC and BoP were about £90/$125, I am very much doubting this new box will be almost 3x as much.

By now it is pretty obvious that GWs planned release cycle + unexpected COVID delays means that a whole bunch of armies will get their codex essentially right before 10th edition to be released. I would imagine 10th edition to be a pretty significant change in 40k as well (because 10 is a significant number). It is a shame because there are lots of things that are great about 9th edition rules. But GWs codex hype train business model severely undermines the game system. As usual they're moving in conflicting directions at the same time, trying to lean into competitive esports marketing while at the same time undermining the rules which found any interest in competitive play.

The release schedule demotivates me from playing. I feel like if I buy a book and try to paint up an army by the time I'm finished we will be in a new edition, my army will be invalidated, and I'll have to spend more money to update it. Or I'll feel bad about the army I chose because it falls behind because of power creep. It makes me feel like why even bother.

I don't own a single 9th edition rulebook except the big core rulebook. I bought a lot of models, expanding my different collections - a lot of necrons, guard, space Marines - but I haven't played 9th yet. I still feel scammed for buying the psychic awakening book for my dark angels, and don't want to buy something that is a waste in 2 years time.
I would also really like to just buy the codes for the app without needing to buy the book. I don't mind looking things up on the phone, even though a big advantage of tabletop gaming is the fact I don't need any digital devices. But I really can't understand the decision to not make the book codes available independent of codexes etc.
Finally, on the topic of this "campaign" book ... I would like a book that is actually about a playable campaign. Do they have more than the 1 mission excuse of an attempted narrative? Some campaign detailing the landing on the planet, advancement along important tactical positions final grand stands would be great, they could have interesting special rules, terrain features, what not. Just some army composition rules don't really make s great campaign book in my mind.

I think they could release a new edition every year, if it came packed up with loads of miniatures in a very value for money way, like indomitus, people would eat it up. The problem is the codex release schedule. If some armies aren’t getting their new codex until the end of one edition the game is always going to be wonky.

They should plan their codexes and the edition rules together so they are re all released at the same time.

Brickfix wrote:I don't own a single 9th edition rulebook except the big core rulebook. I bought a lot of models, expanding my different collections - a lot of necrons, guard, space Marines - but I haven't played 9th yet. I still feel scammed for buying the psychic awakening book for my dark angels, and don't want to buy something that is a waste in 2 years time.
I would also really like to just buy the codes for the app without needing to buy the book. I don't mind looking things up on the phone, even though a big advantage of tabletop gaming is the fact I don't need any digital devices. But I really can't understand the decision to not make the book codes available independent of codexes etc.
Finally, on the topic of this "campaign" book ... I would like a book that is actually about a playable campaign. Do they have more than the 1 mission excuse of an attempted narrative? Some campaign detailing the landing on the planet, advancement along important tactical positions final grand stands would be great, they could have interesting special rules, terrain features, what not. Just some army composition rules don't really make s great campaign book in my mind.

This is where I am for 9th. I haven't played a a game of 9th yet (covid et al), and only own the core rules because i got the Indomitus box for the miniatures. I expect by the time I'm able to play a game we'll already by on 10th ed.

mrFickle wrote:I think they could release a new edition every year, if it came packed up with loads of miniatures in a very value for money way, like indomitus, people would eat it up. The problem is the codex release schedule. If some armies aren’t getting their new codex until the end of one edition the game is always going to be wonky.

They should plan their codexes and the edition rules together so they are re all released at the same time.

I think the release schedule is all wrong, i know covid has played a part in the schedule, but even without that, I think the approach is all wrong.

I liked that 8th was released with the index book so every faction had a similar starting point, but as 9th was built on 8th rather than a a full refresh like 7th-8th i don't think an index release was necessary. The existing 8th ed codex books are still usable, with errata patches to get them by until the 9th codex release. Where they have gone wrong in my mind, is the campaign books like Charadon being released before the 9th ed codexes have all been released. I think the campaign books are an ok idea, but they should be a way to extend the life of an edition and add rules for new units/factions after the codex cycle has been completed. This would also prevent a faction getting a new codex weeks or a few months before the launch of a new edition.

Yeah 9th being built on 8th didn’t work when they didn’t address glaring imbalances like 2w CSM.

It’s a good idea but there is room for improvement

mrFickle wrote:
Yeah 9th being built on 8th didn’t work when they didn’t address glaring imbalances like 2w CSM.

It’s a good idea but there is room for improvement

I wish GW released an Index at the start of 9th. Just give everyone a blanket refresh of points and stats. Then use this recent CA to fix any point imbalances between the index, any new codexes, etc.

Jarms48 wrote:
I wish GW released an Index at the start of 9th. Just give everyone a blanket refresh of points and stats. Then use this recent CA to fix any point imbalances between the index, any new codexes, etc.

Points that GW felt needed to be adjusted were done so in the Chapter Approved book that dropped alongside the Indomitus box.

Indexes for 9th would have sucked; they were flavourless compared to dexes without all their sub-faction specific content, WL Traits, relics and strats. They only worked when they did because the previous system had been blown up in its entirety and there was nothing.

It also would have double sucked to have to buy an Index at the beginning of the ed only to replace it months later with a dex or dexes.

GW just shouldn't have gone halfway on the Chaos 2.0 dex, and should have released the 2w fix on the day old-marine loyalists got their bump.

PenitentJake wrote:
Indexes for 9th would have sucked; they were flavourless compared to dexes without all their sub-faction specific content, WL Traits, relics and strats. They only worked when they did because the previous system had been blown up in its entirety and there was nothing.

It also would have double sucked to have to buy an Index at the beginning of the ed only to replace it months later with a dex or dexes.

GW just shouldn't have gone halfway on the Chaos 2.0 dex, and should have released the 2w fix on the day old-marine loyalists got their bump.

Or...GW could recognize that it's no longer the '90s and they could distribute rules without selling people a pile of hardback books? Maybe stop raising the barrier to entry to the game by making people buy $100 of paper that'll be invalid in six weeks anyway? Or are they just afraid that if people could see how shoddy their rules are before buying them the sunk-cost fallacy will no longer help them get people into the game? And before you try the "it'd be too complicated to do all the rules for everyone at the same time!" I've been through edition changes for much more complicated games where not only did they do updated rules for everyone all at once, they did so without making any of GW's usual catalogue of amateur-hour editing errors, and in at least one case (Corvus Belli, Infinity N4) they did a thorough job of updating the rules for an army they no longer sell most of the minis for. GW could restructure their rules releases so players aren't stuck paying money for books that get rendered irrelevant by power creep or by new rules in a very short period. They choose not to.

Jarms48 wrote:
I wish GW released an Index at the start of 9th.

You really think that wiping out every single 8th Ed Codex at the start of 9th would be a good idea? Some of those books were months old at the time, and you want to just wash that away?

People seem to have it in their head that that the Indices are a necessary part of the game's evolution, that we always need them when a new edition comes out. I've said this before, but the Indices existed because 8th Edition had a different rules base to 3rd-7th, and thus all previous books were incompatible. They weren't there for balance reasons; they were there so people could play with their armies in the new edition until such time as their Codex were ready.

Indices were a 'get you by' publication - something that, I should point out, were free in both 2nd and 3rd Ed, the last time we got broad all-army Indices of factions - designed as a short-term stop-gap so people could keep playing the new game without having to rely on Codex Release Roulette.

Indices are a step backwards when the game is in a state like it is now.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
I wish GW released an Index at the start of 9th.

You really think that wiping out every single 8th Ed Codex at the start of 9th would be a good idea? Some of those books were months old at the time, and you want to just wash that away?...

It'd be a hard reset instead of the soft "we know your army sucks, just wait months or years until your 9e Codex comes out and then you're allowed to play the game again!" reset, yeah.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Jarms48 wrote:
I wish GW released an Index at the start of 9th.

You really think that wiping out every single 8th Ed Codex at the start of 9th would be a good idea? Some of those books were months old at the time, and you want to just wash that away?...

It'd be a hard reset instead of the soft "we know your army sucks, just wait months or years until your 9e Codex comes out and then you're allowed to play the game again!" reset, yeah.

And you would have had the same thing with new Indices...

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It'd be a hard reset instead of the soft "we know your army sucks, just wait months or years until your 9e Codex comes out and then you're allowed to play the game again!" reset, yeah.

Why does a new edition using the same rule base need a hard reset?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It'd be a hard reset instead of the soft "we know your army sucks, just wait months or years until your 9e Codex comes out and then you're allowed to play the game again!" reset, yeah.

Why does a new edition using the same rule base need a hard reset?

It shouldn't. My point is that if GW's writing a new edition that needs new Codexes at all that has the practical effect of invalidating all the Codexes from last edition pretty quickly anyway; the Indexes were one of the last things that gave me any hope for the future of Warhammer, because it indicated that someone at GW might have noticed that the game would benefit from them updating everyone at the same time, instead of making sure the Space Marines are always written to be current with the rules while whoever gets the last Codex gets six months of the edition to have current/functional rules before the whole thing is blown up in their face again.

I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions.

They have a really good ruleset with 9th, and 40k is more popular now than it has ever been. I think even GW would be wary about throwing a new edition out there in 3 or even 4 years and risk loosing a large part of the customer base. It would also be pretty bad with how Covid disrupted things.

We'll see though, GW has made some questionable decisions in the past.

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

when that expected lifespan is measured in minutes why would they?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

There is a bit more nuance involved though with the GT mission pack books though, which is something nearly all players are picking up since it's a requirement in matched play. GW using that in conjunction with army balance tweaks feels significantly more sustainable in keeping the edition going longer.

 Sasori wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

There is a bit more nuance involved though with the GT mission pack books though, which is something nearly all players are picking up since it's a requirement in matched play. GW using that in conjunction with army balance tweaks feels significantly more sustainable in keeping the edition going longer.

Unless its just more books for the money churn, which seems more likely given past behavior. That they feel they need more mission packs to keep the game interesting doesn't sound 'more sustainable' to me, just incidental money they're scooping up on the way to business as usual. If anything, more dollars on keep-current books on top of Chapter Approved seems more likely to burn people out.

Compare it to the Battle Missions book back in 2008. Nice cheap paperback with 30 missions. No fuss, no frills. That's how you do a mission book. Not a bunch of reprinted material and half the mission count.

 Sasori wrote:
There is a bit more nuance involved though with the GT mission pack books though, which is something nearly all players are picking up since it's a requirement in matched play. GW using that in conjunction with army balance tweaks feels significantly more sustainable in keeping the edition going longer.

Yeah I dunno if I'd ever use the word 'nuance' to describe those books, especially given how much they reprint verbatim.

 Sasori wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

There is a bit more nuance involved though with the GT mission pack books though, which is something nearly all players are picking up since it's a requirement in matched play. GW using that in conjunction with army balance tweaks feels significantly more sustainable in keeping the edition going longer.

...Which is all stuff people were saying about 8th. Increased matched play support, regular release of new missions, regular balance patches, and yet it still only lasted three years (every edition since 3rd has lasted 3-4 years). You may still hope that GW can change or do better. My hope died long ago.

PenitentJake wrote:
Indexes for 9th would have sucked; they were flavourless compared to dexes without all their sub-faction specific content, WL Traits, relics and strats. They only worked when they did because the previous system had been blown up in its entirety and there was nothing.

It also would have double sucked to have to buy an Index at the beginning of the ed only to replace it months later with a dex or dexes.

GW just shouldn't have gone halfway on the Chaos 2.0 dex, and should have released the 2w fix on the day old-marine loyalists got their bump.

Or , gw could've done the consumer frinedly thing and released the index lists as ... "free PDF" .... alas.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like they have finally nailed with 9th edition and AoS 3rd a way to keep the edition going for longer, while still making a lot more money. With all the Crusade Supplements, GHBs and GT mission packs, it feels like they've finally developed something they pan to sustain for longer than the 3 years of the last editions...

7th and 8th both had loads of supplement books released six months before the next edition came out. GW doesn't seem to care very much about the useful life of their rules.

There is a bit more nuance involved though with the GT mission pack books though, which is something nearly all players are picking up since it's a requirement in matched play. GW using that in conjunction with army balance tweaks feels significantly more sustainable in keeping the edition going longer.

...Which is all stuff people were saying about 8th. Increased matched play support, regular release of new missions, regular balance patches, and yet it still only lasted three years (every edition since 3rd has lasted 3-4 years). You may still hope that GW can change or do better. My hope died long ago.

GW also harped on, on the living Ruleset... yeah mighty fine living, so far that we already got a new BRB and defacto incomaptible 8th edition dexes compared to the updated ones.

I think the question is whether you need indexes or a big universal FAQ.

Because I don't think GW should have gone "Marines all have 2 wounds now" and then "yeah, but CSM probably won't get their 2nd wound until half an edition later". It feels bad because it is bad.

The fact we've got this rolling upgrade in anti-tank power starting with MMs is likewise stupid. GW did after all go through and give everyone's flamers 12" range (or most of them anyway). Its unclear why all dedicated anti-tank weapons couldn't be boosted if that's the intent. We could then worry about how monsters/vehicles can possibly cope - but at least the issues would be clear.

It basically comes back to the fact the players would prefer all the codexes to appear at the same time - or perhaps at a maximum over 6-9 months. Instead we are now 12(?) months into the edition and have 6 books. (With 3 more on the horizon getting us towards Christmas).

There's no point having playtesters tell us this is the most balanced edition eva (etc etc) if all the books will be out for 3 months in late 2022... only for things to then be blown wide apart again when 10th edition or the 2nd 9th edition Marine codex drops in 2023.

Well, frustration sales play a role i rekon. Its easier to frustrate some of the playerbase for them to invest into a secondary or tertiary army and spread more sales regularly that way. Playtesters and big names in a community can increase the sales and make people questions if it is really GW that is the issue and instead blame their chosen faction / Collection.

Nr.1 Spread releases (including rules releases) pad quartal numbers. rules afterall still sell. Assuming 10-15 (depending if printed in China or the UK) £ cost for production and shipping, earning double to tripple that via sales of them and in the case of dexes baseline guaranteeing a certain sales number, is very lucrative.

Nr. 2 Frustration marketing and the clues picked up by the video / mobile gaming industry applies. People expanding their range of armies will also increase and naturalise regular income.

And that is where the "playtesters" (they are not really testers, moreso than defacto promotors but that is a whole other debate based upon early access, free gifts and the need for that to be the first to release a video to make money... baseline youtubes fethed in that regard and not really a good baseline for getting reviews that are unbiased, simply because of how the game is rigged against the creators.)

Would be curious to know what armies people were playing in the Index era that they're so excited to go back to it. I was playing Thousand Sons and if you think they're bad now you must have forgotten when they had access to all of three spells and Aspiring Sorcerers could do nothing but cast their crappy mini-smite. Index was an era of zero options and negative flavor because all that mattered at that point was having datasheets that were compatible with the new wounding rules.

The argument on the indexes is that until people starting to identify the overpowered units - and abuse 8th's fundamental problems (i.e. first turn deepstrike, almost no restrictions on soup and unit spam) - you had a reasonably balanced game. Specifically that less lethal, slower paced game that a lot of people seem to want.

Obviously it didn't last though - and was shallow regardless. But I do think that's the charm.

I always bounce around on this - because I have no time for verisimilitude. But equally I do think the game can devolve too much into chess - i.e. just a sequence of glasshammers trading with each other.

I already feel like 40k is uncomfortable close to a sequence of glass hammers trading places.
The only real depth seems to be which character I keep nearby and which strategem I use to boost my offence/defence.

Tyel wrote:
The argument on the indexes is that until people starting to identify the overpowered units - and abuse 8th's fundamental problems (i.e. first turn deepstrike, almost no restrictions on soup and unit spam) - you had a reasonably balanced game. Specifically that less lethal, slower paced game that a lot of people seem to want.

Obviously it didn't last though - and was shallow regardless. But I do think that's the charm.

I always bounce around on this - because I have no time for verisimilitude. But equally I do think the game can devolve too much into chess - i.e. just a sequence of glasshammers trading with each other.

I think people who really loved the index era didn't have an army that only worked in one specific and unfun way, plus the "index vs codex"-gap was the same as the "8th edition vs 9th edition"-gap we have now.
Especially internal balance was quite horrible for many index armies.