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So, there's a new AdMech FAQ/errata document up on the WHC site - a couple of bits I follow (the Manipulus and the Pteraxi strat), but what was the "Heavy Battle Servitor" ability that's vanished?

And am I right in reading that the two Skitarii Troops strats don't appear to have been changed?

The Skitarii troop strats have not changed. The Heavy Battle Servitor let them move and fire heavy weapons, but that was made redundant when they were changed to bikers and GW forgot to remove the special rule.

So not being widely versed in Admech, what did the changes do to reduce overall strength of army?

Considering this is the post-Codex FAQ, it wasn't really meant to change the strength of things so much as to fix things that are obviously broken. However, one of the major things is remove the un-interactable Petraxii from the Skitarii. They can no long jump down, shoot, charge, score a secondary, AND jump back up into deep strike to do it all again next turn, so it's definitely reducing their power, but mainly just because it really shouldn't have been that to begin with.

^ this.

The first FAQ is never meant as a balance pass. That usually comes with a second FAQ. If GW decides that one is needed, you will see it around 1 month from now.

The only nerf they received is the pteraxi strat, since that was a clear RAW abuse.
By the way, it is no small nerf.

That wasn't "RAW abuse," it's just what the strat did. It didn't require an overly literal reading of anything or any weird loophole interaction, there was no possible way to read the strat as *not* allowing what it did. That strat being abused wasn't on the players, it was on GW for failing to write a decent strat.

yukishiro1 wrote:
That wasn't "RAW abuse," it's just what the strat did. It didn't require an overly literal reading of anything or any weird loophole interaction, there was no possible way to read the strat as *not* allowing what it did. That strat being abused wasn't on the players, it was on GW for failing to write a decent strat.

Except that all the other similar rules and strats had just been FAQed to not allow that kind of interaction. We all knew it was possible with Pteraxi just due to a delay in the update process. While 100% legal it was also 100% TFG to do that.

There is no other similar rule to how the Pteraxi worked. Unless by similar we count being able to be put back in to reservs.

I am actually suprised, by the speed of the FAQ coming out. It looks like ad mecha did have actual unintended stuff. Maybe not as drastic as SW getting a FAQ before the codex was sold at the stores, but still the speed is stunning. Also shines some light on other faction, it looks like some of the DW or necron stuff isn't broken, as in not working, but actually just the GW wanted it to be.

Spoletta wrote:
While 100% legal it was also 100% TFG to do that.

I don't think that's the truth at all.

The rules of the strat are completely straight forward. There was nothing ambiguous about how they worked. There was no other way to interpret them. The fact that it was unbalanced isn't the fault of the players who used the strat. It's 100% the fault of GW, who still clearly play a very different version of this game to the rest of us, or they would have caught this before the book went to print.

Blaming the players isn't the way to go here.

No other strat had ever allowed someone to do that kind of interaction. It's not like nobody had never thought of it before and then it got FAQed...GW wrote a strat that allowed you to do that for the first time in history, and people just played it how it was written. Those other strats were fundamentally different, they were all stuff where they both went down and came up in the same phase.

It was one of those "this is clearly broken, they didn't appreciate how powerful this is" cases, not one of those "this requires reading the rule in some warped way that obviously wasn't intended." If GW didn't intend for people to be able to bring them down and back up in the same turn, it was shockingly incompetent of them not to see that that was what they were doing. This wasn't some unintended loophole they didn't spot ala Daemon Prince Superfriends at the start of 9th, it was the obvious thing the strat rewarded that anyone saw when looking at it. I have trouble believing even GW released the strat not realizing what it allowed. I think they knew what they were doing, they just didn't realize how broken it was. And I refuse to believe that playtesters didn't flag the issue for them, so again, the fact that it made it into print shows either an incredible level of incompetence on GW's part or that they were initially fine with it.

I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
While 100% legal it was also 100% TFG to do that.

I don't think that's the truth at all.

The rules of the strat are completely straight forward. There was nothing ambiguous about how they worked. There was no other way to interpret them. The fact that it was unbalanced isn't the fault of the players who used the strat. It's 100% the fault of GW, who still clearly play a very different version of this game to the rest of us, or they would have caught this before the book went to print.

Blaming the players isn't the way to go here.

Yep, and it's not even like the 10 point Reavers or something like that where RAW it is unambiguous but everyone knew it was a typo, or the -1D snafu on the paragons where again although RAW it ignores damage 1 weapons everyone knows again that they just forgot to put the right wording in.

There is nothing to suggest that was the case for the Pteraxii strat. They just released something totally broken, either because they didn't understand how their own game worked in basic ways or because they did and thought it was fine. I think it is more likely they thought it was ok than they didn't realize what the obvious words they had written actually meant.

I'd actually be more worried if it was unintended and nobody at GW realized it was possible, because if something that obvious can make it through playtesting, it shows their playtesting program is really completely not fit for purpose. Typos are one thing - playtesters aren't trained to proofread - but basic game interactions is something else.

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

this is normal for some now, that GW made it clear that if they mess up with the powerlevel of something, it is not their fault as designer of the rules but of the players who know it is broken and still use it

you can call it victim blaming of some kind, but they do it on a regular bases and white knights will jump in and defend them because perfect balance is impossible and GW had never a chance to spot it because they are not WAAC but play the game for fun

yet it always comes down to incompetence on GW's side, either because they don't understand their own game and just throw random rules out they think are "cool" and/or never actually play their own game

GW had just put out a round of FAQs on the 2nd of June where all the cases of coming and going from reserves in the same turn had been removed.

It is almost a year in to 9th ed, and GW has yet to put out an FAQ or errata that gives all marines their second wound. For the same span of time. titan class vehicles can't see through terrain, but can be seen creating a situation where they are being shot by stuff they can't shot back at. And that is just some 9th ed examples of handling of obvious rules being wrong.

Plus no unit had the option to come and go in to reserves in the same turn after running a whole turn of doing stuff, the way pteraxi did.

If a GK flamer is different enough from all the other flamers in 9th, to warent different rules, then why would it be impossible for ad mecha to have one of the kind rules for themself?

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

That's a very very wrong take on a game like this.

So for example, there is an AM infantry model which automatically kills any unit within 6" inches every turn due to how his rules are written. Even if the intent of that rule is clearly not to allow that, It is 100% legal to do so. Would you be fine with someone playing that model like that? I wouldn't.

GW literally tells you to play it RAW, even if it seems obviously unintentional. If you aren't playing RAW, you're playing wrong, straight from the horse's mouth.

I still wouldn't because I don't particularly care if GW thinks I'm playing wrong, but the the infinite grenade loophole is a very different situation from this one. That's a case of a weird interaction that people didn't spot, which everyone knows was unintentional. Nobody knew if the Pteraxii thing was unintentional, because there had never been a strat like that before in the game - referencing other redeploy strats, all of which happened in the same phase, is fundamentally different. We'd never had a strat before that let you pull a unit up at the end of the turn instead of in the movement phase. The only reason to think it was unintentional is that it was so powerful that nobody could believe any developer would really have thought it was ok.

In other words, it wasn't a typo, it was a balance mistake. I cannot believe that even GW is so clueless about their own game that they didn't understand that by writing those words they were allowing people to bring them up and down on the same turn.

Well at least you admit yourself to be lousy player so those admech players admitted they suck as player needing crutch that will get removed.

Not sure why you want to advertise being bad player...

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

TFG is "That F***ing Guy" in this context; It usually refers to the one hypercompetitive rules-lawyering bastard in gaming group who makes any attempt at gaming with them utterly miserable, frequently by hairsplitting rules in precisely this manner, although it can refer to other forms of odious public behavior.

Basically, the way you've described your entire local gaming environment as I understand it is entirely composed of TFGs.

TFG is using 10 point reavers even though everyone knows they're actually 20 points. TFG is saying your paragons can't be hurt by damage 1 weapons.

The Pteraxii strat was not a TFG problem. It was a GW can't write balanced rules problem. There was no reason to think looking at that strat that you weren't intended to be allowed to bring them up and down on the same turn, except that it was super powerful. I don't think we want to start going down the road of "using the powerful rules you are given is TFG behavior because we should assume GW didn't intend to make them as powerful as it did," because that logic has no end. It's one thing to say "this isn't intended because it's an obvious typo" or "this isn't intended because it's an obvious loophole," it's something else to say "this wasn't intended simply because it's really strong even though it's plain from reading the rules text that it's completely allowed and the obvious way to use the strat."

On that logic, using enriched rounds is also TFG behavior because 1CP to wound anything that isn't a vehicle on a 4+ to hit is obviously too strong too.

Spoletta wrote:

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

That's a very very wrong take on a game like this.

So for example, there is an AM infantry model which automatically kills any unit within 6" inches every turn due to how his rules are written. Even if the intent of that rule is clearly not to allow that, It is 100% legal to do so. Would you be fine with someone playing that model like that? I wouldn't.

Sure I would. It'd be funny in friendlies. In a tournament setting I'd just say the person has to manually roll everything out for every model, no fast rolling, and turn on the chess clock.

Spoletta wrote:

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

That's a very very wrong take on a game like this.

So for example, there is an AM infantry model which automatically kills any unit within 6" inches every turn due to how his rules are written. Even if the intent of that rule is clearly not to allow that, It is 100% legal to do so. Would you be fine with someone playing that model like that? I wouldn't.

Btw astra militarum pretty much has that brag by raw can one shot literally anything with infinite frag grenades. Not even warlord titan can survive infinite frag grenades(iirc it's something silly like 43000 grenades to take out titan with grenades but as you throw infinite amount...).

Guess those admech players have no issue brag one shotting anything

Actually...if rule says can immediately shoot again does target have to be same? If not bragg deletes literally every unit within grenade　range.

Audustum wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

That's a very very wrong take on a game like this.

So for example, there is an AM infantry model which automatically kills any unit within 6" inches every turn due to how his rules are written. Even if the intent of that rule is clearly not to allow that, It is 100% legal to do so. Would you be fine with someone playing that model like that? I wouldn't.

Sure I would. It'd be funny in friendlies. In a tournament setting I'd just say the person has to manually roll everything out for every model, no fast rolling, and turn on the chess clock.

Sure, I'd play against it for however long it existed.
The 1st time it'd probably catch me by surprise.
After that? I'd just include appropriate counter-measures & it'd rarely be a problem again.

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Karol wrote:
I am not sure what a tfg is, assuming it is an insult though, but it would be rather strange if following the rules somehow made you insult worthy. If it is legal, it is legal. If it is not, it is not.

That's a very very wrong take on a game like this.

So for example, there is an AM infantry model which automatically kills any unit within 6" inches every turn due to how his rules are written. Even if the intent of that rule is clearly not to allow that, It is 100% legal to do so. Would you be fine with someone playing that model like that? I wouldn't.

Btw astra militarum pretty much has that brag by raw can one shot literally anything with infinite frag grenades. Not even warlord titan can survive infinite frag grenades(iirc it's something silly like 43000 grenades to take out titan with grenades but as you throw infinite amount...).

Guess those admech players have no issue brag one shotting anything

Actually...if rule says can immediately shoot again does target have to be same? If not bragg deletes literally every unit within grenade　range.

That's literally what he was referring to.

Let's not pretend that Bragg's loophole and this strat were remotely equivalent though.

That was actually more an answer to Karol's "If it is legal it is fine."

Karol wrote:
It is almost a year in to 9th ed, and GW has yet to put out an FAQ or errata that gives all marines their second wound. For the same span of time. titan class vehicles can't see through terrain, but can be seen creating a situation where they are being shot by stuff they can't shot back at. And that is just some 9th ed examples of handling of obvious rules being wrong.

Plus no unit had the option to come and go in to reserves in the same turn after running a whole turn of doing stuff, the way pteraxi did.

If a GK flamer is different enough from all the other flamers in 9th, to warent different rules, then why would it be impossible for ad mecha to have one of the kind rules for themself?

Units with 18+ wounds not benefiting from any terrain that isn't a giant solid LOS blocking wall is 100% intentional. The idea is that you're so big everything can see you, but smaller stuff can hide from you. It's just something that you have to learn to deal with if you run TITANIC units.

So, to try and get things remotely back tot he FAQ - the Pteraxii change is the only one that could really be described as a balance change for the army, and even that is quite possibly a "how the heck did that make it into print?" fix to make them in line with other equivalent strats?

What're the transport changes all about?

 Dysartes wrote:
So, to try and get things remotely back tot he FAQ - the Pteraxii change is the only one that could really be described as a balance change for the army, and even that is quite possibly a "how the heck did that make it into print?" fix to make them in line with other equivalent strats?

What're the transport changes all about?

Originally it was just INFANTRY, instead of <FORGEWORLD> INFANTRY, so you could fill it with any infantry. The most silly example being Centurions, but I doubt any TO with half a brain would ever allow that. It was the Admech equivalent of CSM tanksurfing on Fellblades before that got FAQed out of the Compendium: obvious, hilarious typo.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
So, to try and get things remotely back tot he FAQ - the Pteraxii change is the only one that could really be described as a balance change for the army, and even that is quite possibly a "how the heck did that make it into print?" fix to make them in line with other equivalent strats?

What're the transport changes all about?

Originally it was just INFANTRY, instead of <FORGEWORLD> INFANTRY, so you could fill it with any infantry. The most silly example being Centurions, but I doubt any TO with half a brain would ever allow that. It was the Admech equivalent of CSM tanksurfing on Fellblades before that got FAQed out of the Compendium: obvious, hilarious typo.

but but IT'S CLEARLY GW'S FAULT IN THAT CASE! I HAVE A GOD GIVEN RESPONSABILITY TO MISUSE THAT OBVIOUS TYPO TO PROVE HOW SUCKY GW IS!

BrianDavion wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
So, to try and get things remotely back tot he FAQ - the Pteraxii change is the only one that could really be described as a balance change for the army, and even that is quite possibly a "how the heck did that make it into print?" fix to make them in line with other equivalent strats?

What're the transport changes all about?

Originally it was just INFANTRY, instead of <FORGEWORLD> INFANTRY, so you could fill it with any infantry. The most silly example being Centurions, but I doubt any TO with half a brain would ever allow that. It was the Admech equivalent of CSM tanksurfing on Fellblades before that got FAQed out of the Compendium: obvious, hilarious typo.

but but IT'S CLEARLY GW'S FAULT IN THAT CASE! I HAVE A GOD GIVEN RESPONSABILITY TO MISUSE THAT OBVIOUS TYPO TO PROVE HOW SUCKY GW IS!

Yeah, how can we expect any quality control from such a small company as GW /s

I think the biggest problem with these sorts of things is there's some genuine ambiguity in a lot of these mistakes that reasonable people can disagree on. Infinite grenades from Bragg is pretty much universally agreed to be both RAW and a mistake. Can you say the same for the transport typo, or the Pteraxii strat befroe the FAQ? Maybe, maybe not. I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that they could have been intentional, if slightly overpowered. Blaming the players for GW's incompetence is directing your attention at the wrong end of the problem.