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I can get dreads being core because they are, in essence, a dude in armor. The armor is a walking tank, but that is their body now. That's different from a dude driving a vehicle that is a separate entity from himself.
Nurglitch wrote: Tyranids are playable, they're just boring and one-dimensional, and you have to be a masochist to enjoy it.
My personal favorite part of that codex is where the apex predator, the Carnifex only hits in melee on a 4+ and it's usually a 5+ due to all of the silly +1/-1 running around in the game. I've had so many gunline players tell me this is fair because 'If a carnifex that hit on a 2 or 3 made it to combat, it would wreck their gunline." Well, if you make it to combat, you should wreck the gunline. That's the whole point!
I've mentioned this in other threads in the past (I played against Nids a lot in 2nd edition), but Carnifex's should be terrifying. They would probably need a point increase once they get everything they should get, but they should not be easily taken down, at all. They should need dedicated anti-tank and more than one of them. However, shrug damage, very hard to kill and an absolute blender once they get into combat. I wouldn't be opposed to them getting a max wound cap per phase to be honest. Points increase, possible limitations on the amount you can take but absolute scary as feth and hard to kill.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 06:59:43
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Nurglitch wrote: Tyranids are playable, they're just boring and one-dimensional, and you have to be a masochist to enjoy it.
My personal favorite part of that codex is where the apex predator, the Carnifex only hits in melee on a 4+ and it's usually a 5+ due to all of the silly +1/-1 running around in the game. I've had so many gunline players tell me this is fair because 'If a carnifex that hit on a 2 or 3 made it to combat, it would wreck their gunline." Well, if you make it to combat, you should wreck the gunline. That's the whole point!
I've mentioned this in other threads in the past (I played against Nids a lot in 2nd edition), but Carnifex's should be terrifying. They would probably need a point increase once they get everything they should get, but they should not be easily taken down, at all. They should need dedicated anti-tank and more than one of them. However, shrug damage, very hard to kill and an absolute blender once they get into combat. I wouldn't be opposed to them getting a max wound cap per phase to be honest. Points increase, possible limitations on the amount you can take but absolute scary as feth and hard to kill.
Graah no max wound cap. That's just annoying rule. Rather give them silly amount of wounds like 30 if you don't want them to die easily.
Carnifexes have always been something of a joke ever since I've played Tyranids (since 3rd/4th edition). Outside of their point cost, they've never actually been dangerous in melee--unless you give them so many upgrades you're doubling or even tripling their costs. Mediocre toughness, wounds, armor saves, and speed makes them less tough than a naked squad of marines through most editions, unless you piled on so many upgrades that their costs went right out the window.
The only time I remember people actually being inconvenienced by carnifexes was in, I want to say 4th or 5th when they could take dakkafexes as elites in the FoC--because Tyranids had abolutely awful elites in that edition. But that was less about carnifexes being dangerous and more that they were a platform for weapons that were dangerous--they still had all the old vulnerabilities.
One thing I've found kind of baffling is that GW went out of their way to uncap the S and T... and then did absolutely nothing with it.
Why did you uncap it, then, if you're not willing to give (let's say) T14 to the stuff that needs it? If stuff is tough, there's (supposed to be) multiple ways to show it.
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Altima wrote: Carnifexes have always been something of a joke ever since I've played Tyranids (since 3rd/4th edition). Outside of their point cost, they've never actually been dangerous in melee--unless you give them so many upgrades you're doubling or even tripling their costs. Mediocre toughness, wounds, armor saves, and speed makes them less tough than a naked squad of marines through most editions, unless you piled on so many upgrades that their costs went right out the window.
The only time I remember people actually being inconvenienced by carnifexes was in, I want to say 4th or 5th when they could take dakkafexes as elites in the FoC--because Tyranids had abolutely awful elites in that edition. But that was less about carnifexes being dangerous and more that they were a platform for weapons that were dangerous--they still had all the old vulnerabilities.
They were plenty scary in 2nd and 3rd...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 07:42:51
Bumping the toughness of vehicles and monsters would help a lot with survivability without having to give everything invulnerable saves or a ton of extra wounds, just by bringing them above various thresholds.
Put the new soft cap on toughness at 12 for knights, land raiders, baneblades, storm surges, gorkanauts, and monoliths. It used to take a 5 to glance AV 14 with a S9 lascannon.
T10 for the slightly less durable but still tough things like leman russes, battle wagons, tyrannofexes, greater daemons, riptides
T9 for mainline vehicles like predators, castigators, dreadnoughts, carnifexes, hammerheads, onagers
T8 for rhinos, chimeras, Falcons, wave serpents, devil fish, ravagers, most fliers.
T7 and T6 for the light but fast stuff like ork buggies, dark eldar transports, sentinel scouts.
Melta used to be better at armor pen at close range, but now just does extra damage. But if toughness boosted, melta could go from +2 damage at short range to +1 to wound instead, making it better vs high toughness while reducing its effectiveness vs multiwound infantry which shouldn't be quite so easy targets for it.
MajorWesJanson wrote: Bumping the toughness of vehicles and monsters would help a lot with survivability without having to give everything invulnerable saves or a ton of extra wounds, just by bringing them above various thresholds.
Spoiler:
Put the new soft cap on toughness at 12 for knights, land raiders, baneblades, storm surges, gorkanauts, and monoliths. It used to take a 5 to glance AV 14 with a S9 lascannon.
T10 for the slightly less durable but still tough things like leman russes, battle wagons, tyrannofexes, greater daemons, riptides
T9 for mainline vehicles like predators, castigators, dreadnoughts, carnifexes, hammerheads, onagers
T8 for rhinos, chimeras, Falcons, wave serpents, devil fish, ravagers, most fliers.
T7 and T6 for the light but fast stuff like ork buggies, dark eldar transports, sentinel scouts.
Melta used to be better at armor pen at close range, but now just does extra damage. But if toughness boosted, melta could go from +2 damage at short range to +1 to wound instead, making it better vs high toughness while reducing its effectiveness vs multiwound infantry which shouldn't be quite so easy targets for it.
While I don't really agree with the unit distribution, I don't think such detail matters for the point you are trying to make.
I think this idea is probably the best one long term, but kind of unrealistic to see implemented. Currently multiple factions have to rely on S8 shooting for anti-tank, so essentially what would be required is a full overhaul of toughness and weapon strength. Considering the whole CSM fiasco and that there clearly is no intention to do rules index style, stat updates of that magnitude would probably leave use with a ruined game for years where some codices simply wouldn't be allowed to play until they get their book.
7 Ork facts people always get wrong: Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other. A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot. Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests. Orks actually do not think that purple makes them harder to see. The joke was made canon by Alex Stewart's Caphias Cain books. Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor. Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers. Orks do not have the power of believe.
not to worry only ~18 months until 10th edition, a slightly new codex philosophy and most importantly a new marine codex. Us CSM players wont be happy for long
The Red Hobbit wrote: To be fair Dreadnaughts are a very iconic look for Space Marines. If I had to choose one or the other I'd rather see more walking murder coffins than super soldiers driving tanks personally.
This times a thousand. Doesn't really excuse the incredibly poor balance state of SM tanks, but yeah. If I had to choose, I'd choose Dreadnoughts 110% of the time.
And I think we should not mistake dreadnoughts being the only viable tank-like vehicle for SM with dreadnoughts being overpowered -- they're very clearly not overpowered. They're just the only thing with a stat line like that that actually works.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Doing it that way makes it too attractive to not use a miniature for the aircraft and just have a marker instead, GW wouldn't go for it. So while I agree it is an option in a vacuum, it isn't really a realistic path they would ever take.
People who like the miniatures wouldn't go for it. It also kills the idea of transport fliers and the heldrake.
Neither of those things are true.
Nothing stops you from using a pop can now as your drop pod, and I made a point about choosing a vector to enter as a skimmer.
May have misunderstood; it isn't that the models have no place with such rules, rather that using tokens becomes a much more attractive option. There is a big difference between something that never needs to come onto the board and something that must be on the board, interacting with other models. Using a proxy does not carry the same break of immersion.
Yea it was a misunderstanding. I totally agree with that statement but ironically its the models interaction that is wrecking the game. Fliers need to be abstracted at the 40k scale based on how they designed the models and bases etc.
I also agree with the sentiment that GW would never go that route.
So I was thinking of getting a Heavy Primaris unit and then I tried reading their rules and got a headache and decided it wasn't worth it.
For a bit I thought GW was following the business model of Lockheed Martin and the F-35, sell a broken product and double your sales by selling fixes.
But since they gave these rules away I guess that's not it.
It's just the tension that's been there since Rogue Trader between this being an RPG where Sgt Sven's choice of rifle is Very Important, vs. a wargame where Sgt Sven is just one among hundreds and no one cares if he has a Heavy Bolter, a Heavy Bolt Rifle, a Very Heavy Bolter, a Somewhat Heavy Bolter or a Medium Rare Bolt Carbine with Fries.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/11 15:26:03
Kid_Kyoto wrote: ...a Somewhat Heavy Bolter or a Medium Rare Bolt Carbine with Fries.
Nice one!
I really preferred having a simple "Bolter" profile representing all kinds of bolters with fancy bolters reserved for your HQ or Deathwatch. The endless varieties of bolters isn't something I've been too keen on.
Just needs to be one dataslate with two weapons; Gravis Devastators, equip unit with heavy bolters or multi meltas. Yeah the weapons look different; Cawl did some redesigns to better sync with the new armour, but the output is is broadly the same. Save the bespoke stats for kill team.
Making a Carnifex harder to kill and more killy isn't going to change that fielding one is going to be boring. Either it's going to charge at the enemy shooting or charge at the enemy and try to kill it, and that it does both badly isn't a huge issue. I mean, it sucks that you can't do much with Tyranids you can't do better with another army, but what really sucks is you can't do anything you can do with another army.
One of the cool things about the Tyranids back in 2nd edition was that the Tyranids were the bizzaro outliers, having their own missions (like the Tyranid Attack recycling dead units back onto the board) and disrupting opponent armies.
Allowing synapse to chain auras and whatnot together is kind of cool, but seeing stuff like Tyranids being able to recycle dead units back onto the board would go a long way to (a) making them play differently to other armies, and (b) make up for balancing them and making them less comparatively expensive to collect. Plus, it's their main theme.
The inane amount of different bolter profiles is stupid, certainly. But honestly, it's the same with almost anything, it's just that the bolters, being the weapons of the SMs are affected by them having a thousand different units, but it would be exactly the same if eldars had had many with shuriken weapons, I suspect, or anyone else.
Seriously GW, we don't need a thousand weapon profiles, FFS.
For all that's holy, melon-fething BATTLETECH has thousands, literal thousands of mechs, and still there are less weapon profiles (even though they have added a whole lot as of lately).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/12 14:53:48
The other problem with having tons of different weapon variations (bolters, shurikens, or otherwise) is that it tends to devalue the older profiles as new weapons are released. Case in point the iconic standard bolter has become rather bland and underwhelming compared to every new bolter that's been released.
Who knew power creep could be such a sales driver!
Nurglitch wrote: Making a Carnifex harder to kill and more killy isn't going to change that fielding one is going to be boring.
The Carnifex being worth taking sure sounds less boring to me.
Nurglitch wrote: Either it's going to charge at the enemy shooting or charge at the enemy and try to kill it...
Is... is that an actual argument? Everything does either of those. Or both.
Nurglitch wrote: ... and that it does both badly isn't a huge issue.
No. It is a big issue. It's unit that doesn't perform very well, isn't very durable, and sucks at what it's meant to do. It's also an iconic Tyranid unit. It being bad at everything is a big issue.
You know, I think I feel a 40K thread coming on….one where The Sad Old Git Society can tell the whippersnappers what used to be scary, and how certain units have kind of lost their teeth.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, I think I feel a 40K thread coming on….one where The Sad Old Git Society can tell the whippersnappers what used to be scary, and how certain units have kind of lost their teeth.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You know, I think I feel a 40K thread coming on….one where The Sad Old Git Society can tell the whippersnappers what used to be scary, and how certain units have kind of lost their teeth.
Not just units... Weapons, 2nd edition assault cannons? OHHHH LORDY!
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Models for them don't really exist any more, but the humble Ork snotling had the potential to be the scariest thing on a battlefield.... When pair with a Shokk Attack Gun
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Given my well documented “people probably don’t believe I don’t play CWE” thoughts on Aspect Warriors, I suspect you’re telling a naughty fib there!
It's more that everyone else got uplifts whilst they remained broadly static, with only Reapers and Spears seeing much play (and that was largely down to Ynnari), Warp Spiders kept flip flopping for the last few editions in the usual kneejerk over fix dogma
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
Nurglitch wrote: Making a Carnifex harder to kill and more killy isn't going to change that fielding one is going to be boring.
The Carnifex being worth taking sure sounds less boring to me.
Nurglitch wrote: Either it's going to charge at the enemy shooting or charge at the enemy and try to kill it...
Is... is that an actual argument? Everything does either of those. Or both.
Nurglitch wrote: ... and that it does both badly isn't a huge issue.
No. It is a big issue. It's unit that doesn't perform very well, isn't very durable, and sucks at what it's meant to do. It's also an iconic Tyranid unit. It being bad at everything is a big issue.
Yes, it is an actual argument that a Carnifex that only does the generic things allowed by the basic rules is boring. Tyranids, when they finally became a coherent army in 2nd edition (and Epic Space Marine), were notable by really shaking things up with special rules. It's not really an issue that the Carnifex is currently a bad conventional unit, but an issue that it is a conventional unit doing conventional boring things. It should be doing interesting Tyranid things that disrupts a conventional army's game play loop. I like the Without Number rules from 7th precisely because they discouraged picking off units one by one in the traditional Warhammer concentration of fire; you wanted to spread your firepower around to slow and weaken the Tyranids rather than eliminating them and returning them to the board in perfect condition.
If you're hung up on going to go the conventional route, maybe wildly underprice them, so you can get 2-3 for the price of a conventional box on legs? You know, so they match the 'quantity has a quality all its own' of the Tyranid ethos?
Nice one!
