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 xttz wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDsCaBMYfIs

TTT review of CA.

Skip to 01:08 for a great rant that's 100% on point

TL;DR - blame the accountants.

I rolled my eyes at the normal stuff I hate in podcasts - overlong theme tune; personal stuff about the presenters; and hey! aren't we cool and a bit wacky! But I agreed on the rant bit (not at 1 minute 8 seconds, but at 1 hour 8 minutes!). If they do some stuff that's less than 15 minutes long I might have to give them another look.

Absolutely no idea what they were thinking when they wrote up these changes for Death Guard.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
TL;DR - blame the accountants.

Decisions like these are made by Buying & Merchandising teams (or equivalent), not accountants.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
Absolutely no idea what they were thinking when they wrote up these changes for Death Guard.

The Sisters changes aren't much better. You can REALLY tell this was written 8 months ago.

 xttz wrote:
Skip to 01:08 for a great rant that's 100% on point

Wait, it doesn't even have the core rules now?

Wow... it gets worse...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Skip to 01:08 for a great rant that's 100% on point

Wait, it doesn't even have the core rules now?

Wow... it gets worse...

Don't dare complain, Else the Brigade comes back out again

 xttz wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDsCaBMYfIs

TTT review of CA.

Skip to 01:08 for a great rant that's 100% on point

For those who are dumb like me, xttz actually meant 01:08:00

And yes, good rant.

Yeah, I was confused at first. They're not ranting a minute into this video... ?

Yeah. 1hr8m.

Rip spiral bound CA.

2020-2021.

I was planning to buy this one, having skipped CA2021 because of its minimal changes compared to CA2020. Not being spiral bound and not having the core rules (and updates, including FAQs, etc.) is a dealbreaker for me though. I'll get the information through other channels then. Also the only type of 'feedback' that GW will understand, most probably.

If I was GW I would be so embarrassed on this product. They literally made a terrible product, with no spiral bound, lack of core rules, and make the meta worse. I mean for example why the massive nerf to DG who don’t win events, but for some reason thought it was fine to release the DE buffs. It feels like with the crazy power creep and terrible points adjustments have turned 9th into a dumpster fire. Headed to AoS I’ll check back in 6 months.

those changes are not meant to balance the meta or make it better

it is all about random changes to the meta, so that previous lists are not valid any more

the stuff you have makes a nice 2000 point list?
well, now those are just 1900 points but here is a new unit you can buy
your list is 2100 points? why don't you buy the models that are now cheap to get back to 2k

 kodos wrote:
those changes are not meant to balance the meta or make it better

it is all about random changes to the meta, so that previous lists are not valid any more

the stuff you have makes a nice 2000 point list?
well, now those are just 1900 points but here is a new unit you can buy
your list is 2100 points? why don't you buy the models that are now cheap to get back to 2k

Except it doesn't even do THAT right.

There is not a single change in here that would make me want to buy anything. The only effect it has is making armies smaller.

Am I suddenly going to guy BUY an Exorcist because it's 170pts now? NO. All that change does is make me want to sell the exorcists I have to someone who doesn't know any better.

The Castigator is the only SoB model I don't own. Am I suddenly going to go buy one now that it's 150? No. It's exactly the same level of useless it was before.

Am I going to go buy Paragons? They got a THIRTY point drop for the unit. Surely, with every good unit in the book going up a hundred points Paragons will be taken now right? NO. Because not only are Paragons STILL not good, now I don't have any room for tech choices at all.


TTT complain about the value of the book and blame it on the accountants. They said over and over it's not the rules team's fault. Unpopular opinion but the rules team IS responsible for the points changes and as a result are the PRIMARY REASON this book is doggak.

I'm American. I'm comfortable with exploitative corporate greed. What I'm not okay with is just how terrible they are at it. If they had dropped all the tanks 60pts to FORCE you to go buy them, I would have been WAY happier than I am with this garbage update. At least that would have given me something NEW to think about. But no, they can't even exploit their consumers correctly.

I get most of the complaints, but not the lamentation for spiral-bound. Its a cheap, garbage binding that damages everything around it.

It laid flat and was better for gaming with in the original China-printed CA incarnation. The Europe-printed one sucked for actually using during the game in comparison.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Come on. That's 25 points more than a rhino for 6 wounds, ramshackle, and a way better degrade. 15 points for T8 from there is a steal.

Besides...now you can't say boyz aren't worth it because kommandos exist.

Yes, for a mere 25pts more you can have a useless vehicle that functions exclusively as a transport. But wait there's more! For the low low price of 20pts you can give it 4 peashooters which average 0.8dmg to a Marine a turn! Call now and we will even let you equip 15pt deffrolla which gives it WS2+ which it should already have! and it makes the attacks -2AP and 2dmg flat which sounds great until you remember the meta is filled with -1AP and -1DMG So for a pittance you can have a vehicle that sucks, but you can pay heavily for the ability to suck that bad

Why would i say "Boyz aren't worth it because kommandos exist" now? Boyz aren't worth it because THEY SUCK. Making other options worse doesn't magically make them competitive..however it is that mindset at GW which causes this level of stupidity.

Voss wrote:
I get most of the complaints, but not the lamentation for spiral-bound. Its a cheap, garbage binding that damages everything around it.

As opposed to what, having to flatten out the book until the seam gives out and it's creased to all hell anyway?

broxus wrote:
If I was GW I would be so embarrassed on this product. They literally made a terrible product, with no spiral bound, lack of core rules, and make the meta worse. I mean for example why the massive nerf to DG who don’t win events, but for some reason thought it was fine to release the DE buffs. It feels like with the crazy power creep and terrible points adjustments have turned 9th into a dumpster fire. Headed to AoS I’ll check back in 6 months.

You should see the Imperial Guard changes. We’re now the bottom tier faction and got no meaningful buffs, and a nerf. Literally our lists did not change except for potentially cutting 20 points for the Manticore change. It’s quite sad.

 Marshal Loss wrote:
Absolutely no idea what they were thinking when they wrote up these changes for Death Guard.

Only thing I get from this is that GW hates Death Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
those changes are not meant to balance the meta or make it better

it is all about random changes to the meta, so that previous lists are not valid any more

the stuff you have makes a nice 2000 point list?
well, now those are just 1900 points but here is a new unit you can buy
your list is 2100 points? why don't you buy the models that are now cheap to get back to 2k

I just get the feeling the point changes were done by a bot. Not a living, thinking person, but a bot that just looked at units that were always taken and just increased points. It's just way too formulaic.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Only thing I get from this is that GW hates Death Guard.

DG Points changes would have maybe made some internal balance sense in February 2021. (Not convinced you'd buff PBCs and ignore Plague Marines but sure, go with it).
Look faintly ludicrous now in the context of the wider game.

Which I think is why its weird. Some of these changes look like things drafted 9 months ago. Others are clearly a result of much more recent information.

Tyel wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

Only thing I get from this is that GW hates Death Guard.

DG Points changes would have maybe made some internal balance sense in February 2021. (Not convinced you'd buff PBCs and ignore Plague Marines but sure, go with it).
Look faintly ludicrous now in the context of the wider game.

Which I think is why its weird. Some of these changes look like things drafted 9 months ago. Others are clearly a result of much more recent information.

I agree.

I have heard rumors, though, that the PBC "boost" is related to To The Last secondary objective as their current cost now makes them ineligible for TTL as the termies are now more expensive.

ERJAK wrote:

I'm American. I'm comfortable with exploitative corporate greed. What I'm not okay with is just how terrible they are at it. If they had dropped all the tanks 60pts to FORCE you to go buy them, I would have been WAY happier than I am with this garbage update. At least that would have given me something NEW to think about. But no, they can't even exploit their consumers correctly.

there is no corporate greed, GW is just very bad at their job and only the top dog because they were lucky back in the "good old days" and now keep going without knowing what they are doing

and yes, it is not the rules teams fault, as the points changes for CA are not done by the rules team, they don't even know about those changes before they are released (as we were told with the last Ork Codex as by accident the points in CA did not match the points of the Codex although they were released at the same time, because the points team forgot to share the new points with rules team)

those are random changes for the sake of "community look, we care about the game and really try to get it done, pls keep buying"

think of people sitting on a car, all looking thru the back window while they are driving full speed forward against a wall

I give the community another year of this mess until sales start going down again or GW gives as a reboot before it happens

 Eldarsif wrote:
I have heard rumors, though, that the PBC "boost" is related to To The Last secondary objective as their current cost now makes them ineligible for TTL as the termies are now more expensive.

That makes sense from a balancing perspective, having 2-3 TTL units sit out of LoS most/all of the game and still be useful isn't that balanced given most other armies have to have there's in LoS to be useful or weirdly costed unit that can sit in a corner and not be too much of a points sink. At the same time though I think there have been quite a few none vehicle points changes taking some characters out of being able a viable TTL option.

Vehicles as a whole got the points drop cause ever since the start of 9th with the silly cheap and far too long range eradicators dominated making taking vehicles just handicapped yourself, and it was only with dark Eldar, Ad Mech and Orks that ever seemed to take there very cheap and deadly vehicles, all of which came after the move away from eradicator spam. However with Tau coming around the corner and all the official previews showing off there incredible anti-tank I can see Vehicles backing a come back any time soon.

ERJAK wrote:

Spoiler:

 kodos wrote:
those changes are not meant to balance the meta or make it better

it is all about random changes to the meta, so that previous lists are not valid any more

the stuff you have makes a nice 2000 point list?
well, now those are just 1900 points but here is a new unit you can buy
your list is 2100 points? why don't you buy the models that are now cheap to get back to 2k

Except it doesn't even do THAT right.

There is not a single change in here that would make me want to buy anything. The only effect it has is making armies smaller.

Am I suddenly going to guy BUY an Exorcist because it's 170pts now? NO. All that change does is make me want to sell the exorcists I have to someone who doesn't know any better.

The Castigator is the only SoB model I don't own. Am I suddenly going to go buy one now that it's 150? No. It's exactly the same level of useless it was before.

Am I going to go buy Paragons? They got a THIRTY point drop for the unit. Surely, with every good unit in the book going up a hundred points Paragons will be taken now right? NO. Because not only are Paragons STILL not good, now I don't have any room for tech choices at all.


TTT complain about the value of the book and blame it on the accountants. They said over and over it's not the rules team's fault. Unpopular opinion but the rules team IS responsible for the points changes and as a result are the PRIMARY REASON this book is doggak.

I'm American. I'm comfortable with exploitative corporate greed. What I'm not okay with is just how terrible they are at it. If they had dropped all the tanks 60pts to FORCE you to go buy them, I would have been WAY happier than I am with this garbage update. At least that would have given me something NEW to think about. But no, they can't even exploit their consumers correctly.

They're writing these changes months before they reach people, of course they're weird, out of date and inappropriate, TTT do explain this in the video as well.

But ultimately your issue is precieved entirely by "make me buy what's OP" when that's not the goal at all. Points changes affect all players, not just people trying to be the top 10% in tournaments. There shouldn't be a most effective or best choice, closing that gap down is only a positive.

Maybe someone has a unit of paragon suits they love and want to play, but making them cheaper makes it easier to include them in list with adequate redundancy, or add more.

Also, buying a laptop is tech, including a precision laser measure would be including tech. Taking a different unit of plastic models is not tech and its an utterly misplaced term. I appreciate this isn't aimed at anyone in particular but I get sick of seeing and hearing the term like they've been playing civilisation on the table top.

Glad to see Battlewagons got a modest point cost since they've always been a favorite of mine.

I know a simple table is helpful for reference but I really like the presentation GW is doing by showing point changes with a portrait of the model, I actually find it very easy to find what I'm looking for that way.

Edit: Just watched the Tabletop Tactics video, wow, GW isn't putting a whole lot of value in that tiny book are they?

I think making the game competitive has proven to be profitable. That is why we see the type of changes GW is making.

Dudeface wrote:
Also, buying a laptop is tech, including a precision laser measure would be including tech. Taking a different unit of plastic models is not tech and its an utterly misplaced term. I appreciate this isn't aimed at anyone in particular but I get sick of seeing and hearing the term like they've been playing civilisation on the table top.

Hmmm?
Tech in a list building sense refers to how you might put something into your deck/list/build which doesn't necessarily synergise with the rest - but reflects the current meta.

So the equivalent in say 40k would be where you have a list of say 1750-1800 points. The last points to reach 2000 could be an anti-MEQ unit, an anti-horde unit, an anti-heavy unit etc. That's a tech choice - you can make it largely independently of the rest of your army. You can start pulling out more significant things - but at some point its a completely different list, playing in a different way.

Point changes and new missions look good, but did it really hurt them so much to spiral bound this book?

Tyel wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Also, buying a laptop is tech, including a precision laser measure would be including tech. Taking a different unit of plastic models is not tech and its an utterly misplaced term. I appreciate this isn't aimed at anyone in particular but I get sick of seeing and hearing the term like they've been playing civilisation on the table top.

Hmmm?
Tech in a list building sense refers to how you might put something into your deck/list/build which doesn't necessarily synergise with the rest - but reflects the current meta.

So the equivalent in say 40k would be where you have a list of say 1750-1800 points. The last points to reach 2000 could be an anti-MEQ unit, an anti-horde unit, an anti-heavy unit etc. That's a tech choice - you can make it largely independently of the rest of your army. You can start pulling out more significant things - but at some point its a completely different list, playing in a different way.

Wondering if it's an Atlantic divide here? Tech is most commonly "technology" here, I'm wondering if an American would first assume "technical" which, whilst not the best word to use imo, would loosely fit that definition.

How did orks take a bigger hit in chapter approved then drukari? This just shows how out of touch both the Gw rules team is and how biased the playtesters are with orks. Orks been sitting at 55% win rates since the codex dropped and drukari has been anywhere from 60-65% for almost a year.