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ERJAK wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
im sure everyone has units they know need fixing in their own codex's.

Which you are more than welcome to do...after a flat 30% nerf to all Custodes units. And the removal of the 4++ MW shrug on EC. You can have +1 leadership instead.

I am definitely biased against the MW shrug. It definitely screws internal balance of the book when they can also pick up other traits when they need to.

At the same time I know I can drop 9 to 12 MW on a whim and without it I could probably do really well against 3 mans. Maybe a 5+++ wound be fine? I dunno.

GW is clearly comfortable with hard counters in the game. CA2022 exemplified this. The changes to Sisters in CA2022 and the Feb Balance slate have left them in a spot where if your opponent has more than 2 units that ignore LoS, you can pretty much just shake hands and go get an early lunch. According to your own stats from the other thread, AM have this same conundrum when they line up against astartes. Why shouldn't a Custodes player instantly lose when he lines up against Tsons?

So why should Custodes, whose weakness SHOULD be mortal wounds, be able to just go 'naw son, not weak to NOTHIN!' and declare themselves invulnerable? At this point, ALL mortal wound defense should be removed from Custodes. Did you line up against a Smite Spam army? Tough cookies. I had to play Tau smart missiles round one, you can deal with auto-loss games too.

What's with all these hyperbolic statements regarding custodes rules lately? "they are immune to mortals!" "you can't use rerolls against them!" they ignore about 50% mortals and you can't reroll against one unit. Is that still too strong? We can have a discussion about that, but stop with the hyperbole already.

Custodes deserve nerfs, don't get me wrong. But start increasing Trajann to 190, the bikes up by 5, the Salvo Launchers up to 10, increase the Wardens to 55, Terminators to 65 and the Achillus to 170base before altering faction rules. Bikes losing CORE is also an additional possibility, but I am not a fan of that nerf in particular because it would tip internal balance even more towards Emperors Chosen, because the free re-rolls becomes even more valuable.

I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Thats probably my issue atm. Im running Emissaries imperatus shield host and playing a shooty custodes list.

Apparently the reason im having such trouble against tau is strictly because of my build. I have no issue against some other things, but I litterally have no chance against tau with my current list.

So yes, some custodes play fine into tau, and some do not. The frustration I felt was mostly just due to my list choice.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Agreed. Having entire factions/subfactions that are hard counters to certain other factions but hopelessly weak against others is just bad design. Individual units? Sure. But entire factions/subfactions? No.

ERJAK wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
im sure everyone has units they know need fixing in their own codex's.

Which you are more than welcome to do...after a flat 30% nerf to all Custodes units. And the removal of the 4++ MW shrug on EC. You can have +1 leadership instead.

I am definitely biased against the MW shrug. It definitely screws internal balance of the book when they can also pick up other traits when they need to.

At the same time I know I can drop 9 to 12 MW on a whim and without it I could probably do really well against 3 mans. Maybe a 5+++ wound be fine? I dunno.

GW is clearly comfortable with hard counters in the game. CA2022 exemplified this. The changes to Sisters in CA2022 and the Feb Balance slate have left them in a spot where if your opponent has more than 2 units that ignore LoS, you can pretty much just shake hands and go get an early lunch. According to your own stats from the other thread, AM have this same conundrum when they line up against astartes. Why shouldn't a Custodes player instantly lose when he lines up against Tsons?

So why should Custodes, whose weakness SHOULD be mortal wounds, be able to just go 'naw son, not weak to NOTHIN!' and declare themselves invulnerable? At this point, ALL mortal wound defense should be removed from Custodes. Did you line up against a Smite Spam army? Tough cookies. I had to play Tau smart missiles round one, you can deal with auto-loss games too.

CA does not exemplify anything. its a horrible book that is 6 months out of date the day it releases.

Doesn't change the fact that GW thinks that CA is a good way of dealing with rule and balance.

Karol wrote:
Doesn't change the fact that GW thinks that CA is a good way of dealing with rule and balance.

You wrote "making more money by selling more books" wrong.

nah those are separate things. Cuting up one book in to 2 or even 3 is one thing. Thinking that every 6 month a CA book fixs the games problem enough for the game to continue on is another.

GW really does think that if they drop 2pts on GK termintors, that this somehow fixs the GK codex internal balance and brings great satisfaction to player who don't want to play 5, now 4, NDKS and 30 interceptors.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Agreed. Having entire factions/subfactions that are hard counters to certain other factions but hopelessly weak against others is just bad design. Individual units? Sure. But entire factions/subfactions? No.

Ahhh DttFE, what a god awful faction rule that everyone forgot about.

The 4+++ mw shrug just seems too strong.

They could also use a small price increase on a few things. Another thread brought up Yarrick vs Shield Captain in Allarus armor, and I about did a spit take when I saw how cheap that shield captain is. . . .

I was like "that has to be a typo" then pulled it up in the app and was just amazed lol.

The 4+++ against Mortal Wounds should've been a 5+++ to begin with.

Any +5 thing on elite units may as well not exist, because you either have a very low chance of saving stuff, or you save some wounds incoming, but there are so many of them that your unit dies anyway. I have enough expiriance with +5inv to know that it does not work.

Karol wrote:
Any +5 thing on elite units may as well not exist, because you either have a very low chance of saving stuff, or you save some wounds incoming, but there are so many of them that your unit dies anyway. I have enough expiriance with +5inv to know that it does not work.

No, it's definitely significant.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.

They dropped it by 50pts, which was fine, but its still far too unreliable for a 400pt model.

As for the whole misappropriated in the flyer slot thing, thats not as cut and dry as you make it.

With flyer's being limited to 2 max instead of 3 in a superheavy detachment, the only issue i see is that noone would ever want to spam ares since they just arent that good currently.

They need either more reliability, or more potential output to make them worth the price tag.

Just thought I'd put my two cents in because this statement had me laughing out loud.

400pts gets you 22 T8 Wounds with a 3+ save, 5+ invuln and -1 to hit.
380pts gets orkz 24 T8 wounds with a 3+ save, 6+ invuln

Speed wise, Ares is 20-50' starting. Morkanaut is....8.

Ranged Combat.

Ares gets 1 gun thats D3 S14 -4 D3+6dmg attacks at BS2 that can choose to get Heavy 3 S9 -3 D3dmg.
It gets 2 guns at S9 -4AP D3+3 that re-rolls to wound against Vehicles...effectively making it 2+ to wound. OR it can 4 shots out of each gun at S7 -2 1dmg. Shortest range of everything is 36, the heavy stuff hits at Ranged 48 and 72...IE the entire fething board.

What does the Morkanaut get?

3D3 shots at S8 -3 D6 dmg, hit rolls of 1 cause mortal wounds to yourself and it hits on 5s.
1D3 shots at S8 -3 D6dmg hit rolls of 1 cause mortals to self and hits on 5s.
2D3 Rokkitz at S8 -2AP 3dmg, hits on 5s.
20/12 shots at S5 no AP 1dmg.

All the morkanauts guns are Ranged 24-36, the big shootas (20/12 shot weapon) get the 20 at 18' range the 12 at 19-36.

-1 to hit against the Morkanaut means you are as likely to hurt yourself as the enemy and cuts its ranged dmg in half.

But yeah, the ares is totally overcosted compared to that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ohhh! And the Morkanaut is considered a LoW now because reasons, so to even take it costs you 3CP

For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.

I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.

Karol wrote:
Doesn't change the fact that GW thinks that CA is a good way of dealing with rule and balance.

I feel like that's more a managerial mandate that they continue to use the format for updates. I mean this is the same company that seems to think the books and box department needs to turn a profit instead of it being a supporting department to the rest of the company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.

I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.

They have to "auto use every turn" strats that could use a bump in CP cost too. Durability buffs like that should never be cheap.

Tyel wrote:
For Custodes just stick 30 points on Trajann and 10 points on the bikes and see what happens. You could (and probably should) nerf Emperor's Chosen, and take a scalpel to lots of other units - but that's fiddly and the above could be issued in a one page PDF tomorrow.

I think Tau are much harder to fix because basically the whole Codex is undercosted in the context of available synergy, army rules, sept bonuses, stratagems etc. Crisis Suits up 5, Broadsides both losing Core and going up 10 and Stormsurges up 25 would probably be a start.

These custodes nerfs seem the most reasonable suggestions to me. I’d further add that either transhuman or no re-rolls need to go to a flat 2 CP. However, I think people are overrating changing the emperor’s chosen save from a 4+++ to 5+++. Reason being is that shield hosts are actually more balanced than people realize (emperors chosen just offers the most flexibility and durability) so all the competitive custodes armies would just become shadow keepers instead of E-chosen if this nerf happens.

For Tau I’d say nerf airburst, possibly Mon-kai, and SMS. A 5 point increase for the weapons and heavier range restriction on the army buff should do nicely. Tau will still be strong with these nerfs, but their seemingly unlimited LoS ignoring shooting is what’s making them OP right now.

Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.

Karol wrote:
nah those are separate things. Cuting up one book in to 2 or even 3 is one thing. Thinking that every 6 month a CA book fixs the games problem enough for the game to continue on is another.

GW really does think that if they drop 2pts on GK termintors, that this somehow fixs the GK codex internal balance and brings great satisfaction to player who don't want to play 5, now 4, NDKS and 30 interceptors.

It isn't like you take GK terminators and make them 50% more than Strikes and call the job done. It just doesn't work like that. Having 3 wounds has value beyond just an extra wound due to stratification of weapon damage.

Interceptors aren't magic, either. If you want to see fewer Interceptors - 1) get rid of purifying ritual as it requires a lot of individual casts, and 2) get rid of the obsec aura WLT. Points won't ever get you there.

As i said, every codex has some stinkers that need help. Morka's gorka's and stompa's are all pretty bad in their own way. The morka and gorkanaughts should be exactly the same profile as knights (only hit on 5's in shooting with most of the guns) at their current price point. So cheaper than knights but be just as durable and killy in melee. Stompa should actually be a bit beefier than the Castellan only obviously not as good in shooting.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
The 4+++ against Mortal Wounds should've been a 5+++ to begin with.

Custodes were fine without chapter tactics or combat doctrines, they got both without pts adjustments. We are being taken for a ride.

Each time a model with this code would lose a wound as the result of a mortal wound, roll one D6; on a 5+ that wound is not lost.
Each time a unit with this code is selected to shoot or fight, you can re-roll one wound roll when making that unit's attacks.

Does this remind anyone of anything?

I think giving them chapter tactics was fine, it's pairing that with their karate system where things definitely got bent.

Actually I as much as I like the flavor aspect of doctrine systems and how they push armies to function more like their lore, they added a lot of issues to the game and probably should be removed.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The ares is easily overcosted comparing it to any other large centerpiece model in the 400+ range.

They dropped it by 50pts, which was fine, but its still far too unreliable for a 400pt model.

As for the whole misappropriated in the flyer slot thing, thats not as cut and dry as you make it.

With flyer's being limited to 2 max instead of 3 in a superheavy detachment, the only issue i see is that noone would ever want to spam ares since they just arent that good currently.

They need either more reliability, or more potential output to make them worth the price tag.

Ahh so it's overcosted at 400 points for a centrepiece model? So it's comparable to the wraithknight, except it's overcosted?

**compares stats**

Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no.

And it has fly too?

Oh and the Wraithknight with even vaguely comparable weaponry is 160 points MORE expensive?

AND the Wraithknight requires a superheavy slot, costs CP, and gets no traits?

Yeh. No. Ares does not deserve buffs.

Whatever you custodes guys have been smoking lately, you really need to learn to share with the rest of the class.

 vict0988 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
The 4+++ against Mortal Wounds should've been a 5+++ to begin with.

Custodes were fine without chapter tactics or combat doctrines, they got both without pts adjustments. We are being taken for a ride.

Each time a model with this code would lose a wound as the result of a mortal wound, roll one D6; on a 5+ that wound is not lost.
Each time a unit with this code is selected to shoot or fight, you can re-roll one wound roll when making that unit's attacks.

Does this remind anyone of anything?

They weren't fine. They were being held up by a 3++ that was slowly going away.

They just need a point bump on Bikes and Trajan. Then we can see if there's more problems.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."


The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.

 Dolnikan wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."


The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.

Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.

As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.

Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.

Breton wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."


The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.

Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.

As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.

Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.

That is pretty horrible. Vehicles have a little more space, but still, there isn't that much space but more importantly, vehicles just don't bring that much to the table because of the sheer lethality of many armies.

And of course, this shows why the fortification rules are a joke. I fully understand not wanting them to be deployable just anywhere so they can lock off whole parts of the board, but this is a whole new story.

Salt donkey wrote:
Finally, we need to wait for data but I’m pretty sure harlequins are just plain OP as well. People being relieved that craftworld aren’t OP has completely eclipsed the fact that harlequins are. No armor save and T 3 doesn’t matter when every weapon in the game is at least -1 to -2 AP and when they have numerous other defensive buffs. Oh and just like custodes all their stuff got cheaper while getting free extra rules and better stats. It is my believe this army will be disgusting and make our currently balance grievance look like minor whining.

I think Harlequin reviews have sort of been set back by exhaustion. By the time you've waded through the CWE they tend to just be "yeah, Harlequins are also a thing".
As you say - this stuff should be potent (although I'm not totally sure its going to be even more powerful than today's Custodes/Tau).

I think its partly rooted in people never really understanding (tbh I was with them) why Harlequins were so good at the start of 9th. As you say, this should allow them to do that, but better. So its hard to see why they wouldn't be top tier.

Breton wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like hard counters aren't bad in competetive where it can keep factions from being too dominant, the issue is that the same methodology translates poorly into casual settings.

I'd rather if GW built armies around being weak to certain weapon or damage types instead and ensured every book has some access to each kind of thing so people can always flex into having an answer instead of being caught in a bad match up because they met their coy ter army list.

Whole armies hard countering others is something that should never exist in a game like 40k because it's a game where the vast majority of people have one or two armies and the games take way too long (and building armies way too much time, effort, and money) to ever tell people: "yeah. Don't bother. It's game over anyways."


The Ares debate also shows something important about the current game. I don't know how good they are, having never seen one, but if many players think that even those are bad that tells us that vehicles in general are completely worthless in the current game.

Yes there should be no hard counters. long odds, sure, hard counters, no.

As for how good vehicles are - have you seem some of the pictures/graphics of expected tabletops? Someone did a breakdown, I'm not sure of where/what it was - I think it was the new rule on fortification placement - and they figured out that you could only place a Hammerfall Bunker AT ALL on about half of the random tables you could have gotten. PLACE, let alone move around the board.

Here it is, I found it https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/ - Look at Table 2 and ask how a regular tank - let alone a LOW like a Knight or a BaneSwordHammer can go from one corner to the other. Check out the blue diagrams and ignore the orange borders. Realize many of these tanks are larger than the Hammerfall Bunker. If they don't fly, they don't move.

The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gw knows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.

And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gw knows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.

And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.

Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.

Breton wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

The current terrain rules just don't work well enough, and gw knows that, otherwise they wouldn't be spamming big Obscurring area terrain pieces on their own boards. They need to make other types of terrain actually useful, so we don't need boards like that. Go back to 4th edition terrain rules, drop the overly complicated stuff. If the only terrain that matters is big Obscurring pieces, then the terrain system isn't working.

And don't forget, anything with more than 18 wounds gets nothing from terrain unless it's literally big enough to hide the entire model.

Well that and it's OK to have SOME firing lanes that go across the whole board. One across the middle of the board the long ways, and two going up the short side at 1/3 and 2/3 to represent streets/valleys etc isn't a bad thing. The important part is to not have ALL firing lanes do that, and make a calculated risk to go into those alleys.

Yes, but that would also work better if firepower was a little less extreme and not everything would just die the moment someone targets it.