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.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


It is possible for GW to try and do something and still be incompetent at it.

For example, lets say they are trying to make a well balanced game. The current domination of Tau, Custodes and Harlequins shows that they are failing at that.

Lets say they try to make their new kits OP to generate sales. The many new kits which were mediocre to bad rules-wise shows that they are failing at that.

Maybe, if they were a fresh new company with a studio that has no expiriance , this could be explained that way. But they clearly are non of those things. So we have two options. Either GW defines the word "balance" way different then the player community does, or GW only says/claims to want balance, but in fact doesn't do it. Now if we had better contact with the studio, or the studio was telling more then smoke and mirrors, plus showing models already shown, it would be easier to deal with. But we don't , so we get to see something clearly OP, and then wonder for a few months if this was planned to be like that by GW or not. Or what did GW thinking while they skip the fixing of thing A, B or C.

 Ordana wrote:
If GW made Voidweavers broken OP to make $$ then surely they would have made a ton more boxes in prep for the codex release right?

And yet the kit is sold out and everyone that wants to buy one from GW can't and so will get them from other sources that don't make GW any money.

The simply truth is that even if GW buffs units to make money, they are just as incompetent at doing that as they are if they are trying their best to make balanced books.

Yea the money they leave on the table it crazy. A sane balance level would have people buying from all over.

GW can absolutely live without the whales. I'll likely still buy the CK army set, because...awesome models. It might take 6 months to a year before they see a table, if at all. I just want those things in my display case. Literally no rules will change my desire to own the models.

What if they can't make more ? Plus they can nerf them 3-6 months later after people bought them, and with the investment done, the people playing often will try to update the army to stay fun to play.

If GW had limitless capacity for production, then yeah, there would be losing money if they haven't sold an item to a willing customer. But if they sell all they can make, then they maxed out profit.
The only thing GW would want to do to their models is to make them bio degrade, same way all sports and tech ware is. Just imagine this, practicaly no secondary market, you have to rebuy the army if you want to play. And as a bonus you can call this some eco thing and get points for being a friendly company.

Karol wrote:
But if they sell all they can make, then they maxed out profit.

They're not maxing out profit. If a single kit sells out then customers have ample avenues now to find alternatives. It's directly lost and unrecoverable sales.

Selling five thousand Voidweavers ( £130,000 ) is 0.004% of GW's monthly ( £29.4M ) revenue and I bet they had waaaaay less than that on shelves. All that stock at the FLGS ( over 50% of GW's business ) is already recorded as a sale to GW months and years ago. GW is going to get re-orders that will go unfilled for quite a while.

Karol wrote:
What if they can't make more ? Plus they can nerf them 3-6 months later after people bought them, and with the investment done, the people playing often will try to update the army to stay fun to play.

If GW had limitless capacity for production, then yeah, there would be losing money if they haven't sold an item to a willing customer. But if they sell all they can make, then they maxed out profit.
The only thing GW would want to do to their models is to make them bio degrade, same way all sports and tech ware is. Just imagine this, practicaly no secondary market, you have to rebuy the army if you want to play. And as a bonus you can call this some eco thing and get points for being a friendly company.

but people aren't going to buy them 3-6 months from now because then everyone will be playing CSM or Daemons or Guard or whatever utterly busted codex they recently released. They probably aren't going to buy them next month if the internet is right about Tyranids.

The window to sell 9 voidweavers to power gamers jumping on the latest FOTM is very small with the current pace of releases.

What alternatives are there to buy voids? Even if someone does make recasts, it will take weeks, if not a few months, till someone gets proper designes and can produce enough resin models to make it worth selling. By then GW can just nerf the unit.

Karol wrote:
What alternatives are there to buy voids? Even if someone does make recasts, it will take weeks, if not a few months, till someone gets proper designes and can produce enough resin models to make it worth selling. By then GW can just nerf the unit.

Voidweavers were released a long time ago, theyre not a new unit.

Recasters already produce them.
3D files already exist for them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

It is possible for GW to try and do something and still be incompetent at it.

For example, lets say they are trying to make a well balanced game. The current domination of Tau, Custodes and Harlequins shows that they are failing at that.

Lets say they try to make their new kits OP to generate sales. The many new kits which were mediocre to bad rules-wise shows that they are failing at that.

Because here's the thing. If you want to be able to make your new kits powerful and so sell based on that, without it being so over the top as to be blatantly obvious (10s in every stat, 400 shoots at BS2+ etc.), you need to understand how your game works on a deep mechanical level to purposely create that.

In short, when it comes to designing a game, GW is incompetent regardless of what their intentions are.

Their intent is, quote, "make the best fantasy miniatures and continue to do this forever" (for the benefit of their shareholders). All evidence points to them doing it better than any competitor on the market I could name. Thus it seems they are not incompetent at achieving their self-proclaimed goal and only appear "incompetent" to you because you imply goals (balance or short-term sale-spikes through OP rules) they don't actually pursue.

Pickled_egg wrote:
To illustrate my point about the latest wave of codexes being a problem. Primarily Harlequins it has to be said.

Here is the top 16 from GT Manchester played this weekend 7 rounds so a large sample size.

Harlequins - 6
Harlequins souped into other Aeldari - 4
Crusher Stampede - 1
Custodes - 3
T'au - 2

They need to fix Harlequins yesterday

Really disappointing, I'm only just coming back to the 40k scene and it looks like it's been a literal clown fiesta.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:


Voidweavers were released a long time ago, theyre not a new unit.

Recasters already produce them.
3D files already exist for them.

I know, to the extent that in my town they run out of resin to make them. Yes, the people want the models. And neither GW, nor them and the recasters can produce enough of them, fast enough. And it will not change till GW changes the rules. And we have a plathora of things that can happen here. It can be a tomorrow nerf, a wait till CA nerf or a DE/Inari style nerf that isn't a nerf, which will make people buy the unit for 6+ months. But all of this is a players problems. GW has as many units of the darn thing as they could produce, and they sold all of them.

Personally, despite the state of the game right now, I am really hoping that Tempest of War (the new version of the old Malestrom of War pretty much) does something to improve the state of the game at least at the more "casual competitive" level. I know Malestrom of War had its problems in past editions, but it was always one of my favorite ways to play because the randomness of drawing objective cards incentivized more balanced lists (and now it should do that moreso since you can table your opponent and still lose on points).

I am not saying Tempest of War will completely fix the game, but I think Eternal War, as "balanced" as the missions are for competitive events, still rewards the most busted, OP faction or army in the game. When it comes to scoring random secondaries each turn you will want to bring a plethora of different unit types instead of just spamming three of the most efficient units in the army.

I am hoping that, at least at the casual level, Tempest of War is some kind of answer to some of the issues.

GFdoubles wrote:
Personally, despite the state of the game right now, I am really hoping that Tempest of War (the new version of the old Malestrom of War pretty much) does something to improve the state of the game at least at the more "casual competitive" level. I know Malestrom of War had its problems in past editions, but it was always one of my favorite ways to play because the randomness of drawing objective cards incentivized more balanced lists (and now it should do that moreso since you can table your opponent and still lose on points).

I am not saying Tempest of War will completely fix the game, but I think Eternal War, as "balanced" as the missions are for competitive events, still rewards the most busted, OP faction or army in the game. When it comes to scoring random secondaries each turn you will want to bring a plethora of different unit types instead of just spamming three of the most efficient units in the army.

I am hoping that, at least at the casual level, Tempest of War is some kind of answer to some of the issues.

Yep, i'm banking hard on Tempest of War. I am soo fething bored with the ITC-style copy pasted missions we've had for matched play so far

People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Like those horrifying GSC we see sweeping right alongside Custodes.

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

 vict0988 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

Just because there's some randomness in a dataset doesn't mean you can't pull out a trend.

Hecaton wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

Just because there's some randomness in a dataset doesn't mean you can't pull out a trend.

So marines and necrons were unstoppable and Harlequins were trash at the beginning on 9th.

Black Templars...
Dark Angels...
Space Wolves...

Sisters, GK and GSC never broke the bank.

So I guess if your noise is like....half then maybe it's not noise.

Remember when people complained for five seconds about slow ass terminators with transhuman? Those were the days.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

Just because there's some randomness in a dataset doesn't mean you can't pull out a trend.

So marines and necrons were unstoppable and Harlequins were trash at the beginning on 9th.

Black Templars...
Dark Angels...
Space Wolves...

Sisters, GK and GSC never broke the bank.

So I guess if your noise is like....half then maybe it's not noise.

Remember when people complained for five seconds about slow ass terminators with transhuman? Those were the days.

Just a note about Sisters here as one of their playerbase, the codex did do pretty well when it first dropped. As you say, it never broke the game or could be considered OP by any means but I believe there was at least one GT that it topped a few weeks after it came out. Not saying that every army's book has in fact been busted since the start of 9th, but even a faction like Sisters that was widely considered to be "sidegraded" at best by the new book did perform well immediately after release.

I think there is a point to be made that, at least relative to the time of release, every book has made the faction better in some way and should the players find that powerful combo that exists, whether it is busted or not, then the army will find success for at least some amount of time. This in no way excuses what has occurred with Dark Eldar, Admech, Custodes, Tau, Eldar, and Harlequins but GK and Orks were pretty insane when they first came out too, and Orks even needed a targeted nerf to "help the game as a whole."

The trend, if nothing else, is that every army is definitely getting better in some way with their book (even if it is a sidegrade at best like the Sisters pretty much got) but some factions are just busted upon release and then need some kind of nerf so that way the A and B tier armies can have a chance against them.

It's pretty normal for a new book to do well after release before people adjust for it. TS topped some tournaments as well and got a lot of attention.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
People saying it's just incompetence, that GW isn't purposefully power creeping their codices are wrong. There's randomness and incompetence, sure, but the power level of a codex is directly linked to how recently it was released.

Drukhari, Thousand Sons, Craftworld Eldar.

Just because there's some randomness in a dataset doesn't mean you can't pull out a trend.

So marines and necrons were unstoppable and Harlequins were trash at the beginning on 9th.

Black Templars...
Dark Angels...
Space Wolves...

Sisters, GK and GSC never broke the bank.

So I guess if your noise is like....half then maybe it's not noise.

Remember when people complained for five seconds about slow ass terminators with transhuman? Those were the days.

Since codexes started dropping for 9th, the most powerful codexes were typically the most recent. Obviously there are exceptions, the trend is not perfectly true, but it's there.

 vict0988 wrote:
@salt donkey explain Drukhari Raiders, Stormspeeder Hammerstrikes, Land Speeder Typhoons, Intercessors, Scout Squads, Vanguard Veterans, Chaplain Dreadnoughts, Reiver Squads, Nightbringer, Canoptek Reanimator with your theory. You cannot. The dart board theory holds true every time.

Raiders: sold less than venoms throughout their lifespan so GW needed to to unload inventory, stormspeeders are a new model so they don’t need good rules (going to shorten this to “new model”) I don’t recall typhoons being good or bad, intercessor started out with fine rules when they where new, got OP rules when GW needed to unload inventory, and got worse rules once that was done, scout squads similar good than bad, vanguard vets same boat, chaplain dreads where a mistake due to being FW, Reiver’s likely sold enough due to their design, nightbringer needed to be cleared out, reanimator was a new model in a bundle that sold out immediately. No reason it needed good rules.

So 1- maybe 2 of your examples hold up. Try harder next time

How do you explain GW selling out of units they are going to push and not stacking up stock because they know they'll sell like hotcakes when they buff the rules?

Why doesn't GW want to sell Obelisks, Praetorions, Khymerae, Mandrakes or Beastmasters or tonnes of other old kits that have never been good? Why only Intercessors and Raiders? Why wouldn't FW request units be buffed just like GW does when they need to sell out kits, why is it random?

Your explanations are just assumptions with no data to back them up. I could tell you that Reivers have sold no more than 10 sets worldwide and you would be unable to refute me and unable to explain why GW haven't pushed their rules yet. Please excuse me if you run a store or know someone who does and have talked with them about the number of various kits they have sold.

I could post a number of OP new models as a counter-point to the useless ones I mentioned, why are GW making some new kits useless and some OP? Try to look to refute your own assumptions instead of confirming them.

GW produces in advance and try to guess how much they sell

why they cannot know that some stuff is selling more than other is simple, they don't understand their game

they still base their production on previous sales and popularity and not on upcoming rules

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It's pretty normal for a new book to do well after release before people adjust for it. TS topped some tournaments as well and got a lot of attention.

You might have more data to back this up - but I think there's an issue that "good players" often try out new books.
And while codex imbalance is important, good players will still tend to win games.

Its a bit like there was a flurry of professionals saying they were going to run GSC. I highly doubt that's a thing any more. You don't want to go to a tournament you have the ability to do well in but find your list is clearly second best.

I mean this is sort of the issue really. DE/Ad Mech clearly ruled the roost in mid 2021. But they weren't winning every tournament on earth. You could play the mission and things were close enough to have a shot. I feel Ad Mech was very reliant on flyer spam that wasn't a common thing to own given they were £65 a go.

People always jump on exaggerations - but the gap now feels larger. The above were the Decurion Necrons of 7th edition.
And now we've hit on Custodes/Tau/Eldar/Harlequins, as the Eldar/Tau/Space Marines of that edition. Head and shoulders above the previous books, to the point where statistically the odds are just incredibly hard skewed against you.

And I think the concern is GW will already be looking at 10th edition - and may just write this year off as an experiment.

The difference is that GW now nerfs pretty hard stuff that deserved to be nerfed, unlike 7th edition. So yeah, those new factions might be top tiers now, but for how long?

Only drukhari stayed top tiers for long, and that's because their whole codex was strong. They had to adapt pretty hard to nerfs and FAQs just like anyone else. Are the tau and aeldari codexes also that strong, with lots of overpowerforming units? Harlies and custodes are easy to fix since they their roster isn't wide. A few nerfs/points hikes will put them in line, it's not like they can really change the lists' archetypes they bring to the table.

Also I need debunk a big assumption a lot of you are making. In my theory GW is not using OP rules to sell new models. Quite the opposite in fact. GW is incentivized not make new models rules OP. This is because

A) GW has too little production capacity to flood the market with new models.
B) New models sell well regardless of rules. This is a known reality within realtor space. New product always sells well, sometimes to a factor of 10x similar old product.
C) GW can buff rules at a later date if they aren’t strong enough to sell what they initially want (we saw this space marine 2.0 and ork buggiez)

Once you realize this, everything else fits into place. Rather than buffing new models rules, what GW wants to do is sell product that isn’t new and rotting away in inventory. My guess is GW looks at their inventory, notes what’s best to sell (i’e what they want to get rid of), and then tells their designers to buff these units/armies enough to unload it all quickly.

And you see this time and time again. What was good in prior editions? Venoms, Riptides, custodes FW. What wasn’t sold due to these being stronger options? Raiders, crisis suits, custodes plastics. Oh would you look at that! All the prior units got needed while the latter got buffed. Tyranid warriors are another example of this. Awful in 8th, great in 9th. I could on and on with this (Deathshroud terminators getting buffed, wracks getting buffed, wyches getting buffed, rangers getting buffed, dakkabots getting nerfed, devour flyrants no longer existing, etc, etc. From a business perspective it makes perfect sense, GW has just done a worse job keeping these buffs and nerfs in check

Salt donkey wrote:
And you see this time and time again. What was good in prior editions?

Wraithknights Riptides were OP in 6th... and 7th. Riptides were OP in 8th as well.

Lokhust Destroyers were OP in 7th and 8th, they had a 6 month break where they were bad, is that enough to fit into your narrative of shifting between good and bad?

Hive Tyrants were OP in 6th, 7th and 8th.

Plagueburst Crawlers were OP in 8th and 9th.

Dreadknights were OP in 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th.

If you assume that GW are badly trying to assign fair pts costs then this number of recurring OP units and OP units with new models and UP units continuing to be UP and UP units with new models makes perfect sense.

 Ordana wrote:

Karol wrote:
What if they can't make more ? Plus they can nerf them 3-6 months later after people bought them, and with the investment done, the people playing often will try to update the army to stay fun to play.

If GW had limitless capacity for production, then yeah, there would be losing money if they haven't sold an item to a willing customer. But if they sell all they can make, then they maxed out profit.
The only thing GW would want to do to their models is to make them bio degrade, same way all sports and tech ware is. Just imagine this, practicaly no secondary market, you have to rebuy the army if you want to play. And as a bonus you can call this some eco thing and get points for being a friendly company.

but people aren't going to buy them 3-6 months from now because then everyone will be playing CSM or Daemons or Guard or whatever utterly busted codex they recently released. They probably aren't going to buy them next month if the internet is right about Tyranids.

The window to sell 9 voidweavers to power gamers jumping on the latest FOTM is very small with the current pace of releases.

So they sell 9 voidweavers now, something else short time later. Excelent. Targeting the try hard whales is good for gw's pocketline.

I don't think GW care what grey plastic they shift.

Ork Buggies is the classic one. Yes, the Squigbuggy went from being a joke to one of the best things in the book.

So you can maybe believe that GW printed a hundred thousand of these, and they've just been clogging up warehouses for 3 years while, as part of a master plan, GW prepared to unleash them upon the earth.

....and then tricksy GW sold them all in about 6 weeks. Which is why they promptly nerfed them into oblivion. Going so far as to bring in bespoke rules that don't apply to 99% of other units such that no Ork player should really own more than 3. Bwahahahaha.

But even if we leave that aside - there's still the problem of other buggies. When for example did GW get rid of their massive stockpile of Boomdakka Snazzwagons? Or is that earmarked for the 10th edition Ork Codex, coming in 2025?

I think its a lot easier to believe GW just write rules with two clashing ideas. The first is the rule of cool as according to the writer. If they like a unit, they want it to "feel" powerful on the table. That usually means just making it better than other things. The second however is a vague knowledge from the community of "this sucks, make it better" or "this is obnoxious to play against, make it worse". Which yes, is why terrible units tend to get buffs, and things which were dominating the game are sometimes (but not always) nerfed.

 vict0988 wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:
And you see this time and time again. What was good in prior editions?

Wraithknights Riptides were OP in 6th... and 7th. Riptides were OP in 8th as well.

Lokhust Destroyers were OP in 7th and 8th, they had a 6 month break where they were bad, is that enough to fit into your narrative of shifting between good and bad?

Hive Tyrants were OP in 6th, 7th and 8th.

Plagueburst Crawlers were OP in 8th and 9th.

Dreadknights were OP in 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th.

If you assume that GW are badly trying to assign fair pts costs then this number of recurring OP units and OP units with new models and UP units continuing to be UP and UP units with new models makes perfect sense.

First off I’m arguing that GW is intending to use rules to sell unwanted inventory. That doesn’t mean I’m arguing they are perfect at it. Also none of what you said contradicts the idea that GW may have needed to sell a lot these units for a long period of time, That said in regards to addressing your points.

Can’t comment on 7th Ed as well since I didn’t play then, but…

6th and 7th where practically the same, so Wraithknights dominated 1 edition and then got nerfed to oblivion the next. Which just reinforces my point.

Riptides where great for 2 editions, but they are also not good now. Maybe GW just overproduced them at that start?

Lokhust destroyers where good in a weak army during 8th. So I doubt they sold too many then

Different versions of hive Tyrants have been OP. Also they moved from a metal kit to a plastic one during this period as well (and Once again I remember them being a strong unit in a weak book during 7th)

PBC where strong in both editions, but A) fell off towards the middle/end of 8th B) had the plague-spitter version get replaced with entropy cannon version from 8th to 9th (and that kit is hard to magnetize) and C) existed in weaker army for both editions.

Dreadknights are universally considered horrible models (so they need good rules to sell). Also while there have been points in each edition where they are strong, it never lasts that long in any edition.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think GW care what grey plastic they shift.

Ork Buggies is the classic one. Yes, the Squigbuggy went from being a joke to one of the best things in the book.

So you can maybe believe that GW printed a hundred thousand of these, and they've just been clogging up warehouses for 3 years while, as part of a master plan, GW prepared to unleash them upon the earth.

....and then tricksy GW sold them all in about 6 weeks. Which is why they promptly nerfed them into oblivion. Going so far as to bring in bespoke rules that don't apply to 99% of other units such that no Ork player should really own more than 3. Bwahahahaha.

But even if we leave that aside - there's still the problem of other buggies. When for example did GW get rid of their massive stockpile of Boomdakka Snazzwagons? Or is that earmarked for the 10th edition Ork Codex, coming in 2025?

I think its a lot easier to believe GW just write rules with two clashing ideas. The first is the rule of cool as according to the writer. If they like a unit, they want it to "feel" powerful on the table. That usually means just making it better than other things. The second however is a vague knowledge from the community of "this sucks, make it better" or "this is obnoxious to play against, make it worse". Which yes, is why terrible units tend to get buffs, and things which were dominating the game are sometimes (but not always) nerfed.

To your first part, while worded cynically, sounds absolutely believable. More likely they sold less than an ideal amount of buggies at first (so not clogging it the warehouse, but more than they wanted to have left over), waited 2 years to release the new book, and then promptly sold out of squig buggy in around a month of half when they where clearly OP. Based on what I’ve seen this looks like a very reasonable theory.

As for your second point. Sure some other units got hit in the crossfire, but these units still had time to sell, The boomdakka snazzwagon, for example likely sold more when the buggies where first released, as it looked better and played better than its Squig counterpart.