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Wyldhunt wrote:
Imperial knights tend to create skew lists which, even if not OP, can leave people feeling like they're not playing the game they signed up for. I don't love spending all game fishing for 6s to wound.

What about non-imperial knights Lord of Wars?

Is a Spartan really too big to fit in the game?
What about Zarakynel, gorkanaut, monolith, stormsurge or a malcador?

In my experience most of the people complaining about uber named characters, flyers, LoWs, etc... don't like that kind of massive models, rather than considering them problematic to handle. Which is fine, visuals has a significant impact on a game based on hand painted miniatures and terrain, and if someone doesn't like how something looks that's a legit opinion. Some people don't like non WYSIWYG models or unpainted miniatures for example and wish they never play against those.

 Blackie wrote:
In my experience most of the people complaining about uber named characters, flyers, LoWs, etc... don't like that kind of massive models, rather than considering them problematic to handle. Which is fine, visuals has a significant impact on a game based on hand painted miniatures and terrain, and if someone doesn't like how something looks that's a legit opinion. Some people don't like non WYSIWYG models or unpainted miniatures for example and wish they never play against those.

I agree-but the arguments are often couched in words that indicate that those models ARE balance issues, which is generally not true. And when it is true, it's not (to my knowledge) any kind of inherent issue, it's just a datasheet issue, that can be fixed with that datasheet.

IK are inherently skew, for instance, but not more than an IG Tank Company. And named characters are often just plain bad.

 Blackie wrote:
In my experience most of the people complaining about uber named characters, flyers, LoWs, etc... don't like that kind of massive models, rather than considering them problematic to handle. Which is fine, visuals has a significant impact on a game based on hand painted miniatures and terrain, and if someone doesn't like how something looks that's a legit opinion. Some people don't like non WYSIWYG models or unpainted miniatures for example and wish they never play against those.

All it takes is to remember the Castellan era, to have a high chance to not line big models. Or remember the times when eldar were spaming their undercosted knights. Or when tau riptides were, so good that everyone was taking them. It is not a question of visual, but GW being very bad an balancing such units. I don't think there are players, besides ork ones, who lose sleep over Stompas.

Plus right now one big vehicles wouldn't be that problematic, it is the swarms of light vehicles or medium monsters that make the game unfun for a lot of people. And armies like GK, orks, DE or harlis are great example of that. The basic "ork" trooper shouldn't be a buggy and the basic GK shouldn't be a NDK.

But that’s not a “Lords of War are OP” that’s a “Castellans are OP.”

Remember Valiants? When did they see use?

 Blackie wrote:
In my experience most of the people complaining about uber named characters, flyers, LoWs, etc... don't like that kind of massive models, rather than considering them problematic to handle. Which is fine, visuals has a significant impact on a game based on hand painted miniatures and terrain, and if someone doesn't like how something looks that's a legit opinion. Some people don't like non WYSIWYG models or unpainted miniatures for example and wish they never play against those.

Yeah. Its obviously worse when these things are competitive - but I don't think its unreasonable to say "I just don't enjoy playing this".

For example I've never seen someone play say 3 Monoliths and the Silent King (for probably not surprising reasons). Once might be a laugh. But because its got very few moving parts, its not that interesting to me. Same with triple Stormsurge. Every game is going to be largely the same. So even if it mathematically sucks, its going to get dull fast.

Flyers should probably just have been M20" skimmers and that should be that. Sure it might be a bit weird that a mob of Ork Boyz can just yolo down a jet. But its no more suspension of disbelief breaking than the idea aircraft moving multiple times the speed of sound can buzz around a tiny battlefield. Various people have suggested rules so they can act like a bombing run - but then they aren't on the table. And its a bit pointless having the model.

Special characters don't bother me. I think its a bit lame when you have special characters who are "regular characters+1" and so always taken - but its no different to seeing the same cookie cutter regular character loadouts.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Imperial knights tend to create skew lists which, even if not OP, can leave people feeling like they're not playing the game they signed up for. I don't love spending all game fishing for 6s to wound.

What about non-imperial knights Lord of Wars?

Is a Spartan really too big to fit in the game?
What about Zarakynel, gorkanaut, monolith, stormsurge or a malcador?

I'm more familiar with some of those than others. It kind of varies. Most of those are fine, especially if you're just splashing them into a non-skew list. My main misgivings about superheavies are:
A.) Skew. This is mostly a knights and also largely a matter of 40k being unclear about what scope of battle it's trying to represent. I generally assume that we're about to have some squads of dudez duking it out. If I've brought striking scorpions or wracks to a pick up game, they don't really get to participate meaningfully in the core engagement (units fighting). Sure, they can score objectives, but that's a lot less satisfying than having them trade blows with enemies that they can hurt without fishing for 6s.

B.) It's tricky to balance a unit that has so many eggs in one basket. If one unit costs ~400 points, then you need it to perform. That generally means that you have to make them very killy and durable enough to not get removed at the top of 1. And in giving a unit firepower and durability outside the scope of more conventional units, it's easy to make them either so good that they become a huge pain, or so bad that it's hard to justify including them and then they rarely see use. And when such units are good enough to be a meta pick, it means that I have to start ignoring big chunks of my army collection, often not fielding some of the units I really enjoy, because I have to squeeze in a disproportionate amount of anti-tank units. Compare this to when something like eradicators were the new hotness. Sure, they're still scary, but at least all the units in my army can meaningfully interact with them.

Tyel wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
In my experience most of the people complaining about uber named characters, flyers, LoWs, etc... don't like that kind of massive models, rather than considering them problematic to handle. Which is fine, visuals has a significant impact on a game based on hand painted miniatures and terrain, and if someone doesn't like how something looks that's a legit opinion. Some people don't like non WYSIWYG models or unpainted miniatures for example and wish they never play against those.

Yeah. Its obviously worse when these things are competitive - but I don't think its unreasonable to say "I just don't enjoy playing this".

For example I've never seen someone play say 3 Monoliths and the Silent King (for probably not surprising reasons). Once might be a laugh. But because its got very few moving parts, its not that interesting to me. Same with triple Stormsurge. Every game is going to be largely the same. So even if it mathematically sucks, its going to get dull fast.

All of that, plus see above about some big models making certain portions of my army or codex feel left out.

Flyers should probably just have been M20" skimmers and that should be that. Sure it might be a bit weird that a mob of Ork Boyz can just yolo down a jet. But its no more suspension of disbelief breaking than the idea aircraft moving multiple times the speed of sound can buzz around a tiny battlefield. Various people have suggested rules so they can act like a bombing run - but then they aren't on the table. And its a bit pointless having the model.

Yes. Exactly. Flyers are cool models, and I don't think they're a balance problem right now. But they're also just too fast-moving to feel properly represented by a model on the table. They'd make more sense if you were playing on a massive table. I've seen them used in such games, and they're fine in that context. It's just really awkward having them do donuts and/or spend half the game off the table because of their size and speed. I feel like some sort of cross between Titanicus and Aeronautica could be awesome, but those also field much smaller models... Death From the Skies (or whatever it was called) was kind of an attempt at handling this. The flyers had to keep leaving the table to make sense, so they tried to add a dogfight subsystem that you did in a separate play space. But obviously that didn't really take off (pun intended).

Special characters don't bother me. I think its a bit lame when you have special characters who are "regular characters+1" and so always taken - but its no different to seeing the same cookie cutter regular character loadouts.

Agree with this. Love phoenix lords because there's not a unit that really behaves like them. Not as fond of Eldrad because he's basically a foot farseer but better. Fabius is cool because he changes the way your army works (or at least he used to; not sure how his faction's new rules work). Ahriman is less of a good design choice (even though I love his rules, fluff, and model) because he's mostly just an Exalted Sorcerer+. Basically, any datasheet should have a niche. If a unit is always taken over another, similar option, then that unit has probably failed to find its niche regardless of whether or it happens to be a named character.

Yeah all that about balance and needing special lists or builds to compete against super heavy units, sure, not really my concern. I guess trying to beat a big tank in an armor heavy army can be fun if I have forewarning to prep and a proper agreement about scenario and so on but for me the game is just supposed to be about squads of dudes for the most part, on pretty big tables, with relatively limited ranges and damage output, and sure, some things on the table that they just cannot hurt, like my guardians should not be able to hurt a tank unless they get close with a bomb or mine or behind to rear armor or both. Flyers suck imho because they are just not the sort of thing that should be there, at least more than one turn, or skipping turns as they turn around and return to straffe infantry or drop a bomb or yada.., I suppose thematically can be fun especially with an objective such as secure the AA bunker to be able to hose that flyer but this is not how those units get implemented. Named characters I feel similarly, that they just do not belong there. I like my dude to be wysiwyg and appropriate to the context of engagement. So again, thematically can be fun to send an assassin to try to get eldrad when he is put with a relatively small force perhaps to retrieve a relic or yada but again, this is not how these special characters are used. Rather, some cat collects Mortarian and some other blokes with some tacky units and that is the game, trying to beat this Demi god and his buddies. Once, twice, ok, interesting. Three times, why is he here? Just makes no sense to me on the scale that I feel the game represents, mostly skirmish multi squad level with some mostly light support, walkers, skimmers, yada… and the occasional land raider and predator variant and so on.

I get it, harlequin rules are madness and skimmy bikes with killer clowns are deadly and they should be, ok… imho they should also be relatively rare, should not constitute their own faction, should be support for craft world or exodite forces, maybe dark eldar, but at the same time I do not think that eldar and dark eldar should ever ally, ever, at all, as in eldar would rather team up with orks, but that is just me.

While in general i think that the core rules are on the whole solid, if not exactly imaginative, there are a few things that have been changed since 3rd edition that have had a massive impact on the pace of the game. Increases in movement values, increased lethality of weapons (due in most part to the S/T interactions, but also number of shots) and the general lack of a lot of variety in how weapon types interact. Stratagems are a really late, in the scheme of things, addition that was pretty interesting originally, but has reached ludicrous levels of late.

Personally i would be inclined to power down all the factions, possibly to 50% of where they are now, and reign in the crazy speeds some units go.

If I was to change the core rules, I would start with having a very clear delineation between the weapon types, I think the original 3rd edition categories would be a good place to start, which in general covering the 4 main categories we now have were:

Rapid fire:

If stationary: 2 shots at half range, 1 shot at max range
If moved; 1 shot at half range
No assaulting after shooting rapid fire weapons
Cannot shoot while in close combat

Assault weapons

always Max shots at max range
Can assault after shooting
Cannot shoot while in close combat

Pistols

always Max shots at max range
Can shoot while in close combat
Can assault after shooting

Heavy weapons

Move or fire (unless vehicle mounted)
No assaulting after shooting (unless vehicle mounted)
Cannot shoot while in close combat (unless vehicle mounted)

no shooting, EVER, if you advance
no assaulting, EVER, if you advance

With the current rules, there are no real differences between the weapon types, and certainly no differences that special abilities, stratagems, chapter tactics and the like don't make meaningless. 3rd edition, for all its faults, gave you many decisions to make with how you moved your units, and how you equipped them, now a lot of things just feel homogenous.

 morganfreeman wrote:

I'm of the opinion that terrain should be designed to be basically the most important thing on the battlefield. A unit should, once dug in, be quite difficult to kill with head-on gunfire. Leaving the primary solutions to such situations being flanking, melee, or specialized weapons (flamers) to remove them. A redesign which gives focus to thinks like flanking, and makes terrain more important and engaging than simply +1 sv would be more than welcome.

Unfortunately this would require a substantial rework of 40k itself, or at least a complete overhaul of how moral works. Making moral effect how a unit functions (suppression, movement, performance, ect) and be effected by more than just casualties would be great. 40ks biggest problem (imo) is that the only way to "interact" with enemy units is via killing them (with the exception of some psychic powers).

Excellent distillation of the terrain rules. I think 9e terrain rules are better than the last couple editions but they don't matter much from a battlefield perspective outside of LOS blocking.

Completely agree that making terrain matter would make the game much more fun as well. A unit dug into terrain that can only be dislodged by flanking (or suicide charge) would add a fun dimension to the game. It would require taking the killy-parts of the game and dialing it down to a 3 instead of 11, otherwise units will never survive long enough to flank. Overwatch being a supression mechanic to make Charges harder would also be a fun mechanic involving morale.

What GW should do is increase the AP of all weapons except autoguns, lasguns and grot blastas by an additional -2 (so AP 0 becomes AP -2).

Then give every faction bespoke rules (with crazy names that barely describe the rule and written 3 different ways across the codices even though it does the same thing each time) that reduce the AP of all attacks by 3 (so an AP -1/-2/-3 weapons is reduced to AP 0). Win-win-win.

Almost everything gets better AP on their weapons (buff). Everyone gets better Saves (buff). And most importantly, CSM, IG and Orks are nerfed relative to the other factions (something GW is insistent to do at all times).

So, when do I start working for GW's rules designer department?

GW are very much in the policy of powering down. Just look at how they neutered Ad-Mech. They went from being meta dominant to roughly Sister power level.

DE they tried to nerf and they did. The problem is they also buffed "unused units" they weren't unused because they were bad, it's just that everything else was better. Which lead to thick city.

We'll most likely see GW nerf Custodes and Tau sometime around the next balance dataslate. It just sadly means we're likely forced to put up with these 2 factions for another 2 months.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
stuff

The extra wound for Marines is ok, the problem is when armies that should be similarly durable (Necrons and CSM) don't get it, it's just more effort given to the faction they already give the most effort to.

CSM is fair because there should've been some sorta errata, but they ARE getting it.

Necrons are tough...ish. I mean, Immortals are T5 3+ with a 5+++ sorta. For the stats, I'd argue they're pretty good, but Necrons should've always had more durability abilities sure.

In my mind the basic Necron warrior should be about as tough as an Astartes. That's how it used to be, and it made them scary.

 jeff white wrote:


I get it, harlequin rules are madness and skimmy bikes with killer clowns are deadly and they should be, ok… imho they should also be relatively rare, should not constitute their own faction, should be support for craft world or exodite forces, maybe dark eldar, but at the same time I do not think that eldar and dark eldar should ever ally, ever, at all, as in eldar would rather team up with orks, but that is just me.

They simply should have never been a standalone army. 8 datasheets including 4 characters? I'd like to see them as standard units from the aeldari codex with harsh limitations on their numbers. Something like "for every two aeldari troops a player can then add an harlequin troupe", for "every fast attack/heavy support aeldari unit a player can then add a unit of harlequin bikes/voidweavers", "for every harlequin troupe, bike unit, voidweaver a player can add an harlequin character". Or just flat 0-1 on each harlequin unit except troupes and their transports which both would be capped at 0-3.

There's nothing wrong with Harlequins being their own army. They just need an extra troop choice or another Elite/Fast Attack squad to fill out the roster.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
...They just need an extra troop choice or another Elite/Fast Attack squad to fill out the roster.

And therein lies the problem, I think. If GW is unwilling/unable to add more choices to the Harlequin list to give it a reasonably complete roster, then leaving it as a separate 'dex would seem to be the worst of both worlds (neither able to fill in the gaps with regular Eldar units nor able to flourish on their own due to neglect/apathy).

 waefre_1 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
...They just need an extra troop choice or another Elite/Fast Attack squad to fill out the roster.

And therein lies the problem, I think. If GW is unwilling/unable to add more choices to the Harlequin list to give it a reasonably complete roster, then leaving it as a separate 'dex would seem to be the worst of both worlds (neither able to fill in the gaps with regular Eldar units nor able to flourish on their own due to neglect/apathy).

I mean, Custodes manages fine with about the same amount of choices if FW isn't included.

Honestly, the balance is so shot right now they need BOTH.

Sisters of battle were mid-tier at best but got FOUR major nerfs in just February.

Harlequins, Tau, and Custodes are rocking 70-80% winrates when not playing each other.

Fixing one of those issues has 0 impact on the other.

To start with EVERY nerf from CA2022 needs to be reverted. ALL of them, even Drukhari. Then, they need to compensate armies who were hit by the subfaction changes and the remain stationary ruling.

Then Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins should have a flat 30% increase applied across the entire army. All wargear, all units.

From there, we can start to actually look at balance.

Right now, we're living in a world where 1 CP to shoot 4 melta shots out of deepstrike (deadly descent) was considered "Too Overpowered" and had to be removed, but a Tau suit-mander can drop basically for free with enough firepower to wipe out 150% of it's point value guaranteed, while also being extremely difficult to kill.

How do you marry those to design philosphies together? How does the same person look at deepstriking melta Seraphim and Tau Suitmander drops side by side and go 'oh yeah, we can't let that tissue paper unit actually shoot their guns, that would be OP! The Tau thing is fine tho..."

 Blackie wrote:

Spoiler:

 jeff white wrote:


I get it, harlequin rules are madness and skimmy bikes with killer clowns are deadly and they should be, ok… imho they should also be relatively rare, should not constitute their own faction, should be support for craft world or exodite forces, maybe dark eldar, but at the same time I do not think that eldar and dark eldar should ever ally, ever, at all, as in eldar would rather team up with orks, but that is just me.

They simply should have never been a standalone army. 8 datasheets including 4 characters? I'd like to see them as standard units from the aeldari codex with harsh limitations on their numbers.

Spoiler:

Something like "for every two aeldari troops a player can then add an harlequin troupe", for "every fast attack/heavy support aeldari unit a player can then add a unit of harlequin bikes/voidweavers", "for every harlequin troupe, bike unit, voidweaver a player can add an harlequin character". Or just flat 0-1 on each harlequin unit except troupes and their transports which both would be capped at 0-3.

Word.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

Spoiler:

 morganfreeman wrote:

I'm of the opinion that terrain should be designed to be basically the most important thing on the battlefield. A unit should, once dug in, be quite difficult to kill with head-on gunfire. Leaving the primary solutions to such situations being flanking, melee, or specialized weapons (flamers) to remove them. A redesign which gives focus to thinks like flanking, and makes terrain more important and engaging than simply +1 sv would be more than welcome.

Unfortunately this would require a substantial rework of 40k itself, or at least a complete overhaul of how moral works. Making moral effect how a unit functions (suppression, movement, performance, ect) and be effected by more than just casualties would be great. 40ks biggest problem (imo) is that the only way to "interact" with enemy units is via killing them (with the exception of some psychic powers).

Excellent distillation of the terrain rules. I think 9e terrain rules are better than the last couple editions but they don't matter much from a battlefield perspective outside of LOS blocking.

Completely agree that making terrain matter would make the game much more fun as well. A unit dug into terrain that can only be dislodged by flanking (or suicide charge) would add a fun dimension to the game. It would require taking the killy-parts of the game and dialing it down to a 3 instead of 11, otherwise units will never survive long enough to flank. Overwatch being a supression mechanic to make Charges harder would also be a fun mechanic involving morale.

Double word.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
...They just need an extra troop choice or another Elite/Fast Attack squad to fill out the roster.

And therein lies the problem, I think. If GW is unwilling/unable to add more choices to the Harlequin list to give it a reasonably complete roster, then leaving it as a separate 'dex would seem to be the worst of both worlds (neither able to fill in the gaps with regular Eldar units nor able to flourish on their own due to neglect/apathy).

I mean, Custodes manages fine with about the same amount of choices if FW isn't included.

True, they are doing fine now, but I'd wonder how much of that is a combination of a new(er?) codex and the current metagame favoring dead 'ard Infantry (which is exactly the Custodes schtick). I haven't followed them too closely, but I recall some periods where they were pretty limp due to the winds of meta blowing against them. Also, Custodes're kinda one-trick-ponies in that regard, which leaves them akin to Harlies - if the game favors what they do, they do well; if the game is against them, their lack of other options cripples them.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
There's nothing wrong with Harlequins being their own army. They just need an extra troop choice or another Elite/Fast Attack squad to fill out the roster.

I love my harlies, and I think they're probably doing fine as of the latest book. That said, I've kiiiind of come around to wishing harlequins were more of a rare "special" thing. Like, I almost wish harlequin characters were kind of assassin-y in their ability to run around the battlefield using colorful stratagems to do their jobs with troupes being few in number and harder to kill. Making them a full army means you have to make those troupes reasonably killable, but they sort of lose some of their mystique when they're leaving piles of corpses behind.

That said, I'm pretty okay with where they are at the moment.

 Blackie wrote:

 jeff white wrote:


I get it, harlequin rules are madness and skimmy bikes with killer clowns are deadly and they should be, ok… imho they should also be relatively rare, should not constitute their own faction, should be support for craft world or exodite forces, maybe dark eldar, but at the same time I do not think that eldar and dark eldar should ever ally, ever, at all, as in eldar would rather team up with orks, but that is just me.

They simply should have never been a standalone army. 8 datasheets including 4 characters? I'd like to see them as standard units from the aeldari codex with harsh limitations on their numbers. Something like "for every two aeldari troops a player can then add an harlequin troupe", for "every fast attack/heavy support aeldari unit a player can then add a unit of harlequin bikes/voidweavers", "for every harlequin troupe, bike unit, voidweaver a player can add an harlequin character". Or just flat 0-1 on each harlequin unit except troupes and their transports which both would be capped at 0-3.

Only if the same happens to everyone's Space Marines.

They're fine for the scale that 40k takes place at. You can take your hatred that one of the armies I play is a faction at all and shove it. They've been around longer than Craftworld Eldar. And they had more units back then, even, so let's get those.

Space marines have something like 200 datasheets, so I don't understand what you mean.

Maybe you meant Imperial Knights, and if that was the case I'd completely agree, they simply should be a standard LoW for 1-2 factions instead of being a standalone army.

 Blackie wrote:
Space marines have something like 200 datasheets, so I don't understand what you mean.

Maybe you meant Imperial Knights, and if that was the case I'd completely agree, they simply should be a standard LoW for 1-2 factions instead of being a standalone army.

No, I mean because they're supposed to be similarly rare and elite in the setting.

ERJAK 804273 11336102 wrote:

How do you marry those to design philosphies together? How does the same person look at deepstriking melta Seraphim and Tau Suitmander drops side by side and go 'oh yeah, we can't let that tissue paper unit actually shoot their guns, that would be OP! The Tau thing is fine tho..."

Maybe it is sales related. If SoB sell more models, and there has to be clearly something about the faction considering people were playing it when it was all metal models or all recasts, then tau . Then GW has to do more to keep the tau rules good for longer. They have have to put more effort to sell what ever the number of tau sales units GW HQ has planned for. On the other hand with something like sm , or maybe even csm, you don't really have to work that much. It doesn't really matter if they have good or bad rules, because they seem to have buyer pools big enough for sales to reach acceptable numbers. Over lay this with the possibility that the studio may just like playing with some armies better then others, and you get stuff we get now.

It is that or they really do expect everyone to have multiple armies for multiple factions of thousands of points bought, and when one army is unfun to play with, you are suppose to jump to another one. Kind of a what the tournament players do. Which can have influance on army design , because those top tournament players are the playtesters for the game. For tournaments having 4-5 armies countering each other ain't bad at all. It is bad for jimmy, the csm player, who gets skipped with good army rules for multiple editions.

Hecaton wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Space marines have something like 200 datasheets, so I don't understand what you mean.

Maybe you meant Imperial Knights, and if that was the case I'd completely agree, they simply should be a standard LoW for 1-2 factions instead of being a standalone army.

No, I mean because they're supposed to be similarly rare and elite in the setting.

SM have always been a standalone army and part of 40k since day 1 though. Unlike harlequins, which missed at least a decade of 40k and were just dark eldar units for a few other years. Now they don't have their own codex and they're not a standalone army anymore, so making them rare like their lore suggests and not easy to spam is not unreasonable.

When they got revamped they simply should have stayed that way, giving them their own codex was a mistake. Scions was another mistake as a standalone army, which I'm glad it has been fixed.

In 8th marine armies had to run the loyal 32, to be even close to being compatitive, and when castellans came out, the marine armies weren't running much marines, besides HQs, and 15 scouts. And marine books are not divided in to two books, because the faction never existed or don't exist right now, alongside respective player bases. they still do. GW just thought it would be a grand idea to make someone buy 2 books instead of 1. There are no mechanical barriers for GW to make a codex SW instead of an add on for the marine codex. And it is not a unique thing to marines either. DE to be played required the Stryfe rules from the campaign books. If anything it shows us that unlike other factions, marines have player bases big enough to support a book being just a few SW or DA units, while other factions have to be bundled up in an event book to be worth printing.

Not really clear why Harlequins couldn't be their own thing. I'd guess without much evidence that they didn't sell well enough - or no one in the studio had sufficient inspiration - to get a second wave like GSC.

Scions had a single kit (I guess you can throw in the Taurox for 2?) and so always felt like quite bit more of a reach.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

I'm of the opinion that terrain should be designed to be basically the most important thing on the battlefield. A unit should, once dug in, be quite difficult to kill with head-on gunfire. Leaving the primary solutions to such situations being flanking, melee, or specialized weapons (flamers) to remove them. A redesign which gives focus to thinks like flanking, and makes terrain more important and engaging than simply +1 sv would be more than welcome.

Unfortunately this would require a substantial rework of 40k itself, or at least a complete overhaul of how moral works. Making moral effect how a unit functions (suppression, movement, performance, ect) and be effected by more than just casualties would be great. 40ks biggest problem (imo) is that the only way to "interact" with enemy units is via killing them (with the exception of some psychic powers).

Excellent distillation of the terrain rules. I think 9e terrain rules are better than the last couple editions but they don't matter much from a battlefield perspective outside of LOS blocking.

Completely agree that making terrain matter would make the game much more fun as well. A unit dug into terrain that can only be dislodged by flanking (or suicide charge) would add a fun dimension to the game. It would require taking the killy-parts of the game and dialing it down to a 3 instead of 11, otherwise units will never survive long enough to flank. Overwatch being a supression mechanic to make Charges harder would also be a fun mechanic involving morale.

You are literally playing the wrong game. That stuff you are describing is how a wargame works. GW has made a number of design and style decisions that means 40k gets tactics from list building, aura's, stratagems and combo's. That could change massively next edition, but why would it? And GW designers do understand that stuff - look at Epic A where the best way to clear, say a town occupied with a company of guardsmen is to encircle, shoot and then assault. They lose the assault and have to vacate the terrain or be cut down. 40k has changed massively from that and GW seems to be doing very well out of those decisions.

Tyel wrote:
Not really clear why Harlequins couldn't be their own thing. I'd guess without much evidence that they didn't sell well enough - or no one in the studio had sufficient inspiration - to get a second wave like GSC.

Scions had a single kit (I guess you can throw in the Taurox for 2?) and so always felt like quite bit more of a reach.

cleary if GW had the numbers ,and they have them, that would point out at harlis having awesome sales, maybe even equaling the sales of CWE they would have been given a separate book. GK got a book just by inertion of having ones in the past. And I don't think pre new codex anyone seen GK stuff buying bought, unless they played GK themselfs.