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Start of Turn 1 roll a d6, on a 5+ then enemy army is wiped out by an artillery barrage/airstrike.

That should boost them closer to 45%

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Maybe auto-wound on a 5+? 4+? Auto-wound just for eveything?

Or maybe something more thematic?

But what's more thematic than Lasguns autowounding Titans on a 6 to hit?

The new rule for the Guard is totally congruent with the way they are represented in the fluff, just like how it makes perfect sense that a metal tube launching hand-fed dumb-fire explosive rounds is more accurate than a system that fires literal smart missiles that seek in on their targets.

As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

No a huge fan of the solution either, but it's still way better than the "get fethed!" response other armies get in the same situation.

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

What if - bear with me here - you released everyone's codex at the same time?

That way you wouldn't put yourself in the position of needing to create a single, army-wide ability to make up for the fact that an army isn't getting an updated codex for half a year or so.

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

No a huge fan of the solution either, but it's still way better than the "get fethed!" response other armies get in the same situation.

As a not veteran game designer but still a bit of a designer the answer is that no one with any knowledge of game design would drip feed such a vast amount of rules for their game of the course of 3 years while also constantly changing the way the game plays. The problem with Guard is with GWs design/marketing philosophy, it's not something that can be solved by a single rule.

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

What if - bear with me here - you released everyone's codex at the same time?

That way you wouldn't put yourself in the position of needing to create a single, army-wide ability to make up for the fact that an army isn't getting an updated codex for half a year or so.

Oh no, why didn't I think of that?

Clearly, that was totally within the power of whoever wrote that update to go to the board, change the entire company's operating model, hire more staff, toss out all the plans for the next years and roll out 20 absolutely perfect codices on the first day of 9th.

Instead, they decided to have lasguns be better at killing titans and called it a day.

- a true story from the life of Robin Cruddace

I mean, at my company, if something is so badly fethed up that I can't fix it, I am expected to elevate it to the next level to someone who CAN.

What I am NOT supposed to do is waste time trying to figure out one-liner workarounds to unfuck things in hamfisted and potentially harmful ways.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I mean, at my company, if something is so badly fethed up that I can't fix it, I am expected to elevate it to the next level to someone who CAN.

What I am NOT supposed to do is waste time trying to figure out one-liner workarounds to unfuck things in hamfisted and potentially harmful ways.

That's any kind of support 101 really, do what you can or have confidence in your ability/remit to do and then pass onto the person on a bigger paycheck to handle the harder stuff. Not so applicable to GW and their internal structure I'd guess though in terms of the rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I mean, at my company, if something is so badly fethed up that I can't fix it, I am expected to elevate it to the next level to someone who CAN.

What I am NOT supposed to do is waste time trying to figure out one-liner workarounds to unfuck things in hamfisted and potentially harmful ways.

Yeah, pretty much. Alternatively, with IG, they could have just not bothered implementing a buff that has apparently barely moved the needle on the faction's results. What IG need is a complete rework and not being made to wait over 2 years for a codex. Proper control of the design process in the first place would obviously have helped prevent such a big gap but it appears that's one of GW's many areas of incompetence.

I'm genuinely tossing this idea out here because I personally hate the drip-feed speed of codex release throughout an edition. If GW has done anything above everything else to earn my ire... it is their approach to codex release.

An edition lasts 3 years, it takes them 3 years to release all of the codices... if they can even achieve that. In editions with fundamentally different rules (8th) or addons that are nearly mandatory to have (crusade/army secondaries 9th)... it is a pretty shoddy practice to make large portions of your players have to wait most of that edition without bespoke rules. I imagine Chaos, Guard, probably even this latest wave of books are going to have LESS time in 9th with Crusade and Matched Play secondaries than they will with. The only hope is the system isn't radically upended with 10th edition... but even that seems likely... we're due another system reset as this is the second edition with the same basic kit of rules.

So: would you prefer to continue 9th edition for 3 more years and receive all of the codices at the launch of 10th... and I mean very little 9th support as all of that work is going into 10th (at least for rules). Or do you prefer the codex drip-feed carousel with constant micro-changes every 3 months?

So the general consensus is that IG should better have gotten nothing at all for the next year or so?

Cool.

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

Heavy and Special weapons for free (which they did). Points cuts otherwise. Done.

 Jidmah wrote:
So the general consensus is that IG should better have gotten nothing at all for the next year or so?

Cool.

Looks like the consensus is more "GW should release stuff quicker".

They've changed some things, and they have made some difference. If GW aren't going to get around to a new IG Codex any time soon they should at least take a good proper look at their points in the next update. That's a practical example of something they could do that's helpful.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

Heavy and Special weapons for free (which they did). Points cuts otherwise. Done.

I'd go ahead and throw some of the durability and firepower buffs that they already know they're going to do on there as well. They've already given Leman Russes a 2+, so it's pretty much guaranteed that Baneblades will get the same. And I find it hard to believe that they don't have plans to buff the various Russ turret weapons. Go ahead and get some of that stuff out there.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

Heavy and Special weapons for free (which they did). Points cuts otherwise. Done.

Not a fan of point cuts. Just means bad feelings when they go up later.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

Heavy and Special weapons for free (which they did). Points cuts otherwise. Done.

Not a fan of point cuts. Just means bad feelings when they go up later.

Too bad. You gotta deal with the design changes just like the rest of us

It also depends a LOT on where you're cutting points from, and also why prices might go up later. If vehicle prices are cut, then go up again later when those vehicles get a major buff, I don't think anyone's going to be too upset by it.

Points cut on an army of already cheap models, in an era in which most of the games are played at high formats (yeah, 2000 is pretty high) is a terrible solution.

I certainly prefer something that doesn't make any sense concept wise (like hammer) but helps reducing the gap while also avoiding requiring more time or models to play the same game than before.

If guardsmen were 10ppm and leman russes were 300 points, then yeah points cuts would have been an optimal solution. But this wasn't the case.

 Blackie wrote:
Points cut on an army of already cheap models, in an era in which most of the games are played at high formats (yeah, 2000 is pretty high) is a terrible solution.

I certainly prefer something that doesn't make any sense concept wise (like hammer) but helps reducing the gap while also avoiding requiring more time or models to play the same game than before.

If guardsmen were 10ppm and leman russes were 300 points, then yeah points cuts would have been an optimal solution. But this wasn't the case.

Are Leman Russes cheap? Baneblades? I'm not going to believe there's no room for point cuts in the IG book.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Too bad. You gotta deal with the design changes just like the rest of us

It also depends a LOT on where you're cutting points from, and also why prices might go up later. If vehicle prices are cut, then go up again later when those vehicles get a major buff, I don't think anyone's going to be too upset by it.

I'd be fine. It's the people forced into potentially buying more models that I worry about.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
As a veteran game designer, how would you write a single bullet point army-wide buff to guard that improves their damage in a way that doesn't require a metric ton of re-rolls?

Heavy and Special weapons for free (which they did). Points cuts otherwise. Done.

I'd go ahead and throw some of the durability and firepower buffs that they already know they're going to do on there as well. They've already given Leman Russes a 2+, so it's pretty much guaranteed that Baneblades will get the same. And I find it hard to believe that they don't have plans to buff the various Russ turret weapons. Go ahead and get some of that stuff out there.

That only really affects a narrow portion of the army.

I can't say that killing power is necessarily the problem, but instead interacting with the missions and how easily their army might give up points.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Too bad. You gotta deal with the design changes just like the rest of us

It also depends a LOT on where you're cutting points from, and also why prices might go up later. If vehicle prices are cut, then go up again later when those vehicles get a major buff, I don't think anyone's going to be too upset by it.

I'd be fine. It's the people forced into potentially buying more models that I worry about.

You can't be serious.

I'd wager the times people look at their list and say "Golly gee it's a good thing I can't fit anything else in here." is practically 0% of the time.

Points are not the great leveller. If there are problems with the faction, simply changing the points won't fix the problem

 Insectum7 wrote:
You can't be serious.

I'd wager the times people look at their list and say "Golly gee it's a good thing I can't fit anything else in here." is practically 0% of the time.

That may have been true when we had slower codex releases, but when we know they're due a new book that will add rules and increase points it isn't the same outcome as it used to be.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Points cut on an army of already cheap models, in an era in which most of the games are played at high formats (yeah, 2000 is pretty high) is a terrible solution.

I certainly prefer something that doesn't make any sense concept wise (like hammer) but helps reducing the gap while also avoiding requiring more time or models to play the same game than before.

If guardsmen were 10ppm and leman russes were 300 points, then yeah points cuts would have been an optimal solution. But this wasn't the case.

Are Leman Russes cheap? Baneblades? I'm not going to believe there's no room for point cuts in the IG book.

How much do they cost?

How much should tanks that size and with their loadout cost?

If they don't perform they need better stats or rules.

Points cuts are fair for units that are extremely overpriced. Like a stompa which is hundreds of points more expensive than a knight and worse than the worst knight.

Slipspace wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
So the general consensus is that IG should better have gotten nothing at all for the next year or so?

Cool.

Looks like the consensus is more "GW should release stuff quicker".

 Jidmah wrote:
So the general consensus is that IG should better have gotten nothing at all for the next year or so?

This seems like a bad faith argument to me...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
So the general consensus is that IG should better have gotten nothing at all for the next year or so?

This seems like a bad faith argument to me...

Considering how everyone, including you, is actively trying to dodge that question instead of answering, probably not.

Do people really care what other armies are getting, at the end of an edition. Specially considering the last few books. IG could get a rule that for every 10 dudes shoting at a target, they get a +6, then +5 and finaly +4 auto wounds and it wouldn't be broken, the way the game is right now.

These are all the IG players from June '21 to now. I split them out from pre slate and post slate results.

Not pictured are 1022 other IG players who have yet to play since the dataslate.

The image below represents 200 games played post slate. Of those 96 were from people who didn't play at least since June ( so they're pretty fresh to the scene ). Of those 96 games 25.5 were wins ( draw = 0.5 - keeping it simply Dys! ). That's a 26% WR.

The remaining 104 games from recently experienced players had a win rate of 31%. Probably too narrow of a margin to take anything from that.

The top guy with 100% player Sisters, GK, and Nids with Pask, 3 TCs, 2 LRBTs, a Manticore, and some infantry / HWTs.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
You can't be serious.

I'd wager the times people look at their list and say "Golly gee it's a good thing I can't fit anything else in here." is practically 0% of the time.

That may have been true when we had slower codex releases, but when we know they're due a new book that will add rules and increase points it isn't the same outcome as it used to be.

I'm sorry but I genuinely think this is a non-problem.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Points are not the great leveller. If there are problems with the faction, simply changing the points won't fix the problem

I agree, which is why I also gave the Free Weapons rule too. But really I'm just following the brief as well as I can.

Of course a fresh new book with a sweeping array of finely tuned adjustments and changes would be better, but it wasn't the assignment. In the meantime though, I'm going to use a mechanism already in place. Points still work as a balancing tool, they do effect choices and therefore army lists as well as tourney outcomes.