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 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
AdMech have been crapped on since some chucklehead got the bright idea to roll both books into one without actually considering how things should work. They've been crapped on since they gutted the flavor of the Skitarii and seemingly are attempting to do nothing but bring the Mechanicum into 40k proper.

According to James Hewitt (who was in the 40k studio at the time) the line was designed as a single book that was split in half because of White Dwarf release cycles at the time and stupid company policies involving how releases could work.

Kan knows this already, he just refuses to accept it because he liked one of the half-Codices more than the other and can't accept that the AdMech were always meant to be one army.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
AdMech have been crapped on since some chucklehead got the bright idea to roll both books into one without actually considering how things should work. They've been crapped on since they gutted the flavor of the Skitarii and seemingly are attempting to do nothing but bring the Mechanicum into 40k proper.

According to James Hewitt (who was in the 40k studio at the time) the line was designed as a single book that was split in half because of White Dwarf release cycles at the time and stupid company policies involving how releases could work.

Kan knows this already, he just refuses to accept it because he liked one of the half-Codices more than the other and can't accept that the AdMech were always meant to be one army.

I mean it doesn't help that it was a really dumb thing to split the army that way just because of the magazine, but Kirby's GW was an increasingly worse time period.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
AdMech have been crapped on since some chucklehead got the bright idea to roll both books into one without actually considering how things should work. They've been crapped on since they gutted the flavor of the Skitarii and seemingly are attempting to do nothing but bring the Mechanicum into 40k proper.

According to James Hewitt (who was in the 40k studio at the time) the line was designed as a single book that was split in half because of White Dwarf release cycles at the time and stupid company policies involving how releases could work.

Which is fine, but it has literally nothing to do with how poorly meshed the armies have been since actually being put together.

It goes to show that they were better separately.

Oh I completely agree, but the constant refusal to even believe that AdMech were meant to be one single army is just one of many things that drives him mad (just ask him about Lasgun sergeants!) so, were I you, I wouldn't expect a positive response to your comments. Just more denials.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
AdMech have been crapped on since some chucklehead got the bright idea to roll both books into one without actually considering how things should work. They've been crapped on since they gutted the flavor of the Skitarii and seemingly are attempting to do nothing but bring the Mechanicum into 40k proper.

According to James Hewitt (who was in the 40k studio at the time) the line was designed as a single book that was split in half because of White Dwarf release cycles at the time and stupid company policies involving how releases could work.

There's a lot of other fantastic anecdotes in that interview that will explain everything wrong with GW

So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

Toofast wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
AdMech have been crapped on since some chucklehead got the bright idea to roll both books into one without actually considering how things should work. They've been crapped on since they gutted the flavor of the Skitarii and seemingly are attempting to do nothing but bring the Mechanicum into 40k proper.

According to James Hewitt (who was in the 40k studio at the time) the line was designed as a single book that was split in half because of White Dwarf release cycles at the time and stupid company policies involving how releases could work.

There's a lot of other fantastic anecdotes in that interview that will explain everything wrong with GW

More what was wrong with them at the time. The management shook up a lot when Kirby left.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

Generally more good than bad.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
To quote catbarf: "... there is no place for highly abstract 'game-y' mechanics, and certainly not for inconsistent application such that the most basic infantry in the game can auto-wound anything in the game on a 6 but elite special forces operators can't because reasons."

This is where you draw the line? Seriously?

Let's see, you can give Tau squad a set of camping knives. Suddenly, better bond than a tactical squad of marines who served together for three centuries! Or, the IG order to withdraw and fire. Ultramarines can do it too, at -1 to fire. Apparently SM captain is a mook with no command skills next to 19 year old IG ensign genius ordering his superior, more disciplined troops to execute a superior version of the maneuver. Tau sarge giving his troops speech on how to gun the enemies to help your buddy is vastly more motivating than the same done by SM lieutenant, who just can't bring himself to tell his troops to help the next squad over with their overwatch. It would be unsporting, innit? Eldar troops can fire extra hard by pressing trigger twice. Alas, mankind can't replicate this awesome stratagem. Nor can they grasp ork concept of swinging a knife really hard for extra AP. Then... [etc etc for the next 200 lines]

If we look at what simple things the mooks of other races can do, and SM can't, then SM are surely the least capable force in the game

Looks like terminators are back on the menu for Death Guard.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

Net positive, though I think I would've liked to see a hard reduction in the number of Voidweavers that can be taken, combined with the point increase.

I'm glad that Imperial Guard got an exception for their ignores-line-of-sight weapons. My mortar heavy weapon teams have never killed anything, any worse and they would start bringing enemies back

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

This Balance slate is a very large net positive overall. I think we're probably going to start seeing a much more diverse meta, and some armies we haven't seen for a while, like sisters and DG start popping up... as long as Crusher gets reigned in.

We'll also have to see if this was the right direction for the Harlequins.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
Looks like terminators are back on the menu for Death Guard.

But don't Death Guard like maggoty bread?

Thanks for the responses so far everyone!

 Irbis wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
To quote catbarf: "... there is no place for highly abstract 'game-y' mechanics, and certainly not for inconsistent application such that the most basic infantry in the game can auto-wound anything in the game on a 6 but elite special forces operators can't because reasons."

This is where you draw the line? Seriously?

Let's see, you can give Tau squad a set of camping knives. Suddenly, better bond than a tactical squad of marines who served together for three centuries! Or, the IG order to withdraw and fire. Ultramarines can do it too, at -1 to fire. Apparently SM captain is a mook with no command skills next to 19 year old IG ensign genius ordering his superior, more disciplined troops to execute a superior version of the maneuver. Tau sarge giving his troops speech on how to gun the enemies to help your buddy is vastly more motivating than the same done by SM lieutenant, who just can't bring himself to tell his troops to help the next squad over with their overwatch. It would be unsporting, innit? Eldar troops can fire extra hard by pressing trigger twice. Alas, mankind can't replicate this awesome stratagem. Nor can they grasp ork concept of swinging a knife really hard for extra AP. Then... [etc etc for the next 200 lines]

If we look at what simple things the mooks of other races can do, and SM can't, then SM are surely the least capable force in the game

For one, no, it is not that one thing that draws the line. It is the straw that breaks the camel's back and quite frankly you know that.

Secondly, none of those things are nearly as bad. I can totally believe that random mortal scrubs form emotional attachments deeper and more readily than marines can. Marines aren't mortal anymore, they are detached from their humanity and that is a core pillar of the fiction. And yeah, I can believe that a guardsman is more able to dodge out of combat than a marine because that's how mass and inertia works. And so on. Seriously you went looking for examples of 40k being unrealistic and THAT is what you came up with?

I'd like to take this moment and thank today's sponsor, Raid Shadow Legends.

No seriously, I'd like to remind everyone that people don't have to explain their right or thought process on an opinion. The point of this forum is to have an opinion and it's ok if they are conflicting. If you find yourself wanting to challenge someone for a repeated argument you find silly, consider to take it to the open threads or consider blocking the person. But this is News and Rumours, please stick to three point communication. That is: Talk about the substance, not the person.

A little weird how armour of contempt makes marine combat doctrines do nothing for certain weapons now when facing certain factions.

Standard bolters, combat knives, auto bolt rifles, hurricane bolters... It's not a huge deal at all and they obviously still work against other factions, just that the blanket approach to amour of contempt has made some options non takes vs certain enemies, or well, not non takes, sure auto bolt rifles still will be taken, but they don't get a buff in tactical at all any more.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

Net positive, though I think I would've liked to see a hard reduction in the number of Voidweavers that can be taken, combined with the point increase.

If 9 is still issue alter　stats or up points further. Don"t apply band aid limit to numbers　to op unit which doesn't fix op'ness.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

I don't think it can be either. The whole update is far too funny, in my mind, for anything else.

They've just thrown rules at problems in the hope they will go away, problems that they themselves created. People complain about accessibility in 40k, and how it's better harder and harder to introduce new people with the endless multi-layered rules, and this "balance" dataslate just slathers a few more layers of rules on top of what we already have, and allows Guardsmen to auto-wound anything on a 6.

Can anyone who's been playing Guard for even a short time tell me with a straight face that yes, this seems like the kind of thing that Guard should have been always doing? That this is the logical endpoint of the struggles of Imperial Guard players? That this bonkers new rule strikes you as a nuanced and measured approach to rules design?

It's such a shift for the dumber that hardly anyone's even talking about the reason this dataslate was so needed in the first place - Voidweavers killing everything. That actually got fixed (or rather, an attempt at a fix was put in place - we'll need to see it in action to see if it worked), but it's a damned sideshow over Marines getting better power armour and Guardsmen squads being able to shoot the wings off Mortarion at 50 paces.

I guess I could lean towards the side of doing more harm than good specifically because of the change of points to a squad of Guardsmen. Removing points costs from all their upgrades/options reduces granularity, and essentially turns points into Power Level with extra digits. It's the second unit they've done this too, and I fear that going forward a squad will just be "X" points with free everything else, defeating the entire purpose of a points system. Whether you consider that a bad or a good thing depends on whether you are Kanluwen or not.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

They've just thrown rules at problems in the hope they will go away, problems that they themselves created

nothing special for GW and they usual solution, just change things by adding rules so that everyone has to adept the lists and until the last one gets that this does not improved balance but just shifted things around the next update or edition will do it again
but this time the patch is more entertaining and we see a shift in design (again)

before everything was turned into a stratagem, no matter if it made sense or not, and now the one thing that should be one becomes a Special Rule and we see the general return of USR's

so no matter how bad the balance was, it will be worse because even if there was playtesting before it won't match the new design, specially if the new books follow this (with special rules rather than stratagems)

PS: following the Mantic advertising for FireFight, they dropped the usual advertising with good written rules etc. but going back ~2 weeks all those stuff about better balanced and tested factions, games that are not decided in the list building step etc. you could get the feeling that they have already known what will happen (also by having the release a week after the balance update)

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
So there is a normal waterfall of criticisms, complaints, and outright bitching that accompanies even the best balance updates. But this is quite clearly something else entirely.

Serious question; do you all think this update even a net positive, or does it do more harm than good?

I am honestly excited to pick up my Death Guard from the drawer and testing again. Even my sisters might have some fun now.

Harlequins have also been curbed a lot which does mean that insane WR will probably go down. Custodes seem to have had someone also pull their leash so they might be strong but not overwhelming anymore.

The big question is how Tau are going to be. The nerfs weren't that big and I know the people around me fear that Tau are going to dominate the meta still with Tyranids sharing their space. We will of course see, but that is the general mood around me.

CWE Eldar gets an improvement on shuriken we have begged for 3+ years.

1 month later. Makes their -1 ap improvement irrelevant...

yay....

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

They've just thrown rules at problems in the hope they will go away, problems that they themselves created. People complain about accessibility in 40k, and how it's better harder and harder to introduce new people with the endless multi-layered rules, and this "balance" dataslate just slathers a few more layers of rules on top of what we already have, and allows Guardsmen to auto-wound anything on a 6.

Can anyone who's been playing Guard for even a short time tell me with a straight face that yes, this seems like the kind of thing that Guard should have been always doing? That this is the logical endpoint of the struggles of Imperial Guard players? That this bonkers new rule strikes you as a nuanced and measured approach to rules design?

From what I've seen on Dakka in discussions on how to fix Guard? Yes, some people think auto-wounding on 6 was the correct way to take them, or at least take the lasgun.

Personally I have no idea how to fix the Guard. They need a rework from the ground up for sure.

Based on the Knights getting their rule rolled into their book it seems like the dataslates could be a kind of open beta for changes which could help a fair bit if it means they get some event data showing changes are too strong.

All hail our new tyranid overlords and aeldari right behind them…

The fact Gw ignored these 2 factions show they still have no idea how to balance anything. We just go from 1 broken codex to the next… yea maybe aeldari wasn’t as broken as harlequins or even tau but they were still winning vs those codexes at an extremely high rate compared to every other codex.

gungo wrote:
All hail our new tyranid overlords and aeldari right behind them…

The fact Gw ignored these 2 factions show they still have no idea how to balance anything. We just go from 1 broken codex to the next… yea maybe aeldari wasn’t as broken as harlequins or even tau but they were still winning vs those codexes at an extremely high rate compared to every other codex.

They nerfed clowns, and Armour of Contempt nerfs Shuriken weapons against those armies who got buffed. Not every change has to be directly made to an army to affect that army.

YES! Power armor now are REAL Power Armor. Sorta.

Also happy for the many CORE keyword added to Necrons.

 Viridovix wrote:
YES! Power armor now are REAL Power Armor. Sorta.

Also happy for the many CORE keyword added to Necrons.

The Necron Core isn’t new, they added all those in the last patch. This simply includes all changes, not just the new ones.

 AduroT wrote:

 Viridovix wrote:
YES! Power armor now are REAL Power Armor. Sorta.

Also happy for the many CORE keyword added to Necrons.

The Necron Core isn’t new, they added all those in the last patch. This simply includes all changes, not just the new ones.

Well sans the Knights changes, but those got rolled into the Knights books.

 AduroT wrote:

 Viridovix wrote:
YES! Power armor now are REAL Power Armor. Sorta.

Also happy for the many CORE keyword added to Necrons.

The Necron Core isn’t new, they added all those in the last patch. This simply includes all changes, not just the new ones.

Ah I see. Completely missed!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Can anyone who's been playing Guard for even a short time tell me with a straight face that yes, this seems like the kind of thing that Guard should have been always doing? That this is the logical endpoint of the struggles of Imperial Guard players? That this bonkers new rule strikes you as a nuanced and measured approach to rules design?

Honestly it seems. . . kinda fluffy for guard to use volume of fire and faith in the emperor to occasionally find their mark.

Traditionally, there has been almost nothing in the game as pointless and demoralizing to use as basic Guardsmen. They cost money to buy and time to build and paint, and they routinely do feth-all on the battlefield, apart from sometimes contesting objectives. The whole reason Guard originally got the orders mechanic was to make their dogshit infantry statistically able to affect the outcomes of games you were usually forced by the FOC to take them. It's like if Orks had to field 2-6 mandatory Grot units without runtherds but with a Kannon or Lobba each