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 catbarf wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Taking veterans as troops is your bar for customization? Ok.

That's a pretty low bar, Daedalus. Guard regiments composed of hardened veterans (see: Tanith) have been a thing in lore for a very long time, used to be supported in rules, and are exactly the sort of thing that 9th's free-form army composition rules should facilitate. Airmobile like Elysians are no longer Matched Play legal. Light infantry don't exist. Grenadiers don't exist. Carapace armor isn't a thing. There's a lot of stuff that Guard used to be able to take that they can't; being able to either copy one of the 'big' regiments or pick two crappy traits from a list doesn't really suffice as a substitute.

This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think. You have numerous examples of unit upgrades that cost points. There's an avenue through Armies of Reknown ( via a horrible business model ) to add super specialized armies as well.

And personally I tend to think that tanks scooting sideways across the battlefield while firing out of their antennae is kind of stupid, but YMMV.

That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think.

Oh, so, to put it another way: Wait and see?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.

Yeah, but he didn't suggest that. Once again someone comes up with a problem, and your response - because it's always your response - is "Well we can't do X because Y happened in the past.".

No one has said anything about a "pivot tool". That hasn't been in use since 2nd Ed, and we didn't have tanks firing through themsleves and via track links problems in 3rd through 7th.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.

"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"

Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"

Back in earlier editions, you may not have had sub faction rules, but you could use the generic rules to fluff out your army:
The 18th Trynzendian spends lots of points upgrading it's chimeras and Russes with Rough Terrain Modifications and Extra Armor, all it's troops have Chem Inhalers and Carapace Armor, etc. It would be much easier to reflect the 18th Trynzendian in the 4th edition book than in the 8th, even with sub-faction rules.

The Order of the Luminous Beacon can ally with Imperial Guard modeled not as a cohesive unit but a ragged, ill-fitting band of misfits (collected by the kindness and mercy of the Order's tenets) without any penalties, and didn't have to bring a Living Saint (or someone aspiring to be one). It would be much easier to reflect the Order of the Luminous Beacon in a 4th edition narrative campaign than in a Crusade one, even with updated crusade rules.

EDIT:
I also think we should stop lumping 3rd - 7th as a monolith, because IMHO people lose perspective. In this post I am referencing 4th.

Okay...

I was going to go through all my resources and try to build something like the guard army you're talking about here, but I think I'll just concede on that front and just say "Yeah, you know what? It is hard to build a guard army with 9th ed flexibility using an 8th ed dex." And honestly? I'll concede even further: even when we get the new dex, I doubt that the customization it provides will follow this format.

But I had to respond to the sisters piece and Crusade comments.

I know you have decided not to like Living Saints, for whatever reason(s) - and I'm cool with that. Not everyone has to like everything, and if they aren't for you, then they aren't for you. But I think that you think that's all the Crusade that sisters got... But the Saint is just the icing on the cake.

First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.

While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.

Next: Priests. OMG... Priests!

So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.

And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."

I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.

Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.

And finally, you can talk about your chem dog guard with their cool regiment trait carapace armour and then jam sisters in with them as if previous ed sisters had the same kind of option, but they didn't, because while guard were privileged enough to have some mechanisms for differentiating regiments, sisters did not receive such a luxury until 8th. Before then, the only difference between orders was flavour text.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This is something to judge when they get their codex, I think.

Oh, so, to put it another way: Wait and see?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
That doesn't really happen, since most verticals are blocked regardless. If you want to break out the old vehicle pivot tool be my guest, but I don't miss it.

Yeah, but he didn't suggest that. Once again someone comes up with a problem, and your response - because it's always your response - is "Well we can't do X because Y happened in the past.".

No one has said anything about a "pivot tool". That hasn't been in use since 2nd Ed, and we didn't have tanks firing through themsleves and via track links problems in 3rd through 7th.

Wait and see in the same manner that the only thing different about GW is that they added a Facebook page, right?

Shooting from antennas isn't actually a problem. It used to be. People desire weapon arcs and all that - that's fine, but it isn't an easily balanced concept, which is puzzling when people here all seem to be very concerned about balance issues.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
People desire weapon arcs and all that - that's fine, but it isn't an easily balanced concept...

Based on? Because of? Due to?

And why is it a balance issue in the first place?

 Jidmah wrote:
What did you expecting from someone who doesn't even know that dire avengers are aspect warriors?

Where did I indicate that? I addressed the list which had Dire Avengers in it, then aspect warriors in general.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.

Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.

Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .

God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.

Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.

PenitentJake wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


In some ways, adding sub-faction rules made the game narratively smaller, not bigger.

"This is the 18th Trynzendian Foot Horde"
"Wow, what's their fluff?"
"They're badass chem troopers from a volcano world who ride around in chimeras and heavily sealed and armored leman Russes"
"What rules do they use?"
"Er... catachan? Maybe Pyromaniacs and the Lord's Approval if I really hate myself?"

Crusade has done this as well:
"this is the Order of the Luminous Beacon. Their tenets of service to the emperor are to live humbly, to aid the lost, and to scourge evil"
"What are their goals?"
"Well one of them is designated to be a Living Saint and wants to be one really badly"

Back in earlier editions, you may not have had sub faction rules, but you could use the generic rules to fluff out your army:
The 18th Trynzendian spends lots of points upgrading it's chimeras and Russes with Rough Terrain Modifications and Extra Armor, all it's troops have Chem Inhalers and Carapace Armor, etc. It would be much easier to reflect the 18th Trynzendian in the 4th edition book than in the 8th, even with sub-faction rules.

The Order of the Luminous Beacon can ally with Imperial Guard modeled not as a cohesive unit but a ragged, ill-fitting band of misfits (collected by the kindness and mercy of the Order's tenets) without any penalties, and didn't have to bring a Living Saint (or someone aspiring to be one). It would be much easier to reflect the Order of the Luminous Beacon in a 4th edition narrative campaign than in a Crusade one, even with updated crusade rules.

EDIT:
I also think we should stop lumping 3rd - 7th as a monolith, because IMHO people lose perspective. In this post I am referencing 4th.

Okay...

I was going to go through all my resources and try to build something like the guard army you're talking about here, but I think I'll just concede on that front and just say "Yeah, you know what? It is hard to build a guard army with 9th ed flexibility using an 8th ed dex." And honestly? I'll concede even further: even when we get the new dex, I doubt that the customization it provides will follow this format.

But I had to respond to the sisters piece and Crusade comments
I know you have decided not to like Living Saints, for whatever reason(s) - and I'm cool with that. Not everyone has to like everything, and if they aren't for you, then they aren't for you. But I think that you think that's all the Crusade that sisters got... But the Saint is just the icing on the cake.

Isn't the saint the main system?

First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.

So your custom order can't have one to start with? What's the logic there, they found the order and then sort out the leadership later?

While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.

Being a commander isn't a "blessing", and the fact that my order can't have Canoness Superia in the lore is silly.

As is the fact that they have a different one every campaign... unless you use the same crusade army through multiple campaigns, which sucks for the people just starting it. Crusade is not balanced for an army with 51 Crusade Points vs an army with like, 3.

Next: Priests. OMG... Priests!

Your enthusiasm was almost enough to care about models that I really don't care about.

So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.

In the 4th edition book, pretty much any inquisitorial henchman could be fluffed as a priest, and pretty much any inquisitor and his retinue could be a priest and retinue. Want a priest armed with a flame thrower, inferno pistol, and power armor through the wealth of the Ecclesiarchy?

Sorry you can't have it. Not since 4th.

And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."

I would have to look more into this to have an opinion on it but it sounds pretty incredible. Regimental Doctrines, Miracle Dice, etc. all in one army sounds awesome.

I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.

Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.

Okay?

I mean I like 4th because it isn't really a progression system, and dislike crusade because it is basically *only* a progression system...

...And you tell me 4th's progression system is bad?

No gak it's bad, they put the campaign section focus on actually running a campaign, and not on the 51 different ways you can turn an enemy inside out in one turn if they haven't progressed as far as you yet.

I don't think the fact that my character has the Reverse Wedgie battle honor, the Rod of Lordly Might Crusade Relic, the Ugly Stick weapon upgrade, and the Really Angry Really Alot battle honor makes it more narrative than not.

Progression isn't narrative, and a balanced progression system isn't bad narrative.

And finally, you can talk about your chem dog guard with their cool regiment trait carapace armour and then jam sisters in with them as if previous ed sisters had the same kind of option, but they didn't, because while guard were privileged enough to have some mechanisms for differentiating regiments, sisters did not receive such a luxury until 8th. Before then, the only difference between orders was flavour text.

Yes, it wasn't perfect. But I genuinely don't care much for the current Sororitas faction rules. They just don't do it for me. At least back then your army list could reflect your fluff a bit more, but things were very different because Sororitas were embedded in Inquisition pretty much inextricably.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.

That isn't a net list.

Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

The feeling is mutual, I guess. Some people can't stop living in the past and there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's hardly an objective take on the current situation to say there is less customization.

Ok sure:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.

Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.

Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.

Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb. Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .

God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.

Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.

So Tyranid Warriors can't exist by your logic. Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.

I think this topic is always a dialogue of the deaf - but to chip in.

GW have clearly moved 40k to be more of a "game" than "quasi-RPG". The core rules are focused on progressive scoring that you design your list to do - and not throwing down your models, fighting for 5-7 turns and whoever is still standing is the winner.

Since form follows function, there's a lot more focus on whether things "work". Units and armies are condemned as OP or Trash, and people say victory is all in list building (I mean people have said that forever but it seems to loom larger - even if I think its less true). But while I'd argue balance is better than previous editions, there's this gnawing Spike-like voice saying "but this unit is worse tho, why take it? You know option X is better than Y, so always take X" etc

But the thing is - I don't think the issue is 8th/9th edition. I think the issue is mentality. Because for me this voice started to whisper in at least 5th edition. That's when the people I played with started to take the game seriously - "got competitive", "played to win" etc. This was when people started to have the spare cash and so if an army was top tier for years it would multiply in the club.

For me that era of naivety/innocence was 2nd and 3rd. But it died. You can say "look at all these options a 3.5 Chaos Lord can take" - sure. But by the end of 3.5... you didn't see what. 50% of these? More? It had been cookie cut all the way down. The same combos appeared on table after table.

You could bring some "fluffy" grab bag of options - but unless you found someone with a similar mentality, you were setting yourself up to be stomped. Certainly by 5th.

There are options in 9th. A Codex typically has 6 chapters - and a bunch of custom traits. You've probably got 6-12 relics and warlord traits. You could build some very unusual armies and characters on the back of that. You could lean into the stratagems that are there but no one bothers spending the CP on.

But by and large - or at least where I play - people don't. Because why take the worse option? That exploratory innocence - rooted in being new to the hobby and not having a quasi-professional esport scene telling you "how to play" - cannot be recovered. 40k is a game, and as such you might as well try and make it work. I think 8th was a great step in that direction. 9th is good too - although lethality is too high and its probably too complicated if you aren't playing regularly.

You could bring some "fluffy" grab bag of options - but unless you found someone with a similar mentality, you were setting yourself up to be stomped. Certainly by 5th.

The game was like that as far back as 3rd. I got into the game in 3rd as a quasi esport, and this has always been how 40k operated.

But by the end of 3.5... you didn't see what. 50% of these? More? It had been cookie cut all the way down. The same combos appeared on table after table.

I was heavily into the tournament scene at that point so my experience will be shaded by that, but you didn't see 90% of the options in the chaos 3.5 book. It was typically one of two lists that was taken: the iron warriors list for its extra heavy support choice, and the slaanesh list.

You did have your snowflakes show up once in a while sporting a world eaters or a night lords list or some other variant but they were in the same numbers as I experienced in 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th as well. that being - a definite rarity.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.

That isn't a net list.

Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

The feeling is mutual, I guess. Some people can't stop living in the past and there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's hardly an objective take on the current situation to say there is less customization.

Ok sure:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So an Ork Nob should be inferior to a Tac Marine? I can't agree with that.

Given that an Ork Nob is dumber than a sack of hammers and couldn't hit the side of an immobilized Land Raider while spraying full auto I can't imagine why.

Melee combat is not the only quality a soldier can possess on the battlefield.

Yet I expect a Nob to handily be able to tear a Marine limb from limb. Also, source for Nobs being "dumber than a sack of hammers".

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .

God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.

Sorry that the line infantry of armies which can field numbers in a single world in excess of the marine population of the entire galaxy don't compare to marines. My heart aches for you.

So Tyranid Warriors can't exist by your logic. Are you aware that wars aren't fought by infantry lining up and going at it, phalanx-style? I can't believe that people are actually using this as some sort of justification. Explain to me why you feel forced to follow this logic in a world where machine guns, artillery, force concentration, carpet bombing and friggin nuclear warheads are readily available.

Oof! Chaos, the faction that was the very epitome of kitbashing models, is cursed to cope with a tiny amount of weapon options. This is a disgrace. Lads, go back to playing Oldhammer.

Those Chaos options from 3.5 weren't just for Chaos Lords, they were for all characters, which included all Aspiring Champions. And for +10 PPM, you could make any Chosen an Aspiring Champion. So, you could have an entire squad that could select from that list. Now look at them.

Atleast we got options left for our lords and terminator lords.
and not just paragraphs, however i fully expect GW to paragraph and exactly what is in the box for our next codex.

I think it would help the arguments and sides more clearly if people would state what type of game they are actually looking for.

Do people want a wargame or do they want a roleplaying game? Do they want Warcraft 3 or StarCraft, and so on and so on. Because ultimately a lot of the discussions had are just conflicts between what people want from a game and not what they game should be(which is more up to the owners of the IP).

Regarding unit options it would be a non-issue if WYSIWYG became much more lax. As long as I don't need have my heroes magnetized for 20+ weapon options we could have all the weapon options in the world. However, a lot of options would lean on the game being an RPG game rather than a wargame, and so on and so on.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Ok sure:

Spoiler:

[url=https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1140863-Options.html]

Sorry dude, but we already know what D's going to say:

"But, really, how many of those options did you actually take in the end?" or words to that effect, when really all he has is... well... this.

@Eldarsif: 4th ed was hardly an RPG

HBMC: Yah.

Now there is something to be said for just straight up more units and factions being available. But that never had to be at the cost of unit customizeability.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
"But, really, how many of those options did you actually take in the end?"

Probably only one or two, but that doesn't mean I wasn't happy to have a choice in the first place.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.

That isn't a net list.

Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .

God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.

There's plenty of non-Marine factions that're good.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

As someone who has maintained that damn rainbow table for the ork tactics thread since 5th, I can assure you that there have never been as few useless units in the codex as there are now.

Up till the current codex pretty much every competitive army consisted of the same few units and only differed between each other by switching weights between those choices. It was a give than two thirds of the codex would never see a tournament list. By the time the last CA was released, almost every ork unit that wasn't a character, fortification or LoW had appeared in a top 4 finishing ork list.

But then, of course, GW nerfed everything somewhat viable into the ground, cranked the powercreep to eleven and orks are now reduced to spamming the same ten datasheetes again. Good game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

First of all, the real workhorse in the 9th ed sisters book, from my perspective, are the Blessings of the Faithful. They aren't connected to rank when you use them in matched play, which to me is a bit of a missed opportunity- these upgrades are similar to the "Chapter Master" type of upgrade that most 9th ed dexes have, and I feel that they should be treated in the same way: luckily, in Crusade, they are. You have to purchase them with requisition points, but you can only do it when the character is achieving the Heroic or Legendary Rank. What this does is create models that we can use to represent Canoness Commanders, Cannoness Preceptors and Cannones Superia (Unless you're OoOML, because they're stuck with Junith). Having access to these types of high ranking characters is critical to building an identity for a custom order.

So your custom order can't have one to start with? What's the logic there, they found the order and then sort out the leadership later?

Not RAW, but it's a super easy fix if you want to start with one. One of the things I think a Big Book of Crusade should include would be a way to add units that already have experience to a roster. These rules would need to be used with care- if you've got players who aren't story minded, there would be a lot of potential for abuse. Maybe they could go in a GM/ Moderator section.

The issue for most players though is that it just takes some of the fun out of the experience, because if you start with a character at heroic, it has no history.

A better solution would be that the order has a Canoness Superior when the game begins, but she isn't a part of the roster- she's off stage, because the mistress of an entire order really doesn't have time to join a 25 PL Crusade- much like named characters, you don't expect to see them on the field until Strike Force level, even if it is technically possible.

What happens, or can happen over the course of the story is that the character in your army grows to the point where they eclipse and outshine the off-roster Canoness Superior, eventually replacing her.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

While not ALL Crusades are interested in Sainthood, pretty much EVERY Crusade will want their leaders to grow pure enough to be worthy of one of these blessings, whether you choose to link it to rank in your head-cannon or not.

Being a commander isn't a "blessing", and the fact that my order can't have Canoness Superia in the lore is silly.

It isn't that being a Commander is a blessing- it's that being a commander means that you've accumulated enough experience that you are capable of bestowing blessings. In the lore, every order DOES have a Cannoness Superior- there's just never been a way to represent one on the table until now. Junith Eurita IS the Cannoness Superior for OoOML, so unless she dies or retires, either in official fluff, or in your head-cannon, you're stuck with her. Any other order can have a Cannoness Superior that you create; Blessings of the Faithful, while not officially restricted to Cannoness Superia, Preceptor or Commander IS a good idea for something that someone with so much experience and power should have. It would meaningfully distinguish the character from a mere Cannoness of a given Mission, and it would bring the character more in-line with a hero like Junith, because you would also have to be at least Heroic, so there would be other Battle Honours too.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

As is the fact that they have a different one every campaign... unless you use the same crusade army through multiple campaigns, which sucks for the people just starting it. Crusade is not balanced for an army with 51 Crusade Points vs an army with like, 3.

This is an interesting point. I think roster management is another piece that would be a good fit for the Big Book of Crusade. Essentially, you COULD, if you wanted to, build the roster for your whole Order, but assign pieces of it to particular campaigns. Would de-couple Supply Limit from your roster, and instead make Supply Limit represent the portion of your roster which you can bring to any given battle.

The idea is that if you have super experienced units with a ton of Crusade points from a previous campaign, those probably aren't the units that you use in a battle against a green force. They CAN be, but they don't have to be.

Another one of those easy fixes, but again, it would be even easier if there was a big book of Crusade that had the information spelled out- that way people could do it without it feeling like a house rule.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Next: Priests. OMG... Priests!

Your enthusiasm was almost enough to care about models that I really don't care about.

And again, fine... But don't write about the situation as if something isn't there just because YOU prefer not to use it- it's there, it's a powerful tool, and yes, when I say priests I'm including Dialogi and Dogmata because they are now priests; you're looking at 4 units here.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

So if you want to go back to 3-7th ed Ministorum priests of the "All my friends are really angry" variety and tell me with a straight face that they're more flexible and dynamic than the 9th edition suite of priests with their choice of Hymns of Battle, Relics and WL traits... well I just don't know how you can justify it.

In the 4th edition book, pretty much any inquisitorial henchman could be fluffed as a priest, and pretty much any inquisitor and his retinue could be a priest and retinue. Want a priest armed with a flame thrower, inferno pistol, and power armor through the wealth of the Ecclesiarchy?

Sorry you can't have it. Not since 4th.

Again with the equipment. Look, I know that people with a wargame mindset love equipment, and think "If it's not equipment, it's not customization." But that's the issue, because now, being a priest doesn't just mean getting +1A on the charge- priests get to pick their powers, which they could not do in previous versions of the game. It always made them feel less Priestly to me regardless of what their load out was.

Priests may not be able able to carry as wide a variety of gear as they once could, but what makes them special now isn't what they carry, it's what they Preach- cuz you know, they aren't called Gear-Porters... They're called Priests.

And I don't remember the 4th sisters dex, because I played the Witch Hunter dex through 4th- I think the 4th sisters dex was the one where which miracle you used depended upon your unit type, and each unit only had one miracle they could perform. I also don't remember if there was in Imperial Agent or Inquisition dex in 4th or 5th.

But in the Witch Hunters dex, no, Inquisitorial Retinues could not include priests, though it was possible to field priests in the same army as Inquisitors because both units were part of the list. You took up to 3 priests as a single unit; they didn't deploy together and weren't required to maintain coherency, and other than load out, they were all identical.

Again though, I acknowledge that there are probably 4th or 5th ed books that make it possible, I'm just not familiar with them. Even so though, if the way to include them was to make an Inquisitorial retinue, I can just pull a Unit on this: "But what if my dudes don't like the inquisition? Why should I have to have and Inquisitor to play cool priests?" - see how that works both ways?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

And to respond to the custom order that you created, what you're looking for is an Army of Faith from the Vigilus Alone book- it allows you to include guard, marine and sisters units in the same detachment without losing purity bonuses. You can include whichever guard units you want and they don't even need to be in a separate detachment... Though that option exists too if that better suits the character of "your dudes."

I would have to look more into this to have an opinion on it but it sounds pretty incredible. Regimental Doctrines, Miracle Dice, etc. all in one army sounds awesome.

I was in the middle of about 10 different things when I wrote the post, so I didn't go back and reread the Goonhammer review to double check, and I don't have the book yet because my store never stocked it. What happens is that they keep their army wide abilities (Acts of Faith, Doctrines etc) but they lose their subfaction trait- or rather it is replaced by a trait common to all members of the army of faith. The Flashpoint rules from WD have been providing Faith-based Crusade content for a couple months, and it fits smoothly with this design.

Here's the Goonhammer review if you're curious: https://www.goonhammer.com/war-zone-nachmund-vigilus-alone-the-narrative-play-review/

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I took a look at the 4th ed BRB today before I sat down to write this- I think it was 4th- it had kill team and narrative campaign rules in it. The progression system was 6 battle honours- a d6 table for characters, bikes and infantry and vehicles. No limit on experience levels, but once you got to 6, you'd have every battle honour that existed, so there'd be no point in going further. And progression was linear- a level every 1k exp, so just as easy to get to blooded from green as it is to get to Heroic from Battle Hardened.

Worse, at level six? Every character in the game has the same six BH as every other character in the game. Absolute rubbish compared to what we have now.

Okay?

I mean I like 4th because it isn't really a progression system, and dislike crusade because it is basically *only* a progression system...

...And you tell me 4th's progression system is bad?

No gak it's bad, they put the campaign section focus on actually running a campaign, and not on the 51 different ways you can turn an enemy inside out in one turn if they haven't progressed as far as you yet.

I don't think the fact that my character has the Reverse Wedgie battle honor, the Rod of Lordly Might Crusade Relic, the Ugly Stick weapon upgrade, and the Really Angry Really Alot battle honor makes it more narrative than not.

Progression isn't narrative, and a balanced progression system isn't bad narrative.

Look, in D&D, a =5 Holy Avenger isn't narrative either- it's what you did to get the Holy Avenger, and what you do with it once you have it that is the narrative.

What did you do to get the Reverse Wedgie BH? Why was the Rod of Lordly might bestowed upon character A rather than character B? Who upgraded the Weapon with the Ugly Stick mod, and what made them want to do that for you? And just why is that particular character so angry when the others are not? THAT is the narrative, and without the rules for the actual objects, the narrative would have no end point. I mean, sure, you could say "This priest, who is part of that Inquisitors Retinue is special because he has an Inferno pistol, so since I want that to be the story, I guess I won't buy it with points and equip it until after my priest does something that suits the story... Of course, there's nothing different about this priest than any other (except load out) there's nothing different about this Inferno pistol than any other Inferno pistol (except that it belongs to this particular priest) and there's also no rules for how the priest gets this item, because XP is earned by the army, not units."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

But I genuinely don't care much for the current Sororitas faction rules. They just don't do it for me. At least back then your army list could reflect your fluff a bit more,

No, you absolutely couldn't.

Tell me how you made a Bloody Rose Army different from a Sacred Rose Army before 8th.

Your ONLY options were unit choice (ie. I'm Bloody Rose so I'll include Hand to Hand Units) or load-out on characters (She's a bBloody Rose Canoness, so eviscerator?).

Guess what? Both of THOSE options still exist. But now we have additional options too.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Ok sure:

Spoiler:

[url=https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1140863-Options.html]

Sorry dude, but we already know what D's going to say:

"But, really, how many of those options did you actually take in the end?" or words to that effect, when really all he has is... well... this.

I'm not gonna defend weapons being limited to what's in the box. However there is definitely an element of "how many did you actually take". I'd argue Warlord Traits and Relics cover a lot of these elements. Otherwise the peak of customization is every Marine Captain getting Artificer Armor and every Chaos Lord gets the Sigil of Corruption instead of that useless ass 5++.

No, nobody saved 10 points by choosing the worse one.

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Eldarsif: 4th ed was hardly an RPG

HBMC: Yah.

Now there is something to be said for just straight up more units and factions being available. But that never had to be at the cost of unit customizeability.

That's more like how 2nd edition felt.

Again, I don't mind unit options if WYSIWIG isn't enforced to the max.

But if you can have only one artificier armour and only one +4 or +3 inv. then when you take a second lord, giving him the next best thing starts to make sense.

ccs wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.

That isn't a net list.

Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.

You miss the point. Daedelus lauds internal balance, but overlooks obvious examples where it doesn't play out to expectation.

As for past editions, the oft-repeated mantra of the past was Boyz before Toyz. Boyz were good. This had the side benefit of making the army manifest "on-theme".

ccs wrote:

There's plenty of non-Marine factions that're good.

Careful with your definitions here! Do you mean good tournament results or do you mean good when facing a Marine 1v1?

My issue is that many of the past matchups have eroded over time, and continue to fall.

I have read the past few pages of this thread in one go, and one thing that is clear as day after reading this, is that people have very different views on what the "game" word even means.

1) For some, the game is core rules - the potential of the "engine" of the game to represent various concepts expected from a wargame, or recently, a war themed game. If those have depth, then the whole game potentially has depth.

2) For some, the game is the relationship between factions and if this is bad, then the whole game is bad, if it's good, then the whole game is good.

3) For some, the game is listbuilding, and if there are plenty of options here, the game is better than the version with less options. But there is a catch here, directly related to the next point.

4) For some, the game is "the meta" - the real life experience of the game how it is being played in their community. And this is the point that is both most varied and least varied at the same time. By that I mean that the most common context here is a cut-throat tournament prep or random pick-up, which invalidates most options that exist under point 3. and make or destroy the experience in the context of point 2. This also makes the point 1. matter very little, because the core rules are just a technical way the problems with all other points manifest themselves.
But, this point is also varied the most, because the problems with points 2. and 3. disappear almost completely and point 1. gets emphasised the most, when 4. is a laid back, likeminded, truly friendly (as in "cooperative preparation for adversarial gameplay") environment. Suddenly, all of the customisation options become available and there are no trap options, because exactly the same as in historical wargames community, army construction is scenario driven, not competitively driven and you are free to enact whatever encounter you fancy.

And because those four points are being "mix and matched" there is never any sort of agreement in such threads.

As to Crusade being the best the game was from narrative context - this is not true, not true at all, because there were Forgeworld campaigns before. But because of point 4., the only way "Doom of Mymeara" existed for most of the folks were Warp Spider Spam through Pale Courts cutom craftworld rules. But the same book also gave the opportunity to some of the players to either play with or play against Eldar Corsairs, or field all sorts of fluffy alternative Craftworlds. Anphelion Project was another great book, with a very good campaign, built upon all those fluffy, wargame rules like blasts, facings etc. But those books could as well never existed in the pick-up, tournament prep all the time communities.

That said, after switching to alternative ruleset for the last few years, I must say, that even in peaks of narrative capabilities of 40K during 2nd and 7th eds, 40K is a piss poor game all around when it comes to conveying any sort of a trully compelling wargame feel, be it deeply narrative or merely pretextual for a "gamey game", and even worse at portraying it's own setting, because of fundamental limitations of overly lethal IGOUGO. This, combined with trap purchase choices in "the meta" context is the root cause for so much toxicity accompanying this game for all 30 years of it's existence - for great many players, the game does not provide the feel one expects when preparing for the game. I remember the same discussions happening here during 7th, how this was the worst edition ever and how X editions ago all things were so much better and now it's also the same 7th which is being praised as so much better than "9th ed gak show" and meeting the same fierce opposition as in those discussions of the past.

So, I add one last point to the list:
5) for me, the most constant trait, that defines what "game" means in the context of 40k, is toxic discontent in the community and the Stockholm syndrome of "the only game in town".

As ever, exalted

 Insectum7 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Queue the observation that competetive Ork armies run the bare minimum number of Boyz.

That isn't a net list.

Your post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

There are no net lists. People have more freedom than they ever have to build lists and better internal balance in their book to be empowered to do so.

As in your "freedom of choice and better internal balance" results in Ork armies being devoid of boyz. The balance is just soooo gooood that a historical favorite bread and butter unit of an army is deemed nearly untakeable.

You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.

You miss the point. Daedelus lauds internal balance, but overlooks obvious examples where it doesn't play out to expectation.

As for past editions, the oft-repeated mantra of the past was Boyz before Toyz. Boyz were good. This had the side benefit of making the army manifest "on-theme".

ccs wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

"Blah blah blah Space Marines uber alles". . .

God I hate this gak. Heaven forbid you bought into a non-marine faction on the idea they were any good.

There's plenty of non-Marine factions that're good.

Careful with your definitions here! Do you mean good tournament results or do you mean good when facing a Marine 1v1?.

Play-wise in general.

nou wrote:
I remember the same discussions happening here during 7th, how this was the worst edition ever and how X editions ago all things were so much better and now it's also the same 7th which is being praised as so much better than "9th ed gak show" and meeting the same fierce opposition as in those discussions of the past.

So, I add one last point to the list:
5) for me, the most constant trait, that defines what "game" means in the context of 40k, is toxic discontent in the community and the Stockholm syndrome of "the only game in town".

Uhhh, probably nobody is nostalgic for 7th. Or if they are, they're only doing so with massive caveats or focusing on specific mechanics, such as 7th being the last edition using the AV system. I think your claim in that regard is extremely refutable.

"Toxic levels of discontent" will always exist. It's a big game with a massive fanbase. (it also depends on where you define the level of "toxic".)

"the only game in town" it is not. HOWEVER, it's one of the very few games that:
A: You can get a pick up game practically anywhere.
B: The lore/setting is beloved in a way that is different than alternative games such as Infiinity or Warmahordes. I'd argue that there's a stronger emotional attachment to 40K.

This results in an increased level of passion and desire for the overall 40K experience to be "good", however you define it. You've got an incredibly passionate community with a high degree of desire for the near-universal PUG to hit a level of quality of experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

Play-wise in general.

Well that's pretty broad don't you think? What about those units that used to go toe-to-toe with Marines and are now getting crumped?

 auticus wrote:
I was heavily into the tournament scene at that point so my experience will be shaded by that, but you didn't see 90% of the options in the chaos 3.5 book. It was typically one of two lists that was taken: the iron warriors list for its extra heavy support choice, and the slaanesh list.

Ok sure but that doesn't defeat the initial point that the book *had* an amazing amount of customizability and options. The "feel" was excellent. Maybe the balance was off - but these days we don't have balance or "feel."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Those Chaos options from 3.5 weren't just for Chaos Lords, they were for all characters, which included all Aspiring Champions. And for +10 PPM, you could make any Chosen an Aspiring Champion. So, you could have an entire squad that could select from that list. Now look at them.

Can't make them too fun/characterful next to loyalist marines, that undermines the power strategy/marketing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ccs wrote:

You know, I think there's a difference between "favorite bread & butter unit" & being required to field said unit because of the 3e-7th FoC.....
Why did you always see boyz in ages past? Because the Ork player didn't have a choice in the matter.
You take away that requirement with the 8e+ detachments system though & oh look; people will use units they like better. Or that work better under the current rules. And there's nothing stopping a player who actually likes generic boyz mobs from still running those.

The thing stopping people is that Boyz are wastes of points on the table. Back in 3e I definitely ran more than the minimum required FOC amount of boyz.

Maybe FoCs are more flexible, but the internal and external balance of the ork codex is terrible, contrary to what you and Daed are saying.

 Insectum7 wrote:

ccs wrote:

Play-wise in general.

Well that's pretty broad don't you think? What about those units that used to go toe-to-toe with Marines and are now getting crumped?

What of them? Their players will figure out (again) how to beat the SMs.
I simply don't buy the claim that non-SM factions aren't good. RT - now, there's always been plenty of decent things you can play that aren't SM.