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Have you seen the GK termintor box, there is 0 problems with making a unit out of it where every model is armed differently. And paladins were 2W.

Karol wrote:
Have you seen the GK termintor box, there is 0 problems with making a unit out of it where every model is armed differently. And paladins were 2W.

That's what he said though. Paladins were a problem (probably the biggest one, as they were designed to specifically exploit this rule), terminators were not.

And it's not like nob bikers or TWC were dominating tournaments by any measure.

Karol wrote:
Have you seen the GK termintor box, there is 0 problems with making a unit out of it where every model is armed differently. And paladins were 2W.

Not sure what you mean here.

You certainly could have a GK Terminator squad where every model was armed differently but I don't think it was anywhere near as useful as you seem to think. You could maybe pull the odd trick but every failed save still resulted in a dead Terminator. If a squad lost half its wounds, it would lose half its members.

What made Nobz and Paladins different was that they had 2 wounds apiece. Thus, you could spread wounds around to minimise the number of models lost. As in, you could potentially have a squad of either that had lost half its wounds but still had all its members and could still fight at full effectiveness.

Ideally, you would also have a character accompanying them to further aid durability. Draigo (with EW) or a T5 Warboss could tank melta/lascannon wounds to prevent them from killing a Paladin or Nob outright.


The thing is, I can't say I found either of these units particularly oppressive in 5th. Both units were certainly very tanky but they were also *massive* point sinks with limited shooting. Their melee was more impressive but if an enemy simply spread out, it would be very hard for them to kill the enemy army that way. Especially when you remember that they'd have very little support (as dumping hundreds of points into a single unit doesn't leave you much left to work with).

Wound spreading in 5th could have been largely mitigated by adding an extra step where wounds had to be allocated in order of AP - so allocate all of the AP1 wounds, then all the AP2 wounds, then AP3 etc. - that would stop the issue of all of the plasma hits stacking on one dude, and bolter wounds being spread around, for example.

(Also Painboys shouldn't have been allowed bikes).

Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

The only exception was the Torrent of Fire rules, where the attacker can allocate any wounds achieved past the maximum number of models in the squad (for a given wound group). So if a wound group has 11 wounds on 10 space Marines, the attacker chooses where the 11th shot goes.

This might be a minority opinion, but I'd prefer kits that only have aesthetic build options. Which would mean that (1) some weapons/gear look different but have identical rules, and/or (2) the kit includes enough parts to build all squad options simultaneously, and when you play you just leave a model or two on the shelf. That way you build your toy soldiers whatever ways seems coolest to you, and you never have to worry that you chose the "bad" option or that your build choices become illegal in some future ruleset. I'd be totally okay, for example, with a sergeant's chainsword, power sword, and power fist all having the same stats.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

 Grimtuff wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Nomeny wrote:
Well yeah, so we get unit options matching what you can buy. It doesn't seem like a terrible compromise to me. I think a lot of trouble 5th and 6th could have been solved by it.

What was going to be solved in 5th by this method?

The over-exaggerated "problem" of units being able to spread wounds out throughout the squad due to how wound allocation worked in 5th. I dismiss it as only a handful of units could take full advantage of it, despite what the internet always seems to harp on with it being like some kind of plague on the edition that every army could fully exploit. Nob Bikers, Nobz, TWC, GK Paladins and Bloodcrushers were the only units that could truly take advantage of it due to having multiple wounds and the ability to all take different equipment. Deathwing Termies, Wolf Guard, GK Termies and a couple of other units could exploit it as well, but not to the extent of the others as they only had a single wound.

I feel like it can't be that problem he is referring too as that was done precisely by taking one-offs of a ton of different options; the restricted kits forcing such a loadout would only enable the exploit. Spot on regarding the wound-allocation shenanigans though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

'If it aint broke, break it' has been one of those classic GW design pitfalls they run into again and again. TBF they have gotten better about it lately (much better, in AoS' case) but we both know it's just behind pendulum-fixes in terms of bad habits

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Wound spreading in 5th could have been largely mitigated by adding an extra step where wounds had to be allocated in order of AP - so allocate all of the AP1 wounds, then all the AP2 wounds, then AP3 etc. - that would stop the issue of all of the plasma hits stacking on one dude, and bolter wounds being spread around, for example.

(Also Painboys shouldn't have been allowed bikes).

Painboy at that time wasn't a unit, just an upgrade for a nob squad. A nob from any squad of nobz could become a painboy. That's why nob bikers were allowed to bring the painboy.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Wound spreading in 5th could have been largely mitigated by adding an extra step where wounds had to be allocated in order of AP - so allocate all of the AP1 wounds, then all the AP2 wounds, then AP3 etc. - that would stop the issue of all of the plasma hits stacking on one dude, and bolter wounds being spread around, for example.

(Also Painboys shouldn't have been allowed bikes).

Painboy at that time wasn't a unit, just an upgrade for a nob squad. A nob from any squad of nobz could become a painboy. That's why nob bikers were allowed to bring the painboy.

I know. They still shouldn't have been allowed bikes.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

I know. They still shouldn't have been allowed bikes.

Why not? In 4th edition codex (the one which was in play during 5th) there was just the nobz squad and both the bike and the painboy were upgrades. Nobz and nob bikers were actually the same unit, just with different gear. Meganobz were a separate unit and couldn't take the painboy instead, they had to be joined by Grotsnik (which was utterly overpriced at 160 points) if they wanted a dok in their squad.

Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

 vipoid wrote:
Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

Especially when Apothecaries still have no issues riding a bike at top speed while resurrecting terminators at the same time in 9th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I know. They still shouldn't have been allowed bikes.

*looks at threat title* I guess I found the one person that thinks kit restrictions are fun.

 vipoid wrote:
Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

So if a Dok paints a big red cross on his bike, does that make it an ambulance, and will he operate faster because the cross is red?

Yes.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Torrent of Fire rules meant that the specials weren't ALWAYS the last to die.

What's wrong with the abstraction of a man picking up the squad's most powerful support weapon once that man is killed anyways? I suppose that doesn't work for Nids as their weapons or attached, but ehh...

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Pretty sure there were still reasons to take MSUs such as deep strike, objective grabbing and target saturation (there was no split fire in 4th ed. Well, unless you're a space wolf).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Pretty sure there were still reasons to take MSUs such as deep strike, objective grabbing and target saturation (there was no split fire in 4th ed. Well, unless you're a space wolf).

Iirc not even SW had split fire in 4th, that was a Long Fangs thing from 5th. I haven't played SW since picking 4th back up a year or so ago so it has been a while.

Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Torrent of Fire rules meant that the specials weren't ALWAYS the last to die.

What's wrong with the abstraction of a man picking up the squad's most powerful support weapon once that man is killed anyways? I suppose that doesn't work for Nids as their weapons or attached, but ehh...

Sometimes more than the man holding the weapon gets broken by an attack.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Who said anything about being forced to take the same option? Right now they're being forced to take different weapons.

I’m pretty sure the kit comes with enough bolters for every model to take a Combi-bolter rather than a Combi-weapon. So I don’t see you being forced to taking anything, just limited. Kinda like how a Tactical Squad can only have 1 Special Weapon and 1 Heavy Weapon, never 2 of the same.

 alextroy wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Torrent of Fire rules meant that the specials weren't ALWAYS the last to die.

What's wrong with the abstraction of a man picking up the squad's most powerful support weapon once that man is killed anyways? I suppose that doesn't work for Nids as their weapons or attached, but ehh...

Sometimes more than the man holding the weapon gets broken by an attack.

And sometimes but not always in 4th, the special weapon gets removed in the first volley, not the last, if the shooter gets Torrent of Fire.

Turns out the more firepower you put into the enemy, the easier it is to break their toys...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Torrent of Fire rules meant that the specials weren't ALWAYS the last to die.

What's wrong with the abstraction of a man picking up the squad's most powerful support weapon once that man is killed anyways? I suppose that doesn't work for Nids as their weapons or attached, but ehh...

Sometimes more than the man holding the weapon gets broken by an attack.

And sometimes but not always in 4th, the special weapon gets removed in the first volley, not the last, if the shooter gets Torrent of Fire.

Turns out the more firepower you put into the enemy, the easier it is to break their toys...

Torrent of fire forced a SINGLE model to make a save (from a wounding hit chosen by the defender) if their unit suffered as many wounding hits as it contained models.

So for example a five man Tactical Squad with a lascannon and plasma gun would need to take five wounds for one to be applied to either of the special weapons, and if they took more than five wounds still only one would have to be allocated specifically.

The 5th edition wound allocation only required four wounding hits for one to be assigned to a special, at five both specials would have to take a hit, and at eight one special would need to take two (etc. etc)

It was certainly far easier to break the enemy's toys by applying more firepower in 5th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

This



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

Especially when Apothecaries still have no issues riding a bike at top speed while resurrecting terminators at the same time in 9th.

Apothecaries on bikes are also beyond silly.

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Conducting surgery while both you and your patient are riding high-speed, smoke-spewing bikes does sound like a very Orky thing to be doing.

Especially when Apothecaries still have no issues riding a bike at top speed while resurrecting terminators at the same time in 9th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I know. They still shouldn't have been allowed bikes.

*looks at threat title* I guess I found the one person that thinks kit restrictions are fun.

To be fair when was the last time you saw an Apothecary on a bike? Nobody uses Legends.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Pretty sure there were still reasons to take MSUs such as deep strike, objective grabbing and target saturation (there was no split fire in 4th ed. Well, unless you're a space wolf).

Iirc not even SW had split fire in 4th, that was a Long Fangs thing from 5th. I haven't played SW since picking 4th back up a year or so ago so it has been a while.

Long Fangs had split fire in the pamphlet 3rd ed codex, so long as the unit leader was alive.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Or they could have just not changed it from 4th, where the defending player chooses who takes the wound, and you can't have multiple wounded models in a unit

Exactly. The system already worked. God only knows why they changed it to that... mess!

It made it so that the specials weren't always the last models in a unit to die, and disincentivised MSU builds.

Torrent of Fire rules meant that the specials weren't ALWAYS the last to die.

What's wrong with the abstraction of a man picking up the squad's most powerful support weapon once that man is killed anyways? I suppose that doesn't work for Nids as their weapons or attached, but ehh...

Sometimes more than the man holding the weapon gets broken by an attack.

And sometimes but not always in 4th, the special weapon gets removed in the first volley, not the last, if the shooter gets Torrent of Fire.

Turns out the more firepower you put into the enemy, the easier it is to break their toys...

Torrent of fire forced a SINGLE model to make a save (from a wounding hit chosen by the defender) if their unit suffered as many wounding hits as it contained models.

So for example a five man Tactical Squad with a lascannon and plasma gun would need to take five wounds for one to be applied to either of the special weapons, and if they took more than five wounds still only one would have to be allocated specifically.

The 5th edition wound allocation only required four wounding hits for one to be assigned to a special, at five both specials would have to take a hit, and at eight one special would need to take two (etc. etc)

It was certainly far easier to break the enemy's toys by applying more firepower in 5th.

Unless the enemy's toys were slightly different in multi-wound multi-model units, in which case 5th edition's wound allocation system warped the game in in far more significant ways than 4th's ever did.

But sure, you can kill the special weapons more quickly.

Hecaton wrote:
I'm thinking particularly in terms of the plague marines weapon entry, or the restriction in Skitarii squads to only having one of each special weapon. It's just... un-fun, at least to me.

This is a no-win scenario.

People complained for ages about kits not having all the options or enough options and having to buy multiple copies of the kit to get all the options.
People complained when the options are what is in the kit.

While it's possible to have kits like the Heavy Weapons Squad or the new Sisters of Battle kit, when there are a lot of models with a lot of options to include, this isn't entirely feasible.



As far as painting or converting:
I actually think it's a really gakky thing to do to gatekeep on model paintedness. Painting models is a major obstacle for getting into the hobby of wargaming, and isn't fundamentally that important to it. Wooden cubes and carboard tokens with the symbol for "Infantry" and "Armor" work just as well as nicely painted miniatures, and have done so for 200 years.

This is especially an obstacle as the standard game size keeps being driven up; new players just can't get into it. The time between buying your first models and getting your first game cannot be that long. Also, not everybody possesses the same degree of painting skills, nor the same desire to paint things, and it's generally an unpleasant thing to do to keep someone out of such a multifaceted hobby and community because they don't engage with it in the same way you do.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
To be fair when was the last time you saw an Apothecary on a bike? Nobody uses Legends.

Uhm, when reading any recent Dark Angels tournament list? The apothecary on bike is alive and well.

 Jidmah wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
To be fair when was the last time you saw an Apothecary on a bike? Nobody uses Legends.

Uhm, when reading any recent Dark Angels tournament list? The apothecary on bike is alive and well.

Some people appear to enjoy making sweeping statements about "everybody does this" and "nobody does that", and are usually wrong in both cases.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
I'm thinking particularly in terms of the plague marines weapon entry, or the restriction in Skitarii squads to only having one of each special weapon. It's just... un-fun, at least to me.

This is a no-win scenario.

People complained for ages about kits not having all the options or enough options and having to buy multiple copies of the kit to get all the options.
People complained when the options are what is in the kit.

While it's possible to have kits like the Heavy Weapons Squad or the new Sisters of Battle kit, when there are a lot of models with a lot of options to include, this isn't entirely feasible.



As far as painting or converting:
I actually think it's a really gakky thing to do to gatekeep on model paintedness. Painting models is a major obstacle for getting into the hobby of wargaming, and isn't fundamentally that important to it. Wooden cubes and carboard tokens with the symbol for "Infantry" and "Armor" work just as well as nicely painted miniatures, and have done so for 200 years.

This is especially an obstacle as the standard game size keeps being driven up; new players just can't get into it. The time between buying your first models and getting your first game cannot be that long. Also, not everybody possesses the same degree of painting skills, nor the same desire to paint things, and it's generally an unpleasant thing to do to keep someone out of such a multifaceted hobby and community because they don't engage with it in the same way you do.

People have pointed out the win-win scenario since ever; extra upgrade sprues sold separately with the duplicate weapons required. That's it.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
To be fair when was the last time you saw an Apothecary on a bike? Nobody uses Legends.

Uhm, when reading any recent Dark Angels tournament list? The apothecary on bike is alive and well.

Some people appear to enjoy making sweeping statements about "everybody does this" and "nobody does that", and are usually wrong in both cases.

I mean... the ravenwing apothecary isn't even in legends. It's a codex entry, and an extremely well used one at that. Which can be found out with like 5 minutes of research.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


This is a no-win scenario.

People complained for ages about kits not having all the options or enough options and having to buy multiple copies of the kit to get all the options.
People complained when the options are what is in the kit.

Well they didn't complain if the kits had good options. The problem is that they were sculpting one of each weapon with the assumption that people would convert or kitbash, then they pulled the rug out from under people (but not Astartes, I've noticed).

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

This is especially an obstacle as the standard game size keeps being driven up; new players just can't get into it. The time between buying your first models and getting your first game cannot be that long. Also, not everybody possesses the same degree of painting skills, nor the same desire to paint things, and it's generally an unpleasant thing to do to keep someone out of such a multifaceted hobby and community because they don't engage with it in the same way you do.

I mean, if you don't like painting you can always get it commissioned. But I have nothing against people who just paint slow... you can see it if they're showing up with grey tide but every month or so another unit gets painted.