Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 AlexiusAxouchos wrote:
Mentioned on Mordian Glory's latest stream:

'lol ogryn get +1T, +1W, steel legion is gone, codex is 146 pages, HW being sold as singles and groups of 3'

If heavy weapons really were being removed from basic infantry, why would GW release a box with a single one inside?

Andykp wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
I’d also point out that this isn’t even “no models, no rules” (apart from veterans), there are official models for all of the options for SWS and heavy weapons in squads, it’s just that you have to buy multiple boxes.

It doesn't matter whether you have official models, it just matters whether GW remembers that you do.

Orks have been losing options and units for years despite their being official models for them, so anything that is not obvious to a space marine player seeing your model range in the GW online store is fair game for getting the axe.

Genuine question and snarky ness intended, what stuff have ORKS lost?

*grabs list*

Oh yeah, I forgot about 'ard boyz . Yeah that was a pity. Back in 4th I used to use them in trukks to act as mechanized shock troops.
I don't use crusade, so for me it doesn't really count either.

Didn’t realise we were going back that many editions with the ORKS. Thought yiu meant with the most recent codex.

 Grimskul wrote:
The rumours for guard rules ain't looking so hot

I think the two specials in Infantry Squads are pretty spicy.

Andykp wrote:
Didn’t realise we were going back that many editions with the ORKS. Thought yiu meant with the most recent codex.

Orks have experienced something very similar to Guard in this- each new codex snips away a few characterful options, and adds some shiny toy no-one asked for (looking at you, Wyverns...). For a given edition, it isn't a lot, but then you compare your 8th or 9th ed codex to your 2nd or 3rd ed codex and realise that there are more unit entries, but the units have lost all their options and flavour :(

I have quite a few models with completely invalidated loadouts, like the old metal Stormtrooper sergeant with boltgun and plasma pistol- can't take boltguns full stop now, let alone both weapons! It is a shame, because it is a really cool model.

Taking two combat weapons or two ranged weapons is out in general for Guard :( The number of weapon options is also drastically limited, with Guard losing access to combi-weapons, stormbolters, shotguns, and lasguns on sergeants and characters. This is clearly due to what comes in the box (except lasguns, that one is just silly).

Andykp wrote:
Didn’t realise we were going back that many editions with the ORKS. Thought yiu meant with the most recent codex.

It's not going back that far at all - 7th, 8th and 9th edition were sufficient to kill all of those options. But don't worry, plenty of tha was done my the most recent codex. Even if you ignore the massacre of kustom jobs, the only book that killed more ork options than the current codex was Index:Xenos2.

Next time orks complain about losing stuff, guard and CSM players should probably think twice before defending GW as they usually do.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
The rumours for guard rules ain't looking so hot

I think the two specials in Infantry Squads are pretty spicy.

Hopefully it isn't like the Chaos book, where they need to be different weapons.

If GW was smart they would allow two special weapons, and as the kit contains two flamers and two grenade launchers I see no issue on taking two of the same.
Then allow the Sergeant to take a lasgun. As the kit contains two chainswords, add the option from kill Team to take a ... I don't know the name anymore, a guy who is the second in command after the Sergeant, and allow him to take any option of CCW as well. Would allow some more interesting builds and all within the scope of what's in the box. But i can see that this may get confusing quickly for any opponent on the opposite side of 10 squads all build up differently

Brickfix wrote:
If GW was smart they would allow two special weapons, and as the kit contains two flamers and two grenade launchers I see no issue on taking two of the same.
Then allow the Sergeant to take a lasgun. As the kit contains two chainswords, add the option from kill Team to take a ... I don't know the name anymore, a guy who is the second in command after the Sergeant, and allow him to take any option of CCW as well. Would allow some more interesting builds and all within the scope of what's in the box. But i can see that this may get confusing quickly for any opponent on the opposite side of 10 squads all build up differently

The chainsword arm for the Cadians has a sergeant's stripes on it. That's the whole reason why the sergeant can't take a lasgun, as there's no 'sergeant' lasgun arm.

Yeeah...I wouldn't be worrying about what's in the current Cadian kit.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeah...I wouldn't be worrying about what's in the current Cadian kit.

Exactly. The Cadian upgrade sprue, the Krieg kit, and the Traitor kit all included one of each special weapon. I strongly suspect that is going to be the norm moving forward.

 Scottywan82 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeah...I wouldn't be worrying about what's in the current Cadian kit.

Exactly. The Cadian upgrade sprue, the Krieg kit, and the Traitor kit all included one of each special weapon. I strongly suspect that is going to be the norm moving forward.

So of course duplicate special weapons will be banned, because WAAC TFG tournament players can't cope with having to do conversion work to get the best possible netlist.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Scottywan82 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yeeah...I wouldn't be worrying about what's in the current Cadian kit.

Exactly. The Cadian upgrade sprue, the Krieg kit, and the Traitor kit all included one of each special weapon. I strongly suspect that is going to be the norm moving forward.

So of course duplicate special weapons will be banned, because WAAC TFG tournament players can't cope with having to do conversion work to get the best possible netlist.

Why in the world would a so-called WAAC tournament player play a faction that had a solid 20% winrate for months.

You sound unreasonably salty at IG players for some reason

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Why in the world would a so-called WAAC tournament player play a faction that had a solid 20% winrate for months.

You sound unreasonably salty at IG players for some reason

They aren't playing it now (though the win rate is considerably better after GW gave out a ton of buffs), they'll be playing guard when GW inevitably makes the new codex the latest overpowered 70% win rate nonsense.

And let's not pretend that NMNR doesn't have a substantial connection to the e-sport mentality where modeling and painting are stupid wastes of time that take away valuable training reps. Those people want a box to contain exactly what is necessary for the optimal build and hate the idea of having to convert additional models to do plasma spam or whatever. They want it for guard, they want it for CSM, they want it for every faction in the game. And for some bizarre reason GW is trying to pander to that group with 9th.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
And let's not pretend that NMNR doesn't have a substantial connection to the e-sport mentality...

Is there anything to support the idea of a connection?

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Why in the world would a so-called WAAC tournament player play a faction that had a solid 20% winrate for months.

You sound unreasonably salty at IG players for some reason

They aren't playing it now (though the win rate is considerably better after GW gave out a ton of buffs), they'll be playing guard when GW inevitably makes the new codex the latest overpowered 70% win rate nonsense.

And let's not pretend that NMNR doesn't have a substantial connection to the e-sport mentality where modeling and painting are stupid wastes of time that take away valuable training reps. Those people want a box to contain exactly what is necessary for the optimal build and hate the idea of having to convert additional models to do plasma spam or whatever. They want it for guard, they want it for CSM, they want it for every faction in the game. And for some bizarre reason GW is trying to pander to that group with 9th.

For most of competitive life of this edition, AM has been hovering between low 30% winrate on a good weekend, and around the mid-20% on a bad one.

And I sure doubt that the people who ran 9 half assembled Voidweavers they bought over one weekend only to toss them out when the meta changes are too concerned about spending a bit more money to get the most optimal loadout available for they headless grey tide.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure the NMNR policy stems in the absolute vast majority from GW trying to cripple 3rd party bit market as much as they can, the Chapterhouse fallout, and the complaints from the more average players that GW isn't putting half the options you have in the rules into the box (like come on, the CSM kit doesn't even allow you to run an all Chainsword or an all Bolter squad) - to which GW responds time and time again by killing demand, least some third party company dares to fulfill it, potentially cutting into their own profit margin.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
And let's not pretend that NMNR doesn't have a substantial connection to the e-sport mentality...

Is there anything to support the idea of a connection?

I, for one, am not nearly drunk enough to follow along with whatever conspiracy board accompanies that train of thought.
It doesn't even start to make sense, since the CSM 'optimal builds' were blown out of existence and just can't be done anymore.
Certainly not old style plasma spam that existed before 'e-sports' were even a concept.

Posting when drunk is dangerous. You might hit a tree!

Like Wha-Mu said, no model no rule (a term of which I am certain I coined...) came about as a direct result of the "CHS Debacle". It has nothing to do with competitive players.

Man, looking at some older Guard books, there are soo much more characters and character. Feth, one book had more than just one TC Character.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Like Wha-Mu said, no model no rule (a term of which I am certain I coined...) came about as a direct result of the "CHS Debacle". It has nothing to do with competitive players.

You're confusing two different things:

"No model, no rules" in the sense that GW no longer makes rules which do not have models at all was a result of the CHS case. GW lost on their claim that describing a unit in the rules gave them copyright ownership of any models representing that unit, and could in fact have been in the position where when they did eventually release a model they'd be in violation of the third-party sculptor's copyright on the design. Rather than deal with that issue they removed those units from the rules and set a new policy that rules would not be released until the models were ready. But that never applied to things like weapon upgrades, jump pack HQs, etc, because all of those things had models. GW might not sell a jump pack and the HQ in the same box but they still made both pieces and had copyright safely secured.

"No model, no rules" in the sense that a unit can't have two plasma guns unless the box with that specific unit's name on it has two plasma guns on the sprue is an entirely new thing, one that has only been introduced long after the change of policies related to the CHS case. I don't believe for a moment that it's purely a coincidence that this change is happening at the same time as GW is busy focusing the rest of the game on pandering to e-sport players. Those players want a tightly controlled theme park game where anything other than competition is pushed aside. They hate painting requirements, they hate having to convert models, they want to get the latest netlist on the table ASAP and win. And they sure as hell don't want to have to sacrifice 1% win probability by building their units out of a single box instead of doing the conversion work required for focused weapon choices. Those players are the only group that is getting any benefit from the current iteration of NMNR.

(And no, it isn't about concern for lost sales. GW makes the same profit whether you buy a Cadian box to build a mixed-weapon squad or a Cadian box and a third-party plasma gun for an all-plasma squad. Either way they sell you the exact same Cadian box. This isn't like the CHS models, where you'd buy a substitute for a GW product and not buy anything from GW.)

I don't see them as two things. The second is just the natural progression of the first.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't see them as two things. The second is just the natural progression of the first.

They're not the same at all. The first one has a primary purpose of securing GW's IP rights and that goal was accomplished years ago. There is no need to progress it to the second because the second has nothing to do with IP rights. Whether you can take one plasma gun in a squad or ten GW still makes and sells both the plasma gun and the model carrying it. The sole purpose of the second NMNR policy is to move from a sandbox design philosophy to a theme park philosophy, replacing open-ended conversion rules with a tightly controlled game where you buy a kit, build it exactly according to the instructions, and use the specific rules assigned to that kit. And who benefits from that theme park philosophy? Tournament players and their e-sport approach to the game.

the 2nd has to do with IP rights as it removes the market for 3rd party add-ons

if a unit can only take the upgrades that come with the box, there is no need to buy plasma guns from another company so can have the 2 per squad that the rules allow

No model no rules, removed the possibility for 3rd party companies to make models GW does not sell
No upgrades that are not in the box, removes the possibility for 3rd party companies to make upgrades GW does not sell (as the IP protection does not extend on generic SciFi weapons)

this has nothing to do with tournament players or how the rules work
this is there for the same reason, to remove the possibility for 3rd parties to sell their stuff based on GW IP

PS: if GW would care about tournaments or the playerbase in general they would invest the time into making a proper game and not reduce weapon options to "whats in the box"

But who cares if someone sells a third-party component that requires the purchase of a GW kit? If I buy a box of Cadians and built it with a plasma gun and a flamer GW sells one Cadian box. If I buy the same box and a third-party plasma gun to build the squad with two plasma guns GW still sells the exact same Cadian box. And of course if GW still sold the packs of special weapons they used to have I wouldn't even need to buy that third-party plasma gun, I'd buy the pack of GW plasma guns and GW would get an additional sale. The issue with CHS was that they were replacing GW sales, not adding to GW sales.

Also, the current NMNR policy doesn't stop third-party sellers. There are still plenty of them selling stuff as alternate aesthetic options and plenty of them selling not-Cadians, not-Krieg, etc, as entire squads to go with whatever rules GW publishes.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
But who cares if someone sells a third-party component that requires the purchase of a GW kit? If I buy a box of Cadians and built it with a plasma gun and a flamer GW sells one Cadian box. If I buy the same box and a third-party plasma gun to build the squad with two plasma guns GW still sells the exact same Cadian box. And of course if GW still sold the packs of special weapons they used to have I wouldn't even need to buy that third-party plasma gun, I'd buy the pack of GW plasma guns and GW would get an additional sale. The issue with CHS was that they were replacing GW sales, not adding to GW sales.

Also, the current NMNR policy doesn't stop third-party sellers. There are still plenty of them selling stuff as alternate aesthetic options and plenty of them selling not-Cadians, not-Krieg, etc, as entire squads to go with whatever rules GW publishes.

Well, let's be clear: This is all speculation. We have no definite indications on any of this. So don't feel like you have to convince anyone here one way or the other. We will never really know.

To answer your question about who cares: The answer is Games Workshop. While third parties are now focusing on alternative sculpts and aesthetics for things like Imperial Guard, pinning the weapon loadouts in a datasheet to the exact contents of a sprue removes a lot of the market for third party bits. For example, when Chaos Marine Terminators could be loaded out with all combi-meltas, there was a market for extra combi-meltas since the sprue only had two of them. By removing that option, they don't prevent third party companies from selling combi-melta bits, but they remove the incentive for players to buy them in the first place since buying the bits won't benefit them in any way.

It doesn't make GW more money, but it makes those bits sellers less money.

Always remember: Corporations don't just want lots of money. They want ALL the money. It's the reason they have to constantly increase market share, even when they are the size of Google or Amazon or Microsoft. They cannot bear the thought that you might spend your dollars elsewhere.

 Scottywan82 wrote:
It doesn't make GW more money, but it makes those bits sellers less money.

And this is why it's such an unconvincing explanation. GW gains nothing from NMNR, they earn themselves a lot of angry customers for the sole purpose of spite. GW has no financial incentive to hurt third-party sellers unless by doing so they generate additional revenue and, unlike in the CHS case, they don't here.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Scottywan82 wrote:
It doesn't make GW more money, but it makes those bits sellers less money.

And this is why it's such an unconvincing explanation. GW gains nothing from NMNR, they earn themselves a lot of angry customers for the sole purpose of spite. GW has no financial incentive to hurt third-party sellers unless by doing so they generate additional revenue and, unlike in the CHS case, they don't here.

Agree to disagree. This is pretty normal corporate behavior, even if it angers customers.

GW does not want you to leave the GW ecosystem

As soon as you need to go to 3rd parties for bits, you will discover how much more there i outside the GW world and they want to prevent this

And having weapon sets to upgrade is more expensive and complicated than just reducing options
(and HH is different as the upgrades can be sold to all factions in the game and don't need to match they style of 30 different factions)

Well people have limited hobby money, so money not spent on third party bits might be more money spend on GW products.

I'm not totally convinced it's about third party products though. It makes more sense in the context of the 8th and 9th edition rules design, where war gear options are folded into Strategems. It's moving the list building from actual gear and unit equipment to subfaction and Strategem choices. Not a design direction I'm happy with ...