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Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.

In those games, an MP40 is the same as a PPSh, PPS-43, Thompson, M3, Riesing, Sten, Blyskawica, ZB26, Type 100, et cetera, they're all submachine guns. An M1 Garand is the same as a FG42, Johnson, or G43, they're all semi-auto rifles. A Springfield '03 is the same as a Lee-Enfield, Kar98K, Arisaka, Lebel, K31, or Mosin-Nagant, they're all bolt-action rifles. Really the only oddball is the MP44/StG-44 and that is just the sole exemplar of assault rifles, a category that becomes substantially more common if you advance to a post-war setting.

So yeah, bolter or lasgun is fine; trying to delineate specific patterns of bolter or lasgun is too much for a mass-battle game. The game already treats all lasguns the same (and even considers autoguns functionally identical), it's just bolters that have three million variants.

Edit: And just to be explicitly clear- yes, from a commander's perspective, an MP40 and a PPSh are exactly the same. No German company commander at Stalingrad ever said 'I'm going to specifically pick the squad with Beutewaffen to attack Pavlov's House, because the PPSh is 8.33% more effective in close quarters'. What mattered for CQB was that they had submachine guns instead bolt-action rifles- that's the sort of distinction a company commander might care about.

There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Yeah, functionally a MP40 and a PPsh are the same. I guess you could nitpick and say "well, the PPsh has a drum and, higher muzzle velocity, a more powerful round and more rof, so it should have better stats", but really, I don't think there's that much a different in performance to warrant a change in stats in a mass battle game.

They're still both submachine guns that are intended to be used in close quarters and they're still going to chew up unarmoured infantry.

The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour, etc.

But taking a step back and looking at the game as a whole, you have to squeeze a lot more than SMs into a very limited range of dice results and stat ranges, and from that perspective there is exactly zero reason to differentiate PPSh and MP40. It is squeezed only to satisfy one particular group of vocal players, who unfortunately were nurtured enough to become a majority. This problem of system capacity is especially true when you got rid of comparable WS and your implementation of AP vs SV is utterly disfunctional because of AP proliferation. The capability of 40k system has been artificially expanded by bolting on Stratagem mechanic, but everybody can clearly see, that modern 40k is bursting on the seams already.

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

Karol wrote:
Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

Why insult marine players

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%.

What's the policy for Magic the Gathering?

Something like only the last 3 editions can be used in tournaments?

Would that be a good guideline for 40k, they only feel obliged to support options and armies that got models within 1 or 2 editions back?

So no need to worry about Rough Riders (who've not gotten new models since 1994) or medics on bikes any more.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Something like only the last 3 editions can be used in tournaments?

In the most popular format. WOTC does support other formats that do not rotate but they're less popular.

Would that be a good guideline for 40k, they only feel obliged to support options and armies that got models within 1 or 2 editions back?

Not really. Having all of the stuff you buy get invalidated every few months is one of the big reasons why people don't play the game. And that's in a CCG where the cost is purely financial, all you have to do to buy the next deck is swipe your credit card and wait a couple days for shipping. It's far worse in a game like 40k, where you spend tons of time and energy on building and painting a model and it becomes part of your army's lore. GW needs to continue supporting stuff permanently, especially when the only reason to drop that support is idiotic "no model no rules" policies and the model is still easily converted even if it can't be built that way directly from a single box.

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Marines definitely had months of domination in the early 9th before everyone else got their codexes.

It is important to remember the first instances of lethality creep were the multi-meltas and eradicators.

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

I'd vastly prefer they zoom the minutia of the game back out to something that matches the scale of the conflict the model count has ballooned up to.

It should be far closer to Epic than Kill Team given the size of battle and breadth of unit type they are trying to represent.

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

BrainFireBob wrote:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

Go and read some posts prior to and even around the last "huge Eldar release" to see for yourself how many players never started collecting Eldar because of how neglected the range is, and how many players choose SM instead of any xenos faction because of model range and support, not because it is their favourite. To this day more Aspects are in resin than in plastic and Warp Spiders are still the original '90s sculpt.

And of course you can steer the demand with advertising and IP building, this has been done for more than a century, since modern advertising was invented.

nou wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:

nou wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or just stop power creeping everything. 30k worked fine with all-bolter squads, and 40k worked fine in previous editions when special/heavy weapons were relatively rare and having a S4 basic gun meant something.

The marine rules had been intreduced in 8th, because other armies were so much better then marines, that marine armies consisted of a castellans, 15 scouts and 2 characters and the loyal 32. Same with the second wound etc. All the rules marines get in their book, which always seems to be the first in an edition, get invalidated by later droping books. In some cases, like custodes and harlequins in 9th, those non marines armies didn't even need a 9th ed codex to be much better then marines.

It's almost like all that other rules bloat is also a problem...

You know what. Then lets remove the extra marine killing rules from the other armies, which are played by the minority of players, and then we GW can start thinking how to change marines.

Because we're tired of marine players being 75% of the game and complaining that they aren't getting 95%

95% of what, because it sure as hell ain't new models or win rates. This edition most marines were happy if they got a faction specific primaris unit, which most of the time was a character. Comparing to that armies like orks, necron, sob, chaos knights, chaos marines etc got multiple new model kits. Same with eldar, ad mecha etc. No marine faction in 9th ed had months of dominations at 65%+ win rate like multiple non marine armies had.

Karol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Bolt Action and Chain of Command are both smaller-scale than 40K and have more reason to distinguish small arms than 40K does.


There's a point at which too much chrome becomes detracting to the overall experience, because we have to actually track and play it, and the rules are not designed to accommodate that sort of nitpicky differentiation.

Basic weapon load outs should not be considered on a per model basic for no skirmish games like w40k. If all marines should be armed with a "bolter", then in order for the armies to function. Specialy the primaris without special or heavy weapons in squads there would have to be a some sort of balancing rule options added.
Game play wise I don't know what it is detracting the expiriance from ? WS or other marine armies get assault bolters that work better for them, when Devastator doctrin worked the heavy bolters options were better for those faction, while the rapid fire ones were a middle of the road option for armies like ultramarines. Plus if someone can't remember that every marine load out has the option to be shorter ranger, more shots , rapid fire or heavy , then how are they going to play vs something like ad mecha or eldar soups or tyranids with their overlaping auras etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nou wrote:
The problem of minute details between weapons has all to do with too much Marines in the game. What warrants a separate codex for Marines, gets only a subfaction status for other races, what is just a sidenote in the lore of other factions, get promoted to subfaction in case of Marines. And because there is a strong demand from SM players for different colours to differ in gameplay terms, the entire design space of the game (apart from toughness) gets eaten by various SM weapons, wargear, equipment, psychic powers etc, because otherwise black Marines with skulls all over would not differ enough from blue Marines, which in turn would not differ enough from silver Marines and from a bit taller Marines in even smoother armour.

Why insult marine players, specialy when it is them who pay for the company working ? If you don't like the rules for non marine armies, which by the way is odd considering xeno armies generaly have better rules then marines and marines , at best dominate the game at the very start of an edition

It's not an insult if it's 100% true, no other faction gets similar treatment, no matter how old or how iconic it is. And SM "paying for the company working"? I bet other factions would pay equal share, if they had model range equally vast as SM have. Tell me exactly, what I can purchase of the Eldar range I don't already have multiples of after combined 11 years of playing them since 2nd ed? I already bought everything I wanted from the latest "huge release", including multiple Corsair boxes and will now have to wait an unspecified number of years if not decades for something new? Eldar still have a lot of 30 y.o. to 20 y.o. main line models after their "huge release". Meanwhile PA players get new models or entire new colours in nearly 1:1 ratio to all other factions combined, to the point where as stated above, I know SM players that are tired of overabundance of new releases. Show me any other faction, where players can complain about too many kits and too many codex entries that share the same role.

Chicken and egg. Marines dominated sales before they dominated releases, it's a balancing act between giving most of us (players) what we want to buy and making sure the line's diverse.

You can't force people to want item A when they want item B with advertising. And it's not a rejection of your faction by Mom and Dad GW because they like brother SM best. It's a demand problem which they've exacerbated, not generated.

Books about the Fall- core mythos of the Eldar- don't sell as well as books about brand new chapter X. That's just reality. Chapter X lets the publishing house afford to put limited resources towards lower margin products.

Go and read some posts prior to and even around the last "huge Eldar release" to see for yourself how many players never started collecting Eldar because of how neglected the range is, and how many players choose SM instead of any xenos faction because of model range and support, not because it is their favourite. To this day more Aspects are in resin than in plastic and Warp Spiders are still the original '90s sculpt.

And of course you can steer the demand with advertising and IP building, this has been done for more than a century, since modern advertising was invented.

You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork. The premise Marine support is the sole reason for their dominance is unsupported. The extant of their dominance being furthered by support is, but that is not the same. GW didn't just anoint Marines as their flagship, they doubled down on what people were already buying to grow the brand.

Other faction's R&D is essentially supplemented by Marines- they pay the bills so there's freedom for other things. Denigrating Marines out of healousy is denigrating other players- who are the ones buying Marines over other things

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'm familiar. Also try potatos in France.

In both cases, it was more introduction for most people, and it took time to create demand. Beef was never dethroned.

Eldar- an arrogant race looking down on humans- were never going to dominate like Marines. Nor were undead robots or fungal football hooligans, with super soldiers created to fight them right there.

Edit: Guard are the one maybe I can see.

It's D&D 101: Parties tend to default Good.

Weren't chaos one of the most played factions in Warhammer Fantasy?

BrainFireBob wrote:

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'm familiar. Also try potatos in France.

In both cases, it was more introduction for most people, and it took time to create demand. Beef was never dethroned.

Eldar- an arrogant race looking down on humans- were never going to dominate like Marines. Nor were undead robots or fungal football hooligans, with super soldiers created to fight them right there.

Edit: Guard are the one maybe I can see.

It's D&D 101: Parties tend to default Good.

I don't know how long do you play, but Eldar depiction was changed to arrogant in 3rd and "good" in context of Marines exists only since Primaris. For the most part of 40k existence there were no good guys, all factions were horrible one way or the other, with Imperium proudly leading the way.

And you do realise, that advertisement is not simply "ads", but entire years/decades long market strategies? Entire luxury goods segment is driven by artificial creation of perceived value and channeling a vague desire of higher status into specific desire for a given product. FMCG segment is dominated by products that won the advertisement wars, not by products that are inherently better or desired more. I know this first hand - I worked in advertising for a decade and was directly responsible for creating/channeling this demand/desire. SMs are a main focus in 40k, because GW decided to make them poster boys, not the other way around - it wasn't so in 2nd and 3rd. Of course nowadays it has so much inertia already, that GW would have to invest disproportional amount of money to "level the field" for all major factions, so it won't happen.

23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

nou wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
23 years next month. And the first mini I bought was an Eldar Ranger, but my first kit was a certain Black Templars starter. And I had every WD through 2006 or so, when I slowed.

And Marines had more showcases and more support back then, and people bitched about it, but Marines sold more, even when coverage was more even. If you claim Marines didn't have more support in 3rd, Index Astartes wants a word. In 2nd, Dark Angels and Blood Angels had their own supplement, as did Wolves. Methinks your memory needs a refresh

And you're on something if you think GW had any sort of longterm plan in those days.

Let's see, in 2nd ed Marines had 3 codices out of 10 and they described 4 main Marine colours. Eldar codex had fully fleshed rules for Craftworld and Harlequins, with single units for Exodites and Pirates. Tyranid codex had a large section for Genestealer Cults. That already makes a parity in factions with 3 vs 2 books and then you have Chaos and other Xenos and Imperial books on top of that. And Angels of Death codex featured four special characters per chapter, while Eldar had seven plus Avatar and Solitaire. That is way more equal treatment, especially since there was also way greater parity in model ranges.

And if you are wondering how you can push your playerbase towards a desired faction, just remember how the oldest and most iconic piece of Eldar lore, Rhana Dandra, got wasted to show how awesome some random Deathwatch captain is. SMs generate the majority of income, because GW is actively driving xenos players away and overly focusses on SMs.

^Well said.

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

 waefre_1 wrote:

BrainFireBob wrote:
You can influence but not change.

Sure, you can increase consumption of horsemeat with an ad blitz, but you're not going to overtake beef or pork...

OT, but look up the recent history of lobster as a food in the US. Look up the work of Edward Bernays. You can absolutely change demand for a product via advertising.

I'd say it's not that OT, because there's more to it than advertising. Lobster was a 'trash food' because preservation techniques to transport it did not exist and it starts to rot very quickly after death, so it could only be consumed in coastal areas and even then might be going off by the time it's cooked. Introduce canning (and lots of cheap butter- I suspect more Americans like butter than actually like lobster) and suddenly things change. So, improvements to ancillary factors around the product improved its appeal and practicality, shifting public perception from a subsistence food to a luxury good- even though the lobster itself is no different.

Factions with models literally old enough to drink, that force potential fans to deal with Finecast, or have been saddled with inconsistent and crappy rules for decades, are not particularly appealing. Newer, more consumer-friendly sculpts and better rules might be the ancillary factors that make a faction more popular. Maybe, much like prisoners rejecting day-old rotting lobster that was served boiled and ground up (shells and all), it's not the core concept that's being rejected, but the execution.

A reminder that:
-Drukhari went from a community joke to a strong faction with a massive reboot of their model line, and have continued to be popular with strong rules.
-Sisters of Battle were resurrected after a long hiatus, and GW was completely unprepared for their popularity.
-Tyranids have recently had a sudden renaissance as new rules make them viable, even as the lore and plastic model line remain unchanged.

For someone to look at those examples and conclude that Marines must be more popular because they're inherently more popular, and that it has nothing to do with their disproportionate rules support, massive modern plastic model range, and constant new content, is IMO incredibly short-sighted. Maybe superhuman space-knights really do have more broad appeal than space elf clowns or fungus hooligan monsters, but not to the degree that the current disparity implies.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

I thought T8 was good, and that str 1-16 was a wide enough range to give every weapon their own character.

Toughness sure, Strength values are fine.

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Just_Breathe wrote:
If toughness is going to max out at 9, making the max str of all weapons 18 would allow for a wider range of strengths to be assigned to lesser weapons.
Granularity.

OR

don't have any stat max out

You think they could make higher than 9? Like on literal Titans?

no, i mean they could spread the T/S values more.

I thought T8 was good, and that str 1-16 is a wide enough range to give every weapon their own character.

At the start of 8th, I would've liked MEQ to go to S/T 6, and humans and similar to be S/T 4. Everything else adjusted to match that.

That way, there's space for "Stronger than a human, not as strong as a Marine," and similar.

Humans should be T2. I think only nurglings and mini horrors are canonically weaker than humans with everything else in the game being physically superior.