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Trueborn are not a real unit anymore, they are an upgrade BS and LD to a Kabal unit.

Imagine if Vanguard Vets were removed and instead became a +1LD with either a +1BS or +1WS Assault Marine unit with no longer changes. Marines would be throwing a fit but when its DE no one cares and acts like we got a new unit.

That is because venguard vetarans are marines top unit. A DE player can just load up on wrecks, witches or just not take trueborn.

If a rules was passed that made both venoms and the barges not worth taking DE players would not be happy either.

Karol wrote:
That is because venguard vetarans are marines top unit. A DE player can just load up on wrecks, witches or just not take trueborn.

If a rules was passed that made both venoms and the barges not worth taking DE players would not be happy either.

It was a top DE unit for multiple editions, also Venoms are not worth it..... so whats your point again?

That is indeed the mark of the true nerd warrior.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Karol wrote:
That is because venguard vetarans are marines top unit. A DE player can just load up on wrecks, witches or just not take trueborn.

If a rules was passed that made both venoms and the barges not worth taking DE players would not be happy either.

It was a top DE unit for multiple editions, also Venoms are not worth it..... so whats your point again?

But they aren't a top unit now. It does not matter to the players now or to GW, how a unit was 5 editions ago. Especialy for people who did not play it back then.
If things have to be compared, then they have to be at least similar. A unit that is not used, getting a nerf is not the same as one of the units that keeps multiple factions off the sub 35% win rates.

Karol wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Karol wrote:
That is because venguard vetarans are marines top unit. A DE player can just load up on wrecks, witches or just not take trueborn.

If a rules was passed that made both venoms and the barges not worth taking DE players would not be happy either.

It was a top DE unit for multiple editions, also Venoms are not worth it..... so whats your point again?

But they aren't a top unit now. It does not matter to the players now or to GW, how a unit was 5 editions ago. Especialy for people who did not play it back then.
If things have to be compared, then they have to be at least similar. A unit that is not used, getting a nerf is not the same as one of the units that keeps multiple factions off the sub 35% win rates.

Ok then the same exact argument is applicable to bloodbrides or haemoxytes.
that argument also has nothing to do with how playable the unit is.

What was the point of this thread, those anyone remember or has it been lost in the Vottann cache memory??

Karol wrote:
Those are skirmish games. Where you make 10 models and forget about them.

For once, Karol, you're not wrong - but you've also missed the point I was making.

Andykp was arguing that making the existing guard regiments from the 'dex (plus Krieg) in plastic isn't good financial sense, because you're splitting the sales you could get for one set of boxes between seven or eight themed boxes. By set, I'm thinking we need three boxes to do the core of a regiment justice - you could add further boxes if you wanted specialist units for each regiment, but at the minimum I think you need a Command Squad box, an Infantry Squad box, and a Heavy Weapon Squad (or team) box.

I can understand concerns about th enumber of SKUs from a retailer perspective, but the way they're releasing content at present would allow for releasing the existing regiments, plus Krieg, over a period of years, without a retailer drowning in IG kits.

How? Well, you take advantage of the seasons/warzones that GW is utilising at the moment, and tie a regiment release into one season per year.

Here's how I'd look to do things, were I in charge...

Firstly, some kits are fine as is (possibly ignoring the prices, but that's a whole other pot of molluscs). I'd put the following infantry kits in that group:
- Cadian Command Squad
- Catachan Command Squad
- Cadian Heavy Weapon Squad*
- Catachan Heavy Weapon Squad*
- Krieg Veteran Guardsman**
- Tempestus Scions***

* - I wouldn't argue with a recut of the Heavy Weapon sprue itself, to allow for a wheeled carriage option or another heavy weapon, but I don't think it is needed.
** - The only problem I have with the Krieg kit as an Infantry squad kit is that three of the special weapons are missing as far as I can see (grenade launcher, meltagun, plasmagun). Well, that and it includes a bunch of parts for KT that don't serve much use in 40k, while increasing the price of the kit.
*** - Or, as they should be known by players of sufficient culture, Stormtroopers.

Before we look into how the season model could help the Guard, we have the Codex release to deal with first.

If I were in charge of the release, I'd have the following as part of the release:
- Resculpted Cadian infantry Squad (inc. all special weapon options and a "Sergeant lasgun" with chevrons on the arm)
- Resculpted Catachan infantry Squad (inc. all special weapon options and a "Sergeant lasgun" with chevrons on the arm)
- Krieg Command Squad
- Krieg Heavy Weapon Squad (using the existing HW frame, but with a Krieg crew sprue)

Add in other items like Kasrkin, Krieg Engineers, etc, as you want to, but the above four items would be at the core of the release.

At this point, three of the Guard regiments are fully-supported with decent plastic kits. Keep all three in store for 3-6 months as your initial release, then move two of them to Direct Only at the end of that window.

At this stage, the following Regiments are still in need of support: Valhallan, Vostroyan, Armageddon Steel Legion, Tallarn, Mordian and Praetorian.

If we're looking at a six-month season in 40k (which I think we are at the moment, but correct me if I'm wrong), then every other season you have a different one of these Regiments be the IG focal point for that Warzone. Perhaps we have Warzone: Armageddon, where you revisit the Steel Legion, for example.

At the point you're providing the focus on that Regiment, you release a Command/Infantry/HW set of squad boxes for that regiment, and cycle the preceding set of Regiment boxes to Direct Only. At no point do you mothball them, but certainly shift to "white box" packaging once they go to DO.

For the Mordians and Praetorians, I'd produce a Mordian Iron Guard kit, and then do a box (or DO release) similar to some of the HH weapon boxes where you get 40 or 50 Praetorian-style helmets, maybe a bugle arm, a standard, etc, to use on Mordian bodies.

+ + +

The thing with having multiple different styles of IG troops available is that the look of one regiment may appeal to someone when other styles don't. Someone who likes the look of Valhallans or Steel Legion isn't going to collect the army when the only infantry around are the Catachan Jungle Fighters, for example.

While each Regiment may not have as large a sales ceiling as if you only had the one set of kits, each one is likely to pull in people that other styles wouldn't, increasing the overall sales of the IG faction - seven or eight individually smaller slices can very easily make for a larger cake overall.

And before anyone harps on about sprue cost, I direct you back to Necromunda (especially), or Blood Bowl, or WarCry, etc. In most cases, a player will buy one, maybe two of any individual box for those games, and they have a smaller player pool than 40k does. Heck, once their vehicles are released we're at a point where the core six Necromunda gangs will have (using House Orlock as a reference) three plastic boxes and a plastic upgrade set in their range.

If GW can finance that many plastic releases for a single Necromunda gang, they can afford to do the 20 kits total over six years to support nine plastic Regiments, as well as the Scions.

Heck, if they did the Mordian release early to see what people thought of the Praetorian option, you could potentially see head-swap sets for the other regiments to make them even more flexible...

 warhead01 wrote:
I don't know when but I would expect Gw to dump f40K for more skirmish games using the same models. the advantage of doing that, seems to me, would be selling more models from every faction to a larger number of people.

Most people buy 40k models to play 40k. if you just axe 40k, you're probably axing most of your customer base by default, and that's not accounting for people that would have been interested in those skirmish games but are now boycotting GW for dropping 40k.

It's literally their core product, why would they dump that.

Because the zeitgeist of dakkanouts is to pretend that GW is dumb even doe direct observation and history suggest otherwise?

Sure they are not precisely costumer friendly. They are a leading monopoly in their own niche afterall with 30+ years of inertia, but they are neither stupid.

PenitentJake wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

Karol wrote:
Those are skirmish games. Where you make 10 models and forget about them.

For a faction in w40k, the way GW makes them you need at least 6-7 kits and 2-3 HQs. Making even two or three of those, without being sure they will sell , could be a bad investment for GW.

Nah.

Look at the Corsair box- it builds an elite unit and a troop unit.

You're being really generous here. There's no discernable differences between how the units function and their options. It's basically the same as saying the Kalabite box builds Trueborn as well.

You are absolutely wrong on the Corsair front. The biggest difference (and it's a huge one) is that vodscarred elites can take a psyker- and one that's immune to perils at that. Two extra models can upgrade weapons, and with other upgrades available to the unit, there's a real difference between a voidscarred unit kitted for range than a unit kitted for combat.

By contrast, Voidreavers are far more similar to a basic troop unit- they get a leader, a special and a heavy.

Your Trueborn strawman IS a legit example of two units not being as different as they should be... But it's worth noting that Trueborn aren't even a datacard- they're a unit upgrade, making the comparison even less appropriate than the lack of differentiated upgrades.

Okay, quick question: is this a Voidreaver or Voidscarred?

I never said the units weren't similar- they are.

I'll be honest with you: I'm not far enough along on the building of my many-flavours-of-eldar collection to recognize all the weapons on sight, but hazarding I guess, I'm sure you chose one of the many loadouts that could be used in either unit. And it's true- there are a lot of options in the box that can be included in either unit- so many that it's possible to build a unit as Voidreavers and still be able to field that unit AS Voidscarred (no one ever would, but it's possible).

But none of that changes any of my points about problems with the comparison between Kabalites/ Trueborn and Voidreavers/ Void scarred.

More importantly, it doesn't change the larger point about how boxes like the Corsairs, or the Novitiates, or the Sisters or even the Legionnaires could be a solution to the guard regiment problem.

To review, the idea is you make a kit that includes enough parts to build 10 complete models for a given regiment BUT you include enough options to build the command unit, the veteran or specialist units or the base troop unit.

What you're looking at is a situation where you can build a full platoon of any given regiment buy purchasing multiple copies of the single box that is available for any given regiment and choosing different build options for each of the boxes you purchase.

And as Dystartes pointed out, you don't have to do it with Cadians, Catachans or Krieg (though you would have to release command options for the Krieg). But yeah, I'd buy three or four copies of the same Tallarn box and build it as a platoon.

And why not? I will absolutely buy two Corsair boxes and build one as Voidscarred and one as Voidreavers. I've got three boxes of Sisters, and I will be building at least one unit as Dominions, one as Celestians and then I'll build a 10 strong unit of troops and build the remainder as basic bolter troops that could be used to bulk up any given unit for any given game- basically side-board models.

The point is that while you need to be able to represent many units for every regiment, you only need a single well-designed box for each regiment to do that. People just buy multiple copies and build what they need.

I'm not saying GW will do this, but they could.

PenitentJake wrote:
I never said the units weren't similar- they are.

I'll be honest with you: I'm not far enough along on the building of my many-flavours-of-eldar collection to recognize all the weapons on sight, but hazarding I guess, I'm sure you chose one of the many loadouts that could be used in either unit. And it's true- there are a lot of options in the box that can be included in either unit- so many that it's possible to build a unit as Voidreavers and still be able to field that unit AS Voidscarred (no one ever would, but it's possible).

But none of that changes any of my points about problems with the comparison between Kabalites/ Trueborn and Voidreavers/ Void scarred.

More importantly, it doesn't change the larger point about how boxes like the Corsairs, or the Novitiates, or the Sisters or even the Legionnaires could be a solution to the guard regiment problem.

To review, the idea is you make a kit that includes enough parts to build 10 complete models for a given regiment BUT you include enough options to build the command unit, the veteran or specialist units or the base troop unit.

What you're looking at is a situation where you can build a full platoon of any given regiment buy purchasing multiple copies of the single box that is available for any given regiment and choosing different build options for each of the boxes you purchase.

And as Dystartes pointed out, you don't have to do it with Cadians, Catachans or Krieg (though you would have to release command options for the Krieg). But yeah, I'd buy three or four copies of the same Tallarn box and build it as a platoon.

And why not? I will absolutely buy two Corsair boxes and build one as Voidscarred and one as Voidreavers. I've got three boxes of Sisters, and I will be building at least one unit as Dominions, one as Celestians and then I'll build a 10 strong unit of troops and build the remainder as basic bolter troops that could be used to bulk up any given unit for any given game- basically side-board models.

The point is that while you need to be able to represent many units for every regiment, you only need a single well-designed box for each regiment to do that. People just buy multiple copies and build what they need.

I'm not saying GW will do this, but they could.

Right now you're pointing out a problem that I've pointed out with the various Marine codices not having access to all units for the sake of differentiation.
I give you a Marine with +1LD, +1A, and everyone has a Storm Bolter, am I talking about Sternguard or Dark Angel Vets?

Why do they need to be different entries to begin with and why not just give Dark Angels Sterngaurd access? It's dumb. The units are the same because they do the same thing.

It's the same with Voidreavers vs Voidscarred. The profiles don't differentiate enough to the point that we can say the kit builds two different units. If GW sold the kit for Tactical Marines as building Sternguard I'd be making the same point. However that hasn't happened, so we should obviously know better.

TL;DR Corsairs were treated as an afterthought and saying the kit builds two different units is laughable. By the way that model is a Voidchooseone with a Wraithcannon. There's no model difference!

Karol wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Karol wrote:
That is because venguard vetarans are marines top unit. A DE player can just load up on wrecks, witches or just not take trueborn.

If a rules was passed that made both venoms and the barges not worth taking DE players would not be happy either.

It was a top DE unit for multiple editions, also Venoms are not worth it..... so whats your point again?

But they aren't a top unit now. It does not matter to the players now or to GW, how a unit was 5 editions ago. Especialy for people who did not play it back then.
If things have to be compared, then they have to be at least similar. A unit that is not used, getting a nerf is not the same as one of the units that keeps multiple factions off the sub 35% win rates.

1) You are the one that brought up playability not me, and if they were still a unit yes everyone would still play them.
2) We are not talking about Win rates ffs, but about UNITS, DE has not had a new UNIT in 12 freaking years, literally every other army has received new units and asking to have back old units is all DE is asking for, not even having a new unit, literally just an old unit that already has a kit that works for it.

And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Plus you did get new units. 2 special characters and a mook version of one of the characters. Marines in that time are more or less getting an update of their regular line spread over 3 or 4 editions, because that is how much time it will take GW to release stuff like captins or librarians on bikes or drop pods for primaris etc. And even then, the option just exisiting means nothing when A the army ain't a meta shaper and B most of them are not used. Primaris got like what 5-6 versions of predators and 3 versions of new speeders, and those aren't used. the primaris attack bikes are worse then the regular ones, the bunker the auto canon turret etc all dead options. On the other hand armies like DE not only have powerful lists, which survived nerfs unlike lets say salamander aggressor builds, and outside of tournament play they are strong enough to play and carry weaker unit, which of they don't have many.

That is why it is impossible to compare the two things. When DE lost their liquifires, they still stayed at 60%+ win rates, when as I mentioned before salamanders got their stuff nerfed, they stopped being played. The army does not work. And even they aren't in the worse situation, because armies like IF or RG were last time good in 8th ed.

Karol wrote:
And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Plus you did get new units. 2 special characters and a mook version of one of the characters. Marines in that time are more or less getting an update of their regular line spread over 3 or 4 editions, because that is how much time it will take GW to release stuff like captins or librarians on bikes or drop pods for primaris etc. And even then, the option just exisiting means nothing when A the army ain't a meta shaper and B most of them are not used. Primaris got like what 5-6 versions of predators and 3 versions of new speeders, and those aren't used. the primaris attack bikes are worse then the regular ones, the bunker the auto canon turret etc all dead options. On the other hand armies like DE not only have powerful lists, which survived nerfs unlike lets say salamander aggressor builds, and outside of tournament play they are strong enough to play and carry weaker unit, which of they don't have many.

That is why it is impossible to compare the two things. When DE lost their liquifires, they still stayed at 60%+ win rates, when as I mentioned before salamanders got their stuff nerfed, they stopped being played. The army does not work. And even they aren't in the worse situation, because armies like IF or RG were last time good in 8th ed.

Its the literally point of this thread!!!! That armies are going with no love while GW release new armies and adds whole armies to Marines. No one is talking about Win rates!!

I had to make this bigger bc you again missed the point. I dont give a flying f that DE is not making top 5 at events anymore, I want some new units or old units back!

So to fully support all the regiments you mention here they need a squad, heavy weapon squad and command squad. 3 boxes. EACH. you listed 9 regiments, one that can be heads only. So you want one faction of the core game to have 25 kits for just their core infantry models rivalling a whole specialists games level of support, just for part of one faction. You then want that faction to get a major release each season (3 kits at least). It’s not just warehousing all this it’s the cost of machining it all as well and it’s proportion of production time. You basically want imperial guard to become their own specialist games branch with full support and to dominate the release schedule for 40k.

The difference between necromunda having all the gangs and guard not is, if I own a guard army already, I will still buy necromunda gangs, if I own a bunch of necromunda gangs I will still buy more. If I own a guard army and in 6 months you realise another, I don’t need another. I don’t want to invest the £100s into buying all my core infantry again, only to have to do it again 6 months down the line. So I don’t buy them. So you have still sold the same number of guard kits, but you have made 8 time the numbers of moulds, committed 8 times the design, marketing and warehousing to it. For no return. And you end up with a line that is a cluster feth of a mess and a huge investment and resource sink. Well done. Thank God you aren’t in charge.

25 kits ain't that much, probs slim it down to 3 styles, with multiple head swaps like Wargames Atlantic. Also, make them easy kit bash with each other. So that's 9 total. Add in the rest from there. Every once in awhile release special character and officer models.

Done, simple.

Karol wrote:
And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Positive win rates does not equal fun.

I don't care how powerful my army is if playing it bores me to tears.

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Positive win rates does not equal fun.

I don't care how powerful my army is if playing it bores me to tears.

Something tells me that this will not compute for Karol...and I agree with your statement 100%!

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Positive win rates does not equal fun.

I don't care how powerful my army is if playing it bores me to tears.

Something tells me that this will not compute for Karol...and I agree with your statement 100%!

yeah, theres a reason why i stopped playing my Admech and Drukhari when their new codexes came out, such boring codexes even if they won a lot

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:
And? Who cares if marine players gets a ton of new units, when the best options are the old units. DE like all the other eldar armies had a longer time of being in positive win rates, and by virtue of that more fun to play then marine armies.

Positive win rates does not equal fun.

I don't care how powerful my army is if playing it bores me to tears.

Something tells me that this will not compute for Karol...and I agree with your statement 100%!

As my kid daughter says "fun is fun, and being bored is boring".

Andykp wrote:


So to fully support all the regiments you mention here they need a squad, heavy weapon squad and command squad. 3 boxes.

I know, you're responding to Dystartes here, and their post did suggest multiple boxes per regiment. But the posts I've been making in my conversation here are about how you DON'T actually need 3 boxes per regiment- you just need one box that allows you to build ten bodies with enough bits to build a Heavy Weapon Team, a Command Squad, a Vet Squad, a Special Weapon Squad or a Regular Troop Squad.

Want a Command Squad, a special Weapons squad, and two units of troops? Buy three copies of the box and build what you need.

And again, we don't need these boxes for Cadians, Catachans or Krieg... Because those regiments already have what they need (though Krieg might need another unit to round out the range). So that's six boxes on top of what we already have, plus the extra unit for Krieg would make seven. Not hard to do- GW just has to build boxes with enough options, and be okay with people having extensive bits collections again.

If one box of Sisters models can be used to make Dominions, Celestians or Battle Sisters, there is ZERO reason why GW can't make a Tallarn box that builds a Command Squad, Vet Squad, Special Weapons Squad or a Troops Squad.

Andykp wrote:

If I own a guard army and in 6 months you release another, I don’t need another.

Maybe.

I say that because some players of 9th HAVE actually taken advantage of the rules it provides for game size. So some people, if they knew GW was going to release two regiment boxes per year (one per 40k season), would buy 25PL of regiment A, and play it in 25PL games until regiment B is released later that year, and then they by 3 copies of that box to build a platoon from regiment B... And now they can play either in 25PL games or BOTH in 50PL games. And so on, and so on... Until they had each of the regiments they were interested in.

Now before people respond to the numbers I've used, the numbers aren't important: the principle is that this version of the game was designed specifically to better facilitate escalation style play and armies that grow over time.

This stuff about buying and painting 2000 points worth of models before you can play? That was the design for the first 8 editions of the game. A lot of people are still trying to play 9th as if it was one of those earlier editions, but it isn't. Escalation/ detachment style lists are GW vision for the future of the game- they want the "You must buy and paint 2k points to play" mentality to die, because it absolutely restricts their player base.

GW makes expensive games, but even poor people can play a 25PL army. And if you buy 25PL/ year, after four years, it's up to you whether that's a single 100PL army, two 50PL armies, or four 25PL armies.

Andykp wrote:

I don’t want to invest the £100s into buying all my core infantry again, only to have to do it again 6 months down the line.

You wouldn't HAVE TO replace your core infantry every 6 months. You COULD if you wanted to, but you'd never HAVE TO. If you only like one of the subfactions, obviously it's the only one you're going to buy. If you like more than one, you might buy smaller forces of each and combine those forces into a bigger army for larger games.

And yeah, if you're one of those poor suckers who can ONLY play in 2k games because you only play with strangers in stores, and your stores only allow 2k games, then sure- this approach won't work for you. You'd need 2k to get playing, and when the next box came, you'd probably be less likely to buy it... Unless you wanted that box for Kill Team.

Andykp wrote:

So you have still sold the same number of guard kits, but you have made 8 time the numbers of moulds, committed 8 times the design, marketing and warehousing to it. For no return. And you end up with a line that is a cluster feth of a mess and a huge investment and resource sink. Well done. Thank God you aren’t in charge.

Well, as I've pointed out, it could be done in such a way that it is only 6 extra boxes. As Dystartes pointed out, there may be people who hate the look of Cadians, Catachans and Krieg, but who would go all in on Tallarn or Vostrians. That's the return on investment.

And if you release those boxes as Kill Teams, like the Krieg, now you're marketing each box for two different games. Someone with a 2k Cadian army might still by a Tallarn box for Kill Team. A fair number of guard players who also play Kill Team might actually buy one copy of every regiment box for KT in addition to their single regiment 2k 40k force.

I certainly would. I'd like 2k worth of Krieg, and I'd like a Kill Team of Tallarn and Vostrians. And guard aren't even my primary army.

PenitentJake wrote:

Andykp wrote:


So to fully support all the regiments you mention here they need a squad, heavy weapon squad and command squad. 3 boxes.

I know, you're responding to Dystartes here, and their post did suggest multiple boxes per regiment. But the posts I've been making in my conversation here are about how you DON'T actually need 3 boxes per regiment- you just need one box that allows you to build ten bodies with enough bits to build a Heavy Weapon Team, a Command Squad, a Vet Squad, a Special Weapon Squad or a Regular Troop Squad.

Want a Command Squad, a special Weapons squad, and two units of troops? Buy three copies of the box and build what you need.

And again, we don't need these boxes for Cadians, Catachans or Krieg... Because those regiments already have what they need (though Krieg might need another unit to round out the range). So that's six boxes on top of what we already have, plus the extra unit for Krieg would make seven. Not hard to do- GW just has to build boxes with enough options, and be okay with people having extensive bits collections again.

If one box of Sisters models can be used to make Dominions, Celestians or Battle Sisters, there is ZERO reason why GW can't make a Tallarn box that builds a Command Squad, Vet Squad, Special Weapons Squad or a Troops Squad.

Andykp wrote:

If I own a guard army and in 6 months you release another, I don’t need another.

Maybe.

I say that because some players of 9th HAVE actually taken advantage of the rules it provides for game size. So some people, if they knew GW was going to release two regiment boxes per year (one per 40k season), would buy 25PL of regiment A, and play it in 25PL games until regiment B is released later that year, and then they by 3 copies of that box to build a platoon from regiment B... And now they can play either in 25PL games or BOTH in 50PL games. And so on, and so on... Until they had each of the regiments they were interested in.

Now before people respond to the numbers I've used, the numbers aren't important: the principle is that this version of the game was designed specifically to better facilitate escalation style play and armies that grow over time.

This stuff about buying and painting 2000 points worth of models before you can play? That was the design for the first 8 editions of the game. A lot of people are still trying to play 9th as if it was one of those earlier editions, but it isn't. Escalation/ detachment style lists are GW vision for the future of the game- they want the "You must buy and paint 2k points to play" mentality to die, because it absolutely restricts their player base.

GW makes expensive games, but even poor people can play a 25PL army. And if you buy 25PL/ year, after four years, it's up to you whether that's a single 100PL army, two 50PL armies, or four 25PL armies.

Andykp wrote:

I don’t want to invest the £100s into buying all my core infantry again, only to have to do it again 6 months down the line.

You wouldn't HAVE TO replace your core infantry every 6 months. You COULD if you wanted to, but you'd never HAVE TO. If you only like one of the subfactions, obviously it's the only one you're going to buy. If you like more than one, you might buy smaller forces of each and combine those forces into a bigger army for larger games.

And yeah, if you're one of those poor suckers who can ONLY play in 2k games because you only play with strangers in stores, and your stores only allow 2k games, then sure- this approach won't work for you. You'd need 2k to get playing, and when the next box came, you'd probably be less likely to buy it... Unless you wanted that box for Kill Team.

Andykp wrote:

So you have still sold the same number of guard kits, but you have made 8 time the numbers of moulds, committed 8 times the design, marketing and warehousing to it. For no return. And you end up with a line that is a cluster feth of a mess and a huge investment and resource sink. Well done. Thank God you aren’t in charge.

Well, as I've pointed out, it could be done in such a way that it is only 6 extra boxes. As Dystartes pointed out, there may be people who hate the look of Cadians, Catachans and Krieg, but who would go all in on Tallarn or Vostrians. That's the return on investment.

And if you release those boxes as Kill Teams, like the Krieg, now you're marketing each box for two different games. Someone with a 2k Cadian army might still by a Tallarn box for Kill Team. A fair number of guard players who also play Kill Team might actually buy one copy of every regiment box for KT in addition to their single regiment 2k 40k force.

I certainly would. I'd like 2k worth of Krieg, and I'd like a Kill Team of Tallarn and Vostrians. And guard aren't even my primary army.

I get what you are saying, and 6 extra boxes doesn’t sound much, but that’s 6 boxes extra just for the core troops of the faction. That’s a lot. That’s more than marines (primaris) have and guard aren’t ever going to be better support than marines. As much fun as it would be, and as much as some people would buy multiple regiments, most wouldn’t.

Now dropping different regiments in killteam sounds good, but they seem keen on exploring some of the less traditional stuff, like navy bleachers and rogue traders. But at the end of the day supporting loads of plastic kits for regiments makes no financial sense, even if it’s six more kits. Guard are already ahead of the game thanks to some ancient kits where the cost is already recouped many times over. The new releases coming aren’t meagre either. Plenty new kits by the look of it.

Orks have 4 troops kits, admech 2, sisters,2, genestealer cults 3 (one an upgrade sprue really) eldar 3, dark eldar 3. EVEN marines only have 6 - ten if you count all loyalist types (who are all older kits as well and cover half a dozen factions).

Guard already have 4 kits, and dystartes suggest we add 5-6 more and command and heavy weapons squads. Even adding 1 more regiment puts them on par with marines.

Redoing old kits makes more sense, you appeal to new players and those with armies already who will want to update. That’s the model they are on at the minute. ORK boyz, guardians, Cadians, chaos marines, all redo’s. But the idea of saturating a faction with 25 more kits all 8 versions of the same thing. No.

Oops, double post