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 vict0988 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?

I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.

Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.

I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.

I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.

I may be biased in this. I'd love "New DE units", since there hasn't seemingly been one since before the fall of the Roman Empire. And I mean "new" not "hey, Beastmasters, critters and Rakarth are still in Forgeworld, bet you'd love new kits of them".

Tyran wrote:

Moreover, Horus Heresy is meant to be a pseudo-historical game, I cannot even find a repository for Horus Heresy tournament lists and results and much less win rates, and the HH community seems aggressive against the idea of competitive HH play.

HH and 40k are meant to be very different games so I don't see 40k moving towards a HH ruleset.

A local 30k tourney was posted in our discord and the first thing in the tourney pack was prize money...this immediately killed any interest in playing in it, as I have zero want to play the kind of donkey-caves that play wargames to win money.

I can understand a competitive player wanting to test themselves in 30k, but judging by the lack of interest from the local community, the few that want tourney 30k are extremely limited in number...

Tyel wrote:
I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.

I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.

Which tells anyone around for the initial Tau release that you weren't.

The background at the time indicated that the Tau thought units such as Knights and Titans were inefficient uses of resources, as they tied a lot of resources up in a unit with a limited sphere of influence. Tau doctrine preferred to spread those resources out across more smaller units, as well as into airpower, which has a much larger area of a conflict it can get to and influence.

We also saw development of Tau air assets, leading to the Tiger Shark A-X-10 as an evolution of the Tiger Shark to counter Knights and Titans.

Unfortunately, some dipstick in the Studio had more of an anime fetish than we first thought, and we ended up with the Riptide and other silly mecha suits instead...

Tyel wrote:
If GW wanted to do a Tau Expansion and it was 4-5 assault focused Tau units that are up to standard, who loses?

Everyone who cares about fluff loses. Even if GW is dumb enough to retcon the Tau fluff to embrace melee units it would still be a terrible change and suck to see Tau units regularly declaring charges and winning by melee. If Tau melee units exist at all they should be inefficient and you should be discouraged from taking more than 1-2 of them at most.

Same thing with orks. Everyone who cares about fluff loses when the ork player sets up a gunline and tries to win the game by shooting from a safe distance instead of yelling WAAAAAAAAAAGH and charging into combat.

You have a very narrow view of Orks.
One that doesn’t line up with what’s actually printed.

 Vilgeir wrote:
This is kind of only true if all you care about is the simplicity of looking at a number and knowing that's all you have to do to get your end result. If you're into simplifying the dice rolls down and homogenizing the gak out of every unit in the game, and that's your only aim, then I can kind of see where you're coming from. Maybe.

But this game has a boatload of special rules that help nudge rolls different ways by varying amounts that aren't just a pip on the dice. It adds granularity even if you hate the number of them. A unit that hits on 3+ isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 3+ rerolling 1's, which in turn isn't as good as a unit that hits on a 2+, but the differences are in steps that span leaner gaps than just pips on a d6. It's why I do not understand the call for d10s to replace it. Is that entirely to remove these extra rules and build it into the roll instead?

The call for D10s is that you can represent the difference between 3+, 3+ re-rolling 1s, and 2+ without needing re-rolls and modifiers. More numbers = smaller interval between numbers = less need for special rules to produce small intervals. You just put a single number on the datasheet and cut the rules bloat. That's a win for everyone.

The problem is that it can't happen until GW fixes their obsession with stat creep that ruined the D6 system. If they aren't willing to make marines (and basic troops in general) BS/WS 4+ in the D6 system then all that will happen with a D10 system is that marines will start off elite, every other faction will get stat creep up to the same D10 value so GW can write preview articles showing off how elite and awesome they are, and eventually you're right back to having special characters hitting on 2+ and everyone but cannon fodder hitting on 3+. And then all the rules bloat will come right back as GW piles on re-rolls and modifiers and exploding 6s and shoot/fight twice stratagems and bonus AP in an attempt to make each book cooler and more elite than the last. Without firing everyone at GW and replacing them with competent game designers a D10 system would be a temporary pause in the problem at best.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
You have a very narrow view of Orks.
One that doesn’t line up with what’s actually printed.

Oh really? Where is the fluff of orks setting up a gunline and standing there shooting from a distance? Because as I recall every iconic image of orks is WAAAAAAAAGH into melee and guns are some extra noise and excitement to hype up the boyz as they charge into melee (where the real fun happens).

What’s a Tankbusta?
Or a Loota?
Squigbuggy?
Any of the fliers?

They’re not melee units. They’re shooting units.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What’s a Tankbusta?
Or a Loota?
Squigbuggy?
Any of the fliers?

They’re not melee units. They’re shooting units.

And the fluff dictates that they should be a minor part of ork armies that you're discouraged from investing heavily in.

(Except tankbustas. Orks running into melee to blow up tanks with suicide bomb hammers is very fluffy.)

Do you also think that Marines HAVE to take a little bit of everything?
Or that Dark Eldar aren’t allowed any slow and/or tough units?

Also, remember that "orks are BS 5+" doesn't mean that every single ork unit must be BS 5+. An elite (by ork standards) shooting unit like lootas could be BS 4+ to represent their amazing accuracy, but those units should be the exception to the rule.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you also think that Marines HAVE to take a little bit of everything?

They should be strongly encouraged to. And they should have few, if any, eldar-style specialist units.

Or that Dark Eldar aren’t allowed any slow and/or tough units?

Correct. Those units shouldn't exist in the codex and if they do they should not be appealing choices.

So long Talos & Grots, we hardly knew ye.

This line is just weird. Yes, Tau fluff justified the models that existed. And then GW decided they would like to create new models, and created new fluff accordingly.

Should armies never get new stuff?

Why would you put a unit in the codex and then make it unappealing, on purpose? That would just be a waste of page space and the plastic for the kit.

Bad moonz orks have a strong preference for guns, with some eventually becoming rich enough to become flash gitz.

IMO, giving Orks good shooting options is important for the faction as a whole. Dakka is so central to ork fighting that it’s the name of this forum. It’s also just more fun to have options when listbuilding.

Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.


As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.

Dudeface wrote:
Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.


As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.

Depends on the severity of the design choice.

Whilst it took a couple of editions to properly manifest, Tau were eventually an excellent shooty army. Not just good guns galore, but a need to weave together a bunch of synergistic plays to really amp it up. As such, they remained largely devoid of competent combat troops. Kroot weren’t bad at fighting - but they weren’t good at surviving for long. From memory enough to tie up an objective, or force a non-combat oriented unit off the same, but not something you can build a list around. If you gave Tau a wider option of melee units? You lose the intended focus.

Because I'm British and as such crave disappointment

I suspect trying to shoehorn in Reactions over Strats will be the 10th foob of choice, in theory its a half decent odea, in practice not so much at the model count scale HH / 40k is

I kind of hope they do go the reaction route. A standard set of tactical options everyone has access to and can use to varying degrees. Then each faction gets a handful of one use per game ones that are powerful, but you have to choose when to use them wisely.

Stratagems feel a little braindead from time to time. Possibly because once upon a time they would have been abilities the units had in built, making many units feel a little bland unless they have the resources to run that one stratagem. Hell many of the blasted things are limited to one specific unit keyword. Meaning unless you're taking that unit you're book has one less stratagem to play with than your opponent.

10th could be a tweak, it could be another 8th edition style reset.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

I'm pretty sure that the best evidence that the HH ruleset can be expanded to incorporate all 40k factions is that it's just a further modification of the ruleset that was used to represent all 40k factions for, what was it, 17 years or so? It's just a further modification of the 7th edition ruleset in the same way that 4th edition was a modification of 3rd, and 5th was a modification of 4th, etc, etc.

And Solar Auxilia, Talons of the Emperor, Cults and Militia, Mechanicum, and Daemons of the Ruinstorm players might be confused about how the game is "pure Marines".

Finally, no tournament data only tells us that there isn't any tournament data that has been compiled. We definitely know that tournaments were played using the rules from 3rd-7th edition, which again, are essentially the same.

From what I have heard about HH 2.0, the rules have changed enough that even though you can still find evidence of 3rd-7th in the bones, the game is fundamentally different from it.

And doesn't change the issue of way different playerbase with different expectations and priorites. At this point people that want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset are already playing Horus Heresy, while people that stuck to playing 40k are unlikely to want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset.

 Tyran wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

I'm pretty sure that the best evidence that the HH ruleset can be expanded to incorporate all 40k factions is that it's just a further modification of the ruleset that was used to represent all 40k factions for, what was it, 17 years or so? It's just a further modification of the 7th edition ruleset in the same way that 4th edition was a modification of 3rd, and 5th was a modification of 4th, etc, etc.

And Solar Auxilia, Talons of the Emperor, Cults and Militia, Mechanicum, and Daemons of the Ruinstorm players might be confused about how the game is "pure Marines".

Finally, no tournament data only tells us that there isn't any tournament data that has been compiled. We definitely know that tournaments were played using the rules from 3rd-7th edition, which again, are essentially the same.

From what I have heard about HH 2.0, the rules have changed enough that even though you can still find evidence of 3rd-7th in the bones, the game is fundamentally different from it.

And doesn't change the issue of way different playerbase with different expectations and priorites. At this point people that want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset are already playing Horus Heresy, while people that stuck to playing 40k are unlikely to want to play a Horus Heresy ruleset.

No, not really. It's just another iteration on the 3rd-7th rules. It definitely isn't "fundamentally different".

And you're imposing your own opinions on others, with no evidence to back it up. A lot of people only played 8th/9th because that's what was "current", and they could get games. That doesn't mean it's everyone's preference.

I guess fundamentally different may be the wrong term, but it has considerably changed from 3rd-7th ed in the same way 9th edition has considerably changed from Indexhammer.

I mean, I'm really trying to imagine what should the Tyranid monster profiles be in the same design environment in which a dreadnought is W6 T7 2+/5++ with inbuilt ID mitigation.

 Tyran wrote:
I guess fundamentally different may be the wrong term, but it has considerably changed from 3rd-7th ed in the same way 9th edition has considerably changed from Indexhammer.

I mean, I'm really trying to imagine what should be the Tyranid monster profiles in the same design environment in which a dreadnought is W6 T7 2+/5++ with inbuilt ID mitigation.

I'd start with the 3rd edition Carnifex profile with Extended Carapace as "standard" and start going "up" for the newer bigger beasties, myself. With the full Mutable Genus options, of course.

And dreads are WS5. The only one that has WS6 is the Word Bearers Possessed dreadnought.

Bear in mind that with things like the dread profile, that's partly a reflection of what the weapon stats are in HH as well. The core rules can be good and function well under different balance/stat/profile paradigms.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?

I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.

Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.

Because they're crazy.

Tyel wrote:
I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.

I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.

I may be biased in this. I'd love "New DE units", since there hasn't seemingly been one since before the fall of the Roman Empire. And I mean "new" not "hey, Beastmasters, critters and Rakarth are still in Forgeworld, bet you'd love new kits of them".

This is basic faction design in pretty much every game, if everyone is special then no one is.

GW could have made the FW flyers into GW kits and produced a larger selection of different flyers and skimmers, like a stealthed Hammerhead instead of the Ghostkeel.

Do you want a Drukhari Land Raider?

Tyel wrote:
I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.

Why is it lame? The army was complete. New content for the sake of having new content is a stupid way of doing things and inevitably leads to poor quality as you keep having new releases despite not having any good design space left. Tau were complete in 2010 and the only thing they needed was for the FW units to stay in production. Since then GW has retconned in a bunch of ugly and anti-fluffy giant anime robots (complete with absurdly overpowered rules to sell them) and the only quality content they've added has been the aesthetic updates and mold re-cutting on the kits that already existed a decade ago.

Dudeface wrote:
Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.

That's exactly what shouldn't happen. It's the end result that matters, not the exact sequence of dice math that gets there, so if the end result is the same that means an ork army would be able to set up a gunline across from a guard/tau gunline and expect a 50/50 chance to win. That's absurd and completely against their fluff.

As others have said a faction identity is born of a lack of options. Tau should have a slew of effective ranged units, but few efficient melee units. That's not to say they should have melee units that are intentionally inefficient, just that their melee unit should be uncommon or lack flexibility.

A unit being uncommon in a game where your army only has room for a small subset of the units in the codex is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if only one unit in the codex is good at melee, you can still fill all of your fast attack slots with it and dedicate 25-50% of your points to that single unit. The only way to enforce rarity restrictions, outside of imposing a literal "no more than one copy of this" rule, is to make the rare units lower in power so they're only taken in niche situations.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Sitting in the middle, orks should be bad on a 1:1 level in a gun fight, but they compensate lack of skill in terms of aim by enthusiasm and rate of fire. In other words ork shooting should get the same end result but should get there a different way.

That's exactly what shouldn't happen. It's the end result that matters, not the exact sequence of dice math that gets there, so if the end result is the same that means an ork army would be able to set up a gunline across from a guard/tau gunline and expect a 50/50 chance to win. That's absurd and completely against their fluff.

If Orks lack the breadth of ranged options that Astra Militarum have then they will naturally have worse gunlines, without any individual Ork shooting unit being bad. So if someone wants to make a shooty Ork list they can, but they'll either have some serious weaknesses or will have to invest in a few melee units to round out their list.

There is a big difference in special snowflake and interesting design differences.

Tau already have units that could be used for melee, they just tend to suck and not work for synergy in there forces.
They don’t have to be a CC faction to utilise it, and I think so of that comes from design of 40k.
I still think breachers would make for a great Tau CC unit, and would offer a unique Tau style use of the systems.

It’s why I also think of khorne, the land raider I think of as iconic to there forces for CSM. Offering fire support, heavy armor and transport to there berserkers on a battlefield that was often dangerous to travel on foot.
They did ranged in support of there close combat troops.
It’s GW not really supporting that well in modern times, and often dumbing down a faction theme to fit into a small box.

If you got the 3rd where they first started to follow though on there combined forces theme.
Every faction interacts with all phases in some way, and I think it’s gotten worse now with faction theming.

I don’t think any other game is quite like 40k and has factions on theme to just ignore entire themes of the game they are supposed to be a part off.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, help me out here, why exactly would CSM have vehicles, "monsters" (I assume you're referring to Daemon Engines?), and ranged weapons? And why on earth would the most technologically advanced race in the setting (Necrons) have poor access to long range firepower?

I figure CSM don't value reliability, so when they create stuff they are more likely to prioritize quantity or power. It's not that Necrons can't make long-ranged weapons, it's that their culture leads them to prefer durable hard-hitting units instead of units with greater range.

Why wouldn't CSM "value reliability"? Reliability and ease of maintenance is the fluff reason for CSM favoring things like autocannons.

Because they're crazy.

Really? That's the best you could come up with? Why do CSM Terminators use Reaper ACs instead of just stealing Assault Cannons from loyalists and using those? Because they're more reliable. Why don't they still have landspeeders? Because anti-grav tech breaks down in the Eye, and is unreliable. Why do they stick with the older, less flashy stuff like Rhinos, Land Raiders, and other ground based tanks? They're reliable. Easy for them to fix and maintain while reaving and raiding from home bases in literal hell. That's been the fluff for decades. That's why CSM prefer 10,000 year old equipment to less reliable newer tech. It's been one of the primary design elements that separate CSM from loyalists since the 2nd edition Chaos codex.

Thats basically how I view CSM, they value reliability/repeatedly.

Dysartes wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I'm afraid this just seems so limiting as to be silly.

I mean I guess if you want Tau to be "Codex: Fish of Fury" then the big mechs were a step in the wrong direction. But I'm unclear what direction they could possibly take it in that you'd like. "Its fine, Tau were finished circa 2010 and should have never got a new model" is lame.

Which tells anyone around for the initial Tau release that you weren't.

The background at the time indicated that the Tau thought units such as Knights and Titans were inefficient uses of resources, as they tied a lot of resources up in a unit with a limited sphere of influence. Tau doctrine preferred to spread those resources out across more smaller units, as well as into airpower, which has a much larger area of a conflict it can get to and influence.

We also saw development of Tau air assets, leading to the Tiger Shark A-X-10 as an evolution of the Tiger Shark to counter Knights and Titans.

Unfortunately, some dipstick in the Studio had more of an anime fetish than we first thought, and we ended up with the Riptide and other silly mecha suits instead...

The 4th ed tau codex is still the best IMHO as far as how it portrayed the way tau fight. all the wargear options improved them as a move/shoot army that abhored CC. I never owned a riptide in my tau force, and it did just fine in the years i played. i have also killed plenty of riptides without needing my own giant thing to do the job.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
What’s a Tankbusta?
Or a Loota?
Squigbuggy?
Any of the fliers?

They’re not melee units. They’re shooting units.

And the fluff dictates that they should be a minor part of ork armies that you're discouraged from investing heavily in.

(Except tankbustas. Orks running into melee to blow up tanks with suicide bomb hammers is very fluffy.)

Hammers are great...in the 4th ed codex since they didn't kill the ork carrying them. the suicide squig bombs were much more thematic and entertaining especially when you rolled a 1.