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So there's some rumors flying around that AOC is going away, to be replaced with big point cuts for power armor factions. Not sure I believe either half of that, but wanted to talk about it.

I assumed it wasn't a reference to the politician but had to make sure you weren't talking about the old 40k novel, lol.

It'd have to be a significant cut. Even Fleshborers knock down saves now.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
It'd have to be a significant cut. Even Fleshborers knock down saves now.

19ppm plague marines with free upgrades has been mentioned as an idea.

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
It'd have to be a significant cut. Even Fleshborers knock down saves now.

19ppm plague marines with free upgrades has been mentioned as an idea.

9% point drop isn't that much when even incidental fire gets 50% boost.

Oh boy, 10% winrate and SM feeling even more like whiteshields, here we come

Armor of Contempt going Infantry (and bike) only would be a better fix.

I still play 8th edition, so I don't use AoC, but power armor is damn near useless, and I play primarily fun lists against Orkz...

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
It'd have to be a significant cut. Even Fleshborers knock down saves now.

19ppm plague marines with free upgrades has been mentioned as an idea.

Don't even get me started in how fething stupid that was

Good news ? AOC is definitely a way to deal with the overwhelming AP of the game. But damn, is it uninspired.

Or, GW could just lower the AP of all their weapons by 1. I know this would cause all armor to improve but maybe that's what the game needs in order to make things less lethal.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Or, GW could just lower the AP of all their weapons by 1. I know this would cause all armor to improve but maybe that's what the game needs in order to make things less lethal.

Even if AP universally went down by 1, the game is just designed to be too killy.

I mean... attacking the symptoms instead of the causes is clearly the GW way, but feth me >_>

It's, you know, possible, that the problem lies rather in giving every gun and their uncle armor reduction. Because if you think it's bad for MEQ, every other faction would like a word, too.

Armour of contempt is horrible. But it's the only thing that allows marines to be vaguely relevant at the moment. Marines will need silly cost reductions or another generic special rule if the next balance data slate removes AOC.

 Albertorius wrote:
I mean... attacking the symptoms instead of the causes is clearly the GW way, but feth me >_>

It's, you know, possible, that the problem lies rather in giving every gun and their uncle armor reduction. Because if you think it's bad for MEQ, every other faction would like a word, too.

Notably, the better your armor, the worse AP affects you.

A 2+ save dropping to a 3+ doubles your damage.
But a 5+ to 6+ or even a 5+ to no save is only a 25% or 50% increase.

Clearly the answer is to create a 'Power Armor Save' that isn't affected by silly things like AP. Then let T'au players figure out if their railguns go through it or not.

 Albertorius wrote:
It's, you know, possible, that the problem lies rather in giving every gun and their uncle armor reduction. Because if you think it's bad for MEQ, every other faction would like a word, too.

Here is a simple math exercise for you - when all broken xeno gak tends to be -4 or -5 AP, who is going to suffer more by having whole mechanic removed from the game?

1) Faction that effectively pays 1 PPM for 5+ save in statline;
2) Faction that effectively pays 8 PPM for 3+ save in statline;
3) Faction that has ++ instead of + and laughs at the silly AP modifiers;
4) My Little Ponies;

 Irbis wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
It's, you know, possible, that the problem lies rather in giving every gun and their uncle armor reduction. Because if you think it's bad for MEQ, every other faction would like a word, too.

Here is a simple math exercise for you - when all broken xeno gak tends to be -4 or -5 AP, who is going to suffer more by having whole mechanic removed from the game?

1) Faction that effectively pays 1 PPM for 5+ save in statline;
2) Faction that effectively pays 8 PPM for 3+ save in statline;
3) Faction that has ++ instead of + and laughs at the silly AP modifiers;
4) My Little Ponies;

Personally, I'm pretty happy when the opponent shoots at my rubrics with bright lances.

My goodness, it took GW 2 or 3 editions to make 3rd unbearable, but only 1 to make 8th unbearable.

At this rate 10th will be unbearable from the get go.

I love how this thread is based on "some rumors flying around".

There is also a reference to "has been mentioned as an idea".

(Sorry if I dont get the joke)

Shock horror people talking about rumours on news and rumours section

Fyi if it's confirmed it's not rumours by definition.

 Fayric wrote:
I love how this thread is based on "some rumors flying around".

There is also a reference to "has been mentioned as an idea".

(Sorry if I dont get the joke)

Sorry "some rumours flying around on the death guard discord" and "mentioned as an idea of the scope of the changes".

That help? Failing that rumours don't really come to dakka because of the amount of hostility no matter the topic, hence the 2nd hand paraphrasing from other places.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Clearly the answer is to create a 'Power Armor Save' that isn't affected by silly things like AP. Then let T'au players figure out if their railguns go through it or not.

I mean, we already HAVE that, its called a "demonic save"....
And it works vs railguns as its not an invulnerable save.


Which just goes to show the current madness of 40k is so far out its almost impossible to parody

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
My goodness, it took GW 2 or 3 editions to make 3rd unbearable, but only 1 to make 8th unbearable.

At this rate 10th will be unbearable from the get go.

Unfortunately that already describes 8th ed. You could see the AP problem right from the start and how little the designers knew or cared where it would lead. Instead of just refraining from handing out AP like candy, they went all in and then handed out invulnerable saves like candy as well to mitigate some of the lethality. Then the proceeded to make use of the shiny new mortal wounds mechanic and handed those out like candy to mitigate the mitigation.

With 8th ed the entire game was built on a rotten foundation. It'll be a feat if 10th ed is even more screwed up than that.

I don't think AoC ever worked well in making "Marines" better.

It opened some dumb skew-builds around some already undercosted fringe units that had a 2+ save to start with like Sang. Guard or Scarab Terminators, who could blank silly amounts of non-anti-tank firepower without actually giving noticably more play to 90% of Marine units (starting with basic Intercessors, etc..).


If anything, removing AoC will improve Marines, because things like Doctrines, etc.. on your "starter box Marines" will hopefully be more effective again into the very units / builds that abused AoC like Scarab Terminators, etc..

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Or, GW could just lower the AP of all their weapons by 1. I know this would cause all armor to improve but maybe that's what the game needs in order to make things less lethal.

This.

 Geifer wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
My goodness, it took GW 2 or 3 editions to make 3rd unbearable, but only 1 to make 8th unbearable.

At this rate 10th will be unbearable from the get go.

Unfortunately that already describes 8th ed. You could see the AP problem right from the start and how little the designers knew or cared where it would lead. Instead of just refraining from handing out AP like candy, they went all in and then handed out invulnerable saves like candy as well to mitigate some of the lethality. Then the proceeded to make use of the shiny new mortal wounds mechanic and handed those out like candy to mitigate the mitigation.

With 8th ed the entire game was built on a rotten foundation. It'll be a feat if 10th ed is even more screwed up than that.

It's the circle that repeats every edition: current system is too complicated, so you raze and reset it, but then it does not feel 'epic' enough or whatever, so every codex introduces exceptions and special cases, and at the end of the edition you have another system that is too complicated...

They should just pull the trigger and use their newfound love of keywords to introduce sth. like armor classes or save classes in addition to some sort of AP system. Stuff will never not be complex, but complex does not have to mean complicated. Complexity can still be well-structured, complicated systems arise when you pile exceptions and special rules on top of each other without having an unified design philosophy.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

If anything, removing AoC will improve Marines, because things like Doctrines, etc.. on your "starter box Marines" will hopefully be more effective again into the very units / builds that abused AoC like Scarab Terminators, etc..

That makes literally no sense. Removing AoC improves Marines because of the mirror match?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:

If anything, removing AoC will improve Marines, because things like Doctrines, etc.. on your "starter box Marines" will hopefully be more effective again into the very units / builds that abused AoC like Scarab Terminators, etc..

That makes literally no sense. Removing AoC improves Marines because of the mirror match?

It's not a mirror match.

AoC favours niche-skew builds like spamming Sang. Guard or Terminators over armies using the other 99% of datasheets in the book that don't start with a 2+ save and the infantry-keyword for easy light cover.

Removing AoC makes those other 99% relatively more viable again compared to the toxic skew-builds that AoC has produced over the past couple of months, as the "benefit" to Intercessor or vehicle-builds in marines from AoC have been negligble, while their lack of ability to deal with builds like Scarab-Terminator-spam or some such have been much more impactful than the miniscule benefit Marines with a 3+ or worse base save (especially those models not naturally benefiting from light cover) gained from AoC.

Neat. Get rid of Armor of Contempt.

While they're at it, flatten AP. 'High AP' weapons could be -3 at max. Anything that a regular infantry model is holding like bolters and flesh borers and astartes chainswords, AP 0.

Reduce the number of mortal wounds that weapons cause, along with the amount of damage, and then we might be in a better position... but now I'm just describing 8th edition.

As bland as 8th was, it was at least more balanced than what we have now.

drbored wrote:
Neat. Get rid of Armor of Contempt.

While they're at it, flatten AP. 'High AP' weapons could be -3 at max. Anything that a regular infantry model is holding like bolters and flesh borers and astartes chainswords, AP 0.

Reduce the number of mortal wounds that weapons cause, along with the amount of damage, and then we might be in a better position... but now I'm just describing 8th edition.

As bland as 8th was, it was at least more balanced than what we have now.

Don't forget remove phase caps, demon saves, a large chunk of invulns, make ignore invulvns very expensive, and return cover saves to an alternate save rather than a bonus