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

Took a complete break from all things 40k for a while and I'm on the verge of clearing out some hobby stuff but I was actually interested in catching up on the general landscape for both the game and current player base.

What's in, what's out, has 9th improved, stayed the same or gotten worse etc.

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Took a complete break from all things 40k for a while and I'm on the verge of clearing out some hobby stuff but I was actually interested in catching up on the general landscape for both the game and current player base.

What's in, what's out, has 9th improved, stayed the same or gotten worse etc.

The competitive and matched play world has been up-ended in the last few weeks, check the balance dataslate and Arks of Omen threads in news.

More rules bloat, different balance issues that are just as bad as ever, now GW is releasing a new small game format that requires you to buy very specific GW terrain and assemble it into a very specific configuration for each mission. You haven't missed much, just download the latest FAQ and codex FAQ and supplement FAQ and points update and balance dataslate and you can resume playing.

The highlights include:

*Legues of Votann - the nu-squats have arrived. People lost their collective gak & screamed their fool heads off rather than learn how to deal with the army. So GW nerfed them hard before their official release.

*Angron is coming soon along with the WE Codex.

*Flamers of Tzeentch - another unit people couldn't manage to play against. So much wailing & GWs now changed their rules.

*a new FoC for the upcoming season.

*Armor of Contempt is gone with the newest Balance update. All aircraft must now start in reserve.

*The newest Pts update - many units upgrades got cheaper or even free. Especially for SM. People losing their minds howling about how this is bad, blah blah blah....

Other than that nothing much.


*Oh, and something about GW reducing the discount independent stores get. If you're not a store you probably won't ever notice that.

9th has been steadily improving, however, as stated above the new balance slate is out.

Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows as there are some pretty big changes including lots of units getting free upgrades.

ccs wrote:
*Legues of Votann - the nu-squats have arrived. People lost their collective gak & screamed their fool heads off rather than learn how to deal with the army. So GW nerfed them hard before their official release.

And despite getting major nerfs before the ink was dry on the codex they still went straight to being a solid to top-tier competitive army. It's very obvious that the people who were arguing for a nerf were 100% correct and un-nerfed squats would have been a disaster for competitive play. We don't need a repeat of 80% win rate clowns just to eliminate the tiny chance that the nerf wasn't necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows as there are some pretty big changes including lots of units getting free upgrades.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. GW decided to respond to the (100% accurate) hate for PL by throwing their toys out of the crib and turning half the game into PL in all but name, with upgrades costing zero points even when they're the obvious best choice and add significant value to the unit. Marine armies now get hundreds of points in free upgrades, as if 7th never happened and we've never seen why that is a problem.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
with upgrades costing zero points even when they're the obvious best choice and add significant value to the unit. Marine armies now get hundreds of points in free upgrades, as if 7th never happened and we've never seen why that is a problem.

Instead of engaging on this topic I'll reiterate the main thrust my point for OP:

Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows

Lol interesting that aside from some really interesting shiny things 40K isn’t that far removed from when I decided to take a break. I’ll check out the FAQs soon and see where my Necrons stand.

Edit: Felt like adding that part of what lead me to taking a break was the poor feel of the game, strictly from my standpoint. On that front nothing seems to have changed with rules and FAQs to track down everywhere but I’ll still give it as fair a shake I can.

Daedalus81 wrote:9th has been steadily improving

Daedalus81 wrote:Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game

Huh?

Mixzremixzd wrote:Edit: Felt like adding that part of what lead me to taking a break was the poor feel of the game, strictly from my standpoint. On that front nothing seems to have changed with rules and FAQs to track down everywhere but I’ll still give it as fair a shake I can.

I'll wager that if you didn't like it six months ago, you probably won't now. No major course-corrections have occurred with the staple complaints from the last year (rules bloat, power creep, pace of changes). Always worth trying and deciding for yourself though.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
with upgrades costing zero points even when they're the obvious best choice and add significant value to the unit. Marine armies now get hundreds of points in free upgrades, as if 7th never happened and we've never seen why that is a problem.

Instead of engaging on this topic I'll reiterate the main thrust my point for OP:

Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows

It doesn't take a genius with 10,000 games of the new rules to understand that free upgrades are bad for the game. There's a reason the community rejected PL.

 catbarf wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:9th has been steadily improving

Daedalus81 wrote:Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game

Huh?

Oh what a tangled web he weaves...

 catbarf wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:9th has been steadily improving

Daedalus81 wrote:Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game

Huh?

Glad I'm not the only one to do a double-take on reading those two sentences back-to-back.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
with upgrades costing zero points even when they're the obvious best choice and add significant value to the unit. Marine armies now get hundreds of points in free upgrades, as if 7th never happened and we've never seen why that is a problem.

Instead of engaging on this topic I'll reiterate the main thrust my point for OP:

Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows

It doesn't take a genius with 10,000 games of the new rules to understand that free upgrades are bad for the game. There's a reason the community rejected PL.

Oh that clears it up, I forgot you speak for the entire collective community with a hive mind decision there. I was worried for a second someone might have an opinion.

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Took a complete break from all things 40k for a while and I'm on the verge of clearing out some hobby stuff but I was actually interested in catching up on the general landscape for both the game and current player base.

What's in, what's out, has 9th improved, stayed the same or gotten worse etc.

Around Warzone Nephilim I felt that we hit a real sweet spot. GW stil don't know how they should balance a codex upon release witch is really bad for the game. But the 6th month updates are really good.

Warzone Ark of Omen looks to be good, although tyranids arguably hit beefed to hard. I also do jot like how they made Space Marines better as this is horrible on model collectors. Most armies look to be in a good. Place. Except death guard who are weak and imperial guards who are strong.

June 2022 - The Balance Dataslate nerfed Harlequins (not enough), Tyranids (not enough), Craftworlds.

July 2022 - The Chaos Space Marines codex came out, they kept the April 2022 Armour of Contempt rule because they needed it. It was noticed that the CSM Legions did not get the extra cherry on top rule that the SM Chapters did (the super doctrine) and some theorised this heralded a new more balanced era for GW rules writing.

August 2022 - The Daemons codex came out, a single datasheet was way too good. It was noticed that Daemons only got access to a single warlord trait and some continued to theorise this was part of the heralded more balanced era of GW rules writing.

September 2022 - An abomination similar to the birth screams of Slaanesh was born. The Votann codex was previewed/leaked. Turns out GW rules writers are hacks and they were just phoning in the CSM and CD codexes as usual.

End of September 2022 - Votann were pre-nerfed leading some to believe there was a single competent person inside GW HQ. This lone hero apparently sits on a golden throne and holds back the endless screaming bad ideas of the other rules writers..

October 2022 - The Balance Dataslate nerfed Harlequins (not enough), Tyranids (not enough), buffed Space Marines (way way not enough).

November 2022 - The Imperial Guard codex came out and did away with <REGIMENTS> like Cadian, Valhallan, Mordian and some (with short memories) theorised this heralded a new more balanced era for GW rules writing.

December 2022 - Xmas break!

January 2023 - The Balance Dataslate/MFM nerfed Harlequins (hopefully enough), Tyranids (hopefully enough), Votann (despite this second round of nerfs some on dakka claim the previous nerfing was premature), Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Grey Knights, Chaos Space Marines, Sisters and buffed Space Marines (probably enough), AdMech, Custodes

Daemons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Orks, Tau, GSC were all tinkered with.

Chaos Knights, Imperial Knights and Imperial Guard were untouched.

Dudeface wrote:
Oh that clears it up, I forgot you speak for the entire collective community with a hive mind decision there. I was worried for a second someone might have an opinion.

Have you ever seen PL used IRL? I certainly haven't. I've seen a lot of people talk about it online as a way of saying "I'm not one of those filthy competitive TFGs" but when it comes to real games everyone is using the standard point system that has been the standard for every edition of 40k and is the standard for every major miniatures game in the market. And why wouldn't they? It's very obviously the better option and PL only exists because some CAAC writers at GW were desperate to make the AoS launch look like less of a game-ending debacle.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Oh that clears it up, I forgot you speak for the entire collective community with a hive mind decision there. I was worried for a second someone might have an opinion.

Have you ever seen PL used IRL? I certainly haven't. I've seen a lot of people talk about it online as a way of saying "I'm not one of those filthy competitive TFGs" but when it comes to real games everyone is using the standard point system that has been the standard for every edition of 40k and is the standard for every major miniatures game in the market. And why wouldn't they? It's very obviously the better option and PL only exists because some CAAC writers at GW were desperate to make the AoS launch look like less of a game-ending debacle.

I have, I've partaken in a crusade campaign before. I've known and seen it used in others games as well, generally in the context of crusade again but not exclusively. It's also seen it used by some people to trial out armies they're not familiar with at combat patrol level to get used to faction rules etc without having to worry about settling on specific upgrades etc.

For a matched play game I use points unless requested, for crusade I used PL unless requested.

 Dysartes wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:9th has been steadily improving

Daedalus81 wrote:Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game

Huh?

Glad I'm not the only one to do a double-take on reading those two sentences back-to-back.

Because people decided to editorialize my comment without full context. This forum, I swear.

If you go back up and read it you'll see the word however.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aecus Decimus wrote:


It doesn't take a genius with 10,000 games of the new rules to understand that free upgrades are bad for the game. There's a reason the community rejected PL.

Perhaps.

Then again IS got free upgrades and auto wounds and it never moved the needle. ( though I admit plasma inceptors might be nuts and is the worst offender ).

I should also note that I'm NOT saying that th ese changes won't move the needle. They will. I just don't know how much or in what way.

It could be reset o'clock for 40K. Either way it will be an interesting experiment.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows

You don't need to know the "state of the game" to know that giving out hundreds of points of wargear for free is a bad idea.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Perhaps.

Then again IS got free upgrades and auto wounds and it never moved the needle. ( though I admit plasma inceptors might be nuts and is the worst offender ).

I should also note that I'm NOT saying that th ese changes won't move the needle. They will. I just don't know how much or in what way.

It could be reset o'clock for 40K. Either way it will be an interesting experiment.

There are two separate issues here: internal balance and external balance. Infantry squads getting free upgrades didn't let guard dominate the meta (external balance) but it was an absolute disaster for build diversity (internal balance). It instantly deleted almost every option from the unit and made plasma/lascannon/vox/power sword/plasma pistol the only valid build. The only reason any other option ever saw the table was that some people were skeptical that GW would be dumb enough to keep the emergency balance patch in the new codex and didn't want to build models that would be invalidated in a few months, but now that GW has made it permanent even that excuse is gone.

So the absolute best case here is that turning the game into PL in all but name succeeds in the goal of improving win rates for marines at the expense of the complete destruction of internal balance. And making a perfect 50% win rate with an army that has near-zero build diversity and succeeds purely because of a handful of units that maximize the benefit of free upgrades is not an outcome we should be happy with.

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Took a complete break from all things 40k for a while and I'm on the verge of clearing out some hobby stuff but I was actually interested in catching up on the general landscape for both the game and current player base.

What's in, what's out, has 9th improved, stayed the same or gotten worse etc.

Oh...and Yarrick is dead...

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Perhaps.

Then again IS got free upgrades and auto wounds and it never moved the needle. ( though I admit plasma inceptors might be nuts and is the worst offender ).

I should also note that I'm NOT saying that th ese changes won't move the needle. They will. I just don't know how much or in what way.

It could be reset o'clock for 40K. Either way it will be an interesting experiment.

There are two separate issues here: internal balance and external balance. Infantry squads getting free upgrades didn't let guard dominate the meta (external balance) but it was an absolute disaster for build diversity (internal balance). It instantly deleted almost every option from the unit and made plasma/lascannon/vox/power sword/plasma pistol the only valid build. The only reason any other option ever saw the table was that some people were skeptical that GW would be dumb enough to keep the emergency balance patch in the new codex and didn't want to build models that would be invalidated in a few months, but now that GW has made it permanent even that excuse is gone.

So the absolute best case here is that turning the game into PL in all but name succeeds in the goal of improving win rates for marines at the expense of the complete destruction of internal balance. And making a perfect 50% win rate with an army that has near-zero build diversity and succeeds purely because of a handful of units that maximize the benefit of free upgrades is not an outcome we should be happy with.

First paragraph is interesting. I'll ponder that more.

Second one - I don't think we'll necessarily see a foreshortening of choice, but it's going to take a couple months for people to adjust.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Oh that clears it up, I forgot you speak for the entire collective community with a hive mind decision there. I was worried for a second someone might have an opinion.

Have you ever seen PL used IRL? I certainly haven't. I've seen a lot of people talk about it online as a way of saying "I'm not one of those filthy competitive TFGs" but when it comes to real games everyone is using the standard point system that has been the standard for every edition of 40k and is the standard for every major miniatures game in the market. And why wouldn't they? It's very obviously the better option and PL only exists because some CAAC writers at GW were desperate to make the AoS launch look like less of a game-ending debacle.

Ys. Plenty.

Here's newsflash. You aren't the worid. Open your eyes, take a look around and you might grow up.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Second one - I don't think we'll necessarily see a foreshortening of choice, but it's going to take a couple months for people to adjust.

We definitely will see a loss of choice. Take sternguard for example. Previously it was a highly customizable squad that involved a delicate balance where it could take powerful upgrades on every model but the point cost of doing so would mean putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Now those questions are gone. You don't have to ask yourself if buying another combi-plasma is worth it or not, every model has a combi-plasma by default and the special issue boltguns are no longer an option. Taking 2x multimelta is no longer an expensive but powerful choice, it's a default part of the unit. The only choice the unit still has now is whether you buy extra models (all with combi-plasma) for the unit or keep it MSU.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Ys. Plenty.

Here's newsflash. You aren't the worid. Open your eyes, take a look around and you might grow up.

Sorry, how could I forget how useful PL is for giving an excuse to making condescending insults on internet forums. Clearly I'm immature and blind because I don't see PL games, it can't be that PL is a bad system with very little general appeal.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

ccs wrote:
*Legues of Votann - the nu-squats have arrived. People lost their collective gak & screamed their fool heads off rather than learn how to deal with the army. So GW nerfed them hard before their official release.

And despite getting major nerfs before the ink was dry on the codex they still went straight to being a solid to top-tier competitive army. It's very obvious that the people who were arguing for a nerf were 100% correct and un-nerfed squats would have been a disaster for competitive play. We don't need a repeat of 80% win rate clowns just to eliminate the tiny chance that the nerf wasn't necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Don't believe anyone who claims to know the state of the game, because absolutely no one knows as there are some pretty big changes including lots of units getting free upgrades.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. GW decided to respond to the (100% accurate) hate for PL by throwing their toys out of the crib and turning half the game into PL in all but name, with upgrades costing zero points even when they're the obvious best choice and add significant value to the unit. Marine armies now get hundreds of points in free upgrades, as if 7th never happened and we've never seen why that is a problem.

Do you really think they would act with such malice? GW cares about one thing and it aint getting one over on customers who dislike the rules.

Dudeface wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Oh that clears it up, I forgot you speak for the entire collective community with a hive mind decision there. I was worried for a second someone might have an opinion.

Have you ever seen PL used IRL? I certainly haven't. I've seen a lot of people talk about it online as a way of saying "I'm not one of those filthy competitive TFGs" but when it comes to real games everyone is using the standard point system that has been the standard for every edition of 40k and is the standard for every major miniatures game in the market. And why wouldn't they? It's very obviously the better option and PL only exists because some CAAC writers at GW were desperate to make the AoS launch look like less of a game-ending debacle.

I have, I've partaken in a crusade campaign before. I've known and seen it used in others games as well, generally in the context of crusade again but not exclusively. It's also seen it used by some people to trial out armies they're not familiar with at combat patrol level to get used to faction rules etc without having to worry about settling on specific upgrades etc.

For a matched play game I use points unless requested, for crusade I used PL unless requested.

I pretty much exclusively play Crusade and PL.

In Crusade, the various upgrades throw precise balance out the window and it doesn't really matter much. It's just easier to swap a 5PL unit for a 3PL and 2PL or whatever when making the armies than to try to find exactly 96 points.

I've played in Crusades using points, and they just made things more complicated while not contributing to gameplay or balance in any significant way.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Have you ever seen PL used IRL? I certainly haven't.

My local club runs PL-based escalation leagues once or twice a year. There was also a similar series of events run after lockdown lifted, and everyone needed to catchup on the new 9E rules & changes they hadn't used before. PL-based lists helped to keep things simple for the first few weeks.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Second one - I don't think we'll necessarily see a foreshortening of choice, but it's going to take a couple months for people to adjust.

We definitely will see a loss of choice. Take sternguard for example. Previously it was a highly customizable squad that involved a delicate balance where it could take powerful upgrades on every model but the point cost of doing so would mean putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Now those questions are gone. You don't have to ask yourself if buying another combi-plasma is worth it or not, every model has a combi-plasma by default and the special issue boltguns are no longer an option. Taking 2x multimelta is no longer an expensive but powerful choice, it's a default part of the unit. The only choice the unit still has now is whether you buy extra models (all with combi-plasma) for the unit or keep it MSU.

There are a few units where the base loadout dies ( Sternguard, Inceptors, and probably one or two others ) and I think that's a poor choice on GW's part, but I get why they did so as there's not a great reason to take Sternguard over Tacticals just for SIBs.

The odds of a new marines codex in June does seem pretty high.

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Took a complete break from all things 40k for a while and I'm on the verge of clearing out some hobby stuff but I was actually interested in catching up on the general landscape for both the game and current player base.

What's in, what's out, has 9th improved, stayed the same or gotten worse etc.

You missed the start of end times 40k 9th edition. Luckily it's still happening.. free gak no limits and battle bros returns! Haven't seen that mentioned.