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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
They have released all the rules for free, what more do you want them to do?

Write good rules.

If they released a free PDF which just said "The players take turns swinging a dreadsock at the opponents groin until one quits. The player who didn't quit is the winner and gets to stamp on their opponents model collection whereas the loser has to walk barefoot over their own scattered leftover bits." would you praise that because it was free?

Quality still matters, even if it is free.

Sounds like a more balanced game than 10th

 stonehorse wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Prometheum5 wrote:
You're only 'playing down' if the only reason you showed up is to run a mathematically optimized list to stomp your opponent into the dirt. There are more ways to play wargames than pure 1:1 competitive formats.

And every single one is helped by having good balance as the starting point. It's much easier to get something approaching a good asymmetric scenario first time if the game is more balanced.

More importantly, the vast, vast majority of games are some kind of roughly equal points battle, whether that's cutthroat tournament games, club pickup games, garagehammer or Crusade. They all benefit massively from good balance. Being from a large university city a lot of my opponents are students. They tend to have older armies that need refreshing for a new edition or they pick up start collections and build from there. I've seen with my own eyes what happens when people start to play the game and one picks the overpowered faction while the other picks the underpowered one, with absolutely no knowledge of which one is which at the time. You can see the frustration from the person playing the underpowered faction as they struggle to get anywhere near a win. That's especially true when they build what should be a fairly normal force of, say, Fire Warriors, a Crisis Team, some Kroot and a couple of Devilfish. I've seen this happen on numerous occasions.

These are players who have no intention of playing competitive 40k at tournaments. They don't follow the meta and study statistics about which armies or units are good or bad. They just want an entertaining game of toy soldiers with forces representative of the fluff for their faction. Bad balance is more of a problem for casual players, not less.

That is putting the cart in front of the horse. The game (like any game) is played to have fun. If one can only obtain fun from winning, then they need to reevaluate a few things. Sure winning is nice and makes for a good feeling, but essentially this is a game of make belief, the points are completely made up, and more a rough approximation of a units ability.

The point is to have fun, yes. None of us are TFG tournament players, but there comes a point where having literally no chance of winning because you bought the "wrong" units just stops being fun, and that point usually arrives very quickly. Having fun when losing usually involves at least having a chance to win.

 stonehorse wrote:

The game designers have no idea what players are going to do with the game once it is out in the wild, terrain and force building are not always going to match what GW designers use, and it never can as there is simply to much to factor in. Even the playing a game with the same players, same forces, same terrain, and same missions will be completely different.

Other games manage to get much closer to achieving balance despite the vagaries of freeform terrain and model collections. Part of the problem is GW have gradually abdicated responsibility for list design by removing restrictions, first in the force org, then in what options you can take. Part of good game design is putting in place meaningful restrictions to control the sort of variables you're talking about, at least to some extent. It's also just a variation of the "perfect is the enemy of good" problem. We're not asking for perfect balance, just some kind of genuine attempt at it. 10th is not that.

 stonehorse wrote:

If a player finds that they are getting creamed so hard on a regular basis, to the point of not enjoying the game, it might be an idea to have a word with their gaming group, ask to try out a custom scenario or Crusade (as that seems to be more about those sort of games).

And what if the gaming group are mostly new players who don't have big collections and don't have the experience with the game to even know what's going wrong? It's not unreasonable to expect a game to be pretty well balanced as a starting point. Experiencing GW's typical wild imbalance as a new player can leave you with no idea how to change things. The answer my be "you can't" because the balance is so bad between certain armies you just can't win unless you start playing with point handicaps or trying to play asymmetric scenarios. Neither of those situations are ones new players are equipped to deal with, IME. It's also just making excuses for terrible balance again. The game is clearly being sold, at least in part, as a balanced game where equally pointed armies will be roughly similar. We now have a situation where two players can take the same unit and have one be vastly superior to the other while costing the same. There's no way that can be balanced and there's no way that can be defended.

I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

The logic is “if all options are balanced, we don’t need to deal with upgrade costs”

The execution (or failure thereof) is the issue.

 Nevelon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

The logic is “if all options are balanced, we don’t need to deal with upgrade costs”

The execution (or failure thereof) is the issue.

If 40k had 3 factions I think they might have managed it, for the volume of sheer stuff, they stood no chance.

Dudeface wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

The logic is “if all options are balanced, we don’t need to deal with upgrade costs”

The execution (or failure thereof) is the issue.

If 40k had 3 factions I think they might have managed it, for the volume of sheer stuff, they stood no chance.

it would be nice if they at least tried though, and its their system, they brought in all the factions so its hardly a pass to say "its too complicated so we didn't bother"

There is an element of you can never win, no matter what you do. This is not defending GW, they surely can improve a lot, but there also needs to be an element of understanding that there are a lot of units so balancing them all is a tough job.

Either unit get banned from tournaments/competitive play to aid balance - and people moan - or they are allowed, taking into account it's a fools errand for it all to be balanced - and people moan.

 Nevelon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

The logic is “if all options are balanced, we don’t need to deal with upgrade costs”

The execution (or failure thereof) is the issue.

That logic falls apart at the most basic of logical steps though.

The argument is thus:
1) All options are free
2) All options are balanced
3) Therefore, taking any option is balanced with any other option

It's a valid argument. If 1 and 2 are true then 3 is also true. But it is only a sound argument if it is valid and all of the premises (1 and 2) are true and the conclusion (3) is true.

Premise 1 is true. All upgrades are free.
Premise 2 is not true. Not all options are balanced. This is plainly visible even in very simple units such as the many times mentioned commissar with bolt pistol and chainsword vs plasma pistol and power weapon.
Therefore the conclusion is also not true.

The argument by GW is unsound, and it is laughably easy to demonstrate it.

Either GW is so incompetent at their jobs that they are unable to tell that premise 2 is false, or they are lazy and/or don't care that premise 2 is false. Either way, the system they built from that premise is terrible and is fundamentally unfixable without reverting back to the very foundation they just tried to discard.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think that any game designer whose thought process doesn't naturally flow from "We make all upgrades for units free" to "If all upgrades are free, many players will take as many upgrades as they can" should be fired as I'm not sure they are actually capable of logical thought.

The logic is “if all options are balanced, we don’t need to deal with upgrade costs”

The execution (or failure thereof) is the issue.

That logic falls apart at the most basic of logical steps though.

The argument is thus:
1) All options are free
2) All options are balanced
3) Therefore, taking any option is balanced with any other option

It's a valid argument. If 1 and 2 are true then 3 is also true. But it is only a sound argument if it is valid and all of the premises (1 and 2) are true and the conclusion (3) is true.

Premise 1 is true. All upgrades are free.
Premise 2 is not true. Not all options are balanced. This is plainly visible even in very simple units such as the many times mentioned commissar with bolt pistol and chainsword vs plasma pistol and power weapon.
Therefore the conclusion is also not true.

The argument by GW is unsound, and it is laughably easy to demonstrate it.

Either GW is so incompetent at their jobs that they are unable to tell that premise 2 is false, or they are lazy and/or don't care that premise 2 is false. Either way, the system they built from that premise is terrible and is fundamentally unfixable without reverting back to the very foundation they just tried to discard.

Or option 3: they don't have required time/manpower. I know the forum likes to pretend they're either incompetent or negligent wastes of space, but they do have jobs with constraints that can be a factor.

No, it’s the execution, not the idea.

You take BS/CS if you are hunting soft hordes, PP/PS is going after harder targets. If you were able to balance things, both choices should be valid.

Or leave the sponsons off the Russ for +2 movement (or something like that)

They set their mind on part 1.
Did their best on part 2
And said “close enough for 95%” and pushed it out the door.

I don’t think they got it right. It’s got a lot of rough edges and failures. But I don’t think the principle is inherently bad. It is different from what 40k classically has used

I like PL. This is PL. but done poorly. At some point you either need to have different datasheets for the same unit (naked russ, sponson russ. Unit with basic/ priemium gear) or just admit that sometimes, some options need to come with a surcharge.

the Stompa is still 800 points

lol

lmao

 Oguhmek wrote:
the Stompa is still 800 points

lol

lmao

Oh boy...

I still cannot believe the sad Tankbustas state of affair.

And why did they let tankbusta bombs out and included
others stratagem? Pretty basic for me.

mortar_crew wrote:

 Oguhmek wrote:
the Stompa is still 800 points

lol

lmao

On boy...

I still cannot believe the sad Tankbustas state of affair.

And why did they let tankbusta bombs out and included
others stratagem? Pretty basic for me.

Yeah, I'm hoping for a new Tankbusta kit and updated datacard with the codex. This one is ridiculous.

 Nevelon wrote:
No, it’s the execution, not the idea.

You take BS/CS if you are hunting soft hordes, PP/PS is going after harder targets. If you were able to balance things, both choices should be valid.

Or leave the sponsons off the Russ for +2 movement (or something like that)

They set their mind on part 1.
Did their best on part 2
And said “close enough for 95%” and pushed it out the door.

I don’t think they got it right. It’s got a lot of rough edges and failures. But I don’t think the principle is inherently bad. It is different from what 40k classically has used

I like PL. This is PL. but done poorly. At some point you either need to have different datasheets for the same unit (naked russ, sponson russ. Unit with basic/ priemium gear) or just admit that sometimes, some options need to come with a surcharge.

Yea if every permutation was a legitimate sidegrade that'd be fine. That would actually let casuals run whatever they wanted and always having a decent game rather than having to go full See No Evil, Hear No Evil

 kodos wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Yes points where always badly handled, making weapon options different in how they operate with the points baked into the unit is a much better way to do it.

It also means the game is more about fun and not micro adjustments to squeeze out the most optimal peak performance from every single point... you know, the tournament mindset that has been making the game a bit dull.

This is a return to fun, and for people to be able to build their models how they like without having to worry about whether that configuration would mean the unit/model puts their force over the points limit.

 stonehorse wrote:

But 40k is a serious game, played by serious people, who are too serious for petty concepts such as 'fun', why have fun when we can math hammer the system into oblivion!

You must have missed the memo.

 stonehorse wrote:

I'm not the one saying the rules are bad, so your point would only work if I said the rules are bad, as I haven't said that, your point doesn't work.

No, you said that casual players need bad rules to have fun because good rules are only for competitive mathhammer players and make having fun impossible while 10th puts back the fun into the game because of its imbalance and inconstancy

I call 10th in its current form bad, simply for the inconsistency in design that we have as a reset should be done to get everything on the same level again and not to just make previous rules invalid (for everything the Indices do a simple Errata for the previous Codex would have done the same)
an casual players don't benefit at all from it while competitive players just don't care (because they just play the strongest build anyway)

and having upgrades not costing points but being including is making mathhammer much more important so you are not playing against a force that is worth double the points
not like we had this thing with free upgrades already in 7th and I remember how the casual players all say that free-upgrade 7th was the most fun version of the game

No where it what you quote do I say 'Casual Gamers Need Bad Rules', in fact.

The only thing I can honestly think you are getting mixed up with meaning? Do you think unbalanced games are not capable of being Fun and Good, do you think the mark of a good game is balance?

If so, I think 40k may jot be for you, have you thought about playing Chess or Go?

 Nevelon wrote:
No, it’s the execution, not the idea.

You take BS/CS if you are hunting soft hordes, PP/PS is going after harder targets. If you were able to balance things, both choices should be valid.

Okay, let's assume this is at all workable.

They were already struggling with this for a unit with one model and 2 weapons which could each be swapped for a single other weapon as they failed to actually make them differentiated enough to have a real niche. Now do it for something with some real flexibility.
Now do Crisis Suits. There are 35 possible unique weapon combinations you can take on a single crisis suit using only the weapons in the crisis suit kit. What should the points cost of a squad of 3 Crisis suits be, without referencing the equipment they are using? This is a squad that can take any combination of the anti-vehicle, anti-infantry, anti-whatever weapons they have access to in different combinations of each, from a single gun up to 3 guns, on a per model basis. How do you assign a points cost to that unit without having the slightest clue what it could be capable of via its loadout?

The idea is bad, and so is the execution.

The idea is bad because it cannot scale with complexity. It only possibly works with the most bland A or B choices and as soon as anything breaks from that by adding an option C or a D, it rapidly falls apart. It is executed badly because it fails even in the scenario where there is a single A or B choice.

Dudeface wrote:
Or option 3: they don't have required time/manpower. I know the forum likes to pretend they're either incompetent or negligent wastes of space, but they do have jobs with constraints that can be a factor.

"Small family models company, please understand." That's the excuse Creative Assembly has been trying to pull with the Total War series for years.

They're a multi-billion dollar company. When it comes to the miniature gaming market, GW are not the biggest fist in the pond. They are the pond. You cannot play the manpower excuse when they have a rules department whose job it is to do one thing: Write rules.

They don't have the time or manpower

well they are a company, maybe they should realise that doing this sort of thing is a core part of what they do as a company

and given they have several games on the go, actually having a few people with the required skills makes sense


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Or option 3: they don't have required time/manpower. I know the forum likes to pretend they're either incompetent or negligent wastes of space, but they do have jobs with constraints that can be a factor.

"Small family models company, please understand." That's the excuse Creative Assembly has been trying to pull with the Total War series for years.

They're a multi-billion dollar company. When it comes to the miniature gaming market, GW are not the biggest fist in the pond. They are the pond. You cannot play the manpower excuse when they have a rules department whose job it is to do one thing: Write rules.

^^ this

though GW are the market leader in "nice models, shame about the rules" and making it work anyway

if they lost sales through crap rules it would change, while the factory is running at capacity where is the incentive to change?

Dudeface wrote:


Or option 3: they don't have required time/manpower. I know the forum likes to pretend they're either incompetent or negligent wastes of space, but they do have jobs with constraints that can be a factor.

That falls under incompetence. If you don't have the manpower to do a complete overhaul of how your game system works in a big reset, then don't do that and instead iterate on the existing system to fix issues as best you can until you do have the time and manpower to do a big overhaul. Notice I said GW, not just the designers. If the designers are being forced by managers to try and do something they do not have the time or manpower to do, that is incompetence by GW.

Crusade rules: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/19/continue-your-crusade-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

And by 'rules' i mean 'one one-page pdf that basically says you can either use your old unit with new points or you can leave it'. No idea why they needed an extra article for that.

Tsagualsa wrote:
Crusade rules: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/19/continue-your-crusade-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

And by 'rules' i mean 'one one-page pdf that basically says you can either use your old unit with new points or you can leave it'. No idea why they needed an extra article for that.

And which also basically says "We broke a lot of the existing stuff, buy the new rules to fix it."

Absolutely laughable.

Are you really surprised?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Are you really surprised?

Nah, it's more like a situation where your junkie son has stolen money for the n-th time. Not surprised, but dissappointed nonetheless.

It feels like a common sense list of things to do if you have an ongoing campaign that crosses a version with new rules. There wasn’t anything in there that I thought needed to be clarified, but some people might need/want an official guide.

In 9th I had to re-jigger my crusade roster when my codex came out with harder questions to deal with then this PDF issues. Managed fine without a guide.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
No, it’s the execution, not the idea.

You take BS/CS if you are hunting soft hordes, PP/PS is going after harder targets. If you were able to balance things, both choices should be valid.

Okay, let's assume this is at all workable.

They were already struggling with this for a unit with one model and 2 weapons which could each be swapped for a single other weapon as they failed to actually make them differentiated enough to have a real niche. Now do it for something with some real flexibility.
Now do Crisis Suits. There are 35 possible unique weapon combinations you can take on a single crisis suit using only the weapons in the crisis suit kit. What should the points cost of a squad of 3 Crisis suits be, without referencing the equipment they are using? This is a squad that can take any combination of the anti-vehicle, anti-infantry, anti-whatever weapons they have access to in different combinations of each, from a single gun up to 3 guns, on a per model basis. How do you assign a points cost to that unit without having the slightest clue what it could be capable of via its loadout?

The idea is bad, and so is the execution.

The idea is bad because it cannot scale with complexity. It only possibly works with the most bland A or B choices and as soon as anything breaks from that by adding an option C or a D, it rapidly falls apart. It is executed badly because it fails even in the scenario where there is a single A or B choice.

I wish I could exalt this more, it's a fantastic example of how bad things have gone.

 Nevelon wrote:
It feels like a common sense list of things to do if you have an ongoing campaign that crosses a version with new rules. There wasn’t anything in there that I thought needed to be clarified, but some people might need/want an official guide.

In 9th I had to re-jigger my crusade roster when my codex came out with harder questions to deal with then this PDF issues. Managed fine without a guide.

It remains to be seen if Valrak is correct and we get more/actual Crusade stuff on the 23rd. So far his list of pdf releases was accurate with one exception (he said a GT pack was coming, which we have not seen so far) so maybe there's still a small measure of hope*

*

Tsagualsa wrote:
Crusade rules: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/19/continue-your-crusade-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

And by 'rules' i mean 'one one-page pdf that basically says you can either use your old unit with new points or you can leave it'. No idea why they needed an extra article for that.

These aren't the crusade rules.
These are get-you-by rules if you have an ongoing Crusade from last edition, but want to switch editions.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It feels like a common sense list of things to do if you have an ongoing campaign that crosses a version with new rules. There wasn’t anything in there that I thought needed to be clarified, but some people might need/want an official guide.

In 9th I had to re-jigger my crusade roster when my codex came out with harder questions to deal with then this PDF issues. Managed fine without a guide.

It remains to be seen if Valrak is correct and we get more/actual Crusade stuff on the 23rd. So far his list of pdf releases was accurate with one exception (he said a GT pack was coming, which we have not seen so far) so maybe there's still a small measure of hope*

*

Spoiler:

The Surgeon General advises that hope is the first step to dissappointment. Use hope responsibly, and at your own risk. If you, or someone you know wishes to stop hoping, visit DakkaDakka at least 3-4 times a day

As an aside, thanks for putting in all the work keeping this thread updated, with a nicely organized front page. It made a journey to 10th a lot easier to track. Lot of work, but it is appreciated!

Almost to the end where you can rest, put your feet up, and crack open a beverage of choice to celebrate a job well done.

Added to the OP:

Edit 06/19/2023

Another video, this time with rumours for a bunch of stuff: https://youtu.be/pou10BZl6tU
- Jump Assault Marines are coming with the launch of the SM codex
- Jump Assault Intercessors, to be specific
- Jump Assault Captain
- Terminator Chaplain (most repeated rumour ever )
- Terminator Ancient
- Brand new Biovore for Tyranids
- New Genestealers
- Killteam/Spacehulk ambiguous mumblings
- Horus Heresy: Legion Imperialis based on Epic, but not 'officially Epic'
- Release date: at the end of summer, around same time as SM/Tyranid Stuff (doubtful)
- Warhammer: TOW
- Advises huge amount of salt: TOW launch box set is the last release of this year
- Early next year books and stuff for the non-starter ranges

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It feels like a common sense list of things to do if you have an ongoing campaign that crosses a version with new rules. There wasn’t anything in there that I thought needed to be clarified, but some people might need/want an official guide.

In 9th I had to re-jigger my crusade roster when my codex came out with harder questions to deal with then this PDF issues. Managed fine without a guide.

It remains to be seen if Valrak is correct and we get more/actual Crusade stuff on the 23rd. So far his list of pdf releases was accurate with one exception (he said a GT pack was coming, which we have not seen so far) so maybe there's still a small measure of hope*

*

Spoiler:

The Surgeon General advises that hope is the first step to dissappointment. Use hope responsibly, and at your own risk. If you, or someone you know wishes to stop hoping, visit DakkaDakka at least 3-4 times a day

As an aside, thanks for putting in all the work keeping this thread updated, with a nicely organized front page. It made a journey to 10th a lot easier to track. Lot of work, but it is appreciated!

Almost to the end where you can rest, put your feet up, and crack open a beverage of choice to celebrate a job well done.

Thanks, i appreciate that people appreciate it

And yes, i count down the days until i can set this thread's course into the nearest sun and bail out in a saviour pod, but that is not yet quite at hand - i will probably let this one roll on until the release of the starter sets and the last datacard pdfs (i.e. Imperial Armour), do a post-op debriefing on this rumour season, including a final assessment of Valrak's accuracy, and then roll over the relevant stuff into a new thread for 10th releases. I'm in for this in the long run

Tsagualsa wrote:
Crusade rules: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/06/19/continue-your-crusade-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

And by 'rules' i mean 'one one-page pdf that basically says you can either use your old unit with new points or you can leave it'. No idea why they needed an extra article for that.

The Crusade rules are its own book which is also contained within Leviathan Core Rulebook.

So if you buy Leviathan you get the Crusade rules. If you just buy the regular rulebook you need to buy the Tyrannic War Crusade book.