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Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

The fact that Tyranids have variety at all suggests that there's more going on than simply creation of perfection. Otherwise all they'd do is create endless swarms of Hive Tyrants.


On the one hand you can easily say that better things for the Tyranids to create, require more raw resources to go into them and even specific kinds of biomass that might be rarer/less plentiful. So yes they can make some terrifying things, but they require more resources for them to produce. So they make fewer and rely on mass bodies of weaker things that they can quickly pump out.

Another is that whilst Tyranids have insanely fast evolution and genetic control; they also display elements of imperfection. Eg they have genetic drift and make heavy use of this. Breeding vast swarms and selecting those that work the best in a given environment/situation and then breeding more of those. That can only happen if there's some element of genetic drift/continual genetic alteration. Ergo they aren't able/capable/choosing to create perfect clones of themselves.

When you then look at their structure they share visual traits and a hive organisation structure which suggest that there's more at play than simple genetics. Eg they can create hormagaunts that have synapse nodes (codex 3) however they typically choose not too. Indeed there's a hive structure and order to them which suggests that such things might be engrained into them at a very fundamental level. Perhaps from a vast point in the past when they were settled on one world and originally arose as what they are. An element of themselves that they can't escape.

This might bleed into other things and might even explain why they breed fewer higher tier creatures and also why higher tier weapons are even a thing. Esp if we consider that weapons themsleves are partly/fully alive and thus might also have to obey the same rules as the host.



Interestingly another thing to consider is how many Tyranids hold their weapons whilst how many are clearly birthed with the weapon melded to their form.

A Blog in Miniature

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Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Somewhere in Canada

 Overread wrote:

Right now with equal pointing you've no reason not to give units their statistically best options each and every single time.


 Lord Damocles wrote:

Converting some beastmen Fellgore Ravagers™ recently, I pondered for two seconds whether I should include a plasma pistol, heavy close combat weapon, and magic staff. Then I realised that any build other than including all of them was just objectively worse and there was no reason not to load up the expendable chaff unit with upgrades.


Like you guys, I believe GW should have maintained a costed-equipment system for matched play; it brought another dimension to the game, and it's a system that has been there every edition, and all of us were used to it.

Having said that though, in 9th when I was given a choice between PL and points, I always chose PL, because my equipment choices were always driven by the narrative anyway. Cut off my supply lines by taking a critical objective? Gues my heavy weapons are taking ammo checks next game, or I leave them at home.

Want a magic staff for for a beast shaman? Well, pyschic power flows from the Herdstone, so I better get out there and capture one.

I know not everyone likes to play this way, and that some of those who do can't find opponents who will entertain the idea. But for those who can and do play this way, uncosted equipment makes more sense, because you can always take it when you meet the story conditions, whether you have the points to afford it or not.

   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

The thing is all those narrative elements you can do with a pointed system. You just modify your equipment pool or adapt the points and away you go. It also means you've got some sense of balance in the game if, for example, one side ends up with a narrative army that's 500points more than the opponent then you know that there's a fairly big divide in the armies.

Maybe that's part of the story an the under-dog is in a last-stand or has to escape the board; maybe you give one player 500 points more units with the same limits (cut down supplies but ample troops) etc....

You can predict and adapt with it.


Without that granular system (even if its not perfect) you kind of lose all sense of relativity. Especially when some armies can really load up units to be very powerful whilst others might be far more barebones.

A Blog in Miniature

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Made in us
Sneaky Lictor




I've been dwelling on this topic since 10th came out and I just feel like the game is so restrictive at this point that it is no longer fun. Points cost for war gear gave the choice of boys over toys vs toys over boys. I used to spend a good deal of time making list that I was probably never going to play because it was fun. Now it is hard for me to even want to make a list to play a game let alone to theorize on new tactics.

I hated when they made it so characters were just auras and was happy to see them return to being attached to units, then like a monkey paw they made it so they could only join very specific units making it feel awful. Now when I build list I find myself forcing myself to take units in order to take the characters I want just so they don't die immediately.

Every unit having special abilities is just so annoying. Every single thing that GW does is like one step forward two steps back. Great concept to make units have abilities to give them a unique advantage but then restricting them to mostly having a SINGLE special ability. I will never not be annoyed that my Haruspex can't regain wounds from eating enemies, instead it gets a worthless battleshock ability.

A detachments holding all of the rules for your army really irks me to no end. Some detachments are okay but then some, like the Assimilation Swarm, are SO niche that it feels beyond mono-build. Also I want to get on my soap box about an enhancement called Regenerative Monstrosity that can not be taken by monsters, screw you GW.

The game feels stripped down and sanitized to the point that I feel like I am a bystander rather than a participant.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





I think when it comes to narrative gaming GW has spent the last decade mashing it all together.
So rather than have a solid base game, that they can build different campaigns, missions, and narrative off.
They have a big pot of variety ideas that never mesh so well.

I have play campaigns where I failed to protect a supply line, so my fleets/army were struggling.
No need to make it reflected in the game, since it was automatically part of the game narrative.
Ally’s, weddings, treaties, all reflected by the ongoing campaigns. And the narrative from there.

Mordheim I don’t go into any campaigns saying here’s the narrative, I let the gameplay make those choices. My narrative a response to what happens.

Why this is no the only way to do narrative gaming, and shouldn’t be.
GW hasn’t built much foundation for it.

And I would think building it as a foundation and then using things like PL to make different narrative does a lot for the feel of the setting on the table.

People who say forge the narrative for years, often killed narrative in the setting!
And why I think it feels so hollow now, so much of the narrative is just saying your special ability and going with that.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





Somewhere in Canada

 Overread wrote:

The thing is all those narrative elements you can do with a pointed system. You just modify your equipment pool or adapt the points and away you go.


Sure, but a) if you make those changes, then the theoretical "balance" provided by points is moot because you've tinkered with the system and b) if you use PL, you don't have to do anything- you just use the rule as written.

Remember, I'm not advocating for PL only; I'm advocating for a system where players can choose like we had in 9th.

There is no need to say, "Just use this system with these modifications" in a system that offers both option- just pick the one that fits your needs because both are available. Both have advantages and disadvantages, so it really is a subjective decision based on the type of game you want to play on a given day.

 Overread wrote:

It also means you've got some sense of balance in the game if, for example, one side ends up with a narrative army that's 500points more than the opponent then you know that there's a fairly big divide in the armies.

Maybe that's part of the story an the under-dog is in a last-stand or has to escape the board; maybe you give one player 500 points more units with the same limits (cut down supplies but ample troops) etc....

You can predict and adapt with it.


And this kind of "rough indication of balance" is EXACTLY what PL was designed to provide, rather than the theoretical "exact, competitive balance" that points were designed to provide. It did a far better job of providing it for me in 9th than points did, because every single time a new munitorum manual dropped, everyone using points had to re-examine their lists and many made changes, while the people in my crew didn't care or even notice. That was a HUGE advantage for us, based on our personal preferences and what we wanted out of the game.

 Overread wrote:

Without that granular system (even if its not perfect) you kind of lose all sense of relativity. Especially when some armies can really load up units to be very powerful whilst others might be far more barebones.


In Crusade, your battle honours make a far greater difference than load out, and while there are "Crusade Points" to provide a rough-cut way to measure those, it's rough cut enough that the additional granularity provided by costed equipment doesn't really matter. PL + Crusade points = Accurate Enough for narrative gaming, where greater accuracy would require house ruling in order to correctly represent story-based list modification.

Even if that were not the case, other players could still choose points if they didn't like PL.
   
Made in gb
Killer Klaivex




The dark behind the eyes.

On the wargear costs, there were definitely some wargear that I tended to take almost by default (e.g. darklight weapons on Warriors).

However, I think where things get interesting is when you reach/exceed the point limit. Because that's when you then go back and start reconsidering even the auto-take wargear choices. Is it better to have those two units with ideal loadouts, or could they perhaps take cheaper weapons so that you can afford an extra unit? Or perhaps you'd prefer to cut a unit and add some extra wargear to other units?

There were definitely choices that could have been improved, no question, but I don't think removing swathes of wargear and then removing all point costs from the remainder is an improvement in any way shape or form.


leopard wrote:

you perhaps need some of the more trivial stuff to be baked in, and maybe some of the lower cost stuff to be "any one of the following" baked in,


Just on this point, I think a big problem is that a lot of the stuff that's now been baked-in is stuff that was neither trivial nor auto-take.

e.g. Archons used to just have bog-standard Kabalite armour. However, for 10pts they could take Ghostplate (4+/6++), then for 20pts they could take a Clone Field (ignored d3 melee attacks in 5th, in 7th was just a standard 4++), or for 40pts they could take Shadowfield (2++ that goes away if ever failed).

(The latter two were mutually exclusive.)

This gave the Archon a decent range of defensive options, depending on how much you wanted to spend. I very much liked the Clone Field in 7th because I preferred the reliability of a save that wasn't lost when failed, as well as being half the cost of the Shadowfield. I believe many people ran Archons without either, relying wholly on transports and terrain for protection. It was also a way to differentiate different Archons - perhaps the Dracon is permitted Ghostplate but nothing else, whilst the commanding Archon is fully-kitted.

But since 8th, all those options are now gone and Archons are just stuck with a Shadowfield whether you want one or not.

 blood reaper wrote:
I will respect human rights and trans people but I will never under any circumstances use the phrase 'folks' or 'ya'll'. I would rather be killed by firing squad.



 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, when i read the small novel that is the Death Guard unit options and think about resolving the attacks from a melee-oriented min size death guard squad, the thing that springs to mind is "Accessible!"

 Argive wrote:
GW seems to have a crystal ball and just pulls hairbrained ideas out of their backside for the most part.


 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

"Prepare to open fire at that towering Wraithknight!"
"ARE YOU DAFT MAN!?! YOU MIGHT HIT THE MEN WHO COME UP TO ITS ANKLES!!!"


Akiasura wrote:
I hate to sound like a serial killer, but I'll be reaching for my friend occam's razor yet again.


 insaniak wrote:

You're not. If you're worried about your opponent using 'fake' rules, you're having fun the wrong way. This hobby isn't about rules. It's about buying Citadel miniatures.

Please report to your nearest GW store for attitude readjustment. Take your wallet.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Yeah. I feel like 10th's approach to removing options/removing points costs for options is sort of the worst of several worlds.

Like, there were definitely inefficient ("bad') options for how to equip your units in the past. I can see where a designer might want to simplify the task of balancing options by rolling some of the redundant options together and basically supporting a few specific "builds" for each unit. But then removing points means that you theoretically have to make all of your remaining options equally powerful; you can't have the weaker-but-cheaper option or the stronger-but-costly option.

And I can see a world where you'd maybe remove points costs and just let people take whatever wargear they want, leaving it up to them to weight he benefits of cost efficiently over fluff for themselves; basically 8th/9th style PL. But 10th doesn't do that either; it removes a bunch of options that less us flavor our characters. Like, you can't pretend that your archon with less potent wargear is your dracon because there are so few options for the archon that they end up feeling basically identical.

If I were trying to write the next drukhari codex, I think I'd try to do something like this:

* Start with a basic, no-frills archon. Maybe he has a default special rule that's nothing to write home about. He's basically a glorified sybarite.

* Give him the option to spend X points to take his pick from an expanded armory. We don't have to price out individual pistol and melee weapon types. Instead, we just charge X points to let him take a rifle or blaster one of several melee weapons + his choice of pistol. I'd probably lump several melee weapons from the past together. So like, maybe we don't differentiate between an agoniser and a venom blade; maybe it's just an "envenomed weapon." Basically, any weapon he has the choice of taking should be distinctive enough to have its own role/purpose.

* Give them a special rule "slot." Basically, you can gain one (and only one) of several special rules for X, Y, or Z points. This rule defines the archon's "job" in your army. Maybe you have one that makes him more of a beatstick, one that lets him buff units while embarked on a transport, and one that lets him mess with stratagems or reserves or something. A duelist, a raid leader, and a schemer. Three distinct jobs for the same base model, and you don't have to print a new model or bring back warlord traits, etc. to facilitate it.

If you really don't want to frame this as an option that costs points, you just give him the option you anticipate to be the most valuable as the default, price him accordingly, and then give him the option to swap out special rules for free.

* Give him the option to pay X points for his choice of a shadowfield, a clone field, or just high-quality armor. Again, each of these being useful in its own distinctive way; the gambler's option, the specialized quirky option, and the reliable conventional option.

And there you go. Without bringing back super specific point costs, you take the archon from being depressingly bland and monotonous to being flavorful and customizable with no more complexity than adding extra bodies to a scourge squad and choosing their special weapons. You even regain the option to take a cheaper version of the unit.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 LunarSol wrote:
I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.


See, I think the plasma pistol vs bolt pistol thing is a great example of where points can be helpful. Without points, you either have to make the bolt pistol equally desirable compared to the plasma pistol, or else it kind of feels bad knowing you're playing at a disadvantage. With points, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my bolt pistol is functionally saving me 10 points (or however many) that I can instead put towards something else.

You're right about cutting cool weapons for the sake of efficiency feeling bad, but the crux of the problem there is that the plasma pistol (for example) was too inefficient for its cost compared to whatever you ended up spending points on instead.

But again, I feel like there's potentially a decent middleground to be found in saying, "Spend X points. Help yourself to the good weapons instead of just the cheap stuff." Still creates the ability to go with the cheap option (the bolt pistol) without making the bolt pistol equally as good as the plasma pistol. The main downside there, I guess, is that if you've spent the X points, you may as well grab a power sword while the armory is open.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Wyldhunt wrote:
 LunarSol wrote:
I vastly prefer the removal of Wargear costs personally. Units having cool stuff is just vastly more interesting than cutting it all for the sake of efficiency. That said, there's definitely places where GW needs to reevaluate options. Like I don't care that a Sgt always has the Plasma pistol and never the bolt pistol (particularly if the grunts have the lesser pick) but making weapons have distinct but attract rolls needs to be a priority. I think there's places where they nailed some of the choices and others where they missed by a mile, but I wouldn't say that was something they ever consistently hit with points either.


See, I think the plasma pistol vs bolt pistol thing is a great example of where points can be helpful. Without points, you either have to make the bolt pistol equally desirable compared to the plasma pistol, or else it kind of feels bad knowing you're playing at a disadvantage. With points, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my bolt pistol is functionally saving me 10 points (or however many) that I can instead put towards something else.

You're right about cutting cool weapons for the sake of efficiency feeling bad, but the crux of the problem there is that the plasma pistol (for example) was too inefficient for its cost compared to whatever you ended up spending points on instead.

But again, I feel like there's potentially a decent middleground to be found in saying, "Spend X points. Help yourself to the good weapons instead of just the cheap stuff." Still creates the ability to go with the cheap option (the bolt pistol) without making the bolt pistol equally as good as the plasma pistol. The main downside there, I guess, is that if you've spent the X points, you may as well grab a power sword while the armory is open.


Part of the problem is just that the pistols are too situation to be worth any amount of cost. The whole concept of min/maxing is to cut every situational cost in order to pool the savings into additional value everywhere. You never want to spend points on pistol upgrades, no matter how many fractions of points they're. I just don't care if that's limited to the Sgt character. One guy in the squad having cooler stuff is fine, though I definitely prefer when there's cool options. Like I don't care if every Sgt has a better pistol, but it'd be cool if they had a choice of Plama or Hand Flamer or Melta or something as long as THOSE options had different but useful functions.
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

I agree with the idea that there should be no clear "best" option if everything is free. If you have an option between a bolt pistol and a plasma pistol, there needs to be a way to make them equivalent sidegrades somehow. It was easier in the days of "gets hot" where there was an obvious downside to firing a plasma pistol, these days though theres no risk to plasma weapons unless you elect the supercharge profile, so bolt pistols need something (an extra shot or two? strike first in melee? extra attacks in melee?) to make them more comparable.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/11/20 17:33:08


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

See that's the thing. If all weapons were evenly balanced within each model so that you could choose based on a role or function and they'd perform around the same in game or without big swings and such then a single point cost per model would work.

The problem is that isn't what we've got. You've got guns that clearly perform better than others; or those which are very specific (eg anti tank but not good on infantry etc.... ) but very good in their specific niche and then generalist weapons that do well against multiple targets.

It just leads to a mess where there's been no real attempt to balance things for a single cost. It's the same issue Power Level had ever since it came out and its the reason many people never used it. GW just went all in forcing it on us; first by putting it on the unit profiles instead of points; and this edition by simply removing points and replacing it with power level

A Blog in Miniature

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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





10th is better than PL ever was though. A lot of weapons have been balanced out in a more interesting Shot vs Str vs AP vs special rules manner. There's definitely work to be done, but the direction to me is vastly more interesting and fun that using points to try and make them a choice. That results in the exact same problem we have now, just with the caveat of "for its cost" added in.

There can also be weaker options. Bolt Pistols can be bad if their purpose is to be taken by grunts. They're just not really a valid Sgt option. If 10th was a brand new game they wouldn't be a valid Sgt option, but GW put in a bunch of stuff to support legacy configurations. I'd be happy to see those cut entirely, but I'm also happy to ignore them for what they are.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





chaos0xomega wrote:
I agree with the idea that there should be no clear "best" option if everything is free. If you have an option between a bolt pistol and a plasma pistol, there needs to be a way to make them equivalent sidegrades somehow. It was easier in the days of "gets hot" where there was an obvious downside to firing a plasma pistol, these days though theres no risk to plasma weapons unless you elect the supercharge profile, so bolt pistols need something (an extra shot or two? strike first in melee? extra attacks in melee?) to make them more comparable.


See, I feel like we're already entering into power creep territory here where the lack of points for wargear is causing you to want to make the weaker options more lethal. I think we can all probably agree that:

A.) Tactical marines should have the option of taking some special weapons in their squad (flamers, meltas, plasma, etc.)
B.) Those special weapons should probably be more powerful than a bolter.

That being the case, we're in this position where you can choose to not swap out a bolter for a plasma gun, but you're clearly playing at a disadvantage if you do so. I don't really want to buff bolters to the point that a bolter is the equivalent of a plasma gun or melta (with some sort of trade-off); I want the plasma/melta to be *better* than the bolter on the whole but to be rarer.

So if we're not going back to points for specific pieces of wargear, I like the idea of doing something like:

"This unit may pay 20 points to open the armory. If they do so...
* A model may replace their bolter with a flamer, melta, or plasmagun.
* A model may replace their bolter with a flamer, melta, plasmagun, missile launcher, lascannon, etc.

The unit's sergeant may pay 20 points to open the armory. If he does so, he may choose 2 of the following options:
* Swap bolter out for a combi-weapon or storm bolter.
* Swap out pistol for a plasma pistol, inferno pistol, or hand flamer.
* May be given a power sword, power fist, or melta bombs."

This unit may pay 60 points to add an additional 5 marines to the starting squad size.


So you're not adding a ton of book keeping to your army list. There' still only a handful of potential points costs for the unit. However, you gain the freedom to save points by taking a cheap unit or spending a chunk of points to upgrade the unit's weaponry, or spend a chunk of points to upgrade the sergeant specifically. You would want weapons that occupy the same "slot" (ex: flamer/melta/plasma gun) to all be roughly as powerful as each other, but you don't have to agonize over whether an inferno pistol should cost 5 more points than a hand flamer or 10. Basically you pay points for the "slots" you want to fill, and then the options for each slot have to be roughly equally valuable.

EDIT: Applying this approach to my scourges, my options might be:

* Pay 30 points to give 4 scourges in the squad a better gun.
* Pay (whatever the cost for the first 5 scourges was) to add 5 more scourges to the squad.
* Pay 20 points to let the solarite swap out his weapons.

So now my first 5 scourges can go down in price; they don't have to be priced under the assumption that they'll have special weapons. The unit doesn't have to pay for solarite weapons that I might not be taking. If I want to upgrade the solarite but stick to the basic guns, or if I want to take special guns but don't want to also give the solarite better weapons, then I can save points. The special weapons all take up the same slot, so the goal would be to design those guns to be roughly as useful as each other (same as in the current system), but the basic guns don't have to compete with them at the same price point.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/11/20 17:58:53



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.


Exactly.

That's why my pitchy is to basically price a handful of options rather than specific wargear. It respects the desire to simplify army building/points costs, but brings back just a little bit of complexity in order to expand player options significantly. Trying to respect the direct GW seems to want to go while still improving things, basically.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut






While I much prefer individually priced wargear, even just having a blanket points cost for simplified options like above would be a huge upgrade over the current state of the game.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Wyldhunt wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah, I don't disagree with any of what you wrote, but from a design standpoint, a goal seems to have been to simplify points down and minimize or eliminate upgrade costs. As a result, you have to do something else to offset the differences. You're right though, when it comes to certain weapon upgrades, its kind of impossible to make a plasma gun a sidegrade to a bolter, likewise certain upgrades like sponsons on a russ are just flat out "more" and theres no way to really sidegrade that either.


Exactly.

That's why my pitchy is to basically price a handful of options rather than specific wargear. It respects the desire to simplify army building/points costs, but brings back just a little bit of complexity in order to expand player options significantly. Trying to respect the direct GW seems to want to go while still improving things, basically.


DW Vets do this pretty well. Storm Shields for example, are very good, but they can only be paired with standard bolters or power weapons. It makes them a very good take but each one has to come out of the units offensive potential. There's effectively 4 "basic" wargear loadouts to pick from that all have their use; though I think the Long Vigil Ranged Weapon is a lacking choice that I'd rather see replaced with a dedicated Shotgun loadout.
   
Made in gb
Ultramarine Librarian with Freaky Familiar





I'm personally looking at, say, the Tactical Squad situation of "well, what if I don't want to arm my Tacticals with a flamer or some other weapon" as GW saying "yeah, but Tactical Squads are MEANT to have a special weapon".

Like, by all mean, people play their game how they like, but I feel that this is GW explicitly saying "we don't like how we've had systems in the past that have encouraged taking none of the cool things we've been offering you, because in the fluff, these things are more common than not! You can still represent your old units by not taking the extra weapons, but we want to encourage you to take the fun stuff, because that's our vision of what this universe is."

It's a similar thing with what units can join what - like it or not, GW have a certain image and vision of what units are "supposed" to be being accompanied, and to a certain point, I get it! It looks kinda goofy when a model in a very different type of armour is leading a unit who don't wear the same thing, or when units that are thematically not linked support eachother on the table because they're the most efficient thing. My best example of this is things like models in Terminator armour with non-Terminator units - they look honestly really out of place, and I believe that GW might believe so too. Or Centurions being accompanied by, well, anything! Because no commander really looks coherent with them!*

I think sometimes it's maybe worth considering what GW envision armies looking like. And if they think that armies "should" be looking like they have all the cool kit and special weapons, and that they don't want to see people feeling like they can't take the fun, exciting options, and need to stick with, say, leaving Tactical Marines all with bolters instead of giving them the mixed weapon options we all know and love, then of course they'll be writing rules that encourage that. Maybe it's a change in dynamic, maybe it's not what some people were used to and built around. Maybe. I'm personally not complaining. Again, with Tactical Marines, I find it hard to believe that someone made a whole unit of Tactical Marines with no special or heavy weapons, or didn't recognise that's what the unit was supposed to look like.

*obviously, there's some pretty egregious outliers, and these mostly exist within factions like the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Orks. Why Archons can't fight alongside Incubi I'll never know (well, aside from the inch different movement speed, but, just make Incubi faster?)


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The problem is that for so long they pushed the vision of "your dudes" and basically infinite customizability (which admittedly they have been reversing the last couple editions of the game), that people feel like they are basically having choices taken away from them, even though the system is really intended (hypothetically) to try to make it easier for players to enjoy the variety and customizations that GW has offered.

Its true - building your squads "naked" is a choice, and should be a valid one for players to make (I, personally, am someone that often would forego special weapons in my units, often for fluff reasons, sometimes for gameplay reasons, etc.). In the past I could do so without much in the way of a direct impact to the balance of my force, I could offset the lack of special weapons in my line squads with capabilities found in other units. Now though, building "naked" squads puts you in a position where you're playing at a clear disadvantage against your opponent (unless they also follow suit).

I think doing something to make players feel like the choice to go barebones is valid would help go a long way to smoothing over the problem. I think wyldhunts is a good one, just a simple/limited flat cost increase to upgrade the equipment. Leave it up to the players whether or not they want to spend those points to do so, and then how they want to spend them/try to optimize their build, etc.

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See being a Tyranid player I can very much accept that Warriors, Tyrant and Carnifex were built as multi-weapon kits and with upgrades to suite any role because they were 3 kits that basically had to do a whole army's worth of roles.

Since those early days the army has expanded a LOT and we have a wide range of specialist models in many key roles now. Even to the point where models like the Carnifex almost feel a little overshadowed.


So on the one hand I do welcome the idea of consolidating some models to have a more specific focus whereas once they were generalist.


Thing is this doens't feel like what GW were after with this update in 10th edition. Because no effort was made to really preserve those roles or limit them. Indeed about the only limiting that took place with Tyranid was to consolidate all the warrior close combat options down to 1 single profile. Which is a very odd choice when you consider that many of the close combat roles they were offering were unique to them anyway.

Instead it just feels like GW wanted to streamline everything and/or make the game more accessible by simplifying the adding up of armies in a super fast way (having possibly failed ot make a high end well accepted app that would do it for people on their phones).

Now I could accept that perhaps there's a Shriek kit with lots of close combat weapons waiting for a mid-edition campaign book that will not only bring back the role of a "mid size close combat warrior style model" along with jumppack wings; but also pair with the single winged leader warrior; who right now feels very out of place with wings and only being able to lead a unit that has no wings.

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Slight digression, butI feel like the big issue with 10th that I have is the homogenization of the rules, both within armies and between them.
What I mean is, each army has been given a template and must adhere to it: so only one army rule, 6 strats (with one in one out), one detachment rule etc…
However, I feel that this just doesn’t work for every army. Necrons for sure need reanimation as a core rule, but why does oath of moment exist? Why did tau marker lights morph into an army wide rule?
Because that’s what made it past the committee. It all sounds good in theory, but I feel it takes too much away that I liked.

Additionally, in regards to weapons and units, many have also been locked into certain sizes or loadouts. My skitarii are now forced into 10 man squads with one of each special weapon, which is lame given that I’d never even consider giving vanguard an arquebus. (This started in 9th but it got worse) So now it’s just take the big block of whatever and play, which is something I don’t feel is necessary, and instead is detrimental. The less I can customize my dudes, the less interest I have in the hobby, and the less I’ll play.
   
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chaos0xomega wrote:
The problem is that for so long they pushed the vision of "your dudes" and basically infinite customizability (which admittedly they have been reversing the last couple editions of the game), that people feel like they are basically having choices taken away from them, even though the system is really intended (hypothetically) to try to make it easier for players to enjoy the variety and customizations that GW has offered.
Do we think it's maybe a case of newer players being the focus of GW's attentions, and not already established armies?

As for "your dudes", I personally find it easier to do "your dudes" when I'm not feeling like the "cool" option is gonna prevent me from taking the unit because the points don't match. I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch". My guardsmen sergeants still use barebones kit, because that fits them much better for how I see them, but for my Space Marine sergeants, they have a variety of weapons because I see them as having the luxury to choose them - same for my Sybarites, Alphas and Sister Superiors. They feel much more "mine" then when I was encouraged to not really bother with upgrades on certain units. But, YMMV.

Its true - building your squads "naked" is a choice, and should be a valid one for players to make (I, personally, am someone that often would forego special weapons in my units, often for fluff reasons, sometimes for gameplay reasons, etc.). In the past I could do so without much in the way of a direct impact to the balance of my force, I could offset the lack of special weapons in my line squads with capabilities found in other units. Now though, building "naked" squads puts you in a position where you're playing at a clear disadvantage against your opponent (unless they also follow suit).
Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons". And I think that GW encouraging people to actually use the cool toys they have is great for that - shaping the idea of how they see the game being played. Not with barebones units and scrimping for points, but with cool upgrades and taking a variety of options. Now, of course, as players are oft to be, there's the idea of "disadvantage" if you're not taking full advantage of the ability to take what you like, but, well, that's a personal thing. GW could try and create a way where, say, all Sergeant weapons were balanced against eachother, and all upgraded weapons were all sidegrades of eachother, but actually TAKING upgraded squad weapons? Sorry, I believe that should be a given. Gone are the days of a barebones unit, and I think that's for the best. Again, YMMV.

I think doing something to make players feel like the choice to go barebones is valid would help go a long way to smoothing over the problem. I think wyldhunts is a good one, just a simple/limited flat cost increase to upgrade the equipment. Leave it up to the players whether or not they want to spend those points to do so, and then how they want to spend them/try to optimize their build, etc.
Again, I agree with the idea of all upgraded weapons and sergeant weapons being sidegradable to eachother, but the actual manner of taking them? I've very much in the camp of "if you don't want to take them, don't, but that's clearly not intended."
In much the same way that if you want to build your army full of units that have no anti-tank or anti-monster weapons, that's your choice, but it's not how things are intended. And you deal with that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dandelion wrote:
Additionally, in regards to weapons and units, many have also been locked into certain sizes or loadouts. My skitarii are now forced into 10 man squads with one of each special weapon, which is lame given that I’d never even consider giving vanguard an arquebus. (This started in 9th but it got worse) So now it’s just take the big block of whatever and play, which is something I don’t feel is necessary, and instead is detrimental. The less I can customize my dudes, the less interest I have in the hobby, and the less I’ll play.
Now this I can get behind - units which were previously able to be much smaller now being forced into larger squads isn't something I'm liking.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/11/20 23:10:02



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Okay, but Tactical Marines?? It baffles me that someone could see Tactical Marines and think "yep, this unit is designed to be barebones and no squad weapons". And I think that GW encouraging people to actually use the cool toys they have is great for that - shaping the idea of how they see the game being played. Not with barebones units and scrimping for points, but with cool upgrades and taking a variety of options. Now, of course, as players are oft to be, there's the idea of "disadvantage" if you're not taking full advantage of the ability to take what you like, but, well, that's a personal thing. GW could try and create a way where, say, all Sergeant weapons were balanced against eachother, and all upgraded weapons were all sidegrades of eachother, but actually TAKING upgraded squad weapons? Sorry, I believe that should be a given. Gone are the days of a barebones unit, and I think that's for the best. Again, YMMV.


Granted, tactical squads without any special weapons does seem slightly unusual. But I feel they're more the exception than the rule. Taking kabalites with just splinter rifles should be valid. Taking guardians without the support platform should be valid. Taking marine vehicles without hunter-killer missiles should be valid.

In the case of tacticals, if the intention really, really is for them to always have 1 special weapon per 5 dudes, you could basically make the special weapons "package" I pitched earlier into a mandatory part of their unit. Basically, don't pretend a squad of 5 bolters is a valid way to build the unit if it really isn't. But also, my pitch above leaves it up to the player. If you *do* have a reason for wanting to field all bolters, you can do so without effectively wasting points. If you do spend the points on special weapons, they should presumably be valuable enough and costed appropriately to be a viable option.

I find it much more fun to have a Sergeant with an interesting weapon, even if it never really gets used, rather than "yeah, here's my fourth sergeant with barebones weapons because I was trying to make my points stretch".

See, I'm one of those guys who will put cool equipment on the sergeants even when it's not optimal, but I still like having the chocie of fielding a "naked" sergeant because it helps the other sergeants stand out more. My bolter sergeant is pragmatic and uses his bionic eye to get the most out of the humble bolter. My lightning claw + meltabombs guy is a little more of a reckless glory hound who relies on his squadmate's flamer to help thin the hordes he often throws his squad at. My power fist guy is also a glory hound but likes to go straight toward the biggest target on the battlefield with his meltagunner squad mate.

In 10th edition, a lot of that personality is soured by the knowledge that I'm being charged points for gear I'm not taking or for assumptions that I'm optimizing my squad's loadout when I'm not.

Under my proposal above, I can pay points to make the sergeant more powerful or not. If I do pay points to make him stronger, the price should match the utility of the power increase. If it isn't worth considering taking the sergeant wargear package, then the package is too expensive.


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The thing about free upgrades is it’s still costing points, just a negative points inflicted on people who don’t want those upgrades for what ever reason.

It kinda makes it lame when everything is just take best as the game has given up a lot of its own balance mechanisms over the years.

Which in turn erodes what makes the game narrative cool, where you can have similar forces deployed in different ways. Subtle and interesting.
   
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Apple fox wrote:
The thing about free upgrades is it’s still costing points, just a negative points inflicted on people who don’t want those upgrades for what ever reason.

It kinda makes it lame when everything is just take best as the game has given up a lot of its own balance mechanisms over the years.

Which in turn erodes what makes the game narrative cool, where you can have similar forces deployed in different ways. Subtle and interesting.


Exactly. You could take two tyranid armies with similar model types, but one bare bones and one upgraded heavily.

The barebones would be far more numerous, whilst the more upgraded with have fewer models, but work better individually because of their upgrades.

So you'd get two very different play experiences and styles and the points difference would be intended to balance out the fact that one is highly upgraded and the other isn't.



Right now if you did that you'd have exactly the same number of models on the table and the highly upgraded would be superior without question. Granted GW also stripped out a lot of upgrades, so this mostly ends up talking about weapon options (As they are one of the few bits left in).

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Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
   
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7th edition nearly killed 40k for me. Its balance was so insanely bad and the lore was super stale. We are in a better situation now but I still hate the fact the Ynnari got shafted despite being built up to be so important early on during 8th edition.
   
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 waefre_1 wrote:
Also, I'd like to point out that the correct way for GW to incentivize us taking non-meta options is to make those options worth taking. It's never going to be perfect since there will always be people who only take the "optimal" choices, and it does take actual work to pull off, but "work" is what they're (allegedly) being paid to do. Part of the reason the switch to free upgrades rubbed me wrong is that it felt like GW saw that trying to balance paid upgrades would take work, told an intern to fix it over their lunch break, and when the intern couldn't come up with a solution GW just threw their collective hands up and decided to burn it all down. That'd be bad from an indy studio running on a shoestring budget, it's contemptible from a company with GW's funding and reach.
it feels like just another symptom of not being able to deal with the competitive players breaking the game, so just giving up and acting as though everyone will do it. Just assume everyone always takes the best option and the "problem" goes away.

Same thing happened in world of warcraft; despite the best efforts players keep optimizing 100% of everything so rather than try to stop it or change that mentality, they just gave in and design around it as though everyone will do it.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/11/21 11:18:52


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