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Xulld wrote:
IDK if my opinion is interesting or not. I am 45 years old, watched WH as an outsider develop over the years but never really found war-gaming to be my thing. Played Battletech, Whitedwarf, and WH, never 40k, but I was aware of it as a TTRPG guy growing up in the 90's. I just prefer TTRPG over wargaming and that is still true. So again, my opinion might not be that interesting.

Your opinion is interesting to me, because my background is similar to yours- I've played dozens of RPGs starting with D&D in 1981 at age 8. I was GMing multiple groups by the time I was 10 and I wrote my first RPG at 12. But I never really went deep down the wargame rabbit hole; I've played a few, but only 40k/ Necromunda/ Kill Team/ Space Hulk really caught on for me.

I often find myself at odds with the majority opinion on Dakka, because most people here are primarily wargamers. In my personal experience, wargamers and roleplayers tend to value different aspects of the games they play. Wargamers love balance, while roleplayers will be more interested in mechanics that reflect and empower the stories they are trying to tell- think of the playing card use in Deadlands, the Priority system in Shadowrun, the Rings in Legend of the Five Rings.

Xulld wrote:

What I will say is committing to wargaming is a deep commitment. Time, Money, but most of all brain power. It is like going over to a friends house and they whip out a new board game. They have min-maxed the rules already so you know its a night of but stomping ahead or you have to study like you are back in school to try to compete.

I totally agree with your first sentence here, but I don't think it's at all connected to the sentences that follow it.

In my experience as a roleplayer, and a person who continues to prefer roleplaying to wargames, my friends tend to be roleplayers too, which means we tend to want the same things in the games we play- namely, sprawling campaign narratives, engaging storylines involving characters or units which grow as a result of their in-game experiences. Balance, for us, a secondary or even tertiary concern- which is not to say that we don't care about balance at all; of course we do- it just isn't our priority.

Xulld wrote:

I remember when DND released 2nd Edition. Everyone liked it. Why? Because it grew the IP horizontally, 1st ED fit inside 2nd for the most part and what was missing you could just add back with no conversations.

Second ed AD&D was pretty universally loved, though without the internet, it was harder to gauge popular opinion outside your peer group, so I don't trust myself to declare that with certainty. It tremendously clarified AD&D, and made a playable game out of an inspired, but rough-around the edges proof-of-concept beta edition.

And yes, they grew the IP laterally for sure- Darksun, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Dragonlance... And a virtual arsenal of Complete <Class> books that made each class as diverse as the class system had made the Adventurer.

Xulld wrote:

3rd ED introduced some cools ideas but ret-conned so much and changed the way things worked.

Okay wait. You can't give 3rd ed just one line after lavishing such praise on 2nd Ed. AD&D.

Third ed didn't just revolutionize D&D, it rocked the RPG industry, because 3rd ed D&D was also the open GL/SRD system. D20 was EVERYWHERE. It was my favourite edition of the game (3.5 was better, but I regard it as the same edition). I don't really think it's fair to say 3rd ed "retconned" AD&D- all of the original campaign worlds eventually got the D20 treatment.

I loved D20 Forgotten Realms Rokugan, though at the time, I had never played the the Classic Legend of the Five Rings RPG- only the card game. For my, what made 3.5 pop was the inclusion of feat trees and the fully developed skills system, and the fact that the two reacted dynamically. Previous versions of the game hadn't included skill ranks- they used only proficient/non-proficient and defaulted to the attribute bonus, similar to how 5th ed handles skills (which was my biggest disappointment with 5th ed).

But the open GL did have casualties- Deadlands, which I talked about earlier, had one of the best mechanics systems I've ever played; it incorporated a standard deck of 52 playing cards + 2 Jokers into almost every element of the game in order to reflect the importance of gambling in the Wild West. The interactions between dice and cards were a flash of genius. And the open GL killed it, as D20 Deadlands eclipsed it by capitalizing on open GL surfers- the people who in the past would have avoided trying a second RPG because they didn't want to invest time into learning a new system were now free to try ANY and EVERY game with an open GL D20 sourcebook.

While I hated what open GL did to Deadlands, the story with West End Games is more nuanced. At first, I preferred WEG's Star Wars to the D20 version. But then they released the Dark Side Sourcebook for the D20 version, and was one of my favourite books of all time.

There was a time when it looked like open GL/ D20 systems might absorb the entire gaming industry. I don't think Shadowrun, World of Darkness or Cyberpunk ever went D20, but I think Call of Cthulu did. RPG magazines released a few homebrew D20 versions of other RPGs, and lots of GMs were doing their own conversions- World of Darkness Homebrew rules to insert into D20 modern, for example.

I found 3.5 to be superior to any other version of D&D I played, and I have played most of them. YMMV.

Xulld wrote:

GW has followed this playbook and IMHO, its a big mistake. It is far better to grow your system horizontally than create new versions with a million revisions.

I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.

I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.

But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.

In wargaming, horizontal growth needs hard limits, because it unbalances the game, and is perceived as bloat by the majority of the playerbase, who place tremendous value on knowing the capabilities of their enemies... Because that's an important strategic skill in a wargame. In an RPG, on the other hand, often you aren't supposed to know the exact capabilities of your foe, because that facilitates the drama that is necessary to roleplaying; the first time a character encounters a skeleton, they make a wisdom check or use a lore skill to see if they know that bludgeoning weapons will be more effective. The storyteller delivers information on a need to know basis, and the players react in character.

Xulld wrote:

That is why I use my own custom system for Role Playing in the WH universe.

Cheers mate! If you got it, and you like it, and people play it with you and they like it, stick to it. A custom system will ALWAYS fill your specific needs better than anything else. You're lucky to have a player group that makes that possible.

Xulld wrote:

Warth and Glory and Dark Heresy were just never properly fleshed out and wargaming is too cumbersome.

I never played Wrath and Glory, but I loved Dark Heresy. At a time when GW was starving Sisters of Battle players in 40k, Fantasy Flight Games gave me glorious insights about the growth of various sisters troop types over time- now you didn't just have Seraphim, there were ranks and skills and quirks there. It helped me see my 40k army in a different light. And certainly did grow horizontally as a game with Rogue Trader as a parallel game using the same system, and tons of expansion books.

I'd much rather have seen Dark Heresy continue than to have Wrath and Glory exist at all. Dark Heresy Commorragh would have been amazing, and we'd have it by now if the game had continued.

Xulld wrote:

Looking back on things and seeing the Warhammer war gaming communities reactions to the constant revision, IMHO not surprising. All of us gamers need fewer systems more conciliation and the game needs to be easy and cheap to get into not a puzzle of growing complexity.

I can't speak to "wargaming communities," but here on Dakka, people were both screaming for a new edition because of the Horizontal Growth that they saw as bloat, and disappointed with what they got in 10th because GW went too far and threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Either games gow wider, which means there are more armies, and every army's range is bigger.. OR they constantly blow it all up and redo everything again.

PenitentJake wrote:

I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.

I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.

But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.

yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated

problem with 40k is that their fleshed out factions are often just the same but with different models
no big difference in play style or role on the table, but some extra rules to give them different kind of re-rolls for the illusion that there is a difference

Marines having different sub-factions just makes no sense of they are not options but doing the very same thing but better, that is why people don't like it, if 1 factions is doing the very same as another but better there is no real reason of having the other faction in the game at all.

 kodos wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

I am with you- edition churn sucks. But the problem for 40k is that being a miniature/pseudo-wargame, the kind of lateral, horizontal growth that you're advocating for tends to interfere with balance, which tends to impact wargames more than RPGs, to the point where lateral growth begins to be regarded as bloat, and players (who are mostly wargamers) begin to want a new edition to cure the bloat.

I've said it before: if GW had stuck with 2nd or 3rd edition, we'd have full armies for Emperor's Children, Kroot, Vespids, Eldar Corsairs, Eldar Exodites, Imperial Agents, and the armies that we have for all of the existing factions would be much larger and fleshed-out. If they hadn't diverted so much capital, energy, talent and time redesigning EVERYTHING 10 freakin times, we'd be much, much further ahead.

But people would call it all bloat. They'd be pissed off there were so many factions. Heck, we do it already; people bitched that harlequins shouldn't be a faction, inquisition shouldn't be faction, aircraft and superheavies shouldn't exist, all chaos should be in one dex, all marines should be in one dex, subfactions shouldn't have their own rules or supplements, 3 ways to play is too much... it goes on and on.

yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated

problem with 40k is that their fleshed out factions are often just the same but with different models
no big difference in play style or role on the table, but some extra rules to give them different kind of re-rolls for the illusion that there is a difference

Marines having different sub-factions just makes no sense of they are not options but doing the very same thing but better, that is why people don't like it, if 1 factions is doing the very same as another but better there is no real reason of having the other faction in the game at all.

I largely agree with this. This is a big part of why the abundance of marine subfactions/releases annoy me. "Oh look. A new color of power armor. I bet it's 90% the same as the other 20 we have floating around." I'd feel a lot better about Wolves and BA having their own books if they distinguished themselves from other marines in ways other than "stabs better", "spicy assault marines", and "Sometimes our mounted units can bite instead of shoot."

LoV might be a decent example of how to do lots of horizontal expansion? Stat-wise, they have a lot of crossover with armies like skitarii or marines, but they seem to have done a decent job of making them feel unique with their judgement token mechanic and special weapon rules. If we were to stick with a given edition longer and do more horizontal expansion, I think giving each faction its own little gimmicky mechanics like that are the way to go. Don't just give armies flat bonuses to things; give them rules that change how the game is played. Have an army that's all about their fast vehicles/bikes? Give them a speed/maneuvering subsystem to play with. Have a faction that wants to be sneaky? Give them a blip and/or trap subsystem. Want to expand kroot out into a full faction? Give them some battlefield evolution rules they can sink their beaks into instead of shrinking it down to just situational FNP.

10th is a step in this direction, but I feel like it's shackled somewhat by the desire to make detachment rules modular. Stratagems, though not necessarily a bad fit for this sort of gimmicky mechanic, might be eating up design space that could be better utilized by more distinctive/less-modular rules too. Like, imagine if you could free up the stratagem section of your detachment with a page's worth of rules on blip mechanics.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Responding to the OP;

I feel 10th is not in a great place, but something needed to be done about 9th because the last few years of it just weren't fun.

Not sure if typo or some kind of meta commentary about how all of 40k's editions have only literally lasted a few years recently...

 kodos wrote:
yes and no
GW manages to mess up balance and adding bloat despite releasing a new game under the same name on a regular bases
comparing it to other similar games that manage to grow while keeping the same core rules without being bloated

Well, as I said, I don't have a lot of experience with wargames that aren't made by GW- I've played Battle Tech (but preferred the Mechwarrior RPG), Full Throttle, Fairy Meat, Zombies!, Legions of Steel and Inferno... But not often, and it's been decades since I've played them. So I can't compare other "similar games" - but I was responding to Xull, who was comparing elements of 40k to DISSIMILAR games (RPGs).

And in terms of RPGS, guess what?

Same gak.

The Complete <Class> Books in Second ed AD&D that I rave about as a genuine and excellent example of horizontal growth? Hated by some members of the community as bloat. Prestige and Paragon classes in 3.5? Loved by me, and clear examples of game-changing horizontal growth, but also hated be some and described as bloat.

Basically with all games, players tend to regard the stuff THEY use as awesome horizontal growth, but they call everyone else's horizontal growth bloat. You'll get people who want to rage quit if Dark Angels suddenly become just Green Space Marines, but those exact people will swear up and down that there should be no difference between the Order of Our Martyred Lady and the Bloody Rose, because THAT would be bloat.

In 9th, subfactions for ALL factions were differentiated from each other by having bespoke relics, WL Traits, Strats, Detachment rules. Some subfactions are further distinguished by bespoke units (mostly marines, but also some Orks, Guard, Sisters- usually just a single named character from one or two of the six subfactions). To handwave all that differentiation away as "often just the same but with different models" feels somewhat short sighted to me. Admittedly, 9th, and to a lesser extent 8th, were the only editions of the game where the subfactions of EVERY faction got this level of detail and attention. And ALL of it was referred to as bloat by the majority of Dakkanaughts, who were SCREAMING for a new edition.

And then that edition came, and now subfaction identities exist only for marines again. Oh, you can APPROXIMATE the old distinctions by choosing the closest detachment to express the fighting style of your subfaction; but there's nothing stopping an OoOML player saying "Yeah, even though years of lore and two editions worth of rules suggest that the OoOML have a deeper connection with Martyrdom than other Orders... But My DUDES! So I want them to be enraged hand to hand monsters, so I'll use the detachment would be more suitable for Bloody Rose."

The result being that no subfaction is actually unique anymore... Except Marines and Chaos Cult Marines, because Dark Angels will have six custom detachments that can only be used by them, as will Death Guard, World Eaters, etc. Everyone else? Sure, we can pick the faction-based detachment that we feel best expresses our subfaction, but there's nothing guaranteeing that we won't face someone else who uses the detachment YOU think best expresses YOUR chosen subfaction for THEIR subfaction.

Now some people like that, because they claim it presents a less Flanderized version of subfaction identity... And I can understand that point of view... But I personally disagree with it.

To me, it feels like someone looking at the DC universe and saying "I know the authors of the IP created Batman as a gadjet user and Superman as a guy who flies and has super strength and laser eyes... But MY BATMAN, and he should be able to fly because Bats fly. And MY SUPERMAN should be as good at gadgets as Batman because, who are we kidding, if Superman applied himself to gadget crafting, he could obviously find a way to do it as good as Batman does."

Or a Star Wars guy who says "Sure, the actual published IP, written by the actual designers says Jedi use lightsabers and Clone troopers use guns... But MY Stormtroopers, so they should use light sabers cuz they're cool, and MY Jedi, so they channel their Force powers through guns."

And yes, I know that neither of those analogies are 100% applicable, but they do illustrate my feeling about people who whine that subfaction identities are Flanderization rather than world building/ horizontal growth. I also know that many people may feel an urge to attack the analogies rather than responding to the point I'm using these analogies to make.

As I've said before, Space Marines and Cult Marines are different, because they have their own dexes, but I'll use Space Marines to express the same thought I was trying to express via the use of my analogies:

Before Thunderwolf Cavalry were created, and before Iron Hands siege rules existed, you may have like Space Wolves and bought a bunch of them. And because at the time you made those purchases, rules that supported Space Wolves may have given you the room to say "My DUDES! They are the best siege warfare fighters in Marinedom," and you may have gone with that and enjoyed it immensely.

And then later, Thunderwolves come along, and the siege thing that YOU (not GW) invented for YOUR Space Wolves (not GW's) is now being given to Ironhands (to whom it was always more appropriate according to... You know, the guys who actually made the game). And you'll scream "They're Flanderizing my Space Wolves!"

They aren't. They're giving the Space Wolves the flavour that the Space Wolves were always supposed have, and they're giving the flavour that YOU created for YOUR Space Wolves to Iron Hands because in their view of the IP that they created and continue to own, Iron Hands, all other things being equal, will ALWAYS be slightly better at siege warfare than Space Wolves. It's the perk Iron Hands get for not having a handful of Bespoke named Dreads and Dudes who can ride wolves.

If I am a sisters player and I want to explore Martyrdom as a concept with my army and their fighting style, I will choose to play OoOML. If I want to explore bloody hand to hand vengeance, I will choose Bloody Rose. I will not say "Look, I know more about the game world than the people who made the game because I'm better than all of them, despite the fact that they dominate the gaming industry while I work at Walmart, so give me my Hand to Hand OoOML monsters and my Martyred Bloody Rose and don't dare Flanderize me!"

Obviously, the 10th ed design team did not agree with my point of view, because they created an edition which will produce OoOML hand to hand monsters and Bloody Rose martyrs. Yay, nothing is flanderized any more. But nothing is unique either. Why bother even deciding whether you play OoOML or Bloody Rose? It doesn't make a difference.

For those of you who screamed about Flanderization all through 9th, congratulations- you got what you wanted. I hope you enjoy it, but I suspect that most of you won't.

PenitentJake wrote:
"Look, I know more about the game world than the people who made the game because I'm better than all of them, despite the fact that they dominate the gaming industry while I work at Walmart, so give me my Hand to Hand OoOML monsters and my Martyred Bloody Rose and don't dare Flanderize me!"

"Look, I'm not going to collect the same army a second time because you arbitrarily decided the only chapter in the whole galaxy who uses item x or unit x is locked behind a different color of Space Marine."

When we talk about "flanderisation", I feel most people dislike how GW tends to reduce whole armies to a single point of their identity.

Since 5th edition, we got the chapter master of the Space Wolves, Logan Grimnar "The Great Wolf", who is a werwolf himself, carrying the axe of wolf god Morkai and a skinned wolf's pelt, riding on a sled decorated with a wolf head, pulled by wolves.

They are the most egregious example, but WE, DG, BA and others go into the same direction.

And then on the other hand, there are no generic rules for "beast cavalry" for other chapters, outside of Thunderwolves, that are exclusive to SW.

I have seen art of Logan Grimnar from the 2ed codex. He has been a "wolf" since at least then. And if something is a thing for at least 9 editions out of 10, then it isn't "flanderisation" it is an theme.

Having a good jump pack, terminator, biker etc army is way better then what marines have now. Where technicaly they are multiple chapters and they even have rules, even unique ones, but in the end the only two things worth playing is either BT or Ultramarines. And some armies like the "mongol/tatar/hun" White Scars don't have a way to be played, because in their goal to remove everything non primaris, they somehow forgot that their plans for 10th ed don't include bikers, biker HQs etc.

What such a way of releasing rules gets combined with an extremly small pool of viable models to use and an updating cycle that takes multiple editions/years, there is a huge problem with keeping people happy with the factions they play. And that is all before adding non marine factions to the mix. And to make matters more fun GW decided that their flagship army, is going to be colour locked. Every other army can be painted what ever way the person ones. But if someone decides that his DA are going to be running around in black armour, then suddenly they are locked out of all the special characters etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


I largely agree with this. This is a big part of why the abundance of marine subfactions/releases annoy me. "Oh look. A new color of power armor. I bet it's 90% the same as the other 20 we have floating around." I'd feel a lot better about Wolves and BA having their own books if they distinguished themselves from other marines in ways other than "stabs better", "spicy assault marines", and "Sometimes our mounted units can bite instead of shoot."


10th is a step in this direction, but I feel like it's shackled somewhat by the desire to make detachment rules modular. Stratagems, though not necessarily a bad fit for this sort of gimmicky mechanic, might be eating up design space that could be better utilized by more distinctive/less-modular rules too. Like, imagine if you could free up the stratagem section of your detachment with a page's worth of rules on blip mechanics.

Thing is the 90% generaly doesn't matter. When a marine faction is good, it doesn't really use those units. What were DA in 9th? 30 DW Knights and RW, some regular terminators maybe. No other marine army can do that, because it doesn't have access to knights. BA when they were a valid army to play were running maxed out Sang Guard and DC. And again no other marine army could run such a list, because they didn't have access to the faction units. Same with SW, Death Watch etc. Those were distinct armies, as different from each other as any other army in the game. What GW did with this edition is do a 180 to early 8th. Sure they are detachments and they have rules, stratagems etc. They aren't faction locked, even if they are named after specific chapters. Great. But who is going to be playing with the 1st company detachment ? And what is the White Scar player suppose to play with when his entire model line was reduced 3 units of outriders, bike chaplain and primaris quads. All the rules in the not WS detachment proc of mounted stuff, only the codex doesn't have mounted stuff in it. In fact ironicaly, the Space Wolves codex benefits more from the detachment, because they have all marine units and TWC, which are actualy good.

The "modular" way of building lists by GW means that you can have an army with the same, or almost the same, load out of units, but because the best detachment works best when combined with ultramarine special characters and units, playing any other chapters just means the person is playing space marine minus. And there aren't many people playing and enjoying w40k, who pick DA and then decide to make it green wing.

Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.

 aphyon wrote:
Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.

All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).

The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.

PenitentJake wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.

All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).

The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.

Hehe. Well I'd just say that unequal faction treatment that's more fun and thematic is a better place to be than equal treatment among factions that's boring.

Fair enough.

Played my first game of 10th edition yesterday. It was a pretty Kafkaesque feeling game, none of my units performed in a familiar way. Made me rethink my entire army composure.

Don't know if 10th edition has drained the soul from 40K, but it certainly has changed things alot. I hardly recognize the game anymore to be honest. Feels like now, you either need super specific tools for every job, or you need to attach specific characters to units, in order to milk them for their special abilities. All about those LETHAL HITS, getting Twin linked, or DESTASTATING WOUNDS, unless you have the exact ANTI- keyword you happen to need.

 Insectum7 wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.

All of this is true- the 3 - 3.5 40k era was great for most factions. If you happened to play a faction with good subfaction support, what you had in that era WAS better than anything that has been done since. The issue is that it wasn't consistent - some factions had ZERO subfaction attention- sisters being one such faction (though the Hunter nature of the dex did still allow some variety, and of course, load out options were plentiful, fluffy and cool).

The reason I prefer 9th is that EVERY faction's subfactions were given identities that mattered on the table, and that the form those identities took was somewhat standardized (a bespoke detachment rule or two, a bespoke strat, a bespoke Relic, a bespoke WL trait. It is true, however that supplements- both those for marines and those published in campaign books- did upset this standardization. But every subfaction in the game having the above minimum standard went a long way toward making other factions feel like they were finally getting the same kind of attention which marine players have taken for granted since 2nd ed.

Hehe. Well I'd just say that unequal faction treatment that's more fun and thematic is a better place to be than equal treatment among factions that's boring.

I would agree with this sentiment.

In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.

Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.

So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.

This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.

This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.

Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.

You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.

 Da Boss wrote:
This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.

Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.

You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.

I think adding special rules for very specific formations can be ok[maybe representing adaptations made to unit doctrine as part of the formation], provided they're not too powerful.

The rest of your post I agree with wholeheartedly agree with. A units statline feels like the least relevant thing about it atm, and that's a bad sign.

In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.

Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.

 Da Boss wrote:
In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.

Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.

Would agree, the change to fixed to hit rolls for close combat was a mistake imo.

Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.

This is just my half baked idea though.

 Da Boss wrote:
This sort of design is very offputting to me. I hate the modern thing of giving everyone bespoke special rules with hard to remember names instead of just developing a system and a statline that allows for units to be differentiated by statline.

Ideally in my view special rules should be reserved for a couple of units per army, with statlines and gear allowing for the differentiation between the rest. When every unit has a special rule it just makes me think the underlying system is not robustly designed.

You can even see this in MESBG where they've taken a game that used to have very limited special rules and tacked on "legendary legions" which allow you to get special rules for basic units as long as you take them in a pre-determined formation. Yuck! I hate it.

the problem with stats and w40k is, that as long as the game is based around d6 a lot of the stats are either unimportant or in order to make them important GW has to rise to number of dice a unit rolls per weapon or per model. Now if w40k run a d10 or a d12, then we could have bigger difference between units even from the same faction. Unit X from a feral world would could have a lower to hit with range weapons, but higher with melee ones. Stuff like Inv or FnP saves wouldn't be needed at worse as much, and at best at all, because being tough or resilient would be backed in to the model stat line. But GW is never going to switch out of d6, leaving us with the change factor being special rules and points per model. And while GW takes ages to update faction, and they updates and changes often are adressing problems or errors that no longer exist.
GW didn't like custodes armies to be 17 bikes and dreadnoughts, so they nerfed the living hell out of them, but the only way to make the infantry work was rule stacking and making the army a real stat check for other armies. Problems with such design start when GW decides to nerf the infantry, and as no one is buying bikes and dreadnoughts (too few custodes player are forging the narrative), the army suddenly stops to work at all. And GW fix to armies not working is, leave the army in limbo for 2-3 years, or pull a votan with them. Making a once elite army in to swarm central with overlaid buffs.

vipoid wrote:
I would agree with this sentiment.

In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.

Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.

So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.

This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.

Totally agree. I would drop the soulless feels-bad Strands of Fate mechanic for a return to Move-Shoot-Move (battlefocus) in a heartbeat. My guess is battle focus will be one of the detachment abilities when the codex comes around.

Honestly, I'm not sure giving all armies an army-wide rule was a great idea in the first place. It works okay for something like tyranids that really ought to have synapse beasties in most or all lists. But for a lot of armies, they might have been better off just expanding on detachment abilities. So instead of giving fate dice to absolutely every eldar faction, you can make that an Ulthwe/Seer Support mechanic, representing the seer council being powerful and organized enough to help micromanage the battle. Meanwhile a Saimhann/We Like Skimmers list could replace the guardian defenders fate dice generation rule with the ability to fight better when working in tandem with a wave serpent or something.

SideSwipe wrote:
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.

This is just my half baked idea though.

I agree with your sentiment here, but in practice, I'm not sure if lascannons basically one-shotting raiders is ideal. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I kind of liked where things were at in 8th/9th. Power creep in 9th meant that too many things had an extra pip of AP that made the math a little wonky. But generally, small arms were *bad* enough at hurting vehicles that you didn't want to rely on them for that job, but they were *good enough* against vehicles for a squad of bolters or shuriken catapults to still contribute to the destruction of an enemy rhino. Inefficient-but-relevant is where I like my small arms in regards to tanks. And as I argued at the time, a lot of the perceived issues with vehicle durability could have been solved by just giving vehicles like, 30% more wounds. So 13 wound rhinos for instance. Enough to make them noticably more durable against small arms and D2 weapons like plasma, but not so much as to make rolling D1 weapons against them a waste of time.

 aphyon wrote:
Karol, i understand your pain. that is why we still play what we do, our attitude towards 40K isn't the current game communities attitude. it isn't about balance per say it is about theme, and epic battles in the 40K setting. sure some divergent chapters have access to some of the same units in different ways, but this coupled with all the army special rules made them unique to play with/against. the index astartes whitscars rules (first appearing in WD articles) have never been done better. it was one page, a single modified FOC layout, 7 special rules and 3 special wargear option. sure you could do a bike heavy list from any other marine faction or a ravenwing bike army but they did not play the same. same for the dark angels 3.5 supplement. most of the things that made them unique rules wise were covered in 2 pages. it is the same design ethos at the time that led to the highly praised 3.5 chaos codex. it is why playing the game was FUN above all else, even with the occasional power gamer that turned up from time to time.

I don't really feel pain. I understand now, after watching some interviews with ex GW employees that pet projects are a thing, that armies without a new or update model line have a low chance to be fixed, if they happen to be bad. What I would like GW to do, within the boundries of stuff they can do, and not some fairy tale stuff like drop the game to 30 models max and make the d10 or d12 the basic dice, is to adress the actual problems. And if a problem gets noticed, and agreed uppon, then don't make expetions for one army to keep the problem rules or mechanic set. GW fixes boomerang kill armies. In 8th it became comical to even me at some point, how every FAQ or "fix" to other armies somehow ended up as a GK nerf as a bonus.

Miracle dice are a problem? Eldar mortal/dev wounds generation are a problem ? Overwatch on Knights and WK are a problem (but not on a baneblade)? fix the specific units, mechanic, rule or faction. Don't make it so that just because you found out that marines play with 18 agressors/interceptors, suddenly all units come in fixed msu sizes. Or do a supposed dev wounds fix, because of how powerful one faction is, and ton of other suddenly are left without core army mechanics or stuff that was suppose to replace the removal of gear/psychic powers from the faction.

Now I don't know how, or even if GK existed in 3.5 ed. But I have seen their first codex. It was a mind blowing book. No detachment, no NDK, but pages of weapons, grenades with cool effects, upgrades for units etc. Comparing to that the 8th and 9th ed codex, and both indexes feel as if someone at GW tried to phase out GK, by killing the player base with bad rules. And after what they did to White Scar players with the marine codex, I don't think that GW is beyond killing factions they don't care much about. Only thing new is that they learned from the WFB to AoS change, to do it slowly, and not by just killing stuff all of the sudden, but by giving stuff bad rules over a long span of time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SideSwipe 811846 11628478 wrote:

Would agree, the change to fixed to hit rolls for close combat was a mistake imo.

Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.

This is just my half baked idea though.

Wasn't that a mechanic that was limited to titans, some few psychic powers and only eldar could spam it a lot, which was such a problem to w40k, that to make marines even semi viable as a faction, GW had to give them free, in points, but not cash, transports?

Pretty sure they're talking about D as an abbreviation for Damage, Karol; not the D-Weapons of 7th edition and earlier.

Karol wrote:


Now I don't know how, or even if GK existed in 3.5 ed. But I have seen their first codex. It was a mind blowing book. No detachment, no NDK, but pages of weapons, grenades with cool effects, upgrades for units etc. Comparing to that the 8th and 9th ed codex, and both indexes feel as if someone at GW tried to phase out GK, by killing the player base with bad rules. And after what they did to White Scar players with the marine codex, I don't think that GW is beyond killing factions they don't care much about. Only thing new is that they learned from the WFB to AoS change, to do it slowly, and not by just killing stuff all of the sudden, but by giving stuff bad rules over a long span of time.

Grey Knights were a single model in 2nd, and teamed with inquisiton in 3rd and 4th (with Inq taking the forefront, then GK), Inq was dropped in 5th, and the rest is history. Which is kinda funny, as what you're describing about post-8th GK is what happened to your old book makes, the Inquisition. It's been half alive for nearly every codex after 4th, and is now, finally, not an independent faction and just a handful of options.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Grey Knights were a single model in 2nd, and teamed with inquisiton in 3rd and 4th.

Minor correction, GK were a single "type" of model, GK Terminators. There was a small collection of bodies and parts to make a 5 man squad with variations between them. Three bodies, with arms, weapons and extra shields to swap between them. They were also associated with the Inquisition in 1st and 2nd ed, sharing Psychic powers and being part of the Ordo Malleus.

No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.

As an exercise for the slow grow league that starts at my store tomorrow, I've been building 500 point armies that include models I have.

Since it's tangential, I've hidden the armies in spoilers- but they're short lists, and there's some specific thoughts about each list.

So far I've got:

Drukhari


Ordo Hereticus Chamber Militant (Sisters)


Ministorum Sisters


Genestealer Cult


The gist of it is that the first three of these armies felt as fluffy as this edition can make them, and it was an easy build. The Hereticus Chamber Militant army is fluffy, but quite weak due to the limitations of Agents- namely, they can't use strats and enhancements, and they don't benefit from the army's detachment rule.

The fourth army, GSC can't take a second enhancement because I designed it as a fluffy First Brood army, so it weighs in at 490.

None of these lists are going to win me a game against an optimized list from any of the higher tier army, but they all made it to 500pts despite the PL-style points; sometimes that meant selecting a different suite of Enhancement than I'd have chosen for narrative / rule of cool, but serviceable enough.

The last list though, is a hard one- I can't get it to work out to 500 the way the others did. The big reason for that?

Chaos enhancements are god-locked, so each flavour of chaos can actually only have one enhancement, and it's based on your god, so you don't get to choose it. Unlike the problem with the GSC list, where the problem was my self imposed First and Second Generation restrictions, here it's a lack of options that prevent me from taking enough enhancements to get me to the finish line.

Here's the best I could do for my narrative vision:

 Da Boss wrote:
In moderation, in some special circumstances, I agree about special formations. I think MESBG goes way overboard because they're catering more to a tournament focused crowd (which is fine - it was the organised play scene that kept that game alive, I'm happy GW is making a game that those people like, it's just not for me). I prefer the simplicity of the blue rulebook.

Part of the problem at least has to be the move away from comparative charts for opposed rolls while keeping the D6 based system and the spread all the way up from a grot to a knight titan in the game. It's not surprising they have to fall back on a lot of bespoke rules with those sorts of limitations on this sort of scope of game.

All Space Marines being -1 to hit in melee compared to all Astra Militarum or all Tau was bad game design, the stat spread inside armies was too small for that system to work. My Flayed Ones hunt down Devastators? Hit on 4+, my Flayed Ones throwing themselves against Terminators or Assault Marines? Hitting on 4+. Flayed Ones attacking Guardsmen? 3+. Attacking Rough Riders? 3+. There were some Eldar units with WS 5+ and Ogryn had WS 4, but for the most part it was awfully implemented. Much easier to just give the appropriate units -1 to hit in melee with a Duelist ability if every Marine and Necron is going to be the same WS. The babying around not hitting on 3+ has also gotten worse, so it'd all just be hitting on 4+ because everyone would be WS 5 because "nuh uh my Assault Marines are just as trained as Howling Banshees" and "might as well give it to Devastator Marines while we're at it".

Da Boss wrote:No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.

Indeed they were never meant to be a full faction in the lore either, that is why it was codex demon hunters not grey knights. it would be more appropriate to call it codex ordo malleus. as the entire point is that the GK part of it was the chamber militant of the inquisitional ordo meant to deal with demons and chaos aligned forces. they do work best as an allied force to bulk up an imperial faction like guard. which is why they had a special unique allies rule.

It is why i still prefer the 3rd ed codex because the 5th ed codex did turn them into singular full faction instead of just a part of the inquisition.

Played my first game of 10th edition yesterday. It was a pretty Kafkaesque feeling game, none of my units performed in a familiar way. Made me rethink my entire army composure.

Don't know if 10th edition has drained the soul from 40K, but it certainly has changed things alot. I hardly recognize the game anymore to be honest. Feels like now, you either need super specific tools for every job, or you need to attach specific characters to units, in order to milk them for their special abilities. All about those LETHAL HITS, getting Twin linked, or DESTASTATING WOUNDS, unless you have the exact ANTI- keyword you happen to need.

Very true-spam the best units and play the war of attrition is NU-40K in a nutshell. faction is irrelevant, lore is irrelevant.

10th edition is effectively already dead at our FLGS there are a few people who play from time to time. but even now less than a year after it's release players are jumping ship to play other games or in our local groups case we have a strong oldhammer group that plays house 5th ed.

We had a semi regular guy come in yesterday looking for a 10th ed game but nobody was playing, the guys who might play 10th were playing MCP or monpoc and the rest of us with 40K armies only play oldhammer. one of the guys who jumped into 40K just shy of a year ago who has 3 armies-chaos/guard/marines has finally washed his hands of 10th (he was doing both for a while) and is now only playing oldhammer.

"Spam the best units and play the war of attrition" sums up things well I'd say. No wonder my last game felt weird, I used a "lore accurate" force, and it felt like the game hates you for it

I wish 40K got its own dose of TOW treatment. Wouldnt mind a 40K fork which kept it a bit more old school and true to the pre 8th ed fluff

 aphyon wrote:

Da Boss wrote:No offense meant to GK fans, but I always felt they were a poor choice for a full faction. A faction specialised at killing one other faction is a bit of a poor design choice. They'd work better as an auxillary unit for imperial forces for special scenarios or something. Cool idea in the background, great models, but the old codex where you had to distort the fluff of your army if you were playing against them always really irked me quite a lot.

Indeed they were never meant to be a full faction in the lore either, that is why it was codex demon hunters not grey knights. it would be more appropriate to call it codex ordo malleus. as the entire point is that the GK part of it was the chamber militant of the inquisitional ordo meant to deal with demons and chaos aligned forces. they do work best as an allied force to bulk up an imperial faction like guard. which is why they had a special unique allies rule.

It is why i still prefer the 3rd ed codex because the 5th ed codex did turn them into singular full faction instead of just a part of the inquisition.

Both of these attitudes are examples of the "Horizontal growth inhibitors" that I wrote about earlier.

The 3rd ed Hunter dexes were as they were not because that's all they were intended to be, but because that's all GW could make of them DURING THE 3RD EDITION.

It's funny that we've had almost four decades of edition churn, and people still believe that GW's planning is self contained within a single edition. If you don't think that the Hunter dexes were released as transitional "proof of concept" work prior to larger releases and integration of both Inquisition and the respective chambers militant, I think there might be some "big picture" skills in need of further development.

GW released an entire game about the Inquisition; the Overkill box set was great for Deathwatch; Hexfire for GK and Ashes of Faith is keeping the Inquisition present for 10th. As GW engages media- through WH+ and the Amazon deal, or the once rumoured Eisenhorn show, Inquisition will become more important- if this media pulls new players, they will expect to play what the media depicts. And Inquisition, including their Chambers Militant, are an important part of that- their stories have always been amongst the most intriguing in the Warhammer 40k Universe.

I personally believe 40k should have larger ranges and more subfaction development for neglected factions and fewer editions. These characteristics go hand in hand- increasing the units in a given army, or increasing the number of armies allows new money to come in without an edition reset. If there are fewer new models, editions must get shorter, because it becomes the only way to bring in new money.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

vipoid wrote:
I would agree with this sentiment.

In any case, I maintain that 10th went in entirely the wrong direction when it came to slimming down 9th.

Take Eldar for example. Eldar had a core rule (Battle Focus) that reflected the speed/mobility of the Eldar. It then had subfaction abilities (some perhaps went a little overboard but it was a nice thing to have). But then it also added an entire 'Fate Dice' system that was completely superflous to the army.

So what did 10th do? It dropped everything *except* the superflous Fate Dice mechanic.

This is the equivalent of throwing the baby out but keeping the bathwater.

Totally agree. I would drop the soulless feels-bad Strands of Fate mechanic for a return to Move-Shoot-Move (battlefocus) in a heartbeat. My guess is battle focus will be one of the detachment abilities when the codex comes around.

Honestly, I'm not sure giving all armies an army-wide rule was a great idea in the first place. It works okay for something like tyranids that really ought to have synapse beasties in most or all lists. But for a lot of armies, they might have been better off just expanding on detachment abilities. So instead of giving fate dice to absolutely every eldar faction, you can make that an Ulthwe/Seer Support mechanic, representing the seer council being powerful and organized enough to help micromanage the battle. Meanwhile a Saimhann/We Like Skimmers list could replace the guardian defenders fate dice generation rule with the ability to fight better when working in tandem with a wave serpent or something.

SideSwipe wrote:
Would add that the D stat on weapons was a good idea poorly implemented when it came to vehicles, with the range of wounds/D being too narrow. Vehicles should have wounds that they can tank small arms all day, with heavy weapons necessary. Imo a light vehicle[DE raider, land speeder] should have 10+ wounds, medium[Rhino, Predator] having 20+ and heavy [Leman Russ, Land Raider]having 30+. A dedicated anti tanks weapon such as a lascannon would do something like 6+3D6 damage.

This is just my half baked idea though.

I agree with your sentiment here, but in practice, I'm not sure if lascannons basically one-shotting raiders is ideal. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I kind of liked where things were at in 8th/9th. Power creep in 9th meant that too many things had an extra pip of AP that made the math a little wonky. But generally, small arms were *bad* enough at hurting vehicles that you didn't want to rely on them for that job, but they were *good enough* against vehicles for a squad of bolters or shuriken catapults to still contribute to the destruction of an enemy rhino. Inefficient-but-relevant is where I like my small arms in regards to tanks. And as I argued at the time, a lot of the perceived issues with vehicle durability could have been solved by just giving vehicles like, 30% more wounds. So 13 wound rhinos for instance. Enough to make them noticably more durable against small arms and D2 weapons like plasma, but not so much as to make rolling D1 weapons against them a waste of time.

I think what you're suggesting is acceptable to me. I think where we differ is how relevant/irrelevant we think small arms should be.

I'm ok with small arms taking wounds off vehicles, but I'm against any situation where massed D2 weaponry is considered the best option for anti tank, especially when in competition with a traditionally dedicated anti tank weapon such as a lascannon.