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I know I’m certainly an outlier, having massive armies for HH and LI despite basically never playing the damned games?

But I do question just how many players/hobbyists stick strictly to a given army size?

I do not doubt they’re out there. But this is a collecting hobby as well as an artistic and strategy hobby. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the outlier at the opposite end to me in terms of relative rarity.

I mean, if I truly behave, and build a given army no larger than say, 3,000 points? But do that across two different armies? Am I getting as much potential variety compared to someone with equivalent points for a single army, where they’ve a wider variety of units for multiple potential builds across varying points limits?

Dudeface wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Thing is I'd argue GW doesn't have to make armies smaller right now and that that would be the wrong approach. Most armies have a LOT of model variety and choice now and people want to play with their toys. Cutting army sizes down would mean fewer toys on the table and thus either you'd see people unhappy that so much of hteir collection is gathering dust; or the "2K standard" just pushes up to "4K standard"

I'd argue that's the problem, it's a very ego-centric take that new people must suffer because of their sunk investment. Smaller forces don't hurt anyone but GWs bottom line but there's enough "bigger is best" enthusiasts that facilitate it. They likely also whinge about the prices whilst wanting to inflict them on people.

What do you mean by suffer?

Also you can flip that argument on its head and say why should established people "suffer" with smaller armies just because of newbies?

In the end you can't fight the two groups against each other - that just leads to favouring one over the other and a mess either way. Again new people have multiple supported game formats to play at. Heck one Combat Patrol is easily 500points or so for most armies. Get two and perhaps a character leader and you can play full games if you want at 1K points or thereabouts.


Again new people are always going to have a hill to climb and if they are seriously strapped for cash then they might have to accept that they can't play Warhammer 40K at 2K points unless they hit the (very healthy and large) secondhand market. Otherwise there are loads of cheaper games like Infinity, Battletech, Underworlds, Killteam, etc... that they can tap into if they are much tighter on budget.

New Valrak rumours from https://youtu.be/ds1M4z7jlPA?si=5kxmjrjcENl8j1V2

The following units are being sent to legends in the 11th ed Space Marine codex -

Firstborn
Tactical Squads
Devastator Squads
The Razorback

Primaris
Invader ATV
Suppressors
Firestrike Turret

He notes that he has heard there is a new Rhino coming, so it seems possible the Razorback could return at some point (but that's just supposition).

Personally I think removing the ATV and the Firestrike Turret seems pretty crappy, GW have sold a fair amount of those in box sets very recently for something they are going to pull, and the ATV hits the White Scars pretty hard. These are pretty recent models to be killing.

I also hoped Devastators wouldn't get replaced until they replaced the Desolation Squad with, well, basically Primaris Devastators.

Wait how the heck do you send tactical squads to legends - aren't they your corner stone bread and butter basic marine infantry?

Unless this is more of a "Tac squad goes and now Core Squad" is the new unit with a new name but same thing.

Much like how GW sent a bunch of soulblight models in AoS to legends at the same time they replaced them with brand new sculpts so it was purely a name change

Honestly I'm surprised Tacticals survived so long
Sad to see so much go though

I had honestly expected the Predator to go to Legends as that's already got a 1-1 Primaris equivalent unit, but entirely unsurprised to hear it's the Razorback going. It's always been a strange vehicle as 5-man squads have never really sat well in the game.

 Overread wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Thing is I'd argue GW doesn't have to make armies smaller right now and that that would be the wrong approach. Most armies have a LOT of model variety and choice now and people want to play with their toys. Cutting army sizes down would mean fewer toys on the table and thus either you'd see people unhappy that so much of hteir collection is gathering dust; or the "2K standard" just pushes up to "4K standard"

I'd argue that's the problem, it's a very ego-centric take that new people must suffer because of their sunk investment. Smaller forces don't hurt anyone but GWs bottom line but there's enough "bigger is best" enthusiasts that facilitate it. They likely also whinge about the prices whilst wanting to inflict them on people.

What do you mean by suffer?

Also you can flip that argument on its head and say why should established people "suffer" with smaller armies just because of newbies?

In the end you can't fight the two groups against each other - that just leads to favouring one over the other and a mess either way. Again new people have multiple supported game formats to play at. Heck one Combat Patrol is easily 500points or so for most armies. Get two and perhaps a character leader and you can play full games if you want at 1K points or thereabouts.


Again new people are always going to have a hill to climb and if they are seriously strapped for cash then they might have to accept that they can't play Warhammer 40K at 2K points unless they hit the (very healthy and large) secondhand market. Otherwise there are loads of cheaper games like Infinity, Battletech, Underworlds, Killteam, etc... that they can tap into if they are much tighter on budget.

Right mates, we are all on the same boat with "starting a new army" I can have a vast collection crossing many factions but still want to start a new one that I dont collect yet.
Creating this idea of newbs vs vets and groups is not on.

So If I wanted to start an army in 10th is vastly different from armies in 4th or 5th... 1500pts was the norm but you could still bring big collections as a treat in bigger organised games.
What Im saying is what is fundamentally broken from having armies back to 1500tps and leaving the big collections for other formats?
I understand everyone is different but I rather have 2 factions at 1500pts than one at 3000pts and so on.
Its more practical and exiting for people who like to move from projects rather than being caged into just one forever.

Ideally the game would work well between something like 1000-3000pts, or at least 1000-2000pts. That way it's welcoming to newbies and accommodating to the experienced.

It's a bit chicken-and-egg but both the community and the ruleset has a very strong preference for 2000pts.
In my experience people are still very willing to accommodate a new player with smaller games, but there's still a strong sense of "okay you've had the taster, next month you're onboard for 2k right?"

I recently played a custom mission pack for 1500pts in Horus Heresy, that basically limited armies to just basic troops and 1 or 2 advanced support units (eg 1 tank, 1 terminator unit) type thing.
It was really fun and made the lower points format feel like a legitimate way to play the game in its own rite.

I think 40k would benefit a lot from that kind of thing. The current "normal rules, just fewer points" really enables a shedload of skew which can be quite unfun when players don't have the points to diversify.

It's kind of what Combat Patrol is supposed to do, but that's heavily Corporate Approved Taster Session vibes.

 Overread wrote:
Wait how the heck do you send tactical squads to legends - aren't they your corner stone bread and butter basic marine infantry?

Not for a decade. That's the intercessors now.

But legending primaris stuff is quite worrying. It means nothing is safe in the long run.

GW legended a bunch of 3 year old models in Age of Sigmar for Stormcast - so not even retiring to old world; just straight up wiped them out.

I think points matters less than game length.

For better or worse people seem to like that a 40k game takes up about 3-4 hours (cut down to 2.5 in tournaments, but you need to be efficient). That can fill a weekday evening or weekend afternoon. Army sizes tend to have evolved to that target - whether that's 1500, 1850 or 2000 points.

You might think something like Underworlds that you can play in under an hour would take over - but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. Possibly because a short game doesn't match the level of time and money GW want you to put into the hobby.

 Overread wrote:
GW legended a bunch of 3 year old models in Age of Sigmar for Stormcast - so not even retiring to old world; just straight up wiped them out.

Yeah, that was very worrying. These models are quite expensive and take a lot of time to paint. But at least it used to be that they were a safe investment in a sense that you could trust that you can use them for a very long time. But this is no longer the case. This, more than the price alone, has made me wary of making that many GW purchases these days.

 Overread wrote:
GW legended a bunch of 3 year old models in Age of Sigmar for Stormcast - so not even retiring to old world; just straight up wiped them out.

TBH I thought GW might have learned their lesson from doing that, because the reaction was incredibly toxic and really hurt the launch of AOS 4th ed (to the extent I genuinely think it impacted the financial health of the game, given the signs that 4th ed has done worse than 3rd).

I am bit baffled if they are retiring Invader and Firestrike as those are new compared to tactical, devastator and rhino/razorback.

Expect Suppressors. Those never got an official release outside of battalion box.

 The Phazer wrote:

 Overread wrote:
GW legended a bunch of 3 year old models in Age of Sigmar for Stormcast - so not even retiring to old world; just straight up wiped them out.

TBH I thought GW might have learned their lesson from doing that, because the reaction was incredibly toxic and really hurt the launch of AOS 4th ed (to the extent I genuinely think it impacted the financial health of the game, given the signs that 4th ed has done worse than 3rd).

I agree and honestly GW should have seen it coming. Wargaming is just not a "pump and dump" market like cardgames.
Not only are people building armies over decades; they plan and collect them over similar timeframes. Upgrading models has always worked well for GW as fans often flock to new designs but can keep the old ones going too. Removing entirely is always a huge risk an 3 years is nothing in this market.
Heck the only reason they did it is that the insist on Stormcast being in the starter box for each edition and Stormcast are 1 army not a halfdozen like Marines. Honestly I'd hope they learned that perhaps they can put two OTHER armies in the box not just stormcast and perhaps shift the narrative away from them being the forced poster-child of the game. It worked for Marines, but it won't work for aoS and honestly everyone tends to agree that AoS is all the stronger for having so many diverse factions instead of every other release feeling like its a new stormcast subfaction fleshed out to full faction size.


It doesn't help that they then removed Beastmen and it looks like Dark Elves are going that way too (to be fair that one was half expected being as they did basically nothing with them for the entire life of AoS) and there's strong rumours that Fyrslayesr aren't getting a new book (though that's also got a ray of hope that there might be a new dwarf battletome and force)

Supressors only came as monopose on a mixed frame. Without their own box I could see their bays being numbered. Not that old though.

The ATV and the turret I can’t imagine were very popular. They mariocart was memed to heck as well. I’d like to see it replaced with an attack bike again, or some better designed heavy support unit to atach to bike squads.

And if we are going to have marine artillery, the TFC/Raipier is more fitting IMHO. But I’m not a fan of slow/static units in my marines. But that’s a personal opinion.

 The Phazer wrote:
New Valrak rumours from https://youtu.be/ds1M4z7jlPA?si=5kxmjrjcENl8j1V2

The following units are being sent to legends in the 11th ed Space Marine codex -

Firstborn
Tactical Squads
Devastator Squads
The Razorback

Primaris
Invader ATV
Suppressors
Firestrike Turret

He notes that he has heard there is a new Rhino coming, so it seems possible the Razorback could return at some point (but that's just supposition).

Personally I think removing the ATV and the Firestrike Turret seems pretty crappy, GW have sold a fair amount of those in box sets very recently for something they are going to pull, and the ATV hits the White Scars pretty hard. These are pretty recent models to be killing.

I also hoped Devastators wouldn't get replaced until they replaced the Desolation Squad with, well, basically Primaris Devastators.

"Welcome to 11th - for starters we are going to delete some of our all time best selling products. We will then follow this up by also killing off products that we have been pushing on customers right up until we decided to pull the rug out from under their feet. Please keep buying new stuff though".

Every single person knows that legends is a joke, GW could just stick the datasheets for units they don't want in the codex in the faction packs and let people use their models. Everyone also knows that a generic modern set of mk7 marines like the various HH tactical squads would outsell most product lines from all GW game systems.

Tyel wrote:
I think points matters less than game length.

For better or worse people seem to like that a 40k game takes up about 3-4 hours (cut down to 2.5 in tournaments, but you need to be efficient). That can fill a weekday evening or weekend afternoon. Army sizes tend to have evolved to that target - whether that's 1500, 1850 or 2000 points.

You might think something like Underworlds that you can play in under an hour would take over - but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. Possibly because a short game doesn't match the level of time and money GW want you to put into the hobby.

Fair point regarding the time most prefer to have in one game. Although would you rather have, say a couple games in half a day or just one?
GW clearly wants more of your time and money by increasing the bar, that suits them sure, but in an increasingly busy and expensive life outside hobbies it simply becomes out of touch for many.

 Crimson wrote:

 Overread wrote:
GW legended a bunch of 3 year old models in Age of Sigmar for Stormcast - so not even retiring to old world; just straight up wiped them out.

Yeah, that was very worrying. These models are quite expensive and take a lot of time to paint. But at least it used to be that they were a safe investment in a sense that you could trust that you can use them for a very long time. But this is no longer the case. This, more than the price alone, has made me wary of making that many GW purchases these days.

Well I recently just sold all of mine Stormcast sempiternal army that GW, after 3 years, kindly decided to trash! and let me tell you this... you will lose serious money, not many people want them and you will not recoup your investment at all.
Im also officially out of AoS or the old world etc since I cant shake the feeling of being played. I will just keep my O&G for fun.
To see this happening to 40K Primaris is a Massive red flag!

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Thing is I'd argue GW doesn't have to make armies smaller right now and that that would be the wrong approach. Most armies have a LOT of model variety and choice now and people want to play with their toys. Cutting army sizes down would mean fewer toys on the table and thus either you'd see people unhappy that so much of hteir collection is gathering dust; or the "2K standard" just pushes up to "4K standard"

I'd argue that's the problem, it's a very ego-centric take that new people must suffer because of their sunk investment. Smaller forces don't hurt anyone but GWs bottom line but there's enough "bigger is best" enthusiasts that facilitate it. They likely also whinge about the prices whilst wanting to inflict them on people.

What do you mean by suffer?

Also you can flip that argument on its head and say why should established people "suffer" with smaller armies just because of newbies?

In the end you can't fight the two groups against each other - that just leads to favouring one over the other and a mess either way. Again new people have multiple supported game formats to play at. Heck one Combat Patrol is easily 500points or so for most armies. Get two and perhaps a character leader and you can play full games if you want at 1K points or thereabouts.


Again new people are always going to have a hill to climb and if they are seriously strapped for cash then they might have to accept that they can't play Warhammer 40K at 2K points unless they hit the (very healthy and large) secondhand market. Otherwise there are loads of cheaper games like Infinity, Battletech, Underworlds, Killteam, etc... that they can tap into if they are much tighter on budget.

Right mates, we are all on the same boat with "starting a new army" I can have a vast collection crossing many factions but still want to start a new one that I dont collect yet.
Creating this idea of newbs vs vets and groups is not on.

So If I wanted to start an army in 10th is vastly different from armies in 4th or 5th... 1500pts was the norm but you could still bring big collections as a treat in bigger organised games.
What Im saying is what is fundamentally broken from having armies back to 1500tps and leaving the big collections for other formats?
I understand everyone is different but I rather have 2 factions at 1500pts than one at 3000pts and so on.
Its more practical and exiting for people who like to move from projects rather than being caged into just one forever.

Pretty much all of this, if I have 5k of an army I have endless options, I won't tantrum I can't use it all or sulk of the game size shrinks. It just makes it easier to have lots of little themed lists from my collection.

The idea that games must be bigger because I own more is stupid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I think points matters less than game length.

For better or worse people seem to like that a 40k game takes up about 3-4 hours (cut down to 2.5 in tournaments, but you need to be efficient). That can fill a weekday evening or weekend afternoon. Army sizes tend to have evolved to that target - whether that's 1500, 1850 or 2000 points.

You might think something like Underworlds that you can play in under an hour would take over - but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. Possibly because a short game doesn't match the level of time and money GW want you to put into the hobby.

I'd rather a "full" force be less expensive which is really what we're all saying. One way to do that without hitting their pricing structure is mandate less stuff. I aren't bothered if the game is faster or slower overly, you can design the rules to fit that length with fewer minis.

The Firestrike turret being deleted from the game is crazy, The Iron Hands Combat Patrol has two of them!

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
The Firestrike turret being deleted from the game is crazy, The Iron Hands Combat Patrol has two of them!

It was widely panned as a result of having 2 of them as well.

 Insularum wrote:
Every single person knows that legends is a joke, GW could just stick the datasheets for units they don't want in the codex in the faction packs and let people use their models.

Practicably speaking, Legends is actually a genius move by GW.
It lets them boil-the-frog in squatting units, doing so without major backlash.
Anyone that complains they can't use Tactical Squads now will get loudly shouted down by people saying "ahktually Legends are totally legal". Then in 3-6 years time when they stop writing Tactical Squad Legends sheets everyone's forgot about it because the unit has languished in Legends hell for so long people don't care anymore.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Insularum wrote:
Every single person knows that legends is a joke, GW could just stick the datasheets for units they don't want in the codex in the faction packs and let people use their models.

Practicably speaking, Legends is actually a genius move by GW.
It lets them boil-the-frog in squatting units, doing so without major backlash.
Anyone that complains they can't use Tactical Squads now will get loudly shouted down by people saying "ahktually Legends are totally legal". Then in 3-6 years time when they stop writing Tactical Squad Legends sheets everyone's forgot about it because the unit has languished in Legends hell for so long people don't care anymore.

Except that only works when legends is used for very old models AND very slowly. Using it on models that aren't even 10 years old and using it for more and more models and it starts to backfire on GW. Because now people are losing big chunks of armies in one go and "yes its in legends" but we all know that means one cycle of rules that "aren't updated" and which are often not game legal in events.

YES GW has sort of tried to phase that in a few times with AoS armies and "its legal for a year sort of" but its still a death sentence.


People don't like the £30-100+ model they've bought, built (maybe converted) and painted being invalidated. Esp when not everyone is grabbing models at launch. Many might have to wait and save for months/year or come to an army later. Some of those with the retired Stormcast were new armies hardly out of the box. Heck at 3 years and being in the starter set its a baffling move considering that's a HUGE chunk of your newbies who just had armies/models invalidated.


Legends is only a safe haven if it becomes a case of "fully legal and fully updated" or if GW slows down so its only the very occasional model being added

Otherwise I don't see why GW can't just keep cycling new updated variations. All they have to do is keep the base size the same and the weapon choices and they can update models all the time.

Oh yeah, something like culling large numbers of essentially brand new kits is a level of gak that you can't soften.

But things like squatting Tactical Squads is exactly the kind of thing Legends really softens out.

We saw it in Heresy 3.0 - leaks showed large numbers of units getting removed. Huge backlash. GW comes in and says "guys chill, they got Legends, you're good" and suddenly no one was allowed to be upset anymore. [Although without the tournament scene, Legends are a much more normal thing to see in Heresy].
But I digress...

I'm sure GW has looked at the numbers and seen that new units sell better than old ones. That's a pretty obvious equation if you think that large numbers of people that already have Tactical Squads aren't going to buy new Tactical Squad Boogaloo. Whereas every player has the same incentive to buy NewAwesomeCool Squad

Wasn't a good chunk of HH also models that GW had never actually produced being removed?

Also a chunk was "this model has 3 weapons in the box but 10 on the profile so we are cutting 7 weapons" which is different to removing the actual kit itself.


Thing is yes new kits sell better and are easier to push with marketing. But that's why I say new updated kits is better over simply removing the concept of a unit from the game.

Now fair is fair a few of the removed AoS models were replaced with new sculpts, though GW bungled the marketing on that and released the removed list LONG before the updated modes. The could have softened the blow considerably going "hey we are releasing new versions of X Y and Z" as the first step. Kit is removed, but you can still use it in games and the new model is just a bit more funky.

 Overread wrote:
Wasn't a good chunk of HH also models that GW had never actually produced being removed?

For Marines, kind of yes. For Auxilia? No, most of it was stuff they used to produce and some that they still do that crosses over with 40K.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Oh yeah, something like culling large numbers of essentially brand new kits is a level of gak that you can't soften.

But things like squatting Tactical Squads is exactly the kind of thing Legends really softens out.

We saw it in Heresy 3.0 - leaks showed large numbers of units getting removed. Huge backlash. GW comes in and says "guys chill, they got Legends, you're good" and suddenly no one was allowed to be upset anymore. [Although without the tournament scene, Legends are a much more normal thing to see in Heresy].
But I digress...

I'm sure GW has looked at the numbers and seen that new units sell better than old ones. That's a pretty obvious equation if you think that large numbers of people that already have Tactical Squads aren't going to buy new Tactical Squad Boogaloo. Whereas every player has the same incentive to buy NewAwesomeCool Squad

Yeah I think the equivalent to the AoS Fiasco would be if GW decided to pick the new Space wolves released this year, in 3 years time and say they are all gone now. Faction over, they all perished.

Valrak Rumors:

Going to Legends in 11th: Razorback, ATV, Suppressors, Tactical Marine Squad, Devastators.


Dang it!!!!! This literally kills my Dark Angel army, which is 99% firstborn.

Most of it was "This model has 3 weapons in the box but 10 options, so we're cutting 7 options" yeah
And a large chunk of that stuff wasn't even returned in the legends books.
But I think the difference is largely academic. How different are the concepts of "Thunderhammerers Squad" and "Powersworders Squad" compared to "Unit with Thunderhammers, may instead take Powerswords"?
Would squatting Thunderhammerers be different from removing the thunderhammer option from Unit?
Or is the end result identical in both cases - players have 10 models they need to rip apart or never touch again

I think it's really sad Tacticals are being squatted. I'm not a super fan of Mahreenz, but I appreciate their place in lore and especially history. The Tactical Squad is iconic!

I was hoping some of the weirder Primaris stuff would be reeled in and a Primaris Tactical Squad would become a thing. That way, it's more like Truescale Marine and less Replacement for Marines.

A bunch of things in no particular order:

1. The most recent rules for 1000 point games are great. Bringing the objectives closer together and limiting to rule of 2 makes for a fantastic game you should absolutely encourage in your community. New and casual players absolutely thrive there and its my preferred format. GW would be wise to continue supporting it.

2. Legends is something people should play. You can absolutely put those things on the table without ruining the game. They aren't busted, they aren't so bad as to be conceeding; just play with your toys.

3. If you don't want to play legends, Tac Squads and firstborn armies are just Intercessors and whatever equivalents now. Might need to tweak some loadouts and maybe some bases, but I can't think of anything that can't have a place. Just Play With Your Toys.