Wyldhunt wrote:

 lordstarhawk wrote:
well the thing is psycic abilities actually did work rather well in every edition, felt like psycic, and were a great advantage and wile there were things to counter them you could defend against or get around it

If you liked the "feel" of psychic powers in previous editions better, that's fair enough. However, there was not always counterplay to psychic powers being shut down. In 5th edition, thing like psychic hoods and wolf tail talismans/runic weapons just had a flat percentage chance to negate your psychic powers, and you didn't really have any say in the matter. In 8th/9th there really wasn't much to counter someone passing a Deny the Witch test unless you happened to have a relic or stratagem or whatever to make your power undeniable. In 7th, there *was* some counterplay in the form of being able to dump all your psychic dice into a small number of powers to basically guarantee they went off, but your tastes are unconventional if you liked that approach."

not hard to do, there were things you could do to make them undeniable, even in 9th, loremaster if you rolled an unmodifiable 9, your powers went through you could use 3 of these on the same guy, it helped against armies that shut it down, so it did exist and existed in other editions as well

, now however, its much worse, as you give your enemy better saves a feel no pain, or they do things to you. its completly backwards to how its supposed to work, as psycic, could be defended against never a major debuff for having it, and it always enhanced the warrior.

So I get that what you're trying to convey is that there are currently some rules that trigger off of the psychic keyword and that these are almost always rules that are advantageous to the psyker's enemies. However, what you're actually saying simply isn't true. Psychic powers did not always "enhance the warrior" (warrior here meaning the psyker?). There have been at least a few special rules that make enemies especially effective against psykers in any edition that had a condemnor boltgun, a culexus assassin, or a crucible of malediction. Plus the last couple editions where there have been secondaries that reward you for killing psykers. Furthermore, there has never been anything inherent to the psyker rules that make psychic abilities inherently advantageous just for being psychic abilities. I mean, obviously being able to buff yourself or shoot lightning is a plus, but an ability being a "psychic power" historically just means that there's an X% chance you'll fail to cast the power, that there's an X% chance your opponent will deny the witch, or that the caster will be susceptible to the aformentioned anti-psyker rules.

ok well lets see for grey knights rules enhancing the warrior codex demon hunters the earliest, thier powers were mild, but they did double strength with hammerhands that was somehwat usefull, then there was holocaust that was an anti horde template, that was also usefull, 5th 6th 7th 8th, 9th introduced these powers as much more usefull enhancing the warriors with sanctuary, hammerhands would add rerolls or plus one to wound, armored resilience was -1 to wound, etc, more often then not they did enhance thier warriors, eldar also had abilities like fortune, your claim doesent support the actual evidence well simply have to dissagree. as far as things that could fight against psycics yes those have always existed, but you got major benifits to be denied, or fought against, with instead of mild abilities that are weaker then other armies rules its simply how it is. some powers you had to randomize between squads but grey knights always could cast several powers and they more often then not enhanced thier squads.

If you want to make the case that there should be fewer special abilities that proc vs psychic attacks or whatever, you can certainly make that argument. But let's not confuse the facts.

so heres the thing about psycic rules now, have you played grey knights from prior editions?

A little. I proxied my marines as GK for a few games in 5th edition, but that's about it.

thier psycic was very good, now though its not very good as an ability because other armies have it better, for example templar have lethal hits all the time, you can give it to other armies permanently, i onley get it on the charge.

I mean, that's kind of 10th in general. A lot of armies are arguably overusing the same handful of bland USRs (lethal hits, devastating wounds, etc.) in a way that makes armies feel kind of same-y. With some armies having access to each of those rules in different ways/to varying extents. You can make the case that BT are stronger than GK (I have no idea if that's true or not) or that GK and BT both having access to lethal hits makes them feel too similar/directly comparable. But note that neither of those arguments is directly related to how psychic powers function in general.

Like, if you're just trying to say that you want GK to feel more unique without necessarily being more powerful than BT, that's totally valid.

Nemisis wepons always did something, sometimes they caused more wounds, or a single mortal up to 6, but they always did something decent and nice, this bieng because they had raw warp energy pouring through them.

Again. Nemesis weapons currently do something. Would you feel better if they said something like,

"This Strength 4 D1 weapon adds +2 to its Strength and +1 to its Damage stat because it's psychic"?

right now thier actually relic blades, not nemisis wepons, st 6 was amazing in old editions because nothing was over toughness 6 but unfortunetly st 6 is the new st4 and st 4 is the new st 3, so it really struggles vs high toughness enemies, without say halberds and hammers, st 6 isnt that deadly like other marines wepons are, even cheap termies like powerfist termies can handle these units far better and at a cheaper cost. furthermore, often powers, or bonus damage really helped. yea they could do plus one damage, or lethal hits all the time, unfortunetly onley thier termies get lethal hits and onley on the charge it feels funny as if thier power gets turned off after thier not blood angels. the psycic keyword should do more then link a heros rules, like critical hits, or lethal hits or a bonus point of damage on a 6 doesent even have to ignore inv saves but maybe armor. it would just feel more grey knight like.

Because that's what the psychic warp energy is doing. It's causing more wounds (like before), and it's wounding more reliably (basically a baked-in Hammerhand). You basically have always-on Hammerhand and always-on extra damage. It seems like you're maybe hung up on the presentation rather than the actual rules here?

onley on the charge, and onley for one unit, hammerhands traditionally was a default power for 5 editions for all units, now onley termies and onley once.

just make them out to be normal psyker space marines, of wich they are not, thier alot closer to custodes, in power, and should at minimum reflect that status much like the space marines.

I mean, saying that GK are more like custodes than like psychic space marines is just... objectively not true. They are literally space marines with psychic powers. Aside from that, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you want GK to be marines +1 that cost more points? Because that's fair enough. Or are you literally just saying that a specific paragraph of fluff doesn't get you hyped? In which case... fine. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong for not liking some flavor text.
i think you would have to read the older codexes and even the latter dexes to see that, particularily grey knight training methods, you see grey knights are not like other space marines, thier training methods are much harder and they loose thousands or tens of thousands in training, they send them directly to fight demons and those who survive and survive the trials these go from initiates to grey knight, they also have the emperors gene seed that makes them most often stronger then the strongest librarians, with powers that enhance thier speed, resilience, and combat abilitiy, its why i believe a grey knight could match a custodes, if chaos marines a few could beef themselves up like the one in watchers of the throne, who fought valerien to match him, then so could a grey knight they do in fact do this. every power in 9th was an enhancement and we had a ton. a grey knight is one in a million, thier like small heros, and they need to be to fight the worst enemies of humanity and survive, but often they dont every battle for grey knights is a suicide mission. they will have to expand recruitment to survive to more chapters i highly suspect GW will do this. paladins are actually better then most custodians in the lore, having fought several greater demons and one of the 666 demon lords ever to exist just to become a paladin. that said the argument is that most often in these editions, grey knights are not as elite as they should be or functional, save for 5th and 9th, they were very behind and rated lower then custodes and marines, at competitive play, felt funny as even players like 40k dirtbags on youtube agrees thier custodes level in the lore.

I think perhaps you thought the lore needed changing? grey knights dont have to be overpowered to make sense, and even in thier insane battles they do in fact loose, they often loose to win, they just take a ton with them, and theres nothing wrong with that they rarely have survivors, and rarely a clean victory like space marines do, or other imperial armies, instead they strike like a malet, at the worst infestations of chaos, slaying it purging it like a cancer, so the rest of the imperium can survive.

I did not think the lore needed to change, nor do I think GK are significantly *more* Gary Stu-ish than normal marines.
yes all marines share the gary stu power level equally you should see the ultramarines lore.

these and the bland rules are some of the reasons you onley see 2-5% grey knight players in tournaments, its about 3 players for every 100, thier just tacky, but you dont have to agree with me, heck you might even like how they sound now, but most grey knight players have switched to other space marines armies, as have I till they start adding detachments back to them.

I mean. I think most tournament players are either playing what's powerful at the moment or else playing the armies they already have and are familiar with. I doubt a significant number of GK players jumped ship because of the index's flavor text.

They did, ive been asking around, its simply not that interesting, its ok a C tier index but its just an index not a codex, a decent hold over its just kinda boring its why they switched, normal marines have so much more flavor fun, and options, grey knights used to have this in thier codex with 8 army builds, brotherhoods that felt really fun and unique, now everything that made grey knights was removed and eliminated, moreso then older editions. but GW is learning, i just hope they dont squat and remove the army entirely as they feel rather ignored underated, marginalized, and not important to the story or game like GW wants them to go much like bretonians in fantasy theres just no hype for them and no one in GW championing them.

they are always some of the last to recieve updates

That is kind of true and stinks. Not really relevant to 10th edition as a whole or the current GK rules though.
well we can agree to dissagree, have you seen alot of grey knight players equal to the space marines? there are a ton of people on facebook but most of them dont play the army right now, even some of my most dedicated knight friends put them away, to play anouther more fun army.

, and sometimes get worse, instead of better

My drukhari sympathize.
yea its how it goes, i think dark eldar got a boost hopefully? i hear thier incubi are fun?

, they did have a slight boost but lost most of thier stuff including critical wepons they needed like halberds and hammers. it doesent take alot to make grey knights players happy, a couple small quality of life upgrades would go a long way, and honoring thier lore in thier codexes from 5-9th, rather then this blah, entry

That's fair. A lot of armies are definitely irked by the loss of options this edition. Again, my drukhari sympathize.

ill tell you what ill give you a better example of what should have been put as the index introduction to grey knights : "The Grey Knights are the legendary Chapter 666 - and although nominally a Chapter of the Astartes, They are the chamber militant of the ordo malleus Each member of the chapter undergoes a gruelling and torturous selection process, and even once inducted, their harsh training regime is without equal. In battle, they move as an army of silver ghosts, surrounded by awe, and equipped to the teeth to deal with the worst foes that Chaos can raise to meet them."

I'm... glad you thought up some flavor text you like? I don't mean to tear apart your writing, but as an elevator pitch meant to convey an army's gimmick and how it operates, I don't think it conveys as much as the GW fluff I quoted earlier. The earlier quote tells me:
* These guys are using a bunch of supernatural gear.
* They're psychic.
* They're marines.
* They're known for fighting daemons.
* They use precognition when forming battle plans.
* They have a thing for teleportation.

That gives me a decent idea of what to expect from the army. Compared to your text which tells me:
* They're marines.
* They work with the ordo malleus (which may or may not be informative depending on whether or not I already know what the ordo malleus is.)
* They move like ghosts, suggesting to me that they're known for stealth or possible phasing through walls? Neither of which is really true. Or if I disregard the silver ghosts thing then that line tells me nothing.
* They're known for fighting chaos.

So in terms of conveying information, the GW one is better. But if you're literally just saying you prefer your own writing style to that of whomever wrote the index flavor text... you are entitled to that preference.

but boring as hell the index way no hype or legend behind it like other armies

There's tons of stuff to criticize 10th edition over, and I have no doubt that there are plenty of legitimate problems with GK that can be criticized. But that said, a lot of the specific gripes you're bringing up at the moment don't hold up under scrutiny. Let's be angry at GW for the right reasons, yeah?

 catbarf wrote:


You're still missing the forest for the trees.

 catbarf wrote:

Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.

Dudeface wrote:
Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:

9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines

The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats


Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power

Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.

Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.

So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.

Wayniac wrote:
There was an interesting point brought up above, about White Scars. SHOULD they be "all about bikes"? IIRC the Scars doctrine was lightning assaults, not "Mongolian space biker gang".

In fact, the original "Fat Bloke 'bullied' the staff into making him White Scars rules" from White Dwarf 230 (Feb 1999 when the original Chaos codex came out for 3rd edition) specifically says that "White Scars excel at hit-and-run attacks and are renown for their speed" and shows this as a special army list made for the battle report (keep in mind this is 3rd edition so many units from later wouldn't exist):

Spoiler:

HQ
All independent characters must start the game with a squad with room in its transport, or be given a jump pack or bike as part of their wargear. If the character has a command squad they must all be mounted in a Rhino, Razorback, or Land Raider. Alternatively, a command squad may be mounted on bikes for +20 points per model.

ELITES
Terminators must be mounted in a Land Raider.

TROOPS
Bike Squads - may have up to 10 models
Scout bike squads
Tactical squads must be mounted in a Rhino or Razorback

FAST ATTACK
Assault Squads
Land Speeders and all variants

HEAVY SUPPORT
Attack Bike squadrons
Land Raiders
Predators (cannot be given weapon sponsons)
Dreadnoughts

Dreads have a note that they are really cool but don't quite fit, but they're allowing it anyways with some jokes about having considered teleporting Dreads or rollerblades and rocket boosters

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Yeah, I'll take the 4th ed options where
1: I can build an entire army mounted on bike models
2: Has the wargear options available to customize units for roles as I see fit
3: Forgoes hidden, bespoke special rules that are invisible to my opponent, in favor of USRs known by all.
4: Characters can join and leave squads as they see fit.

For just pure eyeballs, one can be an entirely mounted bike army, plain as day, with options modeled, visible and paraded with pride. The other can bring no more bikes than any standard Space Marine army, appearing no different than any other Space Marine army that happens to have the same units, but somehow behaves differently without telegraphing any of that information.

"Sanitized" is an excellent word for the second option.

Why pick on the Techmarine? Give him a Servo-Harness and a Bike and attach him to a unit and add extra firepower, or ride around and smash things with his Servo-Harness Attacks. Or repair any vehicles that you bring along, but keep him on a bike to stick with the theme. Just an option to make a cool model if you want it.

#1 in a game where there's actual structured missions having an army of all move 20/22 makes for a very lopsided game. If you desire such a thing you can't also be for a balanced game.

#2 just because primaris gets limited loadouts doesn't mean 40K is sanitized. Chaos Bikers still have selective loadouts. Will they redo old marine bikes? No idea.

#3 isn't really true. Everything is pretty easily visible and digestible at the start of a game.

#4 is so rarely useful as to be not worth mentioning. Putting searchlights on all the vehicles might make you look like a genius when night fight is rolled, but at the end of the day isn't an engaging way to design a game just because you happened to drop that missile launcher for search lights.

Clearly there's a few ideas in this thread. This one being ultimate customization at the cost of literally everything else.

A large part of list design has to incorporate how you'll accomplish missions. You can't rely on your opponent bringing enough things of a certain type to go for fixed missions and so you need to be adaptable.

 catbarf wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Ahhh, nope.

Here's your exact definition of flanderization:

You're still missing the forest for the trees. Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.

In the 8th/9th Ed system the more subfaction-appropriate units you take, the stronger your army is. If you don't take any subfaction-appropriate units, your army will be weak.
.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


i.e. White Scars are flanderized when they're encouraged to take all bikes, because they only way for them to be fast is on a bike.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

See, I'm already not thrilled by the sounds of that. If the only things we can think of differentiate Iyanden wraith hosts and Alaitoc wraith hosts are to make them more tanky or more stealthy, I feel like we've already started entering into unnecessary hair-splitting territory. Granted, I imagine those were just off-the-cuff examples and that you could probably come up with something appropriate for the wraith hosts of each craftworld if you were so inclined. But on my side, the important thing there is "wraith host." I don't necessarily need a camoflauged variation on wraith host rules. If anything, I'd probably prefer that the hypothetical complexity budget be spent on further fleshing out the wraith host archetype's rules even further. That said, reasonable people can disagree, and I do see the appeal of what you're describing.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Oh yeah, I really feel like a general when only one unit of my jetpack equipped soldiers can use their jetpacks to jump back behind cover each turn, provided I have the CP to spend on that ability, that is.

Or how all of my jetpack troops have now forgotten how to fire their weapons on the move effectively unless they are lead by a commander in coldstar armour. Seriously, GW removed the Assault rule from every single crisis suit weapon. They didn't even make our Plasma Rifle rapid fire again to compensate.

Breton wrote:
You (Insectum) probably meant Conversion Beamer, it was already a thing, and one of the reasons we ended up with If-Then-Else HQ customization.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Ah yes, "Inflated" by options that you can no longer take, such as Chaos Lords and Sorcerers with things like Jump Packs.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Breton wrote:
You (Insectum) probably meant Conversion Beamer, it was already a thing, and one of the reasons we ended up with If-Then-Else HQ customization.

The Conversion Beamer came about with the Master of the Forge entry in 5th edition. I don't think it was an option in 4th.

What you think keeps people in the hobby =/= what keeps people in the hobby.

Consider the mountains of evidence over the years and complaint after complaint through every edition -- what keeps people invested...is complaining about 40K

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
When Tau initially came out they had inbuilt JSJ. It was oppressive.

I think that is actually a myth driven by general hostility to the Tau when they came out from some fans.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.

In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.

Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.

In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I didn't start playing until 5th, but I'm inclined to agree. People always seem to be really touchy about JSJ,

PenitentJake wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Stop nitpicking at who gets what specific bonus or penalty, that's not what's relevant here.

Okay.

In every example you presented, the 2/3 rules that are penalties prevent you from taking specific types of units. 2/3 benefits buff only specific units. The distribution of those rules is that one faction forces flanderization by forbidding some specific units AND privileging others. Another faction forbids without privileging, the other privileges without forbidding; the reason the distribution is important is because it shows that ALL 3 of the factions YOU picked to demonstrate a non-flanderizing rules ACTUALLY, TEXTUALLY interfere with unit selection.

I gave you the 9th edition equivalents of the factions that YOU picked, and not a single one either explicitly forbids the inclusion of any battlefield role or unit, nor do any of them explicitly benefit any battlefield role or unit. The benefits that all 3 provide apply to all units in an army.

I think that what you want to say is that you prefer a system that gives you the option to play your faction without a subfaction at all, and balance subfaction rules against that by providing both costs and a flavourful disadvantage. And you know what? If that's what you want to say, and it's all you want to say... Hey man, that's a valid preference. I'll back down and leave you alone. I don't share that preference, but that's okay- I don't have to share it. It's as valid as mine.

(Although I may say that either costing advantages or providing penalties is enough to balance against playing with no subfaction rules- doing both seems heavy handed)

Our communication breakdown is that I'm not hearing you say that without also saying that 9th edition subfaction rules are somehow more likely to cause flanderization than the subfaction rules you presented, when that is clearly and objectively bs. Now it's also true that I might be intuiting a bit more of the latter than you're actually saying- I sometimes get lost in exactly who said what and when they said it in asynchronous, text-based conversations.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Tyel wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I remember the Seeding Swarm, an alternate Tyranid list from... 3rd, I think? It restricted how many heavy-hitters you could take, but gave the entire army Deep Strike. It also came with a few extra options, like paying points to have a unit amped up on lethal levels of stimulants, so it would get a combat bonus but always count as destroyed at the end of the battle. That's the sort of alternate list that makes me think about how the models in my collection could be used in new and different ways, since it played very differently from vanilla despite using all the same units.

I find that more engaging than looking at a detachment, seeing what handful of models it buffs, and checking whether I have enough of those to build a list. YMMV.

I think this may be true - but its sort of where the influence of the Tournament Scene kicks in.

If GW brings in very... unusual detachments, they are likely to be abused (as always happens whenever they introduce a rule that meaningfully changes up basic 40k play). We'll have wall to wall complaining as said army stomps tournament after tournament.

As an exercise, can you tell us the meaningful difference between an "unusual detachment" and a skew list or other exotic army such as Knights or the hyper-elite Custodes? Because I see them as no different in terms of their potential for issues, the only difference really being that as a full "codex army" one gets more attention for potential balance problems (and yet still an exotic army can languish without much attention for years, regardless.)

 Insectum7 wrote:
As an exercise, can you tell us the meaningful difference between an "unusual detachment" and a skew list or other exotic army such as Knights or the hyper-elite Custodes? Because I see them as no different in terms of their potential for issues, the only difference really being that as a full "codex army" one gets more attention for potential balance problems (and yet still an exotic army can languish without much attention for years, regardless.)

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:

9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines

The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats


Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power

Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.

Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.

So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.

You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction

And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.

In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic

You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.

This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.

Breton wrote:

I think JSJ was what drove the general hostility.

 Arschbombe wrote:

Breton wrote:

I think JSJ was what drove the general hostility.

Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Tau were hated because people only played "kill the enemy" missions on a salt desert plane with no terrain and Tau were skipping movement, melee and casting to simply stand there and shoot you.

Wayniac wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

Breton wrote:

I think JSJ was what drove the general hostility.

Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.

I think with Tau it was also the "army can only do one thing well" approach, since Kroot were and always have been pretty trash at melee which was supposed to be their whole role to offset the Tau's awful melee profiles.

Dudeface wrote:

Spoiler:

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:

9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines

The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats


Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power

Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.

Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.

So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.

You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction

Because it wasn't in the codex - it was added because they didn't have the same breadth of rules and options marines had, so needed something adding to draw some form of parity - Ironically if you want to include supplements you can also cover the fact that as per the above Raven Guard get yet more stuff via the psychic awakening.

And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.

It's two bullet points in the codex, it's in 2 halves, because all chapter tactics come in 2 halves. Yes there are some simplifications, which you're choosing to nitpick rather than address that it's a whole lot of stuff.

In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic

No but my chapter of Overly Verbose Nitpickers who have a choice of 2 traits from the build-a-chapter can opt to be Raven Guard Successors, so please, keep reaching.

You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.

That was FAQ'd in later because shockingly giving them the option to mix the powers together was too much, as they had.... too many options. But again you're obscuring the fact that as a marine player, I can choose from 18 psychic powers. They're in 3 sets of 6. But again you're nitpicking with the minutae of army building to ignore the fact that 2 sets of 6 base powers, is more than the 1 set of 6 tyranids get. The subfactions adding 1 more set of 6 powers, is more than the 1 power the tyranid subfaction adds.

This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.

And what has that got to do with anything? Are you postulating marine chapters should get more rules because they have more models? Tell you what, lets wrap it all up with Eldar since you note they have lots of units:

Marine subfaction:
Base book/supplement
- A chapter tactic (fixed or choice of 2 from list)
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18 (or 3 sets of 6)
- another psychic discipline for a total of 18 powers (or 3 sets of 6)
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats

Faith and fury:
- an additional litany

Eldar subfaction:
Base codex:
- a chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Phoenix Rising:
- option to build a chapter tactic (exists as a base thing in marines)

Are these equal? Can you still honestly say that subfactions across armies were equally represented?

Maybe subfaction stuff should exist but be categorically worse in every way so if you want to do it for fluff then it's largely meaningless - for all armies and have parity (I say this with a marine army in a cabinet to my left).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Also, what you just wrote can also apply pretty much equally to the Imperial Guard and probably a load of other armies.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:

Breton wrote:

I think JSJ was what drove the general hostility.

Maybe later. I think the original hostility came from the distinctly non-grimdark, anime-inspired style.

I think with Tau it was also the "army can only do one thing well" approach, since Kroot were and always have been pretty trash at melee which was supposed to be their whole role to offset the Tau's awful melee profiles.

Kroot used to put out 20 S4 attacks at WS4 from a unit of 10. That was solid enough for an auxiliary troop melee unit. They could also be difficult to shift if you used jungle/forests in your terrain thanks to their +1 to cover when in jungles/forests (which is often rare in 40K where it isn't uncommon that every battle is happening in imperial ruins as that is the terrain GW pushes and because TLOS makes forests useless for hiding anything).

Breton wrote:
Sure you can. Movement is just one aspect involved here. The threat it provides to a balanced game is not that movement trumps all, its that there are few/no scenarios that "punish" movement. Dense Fog causing dangerous terrain tests for any (non-aircraft etc) move over 4" will really punish anyone who gambled on a 20" move army. Its a problem with battle design that didn't encourage diversity not movement itself.

I wouldn't say its a Primaris thing. Termagant options are pretty meh with little difference between them. At first glance on the Tyrannid Warriors, the Devourer is too close to the Deathspitter - making the Devourer not enough better than the Deathspitter to have a (relatively) significant different threat profile. Carnifex Ranged weapons are terrible, and lack a lascannon equivalent for Nids to handle Land Raiders at range without the big bugs. To some extent a lot of this is the new S/T ranges for the new design not being carefully checked on the S availability for the new T's, but again that's not Primaris specific let alone Marine specific. Its really going to suck when the later Codex releases adjust for that if its not FAQ'ed to the early ones.

this time around, almost everything was in the datacards and if someone printed out each set as they released they should have most of the bespoke rules at their finger tips. Next edition, you're back to not knowing who has what unless you buy every codex- so it has been true more often than it hasn't.. On the other hand, as long as we have to pay for each army rule book even if they're just pointers and collectors of USRs you're still going to have to trust the guy who bought the book that Stomping Feet is just a collection of the Big Guns Never Tire and Tank Hunters USRs so making all the faction rules into collections of USRs (which most of them already are in many editions) doesn't really tell everyone what the special rule does unless they own the book - or they release those PDFs and keep them available for everyone in such a way that you have to buy the BRB to know what the USRs are, but you can be told which USRs apply by the free datasheets.

Was there an edit here? I'm not following Characters switching squads with searchlights on vehicles? I think in the long run - as far as characters go - the solution is to go back to auras and Look Out Sir but crunch the auras way down and improve sniping.

The missions themselves don't usually have enough variety/adaptation of the mission itself. Because the missions have to be so generic (You can't count on your opponent bring 20 psykers for Abhor the Witch stuff) - which is because competitive and most casaul gamers want to pull out whatever their version of a Take-All-Comers list is instead of building a list under the restrictions of the mission - the missions have to have a square peg rounded enough to go in the round hole. i.e. Kill HQ's, especially psykers if there are any, while siting on more of 6 nickels than the other guy. It could be that the "best" but still not great solution is the expand the "Mission Rules" cards to negatively impact a generic strategy.instead of yet more fiddling with objective tokens. Something like the Dense Fog up above that screws a MV skew army. Change Vox Static such that every strat is +1CP to use. Chilling Rain reduces gives a -1 to all Invulns. Standard "those are just thematic examples not thought out balanced finished products. At that point I'd do a couple of things - if the mission rules affect everyone, give it a double whammy - Dense Fog makes movement faster than X painful, but also provides the benefits of Shrouding (basically Lone Operative + Steatlh) for everyone. The fast assault forces have to go slow, but are much harder to shoot up so those 30 Blood Angels Jump Packers are slow, but the 30 Dark Angels Hellblasters can't see them to shoot them until they're close.

I'd add because people THINK that's the only way for them to be fast - because flanderisation (probably assisted by vehicles being the red headed stepchild of 40K for a while) makes people forget about mechanized infantry i.e.5 guys in an Impulsor Outflanking onto your opponent's back table edge.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Tau were hated because people only played "kill the enemy" missions on a salt desert plane with no terrain and Tau were skipping movement, melee and casting to simply stand there and shoot you.

Breton wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I can definitely admit that 10th is a stark difference from oldhammer in choices you can make before the game, but I feel like the current edition gives me a lot more to think about on the table.

In my experience, those are entirely artificial choices created by consistently removing wargear abilities and turning what once were ubiquitous abilities into stratagems.

Deciding which unit gets to do the thing they should all be able to do isn't an interesting choice in a wargame. It's like if people designed a WW2 game where only one of your infantry squads could use their machine gun each turn. It just feels forced.

In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.

I would have made it a "strat" on the datasheet. Call them 0CP strats with similar rules to below:

You must have at least 1 CP to use a 0CP Strat.

0CP Strats can be used as many times as you have units that have it.

0CP Strats are susceptible to the various counter-strat abilities like The Lion's All Secrets Revealed or those abilities sprinkled about that futher uses of this now cost +1CP - which means all units with this zero CP Strat now have to pay 1 to use it or some such. Again, theory/sample not completed product. Most of the Squad/Unit bespokes should be done like this.

I'd say the problem with JSJ isn't forcing opponent maneuver. Its the way it unilaterally invalidated IGO-UGO. There are a bunch of units out there that have something similar to Captain Sicariu's Knight of Macragge thing.. Yadda yadda enemy unit ends movement phase within 9". this unit can move 6" yadda yadda. Its a far more toned down JSJ. I cant unilaterally do it. You have to move within 9, but not within engagement. Now there are absolutely units that would be "mean" to do it to - say someone with a gun range of 6", but its far less so than JSJ of the past.

PenitentJake wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Spoiler:

Breton wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Because I was curious I wanted to compare what a marine subfaction means compared to some other armies in 9th:

9th codex space marines raven guard:
- light cover from 18"
- dense cover for infantry from 12"
- pick 2 chapter tactics if desired instead
- 4 pages of generic strats
- 1 chapter warlord trait
- 2 pages of Relics
- 2 sets of psychic disciplines based on what they wear
- 2 sets of warlord traits based on what they wear
- doctrines

The RG supplement adds:
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18
- another psychic discipline for a totla of 18 powers
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats


Let's compare that to grey knights as another loyalist marine force, see what a brotherhood enables for them:
- 1 strat
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 psychic power

Those marginally impact their play style, bit it's not the same sweeping impact or sheer volume of stuff as Marines, there's also no straight up additional army wide rule like the super doctrine.

Nids:
- granted an army wide 2 rule adaptation, one half of which could be swapped.
- 1 psychic power
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Again, nothing that impacted their purity rule of psychic imperative unlike doctrines yet again and no massive heaping of options.

So Marines were certainly more "bloated" and I'd argue that if they'd stopped at the codex would have had more parity.

You're accidentally or intentionally skipping or lying about the existence of Masters Of the Warp being added to the Grey Knights top level faction

Because it wasn't in the codex - it was added because they didn't have the same breadth of rules and options marines had, so needed something adding to draw some form of parity - Ironically if you want to include supplements you can also cover the fact that as per the above Raven Guard get yet more stuff via the psychic awakening.

And pretending the first two RG bullet points are separate abilities instead instead of a base for all and accellerator of the same for more limited application - probably so you could get an extra bullet point to imply more content - and you oversimplified which got the details wrong - non-vehicle didn't mean Infantry only.

It's two bullet points in the codex, it's in 2 halves, because all chapter tactics come in 2 halves. Yes there are some simplifications, which you're choosing to nitpick rather than address that it's a whole lot of stuff.

In addition, you are mistaken or lying about being able to pick two alternate Chapter Tactics instead. The list of Successor Chapter Tactics specifically says "If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter tactic on Page 175..." - the Raven Guard are neither a successor chapter nor missing from Page 175 - as evidenced by your flawed inclusion of their assigned Chapter tactic

No but my chapter of Overly Verbose Nitpickers who have a choice of 2 traits from the build-a-chapter can opt to be Raven Guard Successors, so please, keep reaching.

You are also dishonestly portraying psychic powers. Every Subfaction had access to EITHER the armor based Psychic list (Phobos for Obscuration, or Librarius for everyone else) or their Chapter specific (subfaction) Discipline. You are trying to imply that a Ravenguard librarian had simultaneous access to 18 different powers. That is not the case for multiple reasons. They don't get all 18 at once, and even beyond that each individual Librarian only had access to this 6 or that 6 - two optional sets of 6 is only 12 in total. In other words a Phobos Librarian could not choose Librarius, a Librarian in Terminator could not choose Obfuscation and so none of them had "18" or even the more accurate 3 sets of 6 to choose 1 set from.

That was FAQ'd in later because shockingly giving them the option to mix the powers together was too much, as they had.... too many options. But again you're obscuring the fact that as a marine player, I can choose from 18 psychic powers. They're in 3 sets of 6. But again you're nitpicking with the minutae of army building to ignore the fact that 2 sets of 6 base powers, is more than the 1 set of 6 tyranids get. The subfactions adding 1 more set of 6 powers, is more than the 1 power the tyranid subfaction adds.

This is a similar tactic to choosing some portion but not even the entirety of Grey Knights for the comparison. Grey Knights are one of the poorer factions that desperately need expansion. They have roughly 10 distinctly different datasheets for "units" - by which I don't mean a Dread vs a Venerable Dread but a Dread vs a Purifier Squad, and not counting the one-off elite character addons like apothecaries and standard bearers. The things you build an army with. Life is even tougher for the Adeptus Custodes but that may have been even more obvious in the cherry picking. The Aeldari at least 9 different Aspect Warrior units alone.

And what has that got to do with anything? Are you postulating marine chapters should get more rules because they have more models? Tell you what, lets wrap it all up with Eldar since you note they have lots of units:

Marine subfaction:
Base book/supplement
- A chapter tactic (fixed or choice of 2 from list)
- *additional* affect on tactical doctrine
- 6(5) additional warlord traits for a choice of 18 (or 3 sets of 6)
- another psychic discipline for a total of 18 powers (or 3 sets of 6)
- another 6 relics
- 8 "special issue" relics for squad leaders
- 2 more pages of strats

Faith and fury:
- an additional litany

Eldar subfaction:
Base codex:
- a chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 warlord trait
- 1 relic
- 1 strat

Phoenix Rising:
- option to build a chapter tactic (exists as a base thing in marines)

Are these equal? Can you still honestly say that subfactions across armies were equally represented?

Maybe subfaction stuff should exist but be categorically worse in every way so if you want to do it for fluff then it's largely meaningless - for all armies and have parity (I say this with a marine army in a cabinet to my left).

Your point is that factions with supplements have more than those without, and that is undeniably true.

This second post is better than the first. It does still contain a few minor issues though (not that they invalidate your overall point).
The biggest issue is that your first post exclusively references 9th ed dexes, while this post seems to talk about 8th/9th interchangeably.

By 9th, I think EVERY faction had build your own rules in the dex. CSM might be an exception, because I think all of their subfactions got more than the 1 Chapter Tactic, 1 WL Trait, 1 Relic, 1 Strat. Sisters and DE certainly had build your own baked into their dexes. In 8th, you're correct, these were added via psychic awakening, but by 9th, built in for everybody, not just marines.

Also- while the rules compatibility between 8th/ 9th does allow PA material to be used in 9th, it stopped being technically legal when the 9th ed dex dropped. And it's worth noting that this expiration clause affected all modes of play, not just matched- which was rare in 9th, because most updates were matched only.

And finally, a lot of factions in 9th other than marines did get supplements in 9th via campaign books- Cult of Stife for DE, OoOML and BR for Sisters; I think Cadians got one, I think Orks got one, but I forget which clan. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the CSM got supplement level of stuff for each of their subfactions, but at the cost of build your own rules.

And then of course, there were also armies of renown, which weren't the same as supplements, because they all came with unit restrictions. What GW seemed to try to do was give every faction at least one supplement or army of renown over the course of the edition. They didn't quite hit that mark, but they tried.

Breton wrote:

I'm sitting here looking and Leagues have a Warlord Trait and a Strat. Ork Klans had both, a "chapter tactic" and a relic. Similar with Nids. Similar with Aeldari. Looking at this: Custodes have Aegis of the Emperor (Chapter Tactics), a Martial Ka'tah (doctrines), and a Shield host Fighting Style (Super Doctrine) The Aeldar have Strands of Fate (Doctrines) Attributes (Chapter Tactics) and probably skip the Super Doctrine because Strands of Fate is so much better than Doctrines by themselves which is probably why they added Super Doctrines in the supplements.

PenitentJake wrote:
Yeah- I'm one of the folks who praised 9th's parity... And you're right, it wasn't 100% parity. No one in edition ever will have parity with marines.

But what I meant was it was the first (and to my knowledge, only) edition where ALL factions had at least the bare minimum to distinguish their subfactions, that being:

- Chapter tactic equivalent
- 1 Bespoke Warlord Trait
- 1 Bespoke Relic
- 1 Bespoke strat

While not parity when looking at subfactions that got supplements, this is still the closest we've come to parity.

People praise the Witch Hunter dex, and don't get me wrong, I DO like it. But it might as well have not even mentioned that the Sororitas had different orders, because it didn't make a lick of difference which one you chose.

And as good as everything else was, that part certainly sucked.

Breton wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

In my personal experience, there's definitely some truth to this. When I compare 7th edition Jink to the current -1 to-hit strat eldar have, the former felt good while the latter doesn't. A big part of that was that using jink wasn't using a finite resource like CP.

I would have made it a "strat" on the datasheet. Call them 0CP strats with similar rules to below:

You must have at least 1 CP to use a 0CP Strat.

0CP Strats can be used as many times as you have units that have it.

0CP Strats are susceptible to the various counter-strat abilities like The Lion's All Secrets Revealed or those abilities sprinkled about that futher uses of this now cost +1CP - which means all units with this zero CP Strat now have to pay 1 to use it or some such. Again, theory/sample not completed product. Most of the Squad/Unit bespokes should be done like this.

Dudeface wrote:

I have a Raven Guard force which I've built almost haphazardly, it doesn't really conform to the "tropes" of all jump packs (which is more BA anyway) or all scouts/stealth units. I'd much rather get to field my force with what I want to field the way I want to field it than to be sat thinking if I repaint them to a chapter I'm not bothered by, they'd work better. Plus this way they can address (in theory) issues with the detachments, rather than screw over 5 sets of rules because one of them makes a unit too good and have to punish the unit.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Kroot used to put out 20 S4 attacks at WS4 from a unit of 10. That was solid enough for an auxiliary troop melee unit. They could also be difficult to shift if you used jungle/forests in your terrain thanks to their +1 to cover when in jungles/forests (which is often rare in 40K where it isn't uncommon that every battle is happening in imperial ruins as that is the terrain GW pushes and because TLOS makes forests useless for hiding anything). Then GW decided to make them S3, remove kroot rifles counting as two weapons so they no longer got an extra attack from them, and gave them sniper ammo which required standing still instead.

Also, what you just wrote can also apply pretty much equally to the Imperial Guard and probably a load of other armies.