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That's his point. Rhinos or predators are fairly bad models to have in your space marine army. The free HK has no impact on that, bringing better models would have increased your chances much more than having all those HK missiles.

I will say, I think there's a case to be made for some sidegrades or even upgrades being free even if we bring points costs for wargear in general. I don't think HKs are necessarily in that category, but I think there is a minimum level of usefulness at which point it's okay to make certain things free.

Hypothetically, if you brought back some of the oldschool vehicle upgrades (think wargear; not necessarily weapons), gave a vehicle a choice between three of the weaker ones, and made each option free, you'd effectively be giving players an opportunity to make a flavorful (if not especially impactful) choice and a way to help give their army a bit of customization.

"Here's a meh version of the shock prow, a meh version of aethersails, and a meh version of night shields. None of them are amazing, but you always get one of the three."

^Do you end up playing a drukhari army that's a bit more comfortable charging with its boats (shock prow), more mobile (aethersails), or more cagey (night shields)?

Yeah. Upgrading a laspistol to a bolt pistol on an IG sergeant isn’t worth a point. It’s a strict upgrade, but it’s so minor.

A hunter-killer missile is not.

 Jidmah wrote:

To me, sniper scouts were superseded by eliminators.

I think they were supposed to, but did not. 5 Scout snipers were within a point or two of 3 Eliminators before Camo Cloaks that Eliminators started with. Average output for Eliminators were probably "Better" but the Rate Of Fire and D2/W2 etc made them pretty meh by comparison. But its hard to blame them - making snipers as effective as they should be would also make them pretty unfun to play against. As a concept its a really tough balance at this scale.

Back to the point about HK's there's another layer that just occurred to me while I was in the store. GW may be "cancelling their pennies" too. The question may not be is an HK even worth a full point, it could be is an HK worth 5 points. I can't think of any unit in my codex (and I don't have all of them so feel free to check your own) that has a total unit cost that isn't a multiple of 5 or 0 - either because 5/10 units multiply a PPM that isn't 5/10 by 5/10 or because the 3/6 units then multiply a ppm that ends in 5 or 10. So an HK may be worth some number less than 5 points, but they just don't care. At least enough to balance down to that level.

I suspect Devastators will tell us approximately how much a Lascannon is worth (The difference between the first five, and the second five, divided by four Big Guns which makes them about 2 points per shot potential in a 5 turn game.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Hypothetically, if you brought back some of the oldschool vehicle upgrades (think wargear; not necessarily weapons), gave a vehicle a choice between three of the weaker ones, and made each option free, you'd effectively be giving players an opportunity to make a flavorful (if not especially impactful) choice and a way to help give their army a bit of customization.

"Here's a meh version of the shock prow, a meh version of aethersails, and a meh version of night shields. None of them are amazing, but you always get one of the three."

^Do you end up playing a drukhari army that's a bit more comfortable charging with its boats (shock prow), more mobile (aethersails), or more cagey (night shields)?

Totally agree, and some vehicles actually have that. The impulsor (primaris rhino) has four meh upgrades to pick from, the battlewagon has 'ard case vs firing deck and killkannon vs transport capacity.

I assume that the reason why durkhari don't have such things is that GW seems to forget that the army exist as soon as they stop working on it, similar to how toddlers forget that certain toys exist when they are in another room.

I think generic characters should be more customisable and special characters should mostly not exist, and just be examples of what you can build with character customisation.

There can be some examples like Phoenix Lords and Primarchs, that are handful of super exceptional legends, but things like dozens of marine SC captains and chapter masters are not needed.

I don't like how the game (and the fluff too) has increasingly become about a bunch of super special named characters, instead of being about "your dudes" in a universe which is a big place and whatever happens, you will not be missed...

As for upgrades and points discussion, upgrades obviously should cost points. You can try to balance all options with each other, but that will never be perfect and some things simply should be better than others. A plasma pistol just is better than a las pistol and having sponsons is better than no sponsons.

And GW is not good at balancing options with each other. Like for example look at the relatively new Rogal Dorn tank. It has had two versions of its datasheet, and in both of them one of the two turret options is simply obviously better. GW cannot balance two options of big guns on a new model with two tries, there is no hope for balancing the countless options that exist in the game.

Now some basic upgrades can be free and previously there often were cases where the upgrades were not worth the cost and you'd run the unit bare bones which was a tad boring. But I still feel we have even less choice these days. There is usually the best loadout, and then you just always use that as the worse ones will cost the same.

And there can be a middle ground between the old and new approach. If they want the IG squads for example to always have a vox and two special weapons, then make the basic loadout the vox and the worst SWs at a fixed cost, and then have modest point cost to upgrade to the better ones. That way there is a genuine choice between the different weapons but also a fixed default loadout at a fixed cost.

Exalting Crimson's post because I agree with pretty much all of that.

 Jidmah wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
But I don't think that a Rhino at, say, 75 points is great while an 80 point Rhino with a Hunter-Killer is trash. You'd usually not take the missile, if you just want a transport... But if you want a strong alpha strike and expect to face other vehicles or monsters, then yeah, it'd be worth it.

That's his point. Rhinos or predators are fairly bad models to have in your space marine army. The free HK has no impact on that, bringing better models would have increased your chances much more than having all those HK missiles.

Weapons with a single shot are quite bad in general and tend to be avoided unless found in multiples, or has other redeeming qualities. That's why you tend to not see predator annihilators at all because even with a HK, that's just four shots which could easily do nothing at all against a tough models like terminators, monster or big tanks - the very models it's supposed to be good at killing.

For context, back when I was spending points on HK missiles I was already taking Rhinos and Razorbacks in my army because they were being bought for protection and transport, already serving a valuable purpose. It just so happened that for a few extra points I could outfit a bunch of them with HK Missiles which basically meant I spent (in 8th edition) 36 points (often four Rhinos and two Razorbacks) to get an extra Devastators Squad worth of firepower for a turn. Often those missiles contributed to one less Manticore or Leman Russ or Knight or whatever shooting back at my units in the following turn, so those were points I never regretted spending. HK missiles weren't the greatest weapon back then (this is before they had their profile beefed up), but no army lacked reasonable targets for them. I think all they needed to do was kill a single Custodes to make their points back, for example. And honestly, the fact that they were distributed into single shots was kinda nice, as each shot could react to the results of the previous one, and pick a different target if desired.

Opportunity cost is a fuzzy cost but its a real one. It's another lever beyond better gun cost more.

I agree with crimson in terms of balancing your options and then just having some that cost more anyway. The trick is to determine what that cost is and what it is measuring against.

There are other of ways to balance options beyond stats and points. Especially if you assign an option to a different type of tactical use rather than just another gun in the unit.

ie, insectum's HK strategy - a tactical squad lascannon could be a man portable one shot lascannon designed for opportunity targets like a HK, rather than a devestator lascannon in a different squad. Or it could have a shorter range. Or it could have one of many different special rules.

There's no requirement for these options to function the way they always have, or to be used for the same purposes. GW has no problem making a captain powersword different to a sergeant power sword, so the same can hold true for other things.


There are more ways to balance options than just points, or S, AP Dam.

 Hellebore wrote:
Opportunity cost is a fuzzy cost but its a real one. It's another lever beyond better gun cost more.

I agree with crimson in terms of balancing your options and then just having some that cost more anyway. The trick is to determine what that cost is and what it is measuring against.

There are other of ways to balance options beyond stats and points. Especially if you assign an option to a different type of tactical use rather than just another gun in the unit.

ie, insectum's HK strategy - a tactical squad lascannon could be a man portable one shot lascannon designed for opportunity targets like a HK, rather than a devestator lascannon in a different squad. Or it could have a shorter range. Or it could have one of many different special rules.

There's no requirement for these options to function the way they always have, or to be used for the same purposes. GW has no problem making a captain powersword different to a sergeant power sword, so the same can hold true for other things.


There are more ways to balance options than just points, or S, AP Dam.

You also have to consider what it represents.

It'd feel really weird if a Tactical Squad's Lascannon was massively different from a Devastator Lascannon, due to them being the same weapon in-universe.
Melee weapons you have some more leeway with-user skill and personal strength make a bigger difference with a sword than it does with a rocket launcher. And even then, it'd be kinda weird if a Sergeant's Power Weapon had +1 Strength and -2 AP over a normal CCW, while a Captain's had S+3 and AP-1 over their CCW.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Opportunity cost is a fuzzy cost but its a real one. It's another lever beyond better gun cost more.

I agree with crimson in terms of balancing your options and then just having some that cost more anyway. The trick is to determine what that cost is and what it is measuring against.

There are other of ways to balance options beyond stats and points. Especially if you assign an option to a different type of tactical use rather than just another gun in the unit.

ie, insectum's HK strategy - a tactical squad lascannon could be a man portable one shot lascannon designed for opportunity targets like a HK, rather than a devestator lascannon in a different squad. Or it could have a shorter range. Or it could have one of many different special rules.

There's no requirement for these options to function the way they always have, or to be used for the same purposes. GW has no problem making a captain powersword different to a sergeant power sword, so the same can hold true for other things.


There are more ways to balance options than just points, or S, AP Dam.

You also have to consider what it represents.

It'd feel really weird if a Tactical Squad's Lascannon was massively different from a Devastator Lascannon, due to them being the same weapon in-universe.
Melee weapons you have some more leeway with-user skill and personal strength make a bigger difference with a sword than it does with a rocket launcher. And even then, it'd be kinda weird if a Sergeant's Power Weapon had +1 Strength and -2 AP over a normal CCW, while a Captain's had S+3 and AP-1 over their CCW.

It's only the same weapon until it's not, reference every version of a boltgun, or that the predator had a turret mounted plain man portable autocannon up until what 6th ed? We are still using the model with a gun designed with those rules, but they're now a lot better. Similarly the assault cannon has had almost as many rules and versions as there's been editions of the game.

A devestator squad with lots of extra ammo, extended power cables and the ability to stay still and unload functions differently to a tactical squad on the move using the lascannon as an opportunistic weapon if and when the right target appears, but otherwise functions as an infantry unit with rifles. It's more odd that they ARE the same than not, given how wildly different their roles are.

But that's not really the point. Plasma grenades and frag grenades aren't the same, but the grenade strategem considers them more dangerous than a krak grenade causing mortal wounds. Whether the weapon has to be identical or not, you can backwards engineer any reason, if you specifically want it to play that way.

GW has no problem changing things, and then even changing them back to the way they used to be again. They flip flop like a suffocating fish. But they change and do so a lot.

The point is that the scope of how you balance these things is only as narrow as you want it to be. Deciding that the parameters must be that all weapons are identical is a self imposted limitation, not a required one.

Increasing the variation of weapons is certainly an option, but holy s*** it was so much easier to flow through the gameplay when there were fewer, more standardized weapons and they didn't dance their stats around so much from edition to edition.

There's something to be said for balancing using points rather than stats because you only use points when list building as opposed to shifting how the game works. The game becomes more consistent (thus easier to remember over time), but also the world building part of it doesn't shift around so much either.

 Insectum7 wrote:
For context, back when I was spending points on HK missiles I was already taking Rhinos and Razorbacks in my army because they were being bought for protection and transport, already serving a valuable purpose. It just so happened that for a few extra points I could outfit a bunch of them with HK Missiles which basically meant I spent (in 8th edition) 36 points (often four Rhinos and two Razorbacks) to get an extra Devastators Squad worth of firepower for a turn. Often those missiles contributed to one less Manticore or Leman Russ or Knight or whatever shooting back at my units in the following turn, so those were points I never regretted spending. HK missiles weren't the greatest weapon back then (this is before they had their profile beefed up), but no army lacked reasonable targets for them. I think all they needed to do was kill a single Custodes to make their points back, for example. And honestly, the fact that they were distributed into single shots was kinda nice, as each shot could react to the results of the previous one, and pick a different target if desired.

In 10th they have good profiles and an extra d6 damage on a vehicle can make or break an offensive move on your side. BUT it still has a huge chance of doing nothing at all and due to the higher diversification of defensive profiles, you definitely face armies where you will have no good target for that missile.
Even if the HK isn't worthless, people will most likely spend their points elsewhere.

 Jidmah wrote:

In 10th they have good profiles and an extra d6 damage on a vehicle can make or break an offensive move on your side. BUT it still has a huge chance of doing nothing at all and due to the higher diversification of defensive profiles, you definitely face armies where you will have no good target for that missile.
Even if the HK isn't worthless, people will most likely spend their points elsewhere.

A huge chance to do nothing? Seriously?
On its own:
●BS2 - outside of torrent weapons, this is the best odds of hitting you're getting....
●S14 - wounds (nearly) everything on a 3+ at worst.
●●AP3 - ok, cover, wich is nearly assured here in 10e, drops this down to ap2. Still a Russ or etc only saves against it 50% of the time.
●●1D6+1 damage - here's the true swing factor - but no different than a whole lot of other AT weapons. Just have to hope you roll high.
? Pts? This is 10e. Nobody who can take HKs is spending pts specifically on them, so there are no pts to be reinvested elsewhere. You are either investing in the host platform for what it does on its own & adding an HK to it, or your choosing something else for whatever it does.

Oh no, there's no "good targets" for my HK!
Well then I guess I'll just shoot it at the next best target I can find....
(Last week I shot an annoying Lictor with one. A few games before that I picked off an enraged TechMarine before it could charge.)
Now if the "good target" is just hiding or lurking in reserve? Then I'll just save the shot till the thing comes into sight. I'm not required to launch the HK T1.

Oh, and the new character creation rules! This is something I’d in theory be excited about, but I have to assume that it’s just some half baked end of edition thing that will be defunct in couple of months so it’s hard to care.

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, and the new character creation rules! This is something I’d in theory be excited about, but I have to assume that it’s just some half baked end of edition thing that will be defunct in couple of months so it’s hard to care.

The cynic in me agrees. These will be gone in a few months.

The optimistic side hopes they are a teaser for new things that will be rolled out with 11th ed codexes, at least for crusade.

But hope is the first step on the road to disappointment…

 Jidmah wrote:

In 10th they have good profiles and an extra d6 damage on a vehicle can make or break an offensive move on your side. BUT it still has a huge chance of doing nothing at all and due to the higher diversification of defensive profiles, you definitely face armies where you will have no good target for that missile.
Even if the HK isn't worthless, people will most likely spend their points elsewhere.

The more you take the lower chance they collectively have to do nothing!

I don't take Devastators because each Lascannon has a less than half chance to hurt their intended target. I take them because they're still better than most of my other options to hurt big things at long ranges, and with lots of them my expected damage output goes up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, and the new character creation rules! This is something I’d in theory be excited about, but I have to assume that it’s just some half baked end of edition thing that will be defunct in couple of months so it’s hard to care.

Yeah. . .

 Nevelon wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Oh, and the new character creation rules! This is something I’d in theory be excited about, but I have to assume that it’s just some half baked end of edition thing that will be defunct in couple of months so it’s hard to care.

The cynic in me agrees. These will be gone in a few months.

The optimistic side hopes they are a teaser for new things that will be rolled out with 11th ed codexes, at least for crusade.

But hope is the first step on the road to disappointment…

But until then, Master Chief is joining my army.

I want all of them them to be too expensive to field effectively in tournament armies.

I feel people are getting really lost in the weeds with the specific example of Hunter Killer Missiles.

A lot of units had their entire ROLE changed based on how they were equipped, and with the equipment costing points you would balance power vs board control. The easiest example is Imperial Guardsmen - you used to be able to take a naked squad with just lasguns and their role was to basically eat space, area denial, and to maybe hurt some low hanging fruit now and then. Or you might pony up for a single lascannon and park it in the back of the field, and their role was to bunker down and fire downfield, and so on. Heck some editions let you take camo cloaks and 4+ armor on generic guardsmen which altered their playstyle in big ways.

Now? Taking a naked squad is literally throwing points away, and not maxing out on special weapons, war gear, etc is a fools errand.

 kurhanik wrote:
I feel people are getting really lost in the weeds with the specific example of Hunter Killer Missiles.

A lot of units had their entire ROLE changed based on how they were equipped, and with the equipment costing points you would balance power vs board control. The easiest example is Imperial Guardsmen - you used to be able to take a naked squad with just lasguns and their role was to basically eat space, area denial, and to maybe hurt some low hanging fruit now and then. Or you might pony up for a single lascannon and park it in the back of the field, and their role was to bunker down and fire downfield, and so on. Heck some editions let you take camo cloaks and 4+ armor on generic guardsmen which altered their playstyle in big ways.

Now? Taking a naked squad is literally throwing points away, and not maxing out on special weapons, war gear, etc is a fools errand.

It's not getting lost in the weeds, it's highlighting a clear delineation point and that smaller options and the like are clearly either not worth bothering with for granularity or an expression of intent.

The equivalent for your guard unit - paying for a bolt/plasma pistol and a chainsword on the sarge. Given grenade launchers have universally sucked, what points are they worth? Are they worth any? Should a naked squad even be an option in the first place?

Grenade Launchers had a place for being cheap, well ranged, and were Assault weapons so you could, back in the day, fire them and still charge. At S6 Krak could threaten light vehicles, especially those pesky open topped ones like Trukks or DE Raiders. And if you were fighting against horde types, even a Frag S3 small blast marker could be worth something, especially when bad guys are clumped up in cover.

Did it suffer in an environment loaded to the brim with 3+ Marines? Sure. But in healthier metas witj Orks, Eldar, Nids and other Guard it was a fine weapon and I saw it used all the time.

One players "useless trash" can still be anothers preferred option.

Re: Naked squads. Why not? If someone wants to save some points to try and optimize for a different strategy, I say let them.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Re: Naked squads. Why not? If someone wants to save some points to try and optimize for a different strategy, I say let them.

The main issue is that it's generally proven to be the best choice.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Re: Naked squads. Why not? If someone wants to save some points to try and optimize for a different strategy, I say let them.

The main is[i]sue is that it's generally proven to be the best choice.

I'd say that changes from meta to meta and edition to edition. You could adjust the squad, you can adjust the points, you can adjust the weapons, and you can even adjust the game itself. For an example of game adjustment you could add a unit category like "Light Infantry. Light Infantry are excellent at taking maximum advantage of cover, and get an additional cover bonus when not moving." Which might synergize with Heavy Weapons which have bonuses for being stationary. Then some players might diversify their units, some in vehicle mounted aassault teams and some dedicated to objective camping suppotive role.

Ahh, the boys vs. toys discussion. How I’ve missed it. A casualty of the loss of points.

I’ve always been a proponent of boys before toys. Just enough upgrades to do your job, but not cut into the number of boots on the ground.

Opinions, as pages of archived debates will show, will differ.

You can adjust and adjust and adjust but its not creating choices, just changing which choices are correct. My main issue is by trying to rely on points to fix wargear, you're just breaking the existing armies. They don't exist in the points cap now and require players to replace them with something else. It's only interesting in the theoretical sense and not really fun when it comes to actually building, painting and playing with the toys. There's absolutely value in points, but mostly categorical. I've just never seen points be the primary factor in creating a diverse set of options.

 LunarSol wrote:
You can adjust and adjust and adjust but its not creating choices, just changing which choices are correct. My main issue is by trying to rely on points to fix wargear, you're just breaking the existing armies. They don't exist in the points cap now and require players to replace them with something else. It's only interesting in the theoretical sense and not really fun when it comes to actually building, painting and playing with the toys. There's absolutely value in points, but mostly categorical. I've just never seen points be the primary factor in creating a diverse set of options.

Which is exactly why there’s literally no variation in any tournament winning lists. They all play the exact same models, even playing the same faction, since 40k is a solved game. /s

 JNAProductions wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
You can adjust and adjust and adjust but its not creating choices, just changing which choices are correct. My main issue is by trying to rely on points to fix wargear, you're just breaking the existing armies. They don't exist in the points cap now and require players to replace them with something else. It's only interesting in the theoretical sense and not really fun when it comes to actually building, painting and playing with the toys. There's absolutely value in points, but mostly categorical. I've just never seen points be the primary factor in creating a diverse set of options.

Which is exactly why there’s literally no variation in any tournament winning lists. They all play the exact same models, even playing the same faction, since 40k is a solved game. /s

I think I've seen more variety in 10th than any prior edition and a lot of that is specifically a focus on providing unique roles for units and detachments that buff subsets of units within a faction. Granted, there's still a ton of garbage in the pile and GW has some huge mechanical whiffs in need of serious attention, but I've felt more freedom of choice in 10th than I ever did micromanaging points in prior editions.

I am always reminded by soren johnson's comments about gamers.

Given the opportunity players will optimise the fun out of a game.

Which is why I don't think the 40k game should be calibrated to tournament players.

Tournament play needs to be a locked down set of army lists that people can optimise and fuss over without it infecting public gaming.

I can't fault tournament players for playing the game that's given to them. The most toxic games I've played have been of the "who pulled their punches least" variety where each player draws an invisible line the other isn't expected to cross.

There are definitely ways to write rules that work casually while still holding up to competitive scrutiny. That's generally the direction I root for.

 LunarSol wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
You can adjust and adjust and adjust but its not creating choices, just changing which choices are correct. My main issue is by trying to rely on points to fix wargear, you're just breaking the existing armies. They don't exist in the points cap now and require players to replace them with something else. It's only interesting in the theoretical sense and not really fun when it comes to actually building, painting and playing with the toys. There's absolutely value in points, but mostly categorical. I've just never seen points be the primary factor in creating a diverse set of options.

Which is exactly why there’s literally no variation in any tournament winning lists. They all play the exact same models, even playing the same faction, since 40k is a solved game. /s

I think I've seen more variety in 10th than any prior edition and a lot of that is specifically a focus on providing unique roles for units and detachments that buff subsets of units within a faction. Granted, there's still a ton of garbage in the pile and GW has some huge mechanical whiffs in need of serious attention, but I've felt more freedom of choice in 10th than I ever did micromanaging points in prior editions.

See, the effort and energy has put into defining jobs for units with special rules this edition is the kind of effort I was hoping they'd (also or alternatively) put into giving wargear clear roles. In some places they've done that, but in others they've just cut out huge amounts of customization instead. Instead of just making wargear free or removing it, I was hoping they'd think about ways to make various wargear options more interesting and meaningfully distinctive. Some options could probably stand to be consolidated down (At least one or two of the drukhari poisonous melee weapons could probably be lumped into a generic "venom weapon" profile), but others could be given interesting effects to help them find a niche.

Imagine grenade launchers that let you use the Grenade strat at a longer range or let you launch smoke grenades to hide your unit from distant attacks.. I miss sun rifles for hawk exarchs being a way to blind the enemy and debuff their offense. Maybe finally figure out a way to do a DoT effect that isn't a pain to resolve. Tie battleshock/pinning to certain weapons. Maybe some swords improve saves or impose to-hit penalties to enemy attacks because they're good at parrying. Have some weapons do an effect similar to Jain Zar's old Disarm rule. Tons of flavorful territory to explore, but instead GW just ditched a bunch of options and slapped LH/SH/DW onto a bunch of the survivors.