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For some balance?

Horde armies aren’t suited to organised play where each game has a strict time limit. I don’t think there’s any particular way round that.

I can see why that makes such an army less appealing in certain circumstances, and I won’t hold it against anyone.

But they can also be quite tricky to deal with as a result, when the meta is built around what does well in organised/tournament play.

I’m fairly confident most armies have tricks and weapons well suited to mowing down rank after rank of guff infantry. But those tend to be fairly specific to that task, and don’t really perform outside of it.

And so Hordes are the odd kid of 40K. Again, I’m not pointing fingers or looking to blame anyone. It’s just a symptom of modern 40k and the only reliable method GW has for monitoring balance.

After all, tournaments tend to document games, tactics, list and outcomes more accurately than the old adage of “Dear GW, Scissors are OP. rock is fine. Yours, Paper” of folk reporting undocumented games, where there has to be a suspicion of “trust me, bro”.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

After all, tournaments tend to document games, tactics, list and outcomes more accurately than the old adage of “Dear GW, Scissors are OP. rock is fine. Yours, Paper” of folk reporting undocumented games, where there has to be a suspicion of “trust me, bro”.

One big thing from tomorrow's app update will be that GW will be collecting data from thousands (or tens/hundreds of thousands) of non-tournament matches using the app as well. They'll also have that data in a format that's already electronically linked to list composition, so they can instantly pull fine-tuning data like how many games Chaos Marines won with zero Defilers vs. 1+ and against what armies and how they performed with each detachment, etc.

It might also allow some better data for non-meta units, like how Orks fare when including a Stompa in a list.

 Asmodai wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Gatling weapons in general are a casualty of 10th's rough launch. They're entirely designed around Devastating Wounds and specifically fishing for crits via the original form of Oath of Moment. They were initially VERY powerful but when they cut that part out of Oath the whole design was just left non-functional.

They are also good at clearing chaff infantry units, which most marine lists don’t have an issue with, even if you happen to see one across the table.

It will be interesting to see if orks get a boon with the new edition and we see more green tide normalized. If hordes make a strong showing, it might be worth packing the guns designed to kill them.

But the practical issues with horde armies still remain outside the rules. The time/money to build and collect them, plus the issue with game length and just pushing that many models around and rolling their dice.

The 9th total unit coherency greatly limits the utility of hordes. I'd be surprised to see them as a big thing in 11th unless they get a heavy discount.

If you don't have to worry about blast markers or templates, can't you just pack them base to base?
Let's see, 9 in = 228 mm. 13,070 mm2
A 28.5 mm base is 210.25 mm2, so 62 of them in a 9" circle?

 Nevelon wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n5pspedx/new-warhammer-40000-battleforces-revealed/

Do those actually look like decent ballanced forces? What’s going on here?

That's the weirdest damned definition of an Imperial Guard platoon I ever did see.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n5pspedx/new-warhammer-40000-battleforces-revealed/

Do those actually look like decent ballanced forces? What’s going on here?

That's the weirdest damned definition of an Imperial Guard platoon I ever did see.

Heh, I didn’t even catch the name they slapped on it. That’s a lot of mixed units for a platoon.

Is it wrong that I miss the days where one troop slot let you pack in a zillion different squads?

 Nevelon wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n5pspedx/new-warhammer-40000-battleforces-revealed/

Do those actually look like decent ballanced forces? What’s going on here?

That's the weirdest damned definition of an Imperial Guard platoon I ever did see.

Heh, I didn’t even catch the name they slapped on it. That’s a lot of mixed units for a platoon.

Is it wrong that I miss the days where one troop slot let you pack in a zillion different squads?

Yeah, something described as "Led by a Cadian Command Squad and a Commissar, this platoon consists of 10 Cadian Shock Troops, two Field Ordnance batteries, a Basilisk, and a powerful Rogal Dorn battle tank" is not a Platoon, it's a mess.

Nice variety of units, don't get me wrong, but a mess.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For some balance?

Horde armies aren’t suited to organised play where each game has a strict time limit. I don’t think there’s any particular way round that.

Nah, this is not just about "I am going to fill the table with Boyz, deal with it".

Endless Swarm builds, in theory, could do well with a sensible number of models. Still a horde, but also not something that'll struggle with the chess clock once you've had your practice in. It was still nerfed just to ensure it would never dare to be even halfway good.

It's like how GW treats aircraft and fortifications, except I think hordes are definitely less problematic than the former.

 SgtEeveell wrote:

Spoiler:

 Asmodai wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Gatling weapons in general are a casualty of 10th's rough launch. They're entirely designed around Devastating Wounds and specifically fishing for crits via the original form of Oath of Moment. They were initially VERY powerful but when they cut that part out of Oath the whole design was just left non-functional.

They are also good at clearing chaff infantry units, which most marine lists don’t have an issue with, even if you happen to see one across the table.

It will be interesting to see if orks get a boon with the new edition and we see more green tide normalized. If hordes make a strong showing, it might be worth packing the guns designed to kill them.

But the practical issues with horde armies still remain outside the rules. The time/money to build and collect them, plus the issue with game length and just pushing that many models around and rolling their dice.

The 9th total unit coherency greatly limits the utility of hordes. I'd be surprised to see them as a big thing in 11th unless they get a heavy discount.

If you don't have to worry about blast markers or templates, can't you just pack them base to base?
Let's see, 9 in = 228 mm. 13,070 mm2
A 28.5 mm base is 210.25 mm2, so 62 of them in a 9" circle?

Yes you can, but that only works when the unit is walking across mostly open ground. For a unit like Guardsmen or Necron Warriors this would be fine, but in every other application of a big unit you start to get issues.

Try disembarking 20 Boyz + leaders from a Battlewagon, staying wholly within 3" of the transport but also no more than 9" wide.

Try using a large melee unit like 20 Berzerkers/Crusaders + leaders, and actually get more than half the unit into 2" engagement range but no more than 9" wide.

Try moving a large unit around impassable terrain. You used to be able to conga line back from the fastest model, now it looks like you have to form up around the slowest model.

All of these things are just headaches to play, a small unit has no such worries.

I think a return to granular points is almost a given.
They've acknowledged that some options are more powerful than others, and therefore require a difference in points, but perfect balance between all the uncosted options will never be possible so there will always be some options that emerge as being objectively "better" than others even among those that don't have distinct points values. The only two resolutions to this are to buff/nerf your way as close to perfect balance as possible (good luck!) or acknowledge the difference and...give them different points

The great uncosting experiment has concluded and they've gone back to wargear costs as a concept, now that floodgate has opened I think the return of individual costs is inevitable (and I welcome it, it made list building more interesting for me)

Scaling costs for multiples of certain units makes some sense but I think there's going to be a fine line between "Extra costs to encourage diversity" and "Making multiples of these units so overcosted they're no longer viable"

 SgtEeveell wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Gatling weapons in general are a casualty of 10th's rough launch. They're entirely designed around Devastating Wounds and specifically fishing for crits via the original form of Oath of Moment. They were initially VERY powerful but when they cut that part out of Oath the whole design was just left non-functional.

They are also good at clearing chaff infantry units, which most marine lists don’t have an issue with, even if you happen to see one across the table.

It will be interesting to see if orks get a boon with the new edition and we see more green tide normalized. If hordes make a strong showing, it might be worth packing the guns designed to kill them.

But the practical issues with horde armies still remain outside the rules. The time/money to build and collect them, plus the issue with game length and just pushing that many models around and rolling their dice.

The 9th total unit coherency greatly limits the utility of hordes. I'd be surprised to see them as a big thing in 11th unless they get a heavy discount.

If you don't have to worry about blast markers or templates, can't you just pack them base to base?
Let's see, 9 in = 228 mm. 13,070 mm2
A 28.5 mm base is 210.25 mm2, so 62 of them in a 9" circle?

You can physically fit them on the table sure, but you can't screen out anywhere near as large an area from chargers or deep strikers compared to 10th.

 SgtEeveell wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Gatling weapons in general are a casualty of 10th's rough launch. They're entirely designed around Devastating Wounds and specifically fishing for crits via the original form of Oath of Moment. They were initially VERY powerful but when they cut that part out of Oath the whole design was just left non-functional.

They are also good at clearing chaff infantry units, which most marine lists don’t have an issue with, even if you happen to see one across the table.

It will be interesting to see if orks get a boon with the new edition and we see more green tide normalized. If hordes make a strong showing, it might be worth packing the guns designed to kill them.

But the practical issues with horde armies still remain outside the rules. The time/money to build and collect them, plus the issue with game length and just pushing that many models around and rolling their dice.

The 9th total unit coherency greatly limits the utility of hordes. I'd be surprised to see them as a big thing in 11th unless they get a heavy discount.

If you don't have to worry about blast markers or templates, can't you just pack them base to base?
Let's see, 9 in = 228 mm. 13,070 mm2
A 28.5 mm base is 210.25 mm2, so 62 of them in a 9" circle?

Not to be "that guy", but it's only 61.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n5pspedx/new-warhammer-40000-battleforces-revealed/

Do those actually look like decent ballanced forces? What’s going on here?

That's the weirdest damned definition of an Imperial Guard platoon I ever did see.

Heh, I didn’t even catch the name they slapped on it. That’s a lot of mixed units for a platoon.

Is it wrong that I miss the days where one troop slot let you pack in a zillion different squads?

Yeah, something described as "Led by a Cadian Command Squad and a Commissar, this platoon consists of 10 Cadian Shock Troops, two Field Ordnance batteries, a Basilisk, and a powerful Rogal Dorn battle tank" is not a Platoon, it's a mess.

Nice variety of units, don't get me wrong, but a mess.

I thought it was quite a clever mix. A box set that a reasonable player might want 2 of, but the utility of buying more than that is likely to drop off. It doesn’t even suffer from character tax that much.

Also with a bit of finagling, the basilisks could probably be done up as chimeras instead, and the guns put on static platforms for a bit of nice counts as.

 cuda1179 wrote:

Not to be "that guy", but it's only 61.

Without factoring in the packing ratio of circles, you're both wrong (or rather, not correct). You're not going to perfectly fill the entire 9" diameter with Ork-base. Bases can also overhang outside the circle, as the 9" is just gonna be measured closest-closest point.
So it's a meaningless calculation anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n5pspedx/new-warhammer-40000-battleforces-revealed/

Do those actually look like decent ballanced forces? What’s going on here?

That's the weirdest damned definition of an Imperial Guard platoon I ever did see.

GW hasn't the foggiest idea what military words mean
"Platoon" just means "small force, one step above "squad"" right?!

The area of a circle with a 9 inch radius is ~1600 cm2 (it is a radius, right?). The area of a 28.5mm diameter base is ~6.4 cm2. You can fit over 200 models into that coherency circle, even assuming ~90% efficiency honeycomb pattern.

Edit: Damn, it is 9 inches diameter. So yeah, it's about 57 models at 90% efficiency.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
The area of a circle with a 9 inch radius is ~1600 cm2 (it is a radius, right?).

Diameter.
Every model must be within 9" of every other model, so opposite sides of the unit need to be within 9" of one another

 Asmodai wrote:

 SgtEeveell wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Gatling weapons in general are a casualty of 10th's rough launch. They're entirely designed around Devastating Wounds and specifically fishing for crits via the original form of Oath of Moment. They were initially VERY powerful but when they cut that part out of Oath the whole design was just left non-functional.

They are also good at clearing chaff infantry units, which most marine lists don’t have an issue with, even if you happen to see one across the table.

It will be interesting to see if orks get a boon with the new edition and we see more green tide normalized. If hordes make a strong showing, it might be worth packing the guns designed to kill them.

But the practical issues with horde armies still remain outside the rules. The time/money to build and collect them, plus the issue with game length and just pushing that many models around and rolling their dice.

The 9th total unit coherency greatly limits the utility of hordes. I'd be surprised to see them as a big thing in 11th unless they get a heavy discount.

If you don't have to worry about blast markers or templates, can't you just pack them base to base?
Let's see, 9 in = 228 mm. 13,070 mm2
A 28.5 mm base is 210.25 mm2, so 62 of them in a 9" circle?

You can physically fit them on the table sure, but you can't screen out anywhere near as large an area from chargers or deep strikers compared to 10th.

Good. I was watching a game on stream where a single unit of Necron Warriors and Friends was stretched across the player's home objective and BOTH expansions. If it gets that crap out of the game, I'm for it.

I asked my work's AI to pack circles in, and it fits 72 bases in the 9" diameter
Of course that's perfectly packed. And it's AI. So.

Of course that's in a vaccum. In reality terrain and other models will get in the way - as well as unit weapons overhanging and tangling and preventing perfect base-base honeycombing.

I don't think 9" crossways should really be all that much of a problem in practice tbh. Maybe disembarking 20 models near some terrain will cause problems though.

But it's better than silly cross-board spreads

Is there a good summary short write up on what changed in the new edition and how to select missions?

Afaik each player has to select the missions for himself from a deck?

Points are up on Warhammer Community...

“some gear now costs points”

Quick glance at the Marines shows 2 things. Plasma on the redemptor, and TH/SS assault terminators.

Really using that new design space.


Interestingly some characters are both leaders and support, and the lists are not the same.

Good to see we're in a space where Hunter Killer missiles on Rhinos are still an option that's free so there's literally no point in it being an option other than making WISYWiG a bit harder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Am I doing it right that the app can't actually do the two characters squad attachment special rule that Death Guard have?

 Nevelon wrote:
“some gear now costs points”

Quick glance at the Marines shows 2 things. Plasma on the redemptor, and TH/SS assault terminators.

Really using that new design space.

Yeah, very disappointing. They have done basically nothing with it. Even Rogal Dorn tank doesn't get point increase for the better main gun that everybody always uses...

Interestingly they use the system which I know from Warhammer CE that sometimes units get more expensive the more you take of them or the other way around.

This means spamming is more expensive.

So Sisters have to pay to take multimeltas in Retributor squads, but Marine Devastators can take any weapon for free. Huh?

 Crimson wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
“some gear now costs points”

Quick glance at the Marines shows 2 things. Plasma on the redemptor, and TH/SS assault terminators.

Really using that new design space.

Yeah, very disappointing. They have done basically nothing with it. Even Rogal Dorn tank doesn't get point increase for the better main gun that everybody always uses...

Having the option there and available is another lever for tweaking balance. When it comes time to adjust points and hand out nerfs they can ask themselves if it’s the unit or the gun that’s the issue, and bump points more accurately. At least in theory. Or it might be something that will get more use once codexes roll out. There is only so much work they want to do on the get-you-by lists. (Even though some will be in use for years)

I'm sure this first wave of points is the typical Friday night just take a stab and push it out. Let the community hash it out.

If they're doing monthly balance updates to start, that shows they have zero expectation of these points being accurate.
It's just a shame they couldn't spend at least a little more effort looking at the already extant lessons of the current edition and applying the new wargear points more widely.

I figure the problem is two fold

1) There's pressure somewhere in GW to simplify the numbers in the game. Either customers who reach out; feedback from watch/survey groups or such or even a manager/team pushing for it

2) The 3 year grind. Simply put doing more granular points is more time and resource intensive. If its all getting thrown out the window every 3 years it might just be that the budget and time for rules writing just cannot cope at GW with the 3 year grind on multiple games at once and keeping up with granular points and point adjustments through an edition.

I like that the MFM is a web page for functionality. You can toggle legends on/off so it doesn’t clutter things up if you don’t need it at the moment. Which is nice because it’s not just the list of units at the end, but puts them on the leaders they can have join them.

What I don’t like is the lack of PDF. And this is mostly from an ideological PoV. Right now I have all the 10th ed PDFs, rules, errata, etc all downloaded on my laptop. I have access to them when the internet is down, I’m away from my network, etc. The “there might not be internet where I play” is not the excuse it once was, but is still valid. Even if it makes me sound old. But it’s also important for people who want to play legacy editions. 3 years from now when 12th is getting ready to drop, people are going to have to make their own lists.

I use apps. I’m fine with that. But they should not be required.

 Nevelon wrote:
I like that the MFM is a web page for functionality. You can toggle legends on/off so it doesn’t clutter things up if you don’t need it at the moment. Which is nice because it’s not just the list of units at the end, but puts them on the leaders they can have join them.

What I don’t like is the lack of PDF. And this is mostly from an ideological PoV. Right now I have all the 10th ed PDFs, rules, errata, etc all downloaded on my laptop. I have access to them when the internet is down, I’m away from my network, etc. The “there might not be internet where I play” is not the excuse it once was, but is still valid. Even if it makes me sound old. But it’s also important for people who want to play legacy editions. 3 years from now when 12th is getting ready to drop, people are going to have to make their own lists.

I use apps. I’m fine with that. But they should not be required.

That's certainly annoying but you could just export the page as a PDF from any mainstream browser right?

Have you tried printing the webpage to PDF?
It's something I've done before, but the formatting isn't always conducive.