Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Anybody notice a GW trend here? 4th edition infantry was good and transports were horrid and all your guys would probably die in a fiery inferno. 5th edition saw vehicles become king, and foot slogging armies very rare, i.e. "Parking Lot" lists, etc. 6th edition now favors foot sloggers again and makes vehicles very easy to kill. I can only assume 7th edition will see vehicles be even more powerful. GW's basically saying, buy an army, and then completely change it next edition. It seems that they don't correct things for balance, but for monetary reasons. Anyone else see this? I didn't play before 4th, but I've seen this so I thought I'd put it out there.

Vehicles are actually still very necessary, only walkers really got shafted completely. It's just that foot lists can actually conceivably compete now, so in a sense the game is actually more "balanced" in some ways.

Hmm. I just find that vehicles were so good in 5th, and you basically had to bring melta's or mc's, or some dedicated unit, and now you can just get a few glances and they are gone.

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:
Hmm. I just find that vehicles were so good in 5th, and you basically had to bring melta's or mc's, or some dedicated unit, and now you can just get a few glances and they are gone.

You mean Foot and Mech are equally vulnerable now?

Because that's the situation.

I get that, it just seems that every competitive list ran a bunch of vehicles in 5th, and now the only ones you really see are flyers. Just a little annoying I guess. More balanced? More than likely, but then again I've only played a couple games of 6th ed.

Seems to me that if the 6th edition rules do anything, they push fliers and Aegis defense lines down your throat. At least if your army is lucky enough to have a flier, that is.

6th edition doesn't favor foot sloggers. The arguable slight penalty that transports took is nothing compared to what foot lists lost with the loss of by-unit cover and the transition to new wound allocation.

It's not a oscillating back and forth, it's a years-long trend towards mech over foot, and shooty over choppy. Come back in 7th edition, and maybe we'll see.

It's certainly a pendulum back and forth.

3rd edition assaulty vehicles were insane, and it was the most assaulty edition in general. 4th edition boned transports in general, but made shooty tanks great, and also hurt assault in general (with a few exceptions). 5th ed brought assault back more, and brought back transports in a big way. 6th ed swung the pendulum back toward shooty and away from transports (except flyers).

I guess Ailaros would know about foot slogging pretty well, but I guess the kind of point I'm trying to make is what Mannahnin and AegisGrimm made. 6th basically forces you to take fliers, if not an aegis defense line. Also, just the constant switch in power. Perhaps foot slogging lists aren't king in this edition, but transports, which in the previous edition very good, aren't nearly as good. I agree that it is a pendulum.

6th ed doesn't require you to take either.

Just because something new comes out and everybody chases it like a bunch of lemmings does not mean that GW is requiring you to buy their new stuff just to be able to play 40k.

New stuff is just that, new. Of course lots of people are going to be excited about it and buy it (it's one of the reasons GW makes new stuff). That doesn't mean that they're screwing over everyone else, though.

And yeah, 4th ed had a brief hiccup where mech lists weren't popular, but 3rd ed was rhino rush and 5th ed was leafblower, and 6th ed certainly didn't do anything to relatively hurt mech lists. 40k has been about transports for most of its existence. And, I would note, you don't HAVE to play mech lists. Didn't then, and don't have to now.

I think what you're doing is looking to wring out every last little drop of powergaming that it's possible to do, which, yes, would require you to buy a bunch of models over time. Whatever gains you're making with this approach, however, are much too small to be noticed in a game where you roll six-sided dice to see what happens. At some point, the only way you do noticeably better is by being luckier, not by chasing the next "fix" of list building strength.

Woah there man. I'm no power gamer. I play a tenth company scout army. I just noticed it and thought I'd put my thoughts out there.

I think GW wanted to be more realistic with the HP concept (work with flyers or skymers like land speeder) but created more vulnerability for tanks with low armor like the Rhino. The big difference between 5th ed and 6th ed is if you buy a tank at 200 pts, don't think the tank will last all the game. I used now to focus on low cost point tanks and used them to block the LOS of my opponent rater than a valuable asset.

Transport now are good for 2 turns or 24/36 inch. Tanks for me are good until turn 3 or 4 and I focus to hit what I think what will be a pain in the ass.

For now, in general,I found vehicules good but for the MEQ (for me) doesn't work well.

Generally either taking flyers yourself or hording it up are the best counters to flyers. Flyers tend to be good at blasting light vehicles to bits. Having more bodies in your list makes you more able to weather their shooting and block off larger areas of table to impede their movement.

Ailaros, neither 4th ed (except for Eldar) nor 6th ed are about transports. In both said transports were/are very vulnerable, and much less prevalent and popular.

I don't really see this as a foot ruled edition. If anything, 6th made combined arms more important. Infantry need transports and vehicles to survive (with the loss of unit cover) but vehicles and transports are easily vulnerable now and need the Infantry support to make it to where they need to go. What 6th really did in my opinion was not a "foot" or "mech" edition but just a "shooty over choppy" edition where shooting things to death became a much more useful option (or rather, chopping something to death became worse for most armies while others maintained a CC superiority).

I also tend to agree that 6th tried to push airborne fighting a bit more as well, with a lot of new fliers and a lot of good fliers, and nothing really to counter them effectively besides your own fliers, an Aegis, or by making them roll lots of dice until you hit and kill them. There ARE Flakk missiles, but so few armies have them at the moment that I don't really consider them a threat.

That's assuming of course you actually want to shoot them down, because for the most part you can get away with ignoring them (although Necron fliers all are Dedicated Transports, so they gets a bit annoying).

Firstly the premise behind your initial post isn't entirely accurate. Vehicles are still very strong, and transports are still popular. They're not as spammed as they once were, but they're still around, and can still be used to make a competitive list.

Secondly, I never quite understand this "GW are evil for wanting to make money" stand point. You mean a company is willing to do things to make money? Shocking. It's not sleazy business practice because no one is forced to buy fliers or hordes and hordes of troops. Yes, they strong units, but there is no reason for you to have a perfect list every time you play. If your meta is like that (which it appears it isn't) then that's not GWs fault. It's the personalities of the people who play there.

I'm finding this horde of troops a lot easier to deal with than transport spam. Especially in my meta, where everyone seems to have ditched the idea of transports, which I've ignored. It puts me in a unique position where most people have plasma and anti-horde fire-power, and I have well..hull points. Lots and lots of hull points.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Generally either taking flyers yourself or hording it up are the best counters to flyers. Flyers tend to be good at blasting light vehicles to bits. Having more bodies in your list makes you more able to weather their shooting and block off larger areas of table to impede their movement.

Ailaros, neither 4th ed (except for Eldar) nor 6th ed are about transports. In both said transports were/are very vulnerable, and much less prevalent and popular.

This.

The only thing that's strong in 6th are flyers because Games Workshop (In all their genius) thought that certain armies should have access to skyfire weapons upon 6th's launch.

Griddlelol wrote:I'm finding this horde of troops a lot easier to deal with than transport spam. Especially in my meta, where everyone seems to have ditched the idea of transports, which I've ignored. It puts me in a unique position where most people have plasma and anti-horde fire-power, and I have well..hull points. Lots and lots of hull points.

I love it. Players trying to transition from Mech to Horde are easy pickings for about a month or so until they learn there are other anti-tank weapons besides the Melta. But I will reiterate that footslooging armies are not dead, you just can't run them mindlessly as you could in 5th (as in, putting your Commissars and Sergeants in the front and having the Guardsmen in the back mysteriously get shot. Or running out into an open field and expecting the man in front of you to save you).

 Griddlelol wrote:

Secondly, I never quite understand this "GW are evil for wanting to make money" stand point. You mean a company is willing to do things to make money? Shocking. It's not sleazy business practice because no one is forced to buy fliers or hordes and hordes of troops. Yes, they strong units, but there is no reason for you to have a perfect list every time you play. If your meta is like that (which it appears it isn't) then that's not GWs fault. It's the personalities of the people who play there.

That was not my intention. I understand that completely and I don't hate them for it. I'm a business owner myself so I totally get it. What I was trying to say, although it may be misconstrued due to my inexperience in 6th, was that they were doing it solely for money, and not to make the game for fun for people. I like what you had to say though about people switching lists and you doing even better because of it. I've kept pretty much the same list also, so I'm not hating. I run a tenth company scout army, and the only thing that really changed was me dropping my three landspeeder storms because they are literally the weakest possible thing to field.

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:
Woah there man. I'm no power gamer. I play a tenth company scout army. I just noticed it and thought I'd put my thoughts out there.

Don't worry about it. You get all kinds of people. I agree with your comment mostly as I have been playing this game for 25+ years as well as being a TO in my local area for 15+ years. Seen the changes as others have spoken about and from where I stand (as well as many others) you need lots of models now to play this game in a competitive manner.

Casual game? Now that is another matter.

Bty I play a scout army, mostly scout bikes, as well in casual games.

KplKeegan wrote:
I love it. Players trying to transition from Mech to Horde are easy pickings for about a month or so until they learn there are other anti-tank weapons besides the Melta. But I will reiterate that footslooging armies are not dead, you just can't run them mindlessly as you could in 5th (as in, putting your Commissars and Sergeants in the front and having the Guardsmen in the back mysteriously get shot. Or running out into an open field and expecting the man in front of you to save you).

Indeed, people seem to feel that net lists are the only way to go in my meta. While some are strong, they're so obvious that it's pretty easy to counter.
I've been toying with an "anti-plasma" list in my head for a week now for a tourney. It's quite similar to what Ailaros runs in his BReps, but with a twist... Whether it'll get ruined or be hilariously good is yet to be seen.

ImRightBehindYou wrote:
What I was trying to say, although it may be misconstrued due to my inexperience in 6th, was that they were doing it solely for money, and not to make the game for fun for people. I like what you had to say though about people switching lists and you doing even better because of it.

My post was not meant to come off as aggressive, but reading over it, it was rather. Sorry about that!

6th is a new beast. I've been enjoying it more than 5th mainly because of the variance I've seen in what people consider viable. Also there's fewer "rush everything forward for CC" lists which I despise to play against.
Fliers have a bad rep, and in some cases deservedly so, but considering the majority of codices haven't been updated for 6th which contains a brand new mechanic will make them seem worse than they actually are. Hopefully the new Death From the Skies update will fix some problems, but I expect to see everything better once more codices are released.

On the other hand, while I love using fortifications, I can't help but think some of them have points prices so low to make people buy them (Skyshield), but hey, there's no harm in a little profiteering. It's not like it's so broken or needed that everyone and their mom has a SSLP.

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:
Hmm. I just find that vehicles were so good in 5th, and you basically had to bring melta's or mc's, or some dedicated unit, and now you can just get a few glances and they are gone.

35 pts transports turn out to be easily destroyed at last.

6th is a god-bless and was very needed since 5th was all about who can bring more tankz.

 Sigvatr wrote:

35 pts transports turn out to be easily destroyed at last.

Amen to this, and this is coming from an MEQ player! In 5th it was kinda necessary to have a transport for every unit that could take one. Now I feel like it is a conditionally good option for infantry.

Transports got a mixed bag and I really don't understand people's assumption that transports are weak. It's 35 points that takes dedicated fire to remove before getting to your troops. They can be glanced to death, but glances don't shake or stun them anymore. You can't just fire what's available at a tank to glance it, just to buy another turn.

But with 6th of course we see flyers making a big mark. Because they're a new mechanic and GW has a terrible update schedule. So cheap flying transports are making a better appearance than standard transports. And with the Heldrake we see another instance of a flyer doing something we aren't used to seeing. People have it in their head that marines aren't supposed to be burned to cinders under a flame template, and so Heldrakes really mess up a lot of players. Especially players that are so intent on not taking transports.

Another negative for the transport was the change to rapid fire weapons. Now standard guns can move and fire full range. A lot of players I've seen don't take transports because it makes them fire less now.

At least there's one thing that hasn't changed. The argument that "Just wait another half decade. It'll get better" or "Wait 18 months for a couple more armies to update and it'll be balanced" is still flying around.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:
Hmm. I just find that vehicles were so good in 5th, and you basically had to bring melta's or mc's, or some dedicated unit, and now you can just get a few glances and they are gone.

35 pts transports turn out to be easily destroyed at last.

6th is a god-bless and was very needed since 5th was all about who can bring more tankz.

+1 this.
as a Daemon player, there was absolutely nothing fun about 5th ed's 'uber mech-fest...

Especially when the only results I could ever roll were to simply shake/stun a fething Razorback! At least now, even with my typically abysmal dice rolling, I still have the ability to glance a vehicle to death and thus kill a few things instead of inflicting a pointless 12+ 'shaken' results.

The game really needed to fix vehicles as in 5th they were just abusive, my friend ran orks and had a megadred which i was fine with him using but damn that thing took some killing and it forced me into taking multiple longfang squds something i'd never normally do.

i'm much happier in 6th than i was in 5th, i just wish my blood claws were worth using but they just arnt at the moment.

Ive been finding rhinos to be excellent for transporting. I don't think vehicles are dead at all

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:
I get that, it just seems that every competitive list ran a bunch of vehicles in 5th, and now the only ones you really see are flyers. Just a little annoying I guess. More balanced? More than likely, but then again I've only played a couple games of 6th ed.

Flyers is where they have been somewhat remiss imho. Bringing out a new set of rules which make flyers really, really, really good with a wave of flyers for some of the armies but not others and still no sign, plus still no sign of AA units for half the armies.

They should have done an immediate wave of both with simple WD inserts or online rules. Eldar were stuffed by 6th ed and still having no flyer nearly a year later hurts. Also still no harpy for nids or anything for Tau is silly. WD should have at least had an addendum allowing one unit type in every army to buy skyfire, say any Eldar with a ML, hive guard for nids, etc, etc. This has shafted certain armies. Nothing worse than being a flyer-less army weeping as ork bombas and stormtalons tear you apart with you needing 6s to even hit let alone damage them.

*shrug*

When GW release a new edition of the game, they are less interested in making "improvements", and making a "better" game, and far more interested in "changing" the game.

4th was about infantry, and skimmerspam. well, all the tau players bought hammerheads and all the marine players bought their 80 infantry. new edition needs to push new sales. what could GW make sell? you cant sell to people stuff that they already have. What did people not have? non-skimmer vehicles! skew the rules to favour them, and the players will adapt and follow?

Cynical? yup.

Or is it GWs way of shaking up the meta, and making things a bit different (only now they get something out of it too)?

I think its obvious that GW makes their games to sell models. and to sell models they just change the rules of their games. This is how GW games 'evloves'

Want to push the new 40k flyer's sells? make them super varable in game. People will complain but they will buy flyers. Once they got enough sells, FAQ the game to underpower flyers and make another product have cheesy rules. Repeat process.

 ImRightBehindYou wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:

Secondly, I never quite understand this "GW are evil for wanting to make money" stand point. You mean a company is willing to do things to make money? Shocking. It's not sleazy business practice because no one is forced to buy fliers or hordes and hordes of troops. Yes, they strong units, but there is no reason for you to have a perfect list every time you play. If your meta is like that (which it appears it isn't) then that's not GWs fault. It's the personalities of the people who play there.

That was not my intention. I understand that completely and I don't hate them for it. I'm a business owner myself so I totally get it. What I was trying to say, although it may be misconstrued due to my inexperience in 6th, was that they were doing it solely for money, and not to make the game for fun for people. I like what you had to say though about people switching lists and you doing even better because of it. I've kept pretty much the same list also, so I'm not hating. I run a tenth company scout army, and the only thing that really changed was me dropping my three landspeeder storms because they are literally the weakest possible thing to field.

Perhaps it was the title of your post?

I would consider 6th edition to be more fun than 5th. If the game didn't change, it would become stagnant and dull. And yes, GW would make less money because you wouldn't buy new models. So I get it. The game has to evolve.

As a side note - it cracks me up how many people were complaining towards the end of 5th edition about how the game was stale and needed changing. Then the game changed and people were like "Whoa whoa whoa! Not THAT change!".

The community was complaining that vehicles were king in 5th edition - so I guess you can't please everyone.

Deadnight wrote:
*shrug*

When GW release a new edition of the game, they are less interested in making "improvements", and making a "better" game, and far more interested in "changing" the game.

4th was about infantry, and skimmerspam. well, all the tau players bought hammerheads and all the marine players bought their 80 infantry. new edition needs to push new sales. what could GW make sell? you cant sell to people stuff that they already have. What did people not have? non-skimmer vehicles! skew the rules to favour them, and the players will adapt and follow?

Cynical? yup.

Or is it GWs way of shaking up the meta, and making things a bit different (only now they get something out of it too)?

This, this and this.

I don't even see it as cynical; I see it as realistic and necessary. Why should they do different?

It has the benefit of shaking up the game for the player, too, so that you aren't just playing the same old game all the time. And for GW's side of the bargain, it encourages players to "update" their existing armies, even those with only one or two main armies. And I'm totally fine with that.

That's not to say that the game couldn't be better written - I think that the writers really need to hire proofreaders who aren't familiar with how Warhammer mechanics work - but the core ideology makes perfect sense to me.

Maybe I've been working in retail for too long.