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Honestly? I'm fine with White Scars bikers being better than Ultramarines bikers so long as a White Scars bike army isn't better than an Ultramarines bike army. Yes that takes more effort to do well through adequate points costs etc.

 PenitentJake wrote:

Sure, but like 10th: the thing is, "defining" your army using these methods falls apart when a different army makes the EXACT same choices, proving to you that YOUR dudes are not YOUR dudes.

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I brought the maximum number of bikes (even though Space Wolves live in a frozen wasteland of ice and snow where bikes are as practical as bikinis) and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

So yeah, how did you actually think your expression of your chapters uniqueness was unique when ANY Chapter could do it?

...vs...

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I'm using the White Scars codex."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them blue."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them red."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them whatever the hell colour 'Fang' is."

...

 insaniak wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

Sure, but like 10th: the thing is, "defining" your army using these methods falls apart when a different army makes the EXACT same choices, proving to you that YOUR dudes are not YOUR dudes.

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I brought the maximum number of bikes (even though Space Wolves live in a frozen wasteland of ice and snow where bikes are as practical as bikinis) and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

So yeah, how did you actually think your expression of your chapters uniqueness was unique when ANY Chapter could do it?

...vs...

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I'm using the White Scars codex."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them blue."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them red."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them whatever the hell colour 'Fang' is."

...

My response:
No, you're just playing blue/red/"fang" colored White Scars. I know this because you're using the White Scars codex/rules.
What you tell yourself is your own business.
What color you choose to paint your stuff, or even if you paint it? Doesn't matter to me.

The end result is the same, though. In both cases, you're using the same rules and the same army list... the only difference is what you choose to call them.

 insaniak wrote:
The end result is the same, though. In both cases, you're using the same rules and the same army list... the only difference is what you choose to call them.

The requirement of a white scars specific rule in the example is what breaks things. If it was "space marine bikers" rules then sure, but the fact people were encouraged to proxy as the "wrong" army to have their stuff work because the rules were intrinsically tied to a specific fluff relevant name is the issue.

Once you divorce flamers and meltas from Salamanders and instead pair them to "marine force that specialises in flamers and meltas", people gain creativity without breaking narrative stride.

Never the less, this wasn't too much of a problem in 3rd where irrc largely it was still based off what you chose to include to carry the theme, apart from those lucky few with additional rules supplements and the 3.5 chaos book.

Dudeface wrote:
Never the less, this wasn't too much of a problem in 3rd where irrc largely it was still based off what you chose to include to carry the theme, apart from those lucky few with additional rules supplements and the 3.5 chaos book.

Ironically the 3.5 book kind of killed one of the things that made chaos unique.

Loyalists were traditionally uniformly painted generalist battle brothers. Oldschool chaos was a disparate warband made up of more specialised sub-factions, and while the daemons stayed that way the marines gradually moved to being loyalists with spikes.

Definitely a problem Chaos has faced. At different points, they’ve been presented as disparate, temporarily aligned warbands, Spiky Marines, hyper competent, super incompetent, still capable of fielding massive, near Legion sized forces and Mere Handfuls.

So depending on when you got started, your take on Chaos can be pretty different from the next person, because GW Can’t Decide.

Whilst I’d say the current range, whilst not faultless, is the most coherent and interesting in a long while? Where are the mutations and gribbly body horror? Like tentacle arms, unusual legs and that. Where is the literal mark of chaos upon their benighted flesh?

Doesn’t even need in-game rules, just go with the visual. Because gorgeous as the current models are, they’re entirely missing the wackiness and manky corruption of the earliest models.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Definitely a problem Chaos has faced. At different points, they’ve been presented as disparate, temporarily aligned warbands, Spiky Marines, hyper competent, super incompetent, still capable of fielding massive, near Legion sized forces and Mere Handfuls.

Sounds pretty Chaotic. Chaos should encompass all of those things. Just as it can reward your devotion with daemon princedom or spawnhood.

 insaniak wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:

Sure, but like 10th: the thing is, "defining" your army using these methods falls apart when a different army makes the EXACT same choices, proving to you that YOUR dudes are not YOUR dudes.

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I brought the maximum number of bikes and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I brought the maximum number of bikes (even though Space Wolves live in a frozen wasteland of ice and snow where bikes are as practical as bikinis) and all my infantry are in transports and we focus on hit and run tactics."

So yeah, how did you actually think your expression of your chapters uniqueness was unique when ANY Chapter could do it?

...vs...

"Look, I'm playing White Scars, and I know this because I'm using the White Scars codex."

"I'm playing Ultramarines; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them blue."

"I'm playing Blood Angels; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them red."

"I'm playing Space Wolves; I'm using the White Scars codex, because I wanted a biker army, but I painted them whatever the hell colour 'Fang' is."

...

This never bothered me though- the dude who wanted the Ultramarine bikers so he used blue Marines with the White Scars dex? That was fine, because in that arrangement, it's clear that the player is using a work around, rather than- "No, nobody actually specializes in anything, and nobody is better than anybody at anything else. I mean, the lore says they specialize, but that's not how the game works. Anyone who wants to can use the game to reflect the lore if they choose to, but that's the work around, not the default."

Dudeface wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The end result is the same, though. In both cases, you're using the same rules and the same army list... the only difference is what you choose to call them.

The requirement of a white scars specific rule in the example is what breaks things. If it was "space marine bikers" rules then sure, but the fact people were encouraged to proxy as the "wrong" army to have their stuff work because the rules were intrinsically tied to a specific fluff relevant name is the issue.

Once you divorce flamers and meltas from Salamanders and instead pair them to "marine force that specialises in flamers and meltas", people gain creativity without breaking narrative stride.

Never the less, this wasn't too much of a problem in 3rd where irrc largely it was still based off what you chose to include to carry the theme, apart from those lucky few with additional rules supplements and the 3.5 chaos book.

This is a spectrum though. Few people argue that there shouldn't be ordinary Marines and veteran Marines, yet veterans are just better versions (more subtly so before 5th edition). So if you think that is acceptable for both to be choices, the existence of a variant list with veteran bikers vs the default with ordinary bikers is also acceptable. The devil is in the details, in which the veteran unit is more capable but has drawbacks that prevent it being the better choice (like a higher points cost).

This works for everything- the list specialising in flamers and meltas shouldn't be better than the list that isn't, even if the individual capabilities are higher.

If you take the corollary to the extreme, why bother having different units and codices at all? So where should the line be drawn in variations? I do accept that balancing becomes harder with more lists, but I reiterate my position that mission variety discourages skew lists.

ccs wrote:
My response:
No, you're just playing blue/red/"fang" colored White Scars. I know this because you're using the White Scars codex/rules.
What you tell yourself is your own business.
What color you choose to paint your stuff, or even if you paint it? Doesn't matter to me.

It's useful to go back and look at 2nd for a moment. All marine armies had the same composition rules using the three types of units: characters, squads and support. Squads - which were required - included Terminators, tactical, scouts, bikes, assault and devastators. So one could create whatever flavor of force one desired.

All the specialist chapters got was a limited choice of special squads with special rules - and they paid extra points for them. If you wanted veteran assault marines, you played a Blood Angels chapter (or took them as allies). Same with Ravenwing, veteran tactical squads, etc.

What set your army apart was simply the composition and doctrine you used, which had the virtue of limiting the size of the rule book.

With 3rd, the org chart came into being and units could count towards different slots on different lists. The simplification of core rules (and shortening of the stat line) also required more special rules to create differences, and this was exacerbated by the all-or-nothing AP system and the cookie-cutter vehicle profile. The designers also varied the point values for the same weapons depending on what unit they were in, and players exploited this as well.

What that meant was armies necessarily had to be specialized, which created further design complexity, further worsened balance issues, and created a have/have not hierarchy and pushed the focus of the game more towards list creation and less towards tactical operations.

In 2nd, there were many really good, flexible options. You didn't have to be required to take "line units" because they were good on their own. As mentioned long ago, heavy bolters were really useful against everyone, so having a few was just common sense. In 3rd, balancing AP was a crucial and failing to do it could result in a blowout loss, which was annoying.

Yes, you could engineer a lop-sided game in 2nd, but amassing 100 hormaguants or a fleet of discs of Tzeentch was pretty unique (and expensive) way to do it. Starcannon spam was far more economical.

Composition in 2nd edition is all over the place, and includes examples that are fundamentally the same as FOC swapping. For example, Ork warbikes were support, unless you took Evil Sunz mobz as battleline and upgraded them with warbikes.

Imperial Guard had this bizarre, complex system that vaguely approximated the company and platoon structure in the lore of the book and tied units to a specific regiment. Except the only regiment that had different rules was rough riders- a Cadian and Catachan squad were identical. In addition, it meant that whilst Ratlings, Ogryns, and Storm troopers were battleline, in practice they were restricted by the system above as much as being elites in later editions.

 Haighus wrote:
Composition in 2nd edition is all over the place, and includes examples that are fundamentally the same as FOC swapping. For example, Ork warbikes were support, unless you took Evil Sunz mobz as battleline and upgraded them with warbikes.

Imperial Guard had this bizarre, complex system that vaguely approximated the company and platoon structure in the lore of the book and tied units to a specific regiment. Except the only regiment that had different rules was rough riders- a Cadian and Catachan squad were identical. In addition, it meant that whilst Ratlings, Ogryns, and Storm troopers were battleline, in practice they were restricted by the system above as much as being elites in later editions.

Right, but that's a feature to me, not a bug. The IG rules made sense insofar as they are not very flexible as an organization. Basically if you wanted armor, you had to take infantry to support it. That's fine.

I hated the FOC because it imposed totally inappropriate limits on force selection and did nothing to improve game balance. In fact, it made it worse by forcing factions to choose junk units in order to check a box, while more fortunate factions would slide around those restrictions and take nothing but the cream of the list.

The rules for 2nd were very loose, and that was a good thing because it allowed players the freedom to do specific scenarios while maintaining some sort of parity in terms of characters and heavy weapons/allies.

What that allowed was totally fluffy and appropriate lists, such as a terminator strike team or an "air assault" force of jump packs and land speeders. It supports a narrative form of gaming where you and your opponent talk about what combinations/restrictions make sense from a fluff and balance perspective.

The FOC was GW saying "yeah, never mind worrying about that, it's fixed," and people absolutely adopted that attitude. It was understood in 2nd that "legal" was not balanced because of the skew. Going all WAAC on someone with with a tweaked list was socially frowned upon because anyone could do that.

In 3rd that became an art form, and the internet fueled that to the extent that list discussions needed their own dedicated space because they spammed up the regular discussions. Nobody carried about "killer lists" in 2nd because everyone knew you could do it, but it was lame. Throwing 100+ hormaguants was simply a matter of model purchases and doing it was - if nothing else - a commendable financial commitment, but no one acted like they'd discovered the cure for cancer or a lost civilization.

In 3rd people did do that, and it was a sub-competition of people critiquing one another, arguing that the list wasn't optimized enough, or pointing out how that list was bad, but THIS list would beat it.

To be fair, the internet was in its infancy, so maybe 2nd ed. list-building could have gotten that way, but I don't think so because there is a community today, and perhaps because it's out of print, no one approaches the game with that kind of competitiveness. Or if they do, it's open and wrapped in irony ("My mates and I decided what was the weirdest, cheatiest list possible. Here's what we came up with...")

My point stands, however: the FOC was part of the professionalization of 40k, an assumption that cooperative play was for losers and the best and greatest relied on GW's fickle balancing efforts to guide their path of victory.

No, WAAC was happening during 2nd. I was on the receiving end of it. You know what else was happening in 2nd edition that bled into third? NAAC: Narrative At All Costs. You seem to act like the only thing destroying the player base was people playing competitive, but here's the funny thing: competitive play did not block out narrative play, but narrative play most assuredly blocked out competitive play nine times out of 10. Position The Knack players were some of the most gatekeeping people I've ever met in my life and they most assuredly treated the game as if their way of playing was the only way of playing, whereas your competitive players welcomed any challenge because they were there for the game. This once again dips back to some people wanting a role-playing game in their war game or vice versa, not realizing that those things probably should be kept separate. Games Workshop themselves realize this, and that's why they came out with Inquisitor to scratch that itch.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and throw the BS flag down on the entire optimization garbage that you keep spouting. The thing about competitive play is that you are more often than not completely unaware of who you were going to wind up playing, unless you had to make a list as equally able to Dish it to whomever you're playing and have a chance of surviving. This meant that star cannon spam would be absolutely useless against 2/3 of the Army's being played. This doesn't sound like the best bit of odds, does it? It definitely doesn't seem like a logical choice if you're trying to prepare to go up against anyone. To me it sounds like you had a TFG in your group during Third Edition who specialized the list against you and you've held it against them pretty much ever since. I'm also going to go ahead and throw down that by your logic second edition ruin 40K because Crimson fists were the poster child of the game before second came along.

I'll go ahead and suggest this once again, even though I understand that this is a sledge thread and I should just back out instead of Defending the addition that's getting sledged against people making off base comments. Just say "super special bestest" and that's all the explanation you need. That way you don't have to get caught spouting stuff that is flat out untrue.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Spoiler:

 Haighus wrote:
Composition in 2nd edition is all over the place, and includes examples that are fundamentally the same as FOC swapping. For example, Ork warbikes were support, unless you took Evil Sunz mobz as battleline and upgraded them with warbikes.

Imperial Guard had this bizarre, complex system that vaguely approximated the company and platoon structure in the lore of the book and tied units to a specific regiment. Except the only regiment that had different rules was rough riders- a Cadian and Catachan squad were identical. In addition, it meant that whilst Ratlings, Ogryns, and Storm troopers were battleline, in practice they were restricted by the system above as much as being elites in later editions.

Right, but that's a feature to me, not a bug. The IG rules made sense insofar as they are not very flexible as an organization. Basically if you wanted armor, you had to take infantry to support it. That's fine.

I hated the FOC because it imposed totally inappropriate limits on force selection and did nothing to improve game balance. In fact, it made it worse by forcing factions to choose junk units in order to check a box, while more fortunate factions would slide around those restrictions and take nothing but the cream of the list.

The rules for 2nd were very loose, and that was a good thing because it allowed players the freedom to do specific scenarios while maintaining some sort of parity in terms of characters and heavy weapons/allies.

What that allowed was totally fluffy and appropriate lists, such as a terminator strike team or an "air assault" force of jump packs and land speeders. It supports a narrative form of gaming where you and your opponent talk about what combinations/restrictions make sense from a fluff and balance perspective.

The FOC was GW saying "yeah, never mind worrying about that, it's fixed," and people absolutely adopted that attitude. It was understood in 2nd that "legal" was not balanced because of the skew. Going all WAAC on someone with with a tweaked list was socially frowned upon because anyone could do that.

In 3rd that became an art form, and the internet fueled that to the extent that list discussions needed their own dedicated space because they spammed up the regular discussions. Nobody carried about "killer lists" in 2nd because everyone knew you could do it, but it was lame. Throwing 100+ hormaguants was simply a matter of model purchases and doing it was - if nothing else - a commendable financial commitment, but no one acted like they'd discovered the cure for cancer or a lost civilization.

In 3rd people did do that, and it was a sub-competition of people critiquing one another, arguing that the list wasn't optimized enough, or pointing out how that list was bad, but THIS list would beat it.

To be fair, the internet was in its infancy, so maybe 2nd ed. list-building could have gotten that way, but I don't think so because there is a community today, and perhaps because it's out of print, no one approaches the game with that kind of competitiveness. Or if they do, it's open and wrapped in irony ("My mates and I decided what was the weirdest, cheatiest list possible. Here's what we came up with...")

My point stands, however: the FOC was part of the professionalization of 40k, an assumption that cooperative play was for losers and the best and greatest relied on GW's fickle balancing efforts to guide their path of victory.

So you are saying that 2nd was good because it allowed you to take broad lists with lots of flexibility, unless you were Guard because the Guard isn't very flexible, even though the Guard codex wouldn't let you make a force that matches lore in that very codex:

(Note, you could build an armoured company in 3rd, and an artillery company in the list released at the beginning of 4th based on the 3.5th IG codex).

So Space Marines can run an unsupported Terminator strike but Guard cannot have an armoured spearhead. "Tax units" are good for Guard only.

Meanwhile, 3rd is bad because now it makes everyone take their basic troop units in the default rules?

In addition, the FOC is recommended for 3rd but is explicitly optional and they give suggestions for varying the FOC. If your gaming group was not willing to play games without the FOC or with a modified FOC for a narrative mission, that was a problem with your gaming group. Plus, there were 4 different FOCs provided in the 3rd edition rulebooks for different types of mission. They had different required units (all have at least one troops) and force list variety for different roles to fit the narrative. Did they provide balance alone? No. But it definitely helps to limit spam, especially when using different FOCs across different mission types. It also generates lists that follow typical formations for various forces more closely. Sole Terminator strike forces are rare outside the Deathwing. Terminator strikes supporting Tactical squads in Drop pods is more common.

Honestly, it sounds more like your community changed when the edition did, and that is as much part of why you don't like 3rd as the rules changes. You had a good group in 2nd that put effort in to avoid cheesing the game and were willing to make houserules. You didn't have that in 3rd.

[quote=Just Tony 813680 11669336 e47b71fd13f664c2bec433620d152314.png

Also, I'm going to go ahead and throw the BS flag down on the entire optimization garbage that you keep spouting.

So you're actually saying that no one ever optimized the FOC? Um, okay.

The thing about competitive play is that you are more often than not completely unaware of who you were going to wind up playing, unless you had to make a list as equally able to Dish it to whomever you're playing and have a chance of surviving. This meant that star cannon spam would be absolutely useless against 2/3 of the Army's being played.

Power armor troops of various types were grossly overrepresented in the codices released and I'm pretty sure the sales figures are representative of that. GW hung its hat on space marines, launched a doomed lawsuit to protect their monopoly on the models, so while they were not the majority of factions, they were well-represented in tournaments and every other measure of popularity I saw. When in doubt, use AP 3 because - like Colt Malt Liquor - it works every time. But I could be wrong, it was a long time ago. Maybe Dark Eldar took the 40k world by storm, which is why people were giving away the figures. Nobody gave away marines.

I'll go ahead and suggest this once again, even though I understand that this is a sledge thread and I should just back out instead of Defending the addition that's getting sledged against people making off base comments. Just say "super special bestest" and that's all the explanation you need. That way you don't have to get caught spouting stuff that is flat out untrue.

The difference is that 2nd ed. players happily admit their flaws. They're known, and while some embrace the psychic phase or guys getting set on fire and spending the rest of the game running in a circle, we can also admit that it was time-consuming and limited force sizes.

There are also known ways to mitigate them, which is why the " 2nd problems" thread is so mellow. There's just not much to argue about.

It's interesting that almost none of the 3rd edition stuff can be defended on its own - it's always "Well, 2nd sucked so..."

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
[quote=Just Tony 813680 11669336 e47b71fd13f664c2bec433620d152314.png

Also, I'm going to go ahead and throw the BS flag down on the entire optimization garbage that you keep spouting.

So you're actually saying that no one ever optimized the FOC? Um, okay.

The thing about competitive play is that you are more often than not completely unaware of who you were going to wind up playing, unless you had to make a list as equally able to Dish it to whomever you're playing and have a chance of surviving. This meant that star cannon spam would be absolutely useless against 2/3 of the Army's being played.

Power armor troops of various types were grossly overrepresented in the codices released and I'm pretty sure the sales figures are representative of that. GW hung its hat on space marines, launched a doomed lawsuit to protect their monopoly on the models, so while they were not the majority of factions, they were well-represented in tournaments and every other measure of popularity I saw. When in doubt, use AP 3 because - like Colt Malt Liquor - it works every time. But I could be wrong, it was a long time ago. Maybe Dark Eldar took the 40k world by storm, which is why people were giving away the figures. Nobody gave away marines.

I'll go ahead and suggest this once again, even though I understand that this is a sledge thread and I should just back out instead of Defending the addition that's getting sledged against people making off base comments. Just say "super special bestest" and that's all the explanation you need. That way you don't have to get caught spouting stuff that is flat out untrue.

The difference is that 2nd ed. players happily admit their flaws. They're known, and while some embrace the psychic phase or guys getting set on fire and spending the rest of the game running in a circle, we can also admit that it was time-consuming and limited force sizes.

There are also known ways to mitigate them, which is why the " 2nd problems" thread is so mellow. There's just not much to argue about.

It's interesting that almost none of the 3rd edition stuff can be defended on its own - it's always "Well, 2nd sucked so..."

People were giving away dark elf figures because people didn't know how to run the army. That's addressing the first ridiculous point in your post. The second ridiculous point is that assuming all in whatever played was Marines and nothing else was represented. The hyperbole is ridiculous, you need to just stop.

It's funny because people were defending Third Edition in this very thread with simply "it was good to have structure", "the vehicle rules were much more logical", or "armies actually look like armies", but yeah, we can go ahead and sweep that under the rug because for some odd reason you only read what you want to read.

Here's another point for you to consider: Third Edition as a rule set was simply adjusted upon all the way up until 7th when 8th switch the Paradigm completely, well second edition was so great they trashed it and revamped the entire system from the ground up rather than simply try to make adjustments. Take of that what you will.


And as far as propagation of marine armies? That was happening in every Edition because Elite armies are smaller and cost less to buy. Regardless of everything going plastic or not that is still the case.

 PenitentJake wrote:
"No, nobody actually specializes in anything, and nobody is better than anybody at anything else. I mean, the lore says they specialize, but that's not how the game works. Anyone who wants to can use the game to reflect the lore if they choose to, but that's the work around, not the default."

Why do you interpret 'specialize' to mean 'is the absolute best at without peer'? Those aren't synonymous.

It can be the case that White Scars specialize in mounted warfare and do it the most, but also that Ultramarines are capable of fielding comparably-effective forces at a tactical level, and that on the tabletop the difference isn't significant enough to account for.

If you can't enjoy White Scars being good at bikes unless nobody else is allowed to be good at bikes too, that's entirely on you. It isn't failing to reflect the lore just because it isn't giving out unique bonuses to appease a simplistic 'power level' view of the lore.

I thought people gave away the original dark eldar because the models were pretty hard to like, but that could have just been my local gaming circle. I mean the jetbikes were excellent for the time, but whenever someone mentions old dark eldar I only see that head with the ginormous conical haircut with the hair painted skull white. You know the one.

The original DE Jetbikes were pretty cool, because they were fairly modular. The two halves of the faring were different lengths, but interchangeable, and you could mount them horizontally or vertically. The blade vanes and guns could also be positioned in different orientations.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Maybe Dark Eldar took the 40k world by storm, which is why people were giving away the figures.

If you've never seen a 3e codex Dark Eldar list then try to imagine a faction that can bring somewhere in the ballpark of two dozen strength 8 AP 2 weapons backed by five troop units and multiple vehicles... in a 1000pt game.

Old DE really put the cannon into glass cannon.

 catbarf wrote:


Why do you interpret 'specialize' to mean 'is the absolute best at without peer'? Those aren't synonymous.

To specialize literally means to study and practice one skill to the exclusion of others, which is literally what you have to do to be the best. And sure, one who specializes isn't going to necessarily be better at that skill than others who also specialize in that skill, but all the specialists are going to be better at the skill than those who don't specialize in it.

And why do you assume that for subfactions to be equally effective, all must have equal access to all specializations? Why can't your Ultramarines lean into their own specialty instead of you insisting that that also have access to everyone else's specialty?

Your army doesn't have to be as good at hit and run attacks as mine to be equally effective. Or is the issue just that you're uncomfortable in a setting where subfactions have disadvantages as well as advantages?

 catbarf wrote:

It can be the case that White Scars specialize in mounted warfare and do it the most, but also that Ultramarines are capable of fielding comparably-effective forces at a tactical level, and that on the tabletop the difference isn't significant enough to account for.

Ultramarine forces can be as effective as Whitescars forces; they just aren't likely to do it by being equally proficient bikers, because not a scrap of anything in the lore indicates that they are equally proficient in the lore, while a great many things in both the lore and the version history of the game DO imply that they are NOT equally proficient bikers.

 catbarf wrote:

If you can't enjoy White Scars being good at bikes unless nobody else is allowed to be good at bikes too, that's entirely on you. It isn't failing to reflect the lore just because it isn't giving out unique bonuses to appease a simplistic 'power level' view of the lore.

When the lore says a subfaction is as good at bikes as Whitescars are, I'm fine. You know, Ravenwing, Doomrider, etc. If you're not cool playing Ultramarines with both their strengths AND their weaknesses, why not just make up your own chapter name?

Now look, the worst part here dude is that by coming at me, you make me double down and entrench into a position that I've already stated numerous times is no more or no less valid than the opposite position. Numerous times I've talked about how I understand why people like the detachment system being the source for flavour rules; when the Drukhari got their second detachment, I talked about how nice it was to be able to use it without feeling obligated to use a different paint scheme.

I see your point of view- it's valid.

But even if I was convinced that everybody should be able to be as good at everything as everyone else- and to be clear, I'm not- there are other serious problems with this detachment system. Blood Angels have access not only to the detachments in their own dex, they also have access to the detachments in the SM book. Meanwhile, Sisters get four- not even one for each Order.

9th was bloated, but I knew there were six Orders of Battle Sisters, and I could tell them apart by how they played. That felt closer to the experience that space marine players have been taking for granted since 2nd edition than anything that ever came before. We weren't equal- no one ever will be. But I felt like my subfaction was a part of my identity. It was the first and only time in the game's history that I've been able to say "This model is from the Sacred Rose" and have it mean as much as saying "This model is a Blood Angel."

To go from that to four detachments is pretty sour, even though I will admit that it's nice to know that when I do get the lowly four detachments that us second class folk are allowed to have, I'll be able to play any of the four guilt free regardless of what colour my models are.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


It's interesting that almost none of the 3rd edition stuff can be defended on its own - it's always "Well, 2nd sucked so..."

As someone who's not been super involved in this thread: Lol-wot?

Every single one of your posts is about how 2nd edition was so much better than 3rd because of X Y Z. Why is that a valid argument, but the opposition of 3rd being better because Z Y X is not?

Furthermore, this thread is about why someone hated 3rd and loved 2nd. It's literally in the first paragraph of the OP. And every post you or Doc have made; how it was better in 2nd and 3rd ruined everything!

I've been keeping out of the discussion for a bit because it's kind of pointless, and this particular comment really highlights that. That there's no salient points left to be made in favor of 2nd or detraction of 3rd, so it's time to just flip the tables and change the rules to keep attacking 3rd that way. I genuinely think you should take some advice given several other times: Just admit that 2nd is your special-bestest-best edition. I mean that's fine, having an opinion and a preference is O.K. Hell I even respect that, but the attempts at trying to maintain a façade that it's anything else is just getting sad.

 PenitentJake wrote:
To specialize literally means to study and practice one skill to the exclusion of others, which is literally what you have to do to be the best. And sure, one who specializes isn't going to necessarily be better at that skill than others who also specialize in that skill, but all the specialists are going to be better at the skill than those who don't specialize in it.

And why do you assume that for subfactions to be equally effective, all must have equal access to all specializations? Why can't your Ultramarines lean into their own specialty instead of you insisting that that also have access to everyone else's specialty?

Your army doesn't have to be as good at hit and run attacks as mine to be equally effective. Or is the issue just that you're uncomfortable in a setting where subfactions have disadvantages as well as advantages?

'Specialists will be better at the skill than those who don't specialize it' is an incredibly general statement. What expertise does that specialization translate to? Strategic flexibility? Logistical independence? Reduction of Clausewitzian friction from well-practiced drill? Does it mean they can operate a specialized tactical model at an operational scale? Does it enable field officers to operate independently under mission tactics? Does any of it manifest as a tangible difference in a game where superhuman reflexes and centuries of experience yields a single point of WS over a conscript?

The way you're approaching this goes something like: The Air Force only operates aircraft and specializes in aircraft, but the Navy operates both aircraft and ships, so Air Force aircraft in Team Yankee should get +1 to hit. Which is silly. The Air Force does specialize in air operations, and I can give you a dozen things that that translates to in practice, but none of them will be visible at the scale of a tactical wargame. If someone complains that not giving Air Force a special bonus is failing to be realistic or historically accurate or lore accurate, they are wrong.

I'm very comfortable with subfactions having disadvantages and advantages. I'd like to see that implemented, actually; if taking a White Scars or Ravenwing biker force came with disadvantages to offset their better capabilities (higher per-man cost, maybe?) it would be easier to tolerate them getting to be the Specialest Bestest Biker Boys to the exclusion of everyone else. But there aren't disadvantages currently. There are only advantages to select from, and under the prior paint=rules system, if the advantage assigned to your subfaction doesn't benefit your army, sucks to suck. Want to play a biker army? Sorry, you didn't paint your guys correctly, so we can't give you a bonus that helps you. If we do, the guy who painted his toy soldiers in the correct color will throw a tantrum and hold his breath until he passes out.

What I'm uncomfortable with is a game that has always supported and been built around Your Dudes (even within the context of a defined subfaction), and has a rich wealth of background that depicts subfactions fighting in a variety of ways, going 'Hey, that thing you want to do? That thing that your guys sometimes do in the lore? That's the wrong way to play them, here's a bonus to encourage you to play them more stereotypically'. The current system of freebie bonuses still isn't my favorite either, and still encourages min-maxing to a degree I don't like, but it gets away from the awkward counts-as that defined 8th Ed for me. The guy who gets upset now that other people can play bikers too was already getting upset that other people were counting their Marines as White Scars and y'know what, maybe there's a point where the enjoyment of the guy who jealously guards the fictional supremacy of his subfaction shouldn't be weighed more heavily than the enjoyment of everyone else who just wants Their Dudes to not suck on the tabletop.

Now as I've said before when this topic comes up, I'd much rather see subfaction representation layered on as an additional dimension rather than either nonexistent or used to drive detachments. Giving each subfaction an extra stratagem and enhancement, on top of the ones provided by the chosen detachment, would allow for some inherently balanced (associated CP/points costs) subfaction-specific flavor without the paint scheme being the single most important element of an army's identity.

Space Marines getting more toys and rules support than anyone else remains a perennial problem. At least we no longer need to deal with bizarre subfaction characterization like Death Korps being strictly worse at armor and artillery than Catachans, which you can't tell me with a straight face was more lore-accurate than what we have now.

 catbarf wrote:
There are only advantages to select from, and under the prior paint=rules system, if the advantage assigned to your subfaction doesn't benefit your army, sucks to suck. Want to play a biker army? Sorry, you didn't paint your guys correctly, so we can't give you a bonus that helps you

Reminds me of when the sisters first got faction rules and the close combat difference between Bloody Rose and the rest were night and day, to the point where you wonder how much of the rest of the codex was nerfed in testing to accommodate such a huge swing.
Must have sucked to have been playing a Valorious Heart assault force and then picking up 6+ FnP instead of doubling your close combat punch.

Tying rules to paint jobs is always a problem. I remember when I was playing in 2e, I painted my guys (awfully) as Blood Angels because 1. They were in all the fiction and art and 2. The fiction with Brother Raphael talking about Baal Secundus and so on just really caught my imagination.

I thought they were just normal space marines - I didn't really know there was a special book for them, and I just used the Codex Army Lists that came with the starter to make my armies because there wasn't a Codex Space Marines the same way there was a Codex Chaos, Orks and Eldar, and I didn't know what Ultramarines were really.

3e came along and I finally had a Codex Space Marines, which was very exciting. Then very early in the edition Codex Blood Angels got released. It was dirt cheap and so I quickly picked it up, and found out that my Space Marines were actually pretty different - I was supposed to have a bunch of these Death Company guys, an indeterminate number actually. And I apparently should have been running more close combat orientated squads, and assault marines, and rhinos. My army was tactical squads, scout squads and a small terminator squad.

It was so expensive and disheartening that I actually just switched factions to Orks with what Gorkamorka stuff I had, and waited for the Brian Nelson re-sculpts to be released and finally make the Ork army fit my imagined conception of them.

I know this is about 3rd edition, but do you guys prefer the way 10th is doing it with detachments over chapter / world tactics?

 catbarf wrote:


I'm very comfortable with subfactions having disadvantages and advantages. I'd like to see that implemented, actually; if taking a White Scars or Ravenwing biker force came with disadvantages to offset their better capabilities (higher per-man cost, maybe?) it would be easier to tolerate them getting to be the Specialest Bestest Biker Boys to the exclusion of everyone else. But there aren't disadvantages currently.

First, we're not talking about "currently", because currently, flavour rules don't come from subfaction- they come from detachment. What we're talking about are the differences between 9th and 10th. You like 10th's system better, and as I've said, I too see its advantages, and I agree that your point of view is valid, even if I have a different preference.

 catbarf wrote:


There are only advantages to select from, and under the prior paint=rules system, if the advantage assigned to your subfaction doesn't benefit your army, sucks to suck.

No, that is literally the disadvantage that you are claiming doesn't exist. It's an opportunity cost. Wanna specialize in hit and run attacks? Great. That is an advantage, because you better at hit and run attacks, but it's a disadvantage because you can't ALSO specialize in siege tactics.

 catbarf wrote:


Want to play a biker army? Sorry, you didn't paint your guys correctly, so we can't give you a bonus that helps you. If we do, the guy who painted his toy soldiers in the correct color will throw a tantrum and hold his breath until he passes out.

This is disingenous too- you can play any army as a bike army. You just can't play an army that's BETTER bikes than other non-specialized bike armies unless you pick one that actually specializes in using bikes. Because in order to BE better at bikes than other armies, you do have to use them more often in order to improve beyond the level of average- you become the best at something by practicing it.

I may be advocating for a system where yes, a biker specialist is going to be better at biking than on a non- specialist biker.

What I don't understand is that you seem to want a system where that same biker specialist is still the "bestest biker" on Tuesdays when they use the bike detachment, but ALSO the bestest siege guy on Thursdays when they use the siege detachment, but also the bestest stealth guy on Saturdays when they use the stealth detachment and ALSO the bestest hand to hand on Mondays when they use the hand to hand detachment.

And you present this as evidence that you don't mind subfactions having disadvantages?

 catbarf wrote:

What I'm uncomfortable with is a game that has always supported and been built around Your Dudes (even within the context of a defined subfaction), and has a rich wealth of background that depicts subfactions fighting in a variety of ways,

Is this honestly what you see when you look at 40k? Because I haven't seen any stories about Ultramarine Bikers, and I haven't seen stories about Whitescar devsatators. I mean, both exist- I see them in the dexes, but I don't remember reading this fiction or seeing these excerpts and I certainly don't remember an edition other than 10th that allowed me to field suped-up White Scar Devastators cuz my dudes!

You can say you've seen it, and maybe you have- I'm not the biggest marine fan, their ubiquity in 40k makes them boring to me.

But by all means, feel free in your response to cite sources about the time when the "Your Dudeness" of the game allowed us to field suped-up WS Devs, or amazing BA Snipers, or whatever.

 catbarf wrote:

going 'Hey, that thing you want to do? That thing that your guys sometimes do in the lore? That's the wrong way to play them, here's a bonus to encourage you to play them more stereotypically'.

That's not actually the way specialist rules work it's more like "That thing you guys SOMETIMES do in the lore? Your never going to be as good at as someone who does it OFTEN in the lore, and they aren't going to be as good at it as someone who ALWAYS does it in the lore... Because in real life, that's how skill development actually works."

 catbarf wrote:

The current system of freebie bonuses still isn't my favorite either, and still encourages min-maxing to a degree I don't like, but it gets away from the awkward counts-as that defined 8th Ed for me.

First of all, good to know you're not entirely satisfied with this system either. I suppose that's as close as I'll get to having you acknowledge the validity of my preference the way I've acknowledged the validity of yours.

But regarding that "awkward count-as thing"? I preferred the honesty of it. I preferred someone just saying "Hey, I really like bikes, but I hate painting white- can I play these blue marines using the WS dex?" to "Oh, my Ultramarines really are as good at bikes as the White Scars."

 catbarf wrote:

The guy who gets upset now that other people can play bikers too was already getting upset that other people were counting their Marines as White Scars

I'm sure some did, but as explained above, I wasn't one of them. I always preferred the honesty of "I like this colour and I like that ability, so I'm using both together" over "No, this devastator heavy siege force that like to stand still and kill things at range so much that they've learned to do it better than other forces really genuinely IS a Whitescars army... It's just a Whitescars army in a different formation."

 catbarf wrote:

Now as I've said before when this topic comes up, I'd much rather see subfaction representation layered on as an additional dimension rather than either nonexistent or used to drive detachments. Giving each subfaction an extra stratagem and enhancement, on top of the ones provided by the chosen detachment, would allow for some inherently balanced (associated CP/points costs) subfaction-specific flavor without the paint scheme being the single most important element of an army's identity.

And I think this is a great compromise- as I've said, I see the advantage of having special rules provided by detachment rather than subfaction, and if I did have SOME markers of subfaction Identity, I'd like the detachment system even more. Heck, even as it stands, it's not a deal breaker for me- I'm gonna play 10th, and I'm sure I'll have some fun with it. It would REALLY take the sting out of getting a mere 4 detachments for Sisters if I also had a relic and an enhancement specific to each Order.

 catbarf wrote:

Space Marines getting more toys and rules support than anyone else remains a perennial problem. At least we no longer need to deal with bizarre subfaction characterization like Death Korps being strictly worse at armor and artillery than Catachans, which you can't tell me with a straight face was more lore-accurate than what we have now.

If there was ever a time where Catachans were better at Artillery and Armour thanKrieg, that was a problem. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of those rules, so I can't comment further than that.

@Pentitent Jake,

In the 8th Edition Codex, Catachan vehicles could reroll one of the dice for weapons when determining the number of shots. So if you went heavy into armour and artillery you went Catachan to get that bump in rate in fire.

But anyhoo.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
@Pentitent Jake,

In the 8th Edition Codex, Catachan vehicles could reroll one of the dice for weapons when determining the number of shots. So if you went heavy into armour and artillery you went Catachan to get that bump in rate in fire.

But anyhoo.

There's nothing says that Catachans can't wear great coats & gasmasks.