Noserenda

Also, its partially the heresy's fault! People sang the praises of Bronze age warlords with sci fi legions in spaaaace dynastic drama so hard the 40k setting shifted that way too, literally in the case of the Primarchs returning. Whilst it was really the direction and authors that was doing the job, and they seem to have driven most of them away and wound down Black library in general, combined with the no follow through as i ranted above :P boooooo

I suspect its more a problem of follow through with 40k these days, there is some great stories coming out but then they go nowhere, fail to come up anywhere else and generally stagnate and disillusion the fans who are in to that sort of thing. They arent all bangers, a lot of the white dwarf stuff the last couple of years has been godawful for example but there are diamonds out there. I think a lot of that is the change in design philosophy in the design studio. Previously they designed the setting of Warhammer 40k and added rules for cool stuff that came out of that, though as mentioned above, always model driven, it also lead to things like the extra supplemental lists in 3-5th which started with, "What would Black templars/kroot/mutants look like as an army" and developed from there. Now i think (And ive only hints here so i may be wrong entirely) they are primarily designing the game of warhammer 40k. Looking to improve the balance, change up the meta and, whilst still model driven, introduce cool rules interactions first, with the background there to support the releases, but then move on quickly to the next game release. So you have things like the Lion with a build up and then just ditched, or the absolute zero fluff for the Rogal dorn past "big tank is big" because it would sell itself... But its been going on years! Since Gathering storm started build for the great rift et al they have been dropping threads left and right, not like cool seeds for future stories, like, the first 3 chapters of a story and then nothing. Possibly forever. Meanwhile you have potentially exciting campaign stories, but they are one "season" and done, possibly some novels if you are lucky. Compare that to the onslaughts of the Eye of Terror or Armageddon campaigns and its nothing. But they dont want that, they just want something to cover this season and then off to the next one. But yeah, i much prefer my toy soldier marketing material Story first, then rules please :D At least most of the models are bangers. Mostly... *shudders*

Yes but what is your recourse when you turn up to club night and people dont want to play with your out of date team? You can insist they are perfectly fine and balanced and supported, but ultimately they arent are they? Or they would be endorsed by GW still and its absolutely the culture in a lot of places that people stick to the "official" rules, whether or not you make a scene its still a cooperative experience that somebody else needs to agree to and i dont see any particular reason Kill team legends will be treated differently to the other systems, some places will allow it, most folks will play them if they have a gaming group but there will be places that wont let you and its pretty rude on top of dismissive to insist otherwise frankly.

Its exhausting to keep repeating this every single time something gets mothballed by GW but its all very well to personally be ready to play with those rules... but its a 2(plus) player game that a lot of people play with strangers or casual acquaintances, which means sticking generally to "matched play" rules, which because GW does not discriminate that well, means tournament rules. Now you might have a tight knit group that you can trust to play with whatever, i know i do and its great (When we can coordinate our middle aged schedules!) but it hasnt always been that way, and ive recently been coaxed out to play in a LGS again recently where it isnt and all the hobby idealism in the world is not going to change that kind of culture any time soon, for good and bad reasons. So yeah, lets not try to pretend this isnt a problem? Again?

Yeah repeatedly chanting the more mainline kill teams wont make the ones like Corsairs any safer, and whilst they are definitely the most vulnerable im sure they arent the only ones.

Im deeply tied up by stuff irl to do an in depth response, but i think what a lot of this thread proves is exactly why representation is important to people, unless they already have loads of representation and suddenly its not important that others get some. Like not as a moral choice, its simply like oxygen, you dont notice it being around until its gone, (Or i guess until theres too much and things catch fire? :P ) when you really notice! The diversity that it encourages is a huge net positive for the hobby, whilst GW itself has been particularly stagnant and inspiring with 40k for a while now, the things out communities are producing are expanding and improving in all kinds of ways i couldnt have imagined 30+ years ago. No longer are wargamers almost exclusively nerdy middle class white guys and i think thats amazing, and if a bit more diversity in the Custodes adds to that (Which it manifestly does) all the better. Plus, i guess a bit more money to GW to keep the whole thing rolling. Eh.

We will get more Mechanicum, there is some evidence in released kits and rules that is the case. It might all be tanks though!

Actually i can understand the Kill team-team feeling a little worried about getting the chop with War cry and Underworlds both slowing down releases and rumoured to be on the block, which is a shame because war cry is a much better skirmish system than kill team but eh, skirmish games are always vulnerable because even long term players dont need to buy much. And the Legends teams, even for a group thats happy to play against them, do they keep rules next time the edition shifts? Or do we once again see support drop to just the tournament legal teams?

Well thats disappointing, once more the focus on trying to make a tournament game has negative knock ons for everyone. Depending on what gets released in the next year at least, because year 2 is when we had that whole load of human elites in carp armour which might make the game a lot more samey. Its weird that they are narrowing their supported teams so much though, even a basic team as presented in last editions compendium can get people playing, and if they like the game, buying the current "legal" teams to play more seriously.

Ha, i think Roomsky covered my potential point on brotherhood pretty well, when i played Rugby my fellow prop was a very feminine, if large woman, and was absolutely one of the team without diluting our bond. Ive been involved in real and simulated (Plenty well enough to convince the brain chemistry) fighting for decades with and against women in increasing numbers and i absolutely have strong bonds of brotherhood with a few of them, to the extent that one fished me out of a very dark place and gave me somewhere to live just like im sure any of our male peers would have in the same place. A lot of groups define brotherhood by the exclusion of exploitation of women, but i think that says a lot more about them honestly.

Obviously, things never really change, just endless loops of hypocrisy and delusion :D

I think something SGS struggles with in most of its games is rules nostalgia, they often include mechanics from the older iterations of games that had been abandoned by the original writers for good reasons and therefore struggle with them, especially when mixed with newer developments they dont work with cleanly. But theyve made it part of their brand now, so archaic mechanisms it is... I dont think its a cooincidence than their best games are Titanicus and Necromunda which were both designed from the ground up with some homages.

FOMO has been going on a lot longer than 8th, the absolutely stream of DLC type rules in 7th, possibly 6th was absurd and there were plenty of limited run boxes with special exclusive rulebooks in them to boot :D To give them credit i think GW has actually been getting better with that sort of thing for a while now, launch boxes are much better than verses boxes and once you buy your rules you generally arent expected to keep buying them with most, (all?) additions to the codexes being free. Id also point out that the initial speed run of codexes in 8th was a pretty positive thing for us in theory, no army left behind with an index for any longer than they felt they could, and a big expansion to the creative teams to fuel it. Sure it didnt end well as the edition wrapped up but as someone playing a vastly obsolete codex in 5th id rather the newer philosophy.

Except is anyone ever seeing these Custodes naked enough to judge their perfect human form, or are they guessing about what is under their clothing and armour? Turns out a decent number of these people were looking at women and seemingly had no idea after all. My point is their actual form could be a nest of tentacles for all we actually know after all, they might be decorative, but that decoration is all on their armour

I always wonder about the idea people have that any custodes are "perfect human forms" under their armour. Like, i know the Rogue trader look was topless but their modern incarnations consistent wear their power armour nearly everywhere, and when they arent they are wearing full body robes. The Emperor didnt design them for display, they are all custom built almost from the ground up to be loyal, hold a conversation and kill things. Their forms almost certainly have nothing to do with natural perfection, certainly things like birth gender are irrelevant to their final form when you take a preteen and rebuild them mind, body and probably soul, the only things left are probably their (largely irrelevant to purpose) faces and the details on how exactly they pee inside the armour :D Inside and out though they may well be barely recognisable as human with bizarre muscle groupings, super shiny organs and extra bones or whatever. Evolution is full of weird inefficient systems because of its nature, Ill bet Custodes knees are actually designed to work well for example! (Jealous) So yeah, perfect human form sure, but for doing a job, not being "hyper masculine"