Codex Arms Race continues

[Lexington]

I enjoy pitting my tactical prowess against the prowess of other players.

I take your point about GW needing to make a better game, but this isn't really a realistic way to think about 40K and pretty much never has been.

[Tamiel]

It's a marketing scheme. I know it. You know it. GW knows it. Their fanboys know it. Hell, even your dog probably knows it by now. Their plan is really simple when you think about it: You release a codex, then you make each subsequent one a bit more powerful so that people buy into the hype. Then you release chapter approved to fix the balance, which is also sold as a separate product and not posted online for free like most patches are with video games. You do this a few times, making bank, and then after that you release a new edition all over again.

Monetization of balance patches. Keeps the wheel turning. Add to that a way to make your biggest consumer base (Space Marine players) buy their armies again (Primaris Space Marines), and you've got yourself some fat pockets. I know I'm a cynic, but I can't be the only one seeing this by now.

[Tyriks]

It's a marketing scheme. I know it. You know it. GW knows it. Their fanboys know it. Hell, even your dog probably knows it by now. Their plan is really simple when you think about it: You release a codex, then you make each subsequent one a bit more powerful so that people buy into the hype. Then you release chapter approved to fix the balance, which is also sold as a separate product and not posted online for free like most patches are with video games. You do this a few times, making bank, and then after that you release a new edition all over again.

Monetization of balance patches. Keeps the wheel turning. Add to that a way to make your biggest consumer base (Space Marine players) buy their armies again (Primaris Space Marines), and you've got yourself some fat pockets. I know I'm a cynic, but I can't be the only one seeing this by now.

The problem with that is its demonstrably false. Plenty of newer books aren't as good (and again GK were bad immediately). So even if this is GW's intent, they are making mistakes, and in that case it's just as likely they want every codex equal but are making mistakes with that. While it may seem 'obvious' to incentivize the newest books by making them better, there's no reason to think that would help significantly as it deincentivizes older books and most people have fixed budgets for the hobby.

 

It's much more likely that they just aren't playing games the same way a huge portion of their customers do, as that happens in absolutely every game system ever made, than to think they're intentionally sabotaging armies to make others sell better.

[Panzer]

It's a marketing scheme. I know it. You know it. GW knows it. Their fanboys know it. Hell, even your dog probably knows it by now. Their plan is really simple when you think about it: You release a codex, then you make each subsequent one a bit more powerful so that people buy into the hype. Then you release chapter approved to fix the balance, which is also sold as a separate product and not posted online for free like most patches are with video games. You do this a few times, making bank, and then after that you release a new edition all over again.

 

Monetization of balance patches. Keeps the wheel turning. Add to that a way to make your biggest consumer base (Space Marine players) buy their armies again (Primaris Space Marines), and you've got yourself some fat pockets. I know I'm a cynic, but I can't be the only one seeing this by now.

 

I'm really not buying that. Most people don't switch to the latest strong army whenever a Codex gets released. Most people stick with their army and complain until they get a new Codex and usually have two or three armies to chose from anyway. It's MUCH more likely that GW simply screws up the balancing. I've read some statements from someone of one of the balancing/playtesting teams and were cracking jokes about the GK team for the poor job they did (nothing really mean or such, don't worry).

[Halandaar]

Agreed; the number of people who jump on the new hotness for competitive reasons is tiny in respect to the entire 40k playing population, most of whom have one main army that they play every edition regardless of its perceived power level. Sure, if it's weak they will complain about it, but it's not very often that people just abandon their armies for the newest one because it's perceived as the best.

 

The fact that some recent Codexes have been weaker than some earlier ones is indicative of the fact that GW hasn't intentionally designed a gradual upward power creep to "force" you to play the newest faction.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Knights followed by Orks the creep is real.

[MARK0SIAN]

From the looks of it orks isn’t creep, it’s a full throated parade complete with marching band, cheering crowds and fireworks to take it to the next level :)

[Halandaar]

Knights followed by Orks the creep is real.

 

Exactly what I'm talking about, you've completely missed out Space Wolves which appeared between these two. People subscribe to this idea of "creep" because they fail to remember non-OP Codexes along the way.

 

Why don't we actually wait and see people play a few games with the Ork book that isn't even out yet before we decide it has broken 8th edition.

[Beams]

There's a lot of people convinced the Ork codex actually makes Orks weaker -- 7ppm Boys on 32s vs 6ppm on 28s is a big difference. And the question becomes is the rest able to make up for it, and can it do so without a counter meta destroying it?

[Panzer]

There are no rules for base sizes and many many Ork player have their Orks on 28mm and won't re-base them anytime soon. So it really is just the change from 6ppm to 7ppm and that definitely won't nerf the Orks when combined with all the new stuff they get in the Codex lol

[Halandaar]

Was about to say the same, base size makes zero difference because there are no rules forcing you to change from 25 to 32.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

GW:

 

THIS IS THE BESTEST ORK CODEX EVA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Beams]

There are no rules for base sizes and many many Ork player have their Orks on 28mm and won't re-base them anytime soon. So it really is just the change from 6ppm to 7ppm and that definitely won't nerf the Orks when combined with all the new stuff they get in the Codex lol

I'm not arguing that there is; I'm just pointing out that there is a lot of dissenting opinion right now about the codex's power level.

[MARK0SIAN]

There's a lot of people convinced the Ork codex actually makes Orks weaker -- 7ppm Boys on 32s vs 6ppm on 28s is a big difference. And the question becomes is the rest able to make up for it, and can it do so without a counter meta destroying it?

I’m not sure how anyone can look at all the stuff we already know is in the codex and come to the conclusion that orks will be worse off because of it! Even if the codex is not as powerful as some of us fear, they definitely aren’t going to be worse off because of it.

[Halandaar]

GW:

 

THIS IS THE BESTEST ORK CODEX EVA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Company markets products. What a shocker.

[NatBrannigan]

We haven't actually seen the Ork codex yet... How could anyone possibly know it's the most powerful yet? That kind of knee jerk thinking helps no-one. I agree with the above, pretty sure GW said that the Grey Knights codex would be amazing. They're not going to say "well this is a bit crap, but please pre order anyway?" so let's at least wait for the book to come out!

 

In my opinion the balance issue is half GW not being able to balance such a huge number of units and armies (which I get, although there's no excuses

for Eldar!) and half players being stubborn. Could part the reason that Marines are awful and Guard are good be players taking nothing but Plasma Guns and Lascannons or equivalents where possible? That's been true for the last few editions but Guard have been bad enough for it not to be an issue... Take some Heavy Bolters and maybe those Infantry Squads and Ork Boyz are easier to kill?

 

Just saying is all... Command Points are a whole different issue of course, there is a problem there.

[Halandaar]

We haven't actually seen the Ork codex yet... How could anyone possibly know it's the most powerful yet? 

 

In fairness, we have actually "seen" it and know a lot about the contents thanks to the various video reviews already up (GW provides preview copies to specific community people).

 

What we haven't seen is the book at work in an actual game scenario; at this point it's all just theorycrafting.

[Tyriks]

We haven't actually seen the Ork codex yet... How could anyone possibly know it's the most powerful yet? That kind of knee jerk thinking helps no-one. I agree with the above, pretty sure GW said that the Grey Knights codex would be amazing. They're not going to say "well this is a bit crap, but please pre order anyway?" so let's at least wait for the book to come out!

 

In my opinion the balance issue is half GW not being able to balance such a huge number of units and armies (which I get, although there's no excuses

for Eldar!) and half players being stubborn. Could part the reason that Marines are awful and Guard are good be players taking nothing but Plasma Guns and Lascannons or equivalents where possible? That's been true for the last few editions but Guard have been bad enough for it not to be an issue... Take some Heavy Bolters and maybe those Infantry Squads and Ork Boyz are easier to kill?

 

Just saying is all... Command Points are a whole different issue of course, there is a problem there.

Last edition marines only took grav. If a unit had the option for grav, that's what they took. People aren't taking Las and plasma out of tradition, but they take it because it actually works best. If it was that easy to make marines work, people would be doing so.

[NatBrannigan]

I'm not saying Marines are in a great place at the moment, I just don't think it's as bad as all that. Doesn't matter if it's Grav, Plasma, Melta, they're all expensive low shot count weapons that get taken and I think you need more balance than that.

 

I just hear lots of "this unit and that weapon are poor because they can't kill Marines" from the same people that moan they can't kill 60 Guard Infantry (that's moaning from people I play against, not here before I start any arguments!). I suspect Orks are going to be excellent for that same reason, rather than just good.

 

Then again Knights are a thing so what do I know...

[The Unseen]

I'm not saying Marines are in a great place at the moment, I just don't think it's as bad as all that. Doesn't matter if it's Grav, Plasma, Melta, they're all expensive low shot count weapons that get taken and I think you need more balance than that.

 

I just hear lots of "this unit and that weapon are poor because they can't kill Marines" from the same people that moan they can't kill 60 Guard Infantry (that's moaning from people I play against, not here before I start any arguments!). I suspect Orks are going to be excellent for that same reason, rather than just good.

 

Then again Knights are a thing so what do I know...

That'd be great...

If the weapons that should be good at killing light infantry, actually did.

Bolters are toothless, flamers are a joke (and a bad one at that)

Plasma is run because, suprise suprise, it's objectively the best, especially when you can reroll ones.

Grav is just worse plasma most of the time for basically the same price.

Same shots, lower strength, same AP, and either 1/d3 damage compared to flat 2.

 

And lascannons are taken because all the other heavy choices either suck (multi melta) are too short ranged to deal with the heavy move penalty (grav cannon, multi melta) or are too expensive for marginal increase in performance compared to the others (missile launcer, and again, the multimelta)

 

The heavy bolter is "ok", but necessary for strats.

 

So yeah, imperial armies are basically going to pack plasma and lascannons till something changes.

[Panzer]

I'm not saying Marines are in a great place at the moment, I just don't think it's as bad as all that. Doesn't matter if it's Grav, Plasma, Melta, they're all expensive low shot count weapons that get taken and I think you need more balance than that.

 

I just hear lots of "this unit and that weapon are poor because they can't kill Marines" from the same people that moan they can't kill 60 Guard Infantry (that's moaning from people I play against, not here before I start any arguments!). I suspect Orks are going to be excellent for that same reason, rather than just good.

 

Then again Knights are a thing so what do I know...

 

Tyriks isn't saying that you say Marines aren't bad. He's saying that there's always a best weapon in a meta and that it wasn't always Plasma and Lascannons. If Heavy Bolter were the answer people would already use it, but Plasma is still the better choice in the current meta.

[Ratherdashing]

Agreed. People don't take plasma over flamers because they want to kill Marines. They take plasma because it's better at killing hordes than flamers. There's no common infantry weapon that is better than those two high AP shots to kill hordes. Which is why it takes so long to chew through hordes, especially if you want to play with basic infantry.

 

To bring this back to the topic, I'd say this issue demonstrates that there is more to balance problems than "each codex is better than the last". Rock Paper Scissors has been turned into "scissors beat paper, rock beats paper and scissors". This edition has shifted metas as new books came out, so it hasn't always been hordes because things like Knights have been just that good. But I don't think GW ever intends to come out with bad books. They just don't always understand what makes a book good.

 

Orks looks like a good codex from a fun standpoint. It's fluffy, it's funny, it allows for multiple playstyles instead of just saying "orks is good at crumping, make all their rules melee buffs". I am not convinced they will be OP but I think they will be fun. On the other hand, SW have a great book too, from a fun standpoint, even if it's not tournament competitive.

 

In my opinion the best books are ones where GW takes a risk by letting an army break a rule or giving them something that seems crazy (like the SW Heroic Intervention or DakkaDakka plus the Bad Moon trait). Neither of those rules are going to break the game but they let you *feel* like you are breaking the game. Whereas the actual problematic stuff like rerolled invulns in the past and -to hit in the present are not just powerful, they are boring. Dakka Dakka seems like it was written by someone who wanted to have fun moments. -to hit seems like it was written by someone who wants to win.

[Zuvassin]

1. Maybe let the Ork codex actually get a fair amount of play before labeling it broken

Also let the inevitable first FAQ changes happen before determining the long-term power of the Ork codex

It may have been better if GW had waited a year before releasing any codices, to see how 8th was playing out with the basic Index lists first

I personally felt after the first few books that the intent was the Chapter/Clan/Craftworld/etc rules were basically all going to be from the same generic pot (Sneaky Faction: -1 to hit, Fighty Faction: reroll a hit, Useless Faction: modify cover saves), but then it felt like after gamers kinda whined about that being boring and unimaginative, GW changed course and started making faction rules multi-bonus to help differentiate and also to act as a "well if this bonus doesn't thrill you here's 1 or 2 others that you also get".

[BlackTriton]

There is a lot worth to criticize this edition, codex creep is not one of them.

The main offender broken faction is Ynnari, a Index faction.

Lots of people point at Knight, they did shake things up on release, but they just got a nerf and will take another one in a month or so.

The next worst offender are eldari faction, multiple codexes that have been out a while.

Then there is speculation about orks, but its just that, speculation.

 

Do not counfound marines being bad and codex creep, those are two separate unrelated issue.

 

We have data about SoCal open now, take a look at the top Win% :

Ynnari : 70.83%

Eldar : 62.05 %

T.Son : 60%

 

Meanwhile:

Knight : 49%

Deathguard : 53 %

UltraMarine : 39%

 

Note that none of those are pure faction list (that dosent exist in top end competitive play). None of the top performing faction are recent codexes.

[Beams]

Wait a minute guys, 2 Bolter Marines kill on average, 9% more Guardsmen than a single plasma gun, and cost the same.

 

This also gives you +1 melee attack and +1 wound.

 

Also, your Sargent can take a stormbolter and should always do so.

 

When Orks start showing up in the meta, you won't survive unless you are taking Bolters. Hellblasters, predators etc won't be able to kill enough boys per unit firing to stop them from steamrolling you.