Big FAQ has dropped.

[Dam13n]

This is hereby locked for the next 24 hours. When it gets re-opened there will be no continuation of the off-topic bickering. Should it resume then official sanctions will be forthcoming.

[Dam13n]

Ok, this topic is now re-opened. As noted in my post above, and reiterating for effect, keep this on-topic and no more bickering please!

[Captain Idaho]

So to start off an on topic discussion...

 

I'm quite impressed overall with many changes. GW has made a concerted effort to address rules abuse and keep things working. We can all agree that there are some tweaks that need to be made (terrain really needs to be more abstract so it actually affects the game through line of sight blocking especially if GW wants us to use their terrain and encourage all those lovely assault models they build) but it's a positive change in the right direction.

 

One thing I love is the change to that naughty Genestealer Cult psychic power that could so easily be abused. No if you roll a 6 you count as having won and don't have to also hope that your opponent rolled a 1!

[chapter master 454]

So to start off an on topic discussion...

 

I'm quite impressed overall with many changes. GW has made a concerted effort to address rules abuse and keep things working. We can all agree that there are some tweaks that need to be made (terrain really needs to be more abstract so it actually affects the game through line of sight blocking especially if GW wants us to use their terrain and encourage all those lovely assault models they build) but it's a positive change in the right direction.

 

One thing I love is the change to that naughty Genestealer Cult psychic power that could so easily be abused. No if you roll a 6 you count as having won and don't have to also hope that your opponent rolled a 1!

 

Agreed on terrain. Personally I play games where I like to agree with my opponent that ruins bottom floor counts as block line of sight unless there is an especially large hole there (like it has been blasted out or it is a large OPEN doorway) because the amount of windows in some terrain pieces is just comical (I can see one of your tactical marines through that window, through that gap, through another window and through the woods). Another thing I rule is any tiles of forest block line of sight according to the tallest tree in the tile, the idea being the trees there are an abstraction themselves and no forest terrain would be just 3 trees but instead a whole mass of them and we only have 3 representing so we can move them around and place models on the terrain (thinking about testing out making woods impassable to tanks and large units. Maybe something like identifying larger models like centurions and such as not being able to move through the terrain so well ether).

[Panzer]

I'm honestly most impressed by the paragraphs of explanations they gave us in the big FAQ document. That's something I wish we would get more often and especiall for new Codex releases as well.

[MARK0SIAN]

I'm honestly most impressed by the paragraphs of explanations they gave us in the big FAQ document. That's something I wish we would get more often and especiall for new Codex releases as well.

I wish we’d get this for the game in general. What was the intent behind certain rules? How has the game progressed in their eyes? How have things developed in relation to their expectations?

 

But only if they’d do it honestly, like if they’d never expected CP to be used/work like it is they would admit that, or if they’re pleasantly surprised by how something has been done differently to their expectations. Admit if they’d go back and change certain basic mechanics of the game if they could.

 

I think that would be fascinating to get a real insight into their thinking.

[Plasmablasts]

Agree: when I used to get White Dwarf, I often found the most interesting articles the ones in which they discussed the philosophy behind the rules (and other design elements) when they brought out a new Codex. Commentary on the intent behind their decisions should help the dialogue with the community that they seem to be trying to build.

 

Leading on from that, it would be good to see them taking the beta rules testing further and developing rules more collaboratively. Something like:

 

1) “So, people tell us that Grey Knights are particularly struggling. Please take this survey to tell us what you think the main problems are and what you’d suggest to improve them.”

 

2) “Thanks all. We’ve collated your feedback and have come up with these beta rules. Please try them out and let us know how well they work.”

 

3) “Ok. We’ve tweaked beta rule X and replaced rule Y with rule Z. Let us know what you think. After this round of feedback, we’re planning to finalise the new rules and you’ll see them in WD/CA/a new Codex.”

[ERJAK]

Agree: when I used to get White Dwarf, I often found the most interesting articles the ones in which they discussed the philosophy behind the rules (and other design elements) when they brought out a new Codex. Commentary on the intent behind their decisions should help the dialogue with the community that they seem to be trying to build.

 

Leading on from that, it would be good to see them taking the beta rules testing further and developing rules more collaboratively. Something like:

 

1) “So, people tell us that Grey Knights are particularly struggling. Please take this survey to tell us what you think the main problems are and what you’d suggest to improve them.”

 

2) “Thanks all. We’ve collated your feedback and have come up with these beta rules. Please try them out and let us know how well they work.”

 

3) “Ok. We’ve tweaked beta rule X and replaced rule Y with rule Z. Let us know what you think. After this round of feedback, we’re planning to finalise the new rules and you’ll see them in WD/CA/a new Codex.”

 

Eh...not a huge fan of this on two fronts.

 

1. We've actually seen this in action (at least the first part) with the Sisters of Battle beta codex. For those of you who don't know, it did not work out well. The Beta Codex is a joke compared to other recent releases in terms of creativity and effort, and is actively worse than the index in a lot of ways (stronger in others, but it's not exactly a positive thing for your index to codex transition to be a wash at best.)

 

I believe this is because they knew it was going to change quite a bit(they straight up said our core, fundamental army rule was being totally rewritten) and felt no real need to put significant effort into a test run. Especially considering how much they were opening themselves up to criticism.

 

While this won't have anywhere near as negative an effect on adjusting current rules, any future releases or fully redone books risk facing the same 'we're gonna change it so who cares?' Attitude, in addition to a long lead time on actually having a usable codex.

 

2. The vast majority of player suggestions more complex than 'drop it 10pts' are terrible and resources and time spent sifting through nonsense could be better spent on literally anything else. Not that they shouldn't still fix broken units/books/rules; they absolutely should. People just overvalue player input a lot.

[Plasmablasts]

Thanks. Yes: I agree there are potential problems. My idea was that, unlike the Sisters beta Codex, they’d proactively seek the Community’s thoughts before producing the beta v1 rules. Sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of feedback could require a lot of work. I would hope that it might help the rules writers understand the current perception of a faction’s weaknesses, anticipate many of the pitfalls of proposed rules and perhaps find some gems of inspired mechanics. My love other thought was to make the revision and feedback process more iterative: the beta rules/Sisters Codex only get one feedback period before they publish the finalised version. Again, this would be a lot of work. It could be, as you say, that the feedback amounts just to an unresolvable mess of half-baked suggestions and contradictory opinions, but it would be good to try it out, perhaps on Grey Knights as I proposed. That’d probably only be feasible if there are no new models coming: if “Sacrosanct Chamber” Primaris were coming in 2020, radically altering the composition of the army, there wouldn’t be much point on seeking as much feedback on the current units.

[BitsHammer]

I couldn't keep reading to catch up without talking about the Beta Bolter change at least once:

 

If vehicles with hurricane bolters were too powerful, why not just up the cost of the Hurricane bolter instead? We could even have a split cost for the Centurions/Dreadnoughts vs Tanks and Flyers added in where the later pays double or something.

 

Then again I'm still baffled why a Space Marine knows his Bolter Discipline on the ground, but when you ask him to man the pintle on a Rhino he forgets how to do it effectively.

 

Space Marines have a literal book on how to wage war that is supposed to cover every aspect of war, and the fact they don't have -something- to represent the role mechanized units play on the battle field continues to confuse me.

 

Other than baffling issues involving Marines, I feel like the FAQ is overall a good change. The nerfs to the top factions (especial Ynarri which was winning 3/4 of every game they played apparently) are solid and the game will swing in a healthier direction thanks to this. Now if we got some actual changes to weaker codexes when they got their 2.0 updates and not just all the new datasheets and some wider beta rules for updating factions in Chapter Approved I'd feel a lot happier about the codexes on the bottom of the pile.

 

I feel like Grey Knights probably just need a full beta codex treament so GW can look into how to fix them with player feedback.

[shanewatts]

Centurions with hurricane bolters still bolter discipline, so they aren't really tied together.

 

Also Hurricane bolters are already at a premium thanks to Stormraven spam early in the edition. 10pts for 6pts worth of storm bolters.

[BitsHammer]

Centurions with hurricane bolters still bolter discipline, so they aren't really tied together.

 

Also Hurricane bolters are already at a premium thanks to Stormraven spam early in the edition. 10pts for 6pts worth of storm bolters.

I'm just saying if they feel the problem was a more durable platform having Hurrican Bolters that were better than their current points then a points bump would have made more sense than taking away options from an army that already struggles.

[shanewatts]

I am not sure that increasing the points cost on an army that is already point inefficient is the right answer either.

[BitsHammer]

I am not sure that increasing the points cost on an army that is already point inefficient is the right answer either.

Mass removal of a rule because of the strength of that rule on a single weapon is an even worse answer though.

[Panzer]

I am not sure that increasing the points cost on an army that is already point inefficient is the right answer either.

 

If a points increase isn't the right answer it obviously wasn't too strong since it definitely wasn't a balance problem based in design. 

[shanewatts]

I agree that it wasn't too strong.

[Panzer]

They say it's because vehicles benefitted more from it than they intended to (aka became too strong), but I don't believe that for even one second. It's pretty clear that it was a design decision. They wanted the rule to represent Marines handling Bolter type weapons manually and not Bolter mounted on vehicles.

Pintle mounted Stormbolter and Dreadnoughts are kinda weird exceptions from that idea, though Dreadnoughts are hybrids so that would be an excuse and I believe GW simply didn't care enough about pintle mounted Stormbolter to make the wording of the Bolter Discipline rule even more complicated (especially when there's no way to say a weapon on a vehicle is used manually or not except for looking at the model).

[Tordeck]

Then again I'm still baffled why a Space Marine knows his Bolter Discipline on the ground, but when you ask him to man the pintle on a Rhino he forgets how to do it effectively.

Train every day with an M-16. Every day. Morning, noon and night. Train with that weapon to be best you can be with it. Now pick up a 1911 or a SAW. Sure the principles are the same but the muscle memory is not.

[THUNDERFISTS]

Train every day with an M-16. Every day. Morning, noon and night. Train with that weapon to be best you can be with it. Now get two M16s taped together and fire it from a tank.

Fixed that for you

[BitsHammer]

 

 

 

Then again I'm still baffled why a Space Marine knows his Bolter Discipline on the ground, but when you ask him to man the pintle on a Rhino he forgets how to do it effectively.

Train every day with an M-16. Every day. Morning, noon and night. Train with that weapon to be best you can be with it. Now pick up a 1911 or a SAW. Sure the principles are the same but the muscle memory is not.

Right, but they train on the Storm Bilter to the same level (or futher). By the time they become a Tactival Marine they've mastered the width and breadth of the chapter's armory.

[BitsHammer]

They say it's because vehicles benefitted more from it than they intended to (aka became too strong), but I don't believe that for even one second. It's pretty clear that it was a design decision. They wanted the rule to represent Marines handling Bolter type weapons manually and not Bolter mounted on vehicles.

Pintle mounted Stormbolter and Dreadnoughts are kinda weird exceptions from that idea, though Dreadnoughts are hybrids so that would be an excuse and I believe GW simply didn't care enough about pintle mounted Stormbolter to make the wording of the Bolter Discipline rule even more complicated (especially when there's no way to say a weapon on a vehicle is used manually or not except for looking at the model).

Quite honestly I feel it is a mishap when talking about Marines. They're supposed to be more tactically flexible than the Guard and yet they are less flexible on every level of the game.

 

I respect the studio for having their own ideas on how Marines should function, and maybe this ties into them not wanting to make the old vehicles too good so they can phase them out, I don't know.

 

What I do know is that we had two editions of Iron Hands having their 6+++ on vehicles only for 8th to take it away and that is a clear sign that they don't give a toss about the lore impacting the rules.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Thing is, I reckon Marines sell even with bad rules, often in spite of them as we try to buy the best of the worst.

If GW keep them low tiered with little nerfs like no BD on vehicles then other armies look more attractive.

I agree that GW are not overly good at this strategy, but I do think it exists.

Other factions like GK suffer from neglect and probably don't sell as a result and no rules fix will drastically fix their sales level, new armies like Talons are a better sales model where they soup more freely.

The nerf to Ynarri and IK will be to make whatever's coming look better without constantly raising the bar to 11.

My 2c...

Happy to disagree on this :D

[BitsHammer]

I actually agree that the current state of marines might be an intentional move. One that allows them to focus on the Primaris while not giving the Oldstodes any direct support via rules. Even the bolter rule feels like more of a way to buff the bolt rifle than the bolter.

[Karhedron]

What I do know is that we had two editions of Iron Hands having their 6+++ on vehicles only for 8th to take it away and that is a clear sign that they don't give a toss about the lore impacting the rules.

As more factions have come out, the decision to prevent Marines and CSM vehicles from benefiting from Chapter tactics seems increasingly harsh. Eldar vehicles benefit (substantially in the case of Alaitoc) and IG vehicles actually get alternative rules compared to infantry.

 

The CSM 2.0 codex could have been an opportunity to fix this (with either CA or FAQ covering loyalist Marines until they got a new codex) but this opportunity was missed.

 

It may be down to design philosophy. IG Armoured companies have been a thing for a long time. The idea of Marines is that the infantry themselves are the focus of the army with vehicles just there for support. Unfortunately the prices and effectiveness just don't really reflect this. If you wanted armoured fire support for your Marines, you are better off getting an IG Spearhead than buying Predators.

[sairence]

It's worth noting that one of the designers said in a Vox Cast that the Imperial Guard codex was the first to be finished even though it wasn't released immediately.

 

So we are definitely talking about a deliberate choice to design chapter tactics differently.