How to make 9th work for me

[ThePenitentOne]

Yesterday's anger and hostility is gone. Today, it's figuring out how to roll forward and see the silver linings.

 

To start, since neither of the campaign ideas I've talked about here at great length (Chronicles of Saint Katherine's Aegis and Commorragh) have actually seen much play, they are both now officially on hold until the new book comes out.

 

The announced changes to soup may actually damage these campaigns at a conceptual level, and the entire idea may have to be reimagined. They already made soup less attractive with doctrines, and we know that since all recent codices and PA books were designed with 9th in mind, doctrines aren't going away. Now in addition to that, we'll have to pay CP for allied forces. We don't yet know how we pay; per ally, per allied detachment or per allied unit. We also don't know if it applies to sub faction souping; if I'm Argent Shroud, does my Bloody Rose detachment cost CP?

 

So that's the minus side.

 

But on the plus side, the Crusade system may make the campaign(s) better. Lots of the stuff I was trying to invent rules for was the growth of units and armies. I was happy with my rules for how GSC grew, but all the other factions needed more. Maybe this will give it to them. Of all the big preview stuff from yesterday, Crusade is the thing that intrigues me most.

 

So with development halted, what do I do?

 

Well, the idea is to prepare the things I need and have access to: models and terrain. My paints should arrive this week, and there is a ton of work to do. I can use the edition drop as a goal. My Drukhari Poisonblade box should be here in a couple weeks. Had I known that a new edition was coming, I might not have bought the Poisonblade- the anti-soup rules on the way have the potential to absolutely destroy everything I liked about Drukhari; they probably won't, but they could.

 

What 9th will do is act as a reset on project completion. If I can play a battle with fully painted armies and fully painted terrain, and get the Battle Report and the video up within the first week, that will be a remarkable achievement. I'm good at list hammer; I'm good at making up rules and writing background, but I am a weak painter. Since I can't do the stuff I'm good at until I get the new rules, I guess it's time to step up my painting game.

 

When the game does drop, I want to be ready out of the gate.

[Schurge]

Sounds like a plan, Stan.

 

Also, I doubt that your Drukhari are going to be penalized... their codex is designed for you to run multiple detachments, each with a different sub-faction.

[ThePenitentOne]

Agreed. It might even make them feel unique again if everyone else has to pay to include multiple sub factions.

[Snazzy]

Depends on how the detachment unlocking rules work.  Drukhari are fairly unique in that you have to buy multiple detachments to access their whole codex.   Drukhari don't have specialist detachments, because, technically, Obsessions work like specialist detachments.  You can technically run one big detachment with multiple subfactions, forgoing the Obsession bonuses.

 

We may see an end to Outrider detachments of Red Greif Reavers and Blood Glaive Succubus.  Tanks shooting through melee diminishes some of the purpose of small Reaver units.

 

The other big "IF" is whether or not transport rules will change.  8th's were prohibitive.  Kabal got away with it because of the Open Topped rule.  But, Cabal and Cult using Raiders was mostly to tank bolter shots.

[Panzer]

Well first of all there's just one thing to do. Be patient. We know close to nothing. GW talks big but the execution often looks very differently.

[Indefragable]

My guess is that there is an escalating cost with Allied detachments.

 

Bring a patrol from an <Imperium Faction*>, 2CP: 1 for an allied detach, 1 for a Patrol.

 

Bring an allied Imperium Battalion, it’s 3CP: 1 for allied, 2 for Batt.

 

Bring an allied Imperium Vanguard, it’s 4CP: 1 for allied, 3 for Vang.

 

Bring an Allied Imperium Patrol Detach from Faction A and allied Imlerium Patrol Detach from Faction B, and it’s 4CP: 1 for any allies, +1 for first faction patrol detach +2 for second faction patrol.

 

Bring an allied Patrol detachment of a non-Imperium faction, it’s 4CP: 1 for allies, 2 for patrol, 2 for “penalty” for non-“BIG” faction keyword alignment.

 

Something like that. Idea is to keep the burden somewhat light for a Guard platoon hsngimg out with your SM, but if you try to do SM + Guard + Imperial Knights (aka the Meta chaser...) then you are gonna pay increased costs.

 

Likewise, Vanguard/Outrider/Spearhead/Command detachments would cost a premium since you are getting “the good stuff” of an allied faction without having to pay the troop tax of a battalion or such.

 

I’m thinking a mix of 7th Ed “allies of convenience” type chart and how 30k restricts you to a single Allied Detachment for most FOCs...I don’t think they’ll be as extreme as the latter, but basically there’s a cost to wanting to bring “desperate allies” into the same army and such.

 

Entirely speculative on my part.

 

*insert the BIG Faction keywords here

Edited May 24, 2020 by Indefragable

[ThePenitentOne]

This isn’t as earth shattering as you’re psyching yourself out to be brother.

 

Try to relax. Your plan of putting armies and models on hold, and focusing on neutral projects like terrain sound like a good idea. If you want to keep plugging away at an army or narrative force, go for it. It may be a unit here or there isn’t what it once was, or organizational sots may indeed change; can’t know til it all gets here.

 

I promise you what you have will ‘survive’ the change. Older editions I’d say maybe not so much, but GW has really put a focus on not outdating things they can make money on going forward.

 

In the context I'm describing, it is a big deal.

 

Let's say I have a Brigade worth of models, plus a few extra HQ's.

 

Do I paint a mono order Brigade, or do I paint a Battalion from one Order,  a vanguard from a second Order and a Spearhead from a third?

Now ask yourself the same question about my chaos army and my GSC.

 

I wrote the campaign rules to support the small detachment method in order to make each of these three armies grow in a very specific way, which was perfect for 8th edition. If you change the way armies ally, it affects my rules development, my paint schemes and colour choices and even determines which models I want to buy. It even determines how many factions I will play.

 

Please keep in mind, this is a dispassionate statement of fact; I'm not upset, because once I get the new edition, I'll find a way to make it work, But I can't build anything I was building until I know where I'm going to stand in the next edition, from my collection. to my lists, to my rules.

[Bryan Blaire]

Yes, GW changing the rules does tend to alter how house rules have to work. That's not new and could have happened literally at any time in 8th Edition with a simple Errata or FAQ.

 

However, it sounds like you've already put quite a bit of work into the campaign rules, so why not just ask your players to play the campaign with whatever the 'final' version of 8th Edition there happens to be (as in rulebook, FAQs & Erratas, latest Codexes and PA books) and use it as your gaming group's "transition to 9th/farewell to 8th" event?

 

As far as not choosing a specific paint scheme for something - which is more important to you:

1) Being able to field the force as you have envisioned them

2) Being highly competitive within the new rules

 

If 2 is more important to you than 1, then wait on painting up units or pick a single color scheme and paint all the units that.

If 1 is more important to you than 2, then paint them how you envisioned them, rules don't matter to that.

 

We've all got to make some decisions based on the the very limited information that we know now.

[mughi3]

Its going to work for me by ...not getting excited about the changes. 

 

 

I have no more models to buy as my collection is already large enough between my DIY marine chapter, dark angels, and  admech, i have not in many years bought any new dexes/expansions ( the last hard copies i actually purchased were escalation and stronghold assault)  and i have everything i need book wise to play any of the previous editions. 

 

I mean i only play 8th with a small 1k admech army-easy to adapt if i want to.  same with the fact i use 8th mostly to play epic scale at half movement/gun ranges. i am quite happy to keep playing 5th ed (or 30K)  with house ruling some of the better rules from 3rd-7th into 5th. 

 

There is a nice group of players at the FLGS who feel the same.   the great thing is, those editions are complete. no worries about FAQs/errata invalidating anything in my armies and everything is available to play all factions.  i currently myself own all main rulebooks from editons 3-7,  5th ed codexes for space wolves, tau, nids, imperial guard, vanilla marines, dark angels and compatible 3rd/4th/7th ed codexes for witch hunters, demon hunters, dark angels, admech/skitarii.

 

It isn't like GW is holding a gun to your head and making you play the newest edition 

[Ishagu]

What if, and just go with me on this, 9th edition actually did turn out to be very good?

[War Angel]

What if, and just go with me on this, 9th edition actually did turn out to be very good?

 

For many, hope is but the first step towards damnation.

 

It’s going to be fun.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Really not enough information yet.

[Bat33.1]

What if, and just go with me on this, 9th edition actually did turn out to be very good?

Anything is possible.

 

We were riding the hype train of the most streamlined edition ever until certain armies required more books for a competitive build than they did in 7th. The GW hype (marketing) is hard to make sense of sometimes. 

 

I live in hope but fear lurks in the dark shadows that the light of knowledge has yet to reach.

 

Hopefully the Q&A later will put on some huge ARC lights 

[Dr. Clock]

If you are building a campaign around 'combined forces' where numerous factions/sub-factions are expected to be in play on any side any time, then it would appear that the new rules will make it easier in some ways by making it easier to account for the main differences between different detachments of different factions...

 

We already know that CPs will scale for the size of engagement, rather than the number of detachments you can shoehorn... Making it easier to keep roughly the same number of CP per side as games scale up and you want to add more detachments.

 

It will not surprise me if multiple 'sub-factions' don't require additional CP outlay, or it will be very modest. IMO it makes sense for it to cost just slightly more to take a bespoke detachment of Razorwings or Ravagers or whatever.

 

We also know that there will be full online FAQ/Errata/QnAs released for free for all 8th ed. codexes and books, so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Drukhari get a bit of a break on the CP cost of bringing Coven/Cult/Kabal together in multiple detachments... Quick sort of fix might be to just make Alliance of Agony 0CP so that there's an 'unlock' potential where if you pay the CP to get to three subfactions you get 'free' warlord traits for everyone...

 

But in general: if you are building the campaign system yourself, it's true that integrating it to a new edition will mean that much work done to date may be stale soon, but it also seems like basically it is still up to you to set the CP where you think it makes best sense for YOUR campaign. If that means just telling players NOT to subtract CP for including specific sub-factions in their lists, then it's pretty easy to encourage more soup within the narrow confines of the campaign 'macro-factions'. So like if you've got three players each commanding '3 factions', just tell them that within/across those factions they don't need to pay CP to include more detachments...

 

TL;DR - if you are just making your own rules, 'official' rules really don't seem to matter much.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[ThePenitentOne]

Thanks Doc.

 

It's been long enough now that I'm actually looking forward to the new edition, and Crusade in particular.

 

The campaign design was already doing much of what Crusade promises, but it is map based, so territorial control and acquisition also play a role in faction growth and development. I think this is where Crusade offers me some potential; I may be able to use Crusade "Advancements" as abilities confered by control of territories.

 

That's the part that needs the most revision- my settlement maps are still valid, as are the faction placements. But rules for advancement and growth will need a rebuild. I'm okay with that though- it sounds like I'm going to get MORE tools, rather than getting fewer, so we're good.

 

The other thing is, the reset does give me motivation. I can be ready to go as soon as the ball drops, and having content posted at regular intervals for an entire edition, well if that isn't incentive, what is?

[Dr. Clock]

Most definitely; glad you are moving forward in a good way : )

 

It does seem like every time I think I see a potential design flaw in their strategies on this edition change, I'm reminded that they are not really in any way adhering to the release schedules or update pipelines of old. The books are now just as much licenses to use their apps for specific factions as they are desirable/beautiful print game manuals : )

 

This is the sea change that I think will have the biggest impact, tbh, and could make your life a heck of alot easier if, as you say, you can base your own campaign progression on their Crusade progression system. With any luck you won't need to rebuild your spreadsheet because the app will do it for you behind the scenes and let you focus on other things. And then when the rules are updated later, you get updates on how they have impacted any of the lists you save...

 

This reminds me alot more of the '3.5' edition second wave of that where they realized that assault needed changing but they didn't have things aligned enough to do a full library reset... My gorge certainly rises a bit when I think of the two GSC codexes I bought 8 months apart or whatever, but I'm frankly relieved to know that from here out I'll be buying the books more because I want them than because they contain 'reliable rules for my favourite armies'. The app shall prevail. I'll have fewer books in total most likely, but I'll have to carry fewer too ; )

 

For now I just want to read the new core rules. GIVE THEM TO ME NOW

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.