A simple fix

[phandaal]

And contrary to the effort or appearance they create, I don't think they're too serious about the state of the games rules overall. For 8th and 9th edition they have shown an increased willingness to listen, and now commit to a twice yearly rules tinkering. Personally I think all it will do is promote new factions while previous OP factions are nerfed a bit ... again, look at it from how it drives sales.

 

 

Seems that way. Considering how the feedback survey was construed as "You all say you want balance, and we are listening! Presenting battle pa-- *cough* seasons!"

[Kenzaburo]

Lots of info here, and good work keeping relatively constructive so far. 

 

 

August - Index Space Marines which contains no fluff, art, photos, but 100% complete and comprehensive rules for each and every space marine permutation EXCEPT crusade. All datasheets, all doctrines, all stratagems, the works.

 

 

They did this with 3rd, and I think it lasted an edition? Fans/players/hobbyists overwhelmingly wanted more fluff and photos. 

 

I still think stratagems are an issue (maybe the issue?). If you keep CP but remove stratagems from matched play and make them narrative only (which they are and should be, as described by the games designers themselves as moments of heroism units performing incredible feats). Matched play as standard uses RB strats. If players want to take skew armies, they suffer the CP detachment penalty. If armies suffer as they need powerful strats...then that's a fundamental issue with the army itself, and needs to be looked at and redesigned.

 

I agree with stratagems being a major problem. But I play predominantly narrative games and they annoy and frustrate me even there. So many things shouldn't even be stratagems, but special abilities of squads. In one of the other threads where we discussed the state of 9th a lot of us agreed that many of the stratagems should return to where they belong: onto the data sheets and into unit entries. Maybe restructure the rules that you need CP to trigger the special abilities, but the amount of stratagems puts too much weight of decision onto the player and detracts them from the overall game on the tabletop. 

 

If you ask me personally, then I'd say get rid of them altogether. Or at least reduce them to about 10 tops , with 5 being general strats available to everybody and 5 specifically for an army. 

 

But strats alone aren't the only culprit, it's still the rules layering in 9th. It's just too much stuff to keep track of at the same time. I also like the idea of indexes for all the armies during the start of an edition, then add some units in campaigns, if you like and then roll them into the codex come the next edition. IIRC Warmachine used to do that and I was fine with it.That way all armies get an equal start right out of the gate, sales and marketing still get to sell new models during an edition (include the unit's rules inside their box, too). That way you incentivise the sales for your campaign books (still, don't overdo it, this can tire players out fast - pacing is key) and for the army specific lore, fluff, artwork and all that, do premium fluff volumes - Liber Astartes, Liber Hereticus, Liber Militarum, Liber Tau, whatever. You bling those up, put in all the current fluff, maybe some cool narratives, organisational charts - basically all the cool fluff from FWs black books or Badab War and stuff. You keep those in print for at least 2 editions before you do a new, updated version. Diehard fans will buy it, the narrative guys will buy it, the new players will buy it, maybe some of the diehard competitive army-of-the-month-players won't. But I think you are set right there. 

 

And of course, go digital, rules-wise, too. Not digital only, but offer the option to buy the rules and indexes digitally again. I'm using my iPad anyways, when I play, because it's just plain practical. GW was pretty progressive about this a few years ago, probably a bit too much, when much of the community hadn't adopted digital aids all that much. Sales might have been bad because of that and that's why they stopped it. But nowadays? Companion apps are everywhere - and no, I don't want your app, GW, just those neat digital documents you offered, with those cool pop-ups to explain rules you had hotlinked in the text. Those were soooo useful.

 

Of course there's so many other options and better thought-out ones, but this is my armchair game-designer 2 cents. :D

[Helias_Tancred]

 

And contrary to the effort or appearance they create, I don't think they're too serious about the state of the games rules overall. For 8th and 9th edition they have shown an increased willingness to listen, and now commit to a twice yearly rules tinkering. Personally I think all it will do is promote new factions while previous OP factions are nerfed a bit ... again, look at it from how it drives sales.

 

Seems that way. Considering how the feedback survey was construed as "You all say you want balance, and we are listening! Presenting battle pa-- *cough* seasons!"

 

 

From my time spent in the hobby and working as a retail store manager for GW (for 1.5 years), the pattern has stayed relatively the same. I strongly believe every rules issue they deal with, the question of its affect on profit, is carefully considered and in the end trumps gameplay. The rules are used to drive sales. The announcement of a twice yearly re-tooling of the units and rules softens/prepares the customer base for the demotion and promotion of products to drive sales, and making the game better is a bonus benefit.

 

In a perfect world GW would split into two fully separate companies, one that makes successful games and the other that makes high quality models and miniatures. lol.

 

All of my Big Picture view being said, I think 9th was an improvement over 8th, but the mistake they've increasingly made is the power-inflation and rules bloat ... but again, has it driven sales?

Edited March 21, 2022 by Helias Tancred

[phandaal]

 

 

And contrary to the effort or appearance they create, I don't think they're too serious about the state of the games rules overall. For 8th and 9th edition they have shown an increased willingness to listen, and now commit to a twice yearly rules tinkering. Personally I think all it will do is promote new factions while previous OP factions are nerfed a bit ... again, look at it from how it drives sales.

 

Seems that way. Considering how the feedback survey was construed as "You all say you want balance, and we are listening! Presenting battle pa-- *cough* seasons!"

 

 

From my time spent in the hobby and working as a retail store manager for GW (for 1.5 years), the pattern has stayed relatively the same. I strongly believe every rules issue they deal with, the question of its affect on profit, is carefully considered and in the end trumps gameplay. The rules are used to drive sales. The announcement of a twice yearly re-tooling of the units and rules softens/prepares the customer base for the demotion and promotion of products to drive sales, and making the game better is a bonus benefit.

 

In a perfect world GW would split into two fully separate companies, one that makes successful games and the other that makes high quality models and miniatures. lol.

 

All of my Big Picture view being said, I think 9th was an improvement over 8th, but the mistake they've increasingly made is the power-inflation and rules bloat ... but again, has it driven sales?

 

 

Power creep has no doubt driven sales, as people "remember" that they have actually always wanted to play whatever the latest OP army is. The rules bloat has probably driven people away though.

 

No way is it sustainable. People are running out of money, and the people on the other side of the table from the latest OP armies are losing patience.

[Redcomet]

 

 

 

I definitely think the old AP system was better. Marines hardly ever get a 3+ save against anything unless they’ve found a way to counter the AP like cover and given the increase in volume of fire for a lot of weapons, even a 3+ save isn’t what it used to be!

I think there are two factors that really make the old AP system really hard to bring back.

 

1) The new detachment charts. I just think its way to easy to make a list where every model has an AP3 weapon. The old FOC stopped that from being a possibility, but I I really think a 3+ save would be worse than it is now.... which is saying something.

 

2) The extreme army variety we have now. Bringing back the old AP & cover system would just break some those armies. Imagine dealing with lootas with t5 and effectively a 4++. On the other hand you'd have knights which would force you away from the volume fire weapons you need for those orks because you'd need weapons that either deny knights a save or could penetrate their AV. I really don't know how you would even approach making an TAC list with it. Marines are slipping right now, but my list does ok vs. the different archtypes it just isn't as pushed as the competitive lists.

Yeah I don’t think either solution is ideal to be honest but I just hate marine armour feeling like paper.

 

In truth there’s actually nothing wrong with the current system in principle. The problem has (yet again) come from the codexes and the fact the designers haven’t been able to resist giving out excessive AP to every weapon in the game with wild abandon.

It is an easy fix. Just give power armor a rule that negates a certain amount of AP. “Ceramite: ignore AP of -1 and -2.” Would benefit terminators also

[Tiger9gamer]

you know, I used to really like the rules previews. like with lumineth in Age of sigmar, it showed us how the army function, slowly feeding us more info until it finally came out during the panemic.

Now, it just shows off super overpowered stuff non-stop. It's like the rules are being written for these previews almost.

"You KNOW THAT GUN THAT THOUSANDS OF HORMAGAUNT USES?! IT CAN NOW ERASE A LEMAN RUSS! A WHOLE LEMAN RUSS!"

it's like they're stamping on your foot and calling it a service

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

 

 

I definitely think the old AP system was better. Marines hardly ever get a 3+ save against anything unless they’ve found a way to counter the AP like cover and given the increase in volume of fire for a lot of weapons, even a 3+ save isn’t what it used to be!

I think there are two factors that really make the old AP system really hard to bring back.

 

1) The new detachment charts. I just think its way to easy to make a list where every model has an AP3 weapon. The old FOC stopped that from being a possibility, but I I really think a 3+ save would be worse than it is now.... which is saying something.

 

2) The extreme army variety we have now. Bringing back the old AP & cover system would just break some those armies. Imagine dealing with lootas with t5 and effectively a 4++. On the other hand you'd have knights which would force you away from the volume fire weapons you need for those orks because you'd need weapons that either deny knights a save or could penetrate their AV. I really don't know how you would even approach making an TAC list with it. Marines are slipping right now, but my list does ok vs. the different archtypes it just isn't as pushed as the competitive lists.

Yeah I don’t think either solution is ideal to be honest but I just hate marine armour feeling like paper.

 

In truth there’s actually nothing wrong with the current system in principle. The problem has (yet again) come from the codexes and the fact the designers haven’t been able to resist giving out excessive AP to every weapon in the game with wild abandon.

It is an easy fix. Just give power armor a rule that negates a certain amount of AP. “Ceramite: ignore AP of -1 and -2.” Would benefit terminators also

Whilst that would definitely help it’s just another escalation of rules to counter other rules. Like damage reduction as a response to too much lethality but then adding in abilities that ignore damage reduction like the Custodes one.

 

The old AP system at least had the benefit that you could give a weapon sufficient AP to make it good against certain targets whilst not being effective against more heavily armoured ones. In this version, making a weapon ignore an ork or even a guard save also makes it really effective against a marine save. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if they hadn’t upped the volume of fire, the accuracy of that fire (rerolls) and the damage of that fire at the same time.

[phandaal]

"You KNOW THAT GUN THAT THOUSANDS OF HORMAGAUNT USES?! IT CAN NOW ERASE A LEMAN RUSS! A WHOLE LEMAN RUSS!"

 

it's like they're stamping on your foot and calling it a service

 

Think of it like a warning label rather than an advertisement. GW's marketing team is letting you know that you should avoid playing opposite that list until they have sold enough boxes to warrant a nerf.

[Tiger9gamer]

 

"You KNOW THAT GUN THAT THOUSANDS OF HORMAGAUNT USES?! IT CAN NOW ERASE A LEMAN RUSS! A WHOLE LEMAN RUSS!"

 

it's like they're stamping on your foot and calling it a service

 

Think of it like a warning label rather than an advertisement. GW's marketing team is letting you know that you should avoid playing opposite that list until they have sold enough boxes to warrant a nerf.

 

yea, and everyone knows this isn't healthy for a game or community, at least everyone but GW. it's driving sales for sure, but man... I just picked up BT and while there are some awesome rules, It doesn't hold a candle to stuff like this

[Claws and Effect]

I think the point of "okay, this has gone too far now" for me was the new Tau railgun.

 

10-12 damage with enough range to hit anything you want to point it at, S14,-6 AP, denies invuln saves altogether, and the model has a 3+ BS with a reroll built in. That's just bonkers. You know you have a problem when Terminators with storm shields get a 6+ save in cover, and nothing else gets a save at all.

 

An Imperial Knight is presented as being an intimidating force on the battlefield, but 2 Hammerheads that cost less total points than 1 Knight can cripple or outright delete one in a single shooting phase, and there is nothing the Knight player can do to prevent it. If the Tau player brings the max possible 4 of those guns and gets first turn the Knight player might as well just shake their hand and put their models away.

 

 

Scenarios like that should never happen in a game that even has a pretense of being balanced.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Claws and Effect

[Antarius]

There are far too many rerolls, remove those and the abilities that cause them and you immediately make the game less lethal, so high AP and damage become less of an issue.

 

The BS of a unit is supposed to highlight it's accuracy, the assault/heavy/rapid fire is supposed to account for rate of fire, and the points value of models is to account for the discrepancy in skill. 10 marines fire 10 shots, cost the same as 30 guard firing 30 shots, costs the same as 20 orks firing 40 shots. That was roughly the theory, at least, for editions 2 to 7. 

 

It should be a special thing, rerolling something, not a fundamental part of the game that you are expected to build your army around. 

I don’t think I could’ve phrased any better what’s been bugging me about the last couple of editions.

 

Part of the problem is that people who build lists to be competitive love consistency (and with good reason; there’s very likely nothing better if you want to win than to be able to predict with certainty what the results of a given action will be) and rerolls add a ton of consistency. But once you add too much consistency you basically 1) take away the need for dice, which has the added problem of making the vastly increased number of rolls completely wasted time and 2) compound existing balance issues both within codices and between codices.

Finally, you get the insane power creep we’re seeing right now, where things simultaneously need to be super lethal to do anything and ridiculously durable in order to have any durability.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Antarius

[Maritn]

IMO, an easy fix would be to bring back the old "To wound" chart. T5 being as good as T8 vs S9+ just makes absolutely no sense and makes it hard to balance high toughness models with low toughness models.