GW removing options from units..

[TheWarmaster]

Does anybody else find it annoying that we're losing more and more granularity in our codexes? Not just CSM, but all of them? 

It seems that now, unit entries are not only limited to what comes in their kits (big example being Chaos Terminators), but they're also removing a lot of weapon profiles and amalgamating them.. for example power axes and power swords, mauls and chain axes etc, are all just 'accursed weapons' now.. 

Does it annoy anybody else? 

I know the latter speeds up gameplay a little, but the former really prevents you from making squads fit for a specific role..

I really hope they bring some granularity back in 10th edition. 

As weird as it sounds, I miss buying extra bits to kit out my squads haha. 

Also, Jump pack Lords need to come back.. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by TheWarmaster
Fixed some grammatical errors..

[Special Officer Doofy]

It's bittersweet for most people. For years the hobby community have complained that it was predatory for them to sell a kit of let's say 10 miniatures that can take 2 of any special weapon but only came with 1 of each in the box, which encouraged people to buy another kit for the second matching special weapon. Finally years later GW makes it so you can only use what comes in the box. It's how it should have always been, but after years of buying multiple kits, bits or making their own stuff, people are now upset for the opposite reasons.

 

I personally am glad they made the change, it's just going to take a bit to adjust to. This is coming from a guy with almost 40 plague marines that bought a whole bunch of extra bits for wargear loadouts just to have 9th tell me I can't use them. It sucks, but they should never have been able to use more than what's in the box in the first place. 

 

Edit: I should clarify, I'm glad they changed wargear options to what's in the box, not so much with removing profiles like accursed weapons. That just seems weird to me. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Special Officer Doofy

[BrainFireBob]

Nope. Not how it always should have been. They should have designed the kits to match the rules, not shrunk the rules to align with kits that are either arbitrary or worse, had artificial scarcity to force multiple purchases. 

 

The kit option ratios aren't *balanced* to make non-confused squads. 

[Khornestar]

I was annoyed at first, but fairly quickly got over it once I started playing with the new codex.

 

I don’t particularly care about WYSIWYG either. 
 

Every edition brings changes, I’ve been through enough of them to just roll with the punches. 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

If they were going to do this, I'd rather they'd've just done it at the 8.5 codex when the termie kit came out, instead of letting it be like that for three years.

[Special Officer Doofy]

2 hours ago, BrainFireBob said:

Nope. Not how it always should have been. They should have designed the kits to match the rules, not shrunk the rules to align with kits that are either arbitrary or worse, had artificial scarcity to force multiple purchases. 

 

The kit option ratios aren't *balanced* to make non-confused squads. 

 

My comment was more so that the kit and rules should match from the get go, wasn't trying to push that the kits have better loadouts than the old rules. I would love for kits to have more weapons and bits. Not against that.

 

But let's be honest. It is way easier and less expensive to change the rules for current kits versus adding extra option sprues to alot of kits.

 

I'm just happy going forward they will match.

[BrainFireBob]

I just don't want another 12 years for termies with a sensible loadout

[Valkyrion]

I'm fine with it. In both 40k and 30k having two units in melee each with a different weapon can be very time consuming when really in the violent mixer of close combat it shouldn't really matter if you're being stabbed at, chopped at, or thumped.

 

it also helps for potential future proofing - like maybe a special rule could say 'all accursed weapons improve the S/AP or Dam by 1' instead of going through a list. 

[Verbal Underbelly]

I don't love the loss of options - locking the rules to boxes feels heavy handed. Several ranges have been designed to be cross compatible, with the assumption therein that you cross pollinate the box sets you collect when building an army. It's part of the joy of the hobby. Yes, you can do that anyway but I'm sure I don't speak for myself when I say that I want my modelling decisions to have a meaningful impact on the rules and vice versa. Also, reducing options for models doesn't make narrative sense. Right now, every chaos lord in the galaxy has a plasma pistol and thunder hammer. I'm being a little facetious but I'm sure you all see my point. 

 

I'm all for the rules developing and changes in design paradigms, for example I really don't mind the change to "accursed weapons" as that actually free ups modelling opportunities in a sense. 

[Zeruel]

I actually like the consolidation of all the Chosen and Terminator weapons into Accursed Weapons, it's simple and straight forward and leaves them open to modelling however you like without handicapping yourself based on how you want them to look. Past editions I may have liked the look of one weapon or another better but it was the less effective option so I had to either sacrifice aesthetics for performance or vice versa.

 

What I don't like is removing options that have been around for up to decades because a model doesn't necessarily exist for. I'm fine changing what a particular piece of wargear does, I can roll with the punches from edition to edition. If my power maul is an accursed weapon so be it. What I can't stand is when I have a model I have lovingly modelled and painted and been playing for years is invalidated. Why do Raptor Champions not get to take Lightning Claws anymore when the official model from 3rd to 6th came with Lightning Claws, and more bafflingly so, the kit still has lighting claws. Why can't a Lord or Sorcerer take a jump pack or bike, why can't my characters or aspiring champions take combi-weapons, why can't my chosen take special and heavy weapons? That's what annoys me personally. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

It does suck when GW makes a new model or kit to replace an old one and it only has a fraction of the wargear selection, like the recently mentioned chaos lords and sorcerers, which then changes their rules to match the new kits. I'm glad as a customer now that I can only use what's in the kits and don't have to hunt extra bits or buy multiple kits. I'm not glad they have removed alot of options from these new kits. The whole experience to me just sums up my 25+ years with GW, "Can't have your cake AND eat it". But after 25+ years I have learned to roll with the punches like @Khornestar

[TheWarmaster]

16 hours ago, Zeruel said:

I actually like the consolidation of all the Chosen and Terminator weapons into Accursed Weapons, it's simple and straight forward and leaves them open to modelling however you like without handicapping yourself based on how you want them to look. Past editions I may have liked the look of one weapon or another better but it was the less effective option so I had to either sacrifice aesthetics for performance or vice versa.

 

What I don't like is removing options that have been around for up to decades because a model doesn't necessarily exist for. I'm fine changing what a particular piece of wargear does, I can roll with the punches from edition to edition. If my power maul is an accursed weapon so be it. What I can't stand is when I have a model I have lovingly modelled and painted and been playing for years is invalidated. Why do Raptor Champions not get to take Lightning Claws anymore when the official model from 3rd to 6th came with Lightning Claws, and more bafflingly so, the kit still has lighting claws. Why can't a Lord or Sorcerer take a jump pack or bike, why can't my characters or aspiring champions take combi-weapons, why can't my chosen take special and heavy weapons? That's what annoys me personally. 

Perfectly put. 

 

I don't mind the accursed weapons so much for the same reasons, but I do miss the granularity for tooling up a squad for a role. 

 

And yeah, outright removing stuff is horrific. 

[OttoVonAwesome]

I really enjoy throwing all my spare weapons in the trash personally and am glad GW got rid of things like Guard special weapons squads. I was always so confused seeing them in the codex but not being able to buy a specific branded plastic box of them that it would send me into a spiraling panic attack from wich there was no escape. I certainly don't miss the days of old when clam packs of individual weapons were available and individual sprues from sets could be purchased for replacement parts and I'm absolutely sure that a fear of 3-d printing and the abolishment of those things have nothing to do with the current policies shaping rules development.

 

No in fact I'm sure that GW has made these changes in order not to overload my feeble brain with things like choice or customizability and save me the mental anguish and seconds lost to rolling dice for different weapons that were cuasing me to break out in hives and smear the walls with feces and am much happier now.

[Galron]

Its annoying as hell. Half the point of this hobby IS the hobby aspect, doing converting and making cool stuff. They have effectively killed the conversion aspect of the hobby. Sure you can still convert but the problem is you dont have to anymore. You wont see unique units any more put together to use the rules provided. My conversion to match the rules could look very different from the guy across from me using the same unit. Not to mention having loads of converted models that are now no longer WYSIWYG.

[techsoldaten]

Here's how I feel about the loss of options.

 

Used to be you bought a clam pack of metal marines and customizing them took some effort. The promise of plastic was the models would be easier to convert.

 

The plastic models still allow you to do conversions, but they are almost purely cosmetic. The models are monopose, the parts are meant to be assembled in specific positions.

 

The loss of options come at a time of contrast paints, scenic bases, prepackaged scenery and other things meant to streamline the creative side of the hobby. I guess this helps GW sell more models or something.

 

But 40k was much cooler when the emphasis was on building your army that didn't resemble anyone else's army.

[Imren]

1 hour ago, techsoldaten said:

Here's how I feel about the loss of options.

 

Used to be you bought a clam pack of metal marines and customizing them took some effort. The promise of plastic was the models would be easier to convert.

 

The plastic models still allow you to do conversions, but they are almost purely cosmetic. The models are monopose, the parts are meant to be assembled in specific positions.

 

The loss of options come at a time of contrast paints, scenic bases, prepackaged scenery and other things meant to streamline the creative side of the hobby. I guess this helps GW sell more models or something.

 

But 40k was much cooler when the emphasis was on building your army that didn't resemble anyone else's army.

 

 

Amen to that! Couldn't agree more. The building and converting side of the hobby for GW games has slowly been depressed and minimized rules wise and kits wise.  Ialso find that the older rules set and kits was much more encrouraging to be creative and personalise your army. Seeing all these monopose models replicated across armies just feels sad.

[Silas7]

On 12/21/2022 at 3:22 PM, TheWarmaster said:

Does anybody else find annoying how we're losingore and more granularity in our codexes? Not just CSM, but all of them? 

It seems that now, unit entries are not only limited to what comes in their kits (big example being Chaos Terminators), but they're also removing a lot of weapon profiles and amalgamating them.. for example power axes and power swords, mauls and chain axes etc, are all just 'accursed weapons' now.. 

Does it annoy anybody else? 

I know the latter speeds up gameplay a little, but the former really prevents you from making squads fit for a specific role..

I really hope they bring some granularity back in 10th edition. 

As weird as it sounds, I miss buying extra bits to kit out my squads haha. 

Also, Jumppack Lords need to come back.. 

 

I feel your frustrations but I think a healthy way of looking at it is this: 40K (and AOS for that matter) have limited design space. Just look at the Space marine codex, things get out of hand when you don't cut back on things like power weapon sub-categories. Weapon entries and datasheets bloat and get cluttered.

 

As for WYSIWYG model kits; I dislike it but you can't expect GW to change especially when this issue doesn't even generate as much controversy as the underside of a imperial guard tank missing.

[TheWarmaster]

14 hours ago, Silas7 said:

 

I feel your frustrations but I think a healthy way of looking at it is this: 40K (and AOS for that matter) have limited design space. Just look at the Space marine codex, things get out of hand when you don't cut back on things like power weapon sub-categories. Weapon entries and datasheets bloat and get cluttered.

 

As for WYSIWYG model kits; I dislike it but you can't expect GW to change especially when this issue doesn't even generate as much controversy as the underside of a imperial guard tank missing.

Haha good point indeed!!