Wh40k 10th Edition Combi-weapons in 10th

[Captain Idaho]

Combining combi-weapons (pun not intended) to save rules space and streamline seems really arbitrary when reading all the datasheets for Chaos Marines and Battle Sisters squads etc. There's plenty of things that haven't been rolled out there, so why combi weapons?

 

I think it's likely an idea GW thought seemed cool and likely never had feedback on it.

 

Regardless of that, we know there is an armoury card with weapons on it so the argument that all the rules on the datasheet are all we need just doesn't stand anymore. There's little reason more detailed combi weapons couldn't be added the armoury card. Especially as so many unit leaders and characters can have them.

 

Funnily enough, if GW reversed course in Codex Space Marines or an update, I doubt anyone would be upset with that and are holding onto that 1 Mortal wound in every 4 shots with any real enthusiasm. 

 

Ultimately I just think it's a swing and miss from GW.

[Brother Christopher]

I'll reserve judgement until the release of the new rule sets, but for now this seems like such an odd decision. I'm okay with returning to a single profile for Power Weapons but with combis... Especially since there are 1:1 profile equivalents out there (plasma gun v. combi plasma). Sure, "bloat" should be removed from the game, I'm all for it, but I'm not really sure that this is where they should start. I'm curious to see if, say, Storm Speeders will still have three distinct datasheets.

 

Ironically speaking, I think GW shouldn't bother with plasma guns, melta guns, flamers and whatnot (and all the Primaris variants) any more - just call them Special Weapons and give them a single profile.

 

It's also a middle finger to people who, over the years, bought boxes of stuff to get the right amount of a given combi-weapon for their squads.

 

[Rain]

8 hours ago, Brother Christopher said:

It's also a middle finger to people who, over the years, bought boxes of stuff to get the right amount of a given combi-weapon for their squads.

 

I would bet it’s being done (if it is) at least in part to kill the market for third party combi-weapon packs for people that want squads of all one combi-weapon type. So now their GW kit supplied mishmash will work for WYSIWYG purposes obviating the need to go third party due to high bits reseller prices:

[Kallas]

15 minutes ago, Rain said:

I would bet it’s being done (if it is) at least in part to kill the market for third party combi-weapon packs for people that want squads of all one combi-weapon type. So now their GW kit supplied mishmash will work for WYSIWYG purposes obviating the need to go third party due to high bits reseller prices:

Which would be such a stupid reason: they could easily get in on that by making weapon sprues and almost completely wipe out third part competition on that front. One of the main reasons people go to third party providers is because GW doesn't sell them - with digital modeling, they don't even need to do much beyond cutting the already sculpted Combi-Weapons from their current models and then making a new sprue off that. If they think that that third party market is so big, then they should dip into it, not try and cut it off with stupid rules changes.

[Dr. Clock]

3 hours ago, Kallas said:

If they think that that third party market is so big, then they should dip into it, not try and cut it off with stupid rules changes.

But... they already do make really amazing kits, some of which have lots of options. They don't make more money by going hard on upgrade sprues for existing minis that are perfectly worthwhile, they do it by offering a more diverse range of minis so that you buy your next army.

 

And indeed: why shouldn't they want you to feel like the product you just bought is perfectly suitable as-is to the game it's designed for?

 

I'm honestly sick of the pressure on uniform upgrade packages and 'most efficient loadouts' in an army-level game, and I think it's critical to point out that this chosen strategy basically does away with that (well, almost), in admittedly a pretty stark way by basically saying that 'actually your unit with all storm-shields isn't just better than mine with combi-flamers even though they're the same points'. To me, the biggest middle finger was just saying that points on upgrades didn't matter at all.

 

If you're going to have options, they need to meaningful, but they also need to scale in cost relative to impact. The fact of the matter is that inside the points system there needs to be a premium placed on efficiency or specialization that has rarely shown up other than in T'au weaponry. Each additional special weapon of a certain type costs more than the one before. Like, to be balanced about it, all combinations of wargear should... technically... be pointed differently if there is any marked difference between any loadout's efficacy. Like... flamer-combi and plasma might be 16 points, double plasma 18, and double flamer 15... flamer/melta 17, double melta 22. Each storm shield after the first should cost more than the one before... But that solution is not feasible as a game people play, and certainly not over the number of potential builds that have been allowed but not efficient for the past 20+ years.

 

Using the same points for all instances of 'upgrades' that are widely available means that we enter the zone of 'is it worth it?', which unfortunately means that we never see a sternguard other than storm-shield/combi-melta ever again. I say boo to that. 

 

Essentially, the effect is the same: all units end up with roughly the same loadouts either because there are no options, or too many. I prefer the road that doesn't result in either modeling uniformity or units getting too far out of whack with how the kits themselves are offered as the place to start.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Kallas]

7 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

'most efficient loadouts' in an army-level game

You're not forced to run the most efficient loadout.

 

7 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

But... they already do make really amazing kits, some of which have lots of options. They don't make more money by going hard on upgrade sprues for existing minis that are perfectly worthwhile, they do it by offering a more diverse range of minis so that you buy your next army.

Right, but my point was that if they think the third party market, which exists to sell these things that people obviously buy, is big enough to be a problem, then they could easily deal with it themselves while benefitting from it - people often mention that GW is a business, and that they will make the best business decisions they can; deliberately shutting down/themselves out of a market does not seem like a smart decision.

[Captain Idaho]

Chapter House and other bits suppliers make money on upgrade sprues. There's plenty of scope for GW to make money there again, but they've dedicated design resource not to new modular kits but kits that are really difficult to kit bash.

[Khornestar]

15 hours ago, Rain said:

I would bet it’s being done (if it is) at least in part to kill the market for third party combi-weapon packs for people that want squads of all one combi-weapon type. So now their GW kit supplied mishmash will work for WYSIWYG purposes obviating the need to go third party due to high bits reseller prices:

Seems more plausible to me that they’re content with a limited set of options, i.e. whatever fits on the sprue for a given kit, and just want it to end there to make the game less unwieldy. This is from a game balance perspective and what GW is trying to achieve, not what/how any of us think it should be.
 

I don’t doubt there’s a financial conflict of interest of sorts by “allowing” people to 3D print/buy 3rd party bits that don’t come in the box, but the entire kit can be 3D printed at nearly the same quality, depending on the sculptor and the printer. Not sure if it really matters that much in the big picture. 
 

I’m fine with the change, though I deal with changes fairly well in general and am unlikely to complain too much when expectations don’t match reality. I understand the disconnect between what the various combi guns “should” be and the new stats, but I like the weapon. In the end, we get what we get, not what we want to get. I’d prefer to make the best of it, seems more productive.

 

I don’t collect old marines, but I’m looking forward to the new primaris sternguard. Though it doesn’t look like the whole unit will have combi-weapons. I’m most looking forward to using them with my Word Bearers, where the terminators can (most likely) all equip them, and the chosen to a lesser degree. Having volume of fire with this profile will hopefully let it shine. 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Khornestar

[WrathOfTheLion]

4 minutes ago, Khornestar said:

Seems more plausible to me that they’re content with a limited set of options, i.e. whatever fits on the sprue for a given kit, and just want it to end there to make the game less unwieldy. This is from a game balance perspective and what GW is trying to achieve, not what/how any of us think it should be.

This is almost certainly the motivation. One of the biggest criticisms of their kit is that it doesn't have enough options, or the right options. They only ever have like one or two of each combi weapon, which makes loadouts end up ridiculous when combined with their policy of making the datasheet match what's in the kit.

 

Merging them all into one addresses that, along with making it so that picking one doesn't have long-term downsides if a different weapon comes into favor. So I completely understand what they're doing and what they want to address with the change.

[BitsHammer]

At this point I don't know that we know combi weapons will be merged. For all we know it may be a specific profile for a weapon option from their sprue, or something specific to Terminators.

 

Two data points hardly forms a pattern.

[Dr. Clock]

3 hours ago, Kallas said:

You're not forced to run the most efficient loadout.

But even casual players routinely either model edge case new-hotness loadouts, or proxy their existing models to a uniform 'most efficient all-melta' loadout. The number of times 'this flamer is a melta' has happened to me is... too high. 

 

3 hours ago, Kallas said:

big enough to be a problem

They don't think this, and it isn't. If GW released a 'combi-weapon set', we would either criticize them for not offering the relevant items in the box they are intended to go on, or criticize them for the fact that it includes weapons we won't use, or criticize them for offering something that would by rights need to be more expensive to be a profit-maker for them. They'd just be too expensive for most people to bother, and they'd compete directly with GW's own lines of offerings. Like - 'combi-melta upgrade' and 'tactical squads' would then be competing with sternguard themselves, and for every melta-combi spure they sell, about 4 others would sit around never being used because they are not as sought-after due to rules.

 

In Heresy they get away from this by having units forced to take the same guns in general, and they have specifically not added kits that directly compete with the weapon upgrades for the base tacticals, so that they are the only way to make support squads.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor. 

 

 

[Lexington]

This whole thing seems deeply unfriendly to newer players, who are going to wonder why the one Meltagun is completely different from the combi version, why there’s Power Fists on Terminators, but they’re “Heavy Power Weapons” when they’re on a CSM squad leader, etc.

 

You can see what they’re going for here - combi-weapons have always occupied a weird space, rules-wise, and there’s the eternal modeling problem they present - but this solution seems fairly oddball. I’d expect them to revert to something closer to their old ruleset within a year or so.

[Rain]

2 hours ago, Khornestar said:

I don’t doubt there’s a financial conflict of interest of sorts by “allowing” people to 3D print/buy 3rd party bits that don’t come in the box, but the entire kit can be 3D printed at nearly the same quality, depending on the sculptor and the printer. Not sure if it really matters that much in the big picture. 

3D printing (or recasting) copies of kits is counterfeiting and is easily legally enforceable by GW in major first world markets. What GW is worried about is 28mm “plasma guns” and “pauldrons” and “heat rifles” which look just enough like GW models to be discernible for gameplay and WYSIWYG, but are not copies, and have no features that are easily legally protectable.

 

GW sued Chapterhouse, which was a 3rd party bits maker which made special weapons, heads, and shoulderpads, and spent a lot of money on a lengthy litigation  in which they made odd claims such that terms such as “pauldron” were their trademark, and that CH’s designs were derivate works of GW designs. They lost, because CH was not copying their kits, but merely making “compatible” items with themes like “Space Egyptians” or “Space Vikings” or “plasma guns” or other  concepts and designs that GW did not originate, and had no IP control over.

 

So, GW has changed tack, and are now trying to squeeze out third party bit suppliers by making kits monopose, molding shoulderpads into arms, locking loadouts to boxes as sold, not making rules that don’t match explicit models, and removing rules incentive for purchase of individual special weapons. 

[Captain Idaho]

13 minutes ago, Rain said:

3D printing (or recasting) copies of kits is counterfeiting and is easily legally enforceable by GW in major first world markets.

 

Just had to comment on this... it's not easily enforceable at all. The fact that so many people are printing good stuff off their 3D Printers in the UK is all the proof of that really.

[Rain]

10 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

 

Just had to comment on this... it's not easily enforceable at all. The fact that so many people are printing good stuff off their 3D Printers in the UK is all the proof of that really.

Not on the scale of a guy printing is his basement and selling to his buddies, but certainly on the level of companies with websites, addresses, business bank accounts, and the scale that GW is most worried about.

[The Unseen]

Trying to cut out the tertiary market is just never going to work

So twisting your own game into knots is just a dumb idea for it, especially with how 3d printers are going to get more available to your average 40k player, not less.

 

I don't like this change, they should've just made them one shot again, this big issue came when they made them basically the special weapon but with a bolter attached rather than an expensive bolter with 1 other use, and if they balanced the specials against each other like they seem to want to do anyway, it wouldn't have been a problem. 

 

Just another step on the road to a homogenized marine line with any load out differences being entirely different units, AKA Astartes Aspect Warriors.  Combi weapons are (to GW) a remnant of the skirmish game 40k used to be, where a sarge holding a combi-melta could change the whole game with a lucky shot. 

[Khornestar]

And in the end it’s conjecture either way as to why the decisions are made. Is it primarily to prevent competition? Is it to simplify the game? Probably a bit of both, as both are reasonable and at least partially plausible. 
 

I return to, “We get what we get” in the end though. The why is less important to me than the result, and to me it’s mostly a positive change.

[Rain]

23 minutes ago, The Unseen said:

Trying to cut out the tertiary market is just never going to work

So twisting your own game into knots is just a dumb idea for it, especially with how 3d printers are going to get more available to your average 40k player, not less.

 

I don't like this change, they should've just made them one shot again, this big issue came when they made them basically the special weapon but with a bolter attached rather than an expensive bolter with 1 other use, and if they balanced the specials against each other like they seem to want to do anyway, it wouldn't have been a problem. 

Oh, I agree that it’s short sighted and counterproductive, but GW upper management all have business degrees, so, you know, what can you expect.

 

I interact a lot with these kinds of people in my work, and if I had to guess, upper management has never played the game, and doesn’t understand why anyone would. They don’t particularly care about balance or anything like that, but they care a lot about IP protection because their lawyers told them to.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, this is a major nerf to the flexibility of my First Born units.

 

My 6 Tactical Sgts, 2 Devastator Sgts, 4 Ravenwing Sgts all just lost their anti big-boi capability.

 

The Tacticals and Ravenwing units relied on the extra special weapon shots to keep them useful. This change decreases their anti big-boi capability by 33% and makes them focused on anti infantry instead of....Tactical.

 

GW could easily fit 3-4 more profiles on the datasheets or refer to the special weapons sheet. As an OG player this is less fun for me. 

[BitsHammer]

43 minutes ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Yep, this is a major nerf to the flexibility of my First Born units.

 

My 6 Tactical Sgts, 2 Devastator Sgts, 4 Ravenwing Sgts all just lost their anti big-boi capability.

 

The Tacticals and Ravenwing units relied on the extra special weapon shots to keep them useful. This change decreases their anti big-boi capability by 33% and makes them focused on anti infantry instead of....Tactical.

 

GW could easily fit 3-4 more profiles on the datasheets or refer to the special weapons sheet. As an OG player this is less fun for me. 

Are you sure it is the case, or are we just assuming every Combi-weapon on every unit will be the same as two datasheets for Terminator Characters?

Edited May 13, 2023 by BitsHammer

[Captain Idaho]

There's no evidence to suggest otherwise unfortunately. And it also seems illogical for combi weapons for 2 characters to be different to Sergeant weapons etc.

 

1 hour ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Yep, this is a major nerf to the flexibility of my First Born units.

 

My 6 Tactical Sgts, 2 Devastator Sgts, 4 Ravenwing Sgts all just lost their anti big-boi capability.

 

The Tacticals and Ravenwing units relied on the extra special weapon shots to keep them useful. This change decreases their anti big-boi capability by 33% and makes them focused on anti infantry instead of....Tactical.

 

GW could easily fit 3-4 more profiles on the datasheets or refer to the special weapons sheet. As an OG player this is less fun for me. 

 

Yeah this is pretty much how it hurts me too.

[Xanthous]

Infantry weapons seem to be losing a fair bit of their bite against large targets anyway so combi-weapons would have gone down in usefulness on that front anyway.

[Interrogator Stobz]

1 hour ago, BitsHammer said:

Are you sure it is the case, or are we just assuming every Combi-weapon on every unit will be the same as two datasheets for Terminator Characters?

I am presuming weapons with the same name will be the same until there is evidence to the contrary. 

 

I did comment earlier that as GW mentioned that special weapons will be on some global weapon sheets Combis may be too.

But that is an assumption without any evidence. 

[BitsHammer]

2 hours ago, Captain Idaho said:

There's no evidence to suggest otherwise unfortunately. And it also seems illogical for combi weapons for 2 characters to be different to Sergeant weapons etc.

Characters having different weapons happens quite regularly. Like having free master-crafted wargear.

 

Absence of information does not prove anything, people are jumping the gun before we have enough to see what going on beyond those characters. I get that the internet side of the community likes to assume the worst, but quite regularly incomplete information designed to tease the community into wanting to know more is assumed to be the full picture only for the community to be wrong.

 

They have obfuscated information and even hidden information in the past in order to not off everything before the launch.

[BitsHammer]

1 hour ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

I am presuming weapons with the same name will be the same until there is evidence to the contrary. 

 

I did comment earlier that as GW mentioned that special weapons will be on some global weapon sheets Combis may be too.

But that is an assumption without any evidence. 

Boltgun and boltgun. One gets 2 shots at 24" the other gets 1 shot at 24".

 

We have an example that not everything is 1:1 just like GW told us they would do.