OPINION: chapter traits should still be a thing

[jaxom]

1 hour ago, Orange Knight said:

Hopefully once the Divergent Chapters get their supplements, they lose access to the detachments in the core codex.

 

GW absolutely have to avoid a scenario where they create Space Marines +1.

 

Highly unlikely to occur.* Every bit of preview language and the indices point towards supplement-style even if they use "Codex" for Dark Angels in the road map. From a lore perspective, it wouldn't make sense either. Dark Angels and Blood Angels have always been technically Codex Astartes complaint and wage war per its recommendations. If they're not Codex, then neither are the majority of First Founding Chapters; and GW tried that already. It led to what I think of as peak Space Marines +1. If instead it comes down to some lineages having extra unit options, I'm no longer a huge fan of the existence of most of them, but they exist and I don't expect them to get axed anytime soon.

Spoiler

Most days I'd say the only units which should still exist are Black Knights as a Command Squad style option, Death Company, and Sanguinary Guard as a Command Squad style option. Anything else should either be under a Codex unit's pre-existing umbrella or a Codex unit that should exist (looking at you, Terminator Lieutenant and various Characters on Bikes or with Jump Packs).

So, until there's a major shake up with First Founding special units going away or more introduced, then as @Inquisitor_Lensoven said, "crab bucket."

 

I'd be a-okay with a few fluffy detachments that aren't broken or just better that what's in the new Marine codex. If the indices are any indication, that may be more likely.

 

1 hour ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

It'll be interesting to see how that works. Right now it's sort of confusing, so I'm just going to wait for the Dark Angels codex to come out before figuring it all out, since I only have divergent chapters for Space Marines.

 

I have other armies that are less volatile, so I'll just play those until we get that information better defined.

When it doubt, assume GW wants to sell you two books and not one.

[Orange Knight]

Well, it simply creates very poor balance and a disparity between the sub-factions.

 

If you play Dark Angels you get a dozen unique units, a Primarch, and more rules to pick and chose from. If you play White Scars you don't even get a Captain on bike.

 

If GW want to allow chapters to use all these rules,  they need to remove all chapter keywords from units in general. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

28 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Well, it simply creates very poor balance and a disparity between the sub-factions.

 

If you play Dark Angels you get a dozen unique units, a Primarch, and more rules to pick and chose from. If you play White Scars you don't even get a Captain on bike.

 

If GW want to allow chapters to use all these rules,  they need to remove all chapter keywords from units in general. 

Speaking of the Captain on a bike, I'll be interested how they handle that, considering you'd need to be able to field a Master of the Ravenwing as a Dark Angels successor.

 

Of course, White Scars should have that too, which is why it's a little surprising that one is gone.

[Dracos]

Ergo we end up with white Dark Angel armies 

[Gamiel]

25 minutes ago, Dracos said:

Ergo we end up with white Dark Angel armies 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Orange Knight said:

Well, it simply creates very poor balance and a disparity between the sub-factions.

 

If you play Dark Angels you get a dozen unique units, a Primarch, and more rules to pick and chose from. If you play White Scars you don't even get a Captain on bike.

 

If GW want to allow chapters to use all these rules,  they need to remove all chapter keywords from units in general. 

Or they should make sure every first founding chapter has at least 1 named character…

 

again though you’re assuming that unique units or rules are better than their generic counter parts. 
that’s not always true, and in most cases it does seem like there’s a reasonable trade off. 

[Orange Knight]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Or they should make sure every first founding chapter has at least 1 named character…

 

again though you’re assuming that unique units or rules are better than their generic counter parts. 
that’s not always true, and in most cases it does seem like there’s a reasonable trade off. 

 

A named character here and there can't compare to 3-5 named heroes, a Primarch, unique vehicles, unique infantry squads and unique wargear.

 

To clarify, I have absolutely no issue with chapters getting all these lovely models. In a perfect world every chapter would be fleshed out like this.

Realistically, this is never going to happen as some chapters have small followings compared to others. 

 

If a chapter has access to all the same detachment, stratagem and rule options as all the rest, and on top of that it has exclusive access to more options in terms of units and wargear, that chapter will always be better. 

 

You don't give anything up, you simply gain more. 

 

How does it benefit the game, the hobbyist or the community if some segments have preferential treatments by a significant order of magnitude?

Edited October 1, 2023 by Orange Knight

[Blindhamster]

Depends if the things are better or not IMO. If they're on par, they're more options, but aren't necessarily better (don't try and say more options = better, because if that were the case, marines would be the top ranking army due to having at least double the number of options per battlefield role of any faction).

 

The issue is that in the past, there have been times when some of the subfactions have had clearly better unique options. If they can get the balance right so that they're different but not better, it's not so bad.

The other issue in the past was that in 3rd edition, whilst the divergent chapters had reduced access to units (but rarely straight up lost them), they literally got all the marine rules and bonus rules on top. That hasn't been the case since 8th though, its been one in, one out for the actual rules. Were those rules balanced well against eachother? No, not always, but again thats a different issue.

All that said, I do still hope that when divergent chapters get their books, they literally have a rule that replaces Oath of Moment with something else (although that seems especially unlikely now that more and more core marine units rules tie into those)

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Orange Knight said:

 

A named character here and there can't compare to 3-5 named heroes, a Primarch, unique vehicles, unique infantry squads and unique wargear.

 

To clarify, I have absolutely no issue with chapters getting all these lovely models. In a perfect world every chapter would be fleshed out like this.

Realistically, this is never going to happen as some chapters have small followings compared to others. 

 

If a chapter has access to all the same detachment, stratagem and rule options as all the rest, and on top of that it has exclusive access to more options in terms of units and wargear, that chapter will always be better. 

 

You don't give anything up, you simply gain more. 

 

How does it benefit the game, the hobbyist or the community if some segments have preferential treatments by a significant order of magnitude?

The ones who get ‘preferential treatment’ are the ones that are popular. They get more stuff they make more money. That’s how it benefits the hobby.

 

you want special stuff, stop crying about how other chapters get more stuff and show GW that your chapter can make them money.

 

you chose a 100% compliant chapter, now you’re crying because you don’t get anything special. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

36 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Depends if the things are better or not IMO. If they're on par, they're more options, but aren't necessarily better (don't try and say more options = better, because if that were the case, marines would be the top ranking army due to having at least double the number of options per battlefield role of any faction).

 

The issue is that in the past, there have been times when some of the subfactions have had clearly better unique options. If they can get the balance right so that they're different but not better, it's not so bad.

The other issue in the past was that in 3rd edition, whilst the divergent chapters had reduced access to units (but rarely straight up lost them), they literally got all the marine rules and bonus rules on top. That hasn't been the case since 8th though, its been one in, one out for the actual rules. Were those rules balanced well against eachother? No, not always, but again thats a different issue.

All that said, I do still hope that when divergent chapters get their books, they literally have a rule that replaces Oath of Moment with something else (although that seems especially unlikely now that more and more core marine units rules tie into those)

 

Right? VGV with shields were way more durable than SG, while having comparable melee output.

 

the sad part is it seems the crab bucket will get their way based on how primaris unique units have just been reskins of generic units.

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Paladin777]

Brought a squad of VGV and SG to an RTT yesterday and the VGV were solid, and the SG were a dud unit, despite costing 75% more!

 

so yeah, the divergent chapters are only stronger if their specific units are stronger. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Paladin777

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, Paladin777 said:

Brought a squad of VGV and SG to an RTT yesterday and the VGV were solid, and the SG were a dud unit, despite costing 75% more!

 

so yeah, the divergent chapters are only stronger if their specific units are stronger. 

Yep every time I bring the two the VGVs always do more because their shields keep them alive longer.

 

 

[Dracos]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

The ones who get ‘preferential treatment’ are the ones that are popular. They get more stuff they make more money. That’s how it benefits the hobby.

 

you want special stuff, stop crying about how other chapters get more stuff and show GW that your chapter can make them money.

 

you chose a 100% compliant chapter, now you’re crying because you don’t get anything special. 

That’s the  craziest argument I’ve seen in days.  You can’t buy something they haven’t produced. 
 

chicken and egg man chicken and egg 

[Blindhamster]

4 hours ago, Dracos said:

That’s the  craziest argument I’ve seen in days.  You can’t buy something they haven’t produced. 
 

chicken and egg man chicken and egg 

Tbf, they tried it with supplements for them, even the special editions didn’t sell out for a long time. The fact GW haven’t looked at it since is an indication that the thing that couldn’t be bought, didn’t sell well enough, at least anecdotally 

[Karhedron]

21 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

Hopefully once the Divergent Chapters get their supplements, they lose access to the detachments in the core codex.

 

GW absolutely have to avoid a scenario where they create Space Marines +1.

 

I don't see why particularly, Marines +1 implies they are stronger but GW's "one in, one out" design philosophy means special rules won't stack. So yes, divergent Chapters will have a few more options but they won't necessarily be stronger because of it. Special units like SG may be characterful but are not necessarily stronger than codex equivalents (especially given the points premium).

 

Having more options does not necessarily create an unfair advantage if you have to swap something out to use an option. 

[Orange Knight]

If they have access to all the codex detachments, additional detachments on top of that AND exclusive units, they will definitely be better.

 

More rule and unit combinations without giving anything up.

 

 

[Blindhamster]

Just now, Orange Knight said:

If they have access to all the codex detachments, additional detachments on top of that AND exclusive units, they will definitely be better.

 

More rule and unit combinations without giving anything up.

 

 

  

15 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Depends if the things are better or not IMO. If they're on par, they're more options, but aren't necessarily better (don't try and say more options = better, because if that were the case, marines would be the top ranking army due to having at least double the number of options per battlefield role of any faction).

 

[Karhedron]

23 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

If they have access to all the codex detachments, additional detachments on top of that AND exclusive units, they will definitely be better.

 

Not necessarily. Blood Angels get Sanguinary Guard, Death Company and a couple of unique Dreads and Characters. In Index-land, they had access to both SoS and GSF detachments but were slightly below Codex Marines because the extra options were either sufficiently expensive or had little synergy with other detachment rules that BAs gained no competitive advantage from those options.

 

It is a fallacy to say that more option will always translate to a competitive advantage. It may increase the chances of that happening but GW's "one in, one out" rule tends to minimise that effect.

[Dracos]

26 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

Not necessarily. Blood Angels get Sanguinary Guard, Death Company and a couple of unique Dreads and Characters. In Index-land, they had access to both SoS and GSF detachments but were slightly below Codex Marines because the extra options were either sufficiently expensive or had little synergy with other detachment rules that BAs gained no competitive advantage from those options.

 

It is a fallacy to say that more option will always translate to a competitive advantage. It may increase the chances of that happening but GW's "one in, one out" rule tends to minimise that effect.

Let’s look at it historically then. We have tournament data going back 3 or 4 editions now to make an intelligent supposition on what is most likely. It “might” not end up that way but as I said historically ….
 

The Big4+1 rule the landscape of competitive Space Marine play. It varies on the who goes when in the power creep but the only time we have ever seen a Chapter other than a divergent Chapter or Ultramarines be considered a top tier army we’re briefly Iron Hands and Raven Guard when the Supplements were in effect. 
 

Other than that it’s been 30+ years of BA, DA, BT, and less so SW and UM. In each case it’s been a special rule or unit that drove them to the top from Smash Captain to Thunderwolf to Deathwing … 30+ years tells us it will be the most likely scenario where the other Chapters are left watching the +1 Marines climb to the higher tiers  over the rubble of the basic ruins we have played by from the “compliant” Codex

 

*Steps off Soap Box*
 

[TheNicronomicon]

Right, but with rules being SM-wide and units being chapter-specific you have less of a chance of getting anomalous (broken) combos slipping through. The context of specific rules + specific units creates more opportunities for something unexpected to dominate the meta than GW’s current approach. Trying to balance 80+ datasheets with 10+ chapter rules is difficult and how you get broken combos in the first place. Their current approach seems to be all about creating a baseline any individual chapter can deviate from—probably via Chapter-specific units rather than army-wide rules. 
and please keep in mind that “better” is always a relative term. Is it “better” that Hounds of Morkai have to use a suboptimal wargear loadout and lose Deep Strike in order to get their anti-psyker goodies? How is it going to break any other Reiver unit in a different chapter’s army—why would I quit playing Raven Guard over a unit like this, in other words? Why would it be terrible for other chapters to get a handful of units like that? 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

13 hours ago, Dracos said:

That’s the  craziest argument I’ve seen in days.  You can’t buy something they haven’t produced. 
 

chicken and egg man chicken and egg 

Oh they haven’t produced upgrade sprues for all the first founding chapters?

 

they haven’t produced any other merchandise for all the first founding chapters?

 

these are all ways you can show GW that there’s money to be made in these other chapters.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Dracos said:

Let’s look at it historically then. We have tournament data going back 3 or 4 editions now to make an intelligent supposition on what is most likely. It “might” not end up that way but as I said historically ….
 

The Big4+1 rule the landscape of competitive Space Marine play. It varies on the who goes when in the power creep but the only time we have ever seen a Chapter other than a divergent Chapter or Ultramarines be considered a top tier army we’re briefly Iron Hands and Raven Guard when the Supplements were in effect. 
 

Other than that it’s been 30+ years of BA, DA, BT, and less so SW and UM. In each case it’s been a special rule or unit that drove them to the top from Smash Captain to Thunderwolf to Deathwing … 30+ years tells us it will be the most likely scenario where the other Chapters are left watching the +1 Marines climb to the higher tiers  over the rubble of the basic ruins we have played by from the “compliant” Codex

 

*Steps off Soap Box*
 

And have you accounted for rates at which chapters are played and used?

 

tournament players are a minority of the over all player base.

 

So if only 5% of space marine players play a generic chapter, it makes total sense that the big 4 would be the ones you see most often, that would be basic statistics.

[Blindhamster]

Looking at the last 4 years of at least official rankings, the only divergent chapter that has fairly consistently performed notably better than adeptus astartes, is space wolves.

 

from what I could see, really seemed like the rest, blood angels in particular are generally similar or worse. The point where “blood angels” were better was when they could do smash captains and nobody else could, and most of those armies tended to be something else with blood angels command detachment precisely for that.

 

dark angels certainly had their time in the sun in 9th, but again they’ve also suffered through periods of straight up having outdated and worse rules for a variety of things.

 

 You also have times like 5th where blood angels actually did have restricted units compared to codex marines and still performed notably better. then in 7th, blood angels got no free transports where everyone else did and it was a rubbish time because no amount of unit units and rules made up for the benefits a battle company got (and even when they got access to that, theirs was still worse lol).
 

The issue with these things though, is never the existence of extra units, it’s the issue of stacked bonus rules that clearly weren’t thought through, getting all the core marine stratagems and then their own on top, that sort of thing. None of that is the case now.

 

so you’re back to unique units and if they’re as good or better than generic options.

 

death company are very good for example, but they’re very unlikely to stay as they are now post codex update, death company intercessors are generally maligned and that’s likely the format all death company will follow. Sanguinary guard, as others noted were too good in 9th at one point c but now have swung the other way and even the much despised vanguard veterans are more efficient/better performing. Furioso dreads are worse than redemptors and brutalis, sanguinary priests are a definite side grade on apothecaries now. Death company dreads are very good, librarian dreads are fine but certainly not an automatically better option than other kinds but again I’d bet on all three dread variants going the way of the dodo. Baal predators are quite cool right now, for the first time in a while so maybe they’re a good example of something better… possibly?

 

I don’t know enough about the others to really talk about those.

 

We really should wait and see how dark angels actually work.

 

for all we know, there will be a thing basically saying you can’t use unique units with detachments other than the ones in their book.

 

or it may be that they’ve straight up become full distinct codex again and the space marine codex is a stopgap for divergent chapters till their own books come out, or any number of other rules differences could exist.

 

 

[Dracos]

Oh I’m totally waiting and hoping for the best. Just as a vanilla diy guy for 30+ years I’ve learned not to hold my breath. Having loved and played through those years those I get a bit itchy when someone tries to explain to me how the vanilla chapters are every bit as competitive. 
 

I also get itchy when someone groans about tournament players or how they only represent a portion of the community. Duh … of course, but there is no better mechanism to collect data to judge if a rule or set of rules are creating a fair or unbalanced play environment. It’s the best and cheapest  environment  to test for and make changes to create a fair game as possible. Most tourney players are just there to have an enjoyable set of games. That means we learn what’s broke and fix it (hopefully). It’s not perfect but until someone can figure a better more economical one I could just do without all the smoke about how it’s only a percentage of the community. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, Dracos said:

Oh I’m totally waiting and hoping for the best. Just as a vanilla diy guy for 30+ years I’ve learned not to hold my breath. Having loved and played through those years those I get a bit itchy when someone tries to explain to me how the vanilla chapters are every bit as competitive. 
 

I also get itchy when someone groans about tournament players or how they only represent a portion of the community. Duh … of course, but there is no better mechanism to collect data to judge if a rule or set of rules are creating a fair or unbalanced play environment. It’s the best and cheapest  environment  to test for and make changes to create a fair game as possible. Most tourney players are just there to have an enjoyable set of games. That means we learn what’s broke and fix it (hopefully). It’s not perfect but until someone can figure a better more economical one I could just do without all the smoke about how it’s only a percentage of the community. 

So you don’t like it when people explain reality to you?

 

idk where to find the historical win rates, but as of 9th and thus far in 10th standard marines have been right in the middle, with some divergent chapters higher and some lower.

 

if random generic SM players are rare in tournaments, then divergent chapters ‘dominating’ them by pure numbers of players is not a good indicator of how generic marines stack up to the divergent chapters.

 

you want GW to invest into your chapter, you must invest in them yourself.

 

How many upgrade sprues for your chapter have you purchased to signal that there’s money for them to be make in that chapter?