New changes from the Balance dataslate discussion?

[Indy Techwisp]

3 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I'm hoping that the Divergent Chapters lose access to the core codex detachments entirely going forward. GW needs to restrict chapters more to both balance them, and also to create an incentive to play individual chapters.

 

Thing is, the Divergent Chapters are balanced around having access to the Base LSM chapters.

I mean sure, they're balanced poorly in this regard, but these are Supplements and not full codexes.

[Orange Knight]

I'm not suggesting it's an easy fix. I think it would take a new edition and a new codex cycle.

[AutumnEffect]

50 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I think the White Scars have been done so dirty. In general I think a lot of chapters are neglected, but the White Scars in particular suffered a lot as Outriders were underpowered and there is no Outrider Captain for them to take. It created the situation where the best White Scars were Space Wolves. Hopefully this will be addressed in the near future.

 

I'm a little more annoyed with Ravenwing than Space Wolves personally. The stuff with Thunderwolf Cav. reads as accidental. "Oops, these are Mounted..."
But Ravenwing Black Knights? 

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

I'm not suggesting it's an easy fix. I think it would take a new edition and a new codex cycle.

They still follow the tenets of the codex though. There isn't a reason they should stop conducting siege operations via a layout similar to Anvil, or they stopped conducting stealth operations via Vanguard. 

 

It's not just the opposite of an easy fix, it's the opposite of fluff. 

[Orange Knight]

It was only one edition ago when the different chapters were locked to their own detachments. 

 

I'm not saying chapters should only have a single detachment as an option. But how is it fair that the Blood Angels can pick from 9 detachment choices, and have over a dozen unique units whilst the White Scars can only pick from 6 and have a single character?

[Indy Techwisp]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

It was only one edition ago when the different chapters were locked to their own detachments. 

 

I'm not saying chapters should only have a single detachment as an option. But how is it fair that the Blood Angels can pick from 9 detachment choices, and have over a dozen unique units whilst the White Scars can only pick from 6 and have a single character?

 

It isn't really fair, but that's an issue to do with the way Space Marines are treated in general.

It's something that would need many editions worth of model releases and codexes to fix, and thus is significantly outside of the realm of "Balance Dataslate".

[Karhedron]

13 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

GW also shouldn't punish those units with point hikes if certain detachments are getting better results, but instead they should tone those detachments down.

 

Blood Angels are getting some good results but Marines as a whole are fairly mediocre in the meta. Other builds that are doing well include Dark Angels Ironstorm, Space Wolf Jail and Guilliman and Superfriends. Rather than toning down BAs, I think it would be better to buff some of the more generic Marine stuff to try and bring the faction up to around the 50% winrate. This seems to have been the intention of of the balance update although I think a few things could have gone a bit further.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

8 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

It was only one edition ago when the different chapters were locked to their own detachments. 

 

I'm not saying chapters should only have a single detachment as an option. But how is it fair that the Blood Angels can pick from 9 detachment choices, and have over a dozen unique units whilst the White Scars can only pick from 6 and have a single character?

No one said it was fair.

tbh I wouldn’t mind going back to how 3rd was.

Maybe a faction rule at most, no sub faction rules, and differences between chapters be relegated to chapter specific units, primarily appropriate buffs from epic heroes, and how unique units actually operate.

 

buffing standard vanilla units buffs the divergent chapters, so that doesn’t fix the inter-space marine balance issues and likely just exacerbates it.

Edited December 18 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[HeadlessCross]

8 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

It was only one edition ago when the different chapters were locked to their own detachments. 

It was only one edition ago when Ultramarines couldn't be sneaky, even though they do run stealth operations. Your point?

[HeadlessCross]

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Blood Angels are getting some good results but Marines as a whole are fairly mediocre in the meta. Other builds that are doing well include Dark Angels Ironstorm, Space Wolf Jail and Guilliman and Superfriends. Rather than toning down BAs, I think it would be better to buff some of the more generic Marine stuff to try and bring the faction up to around the 50% winrate. This seems to have been the intention of of the balance update although I think a few things could have gone a bit further.

The problem is that the main codex is Codex: Ultramarines. You basically lose out on datasheets and Ultramarines gain +1 to wound under Oath. There's actual easy fixes:

1. Go back to 5th's format to take all characters with each other. Adrax, Shrike, and Calgar would not be broken if you can take them with each other. 

2. Combine everything and consolidation as necessary. Sorry, I don't think Deathwing Knights need to be a unique datasheet over using them as just Terminators with a Shield and a variety of melee weapon. 

[Indy Techwisp]

13 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

The problem is that the main codex is Codex: Ultramarines. You basically lose out on datasheets and Ultramarines gain +1 to wound under Oath. There's actual easy fixes:

1. Go back to 5th's format to take all characters with each other. Adrax, Shrike, and Calgar would not be broken if you can take them with each other. 

2. Combine everything and consolidation as necessary. Sorry, I don't think Deathwing Knights need to be a unique datasheet over using them as just Terminators with a Shield and a variety of melee weapon. 

 

Option 3:

Release Supplement: Ultramarines, move all the Ultramarine units to it, then expand the range of each other Core Marine chapter and split their unique stuff out into their own supplement once they have enough until every Core Chapter has their own Supplement, throw in a Generic and Highly customisable "Chapter Master" unit into the Base LSM Codex and make all the aforementioned Supplements downloads rather than additional paid books.

 

Now you have the Base LSM Codex with all the shared units including the ability to make a Chapter Master for Custom Successors, the free Downloads for the Specific Chapters and their Successors and a much larger area for design space and balanced.

 

If that looks like the old "Each Chapter has a Supplement" but redone with Free Digital Rules, you'd be correct.

 

Alternatively, if that's too much, just shove Ultramarines out into it's own Supplement so all of Base LSM isn't being balanced with the assumption of Guilliman being present.

Edited December 19 by Indy Techwisp

[Orange Knight]

I'm against more supplements. I thnk it's a bad idea as it means rules for a wider faction are trickled out piecemeal thorughout an edition.

 

I'd rather all Space Marines were consolidated into two books. One for generic units, and one for all the chapter specific options, as they have done in the Horus Heresy.

[HeadlessCross]

11 hours ago, Indy Techwisp said:

 

Option 3:

Release Supplement: Ultramarines, move all the Ultramarine units to it, then expand the range of each other Core Marine chapter and split their unique stuff out into their own supplement once they have enough until every Core Chapter has their own Supplement, throw in a Generic and Highly customisable "Chapter Master" unit into the Base LSM Codex and make all the aforementioned Supplements downloads rather than additional paid books.

 

Now you have the Base LSM Codex with all the shared units including the ability to make a Chapter Master for Custom Successors, the free Downloads for the Specific Chapters and their Successors and a much larger area for design space and balanced.

 

If that looks like the old "Each Chapter has a Supplement" but redone with Free Digital Rules, you'd be correct.

 

Alternatively, if that's too much, just shove Ultramarines out into it's own Supplement so all of Base LSM isn't being balanced with the assumption of Guilliman being present.

The last thing the game needs is more books and unit entries. 

5 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

I'm against more supplements. I thnk it's a bad idea as it means rules for a wider faction are trickled out piecemeal thorughout an edition.

 

I'd rather all Space Marines were consolidated into two books. One for generic units, and one for all the chapter specific options, as they have done in the Horus Heresy.

Absolute no to a second book for Chapter specific units. There's no reason Death Company can't be represented by a Schizo Marine datasheet in a single, complete Codex. 

[Medjugorje]

I am against new supplements as well. Just let the epic heros of the non - ultramarines shine in their themed detachments. I mean even more buffs for Khan in a Stormlance instead of +1 to wound for all (just Ultramarines because they are straight the best of them) codex compliant chapters.

 

and then put all divergent Chapters out of that codex and make their supplement a full codex with more detachments without having access to SM ones.

They can even be very similar with just a few changes like GTF form into Angels task force with small changes to enhencements and strats (really not that much)

[Tacitus]

On 12/16/2024 at 8:46 AM, HeadlessCross said:

Have you not seen the other targets for those Strats? Lemartes' and Dante's units are gonna be taking most of them. It would be like stating regular Deathwing Terminators should get a points increase because of all the stuff Deathwing Knights can do with Strats you're using on them instead. 

That there are better targets does not mean JPAI's are not a good target.  He didn't say the Det wants to Buff others better, he said the Det doesn't want to buff JPAIs.

[Rhavien]

Some crazy ideas are flying around here.

Individual points for detachments?  How many factions do we have? At least 24 looking at the grotmas calender. Each faction with a full codex has how many detachments? 5 or 6? Supplements have three each. That means over 100 detachments in the end. Would be madness to think that anything good would happen if GW tries to pull that off. 

Also it's no fun to get penalized for taking the signature units from a detachment, because that's how it would work. You choose your detachment and build around it, because you are looking for a playstyle. Noone takes a storm lance detachment because he wants to run many tanks. I tell you, the result would be that you intentionally take a detachment where your units are cheap. Next you look for the most efficient units which can stand their ground without detachment bonuses and there you go. You have successfully ruined the intention and flavor of detachments. 

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Just got done with a game.

generic units only in LAG.

on the charge 2 aggressors absolutely dominated and destroyed a boxnaught on the charge. Wounding on 2s with full rerolls is kinda silly.

 

OoM buff will likely be locked to generic detachments for the next update.

[HeadlessCross]

4 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Just got done with a game.

generic units only in LAG.

on the charge 2 aggressors absolutely dominated and destroyed a boxnaught on the charge. Wounding on 2s with full rerolls is kinda silly.

 

OoM buff will likely be locked to generic detachments for the next update.

It's not that insane though, especially since you don't get the good Blood Angels units. I think the loophole is fine. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

It's not that insane though, especially since you don't get the good Blood Angels units. I think the loophole is fine. 

SG are only good if you have a character with them, DC are ok on their own, but again really need the investment of a character to make them actually good.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

31 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

It's not that insane though, especially since you don't get the good Blood Angels units. I think the loophole is fine. 

SG are only good if you have a character with them, DC are ok on their own, but again really need the investment of a character to make them actually good.

and to get the most out of either you need an even more expensive epic hero.

edit

but let’s look at it.

any other detachment they’re wounding on 5s +1 so 4s, with full reloads.

so in LAG they’re literally twice as likely to wound, and if they fail in the first attempt at least one is most likely going to survive the fight back, and for 1CP you can fall back, shoot and charge the next turn

Edited Monday at 12:24 AM by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[HeadlessCross]

16 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

SG are only good if you have a character with them, DC are ok on their own, but again really need the investment of a character to make them actually good.

Lots of units require characters to function, direct rules or not. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

Lots of units require characters to function, direct rules or not. 

If you say so.

aggressors don’t need a character to make them good.

 

SG and SC both literally don’t live up to their full potential without a character.

 

theres a massive difference between a unit that just benefits from a character and their abilities, and a unit that requires a character to do what it needs to do.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

If you say so.

aggressors don’t need a character to make them good.

 

SG and SC both literally don’t live up to their full potential without a character.

 

theres a massive difference between a unit that just benefits from a character and their abilities, and a unit that requires a character to do what it needs to do.

 

I disagree.  Aggressors are just okay on their own.  Biologis makes em nuts with the Lethal Hits.

Sanguinary Guard are just okay on their own.  Dante makes them really good with their durability and getting extra rerolls.

 

That's sort of how these things work in 10th.  There is a massive difference between a unit that is benefited by and a unit that is required, but I don't actually think there's many units that REQUIRE a leader, but I think pretty much every single marine unit gets better by virtue of having an attached character.  Part of the gameplay for army building with Space Marines is figuring out the balance you want for how many characters you're bringing and what they're leading.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

I disagree.  Aggressors are just okay on their own.  Biologis makes em nuts with the Lethal Hits.

Sanguinary Guard are just okay on their own.  Dante makes them really good with their durability and getting extra rerolls.

 

That's sort of how these things work in 10th.  There is a massive difference between a unit that is benefited by and a unit that is required, but I don't actually think there's many units that REQUIRE a leader, but I think pretty much every single marine unit gets better by virtue of having an attached character.  Part of the gameplay for army building with Space Marines is figuring out the balance you want for how many characters you're bringing and what they're leading.

SG have good durability now, but no their offensive ability on their own pales in comparison to aggressors, on top of which they’re more expensive. So slightly more durable, more mobile, but can’t do much once they get where they’re going…for a chapter renowned for melee…

[Karhedron]

In LAG, SG will mince anything T7 or below and there are stratagems to allow them to punch up against tougher targets. They really aren't designed for serious anti-tank work though but few infantry melee units are in 10th edition.