How We Roll (Codex Design Interview)

[Mana]

On 12/24/2024 at 2:40 AM, crimsondave said:

I know I’m in the minority here but I feel GW’s obsession with shortening the game has been a driving factor in losing a lot of the details that are missing in 10th.  Just playing 1000 point games would shorten them plenty but wouldn’t sell as many models.

 

On 12/24/2024 at 9:05 AM, Xenith said:

 

Agree - the current system of 40k is decent for 1000-1500pt games, which is probably what the designers play, and was the common/standard point level in the UK for decades. The 2k point level has really come out of the US tournament system, which we can very clearly see that the designers do not optimise for. This pervades the design space too, like giving big monsters strike and sweep attacks to deal with all comers as you lack resources at 1000 or 1500, while at 2k you can have your cake and eat it, and then big monsters that can deal with everything are no brainer icing on the cake. 

 

I agree with both of you. What i would like to see is another general points increase for everyone, to make what today is a 1.500 points army a 2.000 points one. That would make the games shorter, and many unit selections more important/interesting.

[Karhedron]

2 minutes ago, Mana said:

I agree with both of you. What i would like to see is another general points increase for everyone, to make what today is a 1.500 points army a 2.000 points one. That would make the games shorter, and many unit selections more important/interesting.

 

Or you just play 1500 points anyway. 

 

If GW repriced everything, tournaments would just switch to 2500 points and we would be back to square one. 

[Mana]

Yeah could be, shame. Some armies have a lot of units in 2000 points games, it's too much for my taste.

[ZeroWolf]

The question would be why that became the de facto points limit? I would have thought that tournaments would have gone lower, to allow for more games.

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

The question would be why that became the de facto points limit? I would have thought that tournaments would have gone lower, to allow for more games.

Because 40k is really the main rules system that supports games of that size. If you wanted to do smaller games, you might as well go for a better rule system. 

[jaxom]

I always heard it was for the reasons @Xenith mentioned: tournament players wanted their cake and to eat it too. 2k let them build lists that cover most bases.

[AutumnEffect]

8 hours ago, jaxom said:

I always heard it was for the reasons @Xenith mentioned: tournament players wanted their cake and to eat it too. 2k let them build lists that cover most bases.

 

This is what I have heard as well.
I enjoy smaller point games, but have heard that it creates problems with skew lists.

[sairence]

10 hours ago, jaxom said:

I always heard it was for the reasons @Xenith mentioned: tournament players wanted their cake and to eat it too. 2k let them build lists that cover most bases.

 

I don't think that's true, and cones across as just another one of those pointless and wholly incorrect "competitive players are ruining it for everyone" statements.

 

Lower points were the norm for pick up and competitive games, and you could build complete lists at those levels just fine.

 

GW decided to increase them to 2k and then designed their entire balancing around that game size. The result is that trying to run a competitive event at lower points now just means you introduce a whole lot of auto-losses in certain match ups. The system just isn't build for it any more.

 

And just to reiterate a point everyone should always be aware of: None of the above is relevant for friendly or narrative games. In those the biggest balancing tool is talking with your opponent beforehand.

 

 

 

 

[jaxom]

21 minutes ago, sairence said:

GW decided to increase them to 2k

As far as I know it was the ATC and ITC who made the change after GW stopped being involved in the tournament scene. I thought GW only embraced 2000 points for competition because of years of ATC and ITC establishing a framework they could co-opt when GW decided to get involved again. I want to say circa 2014?

[Joe]

It should really be rather telling that across decades of White Dwarf battle reports the points limit at which the majority of games are played is still 1500.

[Xenith]

On 12/25/2024 at 6:14 PM, ZeroWolf said:

The question would be why that became the de facto points limit? I would have thought that tournaments would have gone lower, to allow for more games.

 

Because for decades, 1500pts was the standard UK game size, and GW Grand tournaments were played at this size from 3rd until they went away in...5/6th? The US tourney scene was still very vibrant, and (anecdotally through discussion online) ran at higher points levels "to have all the toys", with the hyper competitive 'Ard Boyz' tournament being at 3000pts as many players online they felt that they couldn't make a "take all comers" list at less than 2000/2500 pts. The US point limit was set by the point level that players felt was the minimum they could make a strong army at. If you change point levels people will complain that their army is overpriced and they can't get all the toys they want in it, people will shift to other underpoints armies, and thus begins another codex creep race to the bottom. 

 

 

GW have also now realised that they can sell 33% more stuff by moving to 2000 over 1500. 

[Karhedron]

5 hours ago, Xenith said:

GW have also now realised that they can sell 33% more stuff by moving to 2000 over 1500. 

 

Yeah but who stops collecting just because they reach an arbitrary total? 

[Emperor Ming]

Im surprised its not 2500 by now

[HeadlessCross]

4 minutes ago, Emperor Ming said:

Im surprised its not 2500 by now

Honestly I'd prefer that with how good the last iteration of rules Apocalypse had. 

[crimsondave]

3 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Yeah but who stops collecting just because they reach an arbitrary total? 

I will have like 60 Deathwing Terminators when I get them painted which is double the legal limit so definitely not me.  

[Evil Eye]

Speaking of limits on what you can take in an army, one major element of the "oversimplify then add layers of crap on top" aspect of modern 40K I think doesn't work is the Rule of 3. Obviously this was put in place to stop the spamming of certain units, which makes perfect sense. The problem is we already had a much better solution to that, and it was called the Force Organization Chart. Having things categorized by role and having limits as to how many of each unit type you could take was IMO at least much better than "no more than three of any unit, otherwise go nuts". More restrictive, yes, but still ultimately better for encouraging cohesive armies. Personally I'd argue a WHFB styled rarity-based system would be a bit better than a strictly role-based system, but anything is better than nothing. It's not even an especially difficult concept to comprehend- I can understand why some concepts got the axe for streamlining (like vehicle facings) even if I personally disagreed with the decision, but something as simple as "These units are [X] and you can take a maximum of 3 [X] units in an army" really should have stayed.

[Frogian]

On 12/24/2024 at 9:05 AM, Xenith said:

Agree - the current system of 40k is decent for 1000-1500pt games, which is probably what the designers play, and was the common/standard point level in the UK for decades.

And of course things used to cost way more points. A 1500pt army in 2nd/3rd ed is less than 1k pts now, so standard game size has essentially doubled.

 

This is a 1500pt 2nd ed army - would be under 900 now with modern equivalents

 

 

The only games of 10th I've played have been 1k, similar size to what i was playing in the nineties in terms of model count, and there is plenty of room and time for all the special rules at that size.

 

Edited December 28, 2024 by Frogian

[Jareddm]

19 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Yeah but who stops collecting just because they reach an arbitrary total? 

I used to think this too, then I met a tournament exclusive player. Six armies, all exactly 2,000 points and not a scrap of plastic more. Everything excess gets sold immediately.

[Dark Shepherd]

18 hours ago, Emperor Ming said:

Im surprised its not 2500 by now

Id hate to see that with the new table sizes :)

[HeadlessCross]

7 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Speaking of limits on what you can take in an army, one major element of the "oversimplify then add layers of crap on top" aspect of modern 40K I think doesn't work is the Rule of 3. Obviously this was put in place to stop the spamming of certain units, which makes perfect sense. The problem is we already had a much better solution to that, and it was called the Force Organization Chart. Having things categorized by role and having limits as to how many of each unit type you could take was IMO at least much better than "no more than three of any unit, otherwise go nuts". More restrictive, yes, but still ultimately better for encouraging cohesive armies. Personally I'd argue a WHFB styled rarity-based system would be a bit better than a strictly role-based system, but anything is better than nothing. It's not even an especially difficult concept to comprehend- I can understand why some concepts got the axe for streamlining (like vehicle facings) even if I personally disagreed with the decision, but something as simple as "These units are [X] and you can take a maximum of 3 [X] units in an army" really should have stayed.

Anyone that thinks the old FOC would fix things does not understand how dumb the game was back then, too. All it did was "Mandatory Troop Tax". Death Guard armies would legitimately be the same as they are now with just the 2-3 squads of Cultists/Zombies and the rest into Terminators/Vehicles/Mortarion.

 

The quick fix for that potential issue would've been how they categorize Battle Size. You get up to three of a unit in Incursion, four in Strike Force, and five in Onslaught. Bam, done. 

[Evil Eye]

It might not fix things by itself but it would certainly help. Hell, back in the day you used to have certain units that were capped at 0-1 (Obliterators in Chaos 3.5e, Zoanthropes and Biovores in Tyranids 4E etc) to avoid spamming, which would also be helpful.

 

Though a lot of this discussion seems to be depending on the idea that competitive/tourney play is the ideal way to play, which of course it definitely isn't. Said it before, will say it again; The tourney crowd will bust the game wide open regardless, it's best to leave them to their own thing and otherwise ignore them for the purposes of game design. MAke a fun game for the narrative/casual level first and foremost, let tournmaent-goers do what they will with the system.

[HeadlessCross]

21 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

It might not fix things by itself but it would certainly help. Hell, back in the day you used to have certain units that were capped at 0-1 (Obliterators in Chaos 3.5e, Zoanthropes and Biovores in Tyranids 4E etc) to avoid spamming, which would also be helpful.

 

Though a lot of this discussion seems to be depending on the idea that competitive/tourney play is the ideal way to play, which of course it definitely isn't. Said it before, will say it again; The tourney crowd will bust the game wide open regardless, it's best to leave them to their own thing and otherwise ignore them for the purposes of game design. MAke a fun game for the narrative/casual level first and foremost, let tournmaent-goers do what they will with the system.

And then you run into problems like Iron Warriors getting as many Obliterators as they want, and other Legions suffer for that alone. 

 

If a unit is broken, it's broken regardless if you can spam it or not. 

[Cleon]

It's really an issue of complexity - The simple solution to spamming is a cost inflator - a 5% increase for each additional instance of a unit (for example and you could exempt 'troops') is a pretty elegant disincentive to spamming, but it makes the maths of army building harder (and we are already not deemed smart enough to add wargear points so I can't see that happening).

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, Cleon said:

It's really an issue of complexity - The simple solution to spamming is a cost inflator - a 5% increase for each additional instance of a unit (for example and you could exempt 'troops') is a pretty elegant disincentive to spamming, but it makes the maths of army building harder (and we are already not deemed smart enough to add wargear points so I can't see that happening).

Which is a terrible idea to defend GW's "one of every unit and one of every upgrade" list building. 

 

It wasn't a good idea with the wargear for Crisis Suits and it sure isn't a good idea with unit entries. 

[Karhedron]

22 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

Anyone that thinks the old FOC would fix things does not understand how dumb the game was back then, too. All it did was "Mandatory Troop Tax".

 

Agreed. I prefer the current edition as it gives Troops (or Battleline) units abilities like sticky ObjSec that actually make them worth taking. This is much better than being forced to take mandatory Troops that we don't want.