New Warhammer 40,000 Edition announced!

[Blindhamster]

Keep in mind that for many editions the combi part was single use. Would we want to go back to that? 

[Joe]

I for one support universal ammunition tracking in the game. What's that - your Ork Boyz squad has run out of bullets? It's choppin' time.

 

T'au players might be at a bid of a disadvantage, admittedly. 

[Mogger351]

25 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Keep in mind that for many editions the combi part was single use. Would we want to go back to that? 

Yeah, why not?

[Madao]

Can combi-weapon discussion be parked/moved to the separate thread?

[Mogger351]

11 minutes ago, Madao said:

Can combi-weapon discussion be parked/moved to the separate thread?

It's not really combiweapons being discussed, this is about what people want from a system and it's granularity and accessibility vs fluffy depth. The combi-weapon is simply a very clear example of a design process change begun in 10th and is a hot topic for 11th accordingly.

[MoriyaSchism]

40 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Keep in mind that for many editions the combi part was single use. Would we want to go back to that? 

I liked how Combi-weapons were handled in 8th edition, 9th edition and Kill Team's first reboot. Really enjoyed risking the to hit penalty to give a target both barrels. I wouldn't mind it being single use again either. Anything is better than multiple weapons being rolled into a single homogenous profile for reasons of "simplicity" while other factions have access to swords with different styles of strike and guns with different fire modes. I really don't like what they did to some Tyranid unit entries as well. Splitting warriors into two data sheets and how one of them doesn't have options while the Tyranid Prime has access to all three of the weapons present in the old warrior data sheet at the same time. The so-called streamlining of the rules is wildly inconsistent.

[Blindhamster]

13 minutes ago, MoriyaSchism said:

I liked how Combi-weapons were handled in 8th edition, 9th edition and Kill Team's first reboot. Really enjoyed risking the to hit penalty to give a target both barrels. I wouldn't mind it being single use again either. Anything is better than multiple weapons being rolled into a single homogenous profile for reasons of "simplicity" while other factions have access to swords with different styles of strike and guns with different fire modes. I really don't like what they did to some Tyranid unit entries as well. Splitting warriors into two data sheets and how one of them doesn't have options while the Tyranid Prime has access to all three of the weapons present in the old warrior data sheet at the same time. The so-called streamlining of the rules is wildly inconsistent.

For what it’s worth, I do actually agree that I’d like to see combi weapons go back to separate profiles 

[Karhedron]

37 minutes ago, MoriyaSchism said:

 I really don't like what they did to some Tyranid unit entries as well. Splitting warriors into two data sheets and how one of them doesn't have options while the Tyranid Prime has access to all three of the weapons present in the old warrior data sheet at the same time. The so-called streamlining of the rules is wildly inconsistent.

 

This one actually makes sense when you consider the rule of 3 (or 6 for Battleline). It means Nid players can really spam warriors if they want to. 

[01RTB01]

I'd like to see ork dreadnoughts being split for similar reasons. 

 

In a dread mob you could take 3 dreads yet 3 each of morkanaut and gorkanaut. 

 

Having the options for "dakka dreads" and "choppy dreads" would enable us to take more dreads. When marines have ballistus, redemptors and the choppy one enabling 9, orks in their actual dread mobs get left by the wayside.

[CastellanDeMolay]

2 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Sorry team, but that's a hard nope.

Conceptually Combi weapons are fantastic.Both in game and real life.

 

Anyone who has carried an underslung m203 or shotgun mount with their rifle will attest to this.

They are a fantastic force multiplier and are 100% suited to smaller elite units who need flexibility.

Exactly like Veteran Squads.

 

If my team could've had a combi plasma or melta I would have armed everyone except the gunners with them.

Do pardon me if I'm speaking out of turn, I don't have any real world experience handling firearms, but I don't know if that's a great analogy for Combi-Weapons, which are more like having an entirely different gun attached to your gun, whereas my understanding of those real-life attachments is that they're usually single shot and arguably make a much larger difference from firing an assault rifle than do most CWs from Bolters; what with real-life weaponry being more dangerous to people than stuff tends to be in 40k on account of all the armour they wear, on the tabletop at least, and the lack of granularity between alive/dead states in the game. 

I guess context makes a lot of difference here. Back when we had Vehicle Damage Tables a single Melta shot had the potential to be very decisive, potentially Wrecking or Exploding a tank or similar. That comparison definitely makes sense to me. Nowadays, your Melta shot might only chip a couple of Wounds from an enemy model, and not even reduce its combat effectiveness; stats have inflated and become that much more granular to accommodate the much larger units with which we now play. (probably another reason for the homogenous squad loadouts)

Interestingly, we do have underslung Grenade Launchers for 1 out of 5 Intercessors in a unit. While we don't get much of a simulation of the way grenades work, I think those do make enough of a difference from a Bolter to be worth giving them distinct profiles. Frag and Krak charges are fairly standard issue kit for SMs, so it makes sense from a logistical point of view, and presumably the launchers are fairly inexpensive to manufacture compared with a Plasma Gun, which is supposedly very difficult to manufacture and maintain as the technology is barely understood any longer. 

I do like the idea of Elite units being able to flexibly engage a wide variety of targets, much of the time their value proposition in the game isn't great because of how specialised they tend to be. That said, I dislike the idea of them being "the melta/plasma/grav squad", and I think there are better ways to achieve that goal than to give them options that effectively just double-up on the ability to take homogenous Special Weapon squads. 

[CastellanDeMolay]

2 hours ago, Mogger351 said:

It's not really combiweapons being discussed, this is about what people want from a system and it's granularity and accessibility vs fluffy depth. The combi-weapon is simply a very clear example of a design process change begun in 10th and is a hot topic for 11th accordingly.

It's easy to lose track of where we came from, but Rogue Trader and to an extent 2nd Edition were really skirmish games that didn't scale well due to the amount of book-keeping and the depth of the simulation, and games have only gotten larger in scale and scope since then. The transition from 2nd to 3rd was an immense simplification of the rules, probably even moreso than the difference between 3rd and 10th. It honestly feels strange to me at this point to not have something between Kill Team and 40k in size and depth. It's unsurprising because GW can't really monetize a deeper simulation in the way that they can sell more models. Perhaps it's time for Combat Patrol to be spun-off into its own system with more customisation options and a wider variety of game verbs? 

[HeadlessCross]

8 hours ago, Blindhamster said:

Keep in mind that for many editions the combi part was single use. Would we want to go back to that? 

How often did these suicide squads live more than a turn though? 

[brother_b]

I’d just like the game not to be boring, blobby blob vs blobby blob doing actions and card-game inspired combos. I’d like points and the ability to customize my squads as I see fit, not be held to box-locked loadouts. I’d like to move away from the land of architectural alphabet building tournament game boards. I’d like my Admech to not feel like a boardgame army having to for whatever reason keep my battle line next to my other units to confer a bonus (who thought that up? Heretical AI?)…

 

I’d like to play with my toy soldiers and have the game be about heroic deeds, tactical movement and gameplay, a reason to kitbash and convert, and a reason to keep putting time and money into my army because it feels like I have options.

 

I don’t want or need perfect balance or tournament stats. I need hobby and narrative!

 

Just my humble opinion. Praise the Omnissiah and Sanguinius.

 

#NoVanguardArquebus

[Orange Knight]

I think we need to temper our expectations when it comes to rules and how thematic the game will be with the update.

 

The 10th edition codex books will remain usable, and one thing they all lack is narrative theming. 

 

It's my biggest disappointment when it came to this edition. Even if the general game was simply an evolution of 10th, they should have dropped updated rules for all factions that do more to make the various units exciting and distinct, and worked to also clean up some of the bloat and messy faction rules.

Edited Monday at 06:41 AM by Orange Knight

[Blindhamster]

6 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

How often did these suicide squads live more than a turn though? 

Sternguard shouldn’t be suicide squads. That was always part of the problem

[Orange Knight]

6 minutes ago, Blindhamster said:

Sternguard shouldn’t be suicide squads. That was always part of the problem

 

I couldn't agree more with this.

 

We're all talking about narrative failings and yet people want the 1st company veterans to function as a throwaway unit?

[Subtleknife]

11 hours ago, CastellanDeMolay said:

Do pardon me if I'm speaking out of turn, I don't have any real world experience handling firearms, but I don't know if that's a great analogy for Combi-Weapons, which are more like having an entirely different gun attached to your gun, whereas my understanding of those real-life attachments is that they're usually single shot and arguably make a much larger difference from firing an assault rifle than do most CWs from Bolters; what with real-life weaponry being more dangerous to people than stuff tends to be in 40k on account of all the armour they wear, on the tabletop at least, and the lack of granularity between alive/dead states in the game. 

 

 

Nah, Castellan's anology was pretty on point imo. I assume the M203 works in a similar manner to the L123. As you say, combi weapons are like "having an entirely different gun attached to your gun". That is pretty much what an underslung grenade launcher is. It has its own seperate barrel and firing pin etc. 

 

Both plasma and melta weaponry have target profiles that bolters do not. In my personal experience, if this was IRL you would be strapping combi-weapons to every rifleman you could because it creates redundancy and is a big force multiplier, even if it was single shot (assuming its IRL range wasn't measured in inches like on the TT)

Edited Monday at 08:15 AM by Subtleknife

[Xenith]

30 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

I couldn't agree more with this.

 

We're all talking about narrative failings and yet people want the 1st company veterans to function as a throwaway unit?

 

I mean, in real life we don't have veteran badasses that are sent on missions to achieve a critical tactical objective, with low survival expectancy, right? 

 

You give stern guard the standard gun, they're going to be at range popping heads, but equip them with all meltas, as only that special unit can, then they have a very specific mission to do, one that they will not likely return from. Or they just might. 

 

I *hate* combi weapons this edition. Id rather go back to unlimited shots, profiles based on the weapon, but -1 to hit or something, or have the combi be the pistol equivalent of the gun. 

[Blindhamster]

I’d be fine with the idea of the combo part being the pistol equivalent - maybe with range closer to the full version. That would be an interesting twist for them. I’d also be fine with them just having bespoke profiles that are somewhere between pistol and normal but -1 to hit if you use both it and the bolter part.

 

 

[Orange Knight]

9 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

I mean, in real life we don't have veteran badasses that are sent on missions to achieve a critical tactical objective, with low survival expectancy, right? 

 

You give stern guard the standard gun, they're going to be at range popping heads, but equip them with all meltas, as only that special unit can, then they have a very specific mission to do, one that they will not likely return from. Or they just might. 

 

I *hate* combi weapons this edition. Id rather go back to unlimited shots, profiles based on the weapon, but -1 to hit or something, or have the combi be the pistol equivalent of the gun. 

 

But these are Space Marines. Sci Fi Knights with centuries of experience that are limited in number and precious.

They wouldn't form a plan where they get their centuries-old veterans killed in the opening of a battle.

 

The tactic we're discussing is much more suited to the Hellblasters. Line warriors armed with dangerous plasma weapons, and they even have rules built around their deaths.

 

I run my Sternguard as a mid game engagement unit, popping from cover to cover as they clear out infantry and also engage more durable enemies thanks to their devastating wound rules.

[Antarius]

I think part of the reasoning for "not giving every single veteran the specific "best" combi-weapon" comes down to "fluff reasons" and that the lore of Astartes (and 40K in general) is fundamentally not built around what would make the best strategic sense in a real world/gameplay optimisation mindset. You wouldn't send soldiers into battle with swords and shields, either (even if they were as powerful as they are in 40K) because it would be completely impractical and useless in a modern war. But it's an iconic mainstay of 40K and thus, in many cases, we just have to drop the "but in the real world we would/wouldn't do like this" justification, because 40K fundamentally doesn't work like the real world in those areas.

On the one hand, these weapons are supposed to be rare, borderline relics that are treasured and honored by the individual marine, so they're not likely to all have the exact same gun that will be "best" in the current metagame.
On the other hand, they will probably seek to be equipped for everything and so wll be more likely to have a smattering of different weapons because they will be useful in different situations (something that does make sense for a veteran squad likely to be sent into lots of different theatres, but again, not from a redundancy/gameplay optimisation mindset).
Finally, first company veterans may occasionally be called upon to sacrifice themselves, but it's obviously not their intended battlefield role in any way, shape or form. So having them be most useful (or only useful)  in that role is kinda a failure  on the part of both players and rules.

Honestly, while I think the current option is less flavourful than I would like (and I also tend to think the current combiweapon should just be better than it is), I kinda think it's a reasonable compromise. Although I guess I would prefer the combiweapon to be able to choose from different profiles like some melee weapons.

[Lexington]

I get GW wanting to move away from specific Combi-Weapons, given how difficult it can be to include all the available options in a single kit. Also, hey, the visual variety you get with current rules is very fun. That said, I'd prefer having "Combi-Weapon" as a single profile/weapon to keep all the models valid, then have units armed with them just choose a single "type" for the secondary gun at deployment, regardless of which one the individual models are armed with. Keeps the idea that they're not some unique type of weapon, there's actually a flamer/melta/plasma attached to a Bolter, but makes the hobby process a little less maddening.

[Captain Idaho]

It just all feels a bit... bland.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 hours ago, Subtleknife said:

 

Nah, Castellan's anology was pretty on point imo. I assume the M203 works in a similar manner to the L123. As you say, combi weapons are like "having an entirely different gun attached to your gun". That is pretty much what an underslung grenade launcher is. It has its own seperate barrel and firing pin etc. 

 

Both plasma and melta weaponry have target profiles that bolters do not. In my personal experience, if this was IRL you would be strapping combi-weapons to every rifleman you could because it creates redundancy and is a big force multiplier, even if it was single shot (assuming its IRL range wasn't measured in inches like on the TT)

We wouldn’t be strapping combi weapons onto every rifleman. As pointed out we have underbarrel weapons, and they’re not remotely given to every rifleman.

we give one grenadier a UGL, and even then the UGL is largely being abandoned in many militaries in favor of stand alone grenade launchers again.

[Indy Techwisp]

20 hours ago, Joe said:

T'au players might be at a bid of a disadvantage, admittedly. 

T'au players bypass the ammo system entirely because all of their guns are nuclear powered and as such have effectively infinite ammo (except Kroot, but Kroot also do want to end up in Melee anyway.)