Codex: Space Marines | Multi-Part Intercessor & Vanguard Vet Teaser | Legends Culling

[Mogger351]

8 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

I don't think this is happening at all. 

 

Orks are also tougher and stronger, straight out of the gate.

 

I expect Guardsmen, Eldar, Tau will stay at toughness 3, but I also expect that Guard will get even more powerful Tanks, Eldar will be even quicker, and Tau might have expanded capabilities we haven't yet considered (I generally don't like Tau and feel their army needs a big re-think in how it functions).

 

I imagine Sisters will eventually be toughness 4. I don't know if regular bolters will become Str5 because that impacts a lot of things outside of Marines. I suppose you can seperate Astartes Bolters from Human Bolters. Votann will probably become more durable as well.

Guard now need more powerful tanks given line intercessors can hurt them on 5s, it is mathematically slightly stronger now as well in isolation.

 

Eldar getting faster becomes a problem on such small boards if we're talking about a base M9 army. Honestly at a minimum you're looking at tau guns all going up in strength to restore their status quo, not that they haven't been eroded into a horde.

 

Sisters going to t4 is fair and good, makes no difference to the marines, so they'll cop a price rise that does nothing into 50% of the playerbase. Likewise if they don't get s5 bolters they're sat in the feeling weak camp.

 

Votann going to base T6, sure, but most of these either partially undo the "making marines special" that is being defended, or leaves the other factions feeling toothless.

 

I'll leave it there, because as I said, this is a marine heavy board and understandably people will be happy with feeling special, just be ready for a lot more mirror matches.

[Griefbringer]

8 hours ago, The Lost Son said:

There's a few reasons both in and out of universe for the predator (and most marine tanks) sharing hulls. 

 

Firstly STC, Games Workshop's second greatest cost saving initiative.

Much like the original Titanicus doubling sprues and inventing the heresy to justify it the standard template construction allowed for a single sprue to be cut in plastic and then much cheaper metal moulds to be used for new variants. All Imperial vehicles followed this pattern. 

 

Actually, the original WH40K Predator design from the late 1980's was essentially a plastic upgrade sprue for the existing Rhino plastic sprues, so not entirely a trivial investment. See here for a picture (notice the very rounded turret design):

 

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1991a/cat1991ap028predator-01.htm

 

That said, to make most of it, it was available to both space marine and imperial guard forces - as were most of the plastic and metal vehicles at the time, except walkers (IG got the Sentinels, while marines had dreadnoughts). The epic rules introduced more IG-only vehicles, but these were for long only available in that scale - WH40K scale versions for these only started coming out in the mid-90's, starting with the Leman Russ.

 

As for producing metal add-on parts for the plastic WH40K vehicles, that also starts to appear in the mid-90's, first with Razorback, followed by Whirlwind, various IG vehicles (LR Demolisher, Hellhound, Griffon) and eventually the two predator variants.

 

Coincidentally, in Epic scale the idea of metal add-on bits for plastic kits was introduced earlier, with all sorts of metal options for plastic Warlord titans available separately from 1990 onwards. Later on, a whole chaos Banelord titan plastic/metal kit was released:

 

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1993/cat1993p495-00.htm

[Xenith]

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

[Mogger351]

3 minutes ago, Xenith said:

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

Yeah this is likely the outcome, then 3w marines next time and so on.

[Antarius]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

Being the best basic infantry at everything apart from custodes wasn't really the aim, they have traditionally been elite due to their armour and being marginally above average skill.

 

Maybe the stop game lethality button needed addressing instead of hitting the stat inflate one.

The latter part I agree with; the codex drip, arms race and stop-start mode of balancing the game is silly. But that's not an entirely new issue or something that is really solvable, as long as that's the business model. I also agree that it would be a lot better if they turned the heat down on a lot of things and made the game less lethal, rather than buff everything until we're back where we started (it remains to be seen if they'll do this, but it's certainly a concern).

The first part may have been true in game terms, but thematically, marines were certainly always meant to be more than "marginally above average" and furthermore, in the game's earlier days, that above average stat line actually meant a whole lot more in game terms too.

If we take a slightly longer view of the issue, Marines have had a completely static statline (and so has most of their weaponry) for most of the game's life and consequently have been hit very hard by the arms race inflation way before the last couple of editions rolled around (and as a consequence they gradually had their points dropped as their stats and armour became increasingly useless, because everyone else apparently needed "delete marine"-guns).
We don't have to go that far back to get to a time where the mainline marine unit tacticals just weren't taken as anything except a minimum size "troops tax" unit, and even then, "good" players usually took two scout squads instead. AFAICT the new mainline marines have been in a similar position until they got special rules to make them pump out a crazy amount of shots and I don't see a lot of people considering them a good unit even now.

 

So yeah, marine stats absolutely needed bumping up, whether the statline was expanded or not. Now that the statline has expanded, there's no reason for marines to be stuck with a pre-expansion statline for the next 25 years. That they should obviously go up in points to reflect that is another matter - and so is our expectation that the balancing will eventually be poorly handled.

Edited yesterday at 08:29 AM by Antarius

[Mogger351]

18 minutes ago, Antarius said:

The latter part I agree with; the codex drip, arms race and stop-start mode of balancing the game is silly. But that's not an entirely new issue or something that is really solvable, as long as that's the business model. I also agree that it would be a lot better if they turned the heat down on a lot of things and made the game less lethal, rather than buff everything until we're back where we started (it remains to be seen if they'll do this, but it's certainly a concern).

The first part may have been true in game terms, but thematically, marines were certainly always meant to be more than "marginally above average" and furthermore, in the game's earlier days, that above average stat line actually meant a whole lot more in game terms too.

If we take a slightly longer view of the issue, Marines have had a completely static statline (and so has most of their weaponry) for most of the game's life and consequently have been hit very hard by the arms race inflation way before the last couple of editions rolled around (and as a consequence they gradually had their points dropped as their stats and armour became increasingly useless, because everyone else apparently needed "delete marine"-guns).
We don't have to go that far back to get to a time where the mainline marine unit tacticals just weren't taken as anything except a minimum size "troops tax" unit, and even then, "good" players usually took two scout squads instead. AFAICT the new mainline marines have been in a similar position until they got special rules to make them pump out a crazy amount of shots and I don't see a lot of people considering them a good unit even now.

 

So yeah, marine stats absolutely needed bumping up, whether the statline was expanded or not. Now that the statline has expanded, there's no reason for marines to be stuck with a pre-expansion statline for the next 25 years. That they should obviously go up in points to reflect that is another matter - and so is our expectation that the balancing will eventually be poorly handled.

Yeah I largely agree, I expect it'll go back to the status quo with different numbers over the next 3-6 years and I expect GW will completely fudge the balance of this because it's system wide impact.

 

Back in the way back when of 3rd (as far back as my knowledge will go) a marine had above average S/T/I/sv/bs/ws/ld, all by 1 point to the bulk of other infantry, which wasn't as much of a problem as this as other factions hit less frequently, or slower, or didn't save as well. I agree that certainly since 8th, there's an annoying constant drive of people branding their own things "specialists" which must hit as often as a marine does as a minimum, get rerolls and then another rule on top.

 

I'd much rather that get dialled back and leave the weapons where they were in terms of interaction (even if it had different numbers).

 

Honestly the real culprit behind this is corporate cowardice imo. They knew an index edition would cause backlash, it was better to have the big splash of an edition launch and have a messy nasty rollout in the edition, than use good communications and try to build some customer goodwill.

[Orange Knight]

I can't predict how this will pan out, just from the snippets we have.

The Intercessor preview - they are more durable yes, but they have less output at range and are less mobile because they actually have to sit on the objectives. I have to see more of the Codex units and more 11th edition codex books before I can judge if this is "an escalation of the arms race" or a more thematic re-jig of unit profiles.

[Indy Techwisp]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

 

I don't think this is happening at all. 

 

Orks are also tougher and stronger, straight out of the gate.

 

I expect Guardsmen, Eldar, Tau will stay at toughness 3, but I also expect that Guard will get even more powerful Tanks, Eldar will be even quicker, and Tau might have expanded capabilities we haven't yet considered (I generally don't like Tau and feel their army needs a big re-think in how it functions).

 

I imagine Sisters will eventually be toughness 4. I don't know if regular bolters will become Str5 because that impacts a lot of things outside of Marines. I suppose you can seperate Astartes Bolters from Human Bolters. Votann will probably become more durable as well.

 

T'au used to have the somewhat unique status of their basic Infantry gun being good enough to punch through marine armour (tho the move to 2w Marines made this less lethal than it was previously).

We could see T'au get a sweeping change to just punch in shots harder against high toughness Infantry.

[Rhavien]

Is there someone who's proficient with orks in here? How are the codex detachments compared to the old one's from 10th? Was there a lot of change within rules, strats and enhancements? What can marines expect? 

[Rhavien]

Just now, Indy Techwisp said:

 

T'au used to have the somewhat unique status of their basic Infantry gun being good enough to punch through marine armour (tho the move to 2w Marines made this less lethal than it was previously).

We could see T'au get a sweeping change to just punch in shots harder against high toughness Infantry.

The pulse rifle? It never punched through marine armour. As far as I remember it was AP5 back in the all or nothing times and it's even AP- right now? It's outstanding trait was the S5.

[Indy Techwisp]

5 minutes ago, Rhavien said:

The pulse rifle? It never punched through marine armour. As far as I remember it was AP5 back in the all or nothing times and it's even AP- right now? It's outstanding trait was the S5.

 

I worded it awfully.

Yes, their thing was stupid good weapon strength and if all the Marines are going up that might increase as well to match.

[Orange Knight]

I don't want to get off topic regarding the Tau. When I said that I think Tau need a re-think, I was referring to the fact that their army is more one-dimensional than other factions. No psykers, very limited close combat, etc etc.
They are the Xenos mirror of the Guard, but fall far short in terms of character. Necrons, Nids, Orks, Eldar are better realised.

Not sure exactly how I would alter them - perhaps take some ideas from AdMech and introduce a more layer approach to abilities built around commanding Ethereals.

[DarkAddick]

Apologies for being slow but will there be actual codices for the divergent chapters over time or will it be this book plus what’s on the app/website?

[Mogger351]

54 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I don't want to get off topic regarding the Tau. When I said that I think Tau need a re-think, I was referring to the fact that their army is more one-dimensional than other factions. No psykers, very limited close combat, etc etc.
They are the Xenos mirror of the Guard, but fall far short in terms of character. Necrons, Nids, Orks, Eldar are better realised.

Not sure exactly how I would alter them - perhaps take some ideas from AdMech and introduce a more layer approach to abilities built around commanding Ethereals.

 

I'm not sure how that results in a more coherent end to your posed query though. That just moves the army mechanic from markerlights to aura stacking. It still leaves their melee units weak (even weaker than now due to wounding on 5's), and relying on ranged superiority which is again lessened by the changes.

If you're suggesting a gun-kata method to allow crisis suits to shoot into melee more to allow melee methods (with a corresponding durability buff imo), maybe some more auxillary races to allow psykers and enhance some more synergy between the ranged and melee overlap, that'd be great. I think kroot will need some help now, but if you bump them too much so they can be run as a melee army, their identity is watered down further.

[Orange Knight]

3 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

 

I'm not sure how that results in a more coherent end to your posed query though. That just moves the army mechanic from markerlights to aura stacking. It still leaves their melee units weak (even weaker than now due to wounding on 5's), and relying on ranged superiority which is again lessened by the changes.

If you're suggesting a gun-kata method to allow crisis suits to shoot into melee more to allow melee methods (with a corresponding durability buff imo), maybe some more auxillary races to allow psykers and enhance some more synergy between the ranged and melee overlap, that'd be great. I think kroot will need some help now, but if you bump them too much so they can be run as a melee army, their identity is watered down further.

 

Ethereals have more personality than marker-lights lol.
 

I imagine they could lean into them as characters, add very thematic rule and abilities. Just an idea, nothing more.

[phandaal]

4 hours ago, Xenith said:

Here's the joke - marines will get a point bump at the start of the edition as they get all these new super powers and win tourneys, but as the edition progresses and GW bumps other weapons back to being able to wound marines, they'll get weaker and get point drops so you need to buy more. And we're back to the start.

 

This is that happens when you hire inexperienced videogame designers to balance a game.

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

[Xenith]

2 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

this is "an escalation of the arms race" or a more thematic re-jig of unit profiles

It can be both 

 

I look at howling banshees, whose schtick forever was being perfect marine killers with power weapons. The move to 2W, bonus T and strats like AoC made them redundant until they were boosted with anti infantry 3+, bonus AP and 2D. 

 

All other anti-elite-infantry weapons will need a buff or point drop to compensate for this. Or as we see, some move to a stupid "devastating wounds but not against non-INFANTRY" as GW uses more and more words and special rules to fix the problems they created.

4 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

Yea, you can imagine that pitch session at a board meeting - "we're going to make marines elite so people can buy less" probably right up there with " games take too long, let's move the standard back to 1500pts".

[01RTB01]

3 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Also, "we are going to sell fewer Space Marines" is not a line that will go far at HQ. It is hard to see them lasting extremely long as a truly elite army.

That depends arguably. 

 

Not to turn it into a pricing thread but starting 40k from scratch is expensive. There are so many games out there now that are accessible and significantly cheaper. 

 

An individual buying less marines or otherwise is one thing. They're surely better off with more people buying stuff rather than just fewer buying?

 

I think the fact that combat patrol isn't mentioned in the new codexes is bizarre. Spearhead for AoS is a legitimate way to play the game. I don't understand why 40k has dumped combat patrol by comparison when it's clearly a format that could work. 

 

 

[Brother Carpenter]

Thank god I just heard I dont have a job anymore so am spares all this and i have ample time to spend on my grey pile of firstborn shame. Think ill start with devestators

[Valkyrion]

This is the problem with codex (and edition) release cycle, though I'm not sure there is a really viable alternative.

Orks come next week, Marines a month later, then one a month no doubt until 20+ months later depending on who gets full books or who remains folded in. If it stopped there, and 12th came along in 2030 instead of 2029 then everyone would have 2 years of updated armies and things like this obvious power creep would feel less bad.

 

It seems like its the Codexes themselves that are the problem because the power creep is tied to physical releases, and I know GW aren't going to offer free rules in totality, but perhaps a subscription based codex PDF website that uploads every faction codex upon an edition release could work.

 

So, as an example, on day 1 of 11th edition Codex Space Marines is instantly available with all of the new profiles, detachments and everything, but whatever new releases that are in the pipeline are NOT included until they themselves are released. In this case, there'd be no Captain on Bike datasheet.  Physical books could still come out in line with their intended release. This way the people that just play at home can ignore the subscription and wait for the physical release, but the competitive scene is immediately updated and ready to go. 

 

 

 

[Mogger351]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

This is the problem with codex (and edition) release cycle, though I'm not sure there is a really viable alternative.

Orks come next week, Marines a month later, then one a month no doubt until 20+ months later depending on who gets full books or who remains folded in. If it stopped there, and 12th came along in 2030 instead of 2029 then everyone would have 2 years of updated armies and things like this obvious power creep would feel less bad.

 

It seems like its the Codexes themselves that are the problem because the power creep is tied to physical releases, and I know GW aren't going to offer free rules in totality, but perhaps a subscription based codex PDF website that uploads every faction codex upon an edition release could work.

 

So, as an example, on day 1 of 11th edition Codex Space Marines is instantly available with all of the new profiles, detachments and everything, but whatever new releases that are in the pipeline are NOT included until they themselves are released. In this case, there'd be no Captain on Bike datasheet.  Physical books could still come out in line with their intended release. This way the people that just play at home can ignore the subscription and wait for the physical release, but the competitive scene is immediately updated and ready to go. 

 

 

 

 

They run away from their problems. They've burned customers with the binning of 6 month old armies after making them wait and heard the complaints so they wouldn't index the game despite it clearly needing it. Announcing an index edition would be considered bad/dangerous and they wouldn't want to deal with the backlash.

 

Instead they've opted to let the sales and hype happen and then fumble the changes in a hap-hazard way that will result in feels-bads somewhere for someone, but without the mass vocal outrage. It's also possible to leverage it as a sales tactic, because this is very "we're not selling supporting these kits, but quickly, distraction.... HYPE UP THE NEW STATS! MARINES ARE AWESOME, BUY SOME!".

 

Then as we rotate around the other factions they get a big power boost to drive hype and sales.

What they could do instead is be upfront and honest. Explain that they need to adjust things upfront, but as a result they are making big rules updates and codex will exist as a code to unlock a faction for this edition period and if unlocked they remain unlocked. They could tell us that they will release kits and rules for all armies in more frequent smaller releases over the edition, they could tell us they want to try new game formats and narrative expansions. They could opt to make the edition longer and simple re-release a new starter set halfway through with a v2 rulebook etc. Even with legends, they could upfront explain that they need to shrink SKU range and some models will be phased out, but will be paired with a release to take the sting out etc.

 

The risk of impact to the bottom line via deviation seems to dissuade them from positive honest engagement.

[Captain Idaho]

Whilst some people might like to grumble but give in anyway and buy Primaris, I can honestly say I've gone the other way.

 

I've sold my 40K Ultramarines. They're dead to me, I don't have unlimited space and screw it, I'd rather have the money for Magic the Gathering or video games.

 

More than that, I saw what Horus Heresy did to that game. Look at how many iconic Heresy units were dropped at the beginning of the edition then corporate realised the backlash so released a rushed PDF.

 

GW had it's defenders, sure. They said it was always intended. But we know that once you're in a Legends status you have 1 edition then you're done. Or none in the case of Devastators and Tactical Marines or Assault Marines that weren't even listed.

 

And the PDF had the dates of updates on it and people saw that and it's online dor us to see. GW never intended to give us Destroyers or many of the selections.

 

Rules notwithstanding (which I detest for both 40K and to a lesser extend Heresy) the trust has gone. So I can't be bothered to buy into Heresy now either.

 

That's a longer explanation than perhaps necessary, but essentially the business model of Games Workshop has lost much of my interest. I do NOT give them my hard fought income.

 

I'll play some out of production, unsupported games that I kept the miniatures for, generally skirmish games. I've got Old World and Legions Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus. Necromunda too.

 

Already got those models, ebay and my 3D printer covers the rest.

 

In summary I'm trying to demonstrate a loss in trust. Games Workshop has lost me as a long term supporter, someone who followed each edition of 40K excitedly.

 

If you believe your loyal investment to Primaris will be rewarded with a return in loyalty, take a look at Suppressors, Hammerfell bunker, or impending doom of Outriders etc. Look at Uriel or Pedro Kantor.

 

The narrative that "Games Workshop is a business and will want to replace models so Firstborn were always due to go" is a logic that holds with Primaris too.

 

And looking at Magic the Gathering comparatively, they have made precious few cards obsolete despite being around for a similar amount of time as Games Workshop. 

 

If MtG can do it, whilst having much cleaner rules added in, why can't Games Workshop maintain consistent and published rules for historic items? I mean, we know the myriad of answers to that, the point I'm making is they bloody well should.

[roryokane]

2 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

Whilst some people might like to grumble but give in anyway and buy Primaris, I can honestly say I've gone the other way.

 

I've sold my 40K Ultramarines. They're dead to me, I don't have unlimited space and screw it, I'd rather have the money for Magic the Gathering or video games.

 

More than that, I saw what Horus Heresy did to that game. Look at how many iconic Heresy units were dropped at the beginning of the edition then corporate realised the backlash so released a rushed PDF.

 

GW had it's defenders, sure. They said it was always intended. But we know that once you're in a Legends status you have 1 edition then you're done. Or none in the case of Devastators and Tactical Marines or Assault Marines that weren't even listed.

 

And the PDF had the dates of updates on it and people saw that and it's online dor us to see. GW never intended to give us Destroyers or many of the selections.

 

Rules notwithstanding (which I detest for both 40K and to a lesser extend Heresy) the trust has gone. So I can't be bothered to buy into Heresy now either.

 

That's a longer explanation than perhaps necessary, but essentially the business model of Games Workshop has lost much of my interest. I do NOT give them my hard fought income.

 

I'll play some out of production, unsupported games that I kept the miniatures for, generally skirmish games. I've got Old World and Legions Imperialis and Adeptus Titanicus. Necromunda too.

 

Already got those models, ebay and my 3D printer covers the rest.

 

In summary I'm trying to demonstrate a loss in trust. Games Workshop has lost me as a long term supporter, someone who followed each edition of 40K excitedly.

 

If you believe your loyal investment to Primaris will be rewarded with a return in loyalty, take a look at Suppressors, Hammerfell bunker, or impending doom of Outriders etc. Look at Uriel or Pedro Kantor.

 

The narrative that "Games Workshop is a business and will want to replace models so Firstborn were always due to go" is a logic that holds with Primaris too.

 

And looking at Magic the Gathering comparatively, they have made precious few cards obsolete despite being around for a similar amount of time as Games Workshop. 

 

If MtG can do it, whilst having much cleaner rules added in, why can't Games Workshop maintain consistent and published rules for historic items? I mean, we know the myriad of answers to that, the point I'm making is they bloody well should.

This is very much giving the vibe of that Iron Warrior who says "Thunder warriors" to a Firstborn chaplain leading some new primaris marines in one of the novellas released in 8th/9th ed.

You're not wrong - I've not played 40k in what must be 2 decades now. I used to... acquire... PDFs of the codices for lore reasons (ditto the IA and Black Books). I recently started buying them out of a sense of loyalty - including the big boxes for HH2, HH3, and Armageddon. I may now have to rethink this. I've bought shedloads of OOP stuff off ebay over the years because that's what 40k was to me - large amounts of firstborn marines that I can functionally assemble from now to infinity, because that is the part of the hobby I enjoy. As it stands right now, it's tricky to see me getting anything beyond the Space Marine codex (and maybe the odd HH kit) because there's nothing to draw me to it any more. 

[01RTB01]

Those of us that have played forever aren't the target market though. The main target market is the new kid. This has been affirmed with interviews of ex GW employees/ their podcasts and so on. 

 

You'd never be able to get the data but it'd be interesting to see the difference in purchases of "the new kid(s)" vs the likes of many on here.

 

Is it the vets, noobs, those playing 0-3 years in, 4-6 year in and so that spend the most. 

 

[Valkyrion]

The other side of the financial coin is that if Space Marines are becoming more elite, therefore fewer of them, a box of them may increase in price beyond expected levels.

As we all know, Space Marines are the bread and butter, so going from £40 to £45 or even £50 isn't going to dissuade the new kids from buying them. 

The new Orks are a terrifying indicator of what brand new models are going to cost.