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Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

...and .... That's coming from someone who used marines as their primary from the start btw ... it is just silly at this point. But yes. Let's "not go there" ....

Tycho wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding the DA/BA/SW, while I have no inside knowledge it would appear that the Codex re-design for all Chapters less Grey Knights was done at once. That makes sense. It also makes sense to group the release together. Perhaps the CSM re-design was done after the SM re-design? Oh well?

Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

...and .... That's coming from someone who used marines as their primary from the start btw ... it is just silly at this point. But yes. Let's "not go there" ....

I wasn't asking for your pity or sympathy (I was only making full disclosure for my stake in the matter), but thanks for the concerto. Are you disagreeing with the Indexes being released with the SM Codex? My point was that they enabled units to be played - which is different than units being updated.

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

Worse? I don't want it to be worse, but I do want my army to not be unfun to play, the way it was unfun to play in 8th ed.
In small fault because of Inari, Tau and Eldar rules. What favours did my IH playing friend had all through 8th ed? first his army sucked, and then when it got good all the people that were beating him with their eldar and tau lists, decied that they are not going to play him, because IH are too OP. Or Crimson Fist dude that started at the same time as me. Primaris were a bad choice all through out 8th, till they changed at the very end of 8th ed, and then most people didn't even get to play with those rules for that much. Eldar players on the other hand got almost all the 8th ed of fun. And from what I understand about other editions, it is not like they were punished for playing their faction in prior editions either
.

Or am I not getting something here? Is somehow assumed that eldar should always be the faction which is better then others, and the unfair treatment comes from the fact that they model lines aren't updated? Is that, because if it is, it is even crazier. Because old models which are fun to play sill beat out, new models you don't want to buy, because they are bad?


But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

Karol wrote:


Worse? I don't want it to be worse, but I do want my army to not be unfun to play, the way it was unfun to play in 8th ed.
In small fault because of Inari, Tau and Eldar rules. What favours did my IH playing friend had all through 8th ed? first his army sucked, and then when it got good all the people that were beating him with their eldar and tau lists, decied that they are not going to play him, because IH are too OP. Or Crimson Fist dude that started at the same time as me. Primaris were a bad choice all through out 8th, till they changed at the very end of 8th ed, and then most people didn't even get to play with those rules for that much. Eldar players on the other hand got almost all the 8th ed of fun. And from what I understand about other editions, it is not like they were punished for playing their faction in prior editions either
.

Or am I not getting something here? Is somehow assumed that eldar should always be the faction which is better then others, and the unfair treatment comes from the fact that they model lines aren't updated? Is that, because if it is, it is even crazier. Because old models which are fun to play sill beat out, new models you don't want to buy, because they are bad?


But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

You keep bitching about Eldar/Ynnari/Castellans when its the exact same thing that happened with Iron Hands, except Iron Hands were even more broken than any of these armies.
You crying about these armies is the exact same as your "friend" being told by people that they didnt want to play against his IH.

And no, eldar got spammy cheese lists that were boring as feth to play and 90% of the codex was unplayable. Eldar is NOT fun to play with because the army as it should function does not work.

Spamming flyers is boring, spamming starcannons is boring, Ynnari was fun to play because it required a little bit of planning but the powerlevel made it unfun to play. Its not expected that specifically eldar be at the top of every edition, its expected that every army be decent and offer various build options in every edition.

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

Spoletta wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

I don't know what you're talking about here. At no point in 9th edition were any Space Marine datasheets illegal. Except for those which had been formally moved to Legends, where they continue to remain.

Tycho wrote:
lulz Spoleta. Just ... lulz ...Most other factions would have had to get by with either literally nothing until their codex came out, or would have had to make-due with a "get you by" FAQ download, or simply using their old codex until their new "official" supplement went out. You know this. I'm not sure why it offends you so much. For example, I'm STILL WAITING on my Crimson Slaughter update ...

What? A Blood Angel player may have to go a few months without using Sang Guard, or possibly using them but in a less-than-convenient way? How sad. Tell it to the Tau/GSC/Tsons players who's entire armies are nearly essentially useless with their 8th ed books ... Also, while I'm not one to throw stones given how many typos I frequently have, I've also never beat someone up so badly for "reading comprehension". You may want to go back and do some heavy editing to that rant if you want to also keep the reading comprehension part.

Oh come on, now you are disappointing me.

You can black knight harder than that, I know that you have it in you!

I'm sure you can at least make it look like you know what is being discussed! Make an effort!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Those 65 datasheet were not outdated, they were illegal.

If you went to an event, you would not be able to field them, since no rules existed. The rules for those were in the original DA/BA/SW dexes, which were invalidated by the 9th edition SM dex, without reprinting those datasheets.

And yes, since it was Summer, there were plenty of events in many countries, so the "CovidNoEvents" card can't be played. Game stores were regulated but in full activity.

Those PDFs were sorely needed.

I don't know what you're talking about here. At no point in 9th edition were any Space Marine datasheets illegal. Except for those which had been formally moved to Legends, where they continue to remain.

They were not, because we had those PDFs. Without them, they would have been.

But apparantly being able to field your models is "SM favoritism".

Karol wrote:
But is okey, I ain't the smartest and I played only 8th ed. Just tell me, when was it ever true, that elite space marines armies were good, at the same time as eldar had their good rules. Was there ever a time in w40k when it was true?

I think you shouldn't worry about re-litigating the past and who said or did what.

You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

GW could just have told you to ignored the SM codex until you got your supplement. The 8th edition DA codex is playable on its own, just like every other non-marine codex.

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Regarding special units, the Index meant that those units could be played until the actual Supplements came out. There is a massive difference between not having any rules for your models and having "outdated" or "underpowered" rules for your units. Yes I benefited as a Dark Angels player, although it also meant that I had to shell out for two books...Let's not go there.

You could also just have kept playing with your codex and PA and switch over to the space marine codex once your supplement dropped. Indexes were a cool thing for those who got them, but by no means necessary.

Except the SM 9th Ed Codex wrote over the DA Codex (and indeed the PA). Its true that I could play whatever I want with a close circle of friends, but for Matched Play it would not be a viable option. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised with how GW implemented the 9th Ed Space Marine reboot. I get that some folks would have rather had a re-release of Indexes for all factions similar to 8th Edition. Moot point.

GW could just have told you to ignored the SM codex until you got your supplement. The 8th edition DA codex is playable on its own, just like every other non-marine codex.

I would call that a "throw-away course of action." Since they were rolling the DA into the SM codex and made plenty of little adjustments to datasheets, stratagems etc it would have been very unsatisfying for everyone trying to have a Matched Play game. So instead, they did all the design work at once and rolled them out. Given the tears of rage of how OP the Space Marines were with the 8.5 Codex, I think this was the plan that generated the greatest amount of positive change while minimizing the harm.

Hecaton wrote:

Karol wrote:
Again I ain't smart, I ain't good at the game. But the claim that eldar are somehow treated bad by GW and marines, lumped as one which doesn't make sense to begin with, are the favoured ones, means that either I am more crazy, then I think I am, or is the eldar players. And it is them that are doing the trolling.

It's definitely that you're trolling. Why are you so hellbent on making the 40k community worse?

They're not tho, that's part of the problem.

Karol plays in quite possibly the most cutthroat, WAAC, (insert negative pejorative here) meta ever! as far as they have seen 1st hand, how it's supposed to be. They also got conned into a GK secondhand and had to play redonkulous Eldar spam in 8th. I am not defending them, just pointing out some background. Oh, they're also in high school...

The rerolls are a problem and the easiest way to not have a problem is to not use them.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

It is objectively true, no matter how you want to slice it.
Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

You said it yourself that those models were playable only thanks to those PDFs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

Troll identified.

No more feeding from me.

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

Well, I'm sure the OP is getting a lovely taste of all of our thoughts on 9th edition and the state of things. Might be time to run for the hills....

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

Those codici were no longer being sold, so no, those options were not feasible.

Are you next going to say that GW could have just kept selling those books? Yeah, it just means that you have 4 more books that you have to keep on your shelves next to your shining new codex. It also means that you have to explain to new players coming in that you have to buy both books, but you have to ignore all rules from one of the books, except for a few pages. Oh and some more rules are in that other PA book over there! Yeah, nice launch of a new edition!

It would have been a mess, even by GW standards.

I don't remember something like that ever happening to my nids, so it's not a marine thing.

If they really did something like that, we would have had a 150 page thread on this board on how bad GW marketing plots are (and that troll over there would be responsible for at least 30 of those pages )

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
You're argument that the indexes were necessary is very contrived though.
The 8th edition datasheets were only illegal because they were replaced by newer datasheets.

GW could easily have said 8th edition datasheets stand for those units which don't have 9th edition datasheets.
You know, like they do for literally everyone else.

No one else needs 2 codici to play. At most they need a codex and a supplement.

If what you said happened, DA/BA/SW/DW players would have needed 2 codici and a supplement to play. And 2 of those books would have been invalidated in a couple of months, so feth you new players! Not to mention that those 2 books were not even sold anymore...
We can both agree that it would have been a worse behaviour by GW.

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

It is objectively true, no matter how you want to slice it.
Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

You said it yourself that those models were playable only thanks to those PDFs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tycho wrote:

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.
I'm not suggesting that it be a permanent solution - I'm just point out that your argument that 65 datasheets would be rendered completely unplayable without the indexes is completely false and doesn't make much sense.

Give it up. IIRC - Spoleta once also said something along the lines of the 9th ed missions being "nearly perfect" due to extensive play testing in a thread where the flaws were fairly well demonstrated. They can yell all they want about people being "black knights" (despite the fact that some of these folks have actually pointed out both the good AND the bad - but yeah, I guess seeing the bad="black Knight"? IDK ...) but I find it's typically only people who want to "White Knight" screaming about Black Knights while insulting the reading comprehension of an entire board of people ... in a post so filled with typos some of the sentences are basically straight gibberish ...

Troll identified.

No more feeding from me.

Guilty. I was definitely trolling you.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Are those datasheets in any legal book? No? Good, they are unplayable.

Why aren't they in any legal book? Because GW said the books they're in are outdated.
Why did GW say those were outdated? Because they replaced them with the SM codex and index supplements.
You assume, completely baselessly, that if GW did not implement the supplements they would still declare the datasheets illegal.
There's at least two options already suggested to you to allow those datasheets to still be used.
- Players use their 8th edition codex for datasheets not replaced in the 9th edition book.
- Players continue to use their 8th edition codex for all units.

GW could have done this, but they decided those were not the solutions they wanted. I presume because they: a) didn't want the 9th Editions rules and the 8th Edition rules for the same army mixed on the battlefield; b) wanted all Space Marine players converted over to the New Codex Space Marines at one time.

So while you may not like that GW spent time on the Space Marine Indexes, they decided it was worth their time. Given how few changes there were between those Indexes and the Supplements, it looks like it was a couple days of Copy, Paste, Clean Up.

The issue isn't that gw made PDFs to tide loyalists over until they got their new books, it's that they didnt do it for anyone else. What stopped them from creating PDFs for some of the factions currently suffering the most from the change to 9th edition? Or from just fixing the easy ones? CSM, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights: Add 1 wound, increase points by X. How hard is that?

Could it be because there is a significant difference between an Index covering the few units in Marine Armies X, Y, and Z and an producing an Index to overhaul of a whole army? It's not like they didn't produce the updated FAQs covering common weapons and standardizing the "on a Roll of 1" mechanic for all armies.

nemesis464 wrote:
I've decided to get back into painting and thought I might as well try to get back into playing again now that I've got a couple of mates in the hobby too. Been reading through almost every Codex and watching a ton of battle reports, and main rule changes aside which I don't really have an issue with, the game seems completely dominated by an absurd amount of re-rolls in every phase.

I haven't had first-hand experience yet, but doesn't this completely detract from the tension of rolling dice in crucial moments when so much stuff gets re-rolled and you've got CP re-rolls to fall back on? When I stopped playing in 5th, it was such a comparitive rarity, with stuff like the twin-linked rule and Eldar doom/guide/fortune being the most common ways to get them. The big blobby auras of re-rolls are an odd design choice.

Stratagem use seems a bit weird to me too. I don't mind the idea that much, but it seems like there's just so many and it feels like the emphasis is more on playing some OP stratagem card at the right time, rather than on the models and their own rules/statlines themselves. Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

Finally it seems from Youtube battle reports I've watched, that stuff dies insanely quickly now thanks to powercreep + rerolls + stratagems. Obviously there were some offenders back in 5th ed. too, but most games still felt like there were a decent amount of units left by turn 4, whereas in the videos I've watched, one or both armies have almost nothing left by this time and tabling seems very common.
--------------------

Is this how is actually plays out in-game? I was really looking forward to getting back onto the table playing again, but after watching some battle reports, I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm.

I played extensively in 4th and 5th edition and played a few games in 6th/7th/8th to try it out before really coming back for the game in 9th. Through the years, I've played a lot of different minis games. I believe 9th edition is the best edition of 40K that I've played. That said, I think you brought up some reasonable complaints.

The lethality of the game is a lot higher than in older 40K, for sure. The positive to that is that the game can be finished in 5 turns pretty decisively. I think that lethality has found a nice balance point in 9th edition codex design with a little less lethality than in 8th and a pulling back of reliability and rerolls. Games playing out in less time definitely makes it easier to schedule a game or even play a round robin of 4 players out of someone's garage on a weekend.

I think your issue with Strategems and complexity has merit. One thing you might be missing is that most stratagems are linked to a specific unit type, and those strategems are really just an extension of their datasheet that are fairly easy to account for. Each army typically has some more powerful and versatile generic stratagems that they can use as well; those typically need to be thought of like an extension to the special army traits that make things distinct. Hopefully, the GW app will eventually get to a point where it's easy to see what strats a unit has access to when looking them up. I think GW needs to do a better job organizing strats for players to consume.

The Space Marine complaint has been valid since Primaris in 8th. They essentially wrote a new army with primaris, so it needed a lot of iteration to get to a reasonable place. I think that's pretty much done at this point, but we'll have to see if GW thinks so as well. Necrons and Deathguard, the non-SM 9th edition books, are both very well done. 9th edition codex design seems to be in a good place that will hopefully permeate through the rest of the factions before too long.

Stormcast releases did slow considerably down after completing the last chamber, so the same could happen here... but I'm not that sure of it.

SM releases bring just too much money to GW, so we are probably going to see a semi regular release of new models for them.


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nemesis464 wrote:
I've decided to get back into painting and thought I might as well try to get back into playing again now that I've got a couple of mates in the hobby too. Been reading through almost every Codex and watching a ton of battle reports, and main rule changes aside which I don't really have an issue with, the game seems completely dominated by an absurd amount of re-rolls in every phase.

I haven't had first-hand experience yet, but doesn't this completely detract from the tension of rolling dice in crucial moments when so much stuff gets re-rolled and you've got CP re-rolls to fall back on? When I stopped playing in 5th, it was such a comparitive rarity, with stuff like the twin-linked rule and Eldar doom/guide/fortune being the most common ways to get them. The big blobby auras of re-rolls are an odd design choice.

Stratagem use seems a bit weird to me too. I don't mind the idea that much, but it seems like there's just so many and it feels like the emphasis is more on playing some OP stratagem card at the right time, rather than on the models and their own rules/statlines themselves. Back when I used to play I had a pretty complete knowledge of rules and statlines for almost every Codex, but there's no way I'm going to remember all the "gotcha, your unit/my unit is terrible/awesome this turn" stratagem tricks nowadays.

Finally it seems from Youtube battle reports I've watched, that stuff dies insanely quickly now thanks to powercreep + rerolls + stratagems. Obviously there were some offenders back in 5th ed. too, but most games still felt like there were a decent amount of units left by turn 4, whereas in the videos I've watched, one or both armies have almost nothing left by this time and tabling seems very common.
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Is this how is actually plays out in-game? I was really looking forward to getting back onto the table playing again, but after watching some battle reports, I've lost a bit of the enthusiasm.

Tabling in 8th was indeed quite common, to the point where GW introduced a rule that tabling didn't give an automatic win.

In 9th that problem is less felt, especially for the new codici.

The 8th edition codici design was affected by 7th edition issues, which is to say invulnerable death stars. For that reason, the design of 8th edition codici was really shy on durability buffs and durable units, focusing on the lethality aspects. The first thing to be killed were save rerolls of any kind. They completely disappeared. We only briefly had one with magnus aura, but even that was taken away before long.

This created a game situation which was surely better and more enjoyable than 7th, but it did show a lot of different issues. Tabling being really common was one of those. It also took the edition more than 2 years of updates to solve the alpha strike issues given by all that lethality

The 9th edition design is now correcting the aim. So far, the codici released have seen their lethality mostly tuned down, but at the same time the durability has went up.
Battle reports between 2 9th edition codici much more rarely end up in a tabling.
It's interesting the way they choose to go for durability. Save rerolls are still a taboo, and invul saves are being reduced. This means that they want hits to be effective. What they did though, is provide every faction with very durable melee footslogging models (termies, BGV, Lichguards...) which are meant to be able to withstand the enemy offensive and contest the points. Those kind of models enjoy a really good durability/cost ratio. They didn't do much for the other models, and this has created an RPG-like meta of Tank and DPS roles. There are units meant to take the punishment and units meant to provide it.

It is quite indicative of this that the unit currently considered most broken, the ponies, has really bad offensive. It is just cheap, fast and though.
Yet it is defining the meta (that little meta we can currently have at least...).

the_scotsman wrote:
Some of this issue is caused by GW having pulled a "Eh, feth it, it's the end of the edition let's puke a gak ton of untested trash into the game" and then unlike with 7th they didn't have the decency to quietly delete it going into 9th. So we're still dealing with most of the horsegak from marine 2.5dex and all of it from Psychic Awakening.

They're slowly dialing back the absurdity of the rerolls and stratagems in the new codexes - limiting the worst offenders of double-attack stratagems, double-shoot stratagems, and 100pt characters being able to grant their rerolls to everything up to and including 500+ point superheavies.

But unfortunately they're doing it "GWfully" meaning you pay for that gak and it goes one faction at a time. Everyone but loyalist marines, DG, and Necrons are just sitting around on their hands waiting for a 'dex or abusing the absolutely busted trash rules GW shoveled into the game with psychic awakening if they got them.

Older editions tended to limit the crazy abilities to just a unit joined by various characters, which led to the game being dominated by crazy deathstar units. Now, it's just kind of been spread out to aura-ball armies.

I would say tabling is much more common in 9th than in the other older editions I've played. Somewhat less common than in late 8th, but still ridiculously common.

That last sentence is BS. The only time 7th edition games didn't end in a tabling was if you had a deathstar slapfight stall out.