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 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene...

People that are unhappy post. People that are happy play.

Is it just the official terminology of 'seasons' that offends people, codifying it in an easily communicable way? Were the Chapter Approved days better, when a yearly book had some random scenarios and stuff, army updates etc., the 'three ways to play' mentality? At least those books were fun to flick through and get some ideas from.

there is a difference between the old days of no balance updates, no Errata and updates only happening with a new book (and not all faction getting ones)
and the rules being valid for 6 months, if you are a casual player that only plays twice a year, better stick to outdated rules (so back to the old days of no updates)

GW cannot win because they swing from one extrem to the other, doing a 180° turn when people ask for small changes

 kodos wrote:
there is a difference between the old days of no balance updates, no Errata and updates only happening with a new book (and not all faction getting ones)
and the rules being valid for 6 months, if you are a casual player that only plays twice a year, better stick to outdated rules (so back to the old days of no updates)

GW cannot win because they swing from one extrem to the other, doing a 180° turn when people ask for small changes

You're covering everything from faqs, points, codex lifespan and missions sets into a generalist statement when thos whole topic is about just the mission packs.

People are complaining about turn around of the mission pack, which seems to be a year. That is perfectly reasonable and the same time span that I believe the ITC etc. Used to update theirs, which was commonly praised.

sorry but I fail to see were this is only about mission packs:

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene....

I agree that the edition churn can go die in a fire (editions should last at least 5 years IMHO, to allow you to get some value out of all the books you have to buy), but this seems like a reasonable idea; a few new mechanics and a different set of missions to freshen up the game for those that play regularly for the price of a deck of cards. The GW price for a deck of cards, admittedly, but no new books or codices required, no fundamental rule changes, just pick from this deck instead of the old one.

To be honest, it would be great if GW could go further down this road; settle on some core rules that stay stable and maintain compatibility with basic model rules and then have regular campaigns / events that add the variety. Much like how each set of Magic has its own unique mechanics and style, but the core rules remain constant.

I didn't see it discussed I don't think but latest valrak dump:

Reiterates new KT rules with aerial combat, first box will be swooping hawks and vespid with completely new terrain.

Mechanicum for 30k is mentioned, knights and automota are up first, so has some 40k relevance.

BA is looking to be August.

GK are getting a character and an "upgrade to the dreadknight".

Reiterates imperial agents with coteaz and ordo based boxes. No concrete news on deathwatch or GK being in it.

Imperial Knights getting a new knight with a lightning/tesla weapon and a void generator like a titan - which sounds to me like the mechanicum Knight tbh.


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 kodos wrote:
sorry but I fail to see were this is only about mission packs:

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene....

Fair, the context is muddied as they're all separate products with different impacts and influences. I'd argue the tourney engagement resulted in seasons but nothing to do with the edition churn.

I'd definitely prefer 5 year edition changes over 3, but I don't really have an issue with yearly scenario updates as long as they don't overcomplicate things.

A 5 year cycle would be great!
And I also like the "season" updates,

Yeah, five years for an edition, and rules free online, with codexes being the source exclusively for fluff/hobby. Will never happen though.

To a degree they've been on a 6 year cycle. They just treat their .5 versions as a whole new thing.

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene...

They are winning very much with this and have been for a while.

You're mostly confusing the Dakka-crowd whose hobby is mostly whining online about a game they haven't played in a decade or two with genuine 40K player.

A one-year life cycle for the Missions pack is good. I got plenty of use out of my Leviathan pack and I look forward to a new one. Keeps things fresh without too much churn - I think they learned from the AOS 3rd Ed community pushback on the (initial) six-month seasons.

The changes look interesting - not sure if the effort to force Battle Line into relevance will work out. The return of Actions as rules could be good. They still kind of existed, and we all still called it that when we did things like Cleanse and Deploy Teleport Homers.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene...

They are winning very much with this and have been for a while.

You're mostly confusing the Dakka-crowd whose hobby is mostly whining online about a game they haven't played in a decade or two with genuine 40K player.

it would make conversations a lot easier if everyone had to include in their flair whether or not they've actually played a game of the current edition

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene...

Last time I checked their financial records they are winning. Very hard.

 whembly wrote:
Man, GW simply can't win.

I remember when the editions/codex lasted years, and the public was clamoring for GW to engage the tournament scene...

Actually GW can win. Engaging the tournament scene and providing more regular and speedy balance updates does NOT mean re-writing the rules every 3 years.

In fact re-writing the rules every 3 years doesn't help the tournament scene either.


What people want is rules they can use that get updated and balanced and corrected along with FAQ answers to common issues that arise. Not an FAQ that arrives for your codex on the last month of the current edition before a new set of rules are released; not your whole army sitting there for 2 whole rule editions without getting a new codex with updated rules (and that was in the days without compendiums at the start of some editions).

GW basically undoes themselves because their faster FAQ/Errata and updating system and Codex release that they've developed is exactly what people wanted to keep armies from falling behind. However its undone by the fact that now almost as soon as an edition is starting to settle down they shake it all up with a whole new edition. 5 years would be far more practical for this; you'd have 2-3 years of fast codex release and updates followed by at least 3-2 years of steadier changes. Where the army just works to a set tone of rules.

Heck GW could keep the fast edition change every 3 years if the change was more of a polishing. So instead of taking whole phases out of the game and moving around how things work; they just collate the last 3 years of errata,FAQ and updates into an updated book. Perhaps rewording a few phases to better show the flow of the game; maybe introduce minor new elements and such. Basically update things. Becuase let's face it long term fans are not buying the rule book on launch - they are buying the models in the starter set and the market is then flooded with cheap rulebooks.
Meanwhile codex updates aren't just for new stats on existing models but for the new ones that come out.



GW can very much have their cake and eat it, they just have to get off this idea of rebuilding the game from the ground up every 3 years.

 Overread wrote:
Actually GW can win. Engaging the tournament scene and providing more regular and speedy balance updates does NOT mean re-writing the rules every 3 years.

In fact re-writing the rules every 3 years doesn't help the tournament scene either.

As noted above, they're not really doing this every 3 years:

 LunarSol wrote:
To a degree they've been on a 6 year cycle. They just treat their .5 versions as a whole new thing.

The real test is going to be when 11th edition rolls around, as I certainly expect it to be more like the 8th>9th transition and an evolution rather than revolution.

A big difference this time around is that GW have since acknowledged the powercreep problem with layered rules that caused them to lose control of 8th & 9th and require another reset. It'll be interesting to see how the transition is handled next time, and how much codex content carries over intact.

On the edition cycle.

With so many codexes and units and rule interactions, no amount of play testing is gonna catch them all, because there’s just too many permutations to cover.

And so stuff does get released which is proper wonky (like the Grudge Token/Rail Cannon interaction) and gets immediately or quickly errata’d or FAQ’d.

Rinse and repeat over a couple of years, and you soon have a paper trail of tweaks and amendments, where redoing the core book to include and expand on them does make sense.

Yes it would be nice to have a Perfect Rules System, but that’s just not gonna happen. No that doesn’t mean GW couldn’t do a much better job of getting at least in the same postcode if not ballpark of said perfection.

How often should that cycle be? Three years feels overly churny, especially when as noted above we seem to get a whole new base reset every six years. For someone such as myself who hasn’t played in yonks and is hopelessly out of date, it can feel like they don’t want me to catch up.

well, GW decided they need to have that many factions, units and rules and this is too much to handle for them, the solution would be to reduce the amount to something that is manageable and not adding more

than again, GW has all the time they need, no one forces them to replace the core rules or remove the factions books. Just always replacing too many things at the same time instead of one by one means they are never fixing any problem but just creating new ones

 xttz wrote:
A big difference this time around is that GW have since acknowledged the powercreep problem with layered rules that caused them to lose control of 8th & 9th and require another reset. It'll be interesting to see how the transition is handled next time, and how much codex content carries over intact.

?
yeah they have, in 4th, 6th, 7th and 9th Edition, why do you think GW acknowledging that they are losing control because the why they have chosen to work on rules and the chosen release models is going to change the outcome without changing the way they write and release rules?

I’d actually be happy with a new edition of the rule book every three years if that’s what it was; the same rules, re released with the FAQ/errata incorporated. Changing core mechanics for the sake of it is dumb.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
I’d actually be happy with a new edition of the rule book every three years if that’s what it was; the same rules, re released with the FAQ/errata incorporated. Changing core mechanics for the sake of it is dumb.

Same here - plus a more stable system would approach a more balanced system than what GW currently achieves.

However, as noted many times, GW doesn't set themselves up for this and it would take likely key staff changes to bring such a change through the firm. I suspect both at the management level in terms of how they treat editions and allocate resources; through to the people writing the rules.

it is very simple, as long as GW makes money with the current way of writing and releasing rules, they are not going to change anything

buying and playing in hope that things change will not result in change but in everything staying the same

i doubt they're going to get a unique datasheet, but i'm looking forward to using the new genestealers in 40k as purestrains

Or Impurestrains, as it were.

Let me just post the new reveals here too:

Adepta Sororitas:








Genestealer Cults:







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In terms of discounts the Sisters CP has about the same 30% discount as is standard with the new CPs while the Genestealer Cults one is at 36% currently. Do mind that this can be slightly different for you due to currency conversions.
Also its pretty much the same after the price rise.

For the Battleforces, after the price increases if they are at the same price as the CSM ones, the Sisters one is at 31% and the Genestealers are at 36% discount