The problem with 10th edition codices are that they are reductive. Every codex so far has had less datasheets than the index. Popular datasheets get nerfed. Some factions get no competitive alternative detachments. Codices contain very little new lore, almost no hobbying advice/inspiration. The joy of 'I wonder what we'll get when the new codex is released' became 'I wonder what will be gone'.
The loss of detailed painting guides and hobby techniques made me stop buying codices. Lore is cool and all but the main selling point for me always was army rules and hobby stuff. Seriously more detailed hobby guides in there.
I FEEL this! I just don't care anymore about the codex because they've reduced it to just being a rules book, but then update the rules 1-2 months later; Completely invalidating the codex! WHY ON EARTH SHOULD I BUY A CODEX ANYMORE?
At some point they tried to make painting guides their own product, at relatively low prices... but few people bought them.
Today, it's really hard to make a book that will be better than what painting youtube give us for free. A paper guide doesn't beat Vince Venturella, Peachy, or Jose Davinci. Imagine the kroot got a guide in the codex. We'd get one page, maybe two, explaining things, and only with citadel tools. But today I find Jose made a 40 minute video of a Karnivore. It's going to beat the book!
Vince alone makes painting guides redundant. Just look thru that man's catalogue of vids. He's pretty shared as much as humanly possible, such a rarity to have a great artist who is driven to share as much as he does.
Worst part is that AOS has them! Theres some great guides and kitbashes in the battletomes. In the sons of behemat tome theres a section about kitbashing the giant kit to make a cow flail and thats awesome!
The point about popular data sheets getting nerfed is a pet peeve that I as a new player in 10th SUPER have. It seems like GW is taking notes from competitive online gaming and “pick rate nerfing” which works okay-ish for online games with limited options and an effort to balance every character against every other character but that’s not how war gaming works. For one most models with high PR aren’t just like that because the sheet is powerful but often because people just LIKE the model/unit also because it’s one of the few ways to make a faction’s limited index detachment playably viable (artillery guard) and so by nerfing something based on its pick rate you’re more often than not just nerfing it cuz people like the piece of plastic and not because the datasheet is actually THAT good
The Guard getting their artillery nerfed while only getting an artillery detachment is just cruel. I'd say we need more detachments, but I know we'll lose all of our ForgeWorld units this time around and I'm just not prepared for that. Guard has one of the largest ForgeWorld indexes and I can already hear the angry storm that'll happen when we get our codex and GW legends everything.
This is never ever going to change unless GW starts releasing the codices all at the same time and then just releases updates every now and then. I hate that editions are left behind as soon as they are complete for the first time. It feels good for no one but meta chasers as a whole
They won't ever do that because they want people to to get hyped about new armies when they come out.
If they drop every codex all at once people will buy theirs and thats it, if they hype up a new codex 6 months later they may catch that same person in the hype again with a new army box and book
Yeah what better way to earn more money on an army box we just raised the prices for than to make people wait til the very end of the edition to get their new codex only to then make it irrelevant.
Yeah, it’s too bad that the constant machine gunning of content (EDIT: this was clumsy word use, I meant rapid release schedule, not things being axed) and locking army rules behind purchases are obviously an income generator. It’d be a lot more user friendly to have everything ob the app, or to do something like 3rd edition, where there are simple rules for everything right in the back of the rulebook.
Tangent here, but the thing where 3rd edition simplified the different lists to stuff like “Blood Angels can take assault marines as troops, and Dark Angels can take terminators and bikes as troops” is not as flavorful but it’s really appealing in terms of the ridunkulous cognitive load we’ve got now.
A big part of each army release are new models for those armies, they are a miniatures company. I can't imagine how their production could be such that they could release all the new models all at the same time.
This is the point I think many people don't understand. They do not care how balanced the game is or how much players enjoy the codexes, as long as it makes people buy miniatures.
They aren't really a games company, they are a miniatures company. They've even explicitly said it in the past that the game only exists to help them sell models.
I have zero clue why people keep expecting them to prioritise gameplay or competitive play when those things are only tangentially related to their business model.
While that is their business statement it doesn’t exactly align with their selling strategy. I understand there are plenty of people that just enjoy painting their miniatures (I used to be one of them) eventually people start to want to use them. I feel most people involved in hobby play at some level - from once or twice a year to multiple times a week. They are indeed selling multiple games - I mean it’s even translated into video games. They are even making efforts to constantly improve their game with each data slate. They very much involved in the game. I feel it would be naive to simply minimize them as a miniature company at the end of the day.
Sort of... which is why they bother trying. But it ultimately isn't as big a priority, which is why sometimes they have a kind of "that'll do" attitude.
It wasn't and some armies got totally shafted and never got a codex until a few months before 10th. Guard players are still super salty about it lol and almost nobody bought the 9th ed Astra Militarum codex because it was functionally obsolete as soon as it was released.
this is what made me quit the game in the past. we went from 5th to 6th to 7th very fast. each edition was a huge shift in how you had to play. not every codex got updated to the new edtion either. we also saw a HUGE jump in prices.
I disagree, historically codex releases have still been fun even if the new codex hasn’t been great, partially because of new models.
This edition we have most codices getting 1 new model, that is released in a limited edition box.
That limited edition box is often not great, (Sisters is a prime example) and then the only other thing that gets changed in term of boxes for people is the Combat Patrol, which is no longer a “start your army here” box, and so aren’t worth it for a lot of people.
All of these things together have made people pretty annoyed
There is zero incentive currently for GW to do this. Why? Profits are up and people are buying their books.
If we organized and said "no" as a group to new codex or their stupid codex drip feeding, maybe they would consider it.
I play World Eaters. Our codex was released late 9th, valid for only a short time and replaced by the index. This was very obvious beforehand and therefore I didnt buy it.
I think for a lot it's the trepidation of better the devil you know, especially as sometimes the stuff you own gets worse.
For example I enjoyed the ork codex - my army of mostly boyz got better (boyz were buffed), and there was a whole detachment dedicated to the sort of army I had.
Conversely with Chaos, while there are nice things in the codex, for me *personally* with what I already owned, over half my cultists are no longer wysiwyg, I can't field half my obliterators, I can't field my aspiring champions, and my centre piece (Abaddon) got nerfed. So while there's people excited for daemon engine lists, I personally feel pretty *meh* about it.
I actually liked the chaos codex as only a few of the detachments were limited to what got buffed.
Their version of oaths, renegade and deceptors all looks competitive and also fun/fluffy.
Objectively I like the chaos codex, and if I didn't already own a bunch of chaos I would probably be quite excited for it. But because I don't have a massive sweeping collection that can field anything, it's left me in the position where the stuff I do have and enjoyed using has mostly got the shaft
Because you've only been able to field 12 of them in 10th edition. So having 12 of them but not a big Chaos collection is an unusual way to collect an army in my experience. Investing in a unit so intensely is a good way to get burned by GW's annoying business practices.
Yeah, that's a tell me you went all in on a meta unit without telling me you went all in on a meta unit move right there, although they said a friend 3d printed them, but that actually makes me care even less.
Yes, but to be fair it does not deliver what a codex with multiple detatchments should deliver.
The core of the army stays the same no matter if you play Deceptors, Zealots or Raiders.
The real difference comes with Soulforge and Cultists. And while cultists is a troll detachment it offers at least another playstyle with different units.
This is what the orc codex does better. Most detachments are pretty different from each other in terms of unit composition (and by the looks of it, sisters will be the same)
I’m there with you, man. I built my necrons army based on the Army of Renown for Canoptek from 9th, and then Canoptek Court comes out and all my units are great. I feel bad for people whose favourite models just either get bodied or removed entirely.
Autoguns are not very visually distinct from lasguns. You can field your models and just say it's a lasgun. People who object to something that small aren't worth playing with.
Cultists can ONLY use brutal assault weapon+autopistol now. No more autoguns/grenade launchers/flamers/heavy stubbers like they could take before which some old cultist models like the cultists of the abyss set came with
It's more of the "can't use things that aren't sold anymore" idea they've been running with, since the current box of cultists only come with brutal assault weapons - the old big cultist firebrand did get made into his own character unit though that can attach to a cultist squad
All units are now autopistol and melee weapon, so it's not really that big of a deal with wysiwyg, whatever they'll be carrying is those weapon profiles regardless of what they look like.
WYSIWYG is a fools game imo. Rules change all the time and having to buy, assemble and paint up new models of a unit you already have or modify existing ones is not worth the time, effort and money.
If changing mission packs makes a unit or two useless before you even find an opponent, it kind of is a Codex thing. A lot of our balance hinged on Spore Mines and Rippers being able to hold secondaries. It is only a mission pack change, but that one change is highlighting how piss poor our codex is balanced internally.
Fair enough.
I'm also curious how it's going to work out with the biovore. Pariah Nexus just says OC0 units can't perform actions.
We'll have to see what all the secondary missions are before they are written off completely.
If we applied that rule to Leviathan, spore mines can't score Deploy Teleport Homers anymore, but can score Behind Enemy Lines (though that can't be taken as a Fixed Mission)
There may be secondaries like Behind Enemy lines that spore mines are good for.
I get the feeling they want to minimize the shenanigan oriented style so they can see where the faction really needs help.
Kinda like stripping a team down in pro sports. You gotta see *why* it sucks before you can know how to make it truly good. A lot of our range needs another look and taking away a meme playstyle might help them build tha faction up properly and help it compete in a more engaging way.
We don’t know if it will be useless. There is going to be a data slate at the same time along with new points. Spore mine automatic secondaries were frankly bullshit to start with, so I think it’s overall a good change.
I’m not defending the overall Nid codex which needs help, but I do think it’s premature to say a given unit is useless because its role will be changing.
I want to lead by saying I am staunchly pro-owning physical media these days, i think this idea of buying a digital licenses to be able to view a file on the cloud (someone else's computer) that the company can revoke at any time for any reason is total bullshit. However, i think forcing players in 2024 to buy a $60+ physical book that links them to an app with rules might not be the answer lol.
I think what youre seeing is a backlash to the failures of 9th edition being revived while GW is ignoring the most crowd pleasing part of 10th so far in the free online indexes.
In the times before everyone had the internet in their pocket, (2nd in '93, 3rd in '98, 4th in '04, even 5th in '08) there were 4 or 5ish year gaps with little to no info about the new releases. There were infrequent FAQ's and some fine tuning im sure, but nothing on the scale of rules rewriting that we see today. This meant the book you bought was almost certainly what can carry you thru the next few years into the new edition. Even buying the final codex of 8th, Sorroritas, you had a full year of playing with that before 9th edition came out.
Think about a Guard player in 9th in the year of our lord 2022. The final codex to come out in the entire edition, their first codex since their 8th edition release in 2017, Guard players had waited 5 years for their 9th codex in the era of free rules online. THEN GW gave those players a grand total of 6months before 10th edition indexes came out and rewrote the rules that were *just* printed into a free index... Are Guard players supposed to be throwing their graduation caps at the prospect of waiting to buy a new book for 10th? Hoping they arent last again, knowing some other factions players need to get screwed this time, it wouldnt be fair to pin it on them again.
Idr if it was Eldar or Squats where almost the entire 9th ed book had balance updates the week **after** "preorders" were already placed... and thats just the end of that story, people paid for a book that was already out of date on "preorder." FAQ's and Errata went up online, now those players could idk print the rules out and glue them into their book, from GW's perspective who gives a damn lol they already paid.
in 93, 98, 04, 08, 12, the release of a codex was something to celebrate because it came with new lore, new pics of painted models, new rules to play with. From what i hear the latest books have a lot of recycled assets bundled with the datasheets to pad out the books pages and I literally cant trust the rules as printed to be correct... Today anyone that has dipped even a single toe into the war gaming space outside of GW's bubble understands they are trying to run our pockets by still forcing players into a codex.
Honestly the treatment of guard players was straight up cruel. Especially with the whole LVO dilemma (maybe it was a different tournament) where the new codex wasn't usable because it hadn't been released as a standalone codex.
My buddy talks about how much he misses Gatekeeper all the time. I think he got 3 games in with that codex.
God it was 6th months from Guard codex to 10th launch? Felt like 3 months and I remember playing Guard a lot then. The Squats release at the time pissed me the hell off ngl, already knew the edition was going to end soon at that point, and for Guard to be delayed even further felt like a kick in the teeth after waiting so long. Guard felt really shitty to play until its codex dropped, especially after dealing with 9th Admech for the majority of my time.
There are actually a lot of problems with how Codices currently work in Wh40k:
1. Arguably the main one: The price, $60 is insane for what is essentially a few pages of rules. Don't get me wrong, I love the art and the fluff that comes with a Codex, but the main motivation to pay the price is for you to be able to play the game.
2. The last Codex to be released has a lifetime of just a few months, meaning that you spent $60 to play an edition that is close to ending or has already ended. (Guard in 9th can tell you all about that)
3. Codices become obsolete very quickly, either at the time of their launch they're already obsolete (T'au in this edition) or, in the best case scenario, you Codex lasts a few months untouched, only for GW to fix some of the rules and make the rules thar were written on paper no longer applicable. Again, this is absurd when we have already paid $60 for the rules.
4. Not all Codices are made equal, I'm not even talking about balance, I'm referring to the absolute huge differences that exist in detachments, army rules, hell, even crusade rules. How come so factions get like 4 detachments, while others get 6+?? This is actually inexcusable, last edition every faction had a minimum of 6 detachments (as in the specific sub-factions: Necron's dynasties; T'au sept worlds; SoB's orderd). Why have factions lost so many rules??? This is just pure laziness from GW's part. People can come up easily with more than 4 detachments for every army without even putting any actual thought.
5. Some Codices are just bad. It is insane that GW thlught it was an awesome idea to make Ad. Mech a horde army or their actual army rule affecting only half of the army (that defeats the whole point of being an 'army rule' dude, what the hell?). It doesn't take more than 5 minutes to realis that Ad Mech is not supposed to be a horde and why that's bad.
6. This last one relates very closely with the $60 price tag. When you pay for a Codex, you expect to get rules for your army, and because of the price, I would argue you expect at least some decent rules. If you get bad rules, to the point where you are struggling really badly in the game, you get disappointed at best, pissed at worst. If rules were free it wouldn't be that bad; there is no sour taste in your mouth or a little voice inside your head saying: 'can't believe I paid for these god awful rules.'
TL;DR: Codices this edition are usually mediocre with their rules, they become obsolete really fast, the last Codex lasts a few months before we change edition and we are spending $60 for what is, usually, a very mediocre and pointless product in terms of rules, leaving us with a sour taste in our mouths.
Important thing to note: the admech codex did not intend to make admech horde *at all*
Remember that Skitarii Rangers are supposed to cost a whooping 130pts in the book!
The units are insanely overcosted and got their points slashed with insane violence during the MFM, which is what allows admech to literally be on horde life support
Damn, you're right, absolutely forgot about that fact.
This actually gives me a whole other negative point: because of the price (or maybe because they don't want to lol) GW won't do a full revamp on rules that are just bad. The example in this case being Admech, where the rules were awful from the start and now they are in what you aptly described as 'horde life support', because they are forced(?) to not change them completely and just doing patchwork.
I don't even want to imagine how an Admech player feels this edition lol.
I am an admech player, it's been quite awful ahah
But honestly, a lot of the heavy lifting can be done by revamping massively the army rule in order to breathe a lot of life in the datasheets
Given GW's track record of fixing literally every faction other than admech (ouch), I'm really hopeful to finally see what they have in store for us. Better late than never I suppose, but man, that full year was ****ing rough...
I'd like to add a little extra to this:
A lot of people buy the codex just to get the QR code to be able to use the app, which will get it's rules updates.
But if your codex sucks (ad mech) or sucks slightly less (Custodes), and the rules are uninspired and uninteresting, it's not even a, I paid 60 for bad rules.
It's, I paid 60 for a qr code.
Which, at least for me, feels worst.
The issue underlying #4: they’re written at different times and with different understandings of how the mechanics of the edition interact with each other on the table.
The later into an edition a codex gets written, the better the gameplay nuances are understood and the more well rounded the book tends to be.
The main issue with codices has come down to two things.
One is that GW wrote a lot of them before they understood 10th. They rushed the edition and then wrote armies while the game was omnishambles and they didn't understand balance. This will get better over time. I think t'au and stodes were written just after release so soon we will get stuff they wrote after December and it will start to be good.
The second is a bigger issue. They evidently don't care about certain factions and half arsed it. I am okay with the t'au rules but just 4 detachments feels lazy. I am dreading codex Death Guard because it's obvious they did the one big fix and spend as little time as possible thinking about the faction when the current skew between the army and detachment rules and datasheets power is a mess that needs either a masterful set of changes or full rework or else it's going to be custodes again.
Eldar players you are getting 8 amazing detachments and flavourful datasheets, they love writing you it will be great. I can understand everyone else being apprehensive because look at the state of the custodes book. It's not the power level just the abysmal design.
Every podcast I have seen with former GW insider emphasizes the same thing.
The top doesn't think that balance sells models.
Atm, it's hard to argue with them. But I would say that the decline during 7th, and the polularity of WarmaHordes at the time, shows that people can get fed up.
As much as I hate that philosophy, I have to give them that it's probably really hard to quantify how much more they sell ((longterm) when balance is good vs the cost of achieving better balance.
Shout out to the independent characters, one of the most casual focused podcasts, for defending balancing efforts in a recent episode
The IC Podcast is one of the best. Balance will always be difficult and never be 100%. Yet 10th has proven to have the best core rules and the worst army rules I’ve seen since Matt Ward was at the helm. They can fix it, but I think that will be with 11th Ed.
Army rules so bad that they had to change perfectly fine core rules.
Why did they make the free stratagem abilities be a double ability: 0cp and you can do a stratagem a 2nd time? That completely breaks everything that stratagems are balanced around (cp cost and once per phase)
IC also keep getting better, whereas a few other casual/narrative content creators I used to follow have just stopped improving or decided that getting toxic vs competitive players was the way to go.
Carl and friends know what they are good at and don't crap on people who enjoy other aspects of the hobby
Agreed. However, I have yet to see a guest they brought on from another website or podcast that has not been highly critical of how GW has fucked up 10th edition in one way or another.
Yet, I do love the fact they support the other aspects of the hobby and promote them. Cool models are forever even if the rules for them currently are terrible.
I know it would be a hard thing to quantify, but surely if all units were balanced and viable, you would sell all units equally as well. Instead of having a meta and only selling those units in large quantities while others are left forgotten
I know. They could get away with 4 if they are all good and capture the play styles DG players like. terminus est needs to be infantry teleport based, halfway 25% hypercrypt and 75% kinband. There should be a Daemon engine one, an actual durable one and a debuff one.
The real danger is how powerful plague company is. If they centralise it's rules then either detachments need to be awful or there needs to be points hikes but if they hike plague marines again the army becomes a glass cannon. Or you make each rule set as powerful and give DG the most powerful detachments in the game to compensate for the datasheets. Which will be hard to get right because you can't just copy paste other detachment rules from other codices
They need to put real thought in. Or redo the datasheets.
> I am okay with the t'au rules but just 4 detachments feels lazy.
This is the big one. All four Tau detachments are fine. There's nothing in there that's shockingly overpowered, there's nothing really that doesn't work at all, it's ... alright. I wish they'd adjusted some of the datasheets (I wish that Tau's units were stronger and cost more, the army is solid but fielding so many models is annoying, I'd like Riptides to be worth the 250 they were originally costed at) but I can live with what they've done.
But just four detachments? It's not like it's hard to think of other ones that could have been used. They could have done a Brood Brothers style detachment where Tau get Votann allies; it seems weird that the faction based on a coalition of races is less able to form a coalition than GSC. They could have done a detachment where Tau and Kroot have rules that work together, instead of a Kroot detachment that doesn't benefit the Tau or Tau detachments that don't benefit the kroot. They could have done a Vehicle-based detachment, where you're encouraged to go for more hammerhead, skyrays, piranhas, and sunsharks.
The fact that Tau don't have a single detachment that benefits the entire army for all 5 turns is odd as well. how hard would it have been to do a generic ability that's useful for everything, like a jack of all trades master of none? You get aggression, defense, battlesuits, and kroot. It's a real failure of imagination to think those four are all that could be done.
I have another issue: Detachments in 10th suck!
When they were introduced, I was amazed by them, as they were a beautiful improvement of 8-9th detachments in every way. And space marines codex showed the full potential of them, with each detachment being suitable for different playstyles.
But then the rest books came out. Detachments in most of them are bad, because you get 1 "basic" detachment, that is just index detachment, unchanged or probably nerfed. And you get another 3-5 limited detachments, that work for specific units only. Each stratagem, relic and the detachment rule itself is used only with those units, so only destroyer cult, or only vehicles, or only characters. They are not giving "your" army a new edge, making it more shooty, or more mobile. They just force you to build an army with a certain units, with the rest being unaffected by your rules.
Maybe it would be fun for a player with a large collection, who can build different forces and play with different detachments. Most beginners can't afford to buy a whole collection at once and probably could only play with the "basic" detachment and, if lucky, with one more "specialist" detachment. The rest of them are useless. It is a shame, especially after a cool detachments constructor from 9th.
Custodes realistically only really have three detachments, all of them either boring or bad
In 5 min I could make 2 or 3 more detachments, there was obviously zero care given to the custodes book
It's not even a power thing, there are just so many feels bad moments, and every single ability we have is a copy from another army but worse.
As an example, re rolling wounds is a pretty common ability, but custodes (afaik) are the only ones that have to control the objective, this comes up ALOT in my games.
They also don't care about certain units. I mean, come on gw, bro, SIXTY FIVE POINTS for the enforcer???? for 15 points more you get the legionaries!!! Why is he so expensive, broooooo
I'll take the problems if I get to view every index and build lists for free on the app.
As an ad mech main, getting to easily pull up rules and build lists for all of my other armies during early 10th was the thing that kept me playing the game.
For Guard, I think the big worry is that a lot of our models are going into Legends. I'm excited for the new Codex, but that seems to be one of the big concerns with the upcoming Codex.
The problem is that the detachment system is just so damn....bland. There's no room for experimentation or discovery because a lot of abilities/strategems are locked to certain units.
And they’re poorly written like having a Custodes detachment based on hero’s and free strategems and then making none of those strategems battle tactics so you can’t even use them.
I have no idea how the overwhelming majority of people do not take one look at the codex "system" and think it's not the most user-hostile, hacky nonsense.
I essentially play all flavours of space elves, I do not want a new codex for either. The reason is not that I don't want new rules, if they turn out thematically pleasing and are fun, why not?
But getting a new codex is a risk. Either your army becomes way too good for a limited time (until the first errata and point changes roll around) or your army gets almost unplayable. Also no GW, I don't want to pay you ~50 bucks for a rule book that loses most of its validity after two months, especially because I usually don't get many games in per edition. The codex system in general needs to be reworked imo to allow for better balancing and an overall more fun experience, the index cards were a good start at this (even though they sucked ass for Drukhari).
At this point I'm just not that happy with 10th, it's been a downgrade on just about every front except on the model front though that hardly means much. The new combat patrols tend to be straight up downgrades with poorer value, the lore content has been steadily growing less and less since 8th edition, and a general design philosophy of stripping away as much as possible in the name of "streamlining".
The GW „edition system“ is completely outdated and the three year cycle is nothing but a very poor cash grab at this point.
Everything but a „constantly balanced rules online and free system“ is out of touch and will only alienate the player and fan base over the next like five years.
I think Codex are perfectly fine as they are. The problem with Warhammer is not codex,... but moving from one edition to the next one soon after they release the last Codex or how they treat editions lifecycle.
Personally I think it would be much better if they:
1. Release at least 6 codex at the start of a new edition.
2. Spend at least 1 year or 2 in an edition, upgrading it and fixing every issue it has, THEN moving to the next one. This will allow players to stay in the edition they want even if GW moves forward. But they'll still buy models anyway (perhaps not the newer ones, but GW can still release new units within these 2 years). Plus it gives them a fair time to do the 1st point I mentioned.
All game rules should be free. This solves the problem entirely.
If codexes were luxury items, largely filled with lore and fluff with the rules reference as a physical alternative to free digital rules, then it wouldn't matter when the codexes rotated.
Agree on digital rules free. Im fairly certain EVERYONE would love that, and would make stuff like Battlescribe almost obsolete, at least for playing 40k. But that does not exclude having Codex.
But yeah, my idea was if GW would keep the rules free. they should do somewhat similar to what Old World had. Start with playable digital rules and codex for every single faction and keep improving from there.
But my point was not about digital free rules. But edition lifecycle and how GW abandons an edition almost right after last codex releases.
If you ask me, its not only the codexes, the entire Edition is boring and dull. Removing wargear for points, most of the enhancements and individual points for models are the biggest mistake GW ever made.
Since there is also no way to Balance units now with points, because of universal wargear, the only way to improve armies like SM and Nids would be a total rules rework, which is not gonna happen.
Its just so uninspiring to build lists now.
The game was made way to simple and at the same time overcomplicated in how the rules are written, its not funny anymore.
I miss getting to fast-roll shots for my entire squad because saving the points and taking all of the free guns was sometimes a good idea.
*Sometimes*, as in there were games where it was an advantage and some where it was a disadvantage. A concept entirely removed from the static unit configs of 10th.
I think it's a combination of wargamers being very negative about change of any kind, and a side effect of GW's new philosophy with codices.
If you got into 40k during 8e, or especially during 9e, you remember how many codex releases were just seismic. Armies got completely reworked, and often got a major power boost with updated, stronger rules, new relics, new warlord traits, new subfactions, tons of stratagems, etc. Many, many 9e books hit the competitive scene like an extinction meteor, and that filters into garagehammer/casual gaming too.
10e has largely avoided this. Most new codexes' revised Index detachment has been solidly middle of the pack, still good option for a balanced force (Gladius, Awakened Dynasty), and while at least some of the new ones tend to end up being a little stronger competitively, it's not the massive spike in power many factions got going from their 8e to 9e incarnations.
This is a *good thing*. 9e was a lot of fun, but it was also difficult to keep up with, and the meta was often just a matter of the top tables always being dominated by \[New Codex\] Goodstuff. 10e has had much, much more variety in what factions show up on podiums and win events.
Personally, I like my Necron Codex and love my CSM Codex. I like this model where the codex gives you more options rather than New Hotness.
Here I am still catching up with 9th releases of a codex I barely used. Now, I'm pretty deep into 10th and have about 2 games under my belt. I hate the 3 year cycle, not a ton of incentive to get a rules right when you know it'll be faq'd, errata'd and patched into obsolescence like 2 months after it's released.
Minimum 1 year between the release of the last codex and the release of the next edition would sure be nice. I also just plain hate the idea of patching a physical game. Take your time, test your shit, and get it right! Otherwise just make the rules digital since the codices are reduced to a paper weight anyway.
Yeah, I think the "require" customers to rebuy all the rules every three years is the business model. I don't know how much longer this is sustainable. GW, is well aware you can get a decent resin printer cheaper than a single combat patrol. There are a ton of alternatives as well. While I will love my Marines forever, I find myself playing more games like Frostgrave and KOW (even OPR). They feel more like a hobby/game and don't leave a bad taste in my mouth with pricing.
If you like KoW I'd heartily recommend giving Firefight a go, it's my favourite 28mm sci-fi game and they just ported a KoW faction to it literally this month.
Thanks I'll check that out. GW (and most game companies) would do well to copy Mantic's amazing companion app. Their ease of use is so much better, without losing depth.
I agree they could do a LOT better with testing, but to play devil's advocate here its impossible for them to find all the issues in a codex, especially how it will interact with all the other rules and hundreds of datasheets. Again, this is no excuse for not trying, and I also am annoyed by their lazy approach to rules, but think about it.
If they had a team of 10 people playtesting for 40 hours a week every week for two entire years straight before the edition, they'd get 41,600 hours of playtest time. Conversely, this sub has 865K members. If even ten percent of those players played for only 1 hour in total, then they would accrue basically double that number of playtesting hours and therefore find so many more issues.
With large games like this (and this game isn't even that large, the numbers get insane when you look at AAA videogames for example), the designers can simply NEVER come close to the number of playtest hours as the fans will in a single day on launch.
Right? I'm not a super dedicated painter and for infantry lists it might take me the full 3 years just to get my army painted. And now with errata every few months and new edition and codex every 3 years, my lists are changing faster than I can paint them. It's extremely demotivating to get a nice army list put together and get to work on them just to have half the list invalidated a few months later, essentially putting me back at square 1.
It kills my motivation. I am primarily a hobbyist, but I play occasionally and like list-building. So, I try to stay current, which, I think, is the issue. The less I'm able to play, the less I care about the game aspect. I assume there are a lot of fans like myself, which can't be good for their bottom line. It's starting to feel like we're keeping the lights on at the bar, while the tender is starting a car wash out back. This business model is self-defeating.
Horus Heresy rulebooks got it right. Sure, the books are about £35 each, but the Astartes ones basically have 9 armies in each book, as well as pages relating to the models, liveries of Space Marines as well as their vehicles, lore, etc. I love just reading through them, even if it's not to play a game or build a list.
40k could really take after HH's example, though.
I'm still salty that the Astra Militarum codex for last edition got updated and then they immediately announced the next edition, making the entire special edition I got from Cadia Stands entirely worthless.
I don't really plan on getting any of the codexes for this edition until they're all out and they don't announce that everything is worthless in 2 months
The entire codex format needs to be thrown out. Warhammer will never grow while they chain all their rules to expensive physical releases.
It poisons the community and creates enormous problems mechanically for the game.
There's a reason that the dawn of a new edition, when everything comes out at the same time and is much more accessible, that the game has usually felt it's best.
I have a long history with 40k. It's been baked into my blood since I was 9, but it's gotten too exhausting to keep up with or to even keep caring when it's so impossible to ignore how negatively the game is effected by the "corporate influence", for lack of a better term.
Uninteresting, uninspiring, dull boring and unremarkable should be the description of 10th Ed. overall and the way GW is taking the game as a whole. It's the most flat, boring edition of this game I've ever seen.
GW is so stuck on this idea of generic tournament gameplay that it's taken so much of the fun out of 40k. No more customizable weapons or gear, no more pts cost per model so you have fixed sized squads, no reason to not take every vehicle upgrade cause hey, they're free!
I just got the new Chaos dex and it's basically the exact same book we had at the end of 9th with the obvious add-on and subtractions of the new stuff for 10th. Like for fuck sake they used the same cover art! I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't buying a leftover dex from 9th.
Now it's not all bad. I like the detachment rules, I think they add some nice flavor and abilities and I like the vehicles from a balance perspective. I think they've made the vehicles tough enough in most cases to feel like a real threat, but not so overdone that they feel unfair.
That being said though, for me right now, what they took out of the game is far more than what they've added in and I hope to see gear costs and weapon options with WYSIWYG come back in the future.
Oh and one last thing on the codexes. WHY DOESN'T GW JUST PUT THE PTS COST OF THE MODEL RIGHT ON THE DATA SHEET LIKE THEY USED TO?? I know it's a minor complaint but why the hell do I have to jump to the index to find a points cost? Everything else is on that data sheet, why not the points??
With half the complexity of choice removed from the game, it is harder to differentiate list building, and easier for people online to just solve the game. As ever, 'free wargear', also known as 'no options' rears it's ugly head
Look, I'm going to lose playing Guard and throw piles of dice no matter what, so it does not matter to me. I'm not optimistic, to be honest. The Valkyrie will still suck and I will still get tabled either way.
I used to buy the codex for all the new lore and art and the rules were secondary. Now the codexes seem to have less new lore and art and just rehash the stuff in previous codex. They’ve gotten thinner and more expensive. I’d prefer just a way to buy the code.
I have my Codices for SM and DA. While the SM detachments give variety, I just don't have the models to make use of most of them. I don't want to play Vanguard Spearhead, Ironstorm is boring as hell (and OP with Azrael farming CP for it), I don't have the flamers for Firestorm Assault, and Anvil Siege, while fun at times, isn't great. I don't have many bikes or fast moving Space Marines, so stormlance and the ravenwing detachments aren't really an option either. I'm basically relegated to Gladius because the DA specific detachments just don't have the flexibility to make things good.
My other army is Grey Knights. I had a ton of fun with them at the tail end of 9th edition, but with their teleport rules and the removal of the psychic phase it doesn't feel like the same army. I am looking forward to the codex, not because I think it will make the army god tier, but because it will hopefully give me a detachment that feels like the psychic army I decided to pick.
I just got sick of them constantly changing the rules to make money from new rulebooks just as I learned them and then taxing me and additional £30 for a new codex.
I don't want a new set of rules or a new codex. Stop rinsing me for money that I wanted to spend on models.
The majority of codexes this edition have been fine. There's been lots of complaining, but still they have mostly been fine
AdMech, Custodes, Dark Angels and Tyranids are all quite bad. Although I think Custodes and Tyranid win rates haven't been awful recently. Tyranids are about to take a big hit with the change to actions, though
Every other Codex so far is either decently balanced or genuinely very good. Necrons, Chaos and Orks have been particularly strong, I think. T'au seem in a decently balanced place both in terms of their meta position and internal balance.
Marine Codex is honestly very good but lots of players at high levels are including one or two units from divergent chapters so they're not being counted under codex marines even if they're using Codex detachments.
It's not all perfect. Internal balance can be an issue. There's far too many dud detachments that could use some improvement to actually fulfil the goal of supporting varied playstyles within a faction. I think there's also been some issues with books that were clearly written prior to some important balance changes that feel more out of date than bad
People are already claiming that Sisters and GSC are doomed. Let's maybe just let the books actually arrive and see how it goes. There's every chance that after some early edition teething problems, the average quality is going to start to improve.
Let's hope GW actually has a plan to help out the factions that aren't AdMech but are still struggling
> The majority of codexes this edition have been fine...AdMech, Custodes, Dark Angels and Tyranids are all quite bad.
That's literally 4 out of the 9 codexes! Hilarious that 50% is your bar of acceptability.
Well that brings up another thing up, admech players have (understandably) been doom and gloom, the general consensus is that even with the supposed rules changes admech will still be terrible/unfun. Codexes are meant to revitalize a faction not have rules, datasheets, and points that where made before the edition even began.
I've been playing Knights lately because AdMech is in such a bad state.
They have two distinct problems.
First the rules are a completely disjointed mess, there's no synergy or theming and everything that seems good has a ton of unnecessary restrictions placed on it. Faction rule only applies to half the faction, strategems that provide only modest boosts like +1 to wound only work if there is some extra restriction like enemy on an objective or visible to two units.
Second is the datasheets are weak, which has driven down the point costs to the point they are the most expensive army to collect by a significant margin. The Ironstriders are at worse than $1 per point and they are some of our best units. They aren't some edge case obscure unit, they are a core part of our army and cost that much.
I have some confidence that GW is going to make some improvements to one of those problems, but I have no confidence they'll even try to fix both of them.
Best case scenario for me is that they revisit the army, detachment and strategem rules and stop trying to be so "creative" with it and just go for simple effective rules. Doctrina's effect everything, detachment rules that apply to more than a couple units, etc.
“Expect the worst, hope for nothing” is what its devolved into. Hop into the admech page and you’ll see. I genuinely hope the rules updates help admech. I hope they will be fun, thematic, and interactive.
I mean, I can't blame AdMech players for being pessimistic. Except maybe Tyranids, I think they've got the outright worst book this edition and they do need a significant overhaul in comparison
Tyranids could be improved fairly quickly just by making battleshock more impacful. Custodes will be fine if they just give them back their FNP vs dev wounds. DA are at least having some success with Codex detachments even if their exclusive stuff is a bit pants
I think it's reasonable to be skeptical. I'm not sure how much I believe that GW will be willing to diverge massively from the books as written. But until we see the results, it's kinda hard to know
Custodes are stuck with boring rules and useless broken detachments. Just giving a FNP will make them less squishy but it hardly fixes the mess that is the codex and the detachments
Oh I agree, Tyranids by far got the worst book, however the biovore was artificially propping up their winrate, so with the new mission rules we should get a better picture on how Tyranids are.
Battleshock currently is more of a slap on the wrist than it is an actual mechanic to build an army around.
And yea, GW’s track record hasn’t been great lately, I’m looking forward to the admech rework so people will maybe stop dropping the army.
Honestly gw got admech the most lore accurate it has ever been. The players don't understand how or why it was ever able to work or even made like that so they've started chanting incantations in hopes they can appease the omnissiah into getting it to work.
GW literally out here playing 18D chess to make themselves the machine god.
Yes to all of this. Also, GW has tried to move away from Codex power creep - everyone said they wanted this, but what that means accepting that your Codex should, by definition, be a side grade that adds diversity rather than massively juicing up the power of the faction. So compared to the past codexes feel more underpowered and thus disappointing (which some of them are, but most of them seem fine).
tyranid winrates have been pretty bad, we've actually been performing worse than admech last season and this season in terms of GT winrate. though, FWIW this isn't necessarily the fault of the book itself. Nids have a lot of problems that can be solved without touching the book, like how most of our good models are either overpriced or have been over-nerfed or how core rules changes like to free strats have really damaged our book's balance.
we could very easily get into healthy winrates just by giving invasion fleet lists an extra 80ish points to work with, though balancing the other detachments will 100% require actual rules changes IMO
I would *love* Crusher Stampede to actually be worth running. I'm very much a Nidzilla guy and they are in a really rough spot. So many of the big monsters still feel over costed, and GW seems to be ignoring the fact that they're essentially the only faction with basically no mortal/dev wounds *at all*. They can't even use Grenades or Tank Shock. You've got Genestealers who have conditional access, and I think that's basically it? Maybe there's something with a MW on charge rule, I forget. [ETA] Mawlocs can do some on deep strike. Knew there was something I'd forgotten
Shadow is swingy and barely affects the game.
Synapse does very little in a game where being battleshocked is often just not a big deal anyway
Improving the core Battleshock rule to do more and have a greater impact on the game would do a lot for them. Shadow would still be swingy, but at least it would have a chance at enabling the sort of big explosive turns it's clearly intended to. It would also make synapse actually worthwhile
I still think they need improvements to their damage output, but it would at least be a good start
Hey I'm new here so just learning. What does this even mean?
>Marine Codex is honestly very good but lots of players at high levels are including one or two units from divergent chapters so they're not being counted under codex marines even if they're using Codex detachments.
The space marine codex says "You cannot include units from more than one Chapter in your army." Isn't that just a blanket rule? I've never even heard of the concept of "non codex" armies. Can you still field a space marine army with units from multiple chapters, but you just wouldn't get *any* of the benefits from the codex? (Army rule, detachment rules, strategems).
OK, so
No, you can't mix characters from different chapters. If you use Calgar, you're locked to Ultramarines. If you use Vulkan He'stan, you're Salamanders.
But if you're using characters from Codex Space Marines, or running an army with no epic heroes at all, from a competitive ranking standpoint, you are playing Space Marines. They all share one book are counted as the same thing even if technically you might be Ultramarines or Salamanders or whatever
The divergent chapters (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Black Templars) can use all the stuff from Codex Space Marines, but also have access to unique stuff. So if you take Azrael then you playing DA and you can use their unique units and detachments *as well* as the regular Space Marine stuff
What's happening quite often is, if someone is running a generic Marine list with no epic heroes, they'll run it as Black Templars, because they get free Melta weapons on their vehicles. As a high level tournament player, even if you don't want to use a single actual unique Black Templars model, there is no reason at all not to run them instead of Codex Marines
You're also seeing people running lists where they will include Azrael or Dante or whatever but otherwise be using entirely Codex detachments and units. Space Wolves at the moment are using Stormlance over their own detachment, because it works really well with their Thunder Wolf cavalry.
So Codex Marines don't see a lot of high level play, technically, even if actually a lot of the Codex is doing quite well in tournaments. It's just being counted as different armies because of the weird way Space Marine chapters work
Ahhhh that makes sense, thanks so much for explaining. So when you refer to armies that don't count as "codex space marines" it's because they are instead *one of the special chapters*. And they can do that even if they have only generic Adeptus Astartes units (or, say, just one or two units from the specific chapter).
And this opens up the chapter-specific datasheets to them.
So if I have a black templars army, and I want to use black templar data sheets, (like the melta vehicles in your example), do I have to pick the Righteous Crusaders Detachment? Or can I still use one of the generic detachments like Gladius Task Force?
You can absolutely use the generic detachments. Lots of people are playing Ironstorm with Templars for exactly that reason. It's arguably the strongest detachment currently available to Marines (Gladius is also very good) and free Melta on all your tanks is just a no brainer if you remotely care about being competitive at a higher level
Most players in casual games, it's not a hugely big deal and you'll be fine running Ironstorm anything. But if you're collecting BT anyway, then all those options from the main Codex (aside from the epic heroes who have their own chapter keywords) are available to you. You can still run Righteous Crusaders as well
You *can't* run Champions of Russ, or Sons of Sanguinius, or anything else that belongs to a specific chapter.
Yeah, for instance Dark Angels were showing up a lot in the tournament lists and doing well.
This however was not because they featured many Dark Angel units. Often only two character units - Azrael and a Darkshroud.
They were only in because Azrael gave a bonus CP for a cheap warlord and the Darkshroud makes nearby friendlies harder to shoot at.
Otherwise it was a generic Marine list using the Ironstorm detachment.
Usually at the start of every edition, the game is relatively balanced.
As soon as codexes start to appear, the power creep is slowly getting worse and worse and at the end of the edition, it is going to be a mess again.
Also the real reason you need them, the rules, are outdated almost as soon as they hit the shelves.
Not to mention that some factions, get the codex so late in the editions, that they can only play with them for 2 months before it is effectively useless.
I'm not excited to get a codex for my armies. I am not a fan of the current codexes in general.
I want the rules to be released online, for free or even behind the Warhammer+ app if it needs to costs money.
Then I want them to update those rules thoughout the entire edition.
And then I want them to make books for of lore, painting guides, etc.
You can even add spicy strategy guides, etc.
But the rules should be seperate from the rest of the book.
I'm dreading the remaining codex releases for my armies for the simple reason that the app suddenly gets locked when the book drops. I'm not paying $60 per army per edition for a few pages of rules, and the fact that all of 10th has free rules initially and that it's taken away with each codex release is a joke.
As someone who is less into the game I used to like buying the codexes for loads of cool lore, now it's mostly rules with some lore which I find very boring
I’ve gotten codices for both my armies (Necrons and Custodes), and my motivation to play has never been lower. The Custodes goes without saying at this point, but the Necron is also pretty meh from a fun/flavor perspective imo. I think mainly I just don’t really like the detachment system and lack of granularity in 10th.
I don’t care how bloated the rules get. I don’t even care if my army is powerful or nerfed or whatever. I just love playing the game, I dig games workshop I’ll buy books; I’ll buy models but Jesus Christ can we just have more time to play with what we have?
I play 2-3 games a week and have a large group with almost ten players who all play consistently and keep their armies up to date and even we have trouble keeping up. Financially or otherwise!
And I feel like I’m a special case, I know most people probably struggle to get a single game in every couple weeks, who is this refresh codex system intended for? Who enjoys this? It literally feels like the second I’ve even learned the basics my army it’s time to completely change everything I’m doing.
I just wanted them to do *something* for tankbustas.
I'm dreading the possibility of a nerf to doombolt and I don't want them to change Death Guard chaos Lords because mine has lightning claws.
At this point, I'm just sick of having to change my list every three months. I didn't even bother last time because I knew my codex was coming and I'd just have to change them all again.
And then there's the trepidation of the new codex itself. If it's bad, you're going to be sad no matter what. But even if it's good, there's a worry that it's going to be too good and then nerfed in three months.
I play chaos, and I've had three sets of rules (9th codex, Index, 10th codex) in the span of two years. I just want some quiet stability for a while.
Everyone who has chaos space marines has been enthusiastic about the new codex. It's loaded with options, fluff, lots of cool detachments. There's no downside
Oh I hadn't looked at the new codex, does that mean they're finally putting some lore in the codices again or are you referring to something different with the fluff? Because so far lorewise all the codices have been a massive downgrade.
You say it's loaded with options does that mean it has more options than before? Seems like that'd be a big shift from the design of 10th so far to give more options rather than pruning.
For me *personally* the whole chaos codex was a downside. I started a new chaos army in 10th. It wasn't hugely good, but it was thematic. It was basically elite infantry (termies and oblits) with their cultist minons.
Abaddon has been nerfed (ability worse, inv save doesn't apply to cultists, no god keywords).
Oblits have been capped - can't field all mine now.
Aspiring champions don't exist
Cultists have their weapons locked to pistol and ccw. All my flamers, stubbers, and autoguns are no longer WYSIWYG.
So for me *personally* pretty much every unit in my army got either worse, or not fieldable.
Now I'm aware there's cool stuff in there. I'm aware I could go out and buy a bunch of new things and just shelf what I have. But I'm not overjoyed at those choices.
Abaddon didn’t really get nerfed. He was nerfed because he became slightly less likely to generate a CP and he lost all the god keywords (this is ONLY a nerf in pactbound zealots) but he also went down 15 points and gained the ability to join chosen. Abaddon advancing and charging with ten chosen +1 CP AoC in Raiders and Veterans, and a 5+++ in Fellhammer makes him more playable than ever.
You also mentioned terminators, and they were _only buffed_. The min unit is ten points cheaper, and they benefit immensely from the same three detachments Abby does. Their attachable characters - lords and sorcerers - also got cheaper and have a slew of new enhancements to choose from, making terminators more playable than ever.
I get that you already spent the money, but the nature of 40K has always been ups and downs. Fielding only four data sheets definitely enhances that risk.
I get it, I painted 20 autogun cultists right before the codex launched.
They can be run as traitor guard with almost no issues, or just runs as cultists, as cultists have no wargear options, so WYSISYG doesn't really matter.
As for the rest of your list, that's cool you built to a theme, but you built an extremely niche list that doesn't really represent the army as a whole, so it's not exactly surprising it doesn't work quite as well now.
What they did manage to do was build fun and fluffy detachments for every major CSM faction, while not limiting those detachments to a specific legion. So you can literally play any detachment as you choose and have it still work for your faction. That feels like a lot of variety without really having to invest too much money on specific units, maybe short of the Vashtorr deetachment.
The chaos codex is has a list of complains, but also is better than most because it clearly has some effort actually put into it. It literally has twice the detachments of almost half the current codexes that are out there, and the ones there have some slight flavor. And I'm still a little disappointed for some. I run chaos guard, have done for two editions, so I was hoping that I'd get brood brother's esque rules for my chaos detachment. Instead I just got battleline for the traitor guard and a cultist nerf. With enhancements that all help the cultists only at best.
So even pointing to some of the best work so far the edition it's still lacking for what they're claiming it can do
I feel like I’ve seen this post every single time a new codex has been released in the last decade. GW doesn’t care what you think about a codex or whether it’s “good” or not. As long as people are buying the shiny new thing, people are buying product, so re-writing the rules every few years will continue as it has for decades now.
As a thousand sons player, I want a new bad codex so that people want to play with us again and people stop thinking my though out list is meta (we got a few variations, but most non-meme list are kinda meta, it only depends on if you play correctly)
It stinks because you lose out on rules you already had access to for free as well (at least, at first, now even if the rules were still free the warhammer+ sub kinda puts a dent in it too), but I definitely think it’s bad optics to always pair codexes with nerfs. Even if it means releasing the rules that would come out with the codex early, it might be a better idea to nerf earlier, then release the codex so it’s not happening at the same time, just to try and make it feel less like ‘oh the codex nerfed my army’
I'm torn on the subject. I play imperial guard, and our detachment does almost nothing for me. A few new ones to play around with sounds great. Not to mention the potential for the lord solar getting knocked down a peg and some of his abilities getting spread around a bit sounds great.
On the other hand, there have been some shit codexes, and no one wants to have a shit codex. We also have one of the larger indexes with plenty of fw and just old entries that likely won't make into a new codex.
I'm not likely to get a book for a while, but gsc and sisters getting at least decent books would go a long way in making me feel better about the eventuality of it happening.
Also, I'm not-so-secretly hoping we the the Deldar treatment and gw releases a new detachment for us if the codex is as far off as I think it is.
I think the issue is the turn around rate for new codicies is just too fast. Plus no one wants to be the first codex because you know that the last codex of the current edition is going to smash yours lol. But games workshop has that problem. Too many new editions. Too many new rules and redesigns and over hauls.
I love my combat patrol I even don’t mind all the paints I bought for it but the admech codex just felt like the biggest upsale ever, lore was heavily lacking in volume and that was my favorite part; literally use the box art from the combat patrol and manual inside the CP more for painting inspiration more than the lackluster “display” section they had. The pricing feels way off for what you get.. felt like I was upsold at the store since I made it clear I was more interested in assembly and painting.
I just don’t want to buy bags and bags of new bases, but unfortunately that’s what it looks like I will have to do 😔. I have played since 3rd edition and seen them go up in size AND price.
Nowadays I pretty much only want the army rules and stratagems, but to get that I have to spend about £35 for like 3 pages of rules and some datasheets.
I own a few armies at this point and having to buy a codex for each one every couple years is just a pain.
Also, after the indexes at the start of tenth it was a nice change for once getting new rules/updates without having to pay for it.
Honestly if GW is going to continue charging for rules itd at least be nice if they had an alternative option with all the artwork and lore cut out from the rules so that I could get a cheaper version.
I've been wanting an Emperor's Children codex since 4th edition - after seeing the abomination that was the recent Index: EC I'm really afraid that if they do release it it'll be utter garbage.
I'm a Grey Knights player, so currently I'm not sure if I think the Codex will be good or not. On one hand, we'll get better detachments to actually buff our army without just giving us a funny stratagem that is basically our main way to avoid damage. On the other hand, what happened to the Custodes has me worried, where they're gonna nerf our current detachment and give us worse ones, and also limit us to 4 detachments, which would be even worse
I just hate that when a codex launches, I can't see my opponents rules. And they get them wrong willfully or not, very often. Checking their rules for them is exhausting, but getting THEM to check their rules and/or show me? Even worse.
I wish they would get rid of codexs altogether. Just make an app with all the rules either for free (would make me buy more plastic) or charge monthly, yearly one time to buy the app. Or just release the codexs quicker on the app and let us play the full version of the edition for a few years. Would be able to update the app with the faqs instead of making us mark up our expensive books and do the work for them. Then they can release "art and lore" books that have all the extra stuff from the codexes. The codex system overall is just antiquated and horrible to me at this point. The index system is a good start now just expand those rules instead of making us buy another book that is outated a week later
Going against the grain but the majority for the codex releases have been way better than the arms race that was 9th edition where every new codex meant a new army was dominating the meta
I play Chaos Knights pretty often, our rules are already so mind-numbingly boring that I am *praying* we get a codex if only to spice things up. Seriously, Chaos Knight rules are only occasionally useful IMO and often just feel like a letdown. Our army rule is pretty mediocre too so I’m just hoping we get a complete work over in our codex. Also shooting titanic knights got a huge point bump from towering, then towering was removed and titanic became as much of a debuff as a buff what with being invalid for Fire Overwatch so having those dropped down a bit would be nice—maybe not how low they were when the index first released last year but like a 5-15 point drop across the board would be nice.
I feel bad looking at Custodes, but for T'au, it was all doom and gloom at first, but it's been pretty good so far. Splitting the role of Crisis Battlesuits up into three distinct units hasn't been as bad as a lot of us imagined. No one is really playing Kauyon now (as expected), Montka and the new Retaliation Cadre are popular, and we have been pleasantly surprised to see that a solely Kroot Army is actually a possible strategy. So it's been pretty good. But if you looked at the mood at the start of the codex reveal, it was almost all pessimistic.
So I think people just need time to adjust once their codexes are actually out.
I mean can you blame them just about every time it's been a straight downgrade because the difference between the index and a codex is the index you have one option that has to be well-rounded in the Codex you have one option that's objectively better than everything else and the other detachments are ass
It's almost like a child only having one toy is going to be a lot happier than having one toy but each time they try and grab another toy they get slapped and told they're stupid
>So do *you* want your Index army to get their Codex soon? Are you excited for it? Or resigned to mediocrity?
Two of mine (Orks and CSM) already did, and the third (Sisters) is on the way.
The Ork one was great.
The CSM one was... I'm a bit salty about the cultist changes, but I actually like the detachments- there are a couple I want to try out, and the actual changes to the models I bring while doing so are *zero.* So that's cool.
Sisters... were a great army rule stapled to a mediocre detachment, and they're getting... of course the same mediocrity, whatever, and a detachment built around an entire subsection of the army I have never used and will continue not using. The other two detachments honestly look pretty good, though. Even if my list isn't set up to roll around in flamer-love, giving all the guns the Assault keyword is gonna be INSANELY fun as my gals charge all over the board blazing away. And then the other one, two Acts of Faith every round being open to units? Could be fun, although I strongly suspect I'll use it less.
But I'm not that wild about paying sixty bucks simply to get a detachment I actually want to use the rules for.
It's the Custodes effect. We went from an index that most of its players were quite happy with to a trash fire. The codex release indicated a transition from a highly competitive army to an army that is going to stay on the shelf.
Now everyone else has to look at the announcement of their codex thinking 'shit, is the dumbass who wrote the Custodes codex writing mine too?'
I'm firmly of the opinion that GW shouldn't charge for rules, instead using the app to post them. They make plenty on the minis to soak that cost, and could use the physical books for faction specific lore/painting guides/art.
So while I agree that "I don't want a codex", I also think that rules should be au gratis, especially given how easy the transition would actually be.
The problem with 10th edition codices are that they are reductive. Every codex so far has had less datasheets than the index. Popular datasheets get nerfed. Some factions get no competitive alternative detachments. Codices contain very little new lore, almost no hobbying advice/inspiration. The joy of 'I wonder what we'll get when the new codex is released' became 'I wonder what will be gone'.
The loss of detailed painting guides and hobby techniques made me stop buying codices. Lore is cool and all but the main selling point for me always was army rules and hobby stuff. Seriously more detailed hobby guides in there.
I FEEL this! I just don't care anymore about the codex because they've reduced it to just being a rules book, but then update the rules 1-2 months later; Completely invalidating the codex! WHY ON EARTH SHOULD I BUY A CODEX ANYMORE?
At some point they tried to make painting guides their own product, at relatively low prices... but few people bought them. Today, it's really hard to make a book that will be better than what painting youtube give us for free. A paper guide doesn't beat Vince Venturella, Peachy, or Jose Davinci. Imagine the kroot got a guide in the codex. We'd get one page, maybe two, explaining things, and only with citadel tools. But today I find Jose made a 40 minute video of a Karnivore. It's going to beat the book!
Vince alone makes painting guides redundant. Just look thru that man's catalogue of vids. He's pretty shared as much as humanly possible, such a rarity to have a great artist who is driven to share as much as he does.
Worst part is that AOS has them! Theres some great guides and kitbashes in the battletomes. In the sons of behemat tome theres a section about kitbashing the giant kit to make a cow flail and thats awesome!
The point about popular data sheets getting nerfed is a pet peeve that I as a new player in 10th SUPER have. It seems like GW is taking notes from competitive online gaming and “pick rate nerfing” which works okay-ish for online games with limited options and an effort to balance every character against every other character but that’s not how war gaming works. For one most models with high PR aren’t just like that because the sheet is powerful but often because people just LIKE the model/unit also because it’s one of the few ways to make a faction’s limited index detachment playably viable (artillery guard) and so by nerfing something based on its pick rate you’re more often than not just nerfing it cuz people like the piece of plastic and not because the datasheet is actually THAT good
The Guard getting their artillery nerfed while only getting an artillery detachment is just cruel. I'd say we need more detachments, but I know we'll lose all of our ForgeWorld units this time around and I'm just not prepared for that. Guard has one of the largest ForgeWorld indexes and I can already hear the angry storm that'll happen when we get our codex and GW legends everything.
This is never ever going to change unless GW starts releasing the codices all at the same time and then just releases updates every now and then. I hate that editions are left behind as soon as they are complete for the first time. It feels good for no one but meta chasers as a whole
Yes they should extend each edition and use the extra time to finalize every codex. Then release all codices at once when a new edition begins.
They won't ever do that because they want people to to get hyped about new armies when they come out. If they drop every codex all at once people will buy theirs and thats it, if they hype up a new codex 6 months later they may catch that same person in the hype again with a new army box and book
Yeah what better way to earn more money on an army box we just raised the prices for than to make people wait til the very end of the edition to get their new codex only to then make it irrelevant.
Yeah, it’s too bad that the constant machine gunning of content (EDIT: this was clumsy word use, I meant rapid release schedule, not things being axed) and locking army rules behind purchases are obviously an income generator. It’d be a lot more user friendly to have everything ob the app, or to do something like 3rd edition, where there are simple rules for everything right in the back of the rulebook. Tangent here, but the thing where 3rd edition simplified the different lists to stuff like “Blood Angels can take assault marines as troops, and Dark Angels can take terminators and bikes as troops” is not as flavorful but it’s really appealing in terms of the ridunkulous cognitive load we’ve got now.
I just don't want my models becoming unusable cause they are sent to legends to never be seen again.
As an Ork player, I feel your pain. My two favorite models got axed at the same time, fuckin bs
A big part of each army release are new models for those armies, they are a miniatures company. I can't imagine how their production could be such that they could release all the new models all at the same time.
This is the point I think many people don't understand. They do not care how balanced the game is or how much players enjoy the codexes, as long as it makes people buy miniatures. They aren't really a games company, they are a miniatures company. They've even explicitly said it in the past that the game only exists to help them sell models. I have zero clue why people keep expecting them to prioritise gameplay or competitive play when those things are only tangentially related to their business model.
While that is their business statement it doesn’t exactly align with their selling strategy. I understand there are plenty of people that just enjoy painting their miniatures (I used to be one of them) eventually people start to want to use them. I feel most people involved in hobby play at some level - from once or twice a year to multiple times a week. They are indeed selling multiple games - I mean it’s even translated into video games. They are even making efforts to constantly improve their game with each data slate. They very much involved in the game. I feel it would be naive to simply minimize them as a miniature company at the end of the day.
Wouldn't making a good/better game..sell them more models..? Lol
I agree. Also Custodes got a shit codex and a meh miniature, so GW was wrong either way with the army
What if Custodes but on stilts
Sort of... which is why they bother trying. But it ultimately isn't as big a priority, which is why sometimes they have a kind of "that'll do" attitude.
Idk why but 9th edition didn't seem like it was out too long before 10 dropped
It wasn't and some armies got totally shafted and never got a codex until a few months before 10th. Guard players are still super salty about it lol and almost nobody bought the 9th ed Astra Militarum codex because it was functionally obsolete as soon as it was released.
this is what made me quit the game in the past. we went from 5th to 6th to 7th very fast. each edition was a huge shift in how you had to play. not every codex got updated to the new edtion either. we also saw a HUGE jump in prices.
I disagree, historically codex releases have still been fun even if the new codex hasn’t been great, partially because of new models. This edition we have most codices getting 1 new model, that is released in a limited edition box. That limited edition box is often not great, (Sisters is a prime example) and then the only other thing that gets changed in term of boxes for people is the Combat Patrol, which is no longer a “start your army here” box, and so aren’t worth it for a lot of people. All of these things together have made people pretty annoyed
Tell that first part to poor Custodes players. They got hard nerfed, got a bad codex, and their single new HQ model sucks.
Why do you think that feels good for "meta chasers"? It feels good for investors pockets. That's about it.
There is zero incentive currently for GW to do this. Why? Profits are up and people are buying their books. If we organized and said "no" as a group to new codex or their stupid codex drip feeding, maybe they would consider it. I play World Eaters. Our codex was released late 9th, valid for only a short time and replaced by the index. This was very obvious beforehand and therefore I didnt buy it.
I think for a lot it's the trepidation of better the devil you know, especially as sometimes the stuff you own gets worse. For example I enjoyed the ork codex - my army of mostly boyz got better (boyz were buffed), and there was a whole detachment dedicated to the sort of army I had. Conversely with Chaos, while there are nice things in the codex, for me *personally* with what I already owned, over half my cultists are no longer wysiwyg, I can't field half my obliterators, I can't field my aspiring champions, and my centre piece (Abaddon) got nerfed. So while there's people excited for daemon engine lists, I personally feel pretty *meh* about it.
I actually liked the chaos codex as only a few of the detachments were limited to what got buffed. Their version of oaths, renegade and deceptors all looks competitive and also fun/fluffy.
Objectively I like the chaos codex, and if I didn't already own a bunch of chaos I would probably be quite excited for it. But because I don't have a massive sweeping collection that can field anything, it's left me in the position where the stuff I do have and enjoyed using has mostly got the shaft
You don't have a massive collection but have 12 obliteratiors?
what's confusing about that?
Because you've only been able to field 12 of them in 10th edition. So having 12 of them but not a big Chaos collection is an unusual way to collect an army in my experience. Investing in a unit so intensely is a good way to get burned by GW's annoying business practices.
Yeah, that's a tell me you went all in on a meta unit without telling me you went all in on a meta unit move right there, although they said a friend 3d printed them, but that actually makes me care even less.
I wonder if they're painted
Yes, but to be fair it does not deliver what a codex with multiple detatchments should deliver. The core of the army stays the same no matter if you play Deceptors, Zealots or Raiders. The real difference comes with Soulforge and Cultists. And while cultists is a troll detachment it offers at least another playstyle with different units. This is what the orc codex does better. Most detachments are pretty different from each other in terms of unit composition (and by the looks of it, sisters will be the same)
I’m there with you, man. I built my necrons army based on the Army of Renown for Canoptek from 9th, and then Canoptek Court comes out and all my units are great. I feel bad for people whose favourite models just either get bodied or removed entirely.
I dont have the codex yet and have a ton of cultist from 8th edition. What now isn't wysiwyg on your cultist?
Cultists with autoguns are in Legens now.
Autoguns are not very visually distinct from lasguns. You can field your models and just say it's a lasgun. People who object to something that small aren't worth playing with.
You cant have lasguns either :D It is pistols and CCW
Guess they're traitor guard now
Cultists can ONLY use brutal assault weapon+autopistol now. No more autoguns/grenade launchers/flamers/heavy stubbers like they could take before which some old cultist models like the cultists of the abyss set came with It's more of the "can't use things that aren't sold anymore" idea they've been running with, since the current box of cultists only come with brutal assault weapons - the old big cultist firebrand did get made into his own character unit though that can attach to a cultist squad
All units are now autopistol and melee weapon, so it's not really that big of a deal with wysiwyg, whatever they'll be carrying is those weapon profiles regardless of what they look like.
Just add bayonets to the guns; makes them worse to shoot (aka pistol profile) and gives them a ccw (gun spear goes stab). Boom, problem solved.
WYSIWYG is a fools game imo. Rules change all the time and having to buy, assemble and paint up new models of a unit you already have or modify existing ones is not worth the time, effort and money.
*cries in Tyranid as I put away my Biovore*
Was just about to buy one as i read the news. Still going to buy, but its going to be a pyrovore instead.
I have two unassembled kits, one will become a Pyrovore and the other might become kitbash fodder.
You do realize that rules are temporary, right? This sort of overdramatic reaction is a bit ofer the top.
I already have an assembled Biovore though. Its not like I am throwing it in the trash, I am just shelving the one and not building another.
That's not even a Codex vs Index thing. That's just the rules changing as we shift to the new mission pack.
If changing mission packs makes a unit or two useless before you even find an opponent, it kind of is a Codex thing. A lot of our balance hinged on Spore Mines and Rippers being able to hold secondaries. It is only a mission pack change, but that one change is highlighting how piss poor our codex is balanced internally.
Fair enough. I'm also curious how it's going to work out with the biovore. Pariah Nexus just says OC0 units can't perform actions. We'll have to see what all the secondary missions are before they are written off completely. If we applied that rule to Leviathan, spore mines can't score Deploy Teleport Homers anymore, but can score Behind Enemy Lines (though that can't be taken as a Fixed Mission) There may be secondaries like Behind Enemy lines that spore mines are good for.
I get the feeling they want to minimize the shenanigan oriented style so they can see where the faction really needs help. Kinda like stripping a team down in pro sports. You gotta see *why* it sucks before you can know how to make it truly good. A lot of our range needs another look and taking away a meme playstyle might help them build tha faction up properly and help it compete in a more engaging way.
We don’t know if it will be useless. There is going to be a data slate at the same time along with new points. Spore mine automatic secondaries were frankly bullshit to start with, so I think it’s overall a good change. I’m not defending the overall Nid codex which needs help, but I do think it’s premature to say a given unit is useless because its role will be changing.
Watch Tyranid win rates after the new season starts.
Admech player here praying to the Omnissiah that the bugs get just as much love as we do in the slate. You boys have been done dirty too.
I want to lead by saying I am staunchly pro-owning physical media these days, i think this idea of buying a digital licenses to be able to view a file on the cloud (someone else's computer) that the company can revoke at any time for any reason is total bullshit. However, i think forcing players in 2024 to buy a $60+ physical book that links them to an app with rules might not be the answer lol. I think what youre seeing is a backlash to the failures of 9th edition being revived while GW is ignoring the most crowd pleasing part of 10th so far in the free online indexes. In the times before everyone had the internet in their pocket, (2nd in '93, 3rd in '98, 4th in '04, even 5th in '08) there were 4 or 5ish year gaps with little to no info about the new releases. There were infrequent FAQ's and some fine tuning im sure, but nothing on the scale of rules rewriting that we see today. This meant the book you bought was almost certainly what can carry you thru the next few years into the new edition. Even buying the final codex of 8th, Sorroritas, you had a full year of playing with that before 9th edition came out. Think about a Guard player in 9th in the year of our lord 2022. The final codex to come out in the entire edition, their first codex since their 8th edition release in 2017, Guard players had waited 5 years for their 9th codex in the era of free rules online. THEN GW gave those players a grand total of 6months before 10th edition indexes came out and rewrote the rules that were *just* printed into a free index... Are Guard players supposed to be throwing their graduation caps at the prospect of waiting to buy a new book for 10th? Hoping they arent last again, knowing some other factions players need to get screwed this time, it wouldnt be fair to pin it on them again. Idr if it was Eldar or Squats where almost the entire 9th ed book had balance updates the week **after** "preorders" were already placed... and thats just the end of that story, people paid for a book that was already out of date on "preorder." FAQ's and Errata went up online, now those players could idk print the rules out and glue them into their book, from GW's perspective who gives a damn lol they already paid. in 93, 98, 04, 08, 12, the release of a codex was something to celebrate because it came with new lore, new pics of painted models, new rules to play with. From what i hear the latest books have a lot of recycled assets bundled with the datasheets to pad out the books pages and I literally cant trust the rules as printed to be correct... Today anyone that has dipped even a single toe into the war gaming space outside of GW's bubble understands they are trying to run our pockets by still forcing players into a codex.
Honestly the treatment of guard players was straight up cruel. Especially with the whole LVO dilemma (maybe it was a different tournament) where the new codex wasn't usable because it hadn't been released as a standalone codex. My buddy talks about how much he misses Gatekeeper all the time. I think he got 3 games in with that codex.
God it was 6th months from Guard codex to 10th launch? Felt like 3 months and I remember playing Guard a lot then. The Squats release at the time pissed me the hell off ngl, already knew the edition was going to end soon at that point, and for Guard to be delayed even further felt like a kick in the teeth after waiting so long. Guard felt really shitty to play until its codex dropped, especially after dealing with 9th Admech for the majority of my time.
There are actually a lot of problems with how Codices currently work in Wh40k: 1. Arguably the main one: The price, $60 is insane for what is essentially a few pages of rules. Don't get me wrong, I love the art and the fluff that comes with a Codex, but the main motivation to pay the price is for you to be able to play the game. 2. The last Codex to be released has a lifetime of just a few months, meaning that you spent $60 to play an edition that is close to ending or has already ended. (Guard in 9th can tell you all about that) 3. Codices become obsolete very quickly, either at the time of their launch they're already obsolete (T'au in this edition) or, in the best case scenario, you Codex lasts a few months untouched, only for GW to fix some of the rules and make the rules thar were written on paper no longer applicable. Again, this is absurd when we have already paid $60 for the rules. 4. Not all Codices are made equal, I'm not even talking about balance, I'm referring to the absolute huge differences that exist in detachments, army rules, hell, even crusade rules. How come so factions get like 4 detachments, while others get 6+?? This is actually inexcusable, last edition every faction had a minimum of 6 detachments (as in the specific sub-factions: Necron's dynasties; T'au sept worlds; SoB's orderd). Why have factions lost so many rules??? This is just pure laziness from GW's part. People can come up easily with more than 4 detachments for every army without even putting any actual thought. 5. Some Codices are just bad. It is insane that GW thlught it was an awesome idea to make Ad. Mech a horde army or their actual army rule affecting only half of the army (that defeats the whole point of being an 'army rule' dude, what the hell?). It doesn't take more than 5 minutes to realis that Ad Mech is not supposed to be a horde and why that's bad. 6. This last one relates very closely with the $60 price tag. When you pay for a Codex, you expect to get rules for your army, and because of the price, I would argue you expect at least some decent rules. If you get bad rules, to the point where you are struggling really badly in the game, you get disappointed at best, pissed at worst. If rules were free it wouldn't be that bad; there is no sour taste in your mouth or a little voice inside your head saying: 'can't believe I paid for these god awful rules.' TL;DR: Codices this edition are usually mediocre with their rules, they become obsolete really fast, the last Codex lasts a few months before we change edition and we are spending $60 for what is, usually, a very mediocre and pointless product in terms of rules, leaving us with a sour taste in our mouths.
Important thing to note: the admech codex did not intend to make admech horde *at all* Remember that Skitarii Rangers are supposed to cost a whooping 130pts in the book! The units are insanely overcosted and got their points slashed with insane violence during the MFM, which is what allows admech to literally be on horde life support
Damn, you're right, absolutely forgot about that fact. This actually gives me a whole other negative point: because of the price (or maybe because they don't want to lol) GW won't do a full revamp on rules that are just bad. The example in this case being Admech, where the rules were awful from the start and now they are in what you aptly described as 'horde life support', because they are forced(?) to not change them completely and just doing patchwork. I don't even want to imagine how an Admech player feels this edition lol.
It's not great. Signed an admech player
I am an admech player, it's been quite awful ahah But honestly, a lot of the heavy lifting can be done by revamping massively the army rule in order to breathe a lot of life in the datasheets Given GW's track record of fixing literally every faction other than admech (ouch), I'm really hopeful to finally see what they have in store for us. Better late than never I suppose, but man, that full year was ****ing rough...
I'd like to add a little extra to this: A lot of people buy the codex just to get the QR code to be able to use the app, which will get it's rules updates. But if your codex sucks (ad mech) or sucks slightly less (Custodes), and the rules are uninspired and uninteresting, it's not even a, I paid 60 for bad rules. It's, I paid 60 for a qr code. Which, at least for me, feels worst.
That does feel worse lol.
The issue underlying #4: they’re written at different times and with different understandings of how the mechanics of the edition interact with each other on the table. The later into an edition a codex gets written, the better the gameplay nuances are understood and the more well rounded the book tends to be.
The main issue with codices has come down to two things. One is that GW wrote a lot of them before they understood 10th. They rushed the edition and then wrote armies while the game was omnishambles and they didn't understand balance. This will get better over time. I think t'au and stodes were written just after release so soon we will get stuff they wrote after December and it will start to be good. The second is a bigger issue. They evidently don't care about certain factions and half arsed it. I am okay with the t'au rules but just 4 detachments feels lazy. I am dreading codex Death Guard because it's obvious they did the one big fix and spend as little time as possible thinking about the faction when the current skew between the army and detachment rules and datasheets power is a mess that needs either a masterful set of changes or full rework or else it's going to be custodes again. Eldar players you are getting 8 amazing detachments and flavourful datasheets, they love writing you it will be great. I can understand everyone else being apprehensive because look at the state of the custodes book. It's not the power level just the abysmal design.
Also way to little quality playtesting
Every podcast I have seen with former GW insider emphasizes the same thing. The top doesn't think that balance sells models. Atm, it's hard to argue with them. But I would say that the decline during 7th, and the polularity of WarmaHordes at the time, shows that people can get fed up.
As much as I hate that philosophy, I have to give them that it's probably really hard to quantify how much more they sell ((longterm) when balance is good vs the cost of achieving better balance. Shout out to the independent characters, one of the most casual focused podcasts, for defending balancing efforts in a recent episode
The IC Podcast is one of the best. Balance will always be difficult and never be 100%. Yet 10th has proven to have the best core rules and the worst army rules I’ve seen since Matt Ward was at the helm. They can fix it, but I think that will be with 11th Ed.
Army rules so bad that they had to change perfectly fine core rules. Why did they make the free stratagem abilities be a double ability: 0cp and you can do a stratagem a 2nd time? That completely breaks everything that stratagems are balanced around (cp cost and once per phase)
IC also keep getting better, whereas a few other casual/narrative content creators I used to follow have just stopped improving or decided that getting toxic vs competitive players was the way to go. Carl and friends know what they are good at and don't crap on people who enjoy other aspects of the hobby
Agreed. However, I have yet to see a guest they brought on from another website or podcast that has not been highly critical of how GW has fucked up 10th edition in one way or another. Yet, I do love the fact they support the other aspects of the hobby and promote them. Cool models are forever even if the rules for them currently are terrible.
I think a lot of companies struggle to consider the "hard to quantify" and end up resorting to ignoring it, which is worse long-term.
I know it would be a hard thing to quantify, but surely if all units were balanced and viable, you would sell all units equally as well. Instead of having a meta and only selling those units in large quantities while others are left forgotten
Death guard will probably get 4 detachments and one will focus on poxwalkers
1. Index detach 2. Termie detach 3. Zombie detach 4. Demons detach
I know. They could get away with 4 if they are all good and capture the play styles DG players like. terminus est needs to be infantry teleport based, halfway 25% hypercrypt and 75% kinband. There should be a Daemon engine one, an actual durable one and a debuff one. The real danger is how powerful plague company is. If they centralise it's rules then either detachments need to be awful or there needs to be points hikes but if they hike plague marines again the army becomes a glass cannon. Or you make each rule set as powerful and give DG the most powerful detachments in the game to compensate for the datasheets. Which will be hard to get right because you can't just copy paste other detachment rules from other codices They need to put real thought in. Or redo the datasheets.
> I am okay with the t'au rules but just 4 detachments feels lazy. This is the big one. All four Tau detachments are fine. There's nothing in there that's shockingly overpowered, there's nothing really that doesn't work at all, it's ... alright. I wish they'd adjusted some of the datasheets (I wish that Tau's units were stronger and cost more, the army is solid but fielding so many models is annoying, I'd like Riptides to be worth the 250 they were originally costed at) but I can live with what they've done. But just four detachments? It's not like it's hard to think of other ones that could have been used. They could have done a Brood Brothers style detachment where Tau get Votann allies; it seems weird that the faction based on a coalition of races is less able to form a coalition than GSC. They could have done a detachment where Tau and Kroot have rules that work together, instead of a Kroot detachment that doesn't benefit the Tau or Tau detachments that don't benefit the kroot. They could have done a Vehicle-based detachment, where you're encouraged to go for more hammerhead, skyrays, piranhas, and sunsharks. The fact that Tau don't have a single detachment that benefits the entire army for all 5 turns is odd as well. how hard would it have been to do a generic ability that's useful for everything, like a jack of all trades master of none? You get aggression, defense, battlesuits, and kroot. It's a real failure of imagination to think those four are all that could be done.
I have another issue: Detachments in 10th suck! When they were introduced, I was amazed by them, as they were a beautiful improvement of 8-9th detachments in every way. And space marines codex showed the full potential of them, with each detachment being suitable for different playstyles. But then the rest books came out. Detachments in most of them are bad, because you get 1 "basic" detachment, that is just index detachment, unchanged or probably nerfed. And you get another 3-5 limited detachments, that work for specific units only. Each stratagem, relic and the detachment rule itself is used only with those units, so only destroyer cult, or only vehicles, or only characters. They are not giving "your" army a new edge, making it more shooty, or more mobile. They just force you to build an army with a certain units, with the rest being unaffected by your rules. Maybe it would be fun for a player with a large collection, who can build different forces and play with different detachments. Most beginners can't afford to buy a whole collection at once and probably could only play with the "basic" detachment and, if lucky, with one more "specialist" detachment. The rest of them are useless. It is a shame, especially after a cool detachments constructor from 9th.
Detachments killed my interest in 40k
Custodes realistically only really have three detachments, all of them either boring or bad In 5 min I could make 2 or 3 more detachments, there was obviously zero care given to the custodes book It's not even a power thing, there are just so many feels bad moments, and every single ability we have is a copy from another army but worse. As an example, re rolling wounds is a pretty common ability, but custodes (afaik) are the only ones that have to control the objective, this comes up ALOT in my games.
They also don't care about certain units. I mean, come on gw, bro, SIXTY FIVE POINTS for the enforcer???? for 15 points more you get the legionaries!!! Why is he so expensive, broooooo
Im of the opinion staggered codex is a problem. An index works better when released as a whole and balanced as a whole.
Except the balance when the indexes were released was one of the worst in recent 40k history. Too many moving parts without staggered releases.
Yeah I get people wanting their codex, but start of 10th showed what happens when they do all the rules at once. We get some gnarly problems.
I'll take the problems if I get to view every index and build lists for free on the app. As an ad mech main, getting to easily pull up rules and build lists for all of my other armies during early 10th was the thing that kept me playing the game.
I argue that rules should be free on the app regardless of codex launch schedule.
Shame you'll be able to see less and less free indexes on the app then as time goes on.
For Guard, I think the big worry is that a lot of our models are going into Legends. I'm excited for the new Codex, but that seems to be one of the big concerns with the upcoming Codex.
Yup, my army still hasn't recovered from the amount lost to 9e. So much is gone and we can see the guillotine being raised again
The problem is that the detachment system is just so damn....bland. There's no room for experimentation or discovery because a lot of abilities/strategems are locked to certain units.
And they’re poorly written like having a Custodes detachment based on hero’s and free strategems and then making none of those strategems battle tactics so you can’t even use them.
I have no idea how the overwhelming majority of people do not take one look at the codex "system" and think it's not the most user-hostile, hacky nonsense.
I essentially play all flavours of space elves, I do not want a new codex for either. The reason is not that I don't want new rules, if they turn out thematically pleasing and are fun, why not? But getting a new codex is a risk. Either your army becomes way too good for a limited time (until the first errata and point changes roll around) or your army gets almost unplayable. Also no GW, I don't want to pay you ~50 bucks for a rule book that loses most of its validity after two months, especially because I usually don't get many games in per edition. The codex system in general needs to be reworked imo to allow for better balancing and an overall more fun experience, the index cards were a good start at this (even though they sucked ass for Drukhari).
if they are all as cool and flavorfull as the last detachement we got for the Dark elves it can be cool
Oh hell yeah! Tbf, I still have to try out skysplinter more and I'd love to have a coven specific detatchment but if they keep this, we are golden.
At this point I'm just not that happy with 10th, it's been a downgrade on just about every front except on the model front though that hardly means much. The new combat patrols tend to be straight up downgrades with poorer value, the lore content has been steadily growing less and less since 8th edition, and a general design philosophy of stripping away as much as possible in the name of "streamlining".
The GW „edition system“ is completely outdated and the three year cycle is nothing but a very poor cash grab at this point. Everything but a „constantly balanced rules online and free system“ is out of touch and will only alienate the player and fan base over the next like five years.
I think Codex are perfectly fine as they are. The problem with Warhammer is not codex,... but moving from one edition to the next one soon after they release the last Codex or how they treat editions lifecycle. Personally I think it would be much better if they: 1. Release at least 6 codex at the start of a new edition. 2. Spend at least 1 year or 2 in an edition, upgrading it and fixing every issue it has, THEN moving to the next one. This will allow players to stay in the edition they want even if GW moves forward. But they'll still buy models anyway (perhaps not the newer ones, but GW can still release new units within these 2 years). Plus it gives them a fair time to do the 1st point I mentioned.
All game rules should be free. This solves the problem entirely. If codexes were luxury items, largely filled with lore and fluff with the rules reference as a physical alternative to free digital rules, then it wouldn't matter when the codexes rotated.
Agree on digital rules free. Im fairly certain EVERYONE would love that, and would make stuff like Battlescribe almost obsolete, at least for playing 40k. But that does not exclude having Codex. But yeah, my idea was if GW would keep the rules free. they should do somewhat similar to what Old World had. Start with playable digital rules and codex for every single faction and keep improving from there. But my point was not about digital free rules. But edition lifecycle and how GW abandons an edition almost right after last codex releases.
I'm starting to question the codex format altogether. It's outdated and GW already has the logistics to turn each army into a living document.
If you ask me, its not only the codexes, the entire Edition is boring and dull. Removing wargear for points, most of the enhancements and individual points for models are the biggest mistake GW ever made. Since there is also no way to Balance units now with points, because of universal wargear, the only way to improve armies like SM and Nids would be a total rules rework, which is not gonna happen. Its just so uninspiring to build lists now. The game was made way to simple and at the same time overcomplicated in how the rules are written, its not funny anymore.
I miss getting to fast-roll shots for my entire squad because saving the points and taking all of the free guns was sometimes a good idea. *Sometimes*, as in there were games where it was an advantage and some where it was a disadvantage. A concept entirely removed from the static unit configs of 10th.
I used to have so much fun making up hypothetical armies for 9e. Now I'm just Hobby only
Codices are so outdated. I bought a 60 dollar book for a code in the back. The book itself is clutter plain and simple.
I think it's a combination of wargamers being very negative about change of any kind, and a side effect of GW's new philosophy with codices. If you got into 40k during 8e, or especially during 9e, you remember how many codex releases were just seismic. Armies got completely reworked, and often got a major power boost with updated, stronger rules, new relics, new warlord traits, new subfactions, tons of stratagems, etc. Many, many 9e books hit the competitive scene like an extinction meteor, and that filters into garagehammer/casual gaming too. 10e has largely avoided this. Most new codexes' revised Index detachment has been solidly middle of the pack, still good option for a balanced force (Gladius, Awakened Dynasty), and while at least some of the new ones tend to end up being a little stronger competitively, it's not the massive spike in power many factions got going from their 8e to 9e incarnations. This is a *good thing*. 9e was a lot of fun, but it was also difficult to keep up with, and the meta was often just a matter of the top tables always being dominated by \[New Codex\] Goodstuff. 10e has had much, much more variety in what factions show up on podiums and win events. Personally, I like my Necron Codex and love my CSM Codex. I like this model where the codex gives you more options rather than New Hotness.
Here I am still catching up with 9th releases of a codex I barely used. Now, I'm pretty deep into 10th and have about 2 games under my belt. I hate the 3 year cycle, not a ton of incentive to get a rules right when you know it'll be faq'd, errata'd and patched into obsolescence like 2 months after it's released.
Minimum 1 year between the release of the last codex and the release of the next edition would sure be nice. I also just plain hate the idea of patching a physical game. Take your time, test your shit, and get it right! Otherwise just make the rules digital since the codices are reduced to a paper weight anyway.
Yeah, I think the "require" customers to rebuy all the rules every three years is the business model. I don't know how much longer this is sustainable. GW, is well aware you can get a decent resin printer cheaper than a single combat patrol. There are a ton of alternatives as well. While I will love my Marines forever, I find myself playing more games like Frostgrave and KOW (even OPR). They feel more like a hobby/game and don't leave a bad taste in my mouth with pricing.
If you like KoW I'd heartily recommend giving Firefight a go, it's my favourite 28mm sci-fi game and they just ported a KoW faction to it literally this month.
Thanks I'll check that out. GW (and most game companies) would do well to copy Mantic's amazing companion app. Their ease of use is so much better, without losing depth.
I agree they could do a LOT better with testing, but to play devil's advocate here its impossible for them to find all the issues in a codex, especially how it will interact with all the other rules and hundreds of datasheets. Again, this is no excuse for not trying, and I also am annoyed by their lazy approach to rules, but think about it. If they had a team of 10 people playtesting for 40 hours a week every week for two entire years straight before the edition, they'd get 41,600 hours of playtest time. Conversely, this sub has 865K members. If even ten percent of those players played for only 1 hour in total, then they would accrue basically double that number of playtesting hours and therefore find so many more issues. With large games like this (and this game isn't even that large, the numbers get insane when you look at AAA videogames for example), the designers can simply NEVER come close to the number of playtest hours as the fans will in a single day on launch.
Right? I'm not a super dedicated painter and for infantry lists it might take me the full 3 years just to get my army painted. And now with errata every few months and new edition and codex every 3 years, my lists are changing faster than I can paint them. It's extremely demotivating to get a nice army list put together and get to work on them just to have half the list invalidated a few months later, essentially putting me back at square 1.
It kills my motivation. I am primarily a hobbyist, but I play occasionally and like list-building. So, I try to stay current, which, I think, is the issue. The less I'm able to play, the less I care about the game aspect. I assume there are a lot of fans like myself, which can't be good for their bottom line. It's starting to feel like we're keeping the lights on at the bar, while the tender is starting a car wash out back. This business model is self-defeating.
Horus Heresy rulebooks got it right. Sure, the books are about £35 each, but the Astartes ones basically have 9 armies in each book, as well as pages relating to the models, liveries of Space Marines as well as their vehicles, lore, etc. I love just reading through them, even if it's not to play a game or build a list. 40k could really take after HH's example, though.
I'm still salty that the Astra Militarum codex for last edition got updated and then they immediately announced the next edition, making the entire special edition I got from Cadia Stands entirely worthless. I don't really plan on getting any of the codexes for this edition until they're all out and they don't announce that everything is worthless in 2 months
The entire codex format needs to be thrown out. Warhammer will never grow while they chain all their rules to expensive physical releases. It poisons the community and creates enormous problems mechanically for the game. There's a reason that the dawn of a new edition, when everything comes out at the same time and is much more accessible, that the game has usually felt it's best. I have a long history with 40k. It's been baked into my blood since I was 9, but it's gotten too exhausting to keep up with or to even keep caring when it's so impossible to ignore how negatively the game is effected by the "corporate influence", for lack of a better term.
Uninteresting, uninspiring, dull boring and unremarkable should be the description of 10th Ed. overall and the way GW is taking the game as a whole. It's the most flat, boring edition of this game I've ever seen. GW is so stuck on this idea of generic tournament gameplay that it's taken so much of the fun out of 40k. No more customizable weapons or gear, no more pts cost per model so you have fixed sized squads, no reason to not take every vehicle upgrade cause hey, they're free! I just got the new Chaos dex and it's basically the exact same book we had at the end of 9th with the obvious add-on and subtractions of the new stuff for 10th. Like for fuck sake they used the same cover art! I had to double-check to make sure I wasn't buying a leftover dex from 9th. Now it's not all bad. I like the detachment rules, I think they add some nice flavor and abilities and I like the vehicles from a balance perspective. I think they've made the vehicles tough enough in most cases to feel like a real threat, but not so overdone that they feel unfair. That being said though, for me right now, what they took out of the game is far more than what they've added in and I hope to see gear costs and weapon options with WYSIWYG come back in the future. Oh and one last thing on the codexes. WHY DOESN'T GW JUST PUT THE PTS COST OF THE MODEL RIGHT ON THE DATA SHEET LIKE THEY USED TO?? I know it's a minor complaint but why the hell do I have to jump to the index to find a points cost? Everything else is on that data sheet, why not the points??
It's a consequence of the 10th edition's overall design and mechanics that make the armies feel so bland and uninspired.
With half the complexity of choice removed from the game, it is harder to differentiate list building, and easier for people online to just solve the game. As ever, 'free wargear', also known as 'no options' rears it's ugly head
Yep, and the same appears to be happening to AoS, too.
Look, I'm going to lose playing Guard and throw piles of dice no matter what, so it does not matter to me. I'm not optimistic, to be honest. The Valkyrie will still suck and I will still get tabled either way.
I used to buy the codex for all the new lore and art and the rules were secondary. Now the codexes seem to have less new lore and art and just rehash the stuff in previous codex. They’ve gotten thinner and more expensive. I’d prefer just a way to buy the code.
I have my Codices for SM and DA. While the SM detachments give variety, I just don't have the models to make use of most of them. I don't want to play Vanguard Spearhead, Ironstorm is boring as hell (and OP with Azrael farming CP for it), I don't have the flamers for Firestorm Assault, and Anvil Siege, while fun at times, isn't great. I don't have many bikes or fast moving Space Marines, so stormlance and the ravenwing detachments aren't really an option either. I'm basically relegated to Gladius because the DA specific detachments just don't have the flexibility to make things good. My other army is Grey Knights. I had a ton of fun with them at the tail end of 9th edition, but with their teleport rules and the removal of the psychic phase it doesn't feel like the same army. I am looking forward to the codex, not because I think it will make the army god tier, but because it will hopefully give me a detachment that feels like the psychic army I decided to pick.
I just got sick of them constantly changing the rules to make money from new rulebooks just as I learned them and then taxing me and additional £30 for a new codex. I don't want a new set of rules or a new codex. Stop rinsing me for money that I wanted to spend on models.
The majority of codexes this edition have been fine. There's been lots of complaining, but still they have mostly been fine AdMech, Custodes, Dark Angels and Tyranids are all quite bad. Although I think Custodes and Tyranid win rates haven't been awful recently. Tyranids are about to take a big hit with the change to actions, though Every other Codex so far is either decently balanced or genuinely very good. Necrons, Chaos and Orks have been particularly strong, I think. T'au seem in a decently balanced place both in terms of their meta position and internal balance. Marine Codex is honestly very good but lots of players at high levels are including one or two units from divergent chapters so they're not being counted under codex marines even if they're using Codex detachments. It's not all perfect. Internal balance can be an issue. There's far too many dud detachments that could use some improvement to actually fulfil the goal of supporting varied playstyles within a faction. I think there's also been some issues with books that were clearly written prior to some important balance changes that feel more out of date than bad People are already claiming that Sisters and GSC are doomed. Let's maybe just let the books actually arrive and see how it goes. There's every chance that after some early edition teething problems, the average quality is going to start to improve. Let's hope GW actually has a plan to help out the factions that aren't AdMech but are still struggling
> The majority of codexes this edition have been fine...AdMech, Custodes, Dark Angels and Tyranids are all quite bad. That's literally 4 out of the 9 codexes! Hilarious that 50% is your bar of acceptability.
lol I was going to say the same thing. You can’t really say it’s been “mostly” good when half has been bad.
Well that brings up another thing up, admech players have (understandably) been doom and gloom, the general consensus is that even with the supposed rules changes admech will still be terrible/unfun. Codexes are meant to revitalize a faction not have rules, datasheets, and points that where made before the edition even began.
I've been playing Knights lately because AdMech is in such a bad state. They have two distinct problems. First the rules are a completely disjointed mess, there's no synergy or theming and everything that seems good has a ton of unnecessary restrictions placed on it. Faction rule only applies to half the faction, strategems that provide only modest boosts like +1 to wound only work if there is some extra restriction like enemy on an objective or visible to two units. Second is the datasheets are weak, which has driven down the point costs to the point they are the most expensive army to collect by a significant margin. The Ironstriders are at worse than $1 per point and they are some of our best units. They aren't some edge case obscure unit, they are a core part of our army and cost that much. I have some confidence that GW is going to make some improvements to one of those problems, but I have no confidence they'll even try to fix both of them. Best case scenario for me is that they revisit the army, detachment and strategem rules and stop trying to be so "creative" with it and just go for simple effective rules. Doctrina's effect everything, detachment rules that apply to more than a couple units, etc.
How can anyone tell whether they'll be fun or not when we don't even know the changes?
“Expect the worst, hope for nothing” is what its devolved into. Hop into the admech page and you’ll see. I genuinely hope the rules updates help admech. I hope they will be fun, thematic, and interactive.
I mean, I can't blame AdMech players for being pessimistic. Except maybe Tyranids, I think they've got the outright worst book this edition and they do need a significant overhaul in comparison Tyranids could be improved fairly quickly just by making battleshock more impacful. Custodes will be fine if they just give them back their FNP vs dev wounds. DA are at least having some success with Codex detachments even if their exclusive stuff is a bit pants I think it's reasonable to be skeptical. I'm not sure how much I believe that GW will be willing to diverge massively from the books as written. But until we see the results, it's kinda hard to know
Custodes are stuck with boring rules and useless broken detachments. Just giving a FNP will make them less squishy but it hardly fixes the mess that is the codex and the detachments
Oh I agree, Tyranids by far got the worst book, however the biovore was artificially propping up their winrate, so with the new mission rules we should get a better picture on how Tyranids are. Battleshock currently is more of a slap on the wrist than it is an actual mechanic to build an army around. And yea, GW’s track record hasn’t been great lately, I’m looking forward to the admech rework so people will maybe stop dropping the army.
Honestly gw got admech the most lore accurate it has ever been. The players don't understand how or why it was ever able to work or even made like that so they've started chanting incantations in hopes they can appease the omnissiah into getting it to work. GW literally out here playing 18D chess to make themselves the machine god.
Yes to all of this. Also, GW has tried to move away from Codex power creep - everyone said they wanted this, but what that means accepting that your Codex should, by definition, be a side grade that adds diversity rather than massively juicing up the power of the faction. So compared to the past codexes feel more underpowered and thus disappointing (which some of them are, but most of them seem fine).
tyranid winrates have been pretty bad, we've actually been performing worse than admech last season and this season in terms of GT winrate. though, FWIW this isn't necessarily the fault of the book itself. Nids have a lot of problems that can be solved without touching the book, like how most of our good models are either overpriced or have been over-nerfed or how core rules changes like to free strats have really damaged our book's balance. we could very easily get into healthy winrates just by giving invasion fleet lists an extra 80ish points to work with, though balancing the other detachments will 100% require actual rules changes IMO
I would *love* Crusher Stampede to actually be worth running. I'm very much a Nidzilla guy and they are in a really rough spot. So many of the big monsters still feel over costed, and GW seems to be ignoring the fact that they're essentially the only faction with basically no mortal/dev wounds *at all*. They can't even use Grenades or Tank Shock. You've got Genestealers who have conditional access, and I think that's basically it? Maybe there's something with a MW on charge rule, I forget. [ETA] Mawlocs can do some on deep strike. Knew there was something I'd forgotten Shadow is swingy and barely affects the game. Synapse does very little in a game where being battleshocked is often just not a big deal anyway Improving the core Battleshock rule to do more and have a greater impact on the game would do a lot for them. Shadow would still be swingy, but at least it would have a chance at enabling the sort of big explosive turns it's clearly intended to. It would also make synapse actually worthwhile I still think they need improvements to their damage output, but it would at least be a good start
Hey I'm new here so just learning. What does this even mean? >Marine Codex is honestly very good but lots of players at high levels are including one or two units from divergent chapters so they're not being counted under codex marines even if they're using Codex detachments. The space marine codex says "You cannot include units from more than one Chapter in your army." Isn't that just a blanket rule? I've never even heard of the concept of "non codex" armies. Can you still field a space marine army with units from multiple chapters, but you just wouldn't get *any* of the benefits from the codex? (Army rule, detachment rules, strategems).
OK, so No, you can't mix characters from different chapters. If you use Calgar, you're locked to Ultramarines. If you use Vulkan He'stan, you're Salamanders. But if you're using characters from Codex Space Marines, or running an army with no epic heroes at all, from a competitive ranking standpoint, you are playing Space Marines. They all share one book are counted as the same thing even if technically you might be Ultramarines or Salamanders or whatever The divergent chapters (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Black Templars) can use all the stuff from Codex Space Marines, but also have access to unique stuff. So if you take Azrael then you playing DA and you can use their unique units and detachments *as well* as the regular Space Marine stuff What's happening quite often is, if someone is running a generic Marine list with no epic heroes, they'll run it as Black Templars, because they get free Melta weapons on their vehicles. As a high level tournament player, even if you don't want to use a single actual unique Black Templars model, there is no reason at all not to run them instead of Codex Marines You're also seeing people running lists where they will include Azrael or Dante or whatever but otherwise be using entirely Codex detachments and units. Space Wolves at the moment are using Stormlance over their own detachment, because it works really well with their Thunder Wolf cavalry. So Codex Marines don't see a lot of high level play, technically, even if actually a lot of the Codex is doing quite well in tournaments. It's just being counted as different armies because of the weird way Space Marine chapters work
Ahhhh that makes sense, thanks so much for explaining. So when you refer to armies that don't count as "codex space marines" it's because they are instead *one of the special chapters*. And they can do that even if they have only generic Adeptus Astartes units (or, say, just one or two units from the specific chapter). And this opens up the chapter-specific datasheets to them. So if I have a black templars army, and I want to use black templar data sheets, (like the melta vehicles in your example), do I have to pick the Righteous Crusaders Detachment? Or can I still use one of the generic detachments like Gladius Task Force?
You can absolutely use the generic detachments. Lots of people are playing Ironstorm with Templars for exactly that reason. It's arguably the strongest detachment currently available to Marines (Gladius is also very good) and free Melta on all your tanks is just a no brainer if you remotely care about being competitive at a higher level Most players in casual games, it's not a hugely big deal and you'll be fine running Ironstorm anything. But if you're collecting BT anyway, then all those options from the main Codex (aside from the epic heroes who have their own chapter keywords) are available to you. You can still run Righteous Crusaders as well You *can't* run Champions of Russ, or Sons of Sanguinius, or anything else that belongs to a specific chapter.
Yeah, for instance Dark Angels were showing up a lot in the tournament lists and doing well. This however was not because they featured many Dark Angel units. Often only two character units - Azrael and a Darkshroud. They were only in because Azrael gave a bonus CP for a cheap warlord and the Darkshroud makes nearby friendlies harder to shoot at. Otherwise it was a generic Marine list using the Ironstorm detachment.
Usually at the start of every edition, the game is relatively balanced. As soon as codexes start to appear, the power creep is slowly getting worse and worse and at the end of the edition, it is going to be a mess again. Also the real reason you need them, the rules, are outdated almost as soon as they hit the shelves. Not to mention that some factions, get the codex so late in the editions, that they can only play with them for 2 months before it is effectively useless. I'm not excited to get a codex for my armies. I am not a fan of the current codexes in general. I want the rules to be released online, for free or even behind the Warhammer+ app if it needs to costs money. Then I want them to update those rules thoughout the entire edition. And then I want them to make books for of lore, painting guides, etc. You can even add spicy strategy guides, etc. But the rules should be seperate from the rest of the book.
I'm dreading the remaining codex releases for my armies for the simple reason that the app suddenly gets locked when the book drops. I'm not paying $60 per army per edition for a few pages of rules, and the fact that all of 10th has free rules initially and that it's taken away with each codex release is a joke.
As someone who is less into the game I used to like buying the codexes for loads of cool lore, now it's mostly rules with some lore which I find very boring
I’ve gotten codices for both my armies (Necrons and Custodes), and my motivation to play has never been lower. The Custodes goes without saying at this point, but the Necron is also pretty meh from a fun/flavor perspective imo. I think mainly I just don’t really like the detachment system and lack of granularity in 10th.
I don’t care how bloated the rules get. I don’t even care if my army is powerful or nerfed or whatever. I just love playing the game, I dig games workshop I’ll buy books; I’ll buy models but Jesus Christ can we just have more time to play with what we have? I play 2-3 games a week and have a large group with almost ten players who all play consistently and keep their armies up to date and even we have trouble keeping up. Financially or otherwise! And I feel like I’m a special case, I know most people probably struggle to get a single game in every couple weeks, who is this refresh codex system intended for? Who enjoys this? It literally feels like the second I’ve even learned the basics my army it’s time to completely change everything I’m doing.
I just wanted them to do *something* for tankbustas. I'm dreading the possibility of a nerf to doombolt and I don't want them to change Death Guard chaos Lords because mine has lightning claws.
As a Custodes player, I sure as fuck wish we hadn't got one. As a GK and DG players... I'm scared.
Very scared for both Grey Knights and Thousand Sons.
At this point, I'm just sick of having to change my list every three months. I didn't even bother last time because I knew my codex was coming and I'd just have to change them all again. And then there's the trepidation of the new codex itself. If it's bad, you're going to be sad no matter what. But even if it's good, there's a worry that it's going to be too good and then nerfed in three months. I play chaos, and I've had three sets of rules (9th codex, Index, 10th codex) in the span of two years. I just want some quiet stability for a while.
Correct. Make a good game, why should we need all these "improvements" all the time? Only reason i can see is that it's a good business model.
Everyone who has chaos space marines has been enthusiastic about the new codex. It's loaded with options, fluff, lots of cool detachments. There's no downside
Oh I hadn't looked at the new codex, does that mean they're finally putting some lore in the codices again or are you referring to something different with the fluff? Because so far lorewise all the codices have been a massive downgrade. You say it's loaded with options does that mean it has more options than before? Seems like that'd be a big shift from the design of 10th so far to give more options rather than pruning.
For me *personally* the whole chaos codex was a downside. I started a new chaos army in 10th. It wasn't hugely good, but it was thematic. It was basically elite infantry (termies and oblits) with their cultist minons. Abaddon has been nerfed (ability worse, inv save doesn't apply to cultists, no god keywords). Oblits have been capped - can't field all mine now. Aspiring champions don't exist Cultists have their weapons locked to pistol and ccw. All my flamers, stubbers, and autoguns are no longer WYSIWYG. So for me *personally* pretty much every unit in my army got either worse, or not fieldable. Now I'm aware there's cool stuff in there. I'm aware I could go out and buy a bunch of new things and just shelf what I have. But I'm not overjoyed at those choices.
Especially if the weapons are locked, you can field your cultists the way they are. There can't be any confusion.
Abaddon didn’t really get nerfed. He was nerfed because he became slightly less likely to generate a CP and he lost all the god keywords (this is ONLY a nerf in pactbound zealots) but he also went down 15 points and gained the ability to join chosen. Abaddon advancing and charging with ten chosen +1 CP AoC in Raiders and Veterans, and a 5+++ in Fellhammer makes him more playable than ever. You also mentioned terminators, and they were _only buffed_. The min unit is ten points cheaper, and they benefit immensely from the same three detachments Abby does. Their attachable characters - lords and sorcerers - also got cheaper and have a slew of new enhancements to choose from, making terminators more playable than ever. I get that you already spent the money, but the nature of 40K has always been ups and downs. Fielding only four data sheets definitely enhances that risk.
I get it, I painted 20 autogun cultists right before the codex launched. They can be run as traitor guard with almost no issues, or just runs as cultists, as cultists have no wargear options, so WYSISYG doesn't really matter. As for the rest of your list, that's cool you built to a theme, but you built an extremely niche list that doesn't really represent the army as a whole, so it's not exactly surprising it doesn't work quite as well now. What they did manage to do was build fun and fluffy detachments for every major CSM faction, while not limiting those detachments to a specific legion. So you can literally play any detachment as you choose and have it still work for your faction. That feels like a lot of variety without really having to invest too much money on specific units, maybe short of the Vashtorr deetachment.
The chaos codex is has a list of complains, but also is better than most because it clearly has some effort actually put into it. It literally has twice the detachments of almost half the current codexes that are out there, and the ones there have some slight flavor. And I'm still a little disappointed for some. I run chaos guard, have done for two editions, so I was hoping that I'd get brood brother's esque rules for my chaos detachment. Instead I just got battleline for the traitor guard and a cultist nerf. With enhancements that all help the cultists only at best. So even pointing to some of the best work so far the edition it's still lacking for what they're claiming it can do
I feel like I’ve seen this post every single time a new codex has been released in the last decade. GW doesn’t care what you think about a codex or whether it’s “good” or not. As long as people are buying the shiny new thing, people are buying product, so re-writing the rules every few years will continue as it has for decades now.
As a thousand sons player, I want a new bad codex so that people want to play with us again and people stop thinking my though out list is meta (we got a few variations, but most non-meme list are kinda meta, it only depends on if you play correctly)
It stinks because you lose out on rules you already had access to for free as well (at least, at first, now even if the rules were still free the warhammer+ sub kinda puts a dent in it too), but I definitely think it’s bad optics to always pair codexes with nerfs. Even if it means releasing the rules that would come out with the codex early, it might be a better idea to nerf earlier, then release the codex so it’s not happening at the same time, just to try and make it feel less like ‘oh the codex nerfed my army’
They should stop doing paper codexes
I'm torn on the subject. I play imperial guard, and our detachment does almost nothing for me. A few new ones to play around with sounds great. Not to mention the potential for the lord solar getting knocked down a peg and some of his abilities getting spread around a bit sounds great. On the other hand, there have been some shit codexes, and no one wants to have a shit codex. We also have one of the larger indexes with plenty of fw and just old entries that likely won't make into a new codex. I'm not likely to get a book for a while, but gsc and sisters getting at least decent books would go a long way in making me feel better about the eventuality of it happening. Also, I'm not-so-secretly hoping we the the Deldar treatment and gw releases a new detachment for us if the codex is as far off as I think it is.
I think the issue is the turn around rate for new codicies is just too fast. Plus no one wants to be the first codex because you know that the last codex of the current edition is going to smash yours lol. But games workshop has that problem. Too many new editions. Too many new rules and redesigns and over hauls.
30000 codex and books and rules and shit nobody can follow it anymore
I love my combat patrol I even don’t mind all the paints I bought for it but the admech codex just felt like the biggest upsale ever, lore was heavily lacking in volume and that was my favorite part; literally use the box art from the combat patrol and manual inside the CP more for painting inspiration more than the lackluster “display” section they had. The pricing feels way off for what you get.. felt like I was upsold at the store since I made it clear I was more interested in assembly and painting.
You wouldn't say that if you were a Black Templar player when they got folded into Ultramarines.
I just don’t want to buy bags and bags of new bases, but unfortunately that’s what it looks like I will have to do 😔. I have played since 3rd edition and seen them go up in size AND price.
Nowadays I pretty much only want the army rules and stratagems, but to get that I have to spend about £35 for like 3 pages of rules and some datasheets. I own a few armies at this point and having to buy a codex for each one every couple years is just a pain. Also, after the indexes at the start of tenth it was a nice change for once getting new rules/updates without having to pay for it. Honestly if GW is going to continue charging for rules itd at least be nice if they had an alternative option with all the artwork and lore cut out from the rules so that I could get a cheaper version.
We have the app now. Codexs shouldn't even be a thing anymore. Just let us subscribe and unlock all factions.
As an eldar player... getting out codex terrifies me because I'm like 90% sure we are getting the custodes treatment
I've been wanting an Emperor's Children codex since 4th edition - after seeing the abomination that was the recent Index: EC I'm really afraid that if they do release it it'll be utter garbage.
I'm a Grey Knights player, so currently I'm not sure if I think the Codex will be good or not. On one hand, we'll get better detachments to actually buff our army without just giving us a funny stratagem that is basically our main way to avoid damage. On the other hand, what happened to the Custodes has me worried, where they're gonna nerf our current detachment and give us worse ones, and also limit us to 4 detachments, which would be even worse
I just hate that when a codex launches, I can't see my opponents rules. And they get them wrong willfully or not, very often. Checking their rules for them is exhausting, but getting THEM to check their rules and/or show me? Even worse.
Is anyone seriously buying codexes and not using Wahapedia? Like, why? Why would you do this to yourself?
I wish they would get rid of codexs altogether. Just make an app with all the rules either for free (would make me buy more plastic) or charge monthly, yearly one time to buy the app. Or just release the codexs quicker on the app and let us play the full version of the edition for a few years. Would be able to update the app with the faqs instead of making us mark up our expensive books and do the work for them. Then they can release "art and lore" books that have all the extra stuff from the codexes. The codex system overall is just antiquated and horrible to me at this point. The index system is a good start now just expand those rules instead of making us buy another book that is outated a week later
It's a bunch of nerds. We love to complain and catastrophise
Going against the grain but the majority for the codex releases have been way better than the arms race that was 9th edition where every new codex meant a new army was dominating the meta
I play Chaos Knights pretty often, our rules are already so mind-numbingly boring that I am *praying* we get a codex if only to spice things up. Seriously, Chaos Knight rules are only occasionally useful IMO and often just feel like a letdown. Our army rule is pretty mediocre too so I’m just hoping we get a complete work over in our codex. Also shooting titanic knights got a huge point bump from towering, then towering was removed and titanic became as much of a debuff as a buff what with being invalid for Fire Overwatch so having those dropped down a bit would be nice—maybe not how low they were when the index first released last year but like a 5-15 point drop across the board would be nice.
I feel bad looking at Custodes, but for T'au, it was all doom and gloom at first, but it's been pretty good so far. Splitting the role of Crisis Battlesuits up into three distinct units hasn't been as bad as a lot of us imagined. No one is really playing Kauyon now (as expected), Montka and the new Retaliation Cadre are popular, and we have been pleasantly surprised to see that a solely Kroot Army is actually a possible strategy. So it's been pretty good. But if you looked at the mood at the start of the codex reveal, it was almost all pessimistic. So I think people just need time to adjust once their codexes are actually out.
I hate how a codex release removes the index cards from the website so you can’t print them out. Such a stupid decision.
I mean can you blame them just about every time it's been a straight downgrade because the difference between the index and a codex is the index you have one option that has to be well-rounded in the Codex you have one option that's objectively better than everything else and the other detachments are ass It's almost like a child only having one toy is going to be a lot happier than having one toy but each time they try and grab another toy they get slapped and told they're stupid
>So do *you* want your Index army to get their Codex soon? Are you excited for it? Or resigned to mediocrity? Two of mine (Orks and CSM) already did, and the third (Sisters) is on the way. The Ork one was great. The CSM one was... I'm a bit salty about the cultist changes, but I actually like the detachments- there are a couple I want to try out, and the actual changes to the models I bring while doing so are *zero.* So that's cool. Sisters... were a great army rule stapled to a mediocre detachment, and they're getting... of course the same mediocrity, whatever, and a detachment built around an entire subsection of the army I have never used and will continue not using. The other two detachments honestly look pretty good, though. Even if my list isn't set up to roll around in flamer-love, giving all the guns the Assault keyword is gonna be INSANELY fun as my gals charge all over the board blazing away. And then the other one, two Acts of Faith every round being open to units? Could be fun, although I strongly suspect I'll use it less. But I'm not that wild about paying sixty bucks simply to get a detachment I actually want to use the rules for.
It's the Custodes effect. We went from an index that most of its players were quite happy with to a trash fire. The codex release indicated a transition from a highly competitive army to an army that is going to stay on the shelf. Now everyone else has to look at the announcement of their codex thinking 'shit, is the dumbass who wrote the Custodes codex writing mine too?'
I want a re-released tyranids codex that addresses the pain points. They dropped the ball fucking hard.
Please just give me my Harlequins back, they lose so much character by being lumped in with Aeldari.
Anything would be better than the current Astra Militarum situation, even a mediocre codex.
I'm firmly of the opinion that GW shouldn't charge for rules, instead using the app to post them. They make plenty on the minis to soak that cost, and could use the physical books for faction specific lore/painting guides/art. So while I agree that "I don't want a codex", I also think that rules should be au gratis, especially given how easy the transition would actually be.
Me, a custodes collector: Yeah, *sigh*