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Offline Wyddr

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New Codex: First Impressions
« on: October 11, 2017, 09:33:17 PM »
So, got my copy today and have been going through it. Just some initial reactions:

  • Command Squads w/plasma got about 50% more expensive, but are still a tremendous bargain. They could have doubled the price and I still would take them, most likely.
  • The Executioner is back in business thanks to the changes to the Emergency Plasma Vents.
  • Nice to see Dozer Blades and Track Guards making a comeback. Track Guards look especially handy if you want to be mobile with a Leman Russ
  • So, at some point when I wasn't looking they took away the Ignores Cover thing for flamers? Huh. Can't say that I miss it much.
  • The Basilisk is still terrible.
  • Armored Sentinels are also still terrible
  • They knocked a ton of points off the Valkyrie and upped its firepower a bit when hovering. Nice.
  • Why and on what planet is the Multilaser worth more points than a Heavy Bolter? What is up with that?
  • The Vostroyan Special Strategem is awesome, though not as clearly awesome as the Cadian Doctrine
  • A lot of gear floating around to make your Company Commanders into CC characters, which I find odd. Is that something people really want to do? Can't see that ending well.
  • Since Ogryn Bodyguards are characters who can take wounds for characters, there is bound to be some kind of weird wound-transferral nonsense someone will try to exploit ad infinitum.
  • Same thing with orders that can generate new orders.

Overall we are looking at a very strong book here. Lots and lots of potentially viable army builds, none of the regimental rules are useless, and everything that was in the index basically got better. As far as I can tell, the only thing that got more expensive was plasma guns for veterans and enough other things got a discount that I doubt many army lists will require much alteration. I just swapped out a Forgeworld flyer for my Executioner and I'm good to go, basically.

Other people's thoughts, now that you have the book?

EDIT: And I just noticed that Rough Riders are gone! Gone!
« Last Edit: October 11, 2017, 10:18:47 PM by Wyddr »

Offline The GrimSqueaker

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #1 on: October 11, 2017, 11:09:40 PM »
Damn, Rough Riders worked with my Regiment way back.

Did the Valks really need a price break? I thought they were doing okay in the great scheme of things.
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Offline Grand Master Lomandalis

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2017, 11:30:20 PM »
EDIT: And I just noticed that Rough Riders are gone! Gone!
Not gone, per say.  You are still able to use the rules for them from the Index, and they have all of the relevant army and regimental rules from the codex.

At least, I think that is what GW said to do.  They mentioned it in one of their community articles when the Marine codex first came out.  The codex is just for units that currently have models, but if you have units that can still be represented and they are in the Index, to just use that.
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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2017, 11:32:08 PM »
Half arsed and under paid as expected. We'll still take it.
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Offline Aurics Pride

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2017, 03:53:31 AM »
I sat down reading a friends copy of the codex and to be honest they still worry me just as much!
The insane amounts of firepower that they are now able to put out from things like Punishers, Executioners etc is going to give any army some serious issues. Add that to how easy and cheap it is for them to bubble wrap their important units.
On a game balance perspective I really don't like this codex, it seems that GW is back with their codex creep after the Death Guard book and then this one. But I do love the fact that there is a lot of character to the book and most of the regiment traits actually represent the regiments very well.
Guard were very good in the index and with this book they have become quite a bit stronger, expect to see a lot of high command point guard armies rocking Leman Russ and conscript blobs wiping out armies by turn 3.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2017, 06:31:15 AM »
Did the Valks really need a price break? I thought they were doing okay in the great scheme of things.

They really didn't. They were pretty fairly priced. Quite surprising. I guess enough people whined that it was only shooting on Ork BS.

I think it may be *slightly* premature to call the book overpowered (too many codexes to go, and Death Guard is similarly powerful), but I think it's worrisome that this codex is so clearly stronger than the Space Marine dex.

The big problems here boil down to a few units only, though. I think Command Squads are too good, I think Conscripts are too good by half, and the Punisher just got ridiculous. Everything else is basically what the guard have always had: overwhelming firepower.

The other problem is edition-wide: the only effective anti-horde out there is another horde. The giant nerf to blast weapons is a wonderful gift to every AM Commander and Ork Warboss--there just aren't enough bullets anymore.

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2017, 08:28:45 AM »
I'm really happy the IG tanks are so hardcore. I think its the way it should be.

The infantry are just too elite. The orders, regimental doctrines, theimmune to morale and just the spammability and strategms are just way to over the top. Space Marines, Primaris Marines etc. are nowhere near this elite, versatile in all the tricks they can pull and that makes no sense.

Especialy when it comes to Conscripts these problem also got worse. With shooting at full BS on overwatch, and firing into combat, ressurecting them for command points, joining smaller units into bigger units... its like they doubled down on the power of the conscripts.

I played a maelstrom game against a 200 Conscript list a few weeks ago and my opponent just had an infinite amount of bodies across 6 ft of board and by turn 3 holding 3/4 of the objectives and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

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The other problem is edition-wide: the only effective anti-horde out there is another horde. The giant nerf to blast weapons is a wonderful gift to every AM Commander and Ork Warboss--there just aren't enough bullets anymore.

This is exactly the issue. The firepower of the big blasters is nowhere near up to the task. The old Fire Prism, Frag Missile Devs, Exocrine, Thunderfires etc would have been all stars in this edition if it could clip as many dudes as it used to. Then -even though I think they are still too elite with orders + doctrines- I wouldn't care one bit because at least you have a solid tools to take them out. With the nastiness of IG tanks you'd have to protect these anti-horde assets but at least you'd have the tools.

I think this has been the first BIG mistake of 8th edition. 
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2017, 08:38:34 AM »
This is exactly the issue. The firepower of the big blasters is nowhere near up to the task....I think this has been the first BIG mistake of 8th edition. 

I would like to state, for the record, that I pointed this out the moment they said they were getting rid of blast templates and you people laughed me out of the room. So...now I'm playing Guard and you can all eat it.  ;D

Honestly, though, apart from Conscripts, I really don't see this book as being wildly overpowered. It is when compared to Marines, I suppose, but Marines got kinda a modest codex and are furthermore hampered by the fact that the core rules of the edition are screwing them over (along with all other elite armies).

As for the Combined Squads thing: the only reason to do this is orders, right? I can't think of any other advantage afforded by having one big blob instead of multiple little blobs. 

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2017, 09:12:24 AM »
The consolidating units thing is definitley for orders. Which sucks because one of the limiting factors of Conscripts was really the HQ support, which is now an easy work around.

As for the blast/templates thing. I don't see why they just didnt figure out a non-variable number for blasts and templates. Like Flamers are 8 auto-hits, large blasts are 10 auto hits, small are 5 etc.

I hope as Chapter Approved rolls on we get less variability in hits + damage. Some flat numbers would be good
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2017, 09:42:50 AM »
The consolidating units thing is definitley for orders. Which sucks because one of the limiting factors of Conscripts was really the HQ support, which is now an easy work around.

It does seem to defeat the entire purpose of nerfing their squad size, yeah.  ::)
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As for the blast/templates thing. I don't see why they just didnt figure out a non-variable number for blasts and templates. Like Flamers are 8 auto-hits, large blasts are 10 auto hits, small are 5 etc.

I hope as Chapter Approved rolls on we get less variability in hits + damage. Some flat numbers would be good

Even if it were just flat attacks, not hits, I'd be happy. Give me 8 shots with an earthshaker cannon and I won't complain.

Offline Aurics Pride

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2017, 11:31:23 AM »
To be fair as you say it's too early to say that it's overpowered as we still have Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids etc to come. I do believe that there is some serious codex creep occurring already and I don't just mean between the codexes and the indexes. The Space Marine Codex and most of the "Fluffy" builds in the Chaos Space Marines codex are significantly weaker than the Death Guard or AM Codices.
The loss of templates is probably my biggest annoyance with 8th edition. There is so much in the edition that rewards good luck rather than good tactical play. With the templates there was value in predicting scatters and moving your units to ensure a greater amount of hits. Now it doesn't really matter how the unit it grouped or where they/you are positioned it's all about being able to roll high on a dice. It may make it a bit faster and cut down on a few of the arguments but your ability to deal with Horde units decreases significantly and it hamstrings those players that are good enough to take advantage of their knowledge/ experience.
To be honest I am secretly hoping that at some point templates are going to return but I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath!
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Offline magenb

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2017, 04:41:11 PM »
To be fair as you say it's too early to say that it's overpowered as we still have Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids etc to come.

I don't like that argument as it does not yield a balanced game. The ideal scenario is that every army should be roughly the same power level.

IF a new codex comes out, it will need to compete against this mess, which will inevitably make it stronger against those that have already been released. If GW gets hit by a warp storm and tries to make the next codex balanced against the Marine codex, then the game is still broken because of all the other codex's that are better than it already.

The only other option is chapter approved to nerf the hell out of newly released codex (I can hear the nerd rage now, I've only had my codex for x months and now its crap) or buff up the other codexes, both options make this a messy affair.




This is exactly the issue. The firepower of the big blasters is nowhere near up to the task.

I think it makes more sense to adjust the Horde rather than guns in every other army. Buffing the guns may either make them better/worse against normal infantry.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2017, 04:58:36 PM »
But how do you adjust *all* horde troops (which are hardly equivalent)?

This is an issue of core game mechanics, not of any particular unit.

I think the easiest fix is to convert all variable shot weapons into fixed shot weapons or maybe scale all such weapons by target size (+1d6 or +1d3 per 5 models or something).

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #13 on: October 12, 2017, 06:34:08 PM »
But how do you adjust *all* horde troops (which are hardly equivalent)?

This is an issue of core game mechanics, not of any particular unit.

I think the easiest fix is to convert all variable shot weapons into fixed shot weapons or maybe scale all such weapons by target size (+1d6 or +1d3 per 5 models or something).

Easily IMO. All guns with variable numbers of shots have a buff when shooting a unit that has more than 10 models in it.

That buff is either (A) Never get less than 3 hits (B) get the max number of hits possible (Too powerful I think) or (C) the number of hits gets doubled (My favorite).
So, what your saying is it's not your fault you look stupid by using words you don't get?
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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #14 on: October 12, 2017, 09:29:14 PM »

Easily IMO. All guns with variable numbers of shots have a buff when shooting a unit that has more than 10 models in it.

That buff is either (A) Never get less than 3 hits (B) get the max number of hits possible (Too powerful I think) or (C) the number of hits gets doubled (My favorite).

If you are going down this route, I would actually make it a keyword thing. If the unit you are firing at has the keyword HORDE, then flamers (and blast style weapons) generate double the hits. If the unit has SWARM flamers generate double the wounds, etc.

Assigning values based on the number of models in the unit has other problems, like being able to just MSU and use more slots, etc.


Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #15 on: October 12, 2017, 09:30:42 PM »
Indeed, yes--introduce a keyword and change how weapons work with it.

Let's hope they do that.

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #16 on: October 12, 2017, 09:37:58 PM »
There are some positive and negatives to using the keywords. If a unit of 10 gets hit by a weapon that gets double shots vs horde, that may be too OP.

By making it based on the number of models, it also makes those guns less effective once the squad drops in size. It will make people have to choose between continuing to shoot at that squad or firing their big guns at another squad. It also makes things like combined squads for IG more a tactical option.. do you want to push that squad up over the 10 man limit?

Finally, what squads are able to take 11+ models that should not have the Horde keyword? And if they take MSU, is that a bad thing? It changes their play stlye. Id much rather face 6 squads of 10 Boyz than 2 squads of 30. I can mess with their LD then... Or do they take one squad of 30 and 3 of 10.... makes these more tactical options.

So, what your saying is it's not your fault you look stupid by using words you don't get?
Flawless logic.

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #17 on: October 12, 2017, 11:28:02 PM »
By making it based on the number of models, it also makes those guns less effective once the squad drops in size.

The problem is you don't just face 1 unit of 20, scale the battle out to 100+ models, you need those anti-horde weapons to purge the unit. 100+ individual wounds is difficult to chew through, which is the problem your trying to work around.

There are also units that can be more than 10, but are not really horde, CWE Guardians and a bunch of DE squads are good examples.



Offline Wyddr

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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #18 on: October 13, 2017, 06:09:29 AM »
Okay, okay--I think we're getting off topic here. Any further thoughts on the AM codex, other than "conscripts are the devil?"


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Re: New Codex: First Impressions
« Reply #19 on: October 13, 2017, 08:06:06 AM »
I think it's a good book. The doctrines are really neat, a lot of fun relics and stratagems. Lots of flexability to build whatever sort of army you want. I'm happy to see Leman Russ's being a competitive choice in the army for the first time..well..ever.

Played against a cadian Leman Russ army with a Baneblade variant last week (Two tank commanders, two enginseers, baneblade, 4-6 russ's (forget how many), with my Harlequins. Tough game, but the army has absolutely no mobility. I won on objectives, as he couldn't move anywhere.

The tank stratagem to put tank orders on two models is really nice, but after turn 1, all he was shooting was overwatch. Still wiped out most my army lol, killed half my force T1.

Triple heavy flamers on a leman russ is really nice :) :)

I think combined arms armies will be best. Mix of troops and tanks.

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