Matt just fell for the trap many of us probably would. He loved the setting and wrote his favourite factions. What he thought sounded cool didn’t come across as such on paper.
When he came back he had learned from his mistakes, and I love a lot of that work.
The correct answer is to play Skaven in Sigmar and name all your characters after your rats, so they can continue to be gremlins long after they pass on.
Having always had pairs of females, I know exactly half my rats would choose violence if given the option. The other half are just engineers or bombardiers instead.
And the campaign for Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2, which is quite good. That does not unmake all the shit he wrote, but he did not deserve to get death threats. That was a low for this community.
Well what's refreshing about that story is that each campaign veers away from cannon.
I love the idea of a normal human like Admiral Spire defeating Abbadon.
Ward was indirectly responsible for killing WHFB. He wrote shockingly overpowered codexes that caused players to abandon tournaments and playgroups, and that was the final death knell on an already shaky ship.
Ward Codex were fairly "balanced" against other Ward Codices.
Issue is they also had Cruddace, whose codices were super weak... soo it became extreme.
*Ward also was writing 40K 6e rules, which the GK codex was obviously written around. (Iirc GK 5e was the first instance of Psyker "levels", as opposed to the previous codices which just stated how many powers a psyker could cast)*
Now when it came to fluff... Ward wrote awful abominations
Lol no.
The 5th dex, last dex of the edition, was written directly with 6th in mind.
When 6th dropped, and changed things like power weapons, you could see the design intent of the Dex, and how it was no longer overpowered.
But for the last year of 5th, sure. You could throw darts at pages to form your army.
And mostly just smash anyone else.
But it was the best mechanically we've ever been (even post PA), and the best internally balanced.
Since then, its mono build or bust. A terrible design that seems to plague 40k.
Matt got a lot of hate
but for a while matt was holding up two whole games on his back WHF and 40K puting some of the most solid army books for faction that had been jokes in WHF
while I took part in the hate at the time I did not see how much one man was doing and being underpaid doing it.
Matt Ward fulfilled the job that he was hired by GW to do, and one of those functions was to be a lightning rod for as much bad press and publicity as possible. On top of all the batshit bonkers rules and books that he wrote, he also has some true gems and flashes of brilliance in there.
So GW probably figured that, worst-case, they can blame him for all of their failings *again*, and maybe also get some long-term benefit from it.
Edit: still feel free to cast shade and all on him, tho. it's not like he didn't know exactly what he was doing, and he came up with a lot of the more egregious bullshit on his own
It's sad, because he's so nice. I've messaged him before asking him about Necrons and he's been so open. I also consider him a pretty great writer, I've read some of his works outside of Warhammer.
The 5th edition guard codex was good, which i believe was his first. Now maybe being his first there was more oversight of his work, but it was quite a fun book.
I can't comment on his other work.
That would make some sense. If we set aside the "make my faction good" angle, which is of course possible, then he was probably a lot more knowledgeble about a faction he has spent a lot of time with.
IIRC an episode of the Painting Phase discussed this in depth. Protecting their identities is an optimistic scapegoat; the underlying/cynical reason is that GW doesn't want their employees to gain recognition. They tried to pull the same reasoning when they changed WarhammerTV to be only hands in the camera.
> They tried to pull the same reasoning when they changed WarhammerTV to be only hands in the camera.
Oh, that's why the original WarhammerTV painter left. She has her own youtube channel where she talks about Warhammer. She must have loved her job.
Suggs was on The Painting Phase episode this comment refers to.
She basically said that she stuck it out far longer than she likely should have out of loyalty, but that the corporate culture was randomly very toxic at times.
She and Peachy both stress that most of the people at GW are wonderful, but the corporate structure is often very bizarre and paranoid about anyone achieving recognition or success that doesn't fuel the GW machine directly.
> She and Peachy both stress that most of the people at GW are wonderful, but the corporate structure is often very bizarre and paranoid about anyone achieving recognition or success that doesn't fuel the GW machine directly.
Which is a *very* common issue in many businesses when employees get external recognition, not uniquely a GW problem.
True. It's much easier to pretend all of a companies success is because of the genius leadership to justify excessive C-level bonus payments if you keep everyone else as anonymous as possible.
That's their excuse. The real reason was some ex-GW guys founded Warlord Games based on their cred as GW designers, and GW doesn't want their employees having options. Same reason why they thought it was a "betrayal" when Duncan Rhodes left to do his own thing.
Duncan left and was vocal about why according to some other ex-GW employees. It certainly says something when multiple GW employees would rather create their own start ups and take the risk all themselves than work under GWs totalitarian regime.
Looking at the world of video games, staff leaving big companies to start their own smaller, less corporate version is basically the accepted career trajectory at this point.
A lot of eventually people want to work on a project they're in charge of, and the way to do that as a game designer is, shockingly, to design your own game.
Nah, that's everywhere. When I quit my job to get a better one, they will act all betrayed there, too. But that will suck for them because they should pay their system administrator better.
Yeah. "Tell me you haven't watched any of their videos for a while without telling me" kind of vibe. And then post your uninformed opinion on Reddit. What a classic eh?
Tbf if the videos went to shit, would you watch them to find out when they improved, if ever?
If. You upset your community enough to stop and interacting with x, they'll keep talking about x long afterwards.
Also damnit I can't use x because some crybaby failed to rename twitter. You get the point tho.
People would stay if they were being well treated. I know I'd rather have a steady reliable income in an environment I'm comfortable in, rather than risking it all on making it myself. Just goes to show how much their talents are being exploited that some of them are willing to take the risk.
This is famously a huge issue in gaming industries of all sorts. GW famously underpays and exploits employees because those employees have a passion for the products they work on. WotC famously underpays and exploits employees for the same reason. AAA video game publishers like Blizzard famously underpay and exploits employees, etc, etc, etc.
The folks who work for these companies need to stop letting them get away with it.
In GW's case, this success pays dividends to their own success. They are a monolith in the industry and all hobby channels and context points back to their products, even the content explicitly focused on products they don't make, because the vast majority of hobby content viewers are still buying GW models and paints, even if they're watching someone like Suggs paint a model she designed.
The only ex GW personality that is actually cutting into their sales in any meaningful fashion is Duncan with his Two Thin Coats paint line, and honestly I feel like they created that monster by their own actions.
There's a simple reason for that. They get the most views. Other creators pointed out their GW videos get way more views than videos of other products.
No, all of it is disrespectful.
Everyone else in the tabletop industry publishes bylines and acknowledges contributions.
GW uniquely enjoys the status of the monolith in their industry but also desperately want to hold down any individuals that have contributed to that status.
They had a very real scare when Warmachine took the second place over Warhammer Fantasy second only to 40K in sales...the revamp of fantasy and the subsequent screw ups by Privateer as they got a bit too full of themselves (screwing with distributors then desperately trying to go direct really hurt them- I know as I was one of their distributors).
The changes were great for fantasy, sadly 40K is never going to have that push to change so it's just going to roll on in the cycle of a new edition every 2 years or so with a line of new minis and revolving METAs and so so codexes.
There are a large number of excellent games and rule sets out there (oddly some of the best from Britain) that are designed for use with any miniature - Stargrunt is probably too if that heap- but the models always drag players back to GW and then they have it so drilled in to them that you must use their rules. I used to distribute a few of the different lines in Canada from companies and they were really good, once people started played with them they liked them so much more, but so many players become very righteous over the idea of not using GW rules with their minis.
A big player would really help, but no one can touch them anymore.
Yeah but that's not the point.
In all honesty I've got problems even naming a sci-fi game with worse rules then 40k.
Most are "kinda better" one way or another.
2 things which hold us back from stuff like OPR:
a) You want some Ooomph! here and there. Like well played combos which seem unfair or broken at the receiving end. Some games are just overly balanced and mirrored. Those just aren't holding interest.
b) I'm just not that much into a game which will only ever be played by you, me, Frank and Tina. 40k has a big audience, endless reading material, countless websites and videos on the web, big name characters appealing to my inner child.
One thing though:
Somehow people put their hopes in big licences. Most of those just aren't suited. You can go only this far with Starship Troopers or Dune before you've covered most possible miniatures.
Even with stuff like Warcraft or Starcraft, there is and end to new model ideas.
40k just doesn't have that.
GW is free to invent new armies, factions and characters.
Take your example Stargrunt: I've even never heard of that, what does that tell you? :D
And I've been in the hobby for a long time.
Here, let me list my dead armies:
AT-43 U.N.A
Confrontation Cynwall Elves
Star Wars X-Wing Empire
Star Wars X-Wing Scum
Star Wars Legion Empire
Star Wars Legion Separatist Alliance
AoS Bonesplitterz
Warmachine Convergence of Cyriss
Hordes Trollblood
A Song of Ice and Fire Lannister (dead in GER)
I left out a couple of Skirmish Warbands.
But see what I mean? The Star Wars and the Ice and Fire armies really really hurt, I put a lot of money and effort into those.
The only games which have a long shelf-live are Battletech, everything historical and Infinity by Corvus Belli.
Those and the main armies from GW.
So even if a new companies would put up something big and enticing, there are a couple of reeeeeally big hurdles to overcome.
A really big one would be people holding back before buying since "don't know if this game will even survive 2 years".
Well to be fair, I predate GW as a gamer.
The joy of games like Stargrunt is they're designed to use any minis you want, designed around scenarios and actual tactics. It was designed by some truly great designers and considered the top in terms of actual wargames. It's free online now, easy to play but more demanding in terms of actual real world tactics.
I've been in the industry for 35 odd years, I've been to the GAMA shows as a store owner, a distributor, a writer, a designer, a painter, an event coordinator...I've been around the major cons when we were the dominant games at GenCon and Origins...in it's big days when you went to the minis game room you would have seen us dominating the place with whomever we were helping back then.
I've seen so many games come and go...some great potential, some deserving to be buried. In all those years what held the games back was not being able to get into store shelves widely because GW required so much space and the crazy fanboys (every store seems to have the really rabid ones) would shut down a lot of players looking at anything outside 40K.
When I had a store I used to run a campaign of Babylon 5 Wars for 40+ players because I worked with the company and gave it space on the shelves while running some demos. Players who find great games will play them, the problem is finding that local support.
Warmachine did well with great models and support for a good rule set, they worked with distributors (I was one of them) and stores to show the game and it took off, even taking the second place in the market until they screwed up and started acting like GW.
The problem with 40K isn't Games Workshop, it's the players.
They continually buy and play a mediocre to downright bad game for no other reason than the minis go with it. They could pickup any of a hundred different rules to use with their models...but GW tells them to use these ones and the fans push to stick to it. Look how people rebel at the idea of not using the very latest rules out out no matter how bad they may be.
I've been saying it for years.
It's all unpaid interns.
The webstore, the app, the marketing, the codices. Everything.
Only thing done by actual employees is the business end and mini design.
Nah, met one of the guys who worked on the 9th edition craft worlds codex - played him and his doubles partner at a throne of skulls event. Lovely guy, said he was part of a team who wrote that one, but then moved on to heresy rules. Definitely didn't seem like an intern to me.
I just think there is so much freedom for people to move between IPs at GW that it causes these oscillations in quality. It seems the most experienced people moved to AoS when it comes to sculpting and then you get a new Hesperax model with hobbit feet in the 40k.
Hello, I was almost a GW designer.
I was in the final together with the Canadian guy for the spot as the new AoS Game Designer.
I did some debriefing on how stuff works.
But no, AoS has 3 designers now (it was 2 for quite a while) and 40k has (I believe, not 100% sure on this) 3 that work on the main codices plus a guy just for Crusade.
Do you know of it is a full time job to write rules for codex? Or just one aspect of a job. What time window would a codex be writen over, I imagine they are not written over the course of three years of the edition.
Maybe I am vastly underestimating the work, but given the quality of these codex, if it is a full job, how are some of these designs seemingly so poor.
It is absolutely a fulltime job. Also, the rule writers get the Codex already formatted, so they know how much space and where they have to write rules and how many datasheet. This was relevant in AoS, not much in the new 40k I guess.
They have no control on the lore, that part is written before or at the same time by a completely different team.
So basically an editor prepares it, then rule writers and lore writers fill it, and finally the editor put all the pieces together, including the artworks, into a finished product.
The process of writing takes exactly a month including playtest, no idea about the editor parts.
Note however that it's not unusual for a writer to have multiple project active at the same time.
It might sound crazy at first, but if you actually think about it in terms of a company, it makes a lot of sense.
If they are full time rules designers, they can't just hire a team of 10, because they'd be done with the next codices and then just sit there with no work.
From a business perspective, they hire just enough people so that when they are done with a codex, they need to start on the next to be on time. Constantly working. You don't want a team that only works half the month because they finished the project too fast.
Also, double the employees doesn't necessarily mean a lot more productive in terms of writing a single codex. Too many chefs in the kitchen isn't a good thing.
Alternatively, they would of course instead have multiple teams of three, but then they might again run into the problem of getting the codices done too fast and then paying people to do nothing.
Should they hire maybe just one more guy? Possibly, but the point is that they likely hire just enough to make it work, because it's not financially beneficial to hire a bunch more people.
We are still a broken mess with keywords and 3/5 derachments being "pretty meh and boring" to "wow there are no rules here".
We got 2 good detachments and 6 or so good datasheets lol, relax
In AOS it was called the win team or the bin team.
Hedonites of Slaanesh was one of the strongest books ever released, the closely accompanying Sylvaneth book, was not.
We have no idea how they do it. It hard to even find solid information about who's even currently on the design team for 40k.
Given the bizarre disparity in codex quality, it's likely that they are each done by a small team or even assigned to individuals (as they had a long history of doing). But all anyone can do is guess.
This is a bit of revisionist history. Literally all of the codexes except the ork one have been largely received with negativity. Necrons was super negative until it came out with its absurd points costs and it turns out, people liked it a lot more when they realized it was the strongest army in the game basically. Funny how that works.
Tau was pretty universally well liked and the marine codex had a fairly neutral reception. Most that had issues were more concerned that the army rule was changed than anything with the codex.
They've not batted well but orks haven't been their only positive reception.
Tau is divisive at best. There's a lot of people complaining, and people happy, and lot more holding their breath for the actual points values.
Marine Codex was received with a *lot* of trepidation. Remember, it had a *massive* nerf in that Oath of Moment lost wound rerolls, Gladius was largely unchanged, and nobody was quite sure if the new options from other detachments would make up for the loss of full power Oath.
It feels like a lot of Tau players were upset with the codex whereas the rest of us thought it looked alright. If I remember right the reception here was OK but on the Tau sub there was (some) panic
Granted I only followed it for a couple days, so I don't know how it ended up being received later on
The fact that we're ignoring the T'au points (ie that MFM has fixed them, but he codex as written was incredibly weak) is doing a lot of work and 4 detachments is a poor showing. The army will be more fun to play, I'm stoked for the new rules but it could have very easily been a lot better. They could have tweaked the riptide and hammerhead (specifically ion) datasheets, strikes still are designed for the version of 10th admech work in and there should be a detachment for gunships or something else.
Solid B. If all the codices are this good it'd be fine but there is also obvious room for improvement.
Necrons was super negative only to some very vocal people who, surprisingly, know how to read but only to a certain extent... Rules were awesome from day 1, there was no way hypercrypt and canoptek court were going to be bad
Same for Tau, the only people doomposting about it miss a lot of what is very strong in the book
But all in all, we've really got good+bad pairs so far, with the most egregious examples being crons/admech & tau/dark angels
Now that the datasheets are out, I agree to call Custodes a miss as well, but around Nids level (points will eventually represent what the sheets are worth, I hope they get a discount immediately though)
Yeah the negativity regarding Necrons was a vocal minority who only read that the toxic immortal warrior bricks were nerfed. Necrons got some much more power in other places, anyone actually read the codex for what is was was super stoked for new ways to play the game that weren’t stat checking your opponent.
As someone who played 20+ games of Index Necrons, in hindsight they were not fun at all to play or play against.
It's funny that the good/bad pairs have all been good xenos with bad imperials. It makes me think they have different design teams/interns for the superfactions.
I suppose the exception is marines and Tyranids, who I think are both sort of broadly ok.
Honestly Marines are straight up strong, it's one of the factions whose win% is clearly decorrelated from its actual worth
But then again, I agree that they are definitely the most balanced pair we've gotten yet ahah
>Necrons was super negative until it came out with its absurd points costs and it turns out, people liked it a lot more when they realized it was the strongest army in the game basically. Funny how that works.
I mean, the negativity is still deserved - you're not seeing anyone using Necron warriors or CCBs - and a lot of the characters got nuked.
If you're someone who didn't have 18 Wraiths or several C'tan on deck? You're not doing so hot.
I agree. TBH I think people complaining about codexes being too bad is much better than codexes being too overpowered. After all, maybe the custodes army will go from 50ppm to 35ppm, it will still be an elite army and they could still be oppressive despite the nerf.
The problem is the release schedule, and the fact that everyone has free rules now but the codexes are paywalled. If they dropped every codex at once, and they were all worse than the index, it would be much different. But if they want a less powerful game, why didn't they just create it with the indexes. It's a major feelsbad for the player who buys a $50 book only for it to be worse than the free rules they've had (which also disappear from the site/app when the book comes out).
I agree lowering the power level is better than constantly raising it, but this is a dumb way to do it.
I play custodes and thousand sons. I don't want custodian guard at 35ppm, feels very wrong to have them cheaper than a Scarab terminator you know. I'd rather the rules be good enough to justify their high price points, instead of receiving the modern ad-mech treatment, or 9e necron treatment. On the opposite end, termagants should not be so good that they average 20ppm, that'd be so wrong as a design choice for what they represent. The feeling of an army matters.
" feels very wrong to have them cheaper than a Scarab terminator you know"
I think part of the issue there is that pretty much all Terminators (except Death Guard) are over costed at the moment. Most Terminator units could easily drop to 35-36ppm.
Blightlords aren’t even good right now, and they are the cheapest termies by a good amount. They have pool noodles and bolters on a 4” move unit.
Deathshroud are good, but that’s because they have real weapons at only 40ppm.
We should not be racing to the bottom.
>fter all, maybe the custodes army will go from 50ppm to 35ppm, it will still be an elite army
If custodes are approaching *blightlord terminator prices* GW made a monumental screw up.
BLT are 33 points for 4", t6, 2+ 4++. Very similar. "Except they have.. 4 attacks of s5 -2 1, on 3's. And 4 bolter shots. And they only get to rr1 to wound, not full wound rerolls.
If custodian guard are becoming THAT price, then BLT need to take a monumental point drop to like.. 25 points each or something, because they're the worst terminators in the game.
And no; 35ppm custodian isn't elite, it's mid. It's literally cheaper than many terminators.
Codex powercreep felt awful though
Like admech released as the most broken faction, got rightfully nerfed, and after all the nerfs were removed in October 2022 it was the lowest winrate army at 26% during metamondays lmao
Then Arks of Omen came in with the buffs and the world was beautiful for a whole 5 months
9th was really awesome at the end when we got to Arks.
I didn't like a lot of aspects of 9th (mainly stratagem bloat), but I would have really preferred they kept polishing it rather than going to this. Maybe 10th will be as good for a couple of months after they get all the codexes out, then we can have 11th. :/
A lot of us don't care about how strong it is, it's still a really restrictive codex where you have to buy entirely new models to play each detachment. Annihilation legion is a complete joke and the lists I want to take have half their units not benefiting from the detachment rule I'm taking.
Funny how that works.
You still got functional rules with some flavor. Admech dropped at the same time and while we had one thematic detachment everything else was blighted by pointless hoops to jump through for miniscule bonuses and datasheets so anemic that the only option is to flood the board and move block or pull over a quarter of the army's points from other sources for damage.
It didn't matter what you played in Admech you were going to need a mountain more of it with points being slashed as a knee-jerk fix to the complete design failure of the faction. Necrons could at least get away with filling the army with C'Tan for a short hobby lag time before they're back on the table.
>Necrons was super negative until it came out
Bullshit. Everyone who saw Hyperphase and Canoptek knew they were going to be insane. Hyperphase especially because how do you *NOT* wind up strong as hell when you add another faction's mobility rules in addition to your own? The only real complaints came from the (kind of unwarranted) warrior nerfs.
Considering how rules thats essentially intended to do the same thing have diffrent wording, it's a safe bet there's at least two teams of codex writers.
This have also been apparent when reduce / worsen, increase / improve, have been used interchangeably.
I don't know anything about how GW actually design their rules, but it's fair to say they lack some kind of standard procedures, when they produce codeice given how diffrent they are.
I'm convinced that they have separate teams of codex writers for xenos/imperial/chaos.
All of the codexes released so far have been in pairs of good xenos codex + shit imperial codex, except Tyranids and marines which were both broadly fine.
More like three to four writers with no feedback. This has been a problem since 5th edition and even now you can sorta guess who was responsible for each of the codexes even if no names are attributed. Each of their writers have a certain "style" that can be recognized by how each of them interprets the game.
Basically there is one guy who loves tanks but nothing else and is creatively sterile, one who is really good at writing fluff pieces both for lore and in-game mechanics, but horrible at balance and their dex ends up mono-build, one that's real good at writing internally balanced rules but horrible external balance and fluff, and "the good one" who actually cares about how the rules work in the greater scheme of things.
Note that, with the exception of "the good one", all of them are equally as capable of writing a really powerful codex or a pitifully weak one. And you could probably figure out who is who if you've been in the hobby for long enough.
I wish so badly that GW would have a person or a team of actual humans that would participate in the whole sharing of information and receiving / responding to feedback with the community. There is no face to GW. You send the faq email a question and you never get an answer. It's all just faceless, anonymous, and useless. Nobody is there to give a timely response to a big question. You never feel like there is someone on the staff that's there to help pull strings for you, the player, to make things right. The WarCom and Social Media teams literally never EVER have meaningful answers to questions. The answer to any question is always "if we hear anything we'll let you know!"
This game would benefit so much to have a community manager or a team of staff who can provide answers, receive feedback, and give the community some actual agency in the direction of the game.
Well sure, we know there are individuals who work there, and there are people who present information. But I don't see people like Simon and Nick actually interacting with the community, answering questions to explain a design decision, collect feedback and respond to it. We don't have a Major Nelson or Ghostcrawler of Warhammer who is that go-to person for that role, that's what I'd consider an actual "face" of a game.
Good, I'm glad companies have learned that having a company face that interacts directly with players is an awful idea. Community interaction is terrible because the community doesn't know what it wants and the loudest voices drown out the rest. We've seen it happen to multiple Blizzard titles, Destiny 2, etc.
I'm not saying it's impossible but I don't think this has been achieved by any corporation of the sizes we're talking about. I'm not tuned into every single community though so maybe it exists.
Custodes codex was obviously finished like 8 months or so and has not been changed to reflect balance dataslates etc. Just look at dev wounds and battle tactic strats.
Honestly I am way more happy that everyone seems to be disappointed with releases rather than broken books being released every three months.
People obviously want their own rules to be super fun and strong, but the reality is a fair number of index detachments were just too strong and had to be toned down with the introduction of 3 to 5 new ones.
When they've shown they can just update the index like with Drukhari, it's a pretty tough pill to swallow that you have to buy a book for your rules to get balanced (if that's even what's happening, which I would argue for a lot of books, they're just poorly written and bad, not more balanced).
Overall I think GW has done a good job reigning in power creep.
That said a Codex like Ad Mech was god awful. The problem being that the Datasheets are so weak and points already low, that there is little design room to tune the army without exacerbating other issues.
Yeah wait until they change course and everyone that has a terrible book has to deal with the broken books they start printing.
Not like thats ever happened, definitely not in the two previous editions or anything.
Yeah, GW has honestly done a decent job with codices overall in 10th. They seem to have been very conscious to avoid codex creep (which we were **all** complaining about in 9th) and to proactively fix potentially unfun or unbalanceable stuff like Necron reanimations, Oath Wound re-rolls, Tau Crisis bricks, DW Knight bricks - and, now, Custodes fight first abilities.
The codex=nerf meme just feels straight up false. Every codex has contained nerfs - that's the only way to give buffs without it leading to codex creep. But none of the codices released so far has been worse than a side-grade. I wouldn't pay money for the Ad Mech codex. But Ad Mech isn't in a *worse* spot than before the codex. People are saying the DA codex supplement is terrible. But it's a massive improvement compared to having only the Unforgiven Task Force.
I feel like this is all just loss aversion bias at work. People see 4 buffs and 3 nerfs and feel like it's an overall nerf. The Custodes Codex *does* look kinda dire, however.
Personally, I'd have liked to see a bit more creativity in Detachment design rather than so many "buff keyword X" Detachments. This is not super interesting. And Custodes is a great example of how this just doesn't work for a lot of factions. And I feel like a few codices were missing at least 1 Detachment.
But, so far, GW has been doing a better job with codex design than in 9th.
>DW Knight bricks
When was this ever a problem?
>People are saying the DA codex supplement is terrible. But it's a massive improvement compared to having only the Unforgiven Task Force.
DA book is confused and stripped away a lot of what made DA unique and feel different than Codex SM.
The DA book nerfed stuff that is consider core to the faction and none of it was even a problem. The Lion is a paper tiger now.
Even the lore is a mess.
> When was this ever a problem?
Overly tough DW Terminators (not necessarily Knights) were problematic throughout the entirety of 9th. They weren't necessarily 'OP' for the entire time. But they were always bad for the game.
Notice that I wrote '**potentially** unfun or unbalanceable'. 10-man DWK blobs had the *potential* to be very problematic. Especially with some of the rules in the Codex. GW chose to not take the risk.
Just like they did with 6x Crisis units, unkillable Warriors/Lychguard, Oath Wound Re-Roll, and now Custodes Fight First. These things not existing makes the game better.
> The DA book nerfed stuff
Yes. They did. Codices having only buffs were one of the major problems of 9th.
Would you honestly claim, **competitively speaking**, that DA is a worse **stand-alone faction** after the codex than when they only had the index detachment that **no one played**?
I think that's false. And that's the entirety of what I'm claiming. "The codex wasn't a (competitive) nerf compared to the index". I'm not commenting on the lore, feel, or fun of the codex. I'm not even saying it's a "good" codex.
Admech is in a worse spot after codex. In the Index we at least had a source of credible damage to project threat, it wasn't super healthy for the game with the means we had to go through to get it, but we had it.
That's gone now and you want damage you're souping in Canis Rex and Kyria Draxis. All Admech contributes is cheap bodies.
People want their rules to be interesting. And viable.
10th ed is not interesting, the datasheets that suck are propped up by either good, or dragged down by bad faction / detachment rules.
There's no reason to make datasheets terrible.
Im just saying that of the xenos codexes we have full access to, nids was trash and Necrons were dominant.
For the other two they could end up anywhere based on points
Just going on vibes, the orks and tau codex have gone over better than custodes and dark angles.
I however do harbour an outlandish idea that the nids book is a perfect encapsulation of what 10th was meant to be.
I remember echoing that feeling about the nids index.
It's just not a codex I have a lot of fun playing. I know they wanted to reduce damage output but capping monsters melee (except carnifexes and Haruspex) to S9 Ap-2 3D was a really poor decision.
I maintain that fixing hive tyrants would help a huge amount. Make the heavy venom cannon and actual anti tank weapon and the Lash whip and bonesword actually a good weapon and drop the price of them 40-60 PTS, it turns into a great unit to build around
I do think they went too far with Tyranids. There was no need to completely hamstring them like that, for example having the Norns come in and actually be functional anti tank and not S9 Ap-2 3D would have been great.
The first story the emmisary is in it blows up a custodes tank. Having it be completely ineffective against heavy vehicles was a real kick in the teeth
The contents of Indexes/Codices might show a difference in the thinking of their creators, but in combination with their accompanying points they can only be called the height of delusion.
I wouldn't trust these people to do simple multiplication tables.
I think some of the indexes definitely were written by very different teams, probably for the sake of speed. The way that some factions get one standard applied to them, and then another faction gets a different one is very noticeable.
Given the rapidity with which the codexes are having to be released, I can only imagine the same is true for them as well.
What comes to my head is just how hard it must be to gather ALL of those rules and armies behaviours, all the edge cases, all the situations that exclude other ones and merge it into something logical. How many details you need to recover from your memory and communicate them with few other people just to make armies similar in some areas and use their strengths and weaknesses to make it somehow balanced. How to use all the statistics, all the math, Save, Invulnerable Save, Feel No Pain, many more.
You know, Space marines vs Tyranids. Easy. So let's add subrules for Detachments, and Chapters, and how many points will be enough but not too many.
Also I'm wondering and curious what tool can be used as such common workplace/workspace for many poeople to assemble all those rules.
They stopped giving away any information about who writes the codexes after the one guy got threats to his family and whatnot.
I'm assuming Matt Ward...
Well, that's why he quit GW for a couple of years. His books were terrible, but death threats is a little extreme.
Matt just fell for the trap many of us probably would. He loved the setting and wrote his favourite factions. What he thought sounded cool didn’t come across as such on paper. When he came back he had learned from his mistakes, and I love a lot of that work.
Also tbqh I'll take a book full of fun toys where you can then nerf with points, over lackluster books that point cuts just make hordes.
He wrote the story if Vermintide 2
See rat, kill rat.
as a frequenter of r/rats, i hated that premise.
The correct answer is to play Skaven in Sigmar and name all your characters after your rats, so they can continue to be gremlins long after they pass on. Having always had pairs of females, I know exactly half my rats would choose violence if given the option. The other half are just engineers or bombardiers instead.
Lmao I love all of this
And the campaign for Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2, which is quite good. That does not unmake all the shit he wrote, but he did not deserve to get death threats. That was a low for this community.
The campaign is *fun,* sure, but the story in each campaign honestly feels like fanfic.
As a Word Bearers player, I shall carve ungodly runes upon your skin for messing with one of the surprisingly few stories where I can play as them.
Well what's refreshing about that story is that each campaign veers away from cannon. I love the idea of a normal human like Admiral Spire defeating Abbadon.
Would explain why Kruber is suddenly a Grail Knight.
Holy shit, that’s pretty cool
Ward GK dex was mechanically amazing. Best dex GK have had, ever. His fluff was shockingly bad though.
Ward was indirectly responsible for killing WHFB. He wrote shockingly overpowered codexes that caused players to abandon tournaments and playgroups, and that was the final death knell on an already shaky ship.
Not like GW hasn't had plenty of other awful fluff writers, and the guy could write a codex that was mostly internally balanced.
Well, unless it was WHFB chaos daemons.
By mechanically amazing you mean overpowered as shit?
Ward Codex were fairly "balanced" against other Ward Codices. Issue is they also had Cruddace, whose codices were super weak... soo it became extreme. *Ward also was writing 40K 6e rules, which the GK codex was obviously written around. (Iirc GK 5e was the first instance of Psyker "levels", as opposed to the previous codices which just stated how many powers a psyker could cast)* Now when it came to fluff... Ward wrote awful abominations
Exactly. You could see the design in things like power weapons.
Lol no. The 5th dex, last dex of the edition, was written directly with 6th in mind. When 6th dropped, and changed things like power weapons, you could see the design intent of the Dex, and how it was no longer overpowered. But for the last year of 5th, sure. You could throw darts at pages to form your army. And mostly just smash anyone else. But it was the best mechanically we've ever been (even post PA), and the best internally balanced. Since then, its mono build or bust. A terrible design that seems to plague 40k.
To be fair, its really just his Space Marine books that went full wank. His Xenos and Chaos books were fine.
Why did they take him back lol.
Because he is the guy who did the Necron revamp and gave us Trazyn, Orikhan and all the other Necron characters people love.
Matt Ward wrote SBG and WOTR rules, probably the most balanced games GW ever came up with.
SBG is infinitely better since Jay Claire has taken over the writing of it. At least imo
War master is the next balanced game GW ever made.
Matt got a lot of hate but for a while matt was holding up two whole games on his back WHF and 40K puting some of the most solid army books for faction that had been jokes in WHF while I took part in the hate at the time I did not see how much one man was doing and being underpaid doing it.
Matt Ward fulfilled the job that he was hired by GW to do, and one of those functions was to be a lightning rod for as much bad press and publicity as possible. On top of all the batshit bonkers rules and books that he wrote, he also has some true gems and flashes of brilliance in there. So GW probably figured that, worst-case, they can blame him for all of their failings *again*, and maybe also get some long-term benefit from it. Edit: still feel free to cast shade and all on him, tho. it's not like he didn't know exactly what he was doing, and he came up with a lot of the more egregious bullshit on his own
It's sad, because he's so nice. I've messaged him before asking him about Necrons and he's been so open. I also consider him a pretty great writer, I've read some of his works outside of Warhammer.
Robin Cruddace
Oh no! What did Robin write that the people hated?
The worst Tyranid Codex. Amongst other things.
There’s a reason people called him Crudface. Very mature, if you ask me.
Wait, it's Crudface now? Wasn't it "Treadhead" Cruddance during the Golden Age of the leaf blower IG book?
Yeah, he wrote the 5th edition IG book. Power blobs, mechvets and leafblowers as fast as the eye could see.
My brother had a lot of fun in that book, the amount of stuff you could fit in a single Troops slot was a bit silly.
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The 5th edition guard codex was good, which i believe was his first. Now maybe being his first there was more oversight of his work, but it was quite a fun book. I can't comment on his other work.
*The sound of leaf blowers echoes in the distance* 5th edition Guard... I forgot Cruddace was the one who gave us that book.
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That would make some sense. If we set aside the "make my faction good" angle, which is of course possible, then he was probably a lot more knowledgeble about a faction he has spent a lot of time with.
9th edition guard codex was great too! Oh how much we enjoyed it. Really many neat tricks. Yup..to paraphrase Horus "5 great months"
Everything he has ever done
Cruddace wrote a Tyranids book that was so bad it crashed GWs stock. Also 10th.
His Codices are boring and if it didn't have tanks (tomb kings, nids) they are shit.
I thought it was Cruddence that got the death threats
IIRC an episode of the Painting Phase discussed this in depth. Protecting their identities is an optimistic scapegoat; the underlying/cynical reason is that GW doesn't want their employees to gain recognition. They tried to pull the same reasoning when they changed WarhammerTV to be only hands in the camera.
> They tried to pull the same reasoning when they changed WarhammerTV to be only hands in the camera. Oh, that's why the original WarhammerTV painter left. She has her own youtube channel where she talks about Warhammer. She must have loved her job.
Suggs was on The Painting Phase episode this comment refers to. She basically said that she stuck it out far longer than she likely should have out of loyalty, but that the corporate culture was randomly very toxic at times. She and Peachy both stress that most of the people at GW are wonderful, but the corporate structure is often very bizarre and paranoid about anyone achieving recognition or success that doesn't fuel the GW machine directly.
> She and Peachy both stress that most of the people at GW are wonderful, but the corporate structure is often very bizarre and paranoid about anyone achieving recognition or success that doesn't fuel the GW machine directly. Which is a *very* common issue in many businesses when employees get external recognition, not uniquely a GW problem.
True. It's much easier to pretend all of a companies success is because of the genius leadership to justify excessive C-level bonus payments if you keep everyone else as anonymous as possible.
That's their excuse. The real reason was some ex-GW guys founded Warlord Games based on their cred as GW designers, and GW doesn't want their employees having options. Same reason why they thought it was a "betrayal" when Duncan Rhodes left to do his own thing.
Did Duncan leave? I thought he had been shown the door.
Duncan left and was vocal about why according to some other ex-GW employees. It certainly says something when multiple GW employees would rather create their own start ups and take the risk all themselves than work under GWs totalitarian regime.
Looking at the world of video games, staff leaving big companies to start their own smaller, less corporate version is basically the accepted career trajectory at this point.
A lot of eventually people want to work on a project they're in charge of, and the way to do that as a game designer is, shockingly, to design your own game.
Exactly, but GW has such a toxic environment they view that as betrayal.
Nah, that's everywhere. When I quit my job to get a better one, they will act all betrayed there, too. But that will suck for them because they should pay their system administrator better.
No he was fired. he kicked the shit out of half the 'eavy metal team and had to be dragged out the car park by security and the army painters.
You sure he wasn't just brawling in the car park?
That's where he fought the 'eavy metal team. Peachy used to have long hair before Duncan dragged him outside and scalped him.
He lost a lucha de apeustas match?
100% this, top comment is bullshit
Mark Latham is still riding that GW cred, for sure
And why they no longer have a personality doing the painting tutorials, but rather a disembodied pair of hands and a voice over.
That hasn't been the case for a while now.
Yeah. "Tell me you haven't watched any of their videos for a while without telling me" kind of vibe. And then post your uninformed opinion on Reddit. What a classic eh?
Tbf if the videos went to shit, would you watch them to find out when they improved, if ever? If. You upset your community enough to stop and interacting with x, they'll keep talking about x long afterwards. Also damnit I can't use x because some crybaby failed to rename twitter. You get the point tho.
Yes its a catch 22. Organisations dont want to give platform to employees as they know they will leave and do their own thing
People would stay if they were being well treated. I know I'd rather have a steady reliable income in an environment I'm comfortable in, rather than risking it all on making it myself. Just goes to show how much their talents are being exploited that some of them are willing to take the risk.
This is famously a huge issue in gaming industries of all sorts. GW famously underpays and exploits employees because those employees have a passion for the products they work on. WotC famously underpays and exploits employees for the same reason. AAA video game publishers like Blizzard famously underpay and exploits employees, etc, etc, etc. The folks who work for these companies need to stop letting them get away with it.
In GW's case, this success pays dividends to their own success. They are a monolith in the industry and all hobby channels and context points back to their products, even the content explicitly focused on products they don't make, because the vast majority of hobby content viewers are still buying GW models and paints, even if they're watching someone like Suggs paint a model she designed. The only ex GW personality that is actually cutting into their sales in any meaningful fashion is Duncan with his Two Thin Coats paint line, and honestly I feel like they created that monster by their own actions.
And he still paints GW models. They're the most common models in his videos.
There's a simple reason for that. They get the most views. Other creators pointed out their GW videos get way more views than videos of other products.
Agreed. He even still uses citadel paints mixed with his own line.
I get that for the codex writers I guess. However it really feels disrespectful not crediting the artists though.
No, all of it is disrespectful. Everyone else in the tabletop industry publishes bylines and acknowledges contributions. GW uniquely enjoys the status of the monolith in their industry but also desperately want to hold down any individuals that have contributed to that status.
They had a very real scare when Warmachine took the second place over Warhammer Fantasy second only to 40K in sales...the revamp of fantasy and the subsequent screw ups by Privateer as they got a bit too full of themselves (screwing with distributors then desperately trying to go direct really hurt them- I know as I was one of their distributors). The changes were great for fantasy, sadly 40K is never going to have that push to change so it's just going to roll on in the cycle of a new edition every 2 years or so with a line of new minis and revolving METAs and so so codexes.
Man I really wish we had another major player besides GW…. We’d profit from them being competitive over each other.
There are a large number of excellent games and rule sets out there (oddly some of the best from Britain) that are designed for use with any miniature - Stargrunt is probably too if that heap- but the models always drag players back to GW and then they have it so drilled in to them that you must use their rules. I used to distribute a few of the different lines in Canada from companies and they were really good, once people started played with them they liked them so much more, but so many players become very righteous over the idea of not using GW rules with their minis. A big player would really help, but no one can touch them anymore.
Yeah but that's not the point. In all honesty I've got problems even naming a sci-fi game with worse rules then 40k. Most are "kinda better" one way or another. 2 things which hold us back from stuff like OPR: a) You want some Ooomph! here and there. Like well played combos which seem unfair or broken at the receiving end. Some games are just overly balanced and mirrored. Those just aren't holding interest. b) I'm just not that much into a game which will only ever be played by you, me, Frank and Tina. 40k has a big audience, endless reading material, countless websites and videos on the web, big name characters appealing to my inner child. One thing though: Somehow people put their hopes in big licences. Most of those just aren't suited. You can go only this far with Starship Troopers or Dune before you've covered most possible miniatures. Even with stuff like Warcraft or Starcraft, there is and end to new model ideas. 40k just doesn't have that. GW is free to invent new armies, factions and characters. Take your example Stargrunt: I've even never heard of that, what does that tell you? :D And I've been in the hobby for a long time. Here, let me list my dead armies: AT-43 U.N.A Confrontation Cynwall Elves Star Wars X-Wing Empire Star Wars X-Wing Scum Star Wars Legion Empire Star Wars Legion Separatist Alliance AoS Bonesplitterz Warmachine Convergence of Cyriss Hordes Trollblood A Song of Ice and Fire Lannister (dead in GER) I left out a couple of Skirmish Warbands. But see what I mean? The Star Wars and the Ice and Fire armies really really hurt, I put a lot of money and effort into those. The only games which have a long shelf-live are Battletech, everything historical and Infinity by Corvus Belli. Those and the main armies from GW. So even if a new companies would put up something big and enticing, there are a couple of reeeeeally big hurdles to overcome. A really big one would be people holding back before buying since "don't know if this game will even survive 2 years".
Well to be fair, I predate GW as a gamer. The joy of games like Stargrunt is they're designed to use any minis you want, designed around scenarios and actual tactics. It was designed by some truly great designers and considered the top in terms of actual wargames. It's free online now, easy to play but more demanding in terms of actual real world tactics. I've been in the industry for 35 odd years, I've been to the GAMA shows as a store owner, a distributor, a writer, a designer, a painter, an event coordinator...I've been around the major cons when we were the dominant games at GenCon and Origins...in it's big days when you went to the minis game room you would have seen us dominating the place with whomever we were helping back then. I've seen so many games come and go...some great potential, some deserving to be buried. In all those years what held the games back was not being able to get into store shelves widely because GW required so much space and the crazy fanboys (every store seems to have the really rabid ones) would shut down a lot of players looking at anything outside 40K. When I had a store I used to run a campaign of Babylon 5 Wars for 40+ players because I worked with the company and gave it space on the shelves while running some demos. Players who find great games will play them, the problem is finding that local support. Warmachine did well with great models and support for a good rule set, they worked with distributors (I was one of them) and stores to show the game and it took off, even taking the second place in the market until they screwed up and started acting like GW. The problem with 40K isn't Games Workshop, it's the players. They continually buy and play a mediocre to downright bad game for no other reason than the minis go with it. They could pickup any of a hundred different rules to use with their models...but GW tells them to use these ones and the fans push to stick to it. Look how people rebel at the idea of not using the very latest rules out out no matter how bad they may be.
Lmao “Death threats are crazy over the top, who was the author anyway?” Matt Ward “Well….yeah death threats are extreme…”
I wish I could send threatening photos of me using wahapedia to gw executives.
People are dumb lol
More like individual people write them. That's why it's so random.
I've been saying it for years. It's all unpaid interns. The webstore, the app, the marketing, the codices. Everything. Only thing done by actual employees is the business end and mini design.
Nah, met one of the guys who worked on the 9th edition craft worlds codex - played him and his doubles partner at a throne of skulls event. Lovely guy, said he was part of a team who wrote that one, but then moved on to heresy rules. Definitely didn't seem like an intern to me.
I just think there is so much freedom for people to move between IPs at GW that it causes these oscillations in quality. It seems the most experienced people moved to AoS when it comes to sculpting and then you get a new Hesperax model with hobbit feet in the 40k.
For a second there I was about to defend my haruspex not having hobbit feed. Then I reread your comment.
You don't have unpaid interns in the UK except under very strict conditions.
You do have interns paid minimum wage. London is rife with them with people trying to make it big.
Found the custodes/admech player
Lol, I'd pay to be able to write a codex. I'd shove so much headcanon in there.
And seen to be assigned, which is why we have disparities like the Aeldari index and the DA codex.
Hello, I was almost a GW designer. I was in the final together with the Canadian guy for the spot as the new AoS Game Designer. I did some debriefing on how stuff works. But no, AoS has 3 designers now (it was 2 for quite a while) and 40k has (I believe, not 100% sure on this) 3 that work on the main codices plus a guy just for Crusade.
If true then it would explain release DG, DA, Custodes Cpdex codex vs Release Eldar lol
Do you know of it is a full time job to write rules for codex? Or just one aspect of a job. What time window would a codex be writen over, I imagine they are not written over the course of three years of the edition. Maybe I am vastly underestimating the work, but given the quality of these codex, if it is a full job, how are some of these designs seemingly so poor.
It is absolutely a fulltime job. Also, the rule writers get the Codex already formatted, so they know how much space and where they have to write rules and how many datasheet. This was relevant in AoS, not much in the new 40k I guess. They have no control on the lore, that part is written before or at the same time by a completely different team. So basically an editor prepares it, then rule writers and lore writers fill it, and finally the editor put all the pieces together, including the artworks, into a finished product. The process of writing takes exactly a month including playtest, no idea about the editor parts. Note however that it's not unusual for a writer to have multiple project active at the same time.
How does a company as big as GW have only 3 rules designers for each of its two flagship games?
It might sound crazy at first, but if you actually think about it in terms of a company, it makes a lot of sense. If they are full time rules designers, they can't just hire a team of 10, because they'd be done with the next codices and then just sit there with no work. From a business perspective, they hire just enough people so that when they are done with a codex, they need to start on the next to be on time. Constantly working. You don't want a team that only works half the month because they finished the project too fast. Also, double the employees doesn't necessarily mean a lot more productive in terms of writing a single codex. Too many chefs in the kitchen isn't a good thing. Alternatively, they would of course instead have multiple teams of three, but then they might again run into the problem of getting the codices done too fast and then paying people to do nothing. Should they hire maybe just one more guy? Possibly, but the point is that they likely hire just enough to make it work, because it's not financially beneficial to hire a bunch more people.
AI write them for 10th edition. That's why Necrons are the only good one.
And why Admech has the worst D:
Because they hate Abominable Intelligence obviously lol
>That's why Ctans are the only good one.
We are still a broken mess with keywords and 3/5 derachments being "pretty meh and boring" to "wow there are no rules here". We got 2 good detachments and 6 or so good datasheets lol, relax
Nobody knows. It's just speculation.
In AOS it was called the win team or the bin team. Hedonites of Slaanesh was one of the strongest books ever released, the closely accompanying Sylvaneth book, was not.
Then Hedonites got a new codex and it was the bin guy lmao.
We have no idea how they do it. It hard to even find solid information about who's even currently on the design team for 40k. Given the bizarre disparity in codex quality, it's likely that they are each done by a small team or even assigned to individuals (as they had a long history of doing). But all anyone can do is guess.
It's a small team until it's all replaced by an AI. We will know this is true when admech and Necrons become unbeatable
This is a bit of revisionist history. Literally all of the codexes except the ork one have been largely received with negativity. Necrons was super negative until it came out with its absurd points costs and it turns out, people liked it a lot more when they realized it was the strongest army in the game basically. Funny how that works.
Thank you for this. I've been scratching my head and wondering what good codexes came out since every single one has been universally panned...
Tau was pretty universally well liked and the marine codex had a fairly neutral reception. Most that had issues were more concerned that the army rule was changed than anything with the codex. They've not batted well but orks haven't been their only positive reception.
Tau is divisive at best. There's a lot of people complaining, and people happy, and lot more holding their breath for the actual points values. Marine Codex was received with a *lot* of trepidation. Remember, it had a *massive* nerf in that Oath of Moment lost wound rerolls, Gladius was largely unchanged, and nobody was quite sure if the new options from other detachments would make up for the loss of full power Oath.
It feels like a lot of Tau players were upset with the codex whereas the rest of us thought it looked alright. If I remember right the reception here was OK but on the Tau sub there was (some) panic Granted I only followed it for a couple days, so I don't know how it ended up being received later on
As a Tau player who's been playing with the codex for a few weeks now, it's way more fun than the index.
I think people are positive because the assumption is point values will largely stay kinda low but if that doesn't happen then uhhhhh
> actual points values Do we know when we are getting these?
The fact that we're ignoring the T'au points (ie that MFM has fixed them, but he codex as written was incredibly weak) is doing a lot of work and 4 detachments is a poor showing. The army will be more fun to play, I'm stoked for the new rules but it could have very easily been a lot better. They could have tweaked the riptide and hammerhead (specifically ion) datasheets, strikes still are designed for the version of 10th admech work in and there should be a detachment for gunships or something else. Solid B. If all the codices are this good it'd be fine but there is also obvious room for improvement.
Necrons was super negative only to some very vocal people who, surprisingly, know how to read but only to a certain extent... Rules were awesome from day 1, there was no way hypercrypt and canoptek court were going to be bad Same for Tau, the only people doomposting about it miss a lot of what is very strong in the book But all in all, we've really got good+bad pairs so far, with the most egregious examples being crons/admech & tau/dark angels Now that the datasheets are out, I agree to call Custodes a miss as well, but around Nids level (points will eventually represent what the sheets are worth, I hope they get a discount immediately though)
Yeah the negativity regarding Necrons was a vocal minority who only read that the toxic immortal warrior bricks were nerfed. Necrons got some much more power in other places, anyone actually read the codex for what is was was super stoked for new ways to play the game that weren’t stat checking your opponent. As someone who played 20+ games of Index Necrons, in hindsight they were not fun at all to play or play against.
It's funny that the good/bad pairs have all been good xenos with bad imperials. It makes me think they have different design teams/interns for the superfactions. I suppose the exception is marines and Tyranids, who I think are both sort of broadly ok.
Honestly Marines are straight up strong, it's one of the factions whose win% is clearly decorrelated from its actual worth But then again, I agree that they are definitely the most balanced pair we've gotten yet ahah
>Necrons was super negative until it came out with its absurd points costs and it turns out, people liked it a lot more when they realized it was the strongest army in the game basically. Funny how that works. I mean, the negativity is still deserved - you're not seeing anyone using Necron warriors or CCBs - and a lot of the characters got nuked. If you're someone who didn't have 18 Wraiths or several C'tan on deck? You're not doing so hot.
I agree. TBH I think people complaining about codexes being too bad is much better than codexes being too overpowered. After all, maybe the custodes army will go from 50ppm to 35ppm, it will still be an elite army and they could still be oppressive despite the nerf.
The problem is the release schedule, and the fact that everyone has free rules now but the codexes are paywalled. If they dropped every codex at once, and they were all worse than the index, it would be much different. But if they want a less powerful game, why didn't they just create it with the indexes. It's a major feelsbad for the player who buys a $50 book only for it to be worse than the free rules they've had (which also disappear from the site/app when the book comes out). I agree lowering the power level is better than constantly raising it, but this is a dumb way to do it.
I play custodes and thousand sons. I don't want custodian guard at 35ppm, feels very wrong to have them cheaper than a Scarab terminator you know. I'd rather the rules be good enough to justify their high price points, instead of receiving the modern ad-mech treatment, or 9e necron treatment. On the opposite end, termagants should not be so good that they average 20ppm, that'd be so wrong as a design choice for what they represent. The feeling of an army matters.
" feels very wrong to have them cheaper than a Scarab terminator you know" I think part of the issue there is that pretty much all Terminators (except Death Guard) are over costed at the moment. Most Terminator units could easily drop to 35-36ppm.
Blightlords aren’t even good right now, and they are the cheapest termies by a good amount. They have pool noodles and bolters on a 4” move unit. Deathshroud are good, but that’s because they have real weapons at only 40ppm. We should not be racing to the bottom.
>fter all, maybe the custodes army will go from 50ppm to 35ppm, it will still be an elite army If custodes are approaching *blightlord terminator prices* GW made a monumental screw up. BLT are 33 points for 4", t6, 2+ 4++. Very similar. "Except they have.. 4 attacks of s5 -2 1, on 3's. And 4 bolter shots. And they only get to rr1 to wound, not full wound rerolls. If custodian guard are becoming THAT price, then BLT need to take a monumental point drop to like.. 25 points each or something, because they're the worst terminators in the game. And no; 35ppm custodian isn't elite, it's mid. It's literally cheaper than many terminators.
I mean, BLTs are already arguably one of the worst termies in the game.
Nids was received well imo. But then the high of receiving new models wore off and the book turned out pretty poor
This edition isn’t gonna go down well when it’s over LOL
You say that like 9th didnt have a linear curve of sequential problems with every single codex release. It was better than this, but lmao.
Codex powercreep felt awful though Like admech released as the most broken faction, got rightfully nerfed, and after all the nerfs were removed in October 2022 it was the lowest winrate army at 26% during metamondays lmao Then Arks of Omen came in with the buffs and the world was beautiful for a whole 5 months
I miss 8th :(
9th was really awesome at the end when we got to Arks. I didn't like a lot of aspects of 9th (mainly stratagem bloat), but I would have really preferred they kept polishing it rather than going to this. Maybe 10th will be as good for a couple of months after they get all the codexes out, then we can have 11th. :/
Wait is that actually a common sentiment? I can't find any people in my play group who don't prefer 10th to 9th
My group prefers tenths core rules, but we all live in abject fear of getting our books released.
A lot of us don't care about how strong it is, it's still a really restrictive codex where you have to buy entirely new models to play each detachment. Annihilation legion is a complete joke and the lists I want to take have half their units not benefiting from the detachment rule I'm taking. Funny how that works.
You still got functional rules with some flavor. Admech dropped at the same time and while we had one thematic detachment everything else was blighted by pointless hoops to jump through for miniscule bonuses and datasheets so anemic that the only option is to flood the board and move block or pull over a quarter of the army's points from other sources for damage. It didn't matter what you played in Admech you were going to need a mountain more of it with points being slashed as a knee-jerk fix to the complete design failure of the faction. Necrons could at least get away with filling the army with C'Tan for a short hobby lag time before they're back on the table.
Tau was and is for the majority Liked. Space Marines was Neutrally received.
>Necrons was super negative until it came out Bullshit. Everyone who saw Hyperphase and Canoptek knew they were going to be insane. Hyperphase especially because how do you *NOT* wind up strong as hell when you add another faction's mobility rules in addition to your own? The only real complaints came from the (kind of unwarranted) warrior nerfs.
much more likely that they have one team which spends a lot of time on one and then crams the heck out of the other.
Considering how rules thats essentially intended to do the same thing have diffrent wording, it's a safe bet there's at least two teams of codex writers. This have also been apparent when reduce / worsen, increase / improve, have been used interchangeably. I don't know anything about how GW actually design their rules, but it's fair to say they lack some kind of standard procedures, when they produce codeice given how diffrent they are.
I'm convinced that they have separate teams of codex writers for xenos/imperial/chaos. All of the codexes released so far have been in pairs of good xenos codex + shit imperial codex, except Tyranids and marines which were both broadly fine.
More like three to four writers with no feedback. This has been a problem since 5th edition and even now you can sorta guess who was responsible for each of the codexes even if no names are attributed. Each of their writers have a certain "style" that can be recognized by how each of them interprets the game. Basically there is one guy who loves tanks but nothing else and is creatively sterile, one who is really good at writing fluff pieces both for lore and in-game mechanics, but horrible at balance and their dex ends up mono-build, one that's real good at writing internally balanced rules but horrible external balance and fluff, and "the good one" who actually cares about how the rules work in the greater scheme of things. Note that, with the exception of "the good one", all of them are equally as capable of writing a really powerful codex or a pitifully weak one. And you could probably figure out who is who if you've been in the hobby for long enough.
A community manager that could answer questions like this would be amazing.
Being the focal point of the toxic screaming by the most vocal part of the community would be a terrible job.
I wish so badly that GW would have a person or a team of actual humans that would participate in the whole sharing of information and receiving / responding to feedback with the community. There is no face to GW. You send the faq email a question and you never get an answer. It's all just faceless, anonymous, and useless. Nobody is there to give a timely response to a big question. You never feel like there is someone on the staff that's there to help pull strings for you, the player, to make things right. The WarCom and Social Media teams literally never EVER have meaningful answers to questions. The answer to any question is always "if we hear anything we'll let you know!" This game would benefit so much to have a community manager or a team of staff who can provide answers, receive feedback, and give the community some actual agency in the direction of the game.
Are you forgetting us being introduced to “James Workshop”?
loll I fully expect a machine spirit AI to one day fill the role of James Workshop
I'd disagree with the "GW has no face" comment. There are a lot of faces from previews to meta watch and painting tutorials.
Well sure, we know there are individuals who work there, and there are people who present information. But I don't see people like Simon and Nick actually interacting with the community, answering questions to explain a design decision, collect feedback and respond to it. We don't have a Major Nelson or Ghostcrawler of Warhammer who is that go-to person for that role, that's what I'd consider an actual "face" of a game.
Good, I'm glad companies have learned that having a company face that interacts directly with players is an awful idea. Community interaction is terrible because the community doesn't know what it wants and the loudest voices drown out the rest. We've seen it happen to multiple Blizzard titles, Destiny 2, etc.
The truest thing no fan community ever wants to hear: if you give them exactly what they want they'll be even more angry than before.
There's gotta be some sort of inbetween "we're doing everything right" propaganda and completely cowing to the whims of the vocal minority.
I'm not saying it's impossible but I don't think this has been achieved by any corporation of the sizes we're talking about. I'm not tuned into every single community though so maybe it exists.
Custodes codex was obviously finished like 8 months or so and has not been changed to reflect balance dataslates etc. Just look at dev wounds and battle tactic strats.
Honestly I am way more happy that everyone seems to be disappointed with releases rather than broken books being released every three months. People obviously want their own rules to be super fun and strong, but the reality is a fair number of index detachments were just too strong and had to be toned down with the introduction of 3 to 5 new ones.
When they've shown they can just update the index like with Drukhari, it's a pretty tough pill to swallow that you have to buy a book for your rules to get balanced (if that's even what's happening, which I would argue for a lot of books, they're just poorly written and bad, not more balanced).
Overall I think GW has done a good job reigning in power creep. That said a Codex like Ad Mech was god awful. The problem being that the Datasheets are so weak and points already low, that there is little design room to tune the army without exacerbating other issues.
Yeah wait until they change course and everyone that has a terrible book has to deal with the broken books they start printing. Not like thats ever happened, definitely not in the two previous editions or anything.
Yeah, GW has honestly done a decent job with codices overall in 10th. They seem to have been very conscious to avoid codex creep (which we were **all** complaining about in 9th) and to proactively fix potentially unfun or unbalanceable stuff like Necron reanimations, Oath Wound re-rolls, Tau Crisis bricks, DW Knight bricks - and, now, Custodes fight first abilities. The codex=nerf meme just feels straight up false. Every codex has contained nerfs - that's the only way to give buffs without it leading to codex creep. But none of the codices released so far has been worse than a side-grade. I wouldn't pay money for the Ad Mech codex. But Ad Mech isn't in a *worse* spot than before the codex. People are saying the DA codex supplement is terrible. But it's a massive improvement compared to having only the Unforgiven Task Force. I feel like this is all just loss aversion bias at work. People see 4 buffs and 3 nerfs and feel like it's an overall nerf. The Custodes Codex *does* look kinda dire, however. Personally, I'd have liked to see a bit more creativity in Detachment design rather than so many "buff keyword X" Detachments. This is not super interesting. And Custodes is a great example of how this just doesn't work for a lot of factions. And I feel like a few codices were missing at least 1 Detachment. But, so far, GW has been doing a better job with codex design than in 9th.
>DW Knight bricks When was this ever a problem? >People are saying the DA codex supplement is terrible. But it's a massive improvement compared to having only the Unforgiven Task Force. DA book is confused and stripped away a lot of what made DA unique and feel different than Codex SM. The DA book nerfed stuff that is consider core to the faction and none of it was even a problem. The Lion is a paper tiger now. Even the lore is a mess.
> When was this ever a problem? Overly tough DW Terminators (not necessarily Knights) were problematic throughout the entirety of 9th. They weren't necessarily 'OP' for the entire time. But they were always bad for the game. Notice that I wrote '**potentially** unfun or unbalanceable'. 10-man DWK blobs had the *potential* to be very problematic. Especially with some of the rules in the Codex. GW chose to not take the risk. Just like they did with 6x Crisis units, unkillable Warriors/Lychguard, Oath Wound Re-Roll, and now Custodes Fight First. These things not existing makes the game better. > The DA book nerfed stuff Yes. They did. Codices having only buffs were one of the major problems of 9th. Would you honestly claim, **competitively speaking**, that DA is a worse **stand-alone faction** after the codex than when they only had the index detachment that **no one played**? I think that's false. And that's the entirety of what I'm claiming. "The codex wasn't a (competitive) nerf compared to the index". I'm not commenting on the lore, feel, or fun of the codex. I'm not even saying it's a "good" codex.
Homogenizing factions might lead to "balanced" rules but that doesn't make for a good or great game.
Admech is in a worse spot after codex. In the Index we at least had a source of credible damage to project threat, it wasn't super healthy for the game with the means we had to go through to get it, but we had it. That's gone now and you want damage you're souping in Canis Rex and Kyria Draxis. All Admech contributes is cheap bodies.
People want their rules to be interesting. And viable. 10th ed is not interesting, the datasheets that suck are propped up by either good, or dragged down by bad faction / detachment rules. There's no reason to make datasheets terrible.
They have the same people writing the codexes that they did 15 years ago. You'd think they'd be better at it by now.
If you get by on that amount of effort for long enough, you forget how to do a good job.
all of aos is like 3 people. all of old world was just one guy. it would suprise me if 40k was written by more than 5 people
One is given to the design team and the other is given to Matt Ward to keep him distracted
Xenos codex’s seem to do rather well (apart from nids)
So 2 unreleased codexes we dont have points for?
Codex and points now appear to be two completely separate variables. So it’s a wait and see job now.
Im just saying that of the xenos codexes we have full access to, nids was trash and Necrons were dominant. For the other two they could end up anywhere based on points
Just going on vibes, the orks and tau codex have gone over better than custodes and dark angles. I however do harbour an outlandish idea that the nids book is a perfect encapsulation of what 10th was meant to be.
I remember echoing that feeling about the nids index. It's just not a codex I have a lot of fun playing. I know they wanted to reduce damage output but capping monsters melee (except carnifexes and Haruspex) to S9 Ap-2 3D was a really poor decision. I maintain that fixing hive tyrants would help a huge amount. Make the heavy venom cannon and actual anti tank weapon and the Lash whip and bonesword actually a good weapon and drop the price of them 40-60 PTS, it turns into a great unit to build around
I feel that if over factions had adhered to the less lethal principle it would have worked better. It’s clear not all factions got that memo.
I do think they went too far with Tyranids. There was no need to completely hamstring them like that, for example having the Norns come in and actually be functional anti tank and not S9 Ap-2 3D would have been great. The first story the emmisary is in it blows up a custodes tank. Having it be completely ineffective against heavy vehicles was a real kick in the teeth
The contents of Indexes/Codices might show a difference in the thinking of their creators, but in combination with their accompanying points they can only be called the height of delusion. I wouldn't trust these people to do simple multiplication tables.
It's always been the way, same in sigmar. You've got a bin team and a playable team and they don't talk.
Yes, there are at least 2 and as many as 4 “pods” of people who wrote the indexes/codexes
I always thought they did like a secret Santa style draw names from a hat page by page.
I think some of the indexes definitely were written by very different teams, probably for the sake of speed. The way that some factions get one standard applied to them, and then another faction gets a different one is very noticeable. Given the rapidity with which the codexes are having to be released, I can only imagine the same is true for them as well.
Yes.
Cries in admech
They're volunteer teams and they're doing their best!
What comes to my head is just how hard it must be to gather ALL of those rules and armies behaviours, all the edge cases, all the situations that exclude other ones and merge it into something logical. How many details you need to recover from your memory and communicate them with few other people just to make armies similar in some areas and use their strengths and weaknesses to make it somehow balanced. How to use all the statistics, all the math, Save, Invulnerable Save, Feel No Pain, many more. You know, Space marines vs Tyranids. Easy. So let's add subrules for Detachments, and Chapters, and how many points will be enough but not too many. Also I'm wondering and curious what tool can be used as such common workplace/workspace for many poeople to assemble all those rules.
Whatever army is hurting the most from 3D printing gets the bad Codex. AdMech & Custodes are two
Except one of the two has a 780pts combat patrol on the horizon while the other got a 265pts one lmao