WH40K: Fifth Edition

[name_here]

Orcs and Humans are supposedly the middle-of-the-road teams. They're suggested to newbies as the first teams so they can get a feel for what passing, blocking, ect. is like with 3str/ag and some good positionals.

ps. Fuck dwarves.

[cthulhu]

Yeah except humans are really bad so recommending them to new players is just cruelty. Well.. they are not complete turds, but they are much worse than Orcs.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I gotta ask.

Why is GW even in business still? Not even the fans like the companies or their products all that much. You can find without even too much difficulty even fans of nWoD, any edition of D&D, and CGL. But even the WH40K peep on the board don't like the company.

[Username17]

I gotta ask.

Why is GW even in business still? Not even the fans like the companies or their products all that much. You can find without even too much difficulty even fans of nWoD, any edition of D&D, and CGL. But even the WH40K peep on the board don't like the company.

They have a total monopoly in Great Britain. If you go to a "Game Store" in the UK, you go to a "Games Workshop Store". They bought all the game stores and own all the distribution channels in the British Isles. So there's really nothing that could be done about them that would make them actually fold. If people completely stopped purchasing GW crap in North America, then they wouldn't go out of business, they'd just stop selling things in North America.

They are also super huge in the rest of Europe and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. The fact is that gamers in Czech Republic get stuff from the European Union and speak English. Which is basically just shit from their own tiny fucked up country and the UK. And the UK is a GW monopoly. Games like Mortebrume or Anima might be able to kick GW out of France or Spain (respectively), but it's going to be really hard for them to squeeze GW out of Denmark or Poland. And even if they did kick GW out of the EU entirely, that still would not actually kill the company. Because they still have 100% market penetrance in the UK and that is unlikely to change.

-Username17

[cthulhu]

I gotta ask.

Why is GW even in business still? Not even the fans like the companies or their products all that much. You can find without even too much difficulty even fans of nWoD, any edition of D&D, and CGL. But even the WH40K peep on the board don't like the company.

There are not many Warhammer fans on this board. You can go to other boards and find plenty of fans.

They do actually sell a fair bit of product too, circulation of the white dwarf magazine is 150k. Dungeon magazine's published circulation is 30k, and Dragon's 3.5 ed peak was sort of the 125k ballpark.

GW has a hugely popular brand, and occasionally manages to produce an actually good game.

Edit: GW is publically listed (hence the circulation figures for WD) - the CEO is a colourful character and the annual report is a good read: http://investor.games-workshop.com/down ... Report.pdf

Gross margins have strengthened considerably from 71.4% to 75.4% on a constant currency basis. The quality of product we have released has both
surprised and delighted our customers. We have increased our prices to reflect the additional investment and value we have built into these new releases.

We grew fat and lazy on easy success

[Zinegata]

GW is an evil company, but it's not a stupid company. 40K doesn't completely dominate Great Britain like Frank Trollman is saying, but it is quite a bit more popular in Europe than it is in the US.

The main reason why GW remains strong is that it is simply the biggest fish in the (relatively) small miniature wargaming pond. If somebody wants to get into making nice models and playing a wargame, chances are you have to play 40K because most of the other players within 100 miles are already playing 40K.

Sure, there's alternatives like AT-43 and Warmachine. But people are less likely to play these games if they don't have anyone else to play with. Thus, due to having little competition (except in a couple of towns & cities were other miniature games have managed to establish themselves), 40K has a virtual monopoly on the miniature wargame market.

So how does GW exploit this? By raising prices and making more money out of its small-ish base. The way they raise prices makes playing Magic: The Gathering seem cheap in comparison.

[Koumei]

I gotta ask.

Why is GW even in business still? Not even the fans like the companies or their products all that much. You can find without even too much difficulty even fans of nWoD, any edition of D&D, and CGL. But even the WH40K peep on the board don't like the company.

They have a total monopoly in Great Britain.

As usual, this can be traced back to Margaret Fucking Thatcher. When she privatised the miniature wargaming public services, she fucked the country up.

Okay, maybe none of that is true and this single problem with the UK does not actually go back to Thatcher.

[PhoneLobster]

Actually it traces back to Gygax and early D&D distribution issues.

[Username17]

Back in the 1970s, TSR had no distribution channels in Europe, so they sold exclusive distribution rights in European countries to whoever was buying. Games Workshop in the case of the UK. So GW was effectively Dungeons & Fucking Dragons if you were British.

You can imagine how successful you could be in competing with GW in the gaming market if they could stock D&D and you couldn't.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Plus GW is expensive enough that if they sell a half a dozen resin kits they've paid for their expenses for the fiscal year.

I kid, but sometimes it does seem that way. Originally the excuse was that the figs were made of metal and the price of production keeps going up (true), but now that they're pumping out way more resin kits the prices aren't falling.

I kind of dig the 40k setting. Moreso for it's art than it's actual gameplay however. The miniatures game has always been boring and fiddly to me, and the price was prohibitive.

[A Man In Black]

So how does GW exploit this? By raising prices and making more money out of its small-ish base. The way they raise prices makes playing Magic: The Gathering seem cheap in comparison.

They way they raise prices makes Fabergé eggs seem cheap in comparison.

[Koumei]

Note: they don't do resin. They do plastic, but not resin-based.

Forgeworld, a sub-company owned by GW (however GW only covers them in White Dwarf and the stores neither stock FW stuff, order it, nor even allow it in most games), does use resin kits. Complete with all the usual problems of resin. And they charge even more than GW do.

I know, hard to imagine.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, WH40K 5th Edition peeps.

If Satan came up to you and told you that unless you won the WH40K world tournament he would steal your soul and then make you look like, oh, Carrot Top, what kind of army with which colorful special units/commanders would you build?

[Zinegata]

How many points?

[Username17]

If Satan came up to you and told you that unless you won the WH40K world tournament he would steal your soul and then make you look like, oh, Carrot Top, what kind of army with which colorful special units/commanders would you build?

Well, there are a lot of people in the world tournament. Your only chance is to do something really degenerate and hope for the best. My choice would be huge piles of naked guardsmen with prisoners, demo charges, and a few lascannons hidden in the middle. 1850 points can field a lot of guys with flak armor and no will to live. Figure that most enemies will have invested some non-zero number of points into anti-armor capabilities and then laugh at them for doing so.

Other choices of course exist, but then you're looking at Mechanized Blood Angels or Tyranids (I don't know what the Tyranids are like right now, their codex is so confusing I don't know if there is anything good in it or not - neither does anyone you're playing against). But the key is that it is not enough to have a balanced set of attacks, you have to bone your enemies for having a balanced set of attacks. So fielding an all-hard or all-soft army is just good sense.

-Username17

[souran]

Actually Frank, there are a number of weapons that are just at the right range to be totally ass kicking against both hard and soft targets.

Every single space marine tac squad can have a missle launcher. This weapon is usually cheap and unless you are facing 14 armor value armor its awesome against both hard and soft targets.

Eldar star cannons are strength 6 and shoot 3 times. Again, every guadian squad can take 2. And they can put them on everything. This weapon is a giant fuck you to all but the heaviest vehicles and it annihilates even pretty tough units because you can easily get 12 attacks a turn with these fuckers and at bs 4 you can get a lot of hits giving you plenty of dice to just chew infintry or rack up wounds against big baddies or crippling hits against vehicles.

Assault cannons are similar but not as good. The big secret to 40k is that even after another round of rules rewrites shooting is still much more EFFECTIVE turn over turn than assaulting is, but the assaulting rules are the more fun ones to play.

Also most players are retard fanboys whose sole tactic is to rush across no mans land while you mow them down like its crecy or agincourt all over again.

[koz]

Eldar star cannons are strength 6 and shoot 3 times. Again, every guadian squad can take 2. And they can put them on everything.

Not true any longer. It now only fires TWO shots, because nerfing Marines is just a no-no for GW. Additionally, guardian squads could NEVER take two of them as far as I'm aware.

Also most players are retard fanboys whose sole tactic is to rush across no mans land while you mow them down like its crecy or agincourt all over again.

This, however, couldn't be truer. GW fanboys are basically hardcore anti-optimisers, who condone physical violence against anyone who dares to even try to optimise instead of playing 'properly-constructed' armies (i.e. 'thematic' lists which screw over everyone but Marines of different stripes). Seriously, people will rage at you for playing an Eldar army with lots of Aspect Warriors as 'cheesy', even though THE FUCKING FLUFF SAYS THAT THEY'RE THE MAIN FIGHTING FORCE.

Seriously, there are few things that make me rage as much as Games Workshop - though their fans are an exception. I had someone seriously argue that a game with 4 point Ork boys and SEVEN point guardsmen was balanced. I really wish I was kidding about that one.

[Zinegata]

Orks boys are 4 points? I thought that was Gretchins who are at 4?

[souran]

Eldar star cannons are strength 6 and shoot 3 times. Again, every guadian squad can take 2. And they can put them on everything.

Not true any longer. It now only fires TWO shots, because nerfing Marines is just a no-no for GW. Additionally, guardian squads could NEVER take two of them as far as I'm aware.

I know that guardian squads could take 2 of them in the first 3rd edition codex and at least one codex after that.

They come on those grav support things and require 2 operators, or at least as we always played that is what the rules seem to imply.

nefting the cannons helps frank's concept but its still possible to find the 5/6/7 shoot 2/3 times weapons that are cheap and easy to get lots in the army.

Also most players are retard fanboys whose sole tactic is to rush across no mans land while you mow them down like its crecy or agincourt all over again.

This, however, couldn't be truer. GW fanboys are basically hardcore anti-optimisers, who condone physical violence against anyone who dares to even try to optimise instead of playing 'properly-constructed' armies (i.e. 'thematic' lists which screw over everyone but Marines of different stripes). Seriously, people will rage at you for playing an Eldar army with lots of Aspect Warriors as 'cheesy', even though THE FUCKING FLUFF SAYS THAT THEY'RE THE MAIN FIGHTING FORCE.

Seriously, there are few things that make me rage as much as Games Workshop - though their fans are an exception. I had someone seriously argue that a game with 4 point Ork boys and SEVEN point guardsmen was balanced. I really wish I was kidding about that one.

People gave you shit for using mostly aspect warriors? Haven't they ever heard of Bel Tan? Its one of the freaking themes.

The idea that the way to balance army lists is that to balance the point cost of the basic troops agianst each other and then the rest of the lest is relative to that "basic trooper" cost is a good idea in theory but results in bullshit at the table.

[Draco_Argentum]

Scatter lasers are s6 and 4 shots, good enough to ruin vehicles, spam marines to death and decimate orcs. Decent choice in a tourney.

[Username17]

Scatter Lasers and Star Cannons are both shitty on a point for point basis when shooting guardsmen in flak armor. The star cannon fires twice, wounds on a 2+, and bypasses almost any armor. At Guardian BS (3), they kill 5/6 of a Marine or 5/6 of a Guardsman per turn. The Scatter Laser is better because it has 4 shots and costs less points, but it allows an armor save on Guardsmen (who get 5+ flak armor), so your total kill tally is 10/9 of a guardsman per turn. That's substantially better, but it still is fucking terrible for the points cost, especially if you end up having to fire into penal legions at any point.

Of course, if you put them in their element, of Star Cannons shooting upgraded Marine squads or Scatter Lasers blasting into Ork Boys with big choppas and shit - then you're talking. The Scatter Laser still wounds on a 2+ against Orks and it bypasses armor. So it actually kills more units when fired on the more expensive models. The Star Cannon really comes into its own blowing away Ard Boyz or Marines, because it has exactly the same kill profile as it does against Guard, but those units cost two to five times as many points per model.

The fact that neither weapon is as embarrassing to walk into a battle with Infantry Wave Guard as a Bright Lance or Fire Warrior squad is doesn't make it "not a waste of points". It's still totally a waste of points.

-Username17

[Koumei]

And if your Eldar opponent is not retarded (I make no promises here, it's 40k) then they'll have a lot of Bright Lances and Fire Dragons, to take on all the tanks that most armies have these days.

So tanks are awesome.
Therefore "everyone" has masses of them.
Therefore "everyone" spends loads of points on anti-tank things.
Therefore if you come in with a "masses of *cheap* infantry" list (ork boys, gaunts, guardsmen, hormagants, kroot) they feel really stupid.

And the one guy who fields a "masses of flamer templates or pie plates at low S all for killing infantry" army? Hope that he already got knocked out in the early rounds by facing a mechanised list.

[cthulhu]

Every single space marine tac squad can have a missle launcher. This weapon is usually cheap and unless you are facing 14 armor value armor its awesome against both hard and soft targets.

Missile launchers are pathetic because they are bad at both roles, and you cannot split your fire (maybe you can now? I have no idea), so your AT weapon fires at a tank (ineffectually, because real tanks have AV 14), and your expensive marines sit around picking their nose.

It's vaguely excusable with guard units where everyone is a meat shield for the heavy weapons, but even then it's very terrible.

[Koumei]

Missile launchers are actually pretty popular lately amongst the "Know what they're doing" crowd (whereas they used to be popular amongst the "This tac squad comes with a Missile Launcher and no other heavy options, I guess I take that then" crowd).

That said, there is only one army that has a "Devastator Squad" that is worth using (I include Havocs, Retributors and old DE Scourges in this). That's SPESS WOOFS, as their Longfangs DO get to split their fire. So they can happily go "Two missile launchers, two bolters" (cheap, the bolters are really just ablative armour but don't waste their turn when rockets are fired) or "Two Plascannons two Lascannons, SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM" or whatever.

Any other dedicated heavy weapon infantry squad automatically fails then and there. And tell me how many vehicles (aside from Dreads) have missile launchers.

Oh, apparently some people chuck a bunch of heavy weapon squads into their IG infantry platoons, but w/e. And often they go 3x Missile Launcher or 3x Lascannon, and they GTA a regular squad's Chimera and all fire out of that.

So you have FA 13, Heavy Bolter, Heavy Stubber, Multilaser and 3 Missiles. Not a bad little payload.

[cthulhu]

Missile launchers are actually pretty popular lately amongst the "Know what they're doing" crowd (whereas they used to be popular amongst the "This tac squad comes with a Missile Launcher and no other heavy options, I guess I take that then" crowd).

Why? I haven't played 5th edition.. so did they get a bigger blast template or something?