WH40K: Fifth Edition

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon May 02, 2011 5:12 pm

Someone asked him "Dude, don't you think Daemons are overpowered?" (in WHFB) To which he replied "Good, they should be".

So he does what I want to do - decide "This army is stupid, let's make it shit." and "I like ______, let's make it awesome."

Additionally, let's look at his codices of 40k 5E:

Space Marines: the first codex (naturally) of the edition. And it is filled with STUFF. It made older dexes feel really small in the pants, even though many of them were still able to wipe the floor with them. But all these options - yet at the same time all this blandness - it was really Codex: Ultramarines.

With most of the fluff wanking on about how every Space Marine really wishes he could be an Ultramarine, and how Marneus Calgar personally killed everyone in the universe ever. With his ears.

Sure, nearly every Special Character (Marneus included) is a poor choice for the points cost, but that's normal for Special Characters always. What's surprising is there are a few good ones - including some really annoying abilities - they generate more rage in the opposition than benefit for the player.

Blood Angels: oh boy! This is so fucking absurd that there are people who use Orks as Counts-As-Blood-Angels. Dreadnoughts (that can't score, so a bad choice in 2/3 of normal games) as Troops choices. Land Raiders getting dropped from orbit. Rhinos, Razorbacks etc. being Fast. Special Fast Attack Predators. JUMP PACKS EVERYWHERE (and a special rule that makes their Deep Strike/Reserves awesome). Plenty of access to Feel No Pain and Furious Charge (the new black).

FLYING PSYCHIC DREADNOUGHTS. DREADS WITH HARPOONS.

Personal bitter note: makes a great Counts-As for Sisters, as they basically do the job of the Sororitas except better. So it covers the Orks and the Sisters better than their own Codices do. Kind of like how Spess Wolfs make good Chaos Marines.

And a special hero that caused so much rage it was delicious. "HE'LL BEAT A TAG TEAM OF WRAITHLORDS IN HTH!" "YOU CAN'T KILL HIM WITH FIFTY BS 3 GUYS WITH LASGUNS!" Seriously, 3 meltas or plasma guns and he drops like a sucker.

I'm not sure which other ones were his doing. I'm going to GUESS Grey Knights was, because it's really fucking stupid in plenty of places. YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE STOMPING SO I PUT YOUR POWER ARMOUR IN POWER ARMOUR SO YOU CAN STOMP WHILE YOU STOMP"

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon May 02, 2011 5:31 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:So people were primed to hate Matt Ward. He writes meandering piles of nested options that look unedited to the naked eye and unplaytested to the experienced eye.

So in terms of D&D authors, where would he rank?

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Tue May 03, 2011 2:02 am

Yo. First post here.

First, I second the advice from MagicJuggler, he's one of the few on that troll nest of /tg/ that gets it.

Second, about Matt Ward, his Fantasy codexes were bad (Fantasy in general wasn't too good, but he started the creep), but his 40k codexes so far have good rules and are fun to play. His fluff IS wank, but there's several caveats:

*ALL codex fluff try to make the army look like the awesomest thing evar.

*40k fluff, frankly, is quite bad. They have the benefit to be one of the first that took the "Fantasy IN SPAAAACE" ball and ran with it as hard as they could, but they went for the super grimderp of the 80's until recently.

See more here: http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/ ... aaard.html

*GW isn't known for hiring editors, they just prefer to wait until the playerbase throws every single loophole in flamewars and then FAQ the derpiest stuff.

*People get really angry when Eldar (space elves) and Sisters of Battle (Space Nuns) get slaughtered on fluff. Don't ask me why.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 03, 2011 5:19 am

Gx1080 wrote: *People get really angry when Eldar (space elves) and Sisters of Battle (Space Nuns) get slaughtered on fluff. Don't ask me why.

Any fan of any faction gets annoyed when someone else's codex is "And then one squad of them annihilated an army of _____" about their own faction. Now it's worse for those who don't have their own AWESOME fluff, true (so, any force still using pre-5th codices), but it's still generally true.

That said, the Sisters-killing of the GK was fucking retarded. "They found Battle Sisters who, through their faith, were immune to this Warp Disease. SO THEY MURDERED ALL OF THEM AND USED THEIR BLOOD TO GRANT THEM IMMUNITY." So much for "No Grey Knight has ever fallen to Chaos", that's a Khornate army right there. So he manages to take a shit all over the Sisters, but ALSO taints the Grey Knights in the same story.

Someone should petition the UN to ban him from writing non-rules text.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue May 03, 2011 6:14 am

... *facepalm*

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Tue May 03, 2011 2:59 pm

Honestly, I found that incident funny. Specially all the nerdrage about it.

That out, is not worse than "they are pure because they were brainwashed to be pure" (that is still there) and it fits with the more Radical (as in the 40k definition of using Chaos against Chaos) direction of the whole codex.

Besides, in 40k, everybody is a dick.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue May 03, 2011 3:24 pm

Except Commissar Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 03, 2011 3:29 pm

Comissar Fuklaw.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Wed May 04, 2011 3:28 am

I liked the Ciaphas Cain books, is amusing to see an Imperium that doesn't take itself that seriously.

Yeah, yeah, the whole "every Marine wishes that they could be an Ultramarine" is wank, but Calgar just killed an Avatar. He CAN do that in game, btw. The codex is fun to play anyways (Main army here).

BA. Nobody will risk a 250 pts LR + cargo on a DS mishap. They kinda have to be fast because of the small range on Infernus Pistols and their good Razorback options and single Meltaguns don't scare anybody.

Dreads need to keep up with the Fast Vehicles, so Psychic Wings. FNP/FC is a 6" bubble and is only good to make full Jumpers viable and to put more load on the double LR rock (which everybody can do) because small MSU squads get torrented anyways.

SoB still can just use their dirt-cheap IST and spam Inmolators. Or use an allied Guard+Autocannons blob. That's effective, but buying lots of 3rd edition metal models (so they look like ass and are expensive) is a massive turn off.

Which special hero? The Sanguinor? He gets as much use as any other 250+ combat monster that does dick-all or almost dick-all for the army. That's, uh, never. And he looks and plays the part of Saint Celestine MKII.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed May 04, 2011 8:54 am

No, the Psyker guy who has the statline of a Tyranid Warrior. I wouldn't pay the points to field him, but there was a lot of screaming and panicking by the fans when they first saw him. It was hilarious.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Wed May 04, 2011 8:46 pm

Ah, Mephiston. Heh, I can imagine. I just saw a guy that cries when Psychic Defense starts to show up, together with S7+ and Poisoned shots show up and he bites it.

Of course, pre-codex release DOOOOOM is a standard.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed May 04, 2011 10:11 pm

Did C:DE have pre-codex DOOOOOOM? I only recall good things coming from that - people loving the stories, people getting excited about armies that fire 100+ poisoned shots off per turn and all that jazz, interest regarding the Power From Pain rule and the fact that Wych armies are actually feasible etc.

The worst I noticed was "Oh wow, Mandrakes suck even more than they used to. And the flyers look a bit gimmicky." Compared to "Biomorphs were changed, MY GAUNTS ARE USELESS" and "LOOK AT DOOM OF MALANTAI, EVERYONE EVER IS NOW FUCKED HE IS THE BEST THING IN THE GAME", it's amazing.

Because the enormity of GW's bad quality is immense, matched only by the crazy screaming and crying of its fans.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Thu May 05, 2011 12:53 am

Dunno. Here's the deal with GW's issues.

*Too many Marine codexes. This is really, really old news, but when 4th edition Xeno codexes (Eldar, Orks, etc) are left on the cold, people notice.

A little less than half of ALL the codexes are Marines. 5 standard loyalists + 2 specials = 7 codexes. From 16 codexes. So yeah.

*Not caring about the customers. I mean, fucking Wizards shows to care more. They only thing that GW has over them is that, unlike Wizards, they don't openly talk shit about players. They can't even be arsed to have a forum or putting a decent tournament circuit or putting official presence and conventions FFS.

*The Tyranid FAQ. That thing KILLED the reserve/spore dropping army, so the number of Tyranid builds got reduced quite a bit. You can operate around it, but there's no way to play that codex without Hive Guard and/or Tyrannofexes. Combine that with less wargear options than other codexes across the board and you have a somewhat limited codex.

*Slow model releases. DE is missing a lot of models, including Venoms and Wracks (that, you guessed it, show a lot in many lists), Tyranids are missing almost all of their new MCs (including the T-fexes and the other MC that shows a lot, the Tervigon).

It "encourages converting" and is certainly better than having an even more limited range of options, but all of the above encourages players to stick with the Marines, who share a lot of models and are only missing Thunderwulf Cavalry. Which is an easy conversion (hurr I stick my Marine to a Warhammer Fantasy mount/3rd party provider).

Now, on the good news.

*5th edition, despite everything, is a fun and balanced game. They did pull their heads out of their asses on that after the fiasco of 4th edition (failed so hard that PP appeared), they fired the suckiest codex writers (Thorpe, Calvatore, Hoare) and quite a bit of the "old guard" that was stuck on the 80's.

*5th edition codexes work. (Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Tyranids, Blood Angels, Dark Eldar and Grey Knights. Necrons coming!). They are fun to play, they show several builds and they are different enough from each other.

*Lots of plastic models. If you have ever dealt with metal models you know why this is good.

People will go on and on about how Space Wolves and Imperial Guard are the best because they are the most popular, but Space Wolves is used as "count as" for the Chaos Space Marine players (is either that or using the Thorpe/Calvatore-dex) and Imperial Guard has historical wargamers on them (WWII tanks and Infantry. On space.). So of course they are more popular. Duh.

Popular =/= Good, BTW.

The playerbase? Heh, they have flame wars for retarded shit that give D&D edition wars a run for their money.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu May 05, 2011 2:16 am

... Doesn't the Daemon Codex count as 5th Ed though? And wasn't that some kind of war crime that The Hague should really investigate?

<IG Trooper> Sir... we seem to have wandered into another Daemon ambush!

<IG General> AGAIN?! Prepare to defend yourselves!

*Khorne Bloodthirster appears with with Slaaneshi Daemonettes* ROAR!

<IG General> ... You are one inch outside of the play area

*Khorne Bloodthirster poofs*

<IG General> ... Victory?

----------------

I do like the Guard in 5th though. I do feel that they're one of the more solid armies with plentiful options, a fair number of which are solid enough to have a good chance of winning.

Although they don't have any of those stupid cheating bikes.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Thu May 05, 2011 2:55 am

Daemons? Nope.

Bikes are fun. :3. People who say that the SM codex is bland have never played a Bike army.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu May 05, 2011 4:20 am

It's Orks who caused an uproar with bikes. And I'll admit, if you're stuck with a shitty pre-5th army that has like 3 options, none of them THAT effective or even what you really want, then yeah Nob Bikes ARE a problem. Though so is everything from a 5E Dex.

Daemons were released in 4E (and yes, 4E sucks arse. Is that a universal rule of gaming?), but they were released late enough into the cycle that it's thought they already knew what 5E was going to be like so made them compatible for that. You could get away with calling them the first 5E Dex, except that violates the law of "Marines First".

Imperial Guard are indeed popular and a fun army, with plenty of options. I'm a fan of them. Not unbeatable to other 5E Dexes, but solid. You can do tanks, infantry, flying things, gajillions of flashlights, cheap melee tarpits, pie plates everywhere, many las/auto cannons all over the place...

I don't know much about how Wolf Wolfs play, but I hear they're fun, and they work for Chaos players. Nids are still pretty versatile and fun, with zerg rush options, air assault options, hulking MC options and "we're all big" options. Yeah, you better like converting, though. Or making MCs out of clay or something (not just the unreleased ones, you'll save an average of ten million dollars on a 1,000 point army).

And yeah, Dark Eldar seems to be a good times army, though still not unbeatable. And much like the old things that let you field mutants (Lost and the Damned, Witch Hunter enemies, Apocalypse datasheet), the Wracks seem like an excuse to empty your bitz box out.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Thu May 05, 2011 4:45 am

Well, I haven't seen Nob Bikers since forever, so yeah.

Apparently, yes. 4e must suck arse in all forms of gaming. And no, Daemons don't count as a 5th edition codex. Besides, letting Fantasy authors who were angry about Ward's Fantasy Daemons do a 40k codex proved to be a retarded idea.

All 5e dexes are fun to play, no discussion there. I'm just too used to dislike the kind of people who tend to play elves.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:12 am

Koumei wrote:Daemons were released in 4E (and yes, 4E sucks arse. Is that a universal rule of gaming?)

No, Shadowrun 4E is pretty much win pre-CGL-fuckery. The D&D and Warhammer (?) 4E thing is probably just one of those "pattern"s brains like to latch onto because they're developed to run away from possible tigers instead of do math.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:19 am

Meh, at least the 40K army I like and own is playable.

For Fantasy, they still haven't updated the bloody Bretonnians.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:35 am

Which army is that, Zine? Guard? (Only guessing because you mentioned them a few times, and were particularly interested in talking with MJ about his list for them.)

There once was a contest where the winner gets a 6K point army (either game). I was really hoping the winner would choose all-infantry guard. Specifying Steel Legion (metal infantry). As a way of saying "Yeah, how do YOU like it, GW? Feels expensive, doesn't it?"

Regarding the silliness of Daemons, yeah. Try playing them as the Defenders in Planetstrike (granted, that has its own terrible problems, as an expansion). They don't even start on the field, so in turn one the attackers can just wander into the unoccupied bastions. Then the "defenders" teleport in.

I think they sometimes forget that every army is sometimes the defender.

I'm interested to see what they do with Necrons.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:39 am

Yeah, I'm Guard. Mixed infantry/mech. Used to be Khorne though.

I'd like to start with Brets too, but they currently suck and are massively out of date.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:44 am

The only thing that GW has over them is that, unlike Wizards, they don't openly talk shit about players.

GW openly talks shit about their players. Apparently, if you find balance problems, it's your fault for being a dick and not paying the game the way you should. Just the words "Beardy", "Mathhammer", and "Theorycraft" were coined by GW for the purpose of belittling their own fanbase,

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu May 05, 2011 5:45 am

Yes. Jervis needs to be shot for perpetuating this.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Thu May 05, 2011 6:37 am

Huh. Didn't knew that.

So yep, WOTC IS BETTER than GW. That's a pitfully low bar. And I don't understand why they haven't fired Jervis yet, and even worse, they let him in charge of their tournament circuit, which has rules that are basically free publicity for PP (Bought a Menoth army when that shit went live).

EDIT: The tournament that I have heard good stuff is the NOVA Open. Seems to have a lot less bullshit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu May 05, 2011 6:48 am

The GW excuse flowsheet looks like this:


I think it's broken because...	Excuse
I played a game and it was totally fucked up.	That's just one data point. Maybe you got unlucky.
I played fifty games, and it came out the same way every time!	You need to try different things, doing the same thing that made you lose is bad tactics.
Look at these guys! They are exactly like X except better.	That's just Theorycraft. You can't look at units in isolation, because they are balanced with the rest of the army they are found in.
I have run the numbers and it is mathematically fucked.	That's just Mathhammer. In a Real Game of Warhammer that wouldn't happen.
This exploit is so well known that it has a name in the fanbase and it always fucking wins.	Using that is not in the spirit of the game, and fielding it is totally Beardy. You should be ashamed of yourself.

In all honesty, it's pretty similar to the flowsheet of Pathfinder excuses. But for GW there isn't even a fucking DM. It's a competitive fucking game, so all of those excuses are more insulting than they are for RPGs.

-Username17