9th Edition Power Creep & FAQ’s | Warhammer 40,000 State of Play
The Chef August 5, 202157
157
57 Likes
Rants abound as Chef and Beard talk the latest Adeptus Mechanicus FAQ, as well as what more can be done to combat imbalance in 40k!
00:00 Intro and the Ad Mech FAQ
02:20 Lucius
05:34 Acquisition At Any Cost
07:40 Enriched Rounds
10:29 Galvanic Volley Fire
12:48 Ironstriders CORE Keyword
15:05 Are the changes enough?
16:32 Event Placings and Win Rates
17:57 Points Values
20:04 Give us a Digital Ruleset!
24:40 Codex Release and App Codes
25:45 It all takes too long!
28:28 Splitting the Codex
31:12 Does the current system even work?
33:02 Outro
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So my group switched to AoS about 6 months ago because 40K was so imbalanced and repetitive that we just were not having any fun (AoS has been a blast). We were thinking of getting back into 40K as tournaments are coming back in our area. My buddy and I went undefeated in the largest doubles tournament in our state the last time they had it (2019), so we figured we should compete this November. However, after doing some homework, it looks like 40K is even more imbalanced now than 6 months ago. A +70% win rate for a faction… Read more »
Please, don’t compare 40k to chess. It’ll never be chess because of dice, and the mind-blowing amount of variables between player skill and rules, not to mention player memory. GW balances books internally, but the meta is balanced externally. Pts balance the game between books, but they’ll never fix internal issues, such as units that are never being used etc. Imo, GW should spend more time balancing rules for units internally before they start the pts balance externally. Or the other way around, whatever 😀 About the books – They generate income. They will ALWAYS be there, because it’s an… Read more »
Sorry, late to comment – but FYI GW did give us instantly updated digital books, I just seem to be the only one who noticed. In 8th, if you bought the core rule book and codex on Apple Books, those books in your library were updated with points changes and revised rule wordings as updates and FAQs came out. But guess what! GW has not released digital versions of of the core rule book or any codex in 9th. Not on Apple Books, not on their own book store. Nada. The quietly made the rules physical-only in 9th, and then… Read more »
Totally agree with the necessity for digital editions, though GW are not in a position to give us such. The App is in a sorry state of their ability to produce such reliably.
So many issues 1 year on that have still not been updated (maybe they are being nostalgic towards their old ways of not updating).
Either way both are needed. paying stupid money for books with errors galore in them that are then outdated within a couple of weeks is not healthy for the community.
Hi, late to the party. Agree with most of the comments. My idea would be to say the supplements only apply to narrative games and only if you are fighting in that zone. They could act as testing grounds then without changing competition and if they strike gold then they can be moved across. It doesn’t matter if a faction is strong for a certain story if you can make them weak in another.
I play a number of other systems as well. One perhaps marginal issue with this massive, blatant imbalance in the game of 40K is that is hard to motivate yourself to get better, to invest time and effort in honing your competitive skills, when you know that – unless you are willing to follow the power creep – there is only so much you can do as a player if your faction is just not up there. Sure, the worst Tyranids list piloted by, say, the Spider, will crush my Drukhari every day of the week, but I’m not talking… Read more »
you have spoken the words i’ve grumbled over my local table for the breadth of the internet to hear: I’m tired of competitive play. I dislike secondary objectives and “12 different flavors of stand on the objective” and games with no grounding in the grand space opera of the 40k setting. For the third week in a row I’ve rolled up the road to THE CITADEL and haven’t been able to lay hands on a Drukhari codex. Today I even asked if I could just buy the blasted digital code and get the paper book whenever it shows up. The… Read more »
Great video guys. @Chef, do you think that competitive style play and lists is ruining casual games? When you look at advise being given in Facebook groups, Reddit ect. it is always related to a very competitive style of game play. So when you have the average Timmy who is browsing for some advise the info he receives is generally chasing meta. So new joiners of the hobby now think that competitive style of game play is the norm how you should be playing the game. I apreciate that competitive does help towards getting game balancing in place. But I… Read more »
I’m only a casual player. And since that **** of PA or psychic awakening the game is terrible… So many booooks! We don’t know what each other army does, we just say well i guess so… For faq forget it, we dont follow that! When you are at somebody’s basement playing a game the last thing you want to do is going to the net to check some possible faq… I hope they fix it. One book in digital format, no dlc please. I mean… Book of rust and those **** DLC day one which you can’t even download!!! I’m… Read more »
@Chef
For the FAQ’s I think the best option would be a free and updated online armybuilder.
I play Infinity the game as my main hobby game and they have a free online armybuilder so they can easily tweek stuff when needed.
Cheers
As an Admech player, the most baffling aspect of the new codex has been the increased max size of Skitarii units. A lot of the more abusive emergent tactics become far less problematic if you can only apply them to a unit of 10 rather than a unit of 20. Lucius would still be a problem, and the army wide advantages would continue, but some of the stratagems and warlord traits that allow you to stack bonuses and stratagems to increase performance are far less troubling when capped at half the numbers. id really like to understand how much playtesting… Read more »
Chef, we have much to discuss very soon. Loved the video!
This is unrelated to the video (though I do agree with most of what you guys said), but kudos to chef for stating that the Scarab Occult termies should have a Prosperine Kopesh a million videos before it was actually announced.
The one issue I have with the idea of preordering the codexes from GW, is the impact to FLGS. It means that money goes straight to GW versus the local stores. Are codexes their main income streams, no, but every release my local store is selling 20-30 of them, the loss of that income adds up.
I firmly believe Games Workshop will turn to a digital ruleset eventually I have no doubt of that. I think they are aware of the need and the desire of the community for this shift. I just think they are trying to get as much money out of books as they can now before they change, something along the lines of ‘If we can have them spending over £100 on books a year to play 1 army maybe we can charge them £10-15 a month for the online rules instead of £5’ The rules in these campaign books were blatantly… Read more »
In my opinion, GW uses codex releases to drum up minature sales. There are generally new minatures released with the codex so not only do the books need to be ready, but also the new minature line. Taking the trickle out approach, GW is maximizing these sales. A massive digital data drop would spill the beans on new minature lines and you would have units you could not even buy yet in your codex. Which might not be a bad thing?
I played 2 games with my admech last weekend, one pre FAQ and one post. I still won both games but the second was certainly much closer, and I had to be much more careful with when I was spending my points on vanguard. The board control we get is still insane (but i havent seen new orc dex yet). Getting 20 vanguard etc wholly within 6 of an objective is now tough, so there is an argument for taking units of 10 (or at least a couple units of 10 so you also have a 1CP option for the… Read more »
I firmly believe that stratagems in general are the problem. They throw so many curveballs into the system that it breaks the core balance based on general rules interaction and points. Granted it’s better than it was now we have a balance of cp across books and no more gymnastics with detachments to maximise them but still the CP and Stratagems push is holding the game hostage. Get shot of them and yes move the rules to a living system online and we’d have a game that’s balanced far better. Codexs should be lore and army collection books. The name… Read more »
I think it’s very telling that every single major competitor to GW’s stuff, Legion, Warmachine/hordes, Marvel, Conquest, all of them provide free online living rulesets and some of those games are significantly more balanced than 40k. Hell, Legion releases updates to the rules to prevent odd interactions with new models before they even come out.
Big fan of the idea of divorcing rules/points and fluff/hobby stuff. The fact that people are willing to pay more for collector’s editions of books now shows there is a market for that sort of thing. I think about having digital codex program that is interactive during game, imagine if the program could directly track wounds and victory/command points.
Personally i would go all-in digital – live updated by GW on my device. I do not need the fluff and all the stuff around the rules. Just give me the rules i need to play the game as quickly as possible.
The removal of the digital books is just a fatal backstep 🙁
It blows my mind that in the year 2021, you MUST by a physical copy of the book to unlock the digital. Such a massive backwards step from GW compared to 8th.
Something I’d like to see you all comment on; does GW need to curate their release schedule for codexes and war zone/campaign books differently and if so what would work better. Obviously everyone wants to see more of their favorite factions, but if you look at the releases you see the same factions appearing right left and center. For example the Necrons had a codex release in 8th, were left out of both Vigilus books and got 2 pages in psychic awakening, got their 9th edition codex and are apparently being left out of the war zone Charadon books, same… Read more »
Real talk, this video and all the talk just fells bad…
Brothers… I have been banging this drum for absolute ages.
Digital subscription for rules at say £5 per month.
Normal “collectors edition” codex filled with fluff and art for those that are interested priced at current price or whatever price its going to be….
I guarantee you all proper players would buy the books for their army despite already having the rules..
I really hope that is what they are aiming for with the introduction of their 40k apps..
Good video Chef and Beard. I think GW are really starting to push the line with what’s good enough on release especially with a physical book. As much as I love the book, by the time all the updates roll out it’s not even accurate anymore, plus the data cards that come with it. The field manual/chapter approved was an extremely disappointing release. I am in Australia so this was $80AUD (£42.50) and was essentially a patch for things I’ve already paid for. If I buy a codex with the points printed and they change them because they can’t get… Read more »
Agree with you guys 100% about digital materials. But as you say, it’s a profit driven business. The game itself is, for better or worse, incidental to GW selling models, at least in part. Though having a good game definitely helps make the models useful and interesting. In a perfect world, I think we would see large, simultaneous updates to each faction all at once followed by incremental patching of faction and core rules where necessary over time. We could do away with editions all together and just have “The Game”. Want to introduce a new core mechanic? Throw it… Read more »
TBH I think they could simply make the points seperate and digital, but release the PL in the book with the rules. I’ve gotten to the point where playing competitive games no longer appeals, and I’ve found I like the simplicity of PL for army building, and using my down time between games to refine do the fun experience paperwork that crafts a character over time. But not everything needs to be FOR me. I’m pretty happy to have FAQs tweak out the worst offenders and have PL adjusted like once a year, while points are separated, digital, and updated… Read more »
I have been waiting for this video, I love these discussions from you guys they are so much more fair and balanced with ideas on how to improve rather then just the “this bad gw bad”rants you see in some other areas. In relation to what you were saying about the rules only digital books and the “dlc” supplements. I remember gw already did that at the end of 7th Ed with their “gamer edition” codexes which were cheaper and just the rules and they also did a digital version of just the rules from Damocles Gulf where you could… Read more »
TBH, their business model is really smart if you want to make profits which by looking at their earnings they did. Release and tease an army that is powerful, then put models out wait for the demand to drop FAQ it, and move on to the next. if they wanted to fix this it could be fixed it’s not and they won’t until profits start to fall off and people move to a different game or product. This is simple business 101. look at most of your video games I’ll take blizzard during the peak of WoW. Continuous character creeps… Read more »
Great breakdown guys! I love a good chef rant 🙂
It might be too much, but it would be awesome to pop in like this every other week or so and just give some thoughts on the current meta/state of the game. I’d love to hear (everyone’s) thoughts too!
Cheers guys, great discussion of the content! I’m curious- how much of the Ad Mech book changed between when you saw it beforehand and when it was published? Are you allowed to say? I’m curious as to your role as “playtesters”, which I know you’ve alluded to before and can only say so much about, and this (very valid) criticism leveled at some of the more recent releases. Is there anything you can add to a topic like this?
Tell you what lads! Given the state of power creep this edition I’m looking forwards to Craftworlds lol ^_^
So it is almost like GW need to create some sort of digital system that can be updated with the FAQs.
And would it not be great if you can still buy your codex and with that you could unlock the digital version of the rules which could then be updated.
Like in some kind of phone app…….
Really happy you guys have sat down to discuss the current meta, always appreciate your measured outlook than the more hysterical takes that are currently doing the rounds. Could not agree more with the living digital codexes, it is such an obvious fix to the game and it is is very frustrating that GW are refusing to embrace it. It is the solution to the game. In terms of GW revenue stream, surely if they were charging £9.99 a month for warhammer+ to access al the new animations, a list builder and the free core rules and then you purchase… Read more »
Chef has never been so right so consistently in his entire life before this video. Brilliant work!
I think Beard might genuinely be the most pleasant person on the entire planet. Good job Beard.
I feel like I’m mostly a cheerleader at this point, but the sentiment is genuine. You bring me joy, what can I say !
I firmly believe every change GW makes has intention behind it. Why the soft touch on Admech? So they stay strong and they sell more of them. I mean come on! They watch the metrics, they know how to make armies sell. I’m curious to know the sales figures for Drukari and Admech over the last 5 years versus the last 5 months. Power creep sells more models, especially for armies that are less popular than their flagship armies. Same thing applies to units within popular armies. Why can’t Primaris use drop pods? Because most SM players already have drop… Read more »
A lot of really interesting points. I love hearing your thoughts on the hobby – whilst you air your frustrations you also try to see the other side of the coin too and have a discussion surrounding all the issues at play. I appreciate that fair more than just an angry rant. Have you considered that this could be where Warhammer + will eventually go? If I am not mistaken a subscription to that includes access to the 40k (and AoS) app? When you were discussing the potential of digital codex’s this is where my mind went to. Then they… Read more »
So I do have a gripe about comments both Spider and Chef have said in prior videos. You’ve both stated that we haven’t seen the full picture and we should wait for the rest of the codices. However, what does that have to do with the books released earlier (SM, Necrons, BA) that are already totally outclassed by this recent wave of codices (Admech, Drukhari, etc)?
Not a comment on the content but rather on the format. I really like the fact that you concentrate the rants in one video like this one rater than spreading them around in the batreps. At the end of 8th, I found there was a lot of negativity in the lists descriptions at the beginning of games and it got to me. I much prefer it this way. I will still watch these videos, but it’s gonna be 30 minutes of concentrated spicy juice that I can drink knowingly and sporadically. I appreciate the energy, positivity and humour from the… Read more »
Not even watched this yet but I know I’m going to enjoy. Go Chef Go!
If things are this bad and gamesworkshop don’t do something then why don’t people do something. Competitive tournament don’t have to use any of the rules or pts of GW. Indeed this is how ITC got start. the secondaries that we play with is from ITC as a way to balance the game so factions that are good at certain things can get points. I play Ad Mech since 8th and I play beer and pretzels warhammer but I find unbalance rules really destroy the game as some with a weak codex cannot even turn up to play. THey won’t… Read more »
In the points of the game itself, 9th is fantastic. I love the style, I love the rules, I love how the game just plays. This execution though has hurt. Especially with the releases. I live in a rural area and generally getting my hands on a codex can take a while. I either make a super long drive to get a physical book or I have to wait the weeks for shipping to receive it. This was not a problem in 8th because I could log onto my iPhone, go to the Apple Books store, and buy a digital… Read more »
10ed anyone? Seems like we have already hit an incermountable problem in 9th. Feels bad. You talk about the old days of no FAQs. But most I talk to feel like the game as a whole was more balanced with a hand off approach. But everyone was begging for more hands on. This is what you get in that situation. The biggest issue in 8th and 9th is anything can kill anything. This should not be the case. There needs to be limits on what can do what. I have a lot of thoughts. I have been playing since the… Read more »
I have to say, I’ve been playing 40k for a long time now and 9th is easily my least favourite edition. It seemed good on paper when it was announced but they’ve botched pretty much everything about it. My experience of actually playing games has been genuinely miserable, win or lose. The app was terrible and is still broken to this day, the book bloat is the worst it’s ever been, the power creep is insane, the rules have become bloated, they’re releasing day-one DLC for brand new Codexes… About the only thing 9th has gotten right is that the… Read more »
Am I the only one who thinks that if they skitarii blobs were only 10man blobs instead of 20 that the rules which have been released even in the campaign book wouldn’t be that much of an issue. In the past (I think it was for 8E testing) I remember some testers said that there were cases where play testers were testing with a smaller unit size and in the released codex GW upped the model count of said unit and suddenly with stacking buffs and/or stratagems said unit became too much. This whole admech situation feels very similar for… Read more »
I loved this discussion, and this level of quality content is why I pay you guys a monthly subscription fee. I would gladly pay a 5 to 10 dollar monthly fee to GW if they did what you suggested with all digital, release all of the codex at the same time, update rules and points without having to pay for a CA book, etc. That would help with any issue above revenue stream. This hobby is expensive, and personally if someone can’t afford 5 to ten bucks a month, they likely can’t afford to play this game anyway. Also the… Read more »
Thanks guys! Always appreciate the chatroom style content – also, please, is faction focus dead? 🙁