6th changes to the Tier system?

[Glenn87]

Hey guys,
Do you think the release of 6th edition will have an effect to the top tier/middle tier/bottom tier armies?

[Nurgling Chieftain]

I don't think it can shake up the top-tier much, except possibly I-guard. Changing the basic rules isn't going to have much affect on models which are almost the same, except better (wolves, blood angels, grey knights are all "MEQ+").

The middle and bottom tiers could see some siginificant shifts, though.

[Spiney Norman]

I don't think it can shake up the top-tier much, except possibly I-guard. Changing the basic rules isn't going to have much affect on models which are almost the same, except better (wolves, blood angels, grey knights are all "MEQ+").

The middle and bottom tiers could see some siginificant shifts, though.

My one hope for 6th is that they nerf mechanised armies, making players think about whether or not to take a transport rathermthan it being an automatic include for any unit that can take one would be a refreshing change.

[Chapters Unwritten]

I imagine, much like 5th, the strong armies will come down and the weak ones will step up a bit.

[Glenn87]

I imagine, much like 5th, the strong armies will come down and the weak ones will step up a bit.

what were the strong armies in 4th? (didn't play back then)

[Gargantuan]

what were the strong armies in 4th? (didn't play back then)

I think people complained about Eldar the most.

[LordOfTheFuzz]

My one hope for 6th is that they nerf mechanised armies, making players think about whether or not to take a transport rathermthan it being an automatic include for any unit that can take one would be a refreshing change.

Why would GW make a change to the game that would lead people towards buying fewer models?

[wyvirn]

If they redo how close combat works, I think Tyranids have the most to gain. If NR! gets changed, grenades no longer a must have, even a psychic powers revamp could mean a lot of things.

[Rated_lexxx]

If they redo how close combat works, I think Tyranids have the most to gain. If NR! gets changed, grenades no longer a must have, even a psychic powers revamp could mean a lot of things.

I 100% agree about the NR change. I do like how it was done in the "leaked" 6th rules

[Nurgling Chieftain]

Why would GW make a change to the game that would lead people towards buying fewer models?

Infantry armies have more models than mechanized armies, almost by definition.

...I think Tyranids have the most to gain.

Pretty much this, even without your caveat. This edition is not friendly to the ol' Hive.

[althathir]

I don't think it can shake up the top-tier much, except possibly I-guard. Changing the basic rules isn't going to have much affect on models which are almost the same, except better (wolves, blood angels, grey knights are all "MEQ+").

The middle and bottom tiers could see some siginificant shifts, though.

I don't know for wolves they could nerf counter-attack (which is a wolf player i'm hoping for), and for GK if there are additional rules for psychers and their powers it could nail them (i've read a suggestion where force weapons only ignored saves when they were activated). Where as if we gain more control over our reserves blood angels may benefit. There will be a lot of movement.

I'd also point out that with the possible exception of nids just about all the fifth edition armies are stronger than vanilla marines.

[Ebon]

Obviously depends on what the new edition does. Changing combat to make grenades less vital would help the 'Nids as would some revision to the monstrous creature rules. Revised shooting rules might help out the Guard and Tau (especially if the Tau codex is coming fairly soon).
Honestly, anything is plausable since we don't know what's in the rules yet.

[greenmtvince]

Anything to benefit the bottom tier armies or gimp the top tier armies is only going to serve to hurt the current middle to bottom tier armies. Make shooting better to help Tau? Grey Knights and Razorback spam just got better. Boost combat to help the nids? Blood Angels and Grey Knights just got better too. Nerf mechanized armies. Top Tier armies have viable footslogging alternatives, bottom tier ones get to watch their infantry die horribly.

So no, the only thing that will probably change the tier system is codex releases.

I for one am happy with the prevalence of transports and tanks, just not the resiliance. Never mind the wonky death traps of 4th edition. I just liked the fact that a non-AP1 weapon in the previous 2 editions had a greater chance of getting a vehicle destroyed result.

[Dr.Clock]

If the recent rumours about vehicles are true, it will do a great deal to change the game for the better IMO.

Currently, melta is king. One of the great things about 40k is the abundance of awesome weapon types. The sad fact is that most netlists basically take melta and do away with everything else.

To recap: the rumour seems to be that vehicles will now be given a new statistic of some type that will correspond roughly to how resilient it is to damage. A rhino is rumoured to be at a 3, with vehicles scaling from their according (roughly) to weight. This statistic then represents the number of glancing hits a vehicle can withstand before it is taken out. Penetrating hits will still have the ability to knock vehicles out in one shot as they do currently.

While this will not spell the end of transports (they are here to stay) it does knock melta off its pedestal. Armies like Tau and Eldar who enjoy high S and RoF weapons but who lack wide access to melta will be have an easier go of things, and we might see people taking more flamers and plasmas (I love flamers personally... and take the odd plasma just because they are awesome).

I think we can look forward to some flattening of tiers, but on the whole, the lower end are most likely not going to be able to change much in the way of composition until they get redone books. In 2-3 years, I'd expect the tiers to be much less of an issue as CSM, Eldar, Tau and another MEQ book come out.

Cheers,

The Good Doctor.

p.s. as an aside, I'm also interested in the new stat for armoured units because it opens the door to units that are more lightly armoured but have are more dependable and hard to put down if you don't hit something vital. This could be a nice way to differentiate between, say, a landspeeder and a vyper (both nominally 10 all-round).

[Baneboss]

what were the strong armies in 4th? (didn't play back then)

Necrons. Can you imagine? Army that was top tier suddenly went down to the bottom low.

[Bunnahabhain]

The only major change I could see* that would seriously disrupt the tiers would be a reform of the Psyker rules, that nerfs them, hard.

Forces it hurts significantly: Grey Knights, Blood Angles, Space wolves, Grey Knights (worth mentioning at least twice) and Eldar
Forces not strongly hit or helped: Guard, Dark Angels, Codex marines, Orks, CSM, Damons, Nids
Forces simply helped by weaker psykers: Necrons, D.E, Sisters, Tau, Templars.

That would leave Guard and DE at the top, shove the marines +1 down, and help many of the weakest armies into mid-tier.

It's about as likely as Tau sweeping every tournament this year, though.


* short of reviving some stupid 3rd/4th ed rules, like assault from close transports, consolidation into combat, that kind thing

[Lord Damocles]

My one hope for 6th is that they nerf mechanised armies, making players think about whether or not to take a transport rathermthan it being an automatic include for any unit that can take one would be a refreshing change.

This is a problem with crazy-cheap transports rather than the core rules.

[Vaktathi]

Infantry armies have more models than mechanized armies, almost by definition.

Often fewer kits however. For what it costs to equip an army with rhino's in terms of points, you generally can't even get a full sized Tac marine squad. Swapping the Rhino's for the tac squad requires cutting stuff elsewhere, and then that means to fit in one more $37.25 unit, they need to lose 4 or 5 $33 units plus whatever else they had to cut.

So yeah, technically in that case the army may have more models, but GW's trading $132-165 or more worth of sales to sell one more $37.25 kit.

In almost every instance, the mechanized army will result in a greater total sales revenue than the non-mechanized army.



More than anything really, what needs to be done isn't nerfing transports. They're really where they should be for the most part. The problem is that 40k has about the fewest number of options for units to interact with the board of any wargame I can think of. In other games they can take up defensive postures/dig in making them significantly more difficult to destroy (as opposed to just +1 cover in response to enemy shooting), they can spot for other units to fire, they can remove/create battlefield obstacles, etc. In flames of war, mechanized infantry are highly mobile, but infantry dug in inside a wood and gone to ground are about the most difficult thing to kill in the game even with heavy artillery. In almost any other game, infantry can do stuff like spot for heavy weapons to allow for indirect fire or greater accuracy and other such actions.

In 40k infantry can move, shoot, and assault. Give them more options for interacting with the board and they'll become highly useful outside of transports.

[Spiney Norman]

Why would GW make a change to the game that would lead people towards buying fewer models?

Look at it this way, everyone playing 40k in 5th edition already has all the transports they could ever need because it's the only competitive way to play the game. If you nerf transports you force players to stop using them if they want to remain competitive, which means they have to go out and buy more infantry/jump infantry/jet bikes/walkers to use up the points that their unused transport used to cost.

Plus it would be very good for the game if transports weren't the automatic go-to option, at least it would be good for armies like Necrons or Tyranids that don't do transports particularly well.

Changing the balance of what works in a new edition is good, because it means people will have to buy new models if they want to use the new "what works".

I also imagine we'll see the obligatory increase of "standard" game size which normally comes with a new edition, my guess is the FoC might change as some armies have a really hard time getting much above 2k with the standard 2/3/6/3/3 slot system, and I'd like to be able to player bigger games without resorting to allied armies or apoc silliness.

[Vaktathi]

Look at it this way, everyone playing 40k in 5th edition already has all the transports they could ever need because it's the only competitive way to play the game. If you nerf transports you force players to stop using them if they want to remain competitive, which means they have to go out and buy more infantry/jump infantry/jet bikes/walkers to use up the points that their unused transport used to cost.

The problem is that, for the points, in most armies you just aren't replacing those transports with much in terms of $. A full strength tac squad costs roughly as much as 5 rhinos in terms of points. So if players take more infantry instead of the transports, they've traded $165 of sales revenue for $37.25 worth of sales revenue. Unless the margins on the rhino kits are crap (they're not, they're almost 70% last time I saw) and unless the tac squad's margin makes up for that (it doesn't), the transports are by far the better business push.