6th changes to the Tier system?

[althathir]

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

I'll agree that it hurts GK and Eldar bad, but wolves and BA would be fine if psychers get nerfed. If the random powers rumours are true, and existing powers get a casting value it will make things interesting.

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.

I doubt they will, transports tend to have a really high dollar per point value, and making existing players buy an extra kit or two, wouldn't make up for all the kids starting that save a 150 on transports. It more likely that vehicles get nerfed a little bit and are still good. Also with flyers being strongly rumoured I can see that being a better strategy to keep competitive players buying cause truthfully most of us vets that stay in the game have the models already.

The FoC will see changes if its still there but I wouldn't be shock to see percentages (with transports getting their own category) I doubt they would mirror fantasy's too closely though.

[DEADMARSH]

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.

That's a valid point for a new player. I think what Spiney's trying to say is that the existing player already bought the transports and now (ideally for GW) will have to go buy more infantry to fill in the points holes if mechanized transports get nerfed.

Like somebody else said, the relative cheap cost of 5th ed transports isn't something that can be directly fixed with the new rulebook. That being said, there's other ways they could be "fixed" without going back to the 4th ed state of the game where there was almost no point in taking transports that weren't skimmers.

[Vaktathi]

Eh, getting existing players to buy one more kit likely isn't going to do much. There's not a *lot* to fill the holes of transports given their points cost in most armies. I'd be highly confident that they'd still make more if they didn't nerf transports because existing players like to try new builds and buy tanks as well.

As a person with far more armies than is healthy, 2 IG armies, CSM's, Eldar, Tau, Tyranids, Sisters of Battle and Grey Knights, I'm not likely to simply swap transports for more infantry. Not only does it change the entire dynamic of the army, but it's not adding a whole lot. Even if I were, the sales volume of increased infantry over decreased transport purchases just in no way would make up for it. I might, at best, be adding a couple squads of infantry, otherwise it'd basically be rebuilding an army in its entirety, which, if forced, is likely to lose as many players and sales as it will generate.

The volume of increased infantry sales just will not compensate for the drop off in transport sales, new player or veteran, unless they're doing something like going from a heavily mechanized and tank heavy IG army to an infantry platoon horde gunline, in which case they're basically making an entirely new army anyway, and most aren't likely to make that leap.

[althathir]

That's a valid point for a new player. I think what Spiney's trying to say is that the existing player already bought the transports and now (ideally for GW) will have to go buy more infantry to fill in the points holes if mechanized transports get nerfed.

Like somebody else said, the relative cheap cost of 5th ed transports isn't something that can be directly fixed with the new rulebook. That being said, there's other ways they could be "fixed" without going back to the 4th ed state of the game where there was almost no point in taking transports that weren't skimmers.

I gotta agree with Vaktathi, most established players are already gonna have the models, and honest switching to percentages would be a better way to drive sells then simply nerfing transports, for example if all the sudden 40% of my list could be heavy support, a lot of armies would fit in a lot more tanks.

Transports are a force multiplier for us, and sales multiplier for GW. That said I could see a firing point nerf, or vehicle being destroyed after a set number of glances/pens making them a bit more balanced.

[DEADMARSH]

Eh, getting existing players to buy one more kit likely isn't going to do much. There's not a *lot* to fill the holes of transports given their points cost in most armies. I'd be highly confident that they'd still make more if they didn't nerf transports because existing players like to try new builds and buy tanks as well.

As a person with far more armies than is healthy, 2 IG armies, CSM's, Eldar, Tau, Tyranids, Sisters of Battle and Grey Knights, I'm not likely to simply swap transports for more infantry. Not only does it change the entire dynamic of the army, but it's not adding a whole lot. Even if I were, the sales volume of increased infantry over decreased transport purchases just in no way would make up for it. I might, at best, be adding a couple squads of infantry, otherwise it'd basically be rebuilding an army in its entirety, which, if forced, is likely to lose as many players and sales as it will generate.

The volume of increased infantry sales just will not compensate for the drop off in transport sales, new player or veteran, unless they're doing something like going from a heavily mechanized and tank heavy IG army to an infantry platoon horde gunline, in which case they're basically making an entirely new army anyway, and most aren't likely to make that leap.

I don't know, man. I was mainly trying to clarify the point Spiney was making than whole-heartedly endorsing it.

I think it's kind of a silly thing to argue about to begin with. For one, I think it's unlikely that GW actually sat down the rules designers towards the end of 3rd and said, "Everyone has transports, make them suck so they'll buy more infantry!", and I also think it's extremely unlikely that they did the opposite before 5th dropped, and that they've done the same thing again prior to 6th.

If vehicles get a nerf in 6th, it'll be because GW doesn't like how they're being utilized moreso than how the dollar-per-point works out. That's just my opinion.

[Vaktathi]

I'm not saying that GW actively conspired to make transports into moneybag cashcows, it was likely a happy accident, but after several years of that state, I'm sure they realize what has happened, and it is unlikely they will hammer them enough to make transports significantly less useful than they are now. They may introduce new rules to make infantry more capable outside of transports, they make make a few tweaks to transport rules, but I doubt they'll make them significantly less attractive than they are now. I'm sure some things will change, but it'd hard to see a *huge* swing away from transports in 6E.

As I pointed out earlier, assuming a ~70% margin (about what it was last time I looked), for the same points, 5 rhino transports generate nearly 450% the profit over and above cost what a Tac squad does. *THAT* is a powerful business motivator. Vets either won't bother changing too much or will already have enough stuff that they won't need to buy anything new, and new players won't be making all those expensive transport purchases.

This is after all the company that *borrowed* money to pay dividends, conveniently doubling Mr.Kirby's income while he was illegally both CEO and Chairman

[althathir]

I don't know, man. I was mainly trying to clarify the point Spiney was making than whole-heartedly endorsing it.

I think it's kind of a silly thing to argue about to begin with. For one, I think it's unlikely that GW actually sat down the rules designers towards the end of 3rd and said, "Everyone has transports, make them suck so they'll buy more infantry!", and I also think it's extremely unlikely that they did the opposite before 5th dropped, and that they've done the same thing again prior to 6th.

If vehicles get a nerf in 6th, it'll be because GW doesn't like how they're being utilized moreso than how the dollar-per-point works out. That's just my opinion.

I agree I don't think they meant to nerf them as hard as they did in 4th. They made a few changes and the sum of them I think was more than they intended. Its like when you look at a lot of fan dexes and few real ones you'll notice a fine line between a few units undercosted here and there, and an overpowered book. For example I used to argue tooth & nail that wolves weren't broken (i still don't think they're as good as old eldar & chaos 3.5) but I wasn't taking into account small games because my group doesn't play them often. In a small game Counter Attack is just to good, its why I try to offer suggestions to fix it (cause honestly not many other units have it) and they are broken at that point level, once you get up over 1500 its not as bad.

I actually think 40k suffers a bit from not having anywhere near enough people on the design team, but I also don't know if its economically feasible for them to have enough. That said they're a business and transports being good is great for their bottom-line so they'll be fine but I think they'll get nerfed abit cause balanced rules are in GW best interests. Regardless flyers are where they'll try to get us vets to give them money.

[meltedwing]

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

I love how people think that psychic powers for GK are so uber and outstanding. Would you prefer if they were just +1 strength all the time instead of having to take a test for it?

Other armies get their special rules without having to make a leadership test, and they can't blow their heads off with their special abilities.

Other armies also don't have to worry about Eldar taking them away, or Space Wolves negating them all the time.

[althathir]

I love how people think that psychic powers for GK are so uber and outstanding. Would you prefer if they were just +1 strength all the time instead of having to take a test for it?

Other armies get their special rules without having to make a leadership test, and they can't blow their heads off with their special abilities.

Other armies also don't have to worry about Eldar taking them away, or Space Wolves negating them all the time.

Most armies could care less about hammerhand, shrouding and fortitude are the powers people have issue with (mainly fortitude). Its why im a proponent of casting values so some of the better powers like JotWW can be fixed as well. Also Eldar are kinda down right now GK are making them look a bit better cause runes does shut them down a bit, and when they get updated I doubt runes is gonna be anywhere near as good.

[meltedwing]

I do agree that Fortitude is cool, but I've had it do bad things to my vehicles occasionally.

Nothing worse than trying to get rid of a "can't shoot", rolling boxcars and then Rolling a 6 for your glancing hit. Immobilizing yourself for the lose.

I will admit shrouding is neat, but you have to be a librarian to cast it and almost all "casters" have good spells they can pick from.

[daa6]

One way around the current models in a can issue could be to make any Immobalised/reck/destroyed result means the occupants are pinned, as they recover from the impact or blast....

Open topped are after failing a 5+, as they could more realisticly get out and avoid the blast range...

This would then add 'a' threat to units within a transport..... and quiet realistic......?

[meltedwing]

I suppose it depends on what style of game they are going for daa6. Although I would guess that if they wanted to move away from mechanized armies, they probably wouldn't be coming out with more tanks, transports and flyers.

My guess is that they will continue in the thread they have been, but will balance the game in other ways.

For instance, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing to have transports moving models up quickly if you had overwatch with heavy weapons. Consider that transport moving up to your group and getting blasted all to hell by AT spam, then the occupants get out and get spammed by non-AT spam. I'm all good with transports generally being a good thing, but if people had to be more strategic about them. Perhaps moving up 12" behind a ruin (just out of overwatch range), and then next turn they unload their contents into the ruin which then move forward (sucking some overwatch) and then either charge if they have the distance or get right up on the edge to move out and charge on the next turn.

This would make the transport still good for getting the infantry up to the front in one piece, but still wouldn't be awesome for running up into your face and unloading on your doorstep.

[daa6]

True, but for 35pts you could still park it next to them even if it does get shot on overwatch and unload behind the wreck.... if pinned a bit more of a problem... But See where your coming from...

As for more tanks and flyers... their more dakka, less transport... but obviously some do, also a flyer would be more likely to have rules to protect it from overwatch as they are faster and outside of the normal lines of fire....i.e fast vehicles with their save...

Both points are valid though...

[Vaktathi]

I love how people think that psychic powers for GK are so uber and outstanding. Would you prefer if they were just +1 strength all the time instead of having to take a test for it?

Other armies get their special rules without having to make a leadership test, and they can't blow their heads off with their special abilities.

Other armies also don't have to worry about Eldar taking them away, or Space Wolves negating them all the time.

And Tau, Chaos, Imperial Guard, etc have absolutely no way to stop them, and even for the armies that do have tools to stop them, they don't always take them/aren't always able to use them. Psychic defense is exceedingly rare in this game.

The problem is that a lot of these abilities are simply too easy, too powerful, and too cheap. They really did go overboard with them. Hammerhand isn't really an issue in and of itself, but rather the fact that it stacks and is applied before other modifiers (Explicitely breaking the way strength bonuses otherwise work) and is available to an army armed entirely with Force weapons and widespread access to wargear making them I6 (striking at initiatives previously left to the best of the Eldar), it then becomes an issue, though really, as already noted, other powers are bigger issues.

With an 11/12 chance most of the time to get psychic powers off (most psykers being Ld10) or 5/6 at worst usually (Ld9) and multi-wound models (meaning a bad roll or even two won't hurt *too* much) they are extremely reliable and often go multiple games without failing. Far more often than not they require nothing more than passing that Ld10 psychic test to take effect, unlike most other things in the game which usually have to go through a series of rolls and/or aren't going off super reliably, and they often bypass and/or break major core game mechanics (e.g. Jaws partially or entirely ignores hit, wound, LoS, wound allocation, saves, targeting, Instant Death/Eternal Warrior, etc rules). When an entire army can basically pay 5pts per vehicle and ignore 1/3 of penetrating and 2/3 glancing hits 92% of the time, that's silly.

[Bunnahabhain]

Other armies get their special rules without having to make a leadership test, and they can't blow their heads off with their special abilities.

So all the Eldar powers they need to make their units work have no Ld test?
So Guard orders have no Ld test?

I agree with Vakathi. It isn't the ideas of powers themselves so much. It is the costing, and way they are implemented. Fortitude should cost considerably more or work on fewer results (say, gave the model PotMS), or be on Ld 9, so making it only work 83% of the time. Or some mix of those.
Hammerhand should apply in the same way as every other S bonus, and having it available to units with I6 force weapons, that you can activate and use HH as well, is like having your cake, eating it, and then getting it from the restaurant free as it hot waitress serving you wouldn't strip again. It's just going beyond all expectations, reasonable or not....

All in all, I think it would have been far better for the Grey Knights to have some permanent stat boosts/special rules, and have their psychic powers be less impressive.

[DEADMARSH]

I agree I don't think they meant to nerf them as hard as they did in 4th. They made a few changes and the sum of them I think was more than they intended. Its like when you look at a lot of fan dexes and few real ones you'll notice a fine line between a few units undercosted here and there, and an overpowered book. For example I used to argue tooth & nail that wolves weren't broken (i still don't think they're as good as old eldar & chaos 3.5) but I wasn't taking into account small games because my group doesn't play them often. In a small game Counter Attack is just to good, its why I try to offer suggestions to fix it (cause honestly not many other units have it) and they are broken at that point level, once you get up over 1500 its not as bad.

I actually think 40k suffers a bit from not having anywhere near enough people on the design team, but I also don't know if its economically feasible for them to have enough. That said they're a business and transports being good is great for their bottom-line so they'll be fine but I think they'll get nerfed abit cause balanced rules are in GW best interests. Regardless flyers are where they'll try to get us vets to give them money.

I agree. Hopefully, they've come up with a mechanic for 6th that makes transports slightly more dangerous/ limiting for the passengers without making them the deathtraps of 4th and limits some shooting. I think those are really the only two things that actually need to be addressed, and yes, full disclaimer: I play a mechanized Guard army as one of my armies.

I totally agree with you on too few people on the design team as well. It sort of shows through in places, it seems to me. Some rules and mechanics work really well, while some don't. It seems as though their design team play games like a lot of us do- somewhere between competitive and just-for-fun. A lot of the bread-and-butter type stuff that comes up all the time, every time is solid, but the lesser trod ground of unique wargear in wound allocation and stuff like that is where it sorta falls apart. A few more heads available that could focus on that kind of strange and unusual stuff could go a long way.

[Carlosophy]

A massive push for organised campaign play and a better scenario system with a return of Attacker/Defender variable FoC charts would really help level out a perceived tier system. Non KILLKILLKILL objectives for missions (Sabotage, Breakthrough, Rearguard etc) would mean players have to actually vary their armies from game to game as the scenario (E.g. Rearguard) might only let them have 1 Elites choice or less HQ slots.

[Bob Arctor]

I'm not a fan of the concept of tiers, but if one army is going to lose out from the change to 6th I think it will be Daemons if the rumours about more hazardous deep-striking and reduced cover saves are true.

[meltedwing]

Re: transports - what if transports treated crew shaken results as also being an auto hit against one model being transported? Or maybe have all armor pen results as also auto hitting one of the models being transported? I'm sure there are plenty of ways to make transports less effective.

[Vaktathi]

Re: transports - what if transports treated crew shaken results as also being an auto hit against one model being transported? Or maybe have all armor pen results as also auto hitting one of the models being transported? I'm sure there are plenty of ways to make transports less effective.

You'd be very quickly able to cripple or kill entire squads of non-marine models with relatively weeny weaponry through a ton of glancing hits, not something I imagine would be good for the game.