Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLIII: "This Is A New LoW For Us All"

[Cheesegear]

Hell, Eldar having an over 60% one is bad enough.

Yeah. I know what you mean; It should be at least 80% win rate for Aeldari.

Someone at GW must hate Aeldari for making their Codex so terrible. A 60-75% win rate just isn't good enough. Disgusting.

[Brookshw]

Got a good chuckle at the new video,99% sure it's just an April fools joke, but its a good one (and I refuse to give up all hope!)

[Dragonus45]

What in the goddamn **** happened to cause THAT? They were great like 6 months ago!!

And yes, that is an unacceptable win rate

It hurts my soul too, I only got back in because I love Sisters. Although I at the rate that I paint, slooooooooooooooooow, I barely get any actual playing the game in so I guess rules concerns are more of a secondary issue for me anyways.

[Requizen]

Got a good chuckle at the new video,99% sure it's just an April fools joke, but its a good one (and I refuse to give up all hope!)

Squats have been part of various rumor cycles for this year, including one that's been pretty accurate so far (called Black Templar expansion, Eldar, and a few other things). Of course, most Rumors are just throwing things at a wall that seem likely, so their reliability is questionable at best, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it's a double troll and they do drop a Squat army box later this year.

[LeSwordfish]

My guess is a Squat kill team, like the Corsairs.

[Requizen]

My guess is a Squat kill team, like the Corsairs.

I'd absolutely be down for that, since that's all I'd realistically buy anyways.

[Squark]

After the 6th edition core rulebook er... "un-squatted" the squats via one sentence in the back of the book (which listed sanctioned abhuman strains), GW has been testing the waters with Squats. Necromunda in particular has been pushing them in the fluff and even added 2 minis. A Kill Team or Necromunda Gang seems quite possible.

[Blackhawk748]

After the 6th edition core rulebook er... "un-squatted" the squats via one sentence in the back of the book (which listed sanctioned abhuman strains), GW has been testing the waters with Squats. Necromunda in particular has been pushing them in the fluff and even added 2 minis. A Kill Team or Necromunda Gang seems quite possible.

Fantasy Flight did some stuff with them too, but yes, I doubt Squats are gonna be a full army, all of their current fluff has them in smaller groups.

Which is fine,cuz they work better with that sort of thing.

[Renegade Paladin]

If that's just a joke, it's a joke with a higher animation budget than the entire run of Hammer & Bolter. But Space Hulk has also been rumored, and they could just take that and add a Blood Angel Terminator at the end instead of the squat and it would fit perfectly. There's even a severed Genestealer talon floating in the void in the first interior shot.

[9mm]

lets see where this goes.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...l-to-prove-it/

[Eldan]

Rock and Stone.

[Brookshw]

Charge of the lazer-pick brigade. Looking forward to learning more.

[hamishspence]

I'm wondering what that gun is - plasma, melta, a bit of both like the Hrud Fusil in Warriors of Ultramar?

[zlefin]

How large is the development team? I'm curious what causes such mistakes to be so prevalent in development that there are such big balance problems. It seems like something where it should be possible to at least do somewhat better; so is hte problem simply a lack of staff? or is the staff bad at estimating balance? or are corporate decisions preventing good solutions from being used? or is it just inherently too hard to do better?

[Cheesegear]

I'm curious what causes such mistakes to be so prevalent in development that there are such big balance problems.

We heard it from Matt Ward himself a long, long time ago; Rules sell models.
Power creep is intentional; In pretty much every long-life game you can think of.

We also know that their playtesting is kind of a joke.

[Blackhawk748]

We heard it from Matt Ward himself a long, long time ago; Rules sell models.
Power creep is intentional; In pretty much every long-life game you can think of.

We also know that their playtesting is kind of a joke.

They also have HORRIFIC burnout of staff, which is why companies like Mantic come into existence. May also explain why Mantic has better balance.

Though they also outsource tournament balancing to the Rules Committee which is a large group of TOs who compile data for them and then make suggestions to Mantic who then look these over and put them in the yearly Clash of Kings tournament packet.

Its a good system as it gives the players a reasonably direct line to the company, and so they know what things we get annoyed at. Or why certain things that annoy us weren't being changed. Like Stampedes.

[Avaris]

How large is the development team? I'm curious what causes such mistakes to be so prevalent in development that there are such big balance problems. It seems like something where it should be possible to at least do somewhat better; so is hte problem simply a lack of staff? or is the staff bad at estimating balance? or are corporate decisions preventing good solutions from being used? or is it just inherently too hard to do better?

I was pondering this myself yesterday. According to the GW accounts, in 2021 there were 308 staff in ‘design and development’. That includes everything involved in putting a product out, from rules writing, model design, Eavy Metal, background writing etc, across every system. As a very rough guess, I’d assume a third of the company is focussed on 40k (300/3 = 100), and maybe a fifth of that would be actual rules design (100/5 = 20). This tallies with what we hear through WD etc, which tends to suggest a dozen or so people working on the rules. So, without additional information, I would guess the 40k development team is between 10 and 30 people, and the overall development team, for all systems, between 30 and 90.

The team is almost certainly bigger than it used to be, but I think the real challenge in terms of keeping things balanced is the rate of rules output. Goonhammer is doing a series atm about 2002, which highlighted that in 2002 only 3 codexes were released for 40k. According to Wikipedia this was not an unusual year: there were just two in 2001, and three in 2003. Now, this was a few years after a new edition release, so maybe not a fair comparison, but even 1999 (the year after 3rd edition) only had five (six if you count Codex Assassins, which was free in WD), and theses were much slimmer and more basic than today’s codexes, having only a few pages of lore for example. By contrast, there were 9 codexes released in 2021, and this was likely less than planned due to the pandemic. Not to mention all the additional products such as Campaign Supplements. People always complain about how long it takes to get an update for a specific army, but these updates are significantly faster than in the past.

I suspect playtesting also isn’t helped by the fact that GW wants to prevent rules leaks, so probably have a limited circle of playtesters they trust. And even then, that trust is clearly misplaced, given how often rules leak.

Edit: size of the team isn’t the only way of ensuring quality of course. I suspect there is a max team size before it gets unwieldy in a ‘too many cooks’ kind of way. Also, whenever saying ‘how could this happen’, remember that we don’t see all the things they caught and fixed along the way. If you’re working on a product to a certain timetable, there will always be things that get through the gaps, and these may not be so obvious when you’re in the heart of design as they are when published.

Edit 2: there has been a massive increase in staff over the last few years. In 2014, the longest ago accounts are easily available for, there were 203 people in design and development, 2/3 of what there is now, and this actually reduced to 167 in 2015.

[Eldan]

They also have HORRIFIC burnout of staff, which is why companies like Mantic come into existence. May also explain why Mantic has better balance.

Though they also outsource tournament balancing to the Rules Committee which is a large group of TOs who compile data for them and then make suggestions to Mantic who then look these over and put them in the yearly Clash of Kings tournament packet.

Its a good system as it gives the players a reasonably direct line to the company, and so they know what things we get annoyed at. Or why certain things that annoy us weren't being changed. Like Stampedes.

Yeah, but Mantic is also really boring. Most of their units don't do anything.

[Artanis]

We also know that their playtesting is kind of a joke.

Yeah, I remember a while back when GW was bragging about how their playtesters each got what was it, two games a week?

[LeSwordfish]

Yeah I remember that too, when it was an example some guy was using, not an accurately intended number or a brag.

Speaking of playtesting, a pretty large amount of Horus Heresy 2.0 rules have leaked.

Spoiler

Show

I'm excited I think - few changes to the core system but a lot of sensible tweaking of the outer shell, including a Reaction system that seems to sit sensibly between 7th ed and 8th's Command Points. A lot of prices for units have gone down too - Terminators and breachers both at 150pts base. Terminators are two wounds each now! But 2+ saves are going to be less useful, since a bunch more things have got Rending (powerswords and autocannons especially.) Plasma guns have taken an odd downgrade - they now start at AP4 and become AP2 on a 4+ to wound, presumably to make them less useful as one-size-fits-all killers. Filling their niche as Gets Hot Rapid Fire AP2 Anti Infantry are Disintegrator weapons, which are only strength 5 - I assume to reduce plasma's ability to both be anti-infantry and anti-tank.

I'm a little peeved to see bayonets get their own rules. +1ppm for +1 strength seems like a fairly nothingy rule, I would rather have been able to take them for cosmetic purposes. Similarly, Chainswords now have Shred, which makes them five points per model in some cases! Though, a chain bayonet is 2ppm for +1 str and shred, which means a 8/9ths chance of wounding toughness 4!

[Blackhawk748]

Yeah, but Mantic is also really boring. Most of their units don't do anything.

That is a feature not abug. Its a game about blocks of dudes fighting other blocks of dudes, not "Crash Doomwheels into each other and laugh".

There's a halfway point in there that can obviously be met, but Mantic went for the "Historical with some extras" approach and I really enjoy it, because what I do on the board is what matters the most in a game like that and not how stupidly awesome this one unit is.

We had Dragon Prince tag in the beginning of 2e, it was fun for a bit and we're good not having it again.

[Eldan]

I play plenty of historic systems that I enjoy. Including some quite simulationist ones, that include things like weather, terrain and courriers to relay orders. Mantic isn't boring because it's historical inspired. It's boring because I find the rules far too stripped down.

[Renegade Paladin]

GW is releasing a new balance dataslate next week to deal with Harlies.

[Blackhawk748]

I play plenty of historic systems that I enjoy. Including some quite simulationist ones, that include things like weather, terrain and courriers to relay orders. Mantic isn't boring because it's historical inspired. It's boring because I find the rules far too stripped down.

Thats fair. I like the simplicity of it. There's enough neat stuff that each faction feels different and enough playstyles that Im happy.

Its also a hell of a lot more balanced than 40k which makes it worth the cost IMO.

[Eldan]

I never found balance all that important. But then, I play with other store regulars I've known for decades almost exclusively, and for most systems, we have our own house rules and homebrew anyway.

[Fergie0044]

GW is releasing a new balance dataslate next week to deal with Harlies.

Gee, GW sure is getting faster at fixing the balance problems in 40k*!
*Problems that they themselves are fully the cause of and likely do on purpose....

[LeSwordfish]

You would have thought if they were deliberately making a unit super OP they'd do it with one of the new units.

[Cheesegear]

You would have thought if they were deliberately making a unit super OP they'd do it with one of the new units.

What new units? GW makes new units for old factions, in 202x?

Nah. GW just makes whatever-you-don't-have, good (a lot of the time, that is new units...But most Factions these days don't have new units). Aeldari players haven't touched Harlequin Vehicles in...A while. The majority of the power coming out of the Harlequins Faction for most (all?) of 8th Ed. was Starweavers, and those have vanished.

[LeSwordfish]

What new units? GW makes new units for old factions, in 202x?

Remember when the complaint was that GW only made new things and didn't remake old models? (Though they did also make the new shroud runners - how come they aren't top of the pops? Or the corsairs?)

Anyway, same applies to New Models. The avatar's never been very good, if they're deliberately making things broken to drive sales why isn't the new Avatar the hottest **** imaginable? Did their marketing imply that every competitive Eldar player has twenty Shining Spears in their cupboard?

[Cheesegear]

The avatar's never been very good...

I'm always surprised how quickly people have forgotten 8th Ed., the meta that was shaped in that edition, and pertinently, how the Avatar was required for Aeldari to compete in that era.

Most non-ITC* Aeldari players should have an Avatar, if they played during 8th Ed.

*I can forgive that the ITC meta and the actual meta of the game, were different, and how ITC players actually forgot how the actual game was played (LansXero was a great in-forum example). However, I'm pretty sure that that distinction and/or allowance doesn't apply to you.