Warhammer 40k Tabletop XXI: Preferred Enemy (Dice)

[LeSwordfish]

Unless i'm wrong, the apothecary is "one unit" and the priest is "all units within 6inches", right? Am I running off an old codex here?

[Adrastos42]

I have no idea, not sure I've ever even played against blood angels, which maybe excuses my rather silly error of not even thinking of them... Either way, if they're 50 points then my Apothecary should probably be 40 points, 45 at most. I'll work it out with the guy I'll be campaigning against. Much thanks to both of you!

[Squark]

Squark’s guide to Codex: Space Wolves (2014)

The Space Wolves are a savage Space Marine Chapter focused on mid to close range combat. They excel at drop pod assaults and are capable of both powerful shooting and tearing it up in melee combat, but they have only a few sources of long range firepower. They also have a strong emphasis on Individual Characters; heroes striving to prove themselves worthy that their deeds might be worthy of song. Note: Formations and rules from the Champions of Fenris supplement are marked (COF). Formations from Hour of the Wolf are marked (HOTW), and formations from Stormclaw are marked (SC)

Army-wide Special Rules, Relics, Psychic Powers, and Other Miscellanea

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Counter Attack: If you have the main rulebook, you know what this rule does. Just about every Space Wolf unit has counter attack, making them almost as dangerous when charged as they are when charging. Remember, it now applies to the whole unit if even one model from the unit has the rule, so allied Independent Characters gain Counter Attack when in Space Wolves packs, and Space Wolf Independent Characters will grant counter attack to the unit they join.

Acute Senses: Most relevant if you take a Space Wolves Unleashed Detachment (Which, given that it means giving up objective secured, I don’t recommend). Still, ensuring units that are outflanking come onto the board from the size you want is important, and this helps you do that.

Helfrost: A nice bonus, but in practice, a lot of things you fight are going to pass the strength test. Still, a chance for instant death is never a bad thing, and many of the weapons it’s attached to aren’t bad on their own.

Fenrisian Wolves and Cyberwolves as Wargear: Basically, characters who are on their own with just the wolves don’t count as killed until their wolves are dead. Since the wolves are usually ablative wounds, they’re usually the first to die, but be aware of this change from older editions. Also, remember that since they’re beasts, they can’t ride in transports, and thus characters who take them can’t ride in transports.

(COF) Sagaborn: Characters from Champions of Fenris formations or detachments must always accept and issue challenges. Make Sure to plan for it, and try to exploit...

(COF) First Among Equals: Wolf Guard, including Wolf Guard terminators and terminator leaders, Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, Thunderwolf Cavalry and Thunderwolf Cavalry Leaders, and Wolf Guard Pack Leaders (But not Wolf Guard Sky Leaders or Wolf Guard Bike leaders. Sorry, Swiftclaws and Skyclaws!), get Preferred Enemy in challenges. Which means the whole unit does. Point and laugh at puny chaos space marines with their silly boon table.

(COF) Kingsguard: All wolf Guard mentioned in First Among Equals except for Battle Leaders get +1 weapons skill. Another nice perk.

Warlord Traits: Overall, the Space Wolf Warlord trait are a mixed bag; Several of them can be awesome if the model and army match up with the trait; but then, randomness. Generally speaking, you’re better off with the usually useful abilities of the Main rulebook’s Warlord traits.
1. Saga of the Warrior Born: Not… bad if your warlord wants to be in close combat, but frustratingly, its effects are duplicated by a number of Wargear and special rules, limiting its usefulness.
2. Saga of the Wolfkin: Awesome if you are in an army full of TWC and Fenrisian Wolves. If you’re not, it’s useless.
3. Saga of the Beast Slayer: Monster Hunter is a nifty if situational special rule. Take it if it’s useful, re-roll if it isn’t.
4. Saga of the Bear: 6+ Feel No Pain is kind of forgettable. I’d much rather have a 5+ on my warlord alone, than a 6+ on the whole unit.
5. Saga of the Hunter: Not bad, but your warlord may or may not want to outflank.
6. Saga of Majesty: A neat alternative to one of the command traits. Decent.

If you're using a warlord from who's part of a Company of the Great Wolf detachment or from one of the formations in Champions of Fenris, you instead use one of the following warlord traits.

1. Fire in the Blood: Re-roll one save a Turn. Very solid
2. Thread Cutter: Re-roll all failed to wound rolls. Shred, but better because any gun (or psychic power) you have gets it too. Another great one.
3. Gatekeeper: One weapon of the warlord's that is not a relic is master-crafted. If your warlord is from CoF, chances are he took the krakeborne sword, and thus can't use this. Re-roll even if you didn't, because most of the table would be better even if this could master-craft a relic.
4. Blessing of the Wolf: Outflank. Ew. Saga of the Hunter at least gives stealth.
5. Thane to the King: Fearless. Well, you're probably LD 10 anyway. But, fearless means you don't have to worry about morale-reducers, and even LD 10 models fail morale checks occasionally (often at the worst time >.>). Best to keep it lest you end up with Gatekeeper or Blessing of the Wolf
6. Deeds Beyond Counting: Preferred Enemy (Everything). Read what preferred enemy does. Pity whatever this unit faces in combat.

Relics: Bite of Fenris: Cheap, but not spectacular. Passable ranged weapon for TDA Rune Priests since you don’t have the storm bolter standard.
Helm of Durfast: Cool. Useful on Wolf Lords as a replacement for the old Wolf tooth Necklace, and on Rune Priests who want to fire multiple witchfires (Smite and Living Lightning are funny when they’re twin-linked and ignore cover. And you’re guaranteed to get them!)
Armor of Russ: For Wolf Lords, it means you’ll probably go first if you’ve got an at-initiative weapon, and you stand a good chance of going at the same time with an unwieldy weapon. Also handy for a Biomancy Rune Priest, since they can’t get an invulnerable save elsewhere.
Black Death: 5 points over a regular Frost axe for super rampage is a pretty good deal. But, for the same price, you could have a powerfist. +3 attacks, or +2-3 Strength. Given the importance of S8/10, the powerfist is often the right choice.
Fangsword of the Icewolf: Dumb name. But 5 points for rending and helfrost isn’t a bad deal
Wulfen Stone: Too expensive for what it does, given how easy it is to give a unit furious charge in this codex.

Champions of Fenris Relics: These relics replace the codex's relics, and are only available to models from a detachment or formation from Champions of Fenris.
Armour of Asvald Stormwrack: Terminator armor with an improved invulnerable save and It Will Not Die. Except it isn't terminator armor and doesn't replace weapons, so you're paying a ton of points for it on Priests and Wolf Lords. Might be decent on Battle Leaders, since they lack an invulnerable save, but you're paying full price for weapons, which wipes out any savings compared to just taking a storm shield.
Frostfury: Amusing on terminator armored Rune Priests (who get it "cheaper" than other characters in Terminator armor, since the storm bolter is an upgrade that isn't included in the terminator armor cost). Not worth it on anyone else.
Krakenborne Sword: AP 2 Frostsword. Respectable. More reliable than other codex's AP 2 at initiative relics, since you don't hurt yourself with it. But it's also less powerful. Still, a respectable weapon for a wolf Lord.
Morkai's Claws: Rending pair of Wolf Claws with the possibility for extra attacks. Meh. For the same price you can have a wolf claw and a powerfist, which will usually get the job done better.
The Pelt of the BaleWolf: Fear isn't especially valuable. This is, however, an interesting anti-Thunderwolf item. Otherwise, avoid.
Fellclaw's Teeth: Inferior to the only slightly more expensive helm of Durfast. However, since you can't take the helm, you take what you can get. And you can always put the Helm on a Rune Priest from a Combined Arms detachment.

Tempestus Discipline:
Primaris: Living Lightning. Once you get over the range, it’s actually not a bad power for a Rune Priest who’s planning to join a unit that’ll be in the thick of things. Does funny things with the Helm of Durfast.
1. Storm Caller. Yes.
2. Tempest’s Wrath. Pretty cool
3. Thunderclap. Situational, but the long range can potentially hit a large number of units compared to most novas.
4. Murderous Hurricane. GW really doesn’t understand what is and isn’t worth 2 warp charge on a shooting attack, it seems.
5. Fury of the Wolf Spirits: Worth 2 Warp Charge, this is not.
6. Jaws of the World Wolf: Needs to hit Monstrous Creatures. And cost less. :smallsad:

Overall, Tempestus has a few nice powers, but the WC 2 witchfires really drag the discipline down. If you can make good use of Living Lightning, it’s worth rolling on in case you get one of the good powers (and if not, you just swap for the primaris and then roll on another discipline). Remember, you still have access to Telekenesis, Biomancy, Divination, and Daemonology.

Tactical Objectives: These do seem to be a step forward from the Ork replacements, since several of them encourage interactivity with your opponent, but, still, they reduce the emphasis on mobility that is Maelstrom of War’s main selling point.

Generic HQs

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Wolf Lord: Wolf Lords are close combat characters, pure and simple. You take them because you want a big guy to smash people’s face in. But they’re expensive; you really, really need a 2+ save, and a strong close combat weapon. You also need a good way to get into combat; Thunderwolf Mounts aren’t bad, but suffer from the fact that a Wolf Lord on a thunderwolf will usually be outperformed by his points worth of normal Thunderwolf cavalry.

Rune Priest: Cheap force multiplier. Psykers are good, and you’ve got several disciplines. Take the right loadout for what you want him to do, so a 2+ save and something to keep up with his unit if he’s a biomancy assault, etc.
-Psychic Hood: Yes. Take it.
-Upgrade to Mastery Level 2: Do it. Unless you’re spamming them, of course.

Wolf Priest: Another force multiplier, but totally outclassed by Ulrik the Slayer. Take him instead. Still, if you must run more than one in addition to Ulrik, they’re not too bad, it’s just GW overvalues 6+ feel no pain and hit them with too hard a price increase, especially next to a Rune Priest.

Wolf Guard Battle Leader: Cheap, but ML 1 Rune Priests are only 10 points more, and have runic weapons for free. On the other hand, Rune Priests can’t take thunderwolf mounts. But, back to the first point, who needs a battle leader on a thunderwolf when you can have 2-3 more thunderwolves for the same price?

Unique HQs

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Ragnar Blackmane : A Wolf Lord with meltabombs, the Fangsword, and the Wufenstone. Respectable force multiplying Wolf Lord for an Assault unit.

Harald Deathwolf: Not fond of his sculpt. But, if you want to force multiply Thunderwolves, this is your guy. Really wants Runic Armor, though.

Canis Wolfborn: Force multiplies Fenrisian Wolves. For 5 more points, I’d take Harald instead. Seirously' he's 55 points more expensive than an equivalent battle leader. Eeyuck.

(SC) Krom Dragongaze: 10 more points than an equivlant Wolf Lord, but with Furious Charge, Stubborn, and his axe is master-crafted. Oh, and he must accept and issue challenges if he's your warlord. Not good. If you absolutely must run him as your warlord, take him in a Company of the Great Wolf detachment (Krom is also big on Wolf Guard, so that's fine there), so everyone else has the same requirement with challenges, and he can thus have someone who actually isn't terrible in challenges fight them for him.

Njal Stormcaller: You can buy two Rune Priests for roughly his price. But, with a re-rollable Deny the Witch roll and ML 3, he’s the best psychic defense you can buy. Divination is probably his best bet, but BS 5 with Witchfires is an amusing experiment.

Ulrik the Slayer: Holy Force Multiplier, Batman! Seriously, Ulrik is amazing. He’s an excellent choice for HQ.

Bjorn the Fell-Handed: Front Armor AV 13 venerable dreadnaught character with a 5+ save. If you’re dropping him, take the helfrost cannon. If not, you want the 36” range of the plasma cannon (Remember, BS 6 means he can re-roll the gets hot roll, so you have only a one in thirty-six chance of overheating). He still suffers from an awkward rear AV if he’s dropped, I3 is… awkward. He can still make a mess of things, but if you want him, support him.

Troops

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Blood ClawsCheap assault troops. They can make a mess of things on a charge, which means it’s very important to see that they actually get in range and get into close combat. That means you need a Land Raider or Stormwolf. Blood Claws don’t end up cheap, but they can certainly make a mess of things
-Ranged Weapon options: Flamer or nothing. You’re BS 3. Leave the plasma and melta for Grey Hunters
-Close combat weapons: Power weapons are cheaper, but Rage means you can actually make good use of a powerfist. Your choice.
-Pack Leader: Terminator armor means you can’t sweeping advance, but gives you a hefty discount on Wargear. Your decision. Be aware that Blood Claws Pack Leaders have rage, but Wolf Guard Bike Leaders and Wolf Guard Sky leaders don’t. This may get errata’d, or GW may not care. Who knows?
-Lukas the Trickster: Technically his own slot, but in practice, he’s a Blood Claws upgrade. A challenge-based character, Lukas has a number of points to recommend him, but locks your leadership at 8 or lower. I recommend taking a Wolf Priest to give his unit fearless- And further buff the Blood Claws.

Grey Hunters: Respectable all around line troops, Grey Hunters can do a lot. While you can footslog them, you’re much better off buying a transport. It’s best to run 10 when you can so you can purchase a second special weapon, but if you’re riding in a pod and want a terminator pack leader, you’ll have to take 9 and console yourself with a cheap combi-weapon.
-Close Combat Weapons: Look at your army critically. How often are your grey hunters going to be fighting in assault, and in a position where an extra attack would turn the tide i.e.; Don’t count fights with Monstrous Creatures, since you should be using krak grenades. If you really can make good use of them, take them, but a lot of the time, the humble boltgun will get the job done better.
-Plasma Pistols: No. Not even if you’re going gunslinger with one bolt pistol one plasma pistol. Plasma Pistols are overpriced junk. Until they drop ~7 points, they will continue to be junk.
-Flamer: Cheap but handy
-Meltagun: Primarily for drop pods. But very good in them.
-Plasmagun: Pricy, but can be powerful.
-Wolf Standard: Are you going to regularly have a lot of models in assault near this pack? If so, this can be a respectable force multiplier. If not, leave it at home.
-Power Weapons and Power Fists: Generally better on blood claws, although hiding power axes or power fists in a unit is a nice assault trick.
-Wolf Guard Pack Leader: LD 9 is nice but not always worth 10 points. A combi-weapon and 2 special weapons are nice, but you’re paying an awful lot for that third shot.
-Terminator Armor: Yes. Discount on combi-weapons. Free power weapon. Very, very good. Just don’t use him to catch bullets; he costs so much more than a grey hunter that his loss will put you back more than the grey hunter you might save are worth. However, in drop pods, you can’t fit the whole pack of 10 inside if he’s taken terminator armor, forcing you to make a decision. The terminator does end up being pricier than the 10th guy with a special weapon would be, but it’s up to you to decide if the benefits of having a terminator are worth the disadvantages.

Dedicated Transports

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Be aware that all of these vehicles can be taken as Fast Attack choices if you want them for allied units (Everybody loves Drop Pods! Now everyone [in the imperium] can have one! Just take a Space Wolves allied Detachment) or a unit that doesn’t have the option of taking one.

Rhino: Cheap way of getting from point A to point B with minimal casualties. It’s also a tank, so it can tank shock people off objectives, which is pretty useful if it’s got objective secured.

Razorback: Cheap fire support. The twin-linked assault cannon is probably the best anti-air option in the codex that doesn’t fly. Twin-linked Plasmagun+Lascannon is also an option. Great for Long Fangs or small objective grabbing squads.

Drop Pod: Cheap, and it gets your squads in the opponent’s face turn one. Take in odd numbers. Less good for assault units since you’re exposed to a turn of shooting before you get to charge, but it is cheaper, so if you must run tons of Blood Claws, you can do it.
-Locator Beacon: I’ll be honest and say I don’t see the point of unassisted deep strike when Drop Pods are in fast attack, and Drop pods generally don’t care about scatter. Still, it isn’t a horrible purchase if you have stuff coming in later and have points left over.
-Deathwind Launcher: It’ll draw attention to the pod, and it can be tricky to avoid hitting your own squad with it, but if you think you’ll get good use out of it, go for it.

Stormwolf: Lascannon visibility is problematic for non-fliers due to visibility issues. Still, three twin-linked S8 AP 1 shots is pretty solid, and a flier with objective secured is a threat your opponent can’t ignore.
-Twin-linked mutli-melta sponsons: Yes. Take them.

Elites

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Iron Priest: Independent Character makes him another source of outflank in a Space wolves Unleashed Detachment. Rune Priests are ML 1, Wolf Guard Battle Leaders have the best statline, Iron Priests have two S8 weapons that ignore armor saves and a 2+ save. Still, having only one wound hurts. And interesting choice, but if he isn’t with servitors, don’t expect to get Battlesmith off often.
-Thunderwolf Mount: Battle Leader alternative. Still, if you’re going to take a Thunderwolf Character, you might as well go all out and take a Wolf Lord
-Servitors: you can take as many as you want if you have an Iron Priest. If you really want to make a vehicle unkillable, you can take a unit of these and an Iron Priests, but you’re paying about 100 points to restore 1 hull point a turn, and the transport isn’t really transporting. Not very useful.

Wolf Scouts: Take codex marine allies and take their scouts. Objective secured and much cheaper. Seriously, these guys are just… awkward.

Lone Wolf: You can take one slotless Lone Wolf for each troop or wolf guard unit you have. However, they’re still just a 2 wound model that’s all by themselves (well, you can buy 2 fenrisian wolves, but that only helps so much). You can deep strike terminators, but then you don’t do anything until turn 3. Footslogging or Drop Podding means risking giving up First Blood. I believe they can find a role, but I don’t know what that is.
-Terminator Armor: Yes. Take it always. You need that extra survivability. And the Wargear discounts don’t hurt either.

Dreadnaught: Walkers are… awkward. As ranged gun platforms, they can output a decent amount of firepower (the “Rifleman” Configuration, with 2 twin-linked autocannons, is the main variant here), but you’ll have to convert the arms for it (or buy them from Forgeworld. In assault, however, they struggle from a lack of Frag Grenades leaving them highly susceptible to melta bombs.
-Great wolf Claw: If you must take an assault dreadnaught, this is a reasonable choice; Shred helps you make the most of your attacks.
-Venerable: An extra point of WS and BS is pretty handy, and as the damage table gets steadily more forgiving, the re-roll gets steadily more useful.
-Blizzard Shield and Fenrisian Greataxe: Master-crafted Dreadnaught Close Combat Weapon and an extra close combat weapon… help with cutting through tarpits, but you still don’t have that many attacks.
-Drop Pods: A decent way to get a close-range oriented dreadnaught into range. Your best bet is probably a twin-linked heavy flamer with a Great Wolf Claw with built-in heavy flamer, since the wolves lack for coverbusting.

Murderfang: Murderfang has a lot of attacks, it will not die, and immunity to crew shaken and crew stunned. He’s very good at butchering moderately sized squads that are out in the open, but let’s be real: If your opponent knows he’s facing Murderfang (and he does), he’s going to put everyone in ruins, and suddenly Murderfang is one lucky melta-bomb from exploding. He also suffers from a lack of smoke launchers, which could otherwise help him survive the turn he drops down.

Wolf Guard: Ultimately, Power armored wolf guard don’t have a clear role. Combi-weapons are on the pricy side when for a handful more points you could take Sternguard who would have special issue ammunition for when the combi-weapons are fired. Or, you could put some Wolf Guard terminators in a drop pod and do everything these guys do better.
-Jump Packs: With Rage, Skyclaws are probably the better choice for jump infantry.
-Space Marine bikes: An interesting option. You’ve always got more attacks than Swiftclaws (Who have to choose either bolt pistol or chainsword), making Wolf Guard on bikes passable Thunderwolf Cavalry lite for those who need fast attack but hate the image of marines riding huge wolves. Stick to a handful of upgrades, though- With jink, you can probably get away with just 2 power axes on a unit of five.

Wolf Guard Terminators: Cheap. Can take cheap combi-weapons. Free power mauls. A respectable choice, although you need to be very careful when tailoring their equipment to their metagame. Combi-weapon terminators want drop pods, though.
-Arjac Rockfist: S10 thunderhammer. 2+/3++ with eternal warrior. He’s solid, although drop pod squads with him don’t get to take a special weapon since he’s technically not part of the unit (and thus they’re at most four strong).

Fast Attack

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Swiftclaws: Well, they’re cheaper than wolf Guard bikers, but they have fewer attacks (especially when charged). I’d avoid, since the attack bike is the only benefit and that is less impressive at BS 3.

Thunderwolf Cavalry: Bonkers. Really bonkers. However, they’re still just 2W T5 models with 3+ saves, so you need to support them. Hammer and anvil strategies (Thunderwolf Cavalry supported by units in drop pods) can work, although it’s finicky and can backfire horribly. Taking two reasonably sized packs is simpler and less prone to failure.
-Storm Shield: Tempting to put on every model. Probably unnecessary to do that in big packs, though.
-Ranged Weapons: No. Just, no. Use the cool boltguns in the box to make your Grey Hunters look better instead.
-Powerfist: Become S10! Sweet. I highly recommend one, maybe two in a full strength squad.
-Other special melee weapons: You can, but you’ve already got S5 Rending. I guess you can throw in one if you want, but it’s generally overkill.
-Melta bombs: With stormshields, S10 powerfists, and rending, these aren’t really necessary.

Fenrisian Wolves: Cheap Screening units. However, at LD 6 with a character, they spook very easily. However, they’re a cheap delivery system for a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf.
-Cyberwolf: Slightly less squishy Wolf. Take one so he can accept challenges that you don’t want the guy they’re accompanying to take.

Skyclaws: They’re fast. They’re relatively inexpensive. They have a lot of attacks. They’re blood claws who don’t need a transport; but they also don’t have objective secured. If being troops doesn’t matter, though (Say you’re taking the Great Company for some reason, or using the Champions of Fenris detachment), these are probably where you want to go. For advice on options, see the stuff on regular Blood Claws. Just be aware they can’t take terminator armor pack leaders or Lukas the Trickster.

Land Speeders: Cheap fire support. Take the second gun. They can provide long range fire support with a Heavy bolter and Typhoon Missile launcher, or you can try two heavy flamers and deep strike them. Just be aware you’ll be jinking a lot.

Heavy Support:

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Stormfang Gunship: Phallic jokes aside, Stormfangs are… Awkward. Looking at them critically, the best build I can think of is keeping the missiles and adding the skyhammer, and firing them all turn 1 while using power of the machine spirit to fire the destructor at something else. Generally speaking, you’re better off with a Stormwolf with Objective secured.

Long Fangs: They’re heavy weapons teams with Spit fire and LD 9. Respectable. The ancient is expendable and should be at the front of unit, catching bullets.
-Anything for the Ancient: He’s a meatshield. He shouldn’t buy anything
-Wolf Guard Pack Leader: Pricy and can’t carry a heavy weapon. Blegh.
-Heavy Bolter: Feels overpriced.
-Multi-melta: Since you’re not relentless, avoid
-Missile Launcher: Old reliable. You can add a few sets of Flakk missiles, but more taking more than 2 sets makes the unit overly expensive- at that point you should probably just take an allied detachment and get a Hydra or Stalker.
-Plasma Cannon: Are terminators everywhere in your metagame? Because that’s about all these things do especially well at killing.
-Lascannon: Kind of Pricy. But, being able to penetrate the armor of a land raider, and thus inconvenience it or potentially blow it up, is worth it

Vindicator: It’s big, it fires a large blast that kills almost everything. If you take one, take two.
-Siege shield: Just take a regular dozer blade instead, and ram things when your gun gets blown off.
-Storm Bolter: Typically taken to give you a 50% chance of not caring about weapon destroyed rolls. If you’ve got points left over, not a bad option.

Whirlwind: I know I’ve said it before, but have you considered a Space Marine allied Detachment? Because seriously, why take this when you could have a Thunderfire Cannon? It’s not like you’re paying all that much for one- Codex scouts are great, after all.

Predator: Simple and reasonably effective. I generally recommend either TL-lascannon+heavy bolters, or Autocannon+lascannons. The full on annihilator is possible, but at that point you’re over halfway to the price of a land raider.

Land Raider: The classic giant metal box. Lascannons are useful, and so is Assault Vehicle. If you take one, take several.
-Pintel-mounted Multi-melta: Cheap and effective.

Land Raider Crusader: the Twin-linked assault cannon is great. Hurricane bolters are unremarkable, but serviceable. The transport capacity and frag assault launchers (Terminators don’t have grenades, remember!) are the real draw, though.

Land Raider Redeemer: Trade a small amount of Transport capacity and the hurricane bolters for Ceramite-melting flamers. It definitely has potential, but those flamestorm cannons won’t do much the first turn.

Lord of War

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Logan Grimnar: He’s big. He kills stuff. He has eternal warrior. That’s about it. If you want a guy to bludgeon your opponent to death with, Logan is definitely an option.
-Stormrider: Gives him a fair bit of protection and a way to get around. A decent alternative to putting him into a squad inside a Land Raider. Just make sure he’s got something fast escorting him

Allies

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Space Marines: Very solid choice. Codex Scouts are happy to guard the home objective, while Sternguard and thunderfire cannons fill holes in your army.

Dark Angels: Interesting narrative potential, but aside from Power Field shenanigans, they don’t offer much Codex Marines don’t.

Blood Angels: Some people like to use Death Company as Wulfen. Other than that, they’ve got nothing to offer at present.

Grey Knights: More Psykers than you can shake a stick at! New codex inbound, so I’ll update this when we know more.

Imperial Guard: Huge blobs to sit on objectives. Wyverns. Leman Russ tanks. A solid choice.

Tempestus Scions: These guys are a cheap source of special weapons and AP 3 you can stick in fast attack drop pods. Their dedicated transports are respectable gun tanks as well.

Imperial Knights: Just about every imperial army can benefit from the addition of a Knight Titan. Space wolves are no exception.

Inquisition: The book of cheese! Inquisitors offer a lot, and Henchman are good for shenanigans.

Eldar: Allies of Convenience. Wave Serpents and Jetbikes offer highly mobile objective secured units, and they can add a fair number of dice to your warp charge pool fairly easily.

Detachments:

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Space Wolves Unleashed Detachment: Requiring a second HQ unit makes this impractical in small games, although 6 whole HQ slots will let you spam rune priests to your heart’s content. To replace Objective Secured and Ideal Mission commander, you can re-roll Warlord Traits if you roll on the Space Wolves table. Since you don’t want to do this, this isn’t great, although you can mitigate this downside by taking a special character with a warlord trait that is guaranteed to be useful. In addition, Each unit in your army rolls a die before deployment (Troop choices joined by HQ units add 2. Problem; you don’t actually determine which unit an HQ will join, if any, until after deployment normally. If your opponent actually gives you grief about this, though, you are fully entitled to throw something at them, because you already gave up objective secured for this thing), and on a 6+, they gain outflank. While acute senses makes this more reliable, you’re still giving up objective secured for a chance that an unknown portion of your army (not necessarily the right portion) will gain outflank. Still, it’s better than the Great Company Formation since you can spam HQs to make Cunning of the Wolf more reliable.

(COF)Company of the Great Wolf: 1-4 HQs, 2-8 Elites, 0-3 Troops. Loganwing is back, if you want. You don't have objective secured, but you do have Champion's of Fenris's special rules, and your Warlord from this formation can re-roll his warlord trait if he takes one from the Champions of Fenris warlord table (and since they're great, you probably should). If you want to field lots of Dreadnaughts or Wolf Guard, this is the way to do that. You can combine this with a Space Wolves Combined Arms detachment, but needing to take 2 HQs (one of whom must accept challenges), 2 Elites, and 2 Troops can make things a bit awkward. Still, it's an alternative to the Combined Arms Detachment that is actually pretty good. Has anyone seen reports of flying bacon somewhere?

Formations:

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Great Company Formation: 1 Wolf Lord, 1 Battle Leader, 5 packs of Grey Hunters, 2 packs of Long Fangs, 3 packs of “Claw” units (Any combination of Blood, Sky, and Swift), and 1 pack of Wolf Guard or Wolf Guard terminators. One pack of Grey Hunters needs to take a wolf standard. In addition to getting the benefits of a Space Wolves Unleashed Detachment (Even though you may not actually fit in one), the entire formation gets Furious Charge (Decent) and Fear (kind of use-impaired) as long as the Wolf Lord is alive. Kind of ungainly as a formation, and again, you don’t have objective secured, or a way to really capitalize on the benefits of Cunning of the Wolf, which makes it... not great.

(SC) The Fierce-Eye's Finest: 5 Blood Claws, 5 Grey Hunters, 5 Terminators, and Krom Dragongaze, all with preset wargear loadouts. If one unit in the formation shoots or charges an enemy unit, the rest of the formation get's to re-roll failed to-hit rolls in the shooting phase and re-roll failed charges. The perk isn't bad, but the units are ungainly and Krom is rather bad. Avoid.

(COF) Kingsguard Stormforce: Logan on Stormrider, 5 Wolf Guard terminators in a land raider, and a Stormfang. The Wolf Guard get furious charge and can re-roll failed charges the turn they disembark, and you can re-roll failed reserves rolls for the Stormfang as long as Logan lives. I really wish Logan could ride in that land raider. Somebody at GW did, too, and they made the much better Grimnar's Kingsguard formation for Hour of the Wolf. Take that instead. Please. Unless you absolutely must take the Champions of Fenris formation in Apocalypse.

(COF) Bretheren of the Fell-Handed: Bjorn and two Venerable Dreadnaughts. The models gain adimantium will, and Bjorn shares his invulnerable save with his buddies as long as they stay within 6". If you wanted to take all 3 models, take this instead. But, for the same points, you could have an Imperial Knight, who will do a whole lot more.

(COF) Wolf Guard Void Claws: 5+ Terminators, who must all take a pair of wolf claws. For doing this, they get to re-roll scatter when deep-striking, they arrive turn 1, and as long as one of the models in there is alive, you can re-roll failed reserves rolls. Solid formation, but containing only one unit makes it awkward if your metagame has limited the number of detachments you can take.

(COF) Grimnar's War Council: An Iron Priest, a Rune Priest, Ulrik, and Njal. They can deploy as a unit and lose the independent character rule (Don't do this; it's just asking to get them blown to bits), or individually. Everyone gains fearless, and you add 2 to your seize the initiative roll. Solid. They do gain the zealot rule if Logan's in their council, but still. Don't do it.

(COF) Arjac's Shieldbrothers: Arjac Rockfist, some Wolf Guard Terminators with Thunderhammers and Stormshields, and their Land Raider Crusader. If you keep all the terminators (and Arjac) in base to base with at least one other member of their unit, they get +1 toughness. Awesome. And, if you pass an invulnerable save on a 6 in assault, whatever hit them gets hit with a (non-concussive) Thunderhammer. Sweet.

(COF) Wolf Guard Thunderstrike: A pod of 10 Wolf Guard, and some Wolf Guard terminators. The formation is treated as one unit in reserves (and thus doesn't come in turn 1), but on the turn they arrive, all their ranged weapons are twin-linked. Useful for combi-weapons on the terminators. Since combi-weapons on power armored models are so expensive, and you have to take the full 10 models, I'd honestly just give the power armored Wolf Guard boltguns and ruin some guardsmen/orks/gaunts day when they arrive.

(COF) Champions of Fenris: Every one of the Champions of Fenris formations. Not going to work outside of Apocalypse. But, if you are fielding it, every model gets Fear and Fearless. As long as Logan is alive, every model gets to re-roll failed to hit rolls in assault. As Long as the Iron Priest is alive, the vehicles have it will not die. Njal and Ulrik have a similar schtick with Adimantium will and Preferred Enemy, respectively. It's a lot of models, and it's kind of unfocused, but it does have a lot of force multiplication as well.

(HOTW) Grimnar's Kingsguard: 2 Units of Wolf Guard/Wolf Guard terminators, both of whom must take Land raiders as their Dedicated transport. You also need Arjac and Logan. The whole formation is fearless, the Wolf Guard get the Kingsguard rule from Champions of Fenris (But not Sagaborn or First Among Equals, which puts them ahead in my book). Arjac and Logan both need to join a unit of Terminators (Well, Logan can ride Stormrider, if you absolutely must use it). At the beginning of each of your Turn, one of the units from this formation within 12" of Logan gets one of the following rules until the beginning of your next turn; Furious charge, Monster hunter, Preferred Enemy, or Tank Hunters. Certainly an interesting formation, and it's nice to have The High King back, although wolf guard were never the best choice for it.

(HOTW) Wolf Guard Strikeforce: 2 Units of Wolf Guard Terminators, a Wolf Guard Battle Leader, and 2 Stormwolf Gunships as dedicated transports. Everyone needs to start in one of the Stormwolves, and they can't use skyshield shenanigans by RAW. The entire formation comes on on a single reserves roll (Unless you're only capable of manipulating one reserves roll a turn, this is bad, since you're more likely to not get anything on turn 2). But, as they disembark from the transports, the Wolf Guard and their Battle leader get Hammer of Wrath and Twin-linked for a turn. Another interesting formation, although that's an awful lot of points riding on one reserves roll.

(HOTW) Ragnar's Claws: Ragnar Blackmane, 3 Packs of Blood Claws (10 man strong or more), a pack of 10 Skyclaws, and a pack of Swiftclaws. Models from this formation can't shoot if they're within 6" of an enemy non-vehicle unit and must charge that turn, but they re-roll failed charges. Also, unitss within 12" of Ragnar gain Zealot. Awkward. The Blood Claws don't get objective secured, and you need to somehow get a land raider for Ragnar to ride in with one of the blood claws, which probably puts him out of range of the rest of the formation. >.> Poor Ragnar. You really need a new model, and the only formation you got was a dud like this.

[HalfTangible]

I have no idea, not sure I've ever even played against blood angels, which maybe excuses my rather silly error of not even thinking of them... Either way, if they're 50 points then my Apothecary should probably be 40 points, 45 at most. I'll work it out with the guy I'll be campaigning against. Much thanks to both of you!

Sanguinary priests are also stronger and more useful than codex marine apothecaries, iirc. So keep that in mind.

[Requizen]

Grey Knight pre-orders are up. Noted items:

-Strike Squads still say they can be built into Interceptors, Purifiers or a Purgations. And that 5-man Purifier box isn't listed, but that might just be day 1 typos.
-The Grey Knight Datacard box comes with the Objective Cards (really liking this trend) and... Sanctic Demonology power cards. So not only do Grey Knights no longer have their own powers, they also are encouraged to re-buy cards you probably already own. Uh... hum.

[Cheesegear]

Champions of Fenris - initial read.

Like Waaagh! Ghazgkull, the rules in CoF only apply to the Detachment or the Formations.

Universal CoF rules
- Characters must always Issue and Accept Challenges.
- Most non-HQ Characters have Preferred Enemy (Characters).

CoF Warlord Traits;
1. Re-roll one Save every turn. Decent.
2. Shred. Neat.
3. One weapon is Master-Crafted for free. Blergh.
4. Outflank
5. Fearless. Awesome.
6. Preferred Enemy (Everything)

Some really good Traits. The only one that really sucks is Outflank because that's something that you need to plan for.

Company of the Great Wolf Detachment
1<3 HQ.
2<8 Elites.
0<3 Troops.
Everything else is regular CAD. Important note is that you don't need to take Troops, which is excellent given that you don't get Objective Secured and therefore don't have to take stuff that is way better if only you were taking an actual CAD. Champions of Fenris is for spamming Elites. Using CoF, you can make a full Terminator army, although you just wont have ObSec. In addition, all Kingsguard models (Wolf Guard and Thunderwolves) gain +1WS, which meshes well with their Universal rules of being forced into Challenges. You know you have to do this, you should be planning for it. Just like Chaos Marines do.

Formations
Kingsguard Stormforce: Kingsguard. Logan in his sleigh, 5 WGTs, Land Raider and Stormfang. If Charging out of the Land Raider, the Terminators gain Furious Charge and re-roll distance. Logan re-rolls Reserves for the Stormfang. Basically, this Formation is the (terrible) version of Space Marines' Strike Force Ultra. The fact that Logan can't jump in the Land Raider with the WGTs is really, really annoying. Although, Logan wont be taking your LoW slot, so you can pick up something else.

Brethren of the Fell-Handed: Bjorn and a pair of Venerable Dreads. The Formation has Adamantium Will, and the Dreads get a 5++. Pretty bad. Take an Imperial Knight.

Wolf Guard Void Claws: Kingsguard. One of the reasons that this book sucks. 5+ WGTs, they must all have Lightning Claws. They re-roll their Scatter Dice when Deep Striking and automatically rock up in the first turn. Don't get me wrong, it's a really good unit. But it's a one-unit Formation, and that's unfortunate if your meta is putting restrictions on how many Detachments you can have.

Grimnar's War Council: Ulrik, Njal, Rune Priest, Iron Priest. Like everything, they get all the rules that CoFs do, but, all models in the Formation are Fearless. Which is really good if you're playing regular Space Wolves and need to Battle Brother in four Fearless Characters. If you deploy all four Characters in a single unit, they lose the Independent Character rule (and therefore get LoS on a 4+...Eww...), and trade Fearless for Zealot. Don't do it! Just field the four Fearless Characters in four separate units. Furthermore, you gain +2 to Seize rolls just for having this Formation, which is neat.

Arjac's Shieldbrothers: Kingsguard. Another one-unit Formation. Arjac, WGTs (any number) who all must be equipped with Hammers and Shields, and a Land Raider Crusader. If Logan is alive on the board, they're Fearless. Models in this unit in base contact with another model in this unit, gain +1T, which is cool. But, in super-coolness, anytime a model from this Formation unit passes an Invulnerable on a 6 in Assault, the attacking unit takes a S8, AP2 hit. Because parrying is a thing that exists.

Wolf Guard Thunderstrike: Kingsguard. WGTs (any number) and 10 Wolf Guard in a Drop Pod. The Drop Pod doesn't come down in the first turn. But you make one Reserve roll for both the WGTs and Drop Pod. On the turn that this Formation arrives, all Ranged weapons are Twin-Linked. Pretty good. And you don't have to feel stupid when you have an even number of Drop Pods in your army because the 'Pod can't come down anyway so doesn't count.

The Champions of Fenris:
All of the above. All models cause Fear and are Fearless. All non-Vehicles re-roll To Hit in Assault. All Vehicles gain IWND. All models have Adamantium Will, all models have Preferred Enemy.

Full model count;
Logan on Stormrider.
Ulrik, Njal, Rune Priest, Iron Priest
Bjorn and two Venerable Dreads
x5 WGTs - any.
3+ WGTs - any.
3+ WGTs with TH/SS and Arjac
5+ WGTs with Lightning Claws
10 Wolf Guard and Drop Pod
Stormfang
Land Raider - any
Land Raider Crusader

[Wraith]

Wolf Guard Void Claws: Kingsguard. One of the reasons that this book sucks. 5+ WGTs, they must all have Lightning Claws. They re-roll their Scatter Dice when Deep Striking and automatically rock up in the first turn. Don't get me wrong, it's a really good unit. But it's a one-unit Formation, and that's unfortunate if your meta is putting restrictions on how many Detachments you can have.

I'm not too up to date on the minutiae of how detachments interact with each other, but could this not be used to do "The Mordrak Trick"?

That is, take this formation, then take another Battle Brother'd Formation for a bunch of powerful Independent Characters who join it and thus reap the benefits of a Turn 1 Deep Strike? It seems plausible, and with the Space Wolves FoC allowing them to take an unusual number of IC's it could be nasty.

[Drasius]

Champions of Fenris - initial read.


Brethren of the Fell-Handed: Bjorn and a pair of Venerable Dreads.

...

Grimnar's War Council: Ulrik, Njal, Rune Priest, Iron Priest. ... Furthermore, you gain +2 to Seize rolls just for having this Formation, which is neat.

+3 to seize eh (Since Bjorn gives +1, or was that already counted in there?)?

Be a shame if someone added in coteaz so you could sieze on a 3+ with a re-roll. Or perhaps the DE Baron for a 2+ Seize. Well, what a shame they're both so terrible and no-one ever uses them. Yep, terrible shame.

Granted if you've got Grimnar's war council plus Bjorn and friends, you're already talking apoc levels of points unless you're unbound, but that's one of the most important times to Seize I would have thought.

[Cheesegear]

+3 to seize eh (Since Bjorn gives +1, or was that already counted in there?)?

Nope. Adding Bjorn gives +3 to Seize! Or, Seize normally on a 3+.

Granted if you've got Grimnar's war council plus Bjorn and friends, you're already talking apoc levels of points unless you're unbound, but that's one of the most important times to Seize I would have thought.

Sounds like an exercise!

Champions of Fenris - Grimnar's War Council
Rune Priest; Mastery Level 2, Psychic Hood, Melta Bombs - 100 Points
Njal Stormcaller [either Armour] - 180 Points
(W) Ulrik the Slayer - 145 Points
Iron Priest; x4 Cyberwolves, Thunderwolf Mount - 165 Points

Space Wolves - CAD
Bjorn the Fell-Handed; Helfrost Cannon - 220 Points

Inquisitorial Detachment
Coteaz - 100 Points

Total: 910 Points
In 1750, you've got 840 Points to play with. That's four squads of Grey Hunters in Drop Pods to fill out the CAD. Chuck Bjorn in a 'Pod to make it an odd five. It's not great. But if the plan is to always go first with Drop Pods, then that's what it's going to do.

[Wraith]

So, after several months of rumours being bandied about, it has apparently been confirmed that Matt Ward no longer works for Games Workshop (and hasn't as of May). And I'm going to say something controversial about it:

I'm sorry that he's gone.

No, really - I'm not saying that to be a troll. I really think that, for all his 'faults', he brought something to the company that GW really needed, and that fans should appreciate more; he brought innovation. To explain what I mean, let's look at what he wrote that was good, shall we?

Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition)
Probably one of the best balanced, versatile and popular set of rules produced by GW in many years. It gave us Drop Pods, Sternguard, viable Bike- and Assault-spam and a bunch of Special Characters, each of whom had their strengths and their fanbases with virtually no duds among them. I still maintain that it was the most balanced and yet accessible Codex written, ever.

Codex: Blood Angels (5th Edition)
Perhaps not as reliable throughout as C:Space Marines, but let's be honest: Did it create the same outrage as the Fast Rhinos 4th Edition? No. Did it outright suck like the reprinted White Dwarf version? No. While maybe not aging particularly well after 2 Editions, is it now a godawful example of a book relying on a semi-competitive mono-build to have even a hope of relevance? No. Did it bring a bunch of flavourful and interesting characters to a book that previously had just been Dante-Mephiston-Tycho for 25 years? Yes.
As a fanbase, we could do a LOT worse than having more of our updates be as simply competent as 5th Ed. Blood Angels.

Codex: Necrons (5th Edition)
A book that perhaps polarized the fanbase - a notable number of people complained about the rules (AV13 flyers) and yet more complained about the fluff (because "Tomb Kings in Space" was so much fun the first time around....) but quite frankly I think they're both very minor quibbles in an otherwise great book.
Opponents always complain when they have to fight something new and aren't sure how to beat it, and it's otherwise a very old book who got an update and instantly received new and interesting units and a whole new set of possibilities for fluff and personality without necessarily alienating those players who just wanted to play with automatons.

And besides, a bit of healthy competition stimulates stale metas and gets people to try new things. Cynics among you might call it a "cash-grab" or "buy to win" scheme by GW, but frankly I remember when Space Wolves (5th) and Imperial Guard (5th) were still riding high, and they weren't particularly fun times to be playing any other army. That sort of thing NEEDED changing.

Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition) RULES
Please note that I specify "rules" in that heading - I'll get to the rest shortly.

Grey Knights was a crunchy powerhouse that improved on it's predecessor (3rd Edition's Daemonhunters) in every way. New units, new characters, new personality, new playstyles and army builds and possibilities.... It hit so many right notes, had so many fun strengths to play to but still kept the same characteristic vulnerabilities (I almost said "weaknesses", but that would be a misnomer) that canny opponents could exploit. Everyone wanted their next book to be like C:GK.

On a personal note - Grey Knights are My Guys. I referenced Codex: Daemonhunters above because they were probably the first army I owned that I was truly happy with. Oh, I tinkered with other armies first, amassed a very large collection over many years, but I was always changing things, always looking for better things, always stripping down perfectly good paint jobs to try something that might be a little bit better.
Every Daemonhunters model, however, was adored; every unit lauded, every victory bittersweet and all through some of the most noble sacrifices known - or perhaps unknown? - in all of the Imperium, but they grew older than almost any other book and had to be retired because eventually they became unplayable.
Matt Ward gave me back my Daemonhunters. I can't tell you what it meant to have My Guys be even functional again, let alone good.

And what did he do that was so bad? Well....

He likes Ultramarines, apparently.
Canonically the largest Legion who sowed the most Primogenitor Chapters, independently run their own highly-successful fiefdom and win some of the most dangerous and glorious wars since the Heresy.... And people go nuts because one writer says that a lot of people admire them. Overreaction by spiteful fanboys who wish that it was THEIR pet Chapter that was getting the star treatment.

Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition) Fluff
Okay, fine - Draigo's Excellent Adventure and the Khornate Knights are two examples of Games Workshop inexplicably eating it's own face. No one would argue against that. Quite a large number of them won't shut up about it, in fact.

But here's the thing: a) so what? and b) what else?

So you don't like the fluff for one special character. Quite frankly, I think you're lucky if it's JUST one, but besides that I don't really see how it matters all that much in every other sense. The rules and models are still great, and at any other point other than while reading one or two specific pages in the Codex everything else is pretty good.
We know what makes Grey Knights different to other Space Marines, why their Characters are so important, how they work, when where and why, and a whole essay of wonderful little details that never existed prior, let alone what else we learned about Inquisitors, Assassins, Henchmen and other stuff that we had no right to expect in a book about "Grey Knights". And people despair over the book, because somehow two erroneous examples outweigh the value of the other 94 pages?

Writing Games Workshop fluff is apparently like playing Tetris; your achievements disappear as soon as the next block comes along, but your mistakes stick around forever and eventually everyone experiences crazed, ape-like fury at the poor Line Piece. Or something.

So to put it into convenient TL;DR for those of you who only read as far as "I like Matt Ward" and are now busy hammering frenzied death threats into their keyboard: Farewell, Matt Ward, and I wish you all the luck in your next endeavors.

[Timberwolf]

I'm with you on this one Wraith. I have spent four happy years playing Blood Angels and even now, I've had to retire them because Mephiston was still getting moaned about by people who had never heard of plasma guns, 4 years after "Omg, Fisty's T6 now" and apparently no one can deal with a pair of Stormravens.

I have always felt the hate for Matt Ward was unfair. I was in Gw passing the time of day when this kid starts laying into him with a load of 4chan inspired rubbish. The blackshirt, who was one of the good ones, turns as fast as anyone I've ever seen, explains that he considers him a personal friend, he's an A1 bloke and codexes are a team effort for writing and testing, he oversees it but is by no means totally in control of everything. Then he throws the kid out for swearing. I believe he was quoting 1d4chan exactly so he deserved it.

Matt Ward gave me the Stormraven. Matt Ward gave me the terrifying yet reasonably flawed Mephiston, the Blendernought, which, with my rolling, was merely reasonable in combat, decent Death Company, fun Baal Predators, all the stuff that I actually use. In other words. I would not be "3 Stormraven Dave", wholly and remorselessly responsible for turning an entire gaming club into a remake of "Tora Tora Tora" without him and that is enough for.me to wish him well and thank.him for the good times.

[Drasius]

Writer of terrible, atrocious, apocalyptically bad fluff. Breather of new life into a faceless faction. Key player in the escalation of codex power creep. Ruiner of established and well liked canon. Re-newer of units unused. Remover of units loved. As usual, there are 2 sides to every story, but why GW couldn't give him the job of creating the crunch and someone else the job of writing the fluff, I will never fathom, even in the darkest depths of the madness inspired by trying to make a workable thousand sons list.

Since you asked Wraith;

What else?

The bromance between the BAngles and the Newcrons is a bridge too far for many.

The inquisitors and henchmen barely belong in a grey knights book, and the assassins certainly don't.

The fact that Necrons are now retaking their place in the top 3 despite being 2 editions out of date (though they were built with 6th in mind) shows how horribly powerful they are. The fact that they were balanced in 5th (where they lived for mere months) and OMGWTFBBQ broken in 6th (the edition they were designed for) and now even more in 7th simply continues the trend of blatant power creep to the point where it's not really creep anymore, it's turned into a fast jog and moved dangerously close to an all out sprint with the Tau and Eldar Codexes. Thankfully, this pace has slowed down of late, around the same time Ward left, coincidence?

Let's not forget the utter paintrain that GK were when they came out, and if memory serves, BA weren't much different, to the point that they dominated the competitive scene so hard, they were basically all anyone took for a while as doing anything else simply got you a fast ticket to the bottom tables.

Didn't he also write (and completely bugger up) the Iyanden supplment for Eldar that retconned some of their backstory and didn't pay much attention to their previously established fighting preferences?

The reason people go so wild about "those certain bits of fluff" is that despite the fact that 40k is driven by a wide and varied cast of writers, most of their stuff generally fits together, kinda like someone had forced a couple of pieces of jigsaw sky together that don't quite fit, but are close enough. Draigo's excellent adventures, the khornate knights and the BA/Cron Brofist of destiny are like someone has forced a couple of circus tent jigsaw pieces into an iceberg jigsaw by cutting the tabs off. It doesn't fit and it's rather glaringly obvious that it doesn't fit.

[Cheesegear]

Key player in the escalation of codex power creep.

Which is a good thing. Anyone who says otherwise wants the game to be stale and lame and I hate them.
No power creep means a Warmahordes meta where nothing changes. Ever. I like power creep. It means the game changes all the time and one Codex or one army build doesn't stay on top forever. Power creep is good. I need to find that Essay (It's like eight pages long?) that says that not only is power creep good for GW's business model - it absolutely is - but that it is also completely necessary if GW doesn't want 40K to die out.

The only problem with power creep is when your favourite army doesn't get updated. But, we're in 2014 now and GW is trying really hard to update everything before they do in fact, die out.

[HalfTangible]

Which is a good thing. Anyone who says otherwise wants the game to be stale and lame and I hate them.
No power creep means a Warmahordes meta where nothing changes. Ever. I like power creep. It means the game changes all the time and one Codex or one army build doesn't stay on top forever. Power creep is good. I need to find that Essay (It's like eight pages long?) that says that not only is power creep good for GW's business model - it absolutely is - but that it is also completely necessary if GW doesn't want 40K to die out.

You don't need to have your power creep in order to have a constantly changing metagame >.>

[ZeltArruin]

Codex: Necrons (5th Edition)
A book that perhaps polarized the fanbase - a notable number of people complained about the rules (AV13 flyers) and yet more complained about the fluff (because "Tomb Kings in Space" was so much fun the first time around....) but quite frankly I think they're both very minor quibbles in an otherwise great book.

The fliers don't have Quantum Shielding, and never have. AV 11 all day.

[Cheesegear]

You don't need to have your power creep in order to have a constantly changing metagame >.>

Well, no, you don't. You could also have people arbitrarily handicap themselves - Highlander format, for example - but that's not something that everyone can get on board with. I know this place is a casual non-dedicated forum, and I really do try to remember that everyone is a special snowflake, but, it's right there on the page. 40K deals with statistics and hard numbers, at a cost. There will always be a way to mitigate the numbers, to have a most-efficient load out for the points you've paid. The only way this happens is if all the Codecies are balanced, which is practically impossible given the size of 40K's range.
In case you didn't read the semantics correctly; Balancing the game is theoretically possible, but practically impossible. Not without removing several units from every Codex. And, removing stuff is bad. Consumers don't want less stuff, they want more. Which makes it harder and harder to balance the larger the game gets.

It's 2014. If power creep didn't exist, we'd still be staring down Necron armies with 6 or more Fliers because Tau wouldn't have cheap, efficient Skyfire. If power creep didn't exist, everyone would be playing Typhus with 100+ Zombies because Wave Serpents don't exist to shoot 9+, S6+ shots per turn each. If power creep didn't exist, Daemons would be absolutely dominating the meta because Coteaz wont have cloned himself a thousand times yet to be everywhere in the Imperium at once. Hell, let's go all the way back to 5th Ed. How the Hell do you beat Mephiston? You mean I have to take something other than Meltaguns? Plasma? ...I don't even know what that is. OH SNAP. GREY KNIGHTS. DRAIGO IS S10 vs. MEPHISTON AND DRAIGO CAN'T DIE. Cue everyone jumping on the GK 'wagon.

How far do you have to go back until you find the 'point' where 40K is truly fair? 3rd Ed, maybe? Before Chaos Marines and Imperial Guard got their '3.5' dexes? When the game was terrible and boring because 3rd Ed. was brand new coming off the back on 2nd Ed. 'Herohammer'?

Now, think of it from GW's point;
Okay. The game is fair and will stay that way. Whoop-de-do. Okay, I went out and bought my army. Great. Amazing. Okay, GW wants to 'update' a certain book. Fine. Let them do that. But, the game is fair, right? There's no power creep. I have no reason to buy anything, because the new army isn't better than my old one, and the new army doesn't change anything about how my current army is played - because there's no power creep. GW releases a new product and no-one cares except the people who already play that army.

Power creep exists so that people who don't play the army, will. That is, spend money. GW understands its fanbase - at least where their wallet is concerned. People who want Codex: Grey Knights will buy Codex: Grey Knights. That's not what GW cares about. GW cares about people who don't want GKs. People who don't already want GKs, don't already have GK armies sitting on the shelf waiting to go. How does GW make you, an existing player with hundreds of dollars already spent in one army, make you start from scratch with a new army? If you have no reason to buy new models, then you wont.

But, to answer your statement, no, you don't need power creep to constantly change your meta. But arbitrary bannings and restrictions are classic in their ability to not solve any problems. The only thing that arbitrary handicaps does, is force a new, different meta. But, I guess if your goal is to change the meta, not fix it, then, job's a good'un, I guess.

EDIT:
One thing that's really bugging me right now, is that they're doing Vampire Counts again. I feel like they were done really recently.

[hamishspence]

Think of it as less "redoing Vampire Counts" and more "redoing 4E Warhammer Armies Undead" - Nagash is back, as well as Arkhan as a minion of his rather than as a Tomb King.

[HalfTangible]

But, to answer your statement, no, you don't need power creep to constantly change your meta. But arbitrary bannings and restrictions are classic in their ability to not solve any problems. The only thing that arbitrary handicaps does, is force a new, different meta. But, I guess if your goal is to change the meta, not fix it, then, job's a good'un, I guess.

1) You don't need to ban things, either, and frankly I'd never even considered that as a possibility >.> I was specifically addressing where you asserted:

Anyone who says otherwise wants the game to be stale and lame and I hate them.
No power creep means a Warmahordes meta where nothing changes. Ever.

So yes, I AM just talking about changing the meta because that's the point I'm responding to: that power creep is the only way to create a changing meta

2) You can't "fix" GW's meta, there's too many moving parts, but that's not necessary to make a changing meta.

To have a changing meta, you can either introduce new elements to the game (see what happens whenever new Heroes are introduced in Dota 2) or have deliberate counters to each army in each other's lists. The former isn't necessary for the most part (though it's still being done, last i checked) and the latter creates a scenario where every army is in constant flux. A player finds out that strategy A is winning 3 times out of 4, let's say. That means that a bunch of people will take strategy A to multiple battles. Then another player finds out that strategy B works well at countering strategy A, and since the meta has a lot of strategy A now, a bunch of people take strategy B lists. Then strategy C comes along and so on.

Yes, this is difficult to do when your meta is composed of multiple different armies with their own strengths and weaknesses, I get that, but each army has more than enough unit types and strategies to pull off a multi-strategy approach already. At most, this might require minor retooling. Tau can take skyfire to counter flyers, like you said, because Necrons at the time could basically spam their flyers. Which means Necrons would take fewer flyer lists and, say, bring more monoliths or deadeyes. Skyfire would become ineffective, so skyfire would fade away.

There's about a billion ways to have your meta be changing, fun and/or evolving. Power creep works but it's not the only way to make a proper meta, and frankly it's an unhealthy way to run your meta. Sure, you CAN live on nothing but cups of water and loafs of bread, that doesn't mean you're going to the Olympics.

That said I don't think codex creep is real, at least not as it keeps being defined at me, so make of that what you will.

[LCP]

There's no power creep. I have no reason to buy anything, because the new army isn't better than my old one, and the new army doesn't change anything about how my current army is played - because there's no power creep.

The bolded line is a non sequitur. A new codex can require you to use new tools from your existing codex without being subject to power creep. That's the point of having units represented by multiple characteristics instead of just one number.

And yes, Nagash is back! He's been gone for 3 editions, I think he deserves his time in the spotlight.

[Caxton]

I for one am of the opinion that the power creep is a good thing generally, but it must be restrained so as not to get completely out of hand. It isn't fun to watch your favorite army be turned to dust by every new army.

Banning certain things IS an effective tool for fixing a game! While a codex in general might be strong, it may also have an outlier so ridiculous as to force every army to bring a tool specifically to counter it, if they even have one. Does that simply change the meta? Well yes, but it also prevents a person from dominating a tournament just because he has the one power unit.

[Squark]

The only real issue with Matt Ward's work, in my opinion, is Codex: Grey Knights. The Necron "bromance*" and the ultramarine thing are blown out of proportion, and the Grey Knights codex was only a problem from a fluff perspective (since it was pretty clearly written with 6th edition in mind, and worked relatively fine there).


*Seriously. Two forces, neither knowing that much about each other, cease hostilities to combat a known, highly dangerous threat, and then decide to depart under a truce. Woop-de-doo.

[Thragka]

And yes, Nagash is back! He's been gone for 3 editions, I think he deserves his time in the spotlight.

Honestly, I'd almost prefer he were just left as an ultimate evil in the fluff, rather than being statted and hence killable. But maybe that's just my personal notion that proliferating a character, or concept, as an actual model kind of cheapens their uniqueness in the fluff. Another example is first-generation Slaan - they remain representative of a power level above and beyond what's represented on the tabletop, because (unless my knowledge of lizardmen is hopelessly out of date) there's only a single first-gen special character. And he's dead.

[Cheesegear]

To have a changing meta, you can either introduce new elements to the game (see what happens whenever new Heroes are introduced in Dota 2) or have deliberate counters to each army in each other's lists. The former isn't necessary for the most part (though it's still being done, last i checked) and the latter creates a scenario where every army is in constant flux.

There is a deliberate counter to most things in the game. You just need to figure out what they are. Another thing that 'the casual meta' can't or wont seem to get on board with, is Allies. The game isn't fair. GW isn't going to make it fair either. But, GW are giving you more and more tools. Unlimited Detachments (3 is still more than enough), a bunch of Supplements and Formations, and, obviously, Allies. Yes, of course you have to pay money for those things. That's how business works.

A player finds out that strategy A is winning 3 times out of 4, let's say. That means that a bunch of people will take strategy A to multiple battles. Then another player finds out that strategy B works well at countering strategy A, and since the meta has a lot of strategy A now, a bunch of people take strategy B lists.

But that's exactly what happens now. And why we have terms like 'meta-busters'. Daemons got you down? Buy a Fortress of Redemption. S8 Barrage weapon to drop on a book-holder's head, and AV14 which Daemons can't touch outside of Monstrous Creatures. Your strategy is to kill the Monstrous Creatures. If Daemons want to compete against a Fortress of Redemption, or Leman Russes, or Land Raid-
Derp. Cheese, you idiot, not every Codex has Leman Russes or Land Raiders.
True, but everybody can take a Fortress of Redemption. It's a Fortification.

'Changing meta' is exactly what happens everytime a new Codex comes out. Most people on the internet just don't realise that the meta changes because I've found that a lot of people on the internet don't actually change their list every two or three games to reflect their meta (probably because they can't afford to, but, again, affordability is not something I take into account when talking about the game), more importantly, I found that a lot of people on the internet don't even play the game at all. They just like complaining about it.

Case in point; People are genuinely shocked that Ultramarines came second at BAO. Uh...Ultramarines have always been good. Did people not realise that twin-linking everything was really good? Or did you mean the Drop Pods? When did Space Marines change from Rhinos to Drop Pods? Uh...Ages ago, probably sometime during 6th.

At most, this might require minor retooling. Tau can take skyfire to counter flyers, like you said, because Necrons at the time could basically spam their flyers. Which means Necrons would take fewer flyer lists and, say, bring more monoliths or deadeyes. Skyfire would become ineffective, so skyfire would fade away.

Okay, real example. Do you know why Space Marines came back into the meta in a big, big way? It wasn't because of their new Codex - although that helped. Space Marines came back because Tau changed the meta. Before Tau, it was common for most armies - not just Necrons - to carry four Fliers. I myself used two Vendettas and two Stormtalons for a long time. But the reason that Eldar and Tau and Daemons were really good, was, in fact, because they didn't have 3+ armour. Did you ever face CSM/Black Legion four Heldrakes lololololol? That was a thing that happened (and, I'll point out to others that Matt Ward wasn't involved in either Chaos Codex). But then Tau came in, with Skyfire. Not just Skyfire, but Interceptor as well, for the low cost of 25 points per model. Now, most armies could only run two Fliers (and Necrons went from six to four). With literally half the amount of Heldrakes in the meta than before, it was now safe for Marines to come out of their metal boxes. Suddenly, in a meta filled with Eldar, Daemons, Tau and Zombies, it was important again to be able to kill 3+ Save models. Not because of Marines, but because of Tau.

That said I don't think codex creep is real, at least not as it keeps being defined at me, so make of that what you will.

I just think if somebody gives me a hard example of 'power creep', I'll just show that it was necessary for the game to evolve because of whatever powerful came before it, and how it was solved by whatever came after it. I believe power creep exists, but I just think it's an evolution of the game, and therefore necessary for continued playability of said game.

[HalfTangible]

Okay, real example. Do you know why Space Marines came back into the meta in a big, big way?

Because GW has a major hard-on for Space Marines, gave them 5 different codexes (6 if you count Chaos SM) and want them to be the standard by which all other armies are compared, moving on.

[LCP]

I just think if somebody gives me a hard example of 'power creep', I'll just show that it was necessary for the game to evolve because of whatever powerful came before it, and how it was solved by whatever came after it.

From WFB: Skullcannons and Ironblasters. Cannons were already a cheap hard counter to single large models. Skullcannons and Ironblasters extended the list of armies with access to cannons, and put them on mobile, hitty chariots at the same time. Big monsters were further suppressed when they were already a highly uncompetitive choice, and the cannon-wagons are now a no-brainer in their respective armies.

It's not 40K, but it's the same design studio and the same release model, so if your argument is valid it should apply. I'm not familiar enough with 40K to give you a solid 40K example.

On a more general point - everything you're saying hinges around this weird environment where people buy into whole new armies because "the meta" changes. Most people I know have a small stable of armies that they own for a combination of reasons, one of which is usually some kind of aesthetic appeal. They don't necessarily buy into a new army or revamp their whole collection when a new army book comes out. More than the money, they don't have the time to make and paint that many models on a reasonable timescale, particularly when most tournaments have minimum painting standards.

Every time I see you hold forth like this, it just strikes me as a distorted representation of one man's corner of the Australian tournament scene. I don't think your experience generalises well. Particularly when you say stuff like this,

Do you know why Space Marines came back into the meta in a big, big way? It wasn't because of their new Codex - although that helped. Space Marines came back because Tau changed the meta.

the first thing I want to ask is, what's your evidence? Do you go round once a year with a clipboard, polling people about why they started their army?

Personally, if I have to guess what drives people to start new armies (or renew old ones), GW's marketing drives seem a much simpler and more plausible bet than the intricacies of what armies are doing well at tournaments at any given point in time. After all, even most tournament players probably attend <1 tournament, on average, between each book release.

[Eldan]

I've seen people drop out partially because of power creep. Usually, it was a combination of "my codex is ancient" and "everything new is so much stronger". People who have an army and models they like, but no useful rules to play them.

[13_CBS]

There will always be a way to mitigate the numbers, to have a most-efficient load out for the points you've paid. The only way this happens is if all the Codecies are balanced, which is practically impossible given the size of 40K's range.

In case you didn't read the semantics correctly; Balancing the game is theoretically possible, but practically impossible. Not without removing several units from every Codex. And, removing stuff is bad. Consumers don't want less stuff, they want more. Which makes it harder and harder to balance the larger the game gets.

I think the argument here is less that all Codexes should be supremely, perfectly balanced (though, if done well, perfect balance would be ideal), but more that, simply put, more Codexes and more army builds should be as viable as reasonably possible. Excessive--and more importantly, rapid--power creep disrupts that, meaning more people start having to make choices between the armies they want to play and the armies that will let them win.

It's 2014. If power creep didn't exist, we'd still be staring down Necron armies with 6 or more Fliers because Tau wouldn't have cheap, efficient Skyfire. If power creep didn't exist, everyone would be playing Typhus with 100+ Zombies because Wave Serpents don't exist to shoot 9+, S6+ shots per turn each. If power creep didn't exist, *Snip*

How far do you have to go back until you find the 'point' where 40K is truly fair? 3rd Ed, maybe? Before Chaos Marines and Imperial Guard got their '3.5' dexes? When the game was terrible and boring because 3rd Ed. was brand new coming off the back on 2nd Ed. 'Herohammer'?

This is bit of a false dichotomy: either GW must publish more broken things to counter currently existing broken things, or allow the already existing broken things to continue existing. It would ideal if GW simply didn't design their game to completely bork Assault, or allow Necroissant Spam, or incentivize Wave Serpent spam, etc. in the first place. Using broken to help players counter broken seems like the old story where people have a rat problem, so they import a bunch of cats but now they have a cat problem, so they import a bunch of dogs so now they have a dog problem...

The design philosophy of "make broken to counter broken" has backfired on the Yu Gi Oh TCG pretty badly, last I heard. Konami had, for a stretch, printed cards that were so hilariously broken that you pretty much had to buy those cards and play those decks or you simply couldn't compete in tournaments. Come the next batch of cards, Konami had to up the game power creep harder or else no one would buy these new, "weak" cards, and then power creep even harder the next batch, to the point where now a lot of people are leaving the game in disgust just due to how uninteresting tournament-level play has become.

Now, think of it from GW's point;
Okay. The game is fair and will stay that way. Whoop-de-do. Okay, I went out and bought my army. Great. Amazing. Okay, GW wants to 'update' a certain book. Fine. Let them do that. But, the game is fair, right? There's no power creep. I have no reason to buy anything, because the new army isn't better than my old one, and the new army doesn't change anything about how my current army is played - because there's no power creep. GW releases a new product and no-one cares except the people who already play that army.

Again, this seems like a false dichotomy, as though GW has a only has a choice between "make new broken units" or "make units that no one would ever buy". Just because the game is balanced doesn't mean there must be creative sterility (see: Starcraft Brood War, hailed as a game of almost perfect balance, yet the metagame still shifts decades after the game was published, without any new units being made in the interim), nor do people necessarily only buy new armies when a superior one appears. Perhaps the latter is an attitude prevalent among extremely dedicated tournament players, but, using Magic: The Gathering as an example, I might make a new deck (i.e. buy more cards) when the latest fluff is published. Or if I have a eureka moment and decide that I want to play with this new Black-Green burn combo deck that I had an idea for. That there's new, more powerful cards getting released is only ONE reason why I might want to buy a new deck, or a new army.

To use a 40k example, let's take Forgefiends for the Chaos Space Marines army. From what I've gathered, it's cool ("daemonic dinosaur robots heck yeah"), it's effective (good S8 AP2 shooting isn't something in abundance for CSMs), yet not broken (expensive points-wise, not super heavily armored, Heavy Support is a FOC slot with lots of competition for CSMs). Why not more new units in line with this sort of design, instead of things like Wave Serpent Spam?

How does GW make you, an existing player with hundreds of dollars already spent in one army, make you start from scratch with a new army? If you have no reason to buy new models, then you wont.

1) New fluff. "Who's this Kyron guy? He's listed as one of the Grey Knights founders and HOLY CRAP HE'S HINTED AT ACTUALLY BEING OMEGON WHO DECIDED TO STAY LOYALIST DURING THE HERESY WANT

2) Bring in popular characters from the BL novels. "Hyperion is a playable character now?! YES"

3) New, interesting mechanics. "Hey, the Grey Knights have this new thing where, if I take certain FOC limitations, I can do this [cool, interesting mechanic]"*

But, to answer your statement, no, you don't need power creep to constantly change your meta. But arbitrary bannings and restrictions are classic in their ability to not solve any problems. The only thing that arbitrary handicaps does, is force a new, different meta. But, I guess if your goal is to change the meta, not fix it, then, job's a good'un, I guess.

So...don't make the bannings and restrictions arbitrary? Bannings and restrictions work just fine for TCGs, why not in a tabletop wargame?

-

Overall, I think the complaint that a lot of people had against Matt Ward's alleged power creep was that, Wardian power creep made a lot of people feel like there was nothing their Codex could reasonably do to have a reasonable chance at winning against an army list that was relatively easy to build and play. It's not that people are against power creep, people are against power creep that, from their perspective, blow their armies/decks/whatever out of the water. People usually play competitive games because they each feel like they stand a reasonable chance at winning if they play skillfully--if that no longer becomes the case with due to power creep, people are going to feel unhappy, because now they have to make a choice between playing as the thing they like and playing as the thing that will let them win.

There is a deliberate counter to most things in the game. You just need to figure out what they are.

Yes, but do all Codexes in the game have access to enough of those counters that could fit into an army list? Whether or not a given Codex does seems to define where it stands in the tier list.

Another thing that 'the casual meta' can't or wont seem to get on board with, is Allies.

It's less that people are upset over Allies, as much as people are getting upset over having to take Allies. As you said, people like having more things: however, when power creep and unbalanced game design begin negating choices, choices become increasingly meaningless. That said...

But, GW are giving you more and more tools. Unlimited Detachments (3 is still more than enough), a bunch of Supplements and Formations,

...that seems to be a step in the right direction.

The game isn't fair. GW isn't going to make it fair either.

One wonders if they should fix that.

Yes, of course you have to pay money for those things. That's how business works.

Yes, but a game company doesn't have to persuade you to separate you from your money buy forcing you to buy things. See: Valve and Steam Sales.

But that's exactly what happens now. And why we have terms like 'meta-busters'. Daemons got you down? Buy a Fortress of Redemption. S8 Barrage weapon to drop on a book-holder's head, and AV14 which Daemons can't touch outside of Monstrous Creatures. Your strategy is to kill the Monstrous Creatures. If Daemons want to compete against a Fortress of Redemption, or Leman Russes, or Land Raid-
Derp. Cheese, you idiot, not every Codex has Leman Russes or Land Raiders.
True, but everybody can take a Fortress of Redemption. It's a Fortification.

Yes, but not everyone wants to buy a Fortress of Redemption (it's annoying to carry around; it's expensive; it's simply not interesting, either mechanically or flavorfully; etc). The problem isn't "oh geez we can't stop Daemons", it's "oh geez I have to do this one specific thing that doesn't fit in my army to have a chance at beating Daemons". Why not have the solution instead be, give all Codexes some viable way of dealing with Monstrous Creatures, with each such method being mechanically and flavorfully united with the given Codex? No, it's not easy. But then, GW is supposed to have been working on this game for several decades.

I just think if somebody gives me a hard example of 'power creep', I'll just show that it was necessary for the game to evolve because of whatever powerful came before it, and how it was solved by whatever came after it. I believe power creep exists, but I just think it's an evolution of the game, and therefore necessary for continued playability of said game.

tl;dr on my point on power creep:

Power creep might be inevitable, but sudden, rapid power creep is bad. Such power creep being necessary to counter broken things in previous iterations of the game is false, because there are ways to deal with broken things other than publishing more broken things to even the balance.


Edit:

*snip*

Also, what LCP said.

[Cheesegear]

I think the argument here is less that all Codexes should be supremely, perfectly balanced (though, if done well, perfect balance would be ideal), but more that, simply put, more Codexes and more army builds should be as viable as reasonably possible. Excessive--and more importantly, rapid--power creep disrupts that, meaning more people start having to make choices between the armies they want to play and the armies that will let them win.

Absolutely true. Though I have no idea how to make that happen under the existing business model.
Changing power creep - or to a lack thereof - requires a new business model, something which has proven to not quite work, as evidenced by Warmahordes. It's great for consumers in the short term, but it's bad for both consumers and business in the long term. It's why Warmahordes tends to gain popularity in 'spikes'. People spend $100-200(AUD) to buy the army they want, then they're done and we don't hear about Warmahordes for another six months (or whenever GW does something stupid, whichever comes first).

Consider Magic: The Gathering (only because I'm not interested in Orks or Space Wolves and the last few months I've spent my money elsewhere);

The 'Modern' meta is static, or changes so slowly as to not really have any change. You buy a deck that suits your playstyle, and you don't really spend any more money on that deck until a new card comes out - like Chord of Calling.
The 'Standard' meta changes every six (?) months, and you must buy cards to keep up because your old cards cycle out and new ones cycle in (not counting reprints like Ornithopter), and power creep happens to get people excited for new cards.

Modern format is really great for consumers because you 'spike' your initial cost, then don't really spend any money.
Standard format is really great for business because income is constant.

Guess which one Magic producers and distributors like to push more? I'll give you no guesses, because you already know.

It would ideal if GW simply didn't design their game to completely bork Assault, or allow Necroissant Spam, or incentivize Wave Serpent spam, etc. in the first place.

You'll remember that nerfing Assault was a response to the fact that Assault being broken as [poop].
You'll notice that Night Scythes were designed as Skimmers, not Fliers. On release they weren't actually that good.
Wave Serpents...Yeah I got nothing. Objective Secured just made them even better.

Again, this seems like a false dichotomy, as though GW has a only has a choice between "make new broken units" or "make units that no one would ever buy". Just because the game is balanced doesn't mean there must be creative sterility (see: Starcraft Brood War, hailed as a game of almost perfect balance, yet the metagame still shifts decades after the game was published, without any new units being made in the interim), nor do people necessarily only buy new armies when a superior one appears.

Brood War is a bad example because you don't have an ongoing cost associated with it. As I said in an earlier post, in 40K, you should be changing your list every two to three games. The reason people don't do that, is because it costs money. Because people don't do that, the 40K meta doesn't change as often as it should, except in high-level tournament play, where people are invested in the game at such a high level that they're willing to throw cash around.

To use a 40k example, let's take Forgefiends for the Chaos Space Marines army. From what I've gathered, it's cool ("daemonic dinosaur robots heck yeah"), it's effective (good S8 AP2 shooting isn't something in abundance for CSMs), yet not broken (expensive points-wise, not super heavily armored, Heavy Support is a FOC slot with lots of competition for CSMs). Why not more new units in line with this sort of design, instead of things like Wave Serpent Spam?

Because Wave Serpents are a mistake, and GW doesn't appear to playtest. The point was to make the 'Serpent functionally different to a Falcon. And they succeeded. Too well, in fact. Only because RAW, the Energy Shield isn't a Weapon and can't be destroyed, and by giving people a reason to take Scatter Lasers where they never used to, all contributes. What would happen to the Wave Serpent if they couldn't have Scatter Lasers? What if the Energy Shield could be Destroyed? What if a lot of things. Along comes Space Marines with Grav-Guns and they shut that crap down - hard. Are your Imperial Guard throwing out Ignores Cover Orders onto your Lascannons? No? How is that the Wave Serpent's problem?

Wave Serpents forced the meta to change. You know what Wave Serpents can't even hurt? Land Raiders.
People buy Land Raiders.
Do you know what Eldar players need to buy now? Fire Dragons, Wraithguard, Swooping Hawks.
Do you know what Eldar players don't do? Buy Fire Dragons, Wraithguard or Swooping Hawks because they just spent a couple hundred dollars buying Wave Serpents.
This is how the real, non-digital, non-static world works.

Obviously Land Raiders are totally broken and we need to remove them from the game because now my Wave Serpents don't work.
This is how entitled nerds feel about the real world and GW is evil.
What? Put Bright Lances on my Wave Serpents? That's crazy. You're an idiot. You're obviously a 1%-er who is shilling for GW. I'M EMOTIONAL SO MY OPINION IS CORRECT.

2) Bring in popular characters from the BL novels. "Hyperion is a playable character now?! YES"

Forge World is making mad bank.


I'd keep going but I have to go.

[13_CBS]

Changing power creep - or to a lack thereof - requires a new business model, something which has proven to not quite work, as evidenced by Warmahordes. It's great for consumers in the short term, but it's bad for both consumers and business in the long term. It's why Warmahordes tends to gain popularity in 'spikes'. People spend $100-200(AUD) to buy the army they want, then they're done and we don't hear about Warmahordes for another six months (or whenever GW does something stupid, whichever comes first).

True: the meta has to shift at a sufficient rate for the majority of people to not get bored with the game, and this is most easily done with power creep. A necessary evil, even if pro-balance people (like me) end up irritated.

For what it's worth, though, I posit that egregious power creep is also not a good business model in the long run, as I mentioned in the Yu Gi Oh example above. At a certain point, you just hit a power ceiling--an extreme case would be, like, a Beast that costs 1 point, has 10s across the board (WS, BS, W, T, etc.), can shoot multiple S10 AP1 Ignore Cover 100'' Large Blasts, and so forth. When you hit that ceiling and can no longer reasonably power creep without making too many players go "ok now this is just silly"...

Not to mention, pushing the overall power of the game also alienates players, again using the Yu Gi Oh example.

Consider Magic: The Gathering (only because I'm not interested in Orks or Space Wolves and the last few months I've spent my money elsewhere);

Of course. To be fair, however, the bulk of the complaints here are about how the game "should" be, rather than how it actually is.

You'll remember that nerfing Assault was a response to the fact that Assault being broken as [poop].
You'll notice that Night Scythes were designed as Skimmers, not Fliers. On release they weren't actually that good.

On Assaulting: true, but nerfing it to uselessness (or, hypothetically, reigning in Assault by making Shooting even more broken) seems like a poor idea, due to the power creep ceiling issue I mentioned above.

Night Scythes: I was under the impression that 5th Ed. Necrons were designed with 6th Ed. rules in mind, and therefore Night Scythes were only bad because they were in the wrong edition?

Because Wave Serpents are a mistake, and GW doesn't appear to playtest. The point was to make the 'Serpent functionally different to a Falcon. And they succeeded. Too well, in fact. Only because RAW, the Energy Shield isn't a Weapon and can't be destroyed, and by giving people a reason to take Scatter Lasers where they never used to, all contributes.

This is where a lot of players' irritation turns into outright anger: GW is, whether they like it or not, whether they say it or not, a company that makes a game. Given the amount of resources invested into said game, it would be reasonable for players to expect good rules (and therefore a good game) to come out from GW. Or at least, a rules-set that appears to have been thoroughly tested and thought about. And yet...

It's especially damning if you look at it from a certain perspective: it is literally [a certain subsection of] GW's job to sit there and think about and test all day the rules for 40k, and they've had decades of experience and the interconnected information highway of the internet to draw upon as well. Yet, GW demands hundreds of dollars for little plastic toys that you use in a game whose rules often seem borked, whether it's because of unclear wording or gross game unbalance.

As an additional note: the Forgefiend example was not just to illustrate the issue with overpowered units, but also underpowered ones. The Forgefiend is good without being broken: why make units that are so useless that no one would buy them? The only thing I can think of is GW reasoning about opportunity costs--better to let certain, more profitable models be overpowered so as to sell better, and it's easier to make something overpowered if you underpower some other stuff.

But that in turn touches on another point that people find frustrating with GW. Companies like Valve demonstrate that it's quite possible to be both beloved by your market and make money hand over first. GW, meanwhile, is trying to grab money in a bullish, clumsy way that threatens to alienate its customer base. Yes, as a company you have to make money...but you don't have to be such a big jerk about it.

Wave Serpents forced the meta to change. You know what Wave Serpents can't even hurt? Land Raiders.
People buy Land Raiders.
Do you know what Eldar players need to buy now? Fire Dragons, Wraithguard, Swooping Hawks.
Do you know what Eldar players don't do? Buy Fire Dragons, Wraithguard or Swooping Hawks because they just spent a couple hundred dollars buying Wave Serpents.

Obviously Land Raiders are totally broken and we need to remove them from the game because now my Wave Serpents don't work.
This is how entitled nerds feel about the real world and GW is evil.
What? Put Bright Lances on my Wave Serpents? That's crazy. You're an idiot. You're obviously a 1%-er who is shilling for GW. I'M EMOTIONAL SO MY OPINION IS CORRECT.

I think you may be exaggerating the "entitled nerds"' argument. It's not so much that people are angry about metagame shifts, they're angry that they're being forced to choose between the army they like (lots of Wave Serpents, no Fire Dragons, Wraithguard, or Swooping Hawks; or an Imperial army that doesn't use Land Raiders) and the army they must now use to not lose horribly (Wave Serpent army with Fire Dragons, Wraithguard, and/or Swooping Hawks shoehorned in; or an Imperial army that now must hand Land Raiders shoehorned in).

Yes, if we sat down and thought hard enough about it, or asked people on the internet enough about it, I or anyone else could come up with an army that could deal with Land Raiders. Or Wave Serpent Spam. Or whatever. But doing so has a good chance of destroying the vision I have for my army, and that, in turn, has a very big effect: I don't have as much fun playing the game now. Would you consider it unreasonable if you invested a great deal of money into a form of entertainment, but then the creator of that entertainment changed things such that you no longer have as much fun as you expected when you invested that money, and you got upset because of that?

Example: I'm playing a Space Marine army. My vision of the army is that, mechanically, it's a sneaky army that uses judicious Infiltrating and Outflanking units to dismantle the enemy army. Until the Eldar Codex got updated, it worked just fine--I wasn't winning tournaments, maybe, but I did do fairly well in the last one, and my army could take on most comers with a reasonable chance of victory (barring the occasional weird matchup).

However, the Eldar Codex made things such that the Eldar could now spam...oh, Warlocks, and things happened such that Eldar players now spam Warlocks regularly, and said Warlocks makes Infiltrating and Outflanking utterly unviable. Now, I must choose between either holding onto the sneaky army that I like, or introducing elements into my army that takes away from my vision. Because I really liked playing with that army, my fun is now diminished. I could build a different army that could slap the crap right out Eldar Warlock lists, but that's not what I want to do--I want to play with that sneaky Space Marine army.

Would it not then be reasonable for me to be frustrated with GW? Especially if the Warlock Spam happened because 1) GW didn't playtest things like they (arguably) were supposed to, and 2) part of the Warlock Spam happened because GW went about trying to extract more money from the customer base in a way that diminished my own sense of fun?

[Squark]

Such is theoretically possible. In practice, some options inevitably get the poor end of the stick. Yes, there are things GW can improve on; i.e. not producing another wave serpent. But tabletop games exist in a state of imbalance due to how they work; you trade the ability to constantly patch rules* for tactile sensations and face-to-face participation. GW can do better, and we can encourage them to do so by voting with our wallets or [maybe] organizing mass e-mail campaigns to them**. But if anything Matt Ward did things better than some of the more current writers do.


*Because if you need to print a 15 page document to use your codex and revise it every two weeks, what's the point of a paper copy in the first place? And, since we're ajudicating the rules ourselves, keeping up with all the patches requires a lot of mental reorganizing constantly. The New edition is over four months old, and I still see people who haven't realized that a certain rule no longer exists in 7th. Hell, you wouldn't believe the number of Space Wolf players who didn't know how preferred enemy worked in units, and it hasn't changed since the 6th edition release!

**There has to be some sort of customer feedback method for GW, right?