5th edition codex

They do now. The faq allows it to use your missiles against other flyers.

amishprn86 wrote:

I personally LOVE the lifers and rules for the, they just need to let fliers tho hit other fliers with any type of weapon.

I'm more interested in ground units being able to hit flyers.

It's supposed to be the 41st millennium, yet even the most advanced races apparently didn't bother advancing their targeting computers beyond WWII era.

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I'm more interested in ground units being able to hit flyers.

It's supposed to be the 41st millennium, yet even the most advanced races apparently didn't bother advancing their targeting computers beyond WWII era.

How do you define their merits in game mechanics? I mean if anyone can target flyers, they will be just slightly faster and awkward skimmers.

Azdrubael wrote:

How do you define their merits in game mechanics? I mean if anyone can target flyers, they will be just slightly faster and awkward skimmers.

They already are awkward skimmers, complete with stupid targeting mechanics.

Here's the thing, if you want to show fliers properly, they shouldn't be on the table. At all. It's the same issue with Deathstrike Missiles - you have units that should be engaging their target from about 20 miles away but instead choose to sit about 10 yards away from their target. Even bombers should have already disappeared off the other side of the table by the time their bombs land.

Hence, if you were going to represent fliers properly, you'd basically just be rolling reserves for their missiles or bombs. The models themselves would be way beyond the edges of the table (i.e. not needed and effectively untargetable).

But, if fliers really must be on the table (because they're also from WWII), my suggestion would be that we first drop the snapshot mechanic. It's a horrible mechanic at the best of times, and this instance is a particularly obnoxious one. Why is it that a flier moves 18" and nothing can target it because it's 'too fast', but then a Jetbike or Skimmer can move 36" or 48" and can be hit just fine? Instead, I'd suggest that fliers have an effect akin to the old Night Shield rules, whereby weapons targetting them have to subtract, say, 12" from their range. To simulate the fact that the flier is supposed to be much higher than its model would indicate (fliers themselves don't suffer this penalty, as their weapons are assumed to take this into account).

That said, I just don't think fliers belong in non-apocalypse 40k (regardless of mechanics).

The Shredder wrote:

Azdrubael wrote:

How do you define their merits in game mechanics? I mean if anyone can target flyers, they will be just slightly faster and awkward skimmers.

They already are awkward skimmers, complete with stupid targeting mechanics.

Here's the thing, if you want to show fliers properly, they shouldn't be on the table. At all. It's the same issue with Deathstrike Missiles - you have units that should be engaging their target from about 20 miles away but instead choose to sit about 10 yards away from their target. Even bombers should have already disappeared off the other side of the table by the time their bombs land.

Hence, if you were going to represent fliers properly, you'd basically just be rolling reserves for their missiles or bombs. The models themselves would be way beyond the edges of the table (i.e. not needed and effectively untargetable).

But, if fliers really must be on the table (because they're also from WWII), my suggestion would be that we first drop the snapshot mechanic. It's a horrible mechanic at the best of times, and this instance is a particularly obnoxious one. Why is it that a flier moves 18" and nothing can target it because it's 'too fast', but then a Jetbike or Skimmer can move 36" or 48" and can be hit just fine? Instead, I'd suggest that fliers have an effect akin to the old Night Shield rules, whereby weapons targetting them have to subtract, say, 12" from their range. To simulate the fact that the flier is supposed to be much higher than its model would indicate (fliers themselves don't suffer this penalty, as their weapons are assumed to take this into account).

That said, I just don't think fliers belong in non-apocalypse 40k (regardless of mechanics).  

Hallelujas! Hallelujas!

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Why is it that a flier moves 18" and nothing can target it because it's 'too fast', but then a Jetbike or Skimmer can move 36" or 48" and can be hit just fine? Instead, I'd suggest that fliers have an effect akin to the old Night Shield rules, whereby weapons targetting them have to subtract, say, 12" from their range.

Have you ever played battlefield? If so, go and take unguided missile system and try to hit a plane flying at low speed close to ground. Or just chopper for that matter. It will be much much more harded then hit a tank. Or to hit say a speedy motorcycle, even tho at a glance they are moving at comparable speeds.

But you can predict where ground target will go, and air target can just go up down left right swerve, much more harder to hit, this whole 3d movement makes it harder. Heat seaking missiles are way better. Why dont every space marine carry a Javelin analogue in numbers, beats me, stupid chapter quartermaster.

Or cause, as GW portraying distopian "there is only war" future, this whole shmack probably came from British remembering 2 World Wars and the whole military situation there with countless of armies thrown against each other with no proper support or plan or anything (WW1) or just ceaceless brutality of positioning war (WW2).

There never was proper tool for the right job there, conflict was all encompasing, soldiers had to do with what their got, and new toys made in numbers and distributed among armies in numbers. People had to destroy tanks with actual grenades, if there wasnt anti-tank batteries or your own tanks. Sounds real familiar, is it?

Its nowhere near modern warfare with life expentancy of tank measuring in minutes, and common trooper can take on almost any target with proper training and tools and logistical and electronic support.

So the answer to - why Flyers are such stupid and nobody cared to take AI missile - because its more grimdark that way. Feel the depression...

Azdrubael wrote:

Have you ever played battlefield? If so, go and take unguided missile system and try to hit a plane flying at low speed close to ground.

...

Why are you basing the capabilities of 41st millennium weapons on unguided missiles in a random
video game?

As an idea, this is a current generation system:

Spoiler:

Consider what you could see after having 38000 years to improve and miniaturise that weapon and its targeting systems.

Azdrubael wrote:

Or just chopper for that matter. It will be much much more harded then hit a tank. Or to hit say a speedy motorcycle, even tho at a glance they are moving at comparable speeds.

You're comparing motorcycles to planes. Currently, the latter moves much faster. In 40k, a bike can outpace a flyer.

Azdrubael wrote:

But you can predict where ground target will go, and air target can just go up down left right swerve, much more harder to hit, this whole 3d movement makes it harder.

There's already a mechanic to represent that - Jinking. If you want flyers to have a 3+ Jink save, that's fine with me.

But I've yet to hear a reason as to why every ground unit - regardless of how advanced they, regardless of what weapons they're using and regardless of how good their aim (or targeting computer) is - should only hit them on 6s.

Azdrubael wrote:

Heat seaking missiles are way better. Why dont every space marine carry a Javelin analogue in numbers, beats me, stupid chapter quartermaster.

They might not carry heat-seeking missiles, but I'm betting those helmets and eyepieces they wear contain targeting software.

Azdrubael wrote:

Or cause, as GW portraying distopian "there is only war" future, this whole shmack probably came from British remembering 2 World Wars and the whole military situation there with countless of armies thrown against each other with no proper support or plan or anything (WW1) or just ceaceless brutality of positioning war (WW2).

There never was proper tool for the right job there, conflict was all encompasing, soldiers had to do with what their got, and new toys made in numbers and distributed among armies in numbers. People had to destroy tanks with actual grenades, if there wasnt anti-tank batteries or your own tanks. Sounds real familiar, is it?

And that's fine, up until it starts getting in the way of gameplay.

Also, 40k has many, many situations of units having the prefect tool for the job. Or the perfect tool for a wide variety of jobs.

Azdrubael wrote:

So the answer to - why Flyers are such stupid and nobody cared to take AI missile - because its more grimdark that way. Feel the depression...

Depression is something I want in the fluff and model design. I don't want to feel depressed whilst actually playing the game, because the flyer rules were designed by a haddock.

I am seeing a lot of " realistically " and in " in real life". Ok, in real life there is no such thing as dark eldar, space Marines, or chaos gods, just saying mabe we should not put si much emphasis on what is real when we think and discuss or favorite fictional war game. Just saying

Deathwasp11 wrote:

I am seeing a lot of " realistically " and in " in real life". Ok, in real life there is no such thing as dark eldar, space Marines, or chaos gods, just saying mabe we should not put si much emphasis on what is real when we think and discuss or favorite fictional war game. Just saying

It's not unreasonable to expect logic and verisimilitude.

I mean, this isn't Star Wars - 40k is supposed to be taking place 38000 years into our own future. And, in addition to our own technological advancement, there are races that are supposedly vastly more advanced than that. Hence, it's rather jarring that several aspects of warfare - in a time where war is constant, no less - appear to have actually regressed.

I don't ask that it be perfect, but I want to actually feel like I'm playing a sci-fi game, rather than a re-skinned WWII game.

Now that I'm not at work, I can talk about this.

Rokuro wrote:

Our 7th edition codex isn't up to date with the rest of the game, and let's be hornets; neither is the 5th edition one.

Some examples:

Archon
Had access to to a Venom Blade, Ghostplate Armor and Combat Drugs, but not to a Blaster.

Does have access to a Shadowfield, Clone Field, and an AP 2 CC weapon.  (And still has access to a blaster.)

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Court of the Archon
Couldn't be taken independendly from an Archon and had to include one of each models. And Ur-Ghuls were even more useless back then.

Succubus
The Archite Glaive didn't exist.

No big loss.  I'll happily sacrifice the sub par HQ choices for the numerous special characters that actually acted as Force Multipliers for the army.

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Wyches
After the last FAQ, they could only use one Haywire grenade in the assault phase anyway.
And Haywire aside, they were overpriced for the mediocre close combat troops they were, even if their special weapons were better than today.

Bloodbrides
Just Wyches with +1 Attacks and Leadership for 3 points each. A better deal than today, but still nothing to really call an elite assault unit.

There was never a reason to take Bloodbrides, so we aren't losing anything. The old wych weapons, however, made them actually useful enough to tie enemy units up in melee for at least a small period of time.

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Mandrakes
Unintentional as it may be, they are now an amusingly annoying close-range shooting unit. Back in 5th, they already sucked in close combat, but couldn't even shoot before having killed a unit in close combat!

Uhhh...now Mandrakes are totally worthless, since they die to a stiff breeze.  Back in 5th, they had a frustrating invulnerable save, and if they started close enough to Urien Rakarth (or were joined by a haemonculus) had essentially the same shooting attack they do now.  

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Grotesques
Needed a joined IC to keep them from killing you own units!

No biggie.  In all likelihood they were only being used to bodyguard an HQ anyway.  Alternately, you could just stick them with a bargain basement priced haemonculus (at three to a slot, no less!) and not sweat it.

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Wracks
The Ossefactor didn't exist!

No, but Venomblades and better liquifier guns sure did.

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Harlequins
All around worse than the Cast of Players formation we can have today.

Except for the ability to ride in our transports, which the 5e Harlies would have, and the Cast of Players do not.

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Taloi
Had a randomized number of attacks.

Which worked out to a higher number on average than they do now, n'est pas?

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Cronoi
Instead of granting a FNP bubble, they allowed you to switch pain tokens around. And you had to buy their flamer weapon extra.

Yeah, but you could buy the flamer AND the blast weapon together, (and could fire them both).  Furthermore, they didn't allow you to shuffle Pain Tokens, they allowed you to generate Pain Tokens for inflicting any casualties, (not just for whole units) and then shuffle them, potentially generating up to 3+ tokens per turn.

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Raiders/Venoms/Ravagers
Needed a 5-points-upgrade to deepstrike reliably.

Or take one of the best force multiplier characters of all time and get it for free.  

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Razorwing/Voidraven
Were skimmers instead of fliers!

That's a plus, not a minus.  They still weren't great, but they were a slim margin better than they are now.  

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You see, not everything was better in 5th.

A whole bunch of stuff sure was.  Like the Agonizer, the Venom Blade, the Helglaive, the Dark Eldar Jetbike, the Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Night Shields, Flickerfields, and the Grisly Trophies.

And let's not forget the list of fallen heroes!  In addition to Hesperax, Rakarth, and Drazhar, who were all leaps and bounds better before the switch, we lost entirely Baron Sathonyx, Duke Sliscus, and Lady Malys.  I never gave the Heartless Hussy much credit before, but if I could take her now?! I'd definitely trade the positive change to Grotesques to have my old characters back.

The Shredder wrote:

It's not unreasonable to expect logic and verisimilitude.

I mean, this isn't Star Wars - 40k is supposed to be taking place 38000 years into our own future.

Come on, it's fantasy in space: there are elves and orcs, and there used to be dwarfs (with an option to bring them back some day, maybe, if they can figure out what to do with them). There are magic powers, space knights, demonds, and dragons!

Deathwasp11 wrote:

Ok, in real life there is no such thing as... chaos gods, just saying mabe we should not put si much emphasis on what is real when we think and discuss or favorite fictional war game. Just saying

Funny thing is, that this is probably the "truest" thing about warhammer.  This stuff seems to pre-date Michael Moorcock's fiction, which popularized it before GW picked it up in the early 80s.

No chaos gods though huh?  

I'll let you tell these tzeentian loonies.

Or Papa Nurgle, who was a "real" deity, until he was reduced to a daemon by rival religions.

Back on topic though - I am old enough to remember when actually tried to make semi-realistic touches.  For example, basilisks and griffons could basically fire from reserve - and ya that was about as awesome as it sounded.

I'm not a fan of the whole skyfire situation either, but the flyers are unrealistic enough as it is and I have no idea how you begin to fix them.  It only seems to be getting worse by increasing the scale of something that basically shouldn't exist on our tiny battlefields anyway.

Barking Agatha wrote:

and there used to be dwarfs (with an option to bring them back some day, maybe, if they can figure out what to do with them).

And they sort of did that, but they just turned them in to some lame branch of the Tau collective.  Not awesome.

Are we really complaining about the style of the game? It's a game. A grim dark game. It has to be depressing and.... Dark.

It's the idea behind it. For example the idea behind infinity. I never quite understood it and I don't like it:

Hence, I don't play it

CptMetal wrote:

Are we really complaining about the style of the game? It's a game. A grim dark game. It has to be depressing and.... Dark.

It's the idea behind it. For example the idea behind infinity. I never quite understood it and I don't like it:

Hence, I don't play it

That's fair enough. But what gives you the right to continually attack anyone who laments the fact that 40K is an entirely different game to what it used to be and that this new game of Apocalypse40K is not one that they enjoy? Most of the people on this forum clearly want to be playing 40K but when the state of the game is such that this is not enjoyable for them they are expected to just stay quiet and not make their feelings known?

I didn't attack the complaint about the incorporation of flyers or super heavy units. It's mixing 40 k and apocalypse too much.

We were talking about the general setting of 40k.

CptMetal wrote:

I didn't attack the complaint about the incorporation of flyers or super heavy units. It's mixing 40 k and apocalypse too much.

We were talking about the general setting of 40k.

Well perhaps you ought to go find a copy of Rogue Trader somewhere and take a look at some of the many humorous takes on the 40K setting that were incorporated into the original background. The Dark Angels still have a primarch called Lionel, for fudges sake!

What's the joke about that name?

I'm sorry I'm German, we don't do jokes...




:-P

CptMetal wrote:

What's the joke about that name?

I'm sorry I'm German, we don't do jokes... :-P

Not a 'joke' as such, more a humorous reference to the composer of "The Dark Angel" poem, Lionel Johnson, from which the chapter took its name when it was first invented back in the 80's. Many other names are clearly very tongue in cheek. Other things, like the Catachan Barking Toad are also pretty ridiculous.

PS - Hennig Wehn disagrees. Very funny guy

40k, especially early 40k, has lots of funny stuff. Hair band Noise Marines. Half-eldar Librarians. It was ridiculous from the get-go.

Talk about power-chords:

Spoiler:

Ah - good old punk rock noise marines.  Nothing wrong with a unit, based on a song, based on a game, based on hrrm.  The  song is not nearly as awesome as noise marines became though.  Orks also used to have their own rock guitar type units, and in the fluff their planetary communications were achieved through really, really loud music.  I miss the pre-fungi orks.

GW actually had its own record label at one point and produced a rather silly brand of death metal along with this cheesy sort of 80s rock.  We used to listen to bolt thrower a lot when we played 40k/fantasy back in the 90s.

You know, back when everything in 40k used to be a fun joke or a deep cut in to pop culture or western civ.  

I suspect they have even made lackluster attempts to keep this up - For example when they revamped the dark angels and revealed that Johnson was imprisoned in "The Rock"...  "The Rock" and "Johnson" happen to fit together into a pop culture meme of their own, which is admittedly more fitting of this century.

As for the 40k vs apocalypse debate - my favorite GW games to this day are Necromunda (2nd Edition), Mordheim, and then Gorkamorka - in that order.  So I obviously am not one for the ever increasing scale.  Even on the PC, I think I still prefer Chaos Gate (an ancient PC game in which you micromanage a single squad of space marines) over the dawn of war franchise.

Jimsolo wrote:

I plan to do a 'Freakuently Asked Questions' installment of the Freakshow articles once a final draft of the FAQ is in place.

I'm new here (Hi!) but count me in as extremely interested in that. The Freakshow is one of the things holding my interest in DE as I get back into 40k (I used to play against them a lot long ago with my pre-Codex Necrons but have never played them myself)! I'll be curious as to how the builds change without being able to enVenom Harlie ICs and other fun stuff.

Absalon wrote:

Jimsolo wrote:

I plan to do a 'Freakuently Asked Questions' installment of the Freakshow articles once a final draft of the FAQ is in place.

I'm new here (Hi!) but count me in as extremely interested in that.  The Freakshow is one of the things holding my interest in DE as I get back into 40k (I used to play against them a lot long ago with my pre-Codex Necrons but have never played them myself)!  I'll be curious as to how the builds change without being able to enVenom Harlie ICs and other fun stuff.

If you really like the Freakshow farmy, go to the battle reports there is a guy that has MANY Bat Reps of all Coven army.

He's running a Freakshow with no psykers? Or just running a Covens army, you mean?

Jimsolo wrote:

He's running a Freakshow with no psykers? Or just running a Covens army, you mean?

Its Coven, it is Mushkilla? I think that did them awhile ago, you can ask him about it.