Razorwing flock spam - its amazing

Scarabs have 4 attacks, hitting on a 3+ = 2.67 hits
Razorwings have 8 attacks, hitting on a 5+ = 2.67 hits

The higher S and the Mandible rule means that Scarabs will do more damage but you then need to ask yourself whether that is balanced out by their slower movement and lack of the FLY keyword, which makes Razorwings more versatile. Scarabs also have fewer wounds, which can make a big difference, although their better save helps to even that one out.

Also nids can have DSing troops or Fly Faster attack swarms, both also can have pistols that are shooting amount equals attacks profile.

Don't forget also that scarabs have better leadership. Anyway, Fly is good to hit flyers but it does not permit to charge another unit and "Razorwing flock do not shoot"...

I still prefer better save, ld, strength and toughness / hits possibilites than "Fly and 2" mouv"...

The fly also means you can ignore terrain and other units to strike at the stuff you actually want to keep in combat. I say fly is very important on the swarms and one of the reasons why I like them.

I think scarabs are better than flocks now, for the pts.

Flocks should have a special rule to make enemy flyers crash and burn by jamming up their jet intakes with their bodies.
Just kidding xD

This, and the change to the rules for flyers, are probably the first time we've had "balance changes" from GW and it's possible they have overshot the mark slightly but the message seems clear that they are seeing how the game evolves and are willing to make changes to ensure the more prevalent abuses are curtailed.

Increasing the points of a unit is a terrible way of tackling its strength down anyway.
If anything, they should have empathized the weaknesses of the unit. Of all spammed units. For example : the mecanic supposed to tackle hordes is moral. Instead of doubling the cost of every hord unit, they should stop giving away ways to completly ignore moral.
In the case of birds, either take back the "drug" rule from Beastmaster, make birds 7ld, and give them a rule that adds 3 to their moral tests. Let's be honest, birds aren't impressed by the leadership of that archon standing on his Tantalus.
That way, you would still be able to spam birds, but your enemy would have a fair chance of killing them. That's how game design works, GW. Empathizing the weaknesses of strong units. Not removing them from the game.

I ran 24 with a master, now I'll run 12 without one. They are still better at absorbing smite than kabalites.

In other news, I have 18 spare flocks of anyone wants some

Maybe they will reduce the points later on. Right now they want to flight a certain habit. And they succeeded. Even successful in terms of reducing flyer spam I guess.

But it is Poor Game Design.

And this is an atrocious precedent for future.

Meanwhile Genestealers are rolling their eyes..

Why precedent? It's not like you can sue them to reduce the points of a model. It's Their game. If you don't like it, make up your own rules and organize a tournament.

I think it's good to see that They are trying to address problems. That is what we all cried for for Many Many years. And still people aren't happy.
What a messed up world. Can't people just admit that They don't like a certain change because it's ruining their idea of an army with which they just want to win and not have fun? (And don't even care if the models are only half painted)

CptMetal wrote:

Maybe they will reduce the points later on. Right now they want to flight a certain habit. And they succeeded. Even successful in terms of reducing flyer spam I guess.

I agree. Its a slap in the face to those who abused spam lists despite the warnings they made in media. Both Flyer changes and Flocks steep price. And a final warning to all others.

As Count said - may be too steep, but with this frequency of updates I expect them get a bit less in time. +1 in my book for GW.

@Some others: It may or may not be a poor game design, but stop fooling yourself thinking you could do better or that those "competent people" you wish for would make a game to your liking. There will always be people calling the rules' authors incompetent, poor design and it is downright shortsighted and dare I say arrogant to even consider the possibility of being that much better than current rules' authors to KNOW what is and what is not a bad game design. There is a great difference between saying "I do not like these rules" or "I think its bad game design" than simply saying that "It IS a bad game design".

Had to say it.

Let's make a bet: all those that don't like it and think they can do better can establish a gaming system that gets adopted all over the world. Create your own one or modify the current one for your use. If the majority of tournaments use it you win.

Otherwise you're just trolls.

CptMetal wrote:

Let's make a bet: all those that don't like it and think they can do better can establish a gaming system that gets adopted all over the world. Create your own one or modify the current one for your use. If the majority of tournaments use it you win.

Otherwise you're just trolls.

Well. I have to say that would be bit unfair without the decades of promotions and fluff and all that is connected with the brand.

Establishing an internationally accepted tournament modification system to 8th or 7th would be enough for me. Even a clear local win of that system would be some measure of success.

The problem is that exact thing has already been done (MANY times) in 40k. Without an officially sanctioned competition governing body, the community has been forced to create they own, which they have.

That doesn't invalidate the sentiment that this is work GW should be doing on their own.

aurynn wrote:

CptMetal wrote:

Let's make a bet: all those that don't like it and think they can do better can establish a gaming system that gets adopted all over the world. Create your own one or modify the current one for your use. If the majority of tournaments use it you win.

Otherwise you're just trolls.

Well. I have to say that would be bit unfair without the decades of promotions and fluff and all that is connected with the brand.

Establishing an internationally accepted tournament modification system to 8th or 7th would be enough for me. Even a clear local win of that system would be some measure of success.

You are right. That would be enough. So all those people that now better: establish your modification in your area, proof it and you are entitled to all comments saying you can do better.

The rest belongs here:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t15470-rant-about-gw-and-play-testers

The problem is not "updating and FAQ'ing" the game. Like its "WAOW" they finally do WHAT they were supposed to do...I can't understand people claiming that "GW" is so good as they are just doing "normal" stuff for a world leader and even...less than a world leader on a market...

This issue with Flocks is just a part of the issue, they have to make a larger update on point cost in a whole "view" not only on one unit. If Flocks where the only "undercosted units" that was reported...

Brimstone Horrors, Pink/Blue whatever color, Conscripts and Commissars, Orks, Other swarms, Imperium Keyword, Characters spam like Culexus /Assassins, Guilliman, Celestine etc etc... All those are undercosted and overpowered in the current game. This could have been addressed before the game was released just by a 1 week testing of all armies (or a reading through from correct testers). These issues were pin-pointed even when scans were out before the game.

Now, you have people that bought indexes and rulebook that are after 1 Month completely obsolete. What will they do ? Buy the digital one for updates ? In my company, we would be apologizing to our customers that we released such a bugged, messed software otherwise we would lose so many professional customers. Fortunately, GW have fanboys and people that do not like professionnal companies apparently. I then believe that the people buying their miniatures are not the gamers...

I do NOT agree with people that states it is good to update frequently. This game was supposed to be tested 2 and 1/2 years, not tested after release and it WAS not tested at all. I almost conclude that they believe AoS was the pre-prod testing. The current FAQ is a mess (have you seen the FAQ for the space wolves...its a shame and so unprofessional and I am not talking about the rest). These rulebook and indexes have not been read twice by the designers, its not possible...They just throwed a piece of garbage to the head of the players, expecting them to trust "the new GW"...

Personally, I do not care about flocks as I do not play them nor do I allow more than more than 2 same unit in my games except troops.

I think what some people are missing is that complaining about GW's inability to balance rules has been an integral part of the 40k hobby for decades. You can't expect us to give it up overnight. I think there were even White Dwarf articles on how to properly complain back in the early 2000s. True story.

Regarding flocks, the fly keyword is what still makes them useful in my books. I never expected them to actually deal considerable damage to anything above T3, but being able to jump over models on the charge/pile in/consolidate lets you surround stuff easily and hop over weakened screens to tag the shooty stuff hiding behind (or tag things you don't want counter charging your other units assaulting).

Their first and foremost goal appears to be stamping out NPE. By their own statement released alongside the latest FAQ, they looked at tournaments and based their changes on what was perceived as disruptive. Most notably, then, bird and flier spam.

Bird-spam being NPE was not just a problem, for some it was an outright selling point.

Judging by their current methodology for patching the game, we could extrapolate and suggest that they will probably continue to focus on getting rid of NPE in Matched Play games, using tournament data to do so. Game balance is likely to be a secondary concern to play experience until after all the codices have been released.

Are they doing everything exactly like I'd do it? Not remotely.
Are they doing a way better job than they've been doing for the last 5 years? Unquestionably.
Can one praise improvement while still acknowledging that it's not yet sufficient and the upward trend needs to continue? I believe so.

As for flocks themselves, they still seem a solid way to fill out a brigade's FA slots and provide some DS/T1 Charge protection in the bargain. "Ability to fill a brigade with pure codex" will become fairly important for most armies once their codices drop and they get more uses for the extra CP, and Razorwing Flocks still give us one of the game's cheapest FA slots. It's just not a 21 point tax for 3 slots, nor a "150 bases of nothing but this" unit, anymore.

I have no issue with people expressing their opinion here. But some of it is formulated like universal truth with hints of all other opinions being invalid to say it mildly. And some is directly derailing other peoples' work. And that is where the issues start for me. Its as if I were saying that people in the store are dumb for not organizing goods where I like them... But Count is right that we denizens should not be the ones to moderate... or express our opinion on the matter... otherwise we would do just what we criticise.

aurynn wrote:

I have no issue with people expressing their opinion here. But some of it is formulated like universal truth with hints of all other opinions being invalid to say it mildly.

I mean you gotta expect a certain amount of ego in a thread about how big our flocks are.

The only worse thing that could have happened to razorwing flocks in the FAQ would have been "erratum : the razorwing flocks no longer exist. Erase that entry from your indexes". And we all know that FAQ would have never happened if the razorwings spammer bought their models in the GW franchise. Which would have required to GW bothered to not sell a 7pts model individually, roughly 16 bucks a model.
So here it is :
- GW doesn't care about DE, and continues to sell a 16 bucks razorwing, although it makes as much sense as a 16 bucks resin Gretchin.
- 8th edition arrives, and they buff the Razorwing flocks hoping to sell more of those overpriced resin models.
- People find a cheap alternative that doesn't obligate you to sell your kidney to build an army, and start spamming Razorwings (just like everyone in 8th edition is spamming everything)
- GW realises "Oh crap, we are not making money out of this unit".
- GW removes the Razorwings from the game.

At what point are they acting like game designers that care about balance ?
They are building and shaping the game to maximize models sales. It's not about being incompetent, it's about being a fraud