Insufficient firepower?

With the latest chaos codex we get the new, improved obliterator. 65 points for deep striking assault 4 guns on a very durable platform. Functionally not dissimilar to 4 shot blasters with enhanced range.

The firepower of a whole squad of blasterborn on one model, and they come in squads of 3, with 3 wounds and 2+5++. And while they are slower than us, they have better range and can deep strike, so will be getting the required shots where and when needed without risk of being shot down.

While I do not begrudge Chaos the boost, it does highlight how badly we are falling behind on the firepower front.

Just part of being an amazing army with amazing lore but little love...

I was surprised that Blasters only got d3 wounds (since they used to differ from Dark Lances only in range and being Assault instead of Heavy).

That aside, there does seem to be a concerning amount of power-creep happening with the new codices.
- New strategies (Fine.)
- Artefacts (Okay . . . but why are they free?)
- Chapter Tactics (Again, why are these free?)
- Point drops and/or buffs virtually across the board (Sigh.)

I think it's creating too much of a gap between the factions that have codices and the ones that don't.

Wait what?! They're free? The f*%$?!

I used to play a multitude of armies, smurfs on of them. But I was bored of 'em so I got rid. So I've paid little attention.

They're not completely free - you have to buy the weapon that they replace. So if it says "This relic replaces a thunderhammer" you still have to pay 25 points or whatever for the thunder hammer.

It does sound like gw reverting to their old ways.
To be honest I got back in to this hobby because gw was meant to have given the finger to the old ways and become more player centric.
Things like updating the FAQs regularly, helped to reinforce this aspect for me, however power creep very much flies in the face of this. The alteration of points was meant to occur during in the FAQs at about once a year levels. But understandly with the rapid releases of codicies this may be not nearly enough. We are only a couple of months in to these codicies, how is there enough time to play test these rules, collate feedback and reduce point costs (notice how I didn't say raise). And then get the new rules printed and distributed?

They would have to have these ready to go prior to release me thinks. And power creep plus this rankles my nose like old gw

*rant about gw balancing roved*

Not certain if it can work, but that Slaaneshi strategy that lets a unit shoot twice in one turn potentially combines with a squad that basically gets 12 blaster shots (meaning they can deep strike and get 24 blaster-equivalent shots out of a 3 man squad).

Here's the thing. We are an alpha strike army, we need firepower because we cannot take it if the enemy lives long enough to shoot back. Right now, our speed is okay but middling (lack of special options like deep strike, and our vehicles are fast but outclassed by other armies), and our melee is... underwhelming, for the most part. There are exceptions to this, but not enough for us to build an army around. That leaves us with shooting as our primary option for dealing damage. A Ravager is getting outclassed by a predator in their AV loadouts (4 lascannons vs 3 DL, with the former having better range and strength at the cost of 1 AP), not to mention other tanks (Or even some transports, like a BL/SC Wave Serpent). Lack of Squadrons hurts us more than most due to our HQ options being a tax, making compensating for lack of individual firepower with number of units even less viable than high points costs already make it.

Add to that the lack of force multipliers and it just gets worse. A termie chaos lord can deep strike with his obilitorator buddies and give that initial 12/24 shots rerolling 1's. Abaddon can give them rerolling hits. Then he can charge in with his big-ass melee weapon and chop up whatever's left standing. Rerolling 1's is not a trivial buff for that many shots!

Our codex had better be damn good. At this rate any Codex vs Index fight is going to be like playing DE 7th Edition.

Addendum. With Warp Time a Chaos Land Raider full of berserkers can move 24" a turn, while firing all its guns at full effect. That can be 4 lascannons, 2 heavy bolters, 2 combibolters, and a havoc launcher.

Have fun with that!

tonytastey wrote:

They're not completely free - you have to buy the weapon that they replace. So if it says "This relic replaces a thunderhammer" you still have to pay 25 points or whatever for the thunder hammer.

Even then it's still a free upgrade for that weapon.

And many relics don't have that requirement to begin with.

Well looks like we're back where we were ;(

URIEN wrote:

Well looks like we're back where we were ;(

Well, not quite. Some of our shooty options may be overpriced, but at least they're still effective - which is more than could be said for them in 7th. Our melee is rather less well off but that's basically par for the course with our army.

Also, so far I don't think we've seen anything in other codices that even come close to the level of stuff in 7th. So at least we're not facing Invisible Super Heavies, Wraithknights Scatterbikes etc..

...

Man, it feels weird to be the voice of optimism.

There's clearly going to be a gap between the codex armies and the index armies. I'll be willing to bet that we are not one of the 10 codexes that is scheduled to drop this year so we'd better come up with some decent strategies for dealing with stratagems etc in the meantime.

Aye I know what you're saying there me oad, but my thoughts are in line with Count Adhemar here. We'll end up struggling again and those that don't know us will be in for a surprise, which is always funny XD I'm still gonna play them either way, they're my fav' army and I got by fine with the last two codices.

Our gun boat can move and shoot without penalty whereas the predator only hits on 4+ when it moves.
But I must admit that 65 points for an Obliterator is quite amazing.
Keep in mind that this codex brings them in line with loyal space Marines power wise. So until now they are doing a good job of balancing.

We will have to wait for a lot more of the codecies to come out and compare/contrast them to truly determine whether or not balance is tossed out or not, with only 3 codecies out at the moment it's hard to say how each army will stand when every army has one. At the very least they are aligning the rules closer to the armies fluff then they have before so we might actually have some fun little tricks to look forward to.

Are the 3 Codexes out now at least feeling like they're around similar power level?

CptMetal wrote:

But I must admit that 65 points for an Obliterator is quite amazing.

Yeah, randomness only goes so far.

CptMetal wrote:

Keep in mind that this codex brings them in line with loyal space Marines power wise. So until now they are doing a good job of balancing.

That's not much comfort for armies that won't have their own codex for months and are stuck playing against codex armies with a ton of free buffs for that period.

But then, maybe I'm just bitter because the only thing on the horizon at the moment is marines.

- Space Marines. Sure, why not.
- Chaos Space Marines. Okay, I guess it makes sense to do SM's biggest nemesis next.
- Grey Knights. Could you not have maybe released even one Xeno book before giving a full codex to Shiny Marines? I'd question whether these guys even need their own codex to begin with.
- Death Guard. Seriously? Could you not have just put these guys in the sodding CSM codex? You managed it in the index.

At least it's being strongly rumoured that Tau, AdMech and Guard will be relatively soon, ending the slew of power armour. The Guard codex will be an interesting one to keep an eye on as they've been strongest list out there so far.

I'd also say that the stated intent of getting all codecies out by the end of next year is a vast imrpovement on the previous wait 10 years and pray for a codex model employed.

As long as they end up being comparable in terms of power then I think it's okay to wait a year or so for all codexes to come out but in the meantime we're almost inevitably going to see some serious imbalance between the haves and the have nots.

Tau, 4+ normal guys, 3+ for suits is still close to power armour

Jeah the waiting time is much better, but it also means that in a year time I feel like I just wasted a 100 euro... Expecially since there is quite a power difference between the books and the index. If they would have made a free digital version I think that is ok. Now we wasted 100 euro for something that while getting us by for a year is UP compared to all the people who already have their book.

But there was a free digital version. ..
*hint hint*

Yeah, I think the indexes really should have been free digital releases like the AoS rules.

Another thing that hurts us is that now there's no facings, our vehicle speed is less valuable than it used to be.
Combine that with other armies getting faster, and...

Yeah why are so many other tanks and such nearly as fast as we are?

It's not just tanks. GW has basically just given Rising Crescendo to every Renegade Space Marine for, erm...reasons! So now a Power Armoured Chaos Space Marine moves 6", advances D6" and charges 2D6" for an average move of 16.5", compared to our 7-8" move and 2d6" charge (14-15" average).