Before you cast final judgment, have you considered replacing those weak, fleshy parts of your mind that harbor doubt with cybernetic parts and iron-clad faith in the Omnissiah? Statistically speaking it’s the right move 65% of the time.
Also, Dark Angels may be at the lower end of those graphs, before but I assure you that it’s only in pursuit of the Fallen who are suspiciously absent .
Sitting here looking at this bad dude, and wondering to myself just how hard it would be to convert him to Blood Ravens.
Actually, I half have it in mind to just paint them normal, no conversions, and have the "real" paint job peeking out at the edges of the armor. The idea being that my Blood Ravens got the armor and hastily painted their own color scheme over the original Dark Angels'.
Giving him a Jump Pack, maybe an old one if I can find a MK2 Legion one, would make for an excellent addition to a Kill Team, actually, as a Vet Sergeant Combat Specialist with Relic Blade and Jump Pack / Storm Shield.
+5
Options
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
Astra militarum preview is up. Custom doctrines, new stratagems and tank aces, basically warlord traits for tanks. One of those lets a super heavy use the army's doctrines.
A doctrine for vehicles that repairs 1 point of damage on a 2+ every turn or d3 on a 5+ send pretty good.
One of the old 7th ed homebrew rulesets I found for full size Apocalypse games is that all units come in off of their table edge instead of starting the game already deployed, and they go in waves - On turn 1 it's only infantry and anything that had the Scout special rule, turn 2 was regular sized vehicles and fliers, and turn 3 was superheavies.
I wonder if something like that would be feasible in normal size games as an alternate way of playing. This way even if you didn't go first your infantry or lighter units would have a turn or two to get into better positions instead of getting blasted off of the table turn 1 by your opponent's Leman Russ parking lot or Repulsors.
There have definitely been times when other armies had the same ridiculous winrates.
There haven't in this edition. Ynnari at their strongest and the Knight/Guard/Smash Captain list did extremely well but not this well, and were also nowhere near as popular.
I think it's just growing pains as the 8th edition shakeup settles. I think the game is in a far better place, currently, than it's been in some time.
Possibly. The primary thing that's frustrating me is that if you go back to summer of 2019, I think the game was very close to an excellent balance spot. There were a couple of strong lists (looking at, e.g., Eldar fliers) but nothing that couldn't easily have been reined in. Then GW decided to blow up the game's balance with a combination of a second extremely strong Codex for the most popular faction in the game, allowing that faction to stack another Codex on the same army, and then introducing a series of rapid-fire updates for every other faction which in some cases would have been seen as absurd prior to the Marine Codex. Will other armies wind up getting reprinted Codexes with supplements in future? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows.
It's the behind the scenes stuff I'm hearing that's really worrying me. Apparently GW really did ignore playtester feedback about Iron Hands, and was even ignoring player feedback after their initial release until one of the guys at Frontline Gaming went through the math with them and convinced them that the supplement needed to be toned down. At LVO some of the game's rules designers saw what some Marine lists were doing, and responded: I didn't know they could do that. That you could combine rules just hadn't occurred to them.
I don't know. I'm frustrated by the state of the game currently, as I thought it had been progressing over time to a state of better balance and all of a sudden it swerved hard. I'll at least give respect to GW for the new version of the Maelstrom rules, as it's actually a really good system and allows for weaker armies to more easily outplay a stronger opponent.
Wouldn’t it help if the games weren’t played at such large point values? A lot of battle reports seem to be at the 2k mark and you can cram in so much firepower. The armies don’t seem that much smaller that some apocalyptic scale ones from previous editions.
A buddy and I are starting AoS next month and are stoked about it. Primarily due to all the rediculous bloat with 40k right now. So many books required, alpha strike shenanigans, way too many overlapping rules interactions spread across like three or four books.
He and I just want to sit down and throw some dice with moderately balanced armies. Neither of us likes having to cross-reference game rules with hundreds of models on the table or play codexes that are too far out of line on the power curve.
I pick up a couple of boxes of primaris stuff, and some used stuff secondhand, around New year's. I played all my grey plastic Marines as iron hands a couple weeks ago to see what the hubbub was about... It wasn't even remotely fun. I absolutely destroyed my buddy and it wasn't satisfying for anyone.
Wouldn’t it help if the games weren’t played at such large point values? A lot of battle reports seem to be at the 2k mark and you can cram in so much firepower. The armies don’t seem that much smaller that some apocalyptic scale ones from previous editions.
I would love it if a 2k game had like 2/3rds of the models on the board that it does now.
Playing my orks or nids during the movement phase is exhausting.
I agree with you Burnage, codex creep has never been as egregious. That being said I was extremely unsatisfied with most of the rules released up until this point. The internal balance of most codexes was pretty bad imo. Lots of elite or otherwise unique choices requiring stratagems to use their special abilities (if this was even an option) felt like being punished for taking them over boring but statistically more efficient models. That and I think the basic Space Marine unit should be tough in the same way that Sigmarites feel tough. Now that’s more due to the relative power of AoS models more than any special rules, but it’s a good standard to set imo.
I’m pretty curious too about their quality control department. It’s not just game rules but the other non-GW developed games (especially video games) they release. It’s incredibly similar to Lucasfilm in that regard, which reminds me of this infamous quote from Micheal Eisner:
“We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our only objective.”
Certainly the brand is in a much better place than it was in 2015, but at a certain point I don’t think we’re going to get the kind of sweeping change we need unless we as consumers vote with our wallets.
I really hope that 40k slides towards how current apocalypse is set out. Alternating phases, models removed at the end of the round, etc.
I think all the codexes also need better internal balance. Books having units that are unequivocally garbage one page and some that are mandatory picks on the next kinda sucks, especially for new players who might grab something off the shelf because it looks cool.
Wouldn’t it help if the games weren’t played at such large point values? A lot of battle reports seem to be at the 2k mark and you can cram in so much firepower. The armies don’t seem that much smaller that some apocalyptic scale ones from previous editions.
It’s both the weight of firepower available and the amount of buffs you can stack. Adding something like “reroll misses” to “reroll wound rolls of 1” to “+1 to wound” to “hit rolls of 6 produce an additional attack” to a stragagem that doubles that effect and another stratagem that doubles the overall number of attacks you can make... you’re getting something like 3-4x the points value out of your strongest units. The meta of this addition has largely followed the armies that have been able to leverage combos like this.
Certainly some better rules design would go a long way to combating this, but I think the underlying culprit is their business model of selling printed rulebooks. Printed rulebooks shouldn’t have points values, or maybe even data sheets in them: follow the FFG X-Wing Minis (2nd edition) model and publish an app that you as a company can make timely iterative balance changes on. And if you still want to do your codex creep and sell more rulebooks than publish campaign books that focus on different rule sets, but make sure that the content is there for all the various factions.
I think all the codexes also need better internal balance. Books having units that are unequivocally garbage one page and some that are mandatory picks on the next kinda sucks, especially for new players who might grab something off the shelf because it looks cool.
This right here. I want cool models to do cool things beyond just shooting or fighting harder. Things like the interaction between Ravenwing & Deathwing, or something like if Centurians didn’t move they got better armor saves. Just ways to make all the models feel unique and make turn-by-turn tactical choices more interesting and impactful than simply deciphering the priority target and eliminating it before it can attack. And while we’re at it, more differentiation between the different roles in the game. A couple of baseline stratagems for Fast Attack units that emphasis their mobility or shock value or something of that nature. Maybe a way for troop choices to generate CP each turn they hold an objective. Maybe limiting the number of HQ choices you can take to prevent the buff stacking (or making those buffs cost CP) or something like that. I mean, there’s a lot of creative ground that could be covered here: some of it is being covered in other GW games.
I doubt it'll happen (as marines seem to be the start of 8.2 codexes) but I'd like a 9th ed that burns everything down and starts from 0.
I think most of 40k's issues can be traced back to stuff they feel the need to include out of tradition or fear of changing too much, such as marine stats all being 4, i go you go, etc etc.
A buddy and I are starting AoS next month and are stoked about it. Primarily due to all the rediculous bloat with 40k right now. So many books required, alpha strike shenanigans, way too many overlapping rules interactions spread across like three or four books.
He and I just want to sit down and throw some dice with moderately balanced armies. Neither of us likes having to cross-reference game rules with hundreds of models on the table or play codexes that are too far out of line on the power curve.
I pick up a couple of boxes of primaris stuff, and some used stuff secondhand, around New year's. I played all my grey plastic Marines as iron hands a couple weeks ago to see what the hubbub was about... It wasn't even remotely fun. I absolutely destroyed my buddy and it wasn't satisfying for anyone.
Wouldn’t it help if the games weren’t played at such large point values? A lot of battle reports seem to be at the 2k mark and you can cram in so much firepower. The armies don’t seem that much smaller that some apocalyptic scale ones from previous editions.
I would love it if a 2k game had like 2/3rds of the models on the board that it does now.
Playing my orks or nids during the movement phase is exhausting.
There's definitely been a rapid scale creep over the course of this edition. I'm pretty sure my 2k point tournament list from the start of 8th is only about 1500 points now. Toning that back down would certainly reduce lethality a bit.
Wouldn’t it help if the games weren’t played at such large point values? A lot of battle reports seem to be at the 2k mark and you can cram in so much firepower. The armies don’t seem that much smaller that some apocalyptic scale ones from previous editions.
It’s both the weight of firepower available and the amount of buffs you can stack. Adding something like “reroll misses” to “reroll wound rolls of 1” to “+1 to wound” to “hit rolls of 6 produce an additional attack” to a stragagem that doubles that effect and another stratagem that doubles the overall number of attacks you can make... you’re getting something like 3-4x the points value out of your strongest units. The meta of this addition has largely followed the armies that have been able to leverage combos like this.
Certainly some better rules design would go a long way to combating this, but I think the underlying culprit is their business model of selling printed rulebooks. Printed rulebooks shouldn’t have points values, or maybe even data sheets in them: follow the FFG X-Wing Minis (2nd edition) model and publish an app that you as a company can make timely iterative balance changes on. And if you still want to do your codex creep and sell more rulebooks than publish campaign books that focus on different rule sets, but make sure that the content is there for all the various factions.
Loads of these buffs used to be similar to some physic buffs.
I’m not a fan of these aura effects; it just encourages everything to move around in one big blob on the tabletop and it looks dumb.
Maybe units shouldn’t be effected by more than one aura or these kinds of abilities require you to pick one unit. I dunno.
In Killteam all those buffs use command points to activate them for a turn and you get those points on a turn basis (mostly). Something like that also seems preferable to minmaxing detachments for command points, especially when some armies are quite a bit favoured when it comes to that.
It's not just Kill Team that does that, I believe AoS also just gives you a per-turn income of CPs. I think it's been obvious to everyone that's a better model, how can you possibly judge what the CP cost of something should be if players have wildly different CP incomes? The army with cheap troops will be "rich" and simply not care that something costs 2 CP, meanwhile even a legitimately strong strategem priced at 2 CP for Grey Knights or Custodes is a burden. This is also how we get the wildest combos using multiple stacking effects to produce obscene results. Although to be fair this isn't always Strategems, we definitely didn't need Litanies added into the game and Chaos has so many different buffs of varying types it gets pretty stupid.
With regards to the 40k rules team being out of touch, that's something that I, and probably everyone who likes to talk shop about how things should be, have long suspected and it was confirmed in one of the FAQ dev commentaries where their responses included phrases like "we were a bit surprised by this question" to things that players immediately, upon first reading of the text, saw as ridiculous or exploitable.
I'm not at all surprised that these guys would walk around a tournament and be shocked that people stack buffs to explosively increase the power of their units, and someone needs to immediately force them to respond to the questions, "Why do you even pretend to playtest this content?" and "How do rules that are obviously, at first glance, either terrible or incredible even make it past the editing phase, let alone to the playtests you ignore?". I guess it can be summed up as "Do you even still play this game?"
Yeah, AoS gives you 1 cp base plus 1cp per warscroll battalion (detachment with bonuses) at the start of the game, and then 1cp per turn after that. Battalions also cost points in your list. This system seems infinitely better than current 40k where an elite army might start with 8cp or less and a horde army is able to start with 14 cp or more.
I also like that AoS seems to have a stratagem equivalent ability per character/hero plus another few in the book for your army. Not 18 in your main book, three in the core book, three more in chapter approved, another 6-12 in your supplement plus 1-3 in the mission you're playing.... so much rules bloat!
Yeah, AoS gives you 1 cp base plus 1cp per warscroll battalion (detachment with bonuses) at the start of the game, and then 1cp per turn after that. Battalions also cost points in your list. This system seems infinitely better than current 40k where an elite army might start with 8cp or less and a horde army is able to start with 14 cp or more.
I actually disagree. I think CP generation is relatively balanced until you start souping. The idea is that elite Annie's don't need to use a bunch of stratagems, because the base stats/abilities are so much higher, whereas hordes need to use strats to let them punch above their weight and equalize the playing field.
This is a perfectly reasonable game design. The problem is that a lot of the stratagems are designed poorly, and the CP economy is busted when you can use the CP generated by a Guard battalion to fuel stratagems for Knights.
Power creep has also been a major issue throughout the edition, but frankly that's not exactly a new problem for 40k.
That's ridiculous, your proposed CP balance design isn't and never has been true in the game. Not only have cheap units in general been mathematically superior to elite units throughout 8th edition, but there are many elite armies who have their cheap troop units bundled into the same book, and so they can get their bountiful CPs without having to soup. Souping Guard to pay for Knights has never been the issue, in that particular case both the Knights and Guardsmen had great stats respective to their roles.
But the elites are also much more expensive, so you've got more of the weaker models. That's already the balance between elite and horde in theory?
Yes, when things have different resource costs that tends to be how they're balanced in a strategy game!
Good thing every army has 2000 points to spend on their units, can you imagine what if some armies just happened to have more resources than another to spend on critical strategic choices?
So from what I have heard through my grapevine is that 9th is probably coming June. So that will probably cut some of the rules bloat or hopefully will. But don't expect an 8th edition full overhaul. Expect an AoS 2.0 style releases. The base game is the same with changes or new systems added.
I do think that there are a few things they could bring in. Alternating shooting/fight phases would be good with models removed at the end of the phase from Apoc. Shifting CP to a per turn basis and a rebudgeting of stratagems. I love stratagems myself but I think making it so you get 2-3 cp in an army a turn goes a long way to helping balance them also makes them something you use the whole game not just turns 1-2/3.
I think some of the stuff they should do, some I am still shocked they haven't:
1)Make a functional app. Hell put codes in a physical codex to unlock stuff. Make me pay a monthly fee. Whatever. This helps AoS so much. That would be the main source of updated info and rules. I would allow for more sweeping changes if needed. And just help with the book bloat.
2)I think a redo of terrain to make cover and such more useful would help a lot. This helps with the alpha strike issue.
3)Bring back something like night fighting for the first few turns. Halve ranges. Have to spend CP for spotlights on stuff. That type of thing. Also indirect fire needs a nerf. I figure you give it a -1 to hit if there are no friendly units with LoS to the target at a minimum.
4)Limit on stacked abilities. Brandon Grant on Chapter Tactics this week was asked what GW can do to fix marines and so on. And this was his answer. The issue right now you can stack so many modifiers on something you just get deathstars or deathstar armies. Marines get stacked on a AP modifer, a movement or ignore movement penalties modifier, many times a reroll to wound and hit, a to hit modifier verse things, and even sometimes a plus to wound. This is crazy. I am still laughing now about GW taking away the ability to stack special issue ammo and bolter discipline after seeing the marine codex and its stacked rules. But the same can be said for defensive stuff. -4 to hit Lord Discordants, -3 Eldar Flyers, and so on. Actually limiting the number of buffs would help a lot.
+3
Options
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
That's ridiculous, your proposed CP balance design isn't and never has been true in the game.
...Yeah? I don't think I said otherwise.
Not only have cheap units in general been mathematically superior to elite units throughout 8th edition, but there are many elite armies who have their cheap troop units bundled into the same book, and so they can get their bountiful CPs without having to soup.
Outside of conscript spam the meta-warping lists have been almost exclusively based around comparatively few elite models. Eldar flyers/jetbikes, Knights, Demon Princes, now chaplain dreads/executioners.
The only elite army that has cheap troops that you actually way bundled in, off the top of my head, is CSM with cultists, and cultists are more or less a pure points tax. AdMech and Tau fall somewhere in between. SM wants intercessors now as a result of the whole fucking book being broken in half but they're rather the exception.
Souping Guard to pay for Knights has never been the issue, in that particular case both the Knights and Guardsmen had great stats respective to their roles.
No one's excited about taking line infantry squads of Guardsmen. They exist to maybe sit on an objective for a turn, then die.
Posts
65% win rate when you take out the mirror match.
Nice job, GW. The last six months or so have seriously damaged my faith in their ability or willingness to balance the game.
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Dark-Angels-Legion-Praetor-2019
Sitting here looking at this bad dude, and wondering to myself just how hard it would be to convert him to Blood Ravens.
Actually, I half have it in mind to just paint them normal, no conversions, and have the "real" paint job peeking out at the edges of the armor. The idea being that my Blood Ravens got the armor and hastily painted their own color scheme over the original Dark Angels'.
Giving him a Jump Pack, maybe an old one if I can find a MK2 Legion one, would make for an excellent addition to a Kill Team, actually, as a Vet Sergeant Combat Specialist with Relic Blade and Jump Pack / Storm Shield.
good thing they took a fucking sledgehammer to knights, wouldn't want and anti-meq army to be a problem :rotate:
nobody
they get shot to shit because alpha strike is the name of the game
SM lists are infantry focused and taking soup is now extremely not a good idea
A doctrine for vehicles that repairs 1 point of damage on a 2+ every turn or d3 on a 5+ send pretty good.
I was saddened to see Guard stuff considering one of my main opponents is Guard. Ah well.
...
I should start a new Army. New Year, New Army right? I just need a lot more shelves.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I think it's just growing pains as the 8th edition shakeup settles. I think the game is in a far better place, currently, than it's been in some time.
losing a third of your army before you ever get to move is not a great feeling
One of the reasons I really like the rules for apocalypse.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
simultaneous shooting is so much better!
they literally have rules for it in 40k terms
I wonder if something like that would be feasible in normal size games as an alternate way of playing. This way even if you didn't go first your infantry or lighter units would have a turn or two to get into better positions instead of getting blasted off of the table turn 1 by your opponent's Leman Russ parking lot or Repulsors.
There haven't in this edition. Ynnari at their strongest and the Knight/Guard/Smash Captain list did extremely well but not this well, and were also nowhere near as popular.
Possibly. The primary thing that's frustrating me is that if you go back to summer of 2019, I think the game was very close to an excellent balance spot. There were a couple of strong lists (looking at, e.g., Eldar fliers) but nothing that couldn't easily have been reined in. Then GW decided to blow up the game's balance with a combination of a second extremely strong Codex for the most popular faction in the game, allowing that faction to stack another Codex on the same army, and then introducing a series of rapid-fire updates for every other faction which in some cases would have been seen as absurd prior to the Marine Codex. Will other armies wind up getting reprinted Codexes with supplements in future? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows.
It's the behind the scenes stuff I'm hearing that's really worrying me. Apparently GW really did ignore playtester feedback about Iron Hands, and was even ignoring player feedback after their initial release until one of the guys at Frontline Gaming went through the math with them and convinced them that the supplement needed to be toned down. At LVO some of the game's rules designers saw what some Marine lists were doing, and responded: I didn't know they could do that. That you could combine rules just hadn't occurred to them.
I don't know. I'm frustrated by the state of the game currently, as I thought it had been progressing over time to a state of better balance and all of a sudden it swerved hard. I'll at least give respect to GW for the new version of the Maelstrom rules, as it's actually a really good system and allows for weaker armies to more easily outplay a stronger opponent.
He and I just want to sit down and throw some dice with moderately balanced armies. Neither of us likes having to cross-reference game rules with hundreds of models on the table or play codexes that are too far out of line on the power curve.
I pick up a couple of boxes of primaris stuff, and some used stuff secondhand, around New year's. I played all my grey plastic Marines as iron hands a couple weeks ago to see what the hubbub was about... It wasn't even remotely fun. I absolutely destroyed my buddy and it wasn't satisfying for anyone.
I would love it if a 2k game had like 2/3rds of the models on the board that it does now.
Playing my orks or nids during the movement phase is exhausting.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I’m pretty curious too about their quality control department. It’s not just game rules but the other non-GW developed games (especially video games) they release. It’s incredibly similar to Lucasfilm in that regard, which reminds me of this infamous quote from Micheal Eisner:
Certainly the brand is in a much better place than it was in 2015, but at a certain point I don’t think we’re going to get the kind of sweeping change we need unless we as consumers vote with our wallets.
I think all the codexes also need better internal balance. Books having units that are unequivocally garbage one page and some that are mandatory picks on the next kinda sucks, especially for new players who might grab something off the shelf because it looks cool.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
It’s both the weight of firepower available and the amount of buffs you can stack. Adding something like “reroll misses” to “reroll wound rolls of 1” to “+1 to wound” to “hit rolls of 6 produce an additional attack” to a stragagem that doubles that effect and another stratagem that doubles the overall number of attacks you can make... you’re getting something like 3-4x the points value out of your strongest units. The meta of this addition has largely followed the armies that have been able to leverage combos like this.
Certainly some better rules design would go a long way to combating this, but I think the underlying culprit is their business model of selling printed rulebooks. Printed rulebooks shouldn’t have points values, or maybe even data sheets in them: follow the FFG X-Wing Minis (2nd edition) model and publish an app that you as a company can make timely iterative balance changes on. And if you still want to do your codex creep and sell more rulebooks than publish campaign books that focus on different rule sets, but make sure that the content is there for all the various factions.
This right here. I want cool models to do cool things beyond just shooting or fighting harder. Things like the interaction between Ravenwing & Deathwing, or something like if Centurians didn’t move they got better armor saves. Just ways to make all the models feel unique and make turn-by-turn tactical choices more interesting and impactful than simply deciphering the priority target and eliminating it before it can attack. And while we’re at it, more differentiation between the different roles in the game. A couple of baseline stratagems for Fast Attack units that emphasis their mobility or shock value or something of that nature. Maybe a way for troop choices to generate CP each turn they hold an objective. Maybe limiting the number of HQ choices you can take to prevent the buff stacking (or making those buffs cost CP) or something like that. I mean, there’s a lot of creative ground that could be covered here: some of it is being covered in other GW games.
I think most of 40k's issues can be traced back to stuff they feel the need to include out of tradition or fear of changing too much, such as marine stats all being 4, i go you go, etc etc.
There's definitely been a rapid scale creep over the course of this edition. I'm pretty sure my 2k point tournament list from the start of 8th is only about 1500 points now. Toning that back down would certainly reduce lethality a bit.
Loads of these buffs used to be similar to some physic buffs.
I’m not a fan of these aura effects; it just encourages everything to move around in one big blob on the tabletop and it looks dumb.
Maybe units shouldn’t be effected by more than one aura or these kinds of abilities require you to pick one unit. I dunno.
With regards to the 40k rules team being out of touch, that's something that I, and probably everyone who likes to talk shop about how things should be, have long suspected and it was confirmed in one of the FAQ dev commentaries where their responses included phrases like "we were a bit surprised by this question" to things that players immediately, upon first reading of the text, saw as ridiculous or exploitable.
I'm not at all surprised that these guys would walk around a tournament and be shocked that people stack buffs to explosively increase the power of their units, and someone needs to immediately force them to respond to the questions, "Why do you even pretend to playtest this content?" and "How do rules that are obviously, at first glance, either terrible or incredible even make it past the editing phase, let alone to the playtests you ignore?". I guess it can be summed up as "Do you even still play this game?"
I also like that AoS seems to have a stratagem equivalent ability per character/hero plus another few in the book for your army. Not 18 in your main book, three in the core book, three more in chapter approved, another 6-12 in your supplement plus 1-3 in the mission you're playing.... so much rules bloat!
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I actually disagree. I think CP generation is relatively balanced until you start souping. The idea is that elite Annie's don't need to use a bunch of stratagems, because the base stats/abilities are so much higher, whereas hordes need to use strats to let them punch above their weight and equalize the playing field.
This is a perfectly reasonable game design. The problem is that a lot of the stratagems are designed poorly, and the CP economy is busted when you can use the CP generated by a Guard battalion to fuel stratagems for Knights.
Power creep has also been a major issue throughout the edition, but frankly that's not exactly a new problem for 40k.
Yes, when things have different resource costs that tends to be how they're balanced in a strategy game!
Good thing every army has 2000 points to spend on their units, can you imagine what if some armies just happened to have more resources than another to spend on critical strategic choices?
I do think that there are a few things they could bring in. Alternating shooting/fight phases would be good with models removed at the end of the phase from Apoc. Shifting CP to a per turn basis and a rebudgeting of stratagems. I love stratagems myself but I think making it so you get 2-3 cp in an army a turn goes a long way to helping balance them also makes them something you use the whole game not just turns 1-2/3.
I think some of the stuff they should do, some I am still shocked they haven't:
1)Make a functional app. Hell put codes in a physical codex to unlock stuff. Make me pay a monthly fee. Whatever. This helps AoS so much. That would be the main source of updated info and rules. I would allow for more sweeping changes if needed. And just help with the book bloat.
2)I think a redo of terrain to make cover and such more useful would help a lot. This helps with the alpha strike issue.
3)Bring back something like night fighting for the first few turns. Halve ranges. Have to spend CP for spotlights on stuff. That type of thing. Also indirect fire needs a nerf. I figure you give it a -1 to hit if there are no friendly units with LoS to the target at a minimum.
4)Limit on stacked abilities. Brandon Grant on Chapter Tactics this week was asked what GW can do to fix marines and so on. And this was his answer. The issue right now you can stack so many modifiers on something you just get deathstars or deathstar armies. Marines get stacked on a AP modifer, a movement or ignore movement penalties modifier, many times a reroll to wound and hit, a to hit modifier verse things, and even sometimes a plus to wound. This is crazy. I am still laughing now about GW taking away the ability to stack special issue ammo and bolter discipline after seeing the marine codex and its stacked rules. But the same can be said for defensive stuff. -4 to hit Lord Discordants, -3 Eldar Flyers, and so on. Actually limiting the number of buffs would help a lot.
...Yeah? I don't think I said otherwise.
Outside of conscript spam the meta-warping lists have been almost exclusively based around comparatively few elite models. Eldar flyers/jetbikes, Knights, Demon Princes, now chaplain dreads/executioners.
The only elite army that has cheap troops that you actually way bundled in, off the top of my head, is CSM with cultists, and cultists are more or less a pure points tax. AdMech and Tau fall somewhere in between. SM wants intercessors now as a result of the whole fucking book being broken in half but they're rather the exception.
No one's excited about taking line infantry squads of Guardsmen. They exist to maybe sit on an objective for a turn, then die.
"Elite" here means low-model-count units of great strength, not necessarily units belonging to the arbitrary "elites" section of the codex.