The Seven Deadly Sins of Warhammer Unit Rules Design
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ย. 2024
- -a unit with no role to play
-a unit which cannot perform the role it is given
-a unit which competes with another, superior unit, for the same role
-a unit which does not benefit from the rules it should
-a unit with too many restrictions
-a unit which is too hard to utilise
-a unit which breaks the meta
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-a unit with no role to play
-a unit which cannot perform the role it is given
-a unit which competes with another, superior unit, for the same role
-a unit which does not benefit from the rules it should
-a unit with too many restrictions
-a unit which is too hard to utilise
-a unit which breaks the meta
Kind of a symptom of so many Legions, with so many Marine units. Lazyness definitely allows it.
"a unit with too many restrictions" that sums up my feeling on characters in 10th edition 40k where every character as a small list of units it can join.
10th is not warhammer
10ed 40k is basically 40k for people who have never played 40k before. For better and worse, a lot of the cutting and simplifying in 10ed was done to increase accessibility and reduce the choices presented and the required knowledgebase to utilize them.
Good for new people, bad for anyone with more than a couple of games under their belt.
@@spnked9516 I love the 10th edition system in relationship to the 7 deadly sins of warhammer unit rules design.
The elimination of many wargear options and granular points allows me to focus in on the unit roles a lot more and think about the entire army and how it will work on the battlefield. Perhaps many more experienced players are already operating at this level even with the minutiae of HH or earlier editions of 40k.
Is it "40k is for children" or is it "the barrier to meaningful gameplay has been lowered"? I like the sound of the latter.
My gaming group all picked up age of darkness after falling in love with the HH setting but we just play 40k with the models. Many elements of the game have been abstracted away enough that doing this feels fine. The game gets much more regular updates and feels less broken.
The social contract that exists between 40k fans and GW feels much more serviceable than the much rougher rider of the 30k fans. This of course comes at a price (grimderp slop produced by the company, WAAC "competitive" social influence on game updates, codexes invalidated in weeks, models getting deleted from the game, unit compositions becoming illegal). But on balance, up to this point, I will take that over the HH experience.
This is all to be caveated with - 90% of the games are with the same group of guys, which is the greatest determining factor to having a good time.
@spnked9516 yeah but the problem is that 40k is still just as inaccessible due to the prohibitive cost of the products and lack of stock so fundamentally making an edition to try and get new people into the game doesn't matter if the kits cost to much and you cannot buy anything.
@@colinbielat8558 I agree, 100%.
In my opinion, GW is only about another $10-$20 price increase away from crashing their market. I don't believe the average consumer will tolerate $100 price tag on a box of set baseline infantry - and we're already dangerously close to that point as is.
The foundational problem is that everything GW does is driven by its shareholders, not the actual realities of the the business or the market. GW only conceptualizes in quarters and it causes them to make bad long-term decisions. They pump prices to make more money... but that kneecaps consumer investment. They're releasing more new models than ever to drive sales... but they don't have the production capacity maintain existing lines because they haven't invested in expanding it.
GW properties are bigger than they've ever been, and they could be a lot bigger, but GWs lack of investment and cultivation has actively stimmed them from capitalizing on all the hardwork and good faith videogames and TH-cam have provided them with.
I agree with your points. I would add that chess, the OG wargame, has never had any changes to its rules or points cost. 😅
Well... ackshually... chess rules have had many updates. 2 square motion of pawns, enpassant, queen movement rules, pawn promotion rules, stalemate rules, have all changed. The stalemate rules changed as recently as of 2001.
Yes, thats pedantry of the highest order. And those rules have been changed over near a millennium of time. And I agree with the sentiment of your original statement. But....
Ackshually...
@nobodyimportant5417 LMAO 🤣. You have made my day! You have shown me that I need to work on my sarcasm.
Importantly, chess has also hugely changed in terms of play in the past 30 years and for the same reasons as other wargames - People can play much more and communicate much more about their play.
It hasn't been "broken" because its very hard to break symmetrical games, but we've reached a point where we now know that black is definitively weaker, its just not clear what we can do about that.
Rules are like building. You need solid foundation, then a good structure on the top of it with enough room to allow functionality and decoration.
But, for 40k, I feel that GW writes a very narrow foundation and expect the "decoration" to compensate.
nu40k system is like a simple house, more "traditional" systems like HH could be considered closer to a stadium or skyscraper.
I think thats fine, the game should only be as complex as it needs to be. Once I have immersed myself in background, decided on a faction, chosen which units I like and want to paint, bought, built, painted, put into a list and transported to mates house who has done the same AND prepared a table of terrain and snack theres only so far the game needs to go to complete the hobby experience. I guess it just needs to make me want to go round again.
Gw sets a foundation, it's called the edition, then makes army rules to compensate for the foundation's cracks, and then pours a new foundation for the next edition
Literally had this argument last night, I keep saying dreadnought are OP, his only retart was that there where point efficient and "can be killed".
By that logic a titan is point efficient and can be killed
honestly, for their points a Titan is probably better balanced than Contemptors are.
But contemptors can be killed. I agree with his video and his points, but melta & S8 AP2 weapons can absolutely lay it low, and do it fast
Never played a hh game but im trying to get my head around the rules. The AoD book itself is a nightmare. Ex; Hereticus X unit have rules 123&4. Info about the Rules 1234 is found in AOD book and hereticus. Or worse siege of cunt were you are flipping tree books for one unit plus FAQs snd pdd:s.. Thats ONE unit. If I ever start to play i will make a PDF of my units or something for thats just a warning sign that reads mental burnout.
Ty for good vid. Keep em commin
Similar to my experience, easier to figure out appropriate 40k proxies for your dudes and play that. It still takes 3 hours, it still depends heavily on dice, its still won by knowing what units your units should avoid and engage with.
I’ve been thinking on this for a while but realistically after the passing of Alan Bligh it was a slow change and lack of care creeping into the Horus Heresy.
I was reading through the old Black book and you can definitely feel the difference in the writing of rules and balancing of lore with that of tabletop.
I'm convinced that the "play testing" that GW runs for their games takes place in a computer simulation. That way all these convoluted rules will work as they aren't forgotten by the players or just ignored so as to save time not having to pick up a book to read out the meaning of a rule.
Nah. It is at the studio where the GW guys play beer & pretzel games with narrative being the focus.
I would argue that the special legion terminators (at least the ones you'd actually want to take) are generally kept in check by their cost. Legion specific terminators are often around 65 points a model for something like kitted out Firedrakes, Justaerin, Sekhmet, or Varagyr, and you generally do want to spend that little extra on them to take full advantage of their capabilities. A Cataphractii model with a Thunder Hammer is 45 points, and not generally worth spending more than that on. The problems with special terminators come when they are cheap, like Knights Cenobium or Dominators.
The problem is if the unit universally will trade well for its cost, it’s still invalidating.
In the case of Legion Termies you pretty much always will find the points cus it’s worth it. Thats the issue.
@@NotQuiteAllHere Not necessarily. In addition to cost, you can't just spam something like Firedrakes regardless of how good they are because they are non-scoring heavy infantry. I've seen plenty of games where WS5 Cataphractii terminators have their transport immobilized or blown up turn one and accomplish almost nothing as they spend the next 4 turns just trying to catch something.
@@DeusExMachina10001 Not making myself clear. What I mean is between a unit of Legion specific Termies vs Generics, it’s almost always worth it to find the points as they’ll be better at doing the same job and earn their points back assuming both units get to the fight.
Sure, both can get bogged down but thats a weakness both have.
@@NotQuiteAllHere That's true for the specifics vs normal termies for sure. Problem is that the specifics are generally supposed to be the elite 1st company so I can understand them being a better unit. I think the remedy to that might be something like restricting the number of units of said terminators that you are allowed to take per 1k points, kinda like the unspoken rule that if you bring more than 1 Dreadnought per 1k points you're an asshole.
I think you got it pretty spot on with this video. I am a Game Design student in college right now and one of my classes is about designing board games. You were absolutely correct when you said that some things require vigorous play testing to figure out and balance, but somethings you can tell just when you read them. Things like the Legion Stormlord being 650pts BS 4 with 20 Transport Capacity and the Solar Aux Stormlord being BS3 with 10 Transport Capacity ALSO for 650pts should not be in a game. You end up with tons of situations where the existence of one unit makes another completely obsolete so it is very clear that the rules writes at GW do not even try to compare the units they make to other units when writing rules.
You forgot another major sin:
A unit being overpriced and being subjected to FOMO.
IMHO, there are some basic rules to unit design (these are in order). 1st rule: Does it add something new, something missing that was NOT intentional or some flavor. If none of these are a yes, then the unit should not be made. 2nd: can the task\effect be accomplished using general rules? If not, can it be explained quickly? If not, it needs to be redone. 3rd: Is the unit differentiated from other units? If not, then it needs to be redone. Just using these three basic steps will not make a game perfect but most of the 7 deadly sins can be avoided using these steps. And yes, as someone with game design experience, I fully endorse general rules. It makes the game a lot easier to play and interact with. Do I think GW takes any of this onboard? Well, as a veteran from 2nd Ed 40K onwards, no. GW doesn't listen to their community.... although they do act a lot less like it. Nice vid Macca, thanks for sharing your honest opinion.
No salt for Atrementar? Fully agreed on all points.
Now, time for the salt on Shattered Legions. I don't even play Shattered Legions, but I'm still horrified by their rules. Let the salt flow, Macca.
The Mor Deythan actually don’t have infiltrate innately. Figure that out…
They also get 6+ shrouded from raven gaurd legion trait.
"a unit which cannot perform the role it is given" is the worst in my opinion. Sure broken units make for unfun games but we had those in HH1.0 and you just limited yourself. What is far worse is all the units which are cool but utterly useless in this edition. Bikes, Jetbikes, Landspeeders, most flyers, most tanks, all artillery, entire factions that aren't marines etc etc etc. That is what really breaks the game and the edition as a whole for me.
legion veterans check several boxes,
overpriced, no defined role, competes with way better units, hard to build anything useful out of them, cant use legion specific stuff well.
a weird unit, it should be a kind of premium troop choice with more options, and they come with ws5 but terminators dont
They needed a rule that let's them choose Stat improvements instead of forcing all of them to be WS5. A lot of legions would love BS5 or higher leadership vets.
They have their uses, especially in legions without a power armoured dedicated melee unit such as AL or IW. But as an EC player I see no real use for them. More flexibility would really be appreciated, really liked how they worked last edition!
The killer for Veterans is that the game has a pretty hard line between terminators and everything else. A dedicated melee unit that cannot fight terminators is a unit searching for a purpose. And they aren't even a proper mincing machine against power armour. Yes, they will win against tacticals and such, but tactical marines cost half the points. You really don't want to be charging anything with heavy weapons because they can kill you as you charge in. So what are you charging exactly?
@@lostalone9320 the binary save system is pretty bad IMO. It's essentially 2+ or don't bother, which means the only viable AP is 2 or 1.
@@LeopoldZ yeah, heresy has all the problems 40k had since 3rd edition. having a ap system which deletes saves entirely is impossible to balance, every weapon design needs to consider the whole game. with ap as a modifier all the problems would be gone, yet others will occur.
One of the more egregious things that got me into 40k originally was blood of baal 3d6 charges from deep strike. But nobody holds it against me because of iron hands.
I don’t mind units that are priced differently between different codices **if** it’s partially lore or or because one codex has stronger rules for that unit.
It doesn't even need to be about rules, its simply about list balancing and using some finesse. Almost all lists/rites put a lot of emphasis on specific units, but those units come at the same points cost as the core list where they are not the focus. It seems very unlikely that the "correct" cost is exactly the same in a list where you take 5 units and a list where you take 1. Just nudging the points cost one way or another can help to make underpowered lists more reasonable, and make busted ones less flexible.
Internally, Red Hand Destroyers verses Rampagers stands out for WE, and Red Butchers in violate several.
NL Terminators too.
Ive played GW games for 29 years, its fairly easy to work out if a unit *should* be good or not when compared to other units in the same list. I am not sure what role Destroyers are supposed to do mind, they can kill tanks in combat and thats about it. Something that you really dont need to do in melee. Far too expensive for shooting attacks and get smashed by dreadnoughts in melee which is ideally what I would like to use them for with the meltabombs they come with.
They add a layer of punch and tactical depth to infantry gunlines, but yeah they really should be able to take a heavier squad with more heavier weapons like a destroyer support squad
Nicely summarized. Applicable examples.
Good video! Though i think sin 1,4 and 7 are sort of the same, just from different perspectives. I dont really mind legion specific units being better than their basic counterparts, it's nice to see them on the table. Legion veterans being better than say palatine blades would suck.
Contemptors and HSS outcompeting all other units in defense and offence respectively is a real problem though, they make so many other units pretty redundant :(
Need the rules designers who did Blood Bowl 2020 to write the rules for HH. They seem pretty balanced for the most part and stick to a fluffy feel.
I don't think that there is such a thing as a unit with no role to play (except possibly the Tarantula). Everything has some role, and your example of inductii seems to be more correctly a fusion of "hard to utilize" and "competes with another, superior unit". In exchange, I would submit "a unit whose cost (in points or slot) is excessive compared to its role". The game is full of units that are fairly priced in terms of technical performance, or that compete extremely well with another unit in that role, but that have some cost disproportionate to that role. Many power/artificer armor melee units fall into this category. Legion command squads, Palatine Blades, Templar Brethren, Night Raptors, Red Butchers, Khenetai Occult, and a few others are capable of killing absolutely horrendous numbers of regular dudes guys, and seem to be built largely for this role. They also do so rather points efficiently, with most of those units being composed of 20-30 point models, each capable of making their points back in a single assault phase with minimal or zero losses. Unfortunately, nobody needs to kill 30 power armor bodies in a single assault phase with a single unit, and so the points cost isn't justifiable in many cases, even if it is technically efficient to do so. I think that plasma squads tend to fall into this category, as well. They're actually pretty decent and very fairly costed in terms of ability to make back points on a per-model basis. Their problem is that "murder every single tactical marine on the board" is not a role worth their points cost.
I think that you also missed "fills a role that doesn't actually exist". This is not the same as lacking a role to play, and I'll give an example: the Sicaran Battle Tank. It's obviously for killing light vehicles. It's a giant autocannon; what else would it be for? Its problem isn't that it doesn't have a role, or that it's meaningfully out-competed (though, in truth, it does compare poorly to the auto/las predator), or that it's unable to perform that role. Its problem is that there are like three(ish) light vehicles in the game. If dreadnoughts, speeders, and Javelins still AV,, the Sicaran would still have value, even without its anti-jink rules from before. It might lose out to more efficient units, but you wouldn't feel stupid for taking one, as it would at least be able to execute its given role reliably and somewhat efficiently. I think that the quad mortar falls into this category, too. It absolutely ruins light infantry and does so more efficiently, more safely, and more effectively than pretty much anything in its class. You can even take three of them in a unit for maximum stomping. That would be very valuable if more than one army was even capable of having a 5+ armor save, or if bolters (which are still generally less efficient per point and per unit) weren't good enough and already on the table.
What about 'a unit given overpowered rules for its initial sales window, then nerfed into oblivion when GW moves on to the next new shiny it wants to sell'...
Making a unit based off of modern designs.
Making a unit based off the latest fad game.
Making a unit over powerd for point cost, under powered for money cost just to exploit a paw2win system and right before the nerf/sold-out to get that FOMO demand.
What gets me is they are doing beta Harmon for legions imperialis too
The contemptor dreadnought looks gorgeous? Ehhh..
I really think the reason we end up with so many of these sins happening is because GW just flatly refuses to make genuinely separate army lists. And that really does hurt the game. Instead of having these weird modular rites that go on top of the core list, we should have genuinely separate army lists where points values and unit slots and availability can all be finessed to get a good balance.
A perfect example of two units competing for the same role look at the two ultramarines breacher units the one with axes is far superior to the Power sword unit that being said the Power sword unit in my opinion is far more fluffy if I were to build an ultramarines army based around these units since they all have line I would take one of the acts units as the command unit and then take the rest of the sword units as the basic troops. Mechanically I would be shooting myself in the foot thematically however I feel it's appropriate
I'll also say that adding more rules to the faction and to the units don't make a game more interesting. It makes it more bloated.
Two examples off the top of my head.
1. Units that are easily hard countered. Wathammer Fantasy has historically had an issue with dragon units. Theoretically, OP as hell, buy all it took was one lucky cannon shot, failed ward save, and high damage roll, and your dragon was dead. Maybe acceptable on a 200 pt unit. On a 500 pt unit that's your general? Never.
2. Units with unmodifiable 2+ Armour saves. Really, a 2+ is such a mathematical step up over a simple 3+ in a d6 system, so such Armour saves should be avoided like the plague in design. It effectively halves damage going into that unit, necessitating any unit hoping to damage, to have some way of modifying or taking away that save. Units like this are so scary, they inevitably dominate the meta, and lists are built around them, and having the tools to kill them. If you must give a unit this Armour save, it should have a particular set of downsides, or it should be relatively easy to modify the Armour save of the unit.
Yap level today: 100
Atramentar.