Is GW forcing us to play the narrative more than we relize?

[Pyredragon]

Hey guys, so last night I had a kind of crazy thought which often comes to me as I push my broom around at my job. This is a little pants on head crazy I'll admit but I felt it was worth mentioning.

So lets consider all the codex's that have arrived in 6th ed. Now ignoring arguments of how 40k is super grimdark blah,blah they fall into two categories. Forces of Order and Forces of Disorder.

The codex's that favor order, C:SM, DA, Eldar, and Tau are all generally strong books. They have army wide special rules that grant them net benefits and usually don't have many lemons sitting around their army lists allowing for multiple competitive builds.

Now, on the other hand we have the forces of disorder, CSM, Daemons*, and Nids. In comparison these armies often have Army wide drawbacks that hinder them. Their army lists are often filled with units that are not viable and usually only have one or two builds that are competitive.

Could this be done on purpose to encourage these games of 'Good' triumphing over 'Evil'? It's seeming more and more likely, especially as dataslates and now the new knights are all in fairly strong favor of adding superiority to the already strong forces of order.

Just a crazy thought but one that's been gaining more and more traction with me the more I think about it. We'll just have to see what happens with the new Guard when they roll out in a couple of months.

What do you guys think?

( * For the purpose of this argument I'm ignoring Screamstar because that strikes me more as a happy mathhammer accident. )

[Ivarr]

Personally, I think that GW has been infiltrated by aliens bent on world domination...starting with wargamers. Or maybe the U.S. Government is plotting to distract us with petty squabbles while the president sleeps with more interns.

Conspiracy much? And of course anything good with the armies you think are being slighted is a happy accident?

The whole good vs. evil is what makes any game worth playing. The great part of gaming is that you get to chose who's cause you wish to back. That being said, not buying the whole GW is manipulating us thing...aside from obvious business goals, of course.

BTW, really not getting that you listed Dark Angels as one of the best armies?

[Gleipnir]

I think you are giving the developers too much credit if you think they balance the game along lines of the "good guys" always win.

Yes they write the rules to be fluffy and narrative more so than balanced and at times this results in absolute garbage rules and disadvantages, but I don't really see a concerted effort to handicap a "bad guy" so much as provide a narrative element to the rules.

An easy example of this can be seen in the baseline weapon options, Orks and Nids are predominantly armed with Assault weapons encouraging them to be on the move and shooting, Tau and IG rely heavily on Rapid Fire and Heavy weapons encouraging them to use gunlines, Eldar utilize speed and shooting, Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines are more about their armor advantages and higher than average statistics. Obviously these are generalizations but they do demonstrate a design standard.

[bfmusashi]

Considering there's still a rule that lets you determine if a rule exists through dice rolls I think disorder won the day.

[DarkLink]

Phil Kelly has gone on record stating that he hates chaos, so he wrote them crappy books. Except for daemons, which is pretty powerful and has more builds than just the Screamerstar.

[Lexington]

I think the power levels of Order/Disorder is a little more mixed than you give it credit for. The Dark Angels, f'rex, are considered pretty mid-range, and the Space Marines, while generally considered to be solid, are usually seen as a midpoint on the power level chart. Even the Eldar, for all the good in their Codex, are saddled lot of sub-par units - Howling Banshees come to mind. They're just overshadowed by the big name ***-kickers in the book.

I think Gleipnir is on to something when it comes to weaponry. The Disorder books are the ones with more of a close combat bent, and close combat is famously underpowered in 6th Edition.


Phil Kelly has gone on record stating that he hates chaos, so he wrote them crappy books.
Hah. I hope this isn't true. Chaos players worldwide are already rarin' to eat Kelly's brains over the Codex. This might push them over the edge.

[ElectricPaladin]

See, the funny thing is that in the world of Warhammer 40k, the bad guys are supposed to be winning... so no, I think it's just a coincidence. I can't even speak to whether or not the coincidence is real or imaginary, because I don't play any of those factions (I'm a Sisters of Battle, Blood Angels, Tau, and Eldar man who is presently adding Imperial Knights to his collection...).

You'll note, however, that there is a serious flaw to your logic. The Blood Angels have an ancient and tattered old book that barely functions and the Sisters of Battle are still in a terribly lamentable state and I'm still not sure they aren't basically on their way out (keeping them thoroughly back-burnered wouldn't be a half bad way of driving players away until you could squat them with limited backlash).

You may say "but those are all old codices." This isn't entirely true. The Sisters "codex" is quite new. Furthermore, if GW really wanted to keep the good guys strong, why haven't the FAQs done more to keep armies like the Blood Angels and Grey Knights dominant?

So... not only are we not playing in a game where the good guys are designed to win, I don't agree that every "good guy" codex is inherently superior.

It's an interesting observation... but I don't see a lot of support for it.

[Arkhan Land]

I don't think they're specifically working towards a narrative minded setting in a strict sense, but overall the un-ending expansion of the playable universe (models/scenery/rules) expands the greater territory you can physically explore as a warlord of the 41st millennium. Realistically speaking while larger battles speak to the advances in how we play this current edition, If someone from first edition were to have this many armies, models, and vehicles at their disposal I do believe they would s*** themselves with glee. While the size of the bowl has grown a little bit (apocalypse, escalation) there are a good deal more variety of fish inhabiting it.

Now when GW does something narrative-wise (RPGs, Campaigns, Warzones, etc.) It feels like a very full limitless universe where everything needed to explain a storyline is handy and the greatest mysteries are about the origins and fates of single unique characters not vague issues of non-unfiormity among large factions. to this point, kudos to G-dubs

[DarkLink]

Hah. I hope this isn't true. Chaos players worldwide are already rarin' to eat Kelly's brains over the Codex. This might push them over the edge.

I'm not joking. Phil Kelly has literally said (not verbatim) "I don't like Chaos, Dark Eldar should be the true villains of 40k".

[Lexington]

I'm not joking. Phil Kelly has literally said (not verbatim) "I don't like Chaos, Dark Eldar should be the true villains of 40k".
Well, that's...one heck of a thing for him to say. Yikes. Where's that one from?

[SaveModifier]

No, don't be dumb. Thats all that needs to be said really.

[Mr Mystery]

Bit of a leap too.

'I consider Dark Eldar to be the true villains' to 'Dark Eldar should have central stage, so I shall sabotage Chaos at a Codex level'.....

[DarkLink]

Some gamesday interview. And considering how much everyone hates the CSM codex... Phil Kelly's idea of what Chaos is consists of "let's make literally everything in the book roll on a random table".

[deinol]

Some gamesday interview. And considering how much everyone hates the CSM codex... Phil Kelly's idea of what Chaos is consists of "let's make literally everything in the book roll on a random table".

To be fair, that's what a lot of us old school players remember chaos as. Best chaos book ever had a d1000 mutations chart.

[jonsgot]

In the grim dark far future there is only Space Marines and Eldar pee dissing all over the forces of Chaos.

No I don't buy it. Phill wrote a great Nid codex. I still wonder if I should try playing games with it for Lols.
The Nid codex got poo'd on by Crudace, the Chaos Space Marine codex got poo'd on by Gav Thorpe . Ultimatly Jervis over sees and directs and has to be held accountable for the broken codex balance we have. However he wears the fluff as a telflone shirt. Chambers would not have let this mess happen, but I think the game would be worse if someone other than Jervis ran the design team.

Hopefully 7th Ed will fix things like 6th did, until they break it again.

[Mr Mystery]

Andy Chambers let his BFF write the '3.5' Codex, which may have been a beardfest, but contained a great, great many options.

The majority of which were nearly ignored by the player base in favour of the 'moast powarfull optimal configarashun'.....

And people wonder why toys were taken away!

[Lexington]

Phil Kelly's idea of what Chaos is consists of "let's make literally everything in the book roll on a random table".
To be fair to Phil K., this seems to be the overall editorial vision at GW these days, as well as that of 6th Edition 40K. Random charges, random Warlord Tables, random psyker powers, etc...

[John Bower]

To be fair to Phil K., this seems to be the overall editorial vision at GW these days, as well as that of 6th Edition 40K. Random charges, random Warlord Tables, random psyker powers, etc...

You forgot Random Random dice rolls..... :)

[jonsgot]

You forgot Random Random dice rolls..... :)

Sometimes I think we line up our models just to roll dice;)

[daboarder]

Some gamesday interview. And considering how much everyone hates the CSM codex... Phil Kelly's idea of what Chaos is consists of "let's make literally everything in the book roll on a random table".

The dark eldar part is from the DE designer notes when the new book dropped. so yeah what darklink said was printed.

[Gleipnir]

Yet still is being taken out of context

[bfmusashi]

the 'moast powarfull optimal configarashun'.....
This is now what every champion of Chaos I see on the table is yelling from now on.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

for me i know every time i've played a game weather casually or campaign or in a tournament, that i've always forged some sort of narrative in my head. so the idea of telling a story with this edition doesn't really bother me one bit. I've always found that i have a more enjoyable time when i'm trying to create a story. I generally do not like fighting loyalist vs loyalist i like fighting aliens and cultists its just what my story skill lead me to. so when fighting against loyalists it's always a training mission.

[ElectricPaladin]

for me i know every time i've played a game weather casually or campaign or in a tournament, that i've always forged some sort of narrative in my head. so the idea of telling a story with this edition doesn't really bother me one bit. I've always found that i have a more enjoyable time when i'm trying to create a story. I generally do not like fighting loyalist vs loyalist i like fighting aliens and cultists its just what my story skill lead me to. so when fighting against loyalists it's always a training mission.

This is why I love my FLGS's narrative campaigns. I haven't played a loyalist on loyalist battle in more than nine months. It's incredible!

[Kevin48220]

I've been thinking about this since I read the thread this morning, and saw the news on the Imperial Knights. Granted, that's all rumor at this point, but it doesn't change the fact that a new army is being introduced, and it is...wait for it...an Imperial army that can ally with any other imperial army.

There's a shocker. But, I don't think this is a narrative thing. I think it's just numbers--sales numbers. I play Necrons, and if they were to introduce a fancy-schmancy oversized walker for the 'crons, I'd be tickled. But, that's only going to sell maybe 1/10 of what the Knights will--because the Knights can play well with about half of the armies in the game. That's what I really see as the problem with 40K right now, and I just started playing around the time that 6th dropped.

It's certainly coincidental with the pro-Imperial narrative in the fluff, but I think the steady tipping of the scales toward the Imperium in terms of army expansions, dataslates, new armies (three this year alone, Inquisition and Knights, with LOD on the way next), and so on...well, Imperial stuff sells. And given the dip in sales that we saw in the last quarterly report, dropping more imperial units and goodies out there is the best way to get that share price back up, maybe.

I'll add the mandatory disclaimer that this is just an opinion, and I'm working from limited information. There are folks here who are no doubt better-informed and can speak on this more cogently. These are just my thoughts.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

The group i play in we all play alot of different armies we like to play different factions from each other. honestly my one friend hasn't used his marines in years. right now the only army we don't play is tyranids but i think thats been more to the fact that we all each play orks.. so having 2 horde armies is kind of a stretch lol. like this weekend i know my wolves will be invading a tau sept world. I know once a year we do a red vs blue trainning game between my chapter and my buddies ultra marines though it will eventually become a full fledged war neither chapter likes the other one very much.

[daboarder]

problem is, thats a self perpetuating cycle. the move love the good guys get, the more people play them.

Furthermore form a sale perspective theres no reason to limit you consumer base by telling a portion of them that they can't use the new shiny for "reasons". Reasons that are never mentioned either. Hell GW's entire marketing of this product was a drive to get EVERYONE to buy them, its very much skirting false advertisement by deliberately attempting to mislead the consumer through obfuscation of the truth.

[Kevin48220]

daboarder, I have to agree with you on that last point. I was at a [store which shall remain nameless] and told clearly that the Knights would be playable with any army. I had some hopes that I could do a Necron version of the unit, so that even if I didn't have a kit, I could still make a unit playable with the stats/rules.

So, the news drops today that...nope, no dice on that. Just another unit I won't be able to play. I'm betting they get a dataslate formation that Imperial players can use w/o taking up an allies slot, too. So, you can run your SM army with IG/Sisters allies, an Inquisition unit, and a Knight. Which is really awesome, don't get me wrong. I'd just like to see some of that same flexibility and attention come to the rest of the game.

[daboarder]

yeah and a telling thing is many people DIDN'T pre-order a knight, not because they wouldn't have, but because GW has a reputation for doing just this.

[Kevin48220]

I hear you on that. it's one thing to have the guy in the store tell you it's going to be one way, but the reality...often varies. I'm not blaming the guy in the store, he only has limited information as well. Not necessarily his fault. But, seriously, the 'bait and switch' thing gets old fast and GW should be more clear about these things in their advance press.

But, I don't want to get off-topic here. I think that GW is certainly pushing both the narrative line of 40K and its top-selling lines pretty heavily right now. Case in point, the first 'tyranids' dataslate was...wait for it...a Space Marine unit that fights the alien menace!

Facepalms.

That, by itself, made me seriously start to rethink my commitment to playing 40K. Just on the basis that no matter what gains the Necrons make in their next codex--or any other non-Imperial army--the Imperium will be given a hard counter unit and probably a few other shiny toys, just to make sure they stay well ahead of the rest of the neighborhood.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

But this is the issue i have with this and the whole allies chart... you do not get to have the best of both worlds you do not get the same toys as everyone. each force should have enough character and unique units to make them work on their own.. orks do not need a knight titan they have enough crazy walkers when you consider the mega dread. dark eldar and eldar and tau shoudl not have knights they have their own versions... chaos sure they will have knights they just wont have them now they will get their own versions. necrons.... just no they do not need a knight titan.. they have enough nice little trick to perfom. sorry but this is my biggest issues with 6th... its eternal war not lets all hold hand and work together... heck the imperium doens't even function together most of the time their like a dysfunctional family they hate each other but if you mess with one you mess with them all.

[daboarder]

I don't think they are pushing the narative so much as "changing" it. Its becoming far to saturday morning cartoon/ stereeotypical action movie for my tastes.

I think this is very well highlighted by the two stories "fall of malvolion" and "Fear itself".

Both stories tell teh tale of beleaguered imperial guard soldiers combating a tyranid invasion of an imoerial planet with no apparent hope of survival. And they both go into some pretty gritty detail about how frakked the tyranid way of war can be (seriously lung rot, not pretty)

In fall, this all comes to a head when the lamenters chapter initiates a massive Drop pod assault into the tyranid swarm, all goes well for about 5 minutes then the numbers tell and the SM start dying. Gloriously in battle with honour blood and death on all sides, but they still die. The last moments cover the despair left in the wake of realising that the Nids are going to do this to the entire galaxy. No characters survive and there is only WAR in a galaxy where you would not be missed.

In Fear however the ending is just what you would expect form a Hollywood movie, The SM's drop pod into the heart of the tyranid assault and mary sue their way to victory. Not only this, but the Imperial guard characters survive and ultimately the tyranids feel more like galactic punching bags to show off how uber awesome the imperium is, than an actual threat to all life. There is never any doubt that the "good guys" will survive or that ultimately the tyranid threat would fail. There is no threat and the whole story is cheapened as a result.

yes these are just two stories but they really serve to highlight yhe changes in direction that 40k has taken over the last decade, and its an unwelcome change in my books.

[Gir]

yeah and a telling thing is many people DIDN'T pre-order a knight, not because they wouldn't have, but because GW has a reputation for doing just this.

I know what you mean! I cancelled my Harpy pre-order when I found out I couldn't field them in my Blood Angels army! :rolleyes:

[daboarder]

I know what you mean! I cancelled my Harpy pre-order when I found out I couldn't field them in my Blood Angels army! :rolleyes:

Did it take you a while to come up with that? Strain your brain much?

I mean the parallels, they are HUGE aren't they......:rolleyes:

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

I disagree i believe most people didn't order the knight because they wanted to see its rules and they wanted to see its price point before they ordered it that and some people wish to use different variants or different models from other companies to represent the knight for less. they will still need to buy the codex but they will be able to not pay 140 per knight heck i know when i get my free they wont be 140 a pop our local store owner it going to sell them at 100$ a pop because there is a group of us placing a large order of them.

[ElectricPaladin]

I don't think they are pushing the narative so much as "changing" it. Its becoming far to saturday morning cartoon/ stereeotypical action movie for my tastes.

I think this is very well highlighted by the two stories "fall of malvolion" and "Fear itself".

Both stories tell teh tale of beleaguered imperial guard soldiers combating a tyranid invasion of an imoerial planet with no apparent hope of survival. And they both go into some pretty gritty detail about how frakked the tyranid way of war can be (seriously lung rot, not pretty)

In fall, this all comes to a head when the lamenters chapter initiates a massive Drop pod assault into the tyranid swarm, all goes well for about 5 minutes then the numbers tell and the SM start dying. Gloriously in battle with honour blood and death on all sides, but they still die. The last moments cover the despair left in the wake of realising that the Nids are going to do this to the entire galaxy. No characters survive and there is only WAR in a galaxy where you would not be missed.

In Fear however the ending is just what you would expect form a Hollywood movie, The SM's drop pod into the heart of the tyranid assault and mary sue their way to victory. Not only this, but the Imperial guard characters survive and ultimately the tyranids feel more like galactic punching bags to show off how uber awesome the imperium is, than an actual threat to all life. There is never any doubt that the "good guys" will survive or that ultimately the tyranid threat would fail. There is no threat and the whole story is cheapened as a result.

yes these are just two stories but they really serve to highlight yhe changes in direction that 40k has taken over the last decade, and its an unwelcome change in my books.

I dunno... sometimes the good guys win, sometimes the bad guys win. You're going to make yourself crazy if you take it personally. Write your own story on the tabletop by kicking everyone's butt with your Tyranids.

[daboarder]

its been a while since I've read any BL fiction that didn't result in a win for the good guys, I mean the last I can think of was the "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME" ending to pandorax, and before that was the word bearers trilogy (a must read)

That COULD be a product of BL's focus upon HH but still

[ElectricPaladin]

its been a while since I've read any BL fiction that didn't result in a win for the good guys, I mean the last I can think of was the "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME" ending to pandorax, and before that was the word bearers trilogy (a must read)

That COULD be a product of BL's focus upon HH but still

For myself, I've mostly read Ciaphas Cain (light-hearted and a little bit silly), the Blood Angels series (lots of mixed, bittersweet endings), and Ravenor (seriously mixed "victory but at a cost" ending). I'm starting Eisenhorn, which is supposed to end the same way. I started Horus Heresy, but it didn't really grab me. I know there's a lot of other Black Library stuff out there, and can't really comment on the full breadth of it.

[Gir]

Did it take you a while to come up with that? Strain your brain much?

I mean the parallels, they are HUGE aren't they......:rolleyes:

You're right, poor example, let me try again:

I know what you mean! I cancelled my Helldrake pre-order when I found out I couldn't field them in my Blood Angels army!

[daboarder]

No I got it. You're a genius :rolleyes:

[bfmusashi]

I can't recall that model of knight ever being available to chaos. Some rumors said anyone could take it, but nothing official, so it's not like GW pulled a fast one on you. This seems like a lot of hilarious whining. And Gir's point is a pretty fair summation of Daboarder's. It makes no sense to be upset you didn't gain access to a model from a different army. A model your army never had access to through history.

[daboarder]

I can't recall that model of knight ever being available to chaos. Some rumors said anyone could take it, but nothing official, so it's not like GW pulled a fast one on you. This seems like a lot of hilarious whining. And Gir's point is a pretty fair summation of Daboarder's. It makes no sense to be upset you didn't gain access to a model from a different army. A model your army never had access to through history.

Love it when people take off hand comments and extrapolate them to "whining" :rolleyes:

its even better when they ignore the posts that are on topic

edit: just so we're clear. How long do chaos players need to give you guys before you accept that "Chaos Knights" aren't coming. How long before you accept that? a year? 5? 10?

we're not likely to get some mythical "CHAOS VARIANT" at some later date.

its like all those rumours "chaos supplements" or the legions codex.

[daboarder]

For myself, I've mostly read Ciaphas Cain (light-hearted and a little bit silly), the Blood Angels series (lots of mixed, bittersweet endings), and Ravenor (seriously mixed "victory but at a cost" ending). I'm starting Eisenhorn, which is supposed to end the same way. I started Horus Heresy, but it didn't really grab me. I know there's a lot of other Black Library stuff out there, and can't really comment on the full breadth of it.

Yeah the cain stuff is great! But I'm finding its getting a little repetative as the series goes on, but such is the nature of the beast.
The eisenhorn/ravenor books are GREAT some of the best
as to teh blood angel stuff, not a fan. Its really bizarre and butchers much established BA background for odd reasons, But swallows not a bad writer and his HH books are some of my favourite (fear to tread aces it)
For the Horus Heresy, can I reccomend the audio books, its so much easier o listen while your driving/working/hobbying

[Learn2Eel]

I know what you mean! I cancelled my Harpy pre-order when I found out I couldn't field them in my Blood Angels army! :rolleyes:

Neither of your examples make any sense whatsoever.

Knights have a long history of turning traitor, most prominently during the Horus Heresy. Denying their usage by Chaos Space Marines but allowing Xenos to use them as Allies is incredibly silly.
A Harpy can only ever be aligned to a Tyranid force as it is a Tyranid organism; either it is controlled by the Hive Mind or it becomes a mindless beast following instinct alone.
A Heldrake would never be aligned to Loyalist forces because it is a Daemonic Entity, a daemon engine. Any Loyalist force consorting with a Daemon of any kind would cease to be a Loyalist force.

Use better examples if you are going to try and argue this point.

[Morgrim]

Maybe the solution to the over-saturation of Imperial only dataslates of far too broad a scope is to come out with some that are explicitly 'anyone BUT the Imperium'. The Imperium are genocidal xenophobes, there has got to be a way to have, for example, a cadre of kroot mercenaries that are furious with the Imperium because of [x] and willing to side with their enemies. Substitute kroot for any alien without their own codex. Hell, if they insist on humans give us stuff for some piratical Rogue Traders that have broken away and tried to make their own fiefdom, it cannot be hard to put out a kit with conversion parts for some guard, a list of appropriate vehicles, a transfer sheet and maybe a HQ or two.

[bfmusashi]

Love it when people take off hand comments and extrapolate them to "whining" :rolleyes:

its even better when they ignore the posts that are on topic

edit: just so we're clear. How long do chaos players need to give you guys before you accept that "Chaos Knights" aren't coming. How long before you accept that? a year? 5? 10?

we're not likely to get some mythical "CHAOS VARIANT" at some later date.

its like all those rumours "chaos supplements" or the legions codex.
You're upset you aren't getting something, and you've complained about it, often repeating yourself, all over the boards. Something no authority told you were going to have. It's whining. It's a sobbing tantrum of entitlement that is most unbecoming. But, hey, maybe you could come up with a way of saying 'GW is screwing me by not giving me this thing I want that doesn't go with my armies' that doesn't sound petulant.
I hope Chaos never gets knights. They have too many neat design ideas to waste time on "Knight that ran into a wrought iron fence." As to the Legions supplements, really man, just stop reading rumors and thinking they're real.

[bfmusashi]

Neither of your examples make any sense whatsoever.

Knights have a long history of turning traitor, most prominently during the Horus Heresy. Denying their usage by Chaos Space Marines but allowing Xenos to use them as Allies is incredibly silly.
A Harpy can only ever be aligned to a Tyranid force as it is a Tyranid organism; either it is controlled by the Hive Mind or it becomes a mindless beast following instinct alone.
A Heldrake would never be aligned to Loyalist forces because it is a Daemonic Entity, a daemon engine. Any Loyalist force consorting with a Daemon of any kind would cease to be a Loyalist force.

Use better examples if you are going to try and argue this point.

The knights that turned traitor in the Heresy do not look anything like this model now. Current Imperial Knights serve the interests of the Imperium and Mechanicus Knights serve the interests of the Machine Cult. Those interests have coincided with those of Xenos in the past, but only coincide with Chaos when the group is already traitorous. Now, if we're going to assume they're fresh converts fine, that makes sense, but the current Chaos Space Marine codex isn't about fresh converts, nor is their model design.
But, if you want to apply the mental gymnastics necessary to make that happen why not do it on the others? A Harpy has a brain, the Imperium likes to make cybernetic familiars with partial lobotomies. Is it really odd to think someone isn't working on a way to make a mini hivemind using a synapse familiar as a relay? Or, if nothing else, it's way more metal than a wolf or bird. This makes as much sense as Chaos having a knight titan that isn't hilarious looking.
40k also seems to be in love with ornithopters lately, making a helldrake far more normal by the Imperium's standards. These guys see weird stuff all the time and the tech priests are always going on about machines being alive. Step 2 is ???? step 3 is helldrake tolerance!

[Cap'nSmurfs]

What Phil Kelly said was not "I hate Chaos, have a crappy book", it was that in his view, the Dark Eldar are the most Classic Movie Villain of all the 40k races. They're the nightmare princes of a realm of wishes and make-believe, who do what they do out of careless, callous spite. There's none of the tragedy or insidiousness of Chaos; they're just *******s who love being mean.

That's what he said, and what he meant.

Interpreting that as saying he "hates Chaos" and so "wrote a crap book" is a failure to read, comprehend and think on a frankly ridiculous degree. I know this because what's being paraphrased, half-remembered, here, is Phil's interview/design notes on the Dark Eldar codex, which I remember reading. I can even dig out the White Dwarf, if necessary.

This seems to happen a lot around here - people vaguely remember someone from the GW Studio saying something or other, which makes them an Authority or some kind of Insight into What GW Really Thinks, and that half-remembered snippet gets used as evidence in an argument, without being able to properly remember or cite it, let alone mention where it came from. Worse, it'll be from an unsourced "private conversation", at "some Games Day". Man, that sounds legit! It's just an appeal to authority without actual evidence, marshalled to support whatever chip is already on the poster's shoulder. Then people don't question it, and so we continue with this vicious circle of bellyaching, even though the "evidence" that GW Hates (x) Army isn't anything of the sort.

tl;dr - got some "information"? Cite your ****ing sources.

[daboarder]

You're upset you aren't getting something, and you've complained about it, often repeating yourself, all over the boards. Something no authority told you were going to have. It's whining. It's a sobbing tantrum of entitlement that is most unbecoming. But, hey, maybe you could come up with a way of saying 'GW is screwing me by not giving me this thing I want that doesn't go with my armies' that doesn't sound petulant.
I hope Chaos never gets knights. They have too many neat design ideas to waste time on "Knight that ran into a wrought iron fence." As to the Legions supplements, really man, just stop reading rumors and thinking they're real.

:rolleyes:

[Takerukau]

Ok so Chaos doesn't get knights. So what? Imperials didn't get a "Golden Throne of Servo Skulls" either. I don't think that it does much good or has much of a point to complain one way or the other. Do we all want to play the same army, with the same stuff that does the same stuff but just has different skin? If you do, I recommend playing the original Warcraft game, where that was more-or-less true. My army has had its ups and downs on the balance roller coaster, but I love playing it just because I love what it is, not necessarily what it can do. Even with my "antiquated" Blood Angels, I still pull of more wins than losses, and even table Chaos Drake Armies and even a Tau army or two at my local tournament. Just relax and play the game!

So far as the subject of the thread is concerned, I don't think that there is a deliberate conspiracy to make the good guys better than the bad guys. The notion of "good guys" in and of itself is rather convoluted and ambiguous, even throughout the lore. A pervasive theme throughout all of the codices that I have read is about the inevitable decline and defeat of the Imperium. This has been emphasized more and more with each iterations of the rules, and I don't think that the good guys are stacked to win at all. The only reason I think there might be some potential for a victory out of left field comes from our(people in general's)fondness for heroes winning at the end of the day, whether tragically or otherwise. The universe is so expansive that there is so much potential for ANYTHING to happen.

Birth of a new Chaos God? Possible
Death of a Chaos God? Possible
Tau Dark Age of Technology? Possible
Tyranids eating the universe, killing good and evil together? Possible
Orks uniting under Ghazzy and conquering the universe? Possible
The return of the Primarchs? Possible
The Death of the Emperor? Most Possible
The Dark Eldar? They don't care either way lol

I'm just stoked to play. I just miss the days when there were campaigns worldwide like the 13th Black Crusade. Stuff like that... player driven narrative gameplay that teased at a potential lore influence? I remember logging in my game wins/losses on a website they made for the event and I felt really involved, even though it didn't matter ha ha. That would be so cool to do again, even if it was stacked to go a certain way. I love going to competitive tournaments, but I think that GW is missing out on a lot of player emotional investment by not doing some of the stuff they used to that were the most "narrative" fun.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

For what it's worth, if you turned up with a suitably Chaosy Knight, said, this is my Chaos Knight, this is its background, can I use it, I at least would say "yes".

[lattd]

I think GW are giving us more and more ways to play narrative games which to me is really exciting.

[jonsgot]

As long as it's been agreed super heavies are going to be used i'm up for a game against your chaos knights.

[bfmusashi]

:rolleyes:

Thanks for validating my assessment.

[SaveModifier]

I'm shocked that daboarder is complaining about GW in a thread on the internet.

Seriously though, GW never said that the Knight could be used by anyone and email, submitted anonymously to a site that will literally publish any anonymous stirring about GW, said that they could, but now we have the full rules, they can't, unless, you know, you change the rules to allow it, as it says you can in the main rule book