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?