Codex Orks - Informed discussion.

[Krefey]

Who cares about Tank Hunter? Not to put too fine a point on it but killing vehicles hasn't been (nor is it now) that hard with or without that Special Rule. If you really want to kill Armour, that hardly makes a huge difference since you have to hit in the first place. If you really want to kill Tanks (if they are that big a problem in your META) a small allied detachment would serve you a hell of a lot better. The new codex is full of gold star garbage, i.e. price reductions which are meaningless and things like that rule which sound good but which do very little in application in the average game.

I'm a pragmatist. I care about what happens in the average game on a regular basis. Probability is a harsh mistress. Orks can only win a game by managing to get into close combat or somehow holding objectives against those that would shoot them off said objectives or push them off. On the whole, Orks just got easier to kill and scare off. That is all that matters. Giving Orks a rule that makes them more likely to hurt Armour "if" they hit is cold comfort. Winning games isn't about what "might" happen. Winning games is about what does happen every single game.

Sorry, but if you have an army that doesn't hit things very often, then why would having an ability that increases the odds of doing damage when you do hit be bad / not worth it? Sure you could take an allied detachment, but what if you don't want to? What if you want to field a pure Ork army because they don't tend to ally with anybody as per the background / fluff? Based on your posts, I would be incliend to think you fall into the more competitive / tournament player side of the player base. So I get why you think about options like that.

From what I've seen of the changes, yes they are slightly easier to scare off than before. They are slightly easier to kill now that you can't have 5 units of 30 boys getting a 5++ save from the kustom forcefield that is only in range of one model from each unit (because that wasn't a bit OP at all). Having said that though, the changes reflect the background / fluff better. Making the army feel more like it is described in all the material written about them. I understand that from the perspective of someone who plays the game competitively, that's a negative, but from my point of view, that's a plus. It has certainly rekindled my lvoe for the greenskins. So much so that I'm consdiering putting together a sizeable ork force.

Gw itself has been baning unbound lists at their own events.

<laughs> What a shock.

I've said it before, but that's not a surprise. The rules are a *framework*. This means that GW have provided a set of rules that allows players to choose which elements they want to include for their games and which they don't. Plus it's hardly a change from how tournaments have been run since forever. There have always been aritficial restrictions put in place ever since the old rogue trader tournament system.

[daboarder]

S
I've said it before, but that's not a surprise. The rules are a *framework*. This means that GW have provided a set of rules that allows players to choose which elements they want to include for their games and which they don't. Plus it's hardly a change from how tournaments have been run since forever. There have always been aritficial restrictions put in place ever since the old rogue trader tournament system.

sorry but no, a product that is this expensive is not a framework

Change it to suit your own desire and group, but dont try justifying BS with "its MEANT to not be a finished product"

[Krefey]

sorry but no, a product that is this expensive is not a framework

Change it to suit your own desire and group, but dont try justifying BS with "its MEANT to not be a finished product"

There are plenty of framework options out there that are official products for use in the real world (i.e. how to structure companies, support models etc). They aren't "complete products" as you say, but they give the companies the tools they can then use to develop the system that works best for them. This isn't a new concept to the world.

The core rules are there (i.e. movement, shooting, close combat, psychic phase, unit types etc.) Those are the core mandatory components of the game that you need to be able to play. Those are the "finished product" as it were.

The allies matrix, the missions etc are the framework. They are the provided guides on how you can play the game, not how you *must* play the game.

[Caitsidhe]

I understand that from the perspective of someone who plays the game competitively, that's a negative, but from my point of view, that's a plus. It has certainly rekindled my lvoe for the greenskins. So much so that I'm consdiering putting together a sizeable ork force.

So you enjoy being a Red Shirt (Star Trek reference)? Getting your face kicked in as opponent after opponent curb stomps you has rekindled your love of the greenskins? You are a masochist?

[Erik Setzer]

Having said that though, the changes reflect the background / fluff better. Making the army feel more like it is described in all the material written about them.

If they did that, the Warboss would be one of the scariest HQ options in the game. Read through the section on the various Waagh! uprisings. It's not all that rare that an Ork Warboss can lead the way in personally rampaging through ridiculous numbers of Space Marines. Heck, there's one story where these Space Marines got a Warboss and his Orks into an area, destroyed all the bridges to get out, then attacked them in this "trap" they'd laid... and ended up getting over three companies' worth of Marines wiped out just in that fighting alone, before the Orks got out and then went finding more Space Marines to wreck while adorning their trophy poles with Marine helmets. You think that would ever happen in-game?

[Charon]

Do you think 4 space marines taking on multiple squadrons of guard would ever happen in-game?
Or a scorpion Exacrch duelling with a hive tyrant and slaying him in close combat? Or an Autarch one-shotting a Trygon?
Do we see a single guardsman killing a chaos cybot ingame? Or an Avatar single(bloody)handed scything down a full tyranid force for days?

Fiction is fiction.
The only thing I can blame on them in this regard is that some armies dont "feel" like in the fiction (Tyranids are no endless swarm of beasts but a couple of elite monsters) but I would not give to much on individual glory moments... they are always overexaggerated. By the amount of blood in the books, Ultramarines would have been long extinct... they mess up numbers pretty hard.

[odinsgrandson]

Good point, Charon. In White Dwarf 300, GW actually made an answer to why the fluff doesn't look like it takes place in their game (apparently, they hear questions on that a lot). They made the Codex Unapproved "Movie Marines" army list (they compared their fiction to a Hollywood blockbuster action movie).

I think it accurately represents space marines as they appear in the fluff. A ten man squad of marines with a rhino is 1500 points- and they could probably take on a force twice that size. The bolters act more like assault cannons, a lascannon hits every model in a line and insta-kills minis regardless of their toughness.

The only trouble is, the game has had a tremendous power creep since the rules came out (in the 4th edition) so they're not quite as broken as they once were (Movie Marines used to be the only guys to get a 3++ save, for example).

They're still pretty broken though.

[Path Walker]

sorry but no, a product that is this expensive is not a framework

Change it to suit your own desire and group, but dont try justifying BS with "its MEANT to not be a finished product"

Except it is a framework, thats what its sold as and, like many games, thats what people want, look at D&D, its the same deal. If you don't like it, suck it up or quit.

[Uberbeast]

I really don't think you can just say that the new rules represent the fluff better and leave it at that. You're forgetting that this is still a war game and that as players we like to have a fun game, not a simple reenactment of orks killing eachother and dying in droves.

If they wanted to put more negative rules into the codex like mob rule and cowardly grots then they should have had a corresponding points decrease as they were losing value and so you should get more orks overall. Instead lots of things that got nerfed either with the codex itself or with the 7th edition core rules stayed the same point cost, lots of units that kept the same rules went up in point cost, and many of the units that went down in point cost actually lost rules and abilities that were worth more then the decrease in points.

The end result is that the ork codex is a mix of nerfs, overpricing, sideways moves, and a lack of cohesion that will not live beyond the individual player's enthusiasm for fluff. What's more it doesn't leave me holding out much hope for other future codices like Dark Eldar, which is another book that has suffered from new edition nerfing.

[Caitsidhe]

Except it is a framework, thats what its sold as and, like many games, thats what people want, look at D&D, its the same deal. If you don't like it, suck it up or quit.

Actually, "framework" is your word. It is NOT sold that way. It is sold as a set of rules.