Thanks. However then you and Galen connected it to materials: plastics... resin... ...I don’t believe it has a thing to do with the material. It has to do with production runs and excess quantities that have not sold as fast as projected...
Carno/trog afaik is no more available as single model, but it's included in the start collecting, so there's no need to buff it. Summoning mechanics is an obvious trick to sell more models... and so the whole affair of the permanent spells. This doesn't mean that all armies have access to summoning, or spells. And regarding KO, after the new FAQ someone on Bugmans Brewery already said that they are probably hoping KO players will stop buying skywardens and khemists and start buying overstocked Grundstock thunderers and gunhaulers. Now, not all of this will be true, but GW is a company that makes money on selling models. Don't fool yourself by believing that they don't have always an eye on how the rules of the play impact on the sales.
I've been playing Orks in 40K since 2007. And during that period of time I saw a huge number of new models come out. The interesting thing is that they were all wildly hit and miss. Some were OP, some were middling, some were atrocious. And then there's game balance. My poor Orks spent much of 6th edition and all of 7th edition at the absolute bottom of the barrel. Now, if you have a company that takes note of rules to sell models, then this makes zero sense. If, however, your company believes that their customers only want to own "the small, jewel like objects of magic and wonder we call Citadel miniatures" and have no interest in rules, then it makes perfect sense. And if you're curious, that's a direct quote from Mr Kirby, the previous CEO of GW. Things have changed greatly for GW since Kevin Roundtree took over, there's no doubt about that. And GW certainly understands that rules play a larger role in purchasing than they once did (guess all those boxes of unsold Pyrovores finally tipped them off). That being said, do I believe this was a grand conspiracy to sell particular models then nerf them once the surplus stock had been sold? Not particularly, no. I honestly don't think GW is that sophisticated. After so many years of seeing the rules department not understand their own game, I really don't see them knowing what makes a unit too good. These are the same people who produced the Gorkanaut and thought it was an awesomely powerful unit. Flare guns would be an easy one. Hell, maybe they do have radios, or they can send distress calls out over Aethergold streams. Regardless, the faction based around fleets of airships are perhaps one of the most logical ones to have re-enforcements literally dropping out of the sky.
I think GW doesn't really focus on the competitive side much at all. Their attention goes to making the game more narrative and less complicated. Their development in miniature design and quality also shows this, it's their main product. The rules are focussed on the narrative they set with their models, not on how they perform in a competitive meta. The rules team does a great job at keeping the game interesting for everyone, seemingly without much influence from any corporate figures. Maybe creating OP models for sales was the case some years ago, but they sure as shit don't need it now. Every now and then some armies stick put from the crowd with broken rules, but more often then not those are traced back to play-tester favouritism or miswritten rule errors.
Well, I was indeed talking about the last period. But yeah, good points about them not fully understanding their own game.
Thats literally insane you know that? Also really impractical, rules are written years in advance of actual release dates. They're already playtesting GHB2019 and have been for some time. Buffs and nerfs are not connected to desired sales. At all. There is nobody in head office breathing down the necks of the rules team telling them what to buff and what to nerf. Thinking that is pure paranoia.
With AoS, they adjust things on the fly more often than not. If they were really testing rules for a year before releasing them, i don't see the reason for such a massive FAQ release after less then one month after 2nd edition.
[ Playtesting - like testing in general - is a specific skill of its own. I am happy that they have a community of playtesters but it is hard for people untrained in the testing process to even understand how much they are missing and why. Computer games have loads of problems with bugs on release after much more testing than GW games get by people supposedly trained as professional testers. Expecting AoS to not have bugs is setting your level of expectation far too high. disclaimer: I make my living out of knowing how to test stuff and training others to know how to test stuff.
I was away on vacation but I just came back to this thread. You all did a good job discussing the changes so I guess the only thing for me to do is to say: NAILED IT! although they werent super difficult nerfs to predict. They were actually the mosy likely. Which is a good thing if you think about it. I just hope they took the time to do the same with all the other armies and some of the other issues in the game. I will have to look through the FAQs to get a feel for how they adjusted everyone else.
after reading all the armies nerfs buffs and suck Joshua seraphons copped a good hit compared to others, and there is no other unit in the game that got slapped as hard as Kroak
lol lets face it stonehorn is still pretty damn nasty. aint too many models that have 24 wounds.. (12 +stoneskin which halves all damage including mortal wounds) and if it finishes within 12" of a model after running. it can still charge into combat..
It's still a rather long list for bugs on release. Not to mention a number of em are so Obvious they should've seen em coming miles away. And quite a lot of em are fairly massive overhauls as well. That say Kroak's CD got a numbers tweak isn't too extra-ordinary. But they didn't just tweak the numbers, they changed nearly every number the spell has, added in several new limitations & changed it purpose (from proper AoE to a "minor" version of his meteors). That's rather an extreme change based on a "minor" bug that was overlooked. Feels far more like bad PO-ship and such than a lack of testing.
Plus, if you insert in the same page in the General handbook that sylvaneth units summoned in the hero phase cannot move, and unit summoned by the EotG don't have such a limitation... and then you FAQ it... well, you are many things but "professional" is not one of them.
It makes me really curious as to how they design and test rules. It almost feels as if each rule is made up by 1 guy and noone else even looks at it at times.
Uhh... it seems you missed the nerf then. Stoneskin doesn't halve the wounds anymore, since the GHB2017... It is considerably weaker since that. In fact BCR are so bad now, nobody even plays them at tournaments.
Wait a minute. Just looked in to this. I mostly play against beast claws. So you only half the weapon damage not all the damage. So a unit of saurus warriors does 12 damage it is 12 not 6 because each weapon only does 1 damage each. Is that true? Just read that they can’t have a chain trap, harpoon and blood vulture as well. Looks like I need to try and have a word with someone.