Fortis wrote:
Sorry to get back to what I was talking about as having a talk about the formats the data is around in is clearly a good thing.
@ kyussinchains - I think you're a little bit off from understanding what I'm advocating. I'm not saying strip out the flavour parts of the lists. I'm not saying open slather lists with no restrictions. I'm not saying give everyone everything. So for IG to use your example I like having gorgons only in the kreig list with restrictions on their access to stormies and the themey things. Just like how iyanden Eldar are the only ones that get stand alone wraithguard. All those things are great. What I don't like is that if you want to use Land Raider Variants you have to choose an alternate list. To use hornets you have to use an alternate list. In the fluff all chapters and craftworlds respectively have access to these units. It doesn't enhance the flavour to have them limited to particular alternate lists (and in the case of eldar someone just made up the name of a new craftworld merely to stick in the new vehicles and gave it the flavour of falcon formations as core for an equally arbitrary reason). To me it would seem like it's simpler to just playtest the formation until it's balanced-ish in general and stick it in the core list if there is no flavour or balance reason it should be specific to a sub-faction.
This has two main benefits. Firstly, the core list plays like the core army should. It has the widest access to formations but it doesn't get more specialised formations that make flavour sense in special lists. Secondly the core lists have all of the units that a new player would want, so they don't have to explore the wilderness of alternate lists to find the unit that they want to play with.
In my view the alternate lists should be mostly about changes in formation and force structure and fairly limited in their restrictions on equipment. So things like bigger or smaller formations, special transports, different core formations, special weapon variants, specialty units, those sorts of things that enhance flavour.
I can understand that you personally don't like the direction GW went in recently. I don't particularly much either. Some people do. Some people like a lot of the new units (and when we're talking about land raider crusaders they are units that are a decade old now). By arguing from the perspective of "I don't like it therefore it shouldn't go in the list" then you're essentially saying someone else shouldn't play the way they want because I want to restrict them. The units already exist in alternate lists so you're not keeping them out of the game by keeping them out of the core list, you're just restricting their use to alt lists for no flavour or balance reason. It doesn't make much sense to me where things make balance and flavour sense to be in the base list to restrict them for essentially idialistic reasons.
Again, I reiterate. I'm not saying that all marines should get Land Raider Hellios and Achilles or that all eldar should get pathfinders and wraithguard, but that all eldar should get hornets, all marines should get crusaders.
most of the new marine lists do have crusaders, they were an auto-include for the IF list, and AFAIK the blood angels, black templars and space wolves have them
I get what you're saying, my point is really that the core lists aren't crying out for the inclusion of crusaders or hornets..... from a game perspective they play just fine as they are.... if it ain't broke.....
I'm also not arguing that because I don't like something it should be excluded, I
loathe the centurions, the models, the concept, the execution, the lot, they are utterly ridiculous, stupid looking and are basically another totally unneccessary flavour of terminator.... I included them at the suggestion of the community, I've even used them in games to playtest them
As I said, I particularly like the snapshot of the good old days aspect of epic, I'm not advocating not including stuff that I personally don't like
Do marines
need crusaders from a gameplay POV? probably not, after all, they make the LC+terminators combo even nastier in assaults so it's a buff to the list
Do BT
need hornets from a gameplay POV? probably not, they already have fast light skimmers in the form of vypers, and the fast hard hitting tanks in falcons
I'd have zero problems with people using those units in friendly games, but they just don't add anything extra to the lists, except slavishly following the release of GW models
A line has to be drawn somewhere, how do we decide what to include/not include?
Why not develop a new 'craftworld eldar' list which includes all the options and can accomodate new releases as they come out? it could be the generic fanlist with a lot of testing, probably not feasible to balance for tournament play with the myriad of options and potential combos, but pretty established.... you could do the same with an 'ultramarines' list, after all they're the archetypal marines with all the archetypal units....
