Let's have a GW rumors and sneak peeks thread!

[Jye Nicolson]

Yes it seems very much like Warcry but I like the idea of more elite units having more actions a lot.

[Karantu]

GW copying FFG is like Microsoft copying Apple. It hurts watching them try to improve accessibility when all they're doing is needless obfuscation.
It must've sounded great in the meeting when some genius suggested using shapes instead of inches since inches aren't used globally and this would help make the game more accessible to players in countries that don't use inches.
I just love how natural this is going to sound. "I'm going to move 3 circles which puts me within pentagon and since I rolled a 5 and have a triangle bonus to charge that makes up for the remaining circle plus square."

[The Other Dave]

I dunno, that example is sort of assuming a lot about how the rules will work* - the fact that you can play AoS using only a combat gauge to measure suggests the idea is fundamentally workable. 40K does have the additional wrinkle of weapon ranges to measure, but the fact that rifles don't have ranges listed (and I think we saw that pistols and flamers use the 6" ruler) suggests that most weapons will just be able to shoot anything on the small board we'll be using, so that may not even be an issue.

*If the reality is more like "[triangle] is combat engagement distance, units move in multiples of [circle], [square] is pile-in move distance, and short-range weapons have ranges in multiples of [pentagon]", for example, I imagine it'd be quite playable.

Really, in the end, we don't know a lot about the rules, and it's pretty easy to imagine worst-case scenarios with so little information.

[Jye Nicolson]

I feel like it might be intended as a hook for buffs/debuffs more than an accessibility thing (especially since they've gone with something that needs plenty of language on the card, as opposed to Warcry that only needed it on the faction ability card). So +1 move might be better if your move is pentagons and not a big deal if you move on triangles.

I thought it was weird to have saves in a KillCry system but having them just for ranged could work. Ranged attacks are *extremely good* in Warcry and reined back in mostly by getting few attacks, doing less damage etc (and I understand units with excellent ranged attacks have been a bit of a terror in AOS too). Letting ranged attacks remain strong but less reliable against armour could work as an alternative.

[Primarch]

Well it looks like that guardsman moves 3 circles, which translates to 6 inches according to the chart Karantu posted. It looks like the guage has the symbols on it for measuring too, so even if they aren't writing movement as inches, that's what they are using. Do US tape measures not have centimetres on them? Or is it just that the Liberian and Burmese markets are so lucrative?

At this point, the measure in inches thing is more tradition than anything else. When the original GW team were making Rogue Trader they would have all used Imperial as standard. These days (and at least as far back as my generation), only metric is taught in UK schools. Heck even mini and base sizes are given in metric.

I guess it just means GW can sell measuring sticks and branded tape measures to new players.

As for the rest, without having any point of reference or comparison, it's hard to say how the game will play.

[The Other Dave]

Well it looks like that guardsman moves 3 circles, which translates to 6 inches according to the chart Karantu posted. It looks like the guage has the symbols on it for measuring too, so even if they aren't writing movement as inches, that's what they are using. Do US tape measures not have centimetres on them? Or is it just that the Liberian and Burmese markets are so lucrative?

A lot of Americans are weirdly aggressive about exposure to the metric system. When they tried introducing it nationwide in the 70s, road signs with distances in kilometers were apparently pretty regularly vandalized with shotgun fire, and opposition was so vocal and widespread that the whole "let's use the metric system in the US, even if only alongside Imperial measurements" experiment lasted just a couple years.

Which, you know, is not a reason for GW not to switch to cm, but still.

[Mattb]

Not a model preview, but I have some rules leaks for the new Ork codex if anyone is interested in that kind of thing.

[me_in_japan]

A lot of Americans are weirdly aggressive about exposure to the metric system. When they tried introducing it nationwide in the 70s, road signs with distances in kilometers were apparently pretty regularly vandalized with shotgun fire, and opposition was so vocal and widespread that the whole "let's use the metric system in the US, even if only alongside Imperial measurements" experiment lasted just a couple years.

Which, you know, is not a reason for GW not to switch to cm, but still.

As an addendum to this:

https://youtu.be/tZ3H20IhFPI

I don’t usually turn to Teen Titans Go for commentary on American values, but I should probably do so more often. They’re pretty on the nose at times…

[Karantu]

Oh man, Cartoon Network really did a number on Teen Titans. But that conversation sounds fairly familiar after hanging out with American exchange students back in uni. It's usually Celsius which drives them nuts though, something about not having having enough granularity.

@Matt, I saw the Ork codex leaks too and its hard to tell how good or bad things will be without seeing the entire picture but the things that are leaked are pretty mediocre at best. Most of the changes are side-grades and even the straight up upgrades like some guns getting more shots being the bare minimum to keep up with power creep. The way they have dealt with popular tournament lists by putting more limitations on them is kinda annoying though. Stuff like forcing buggies and mek guns to stay together after deploying is going to be extremely annoying on dense tables and reduces the flexibility of the buggies. Alternatively, it forces you to use up more valuable slots which also sucks.

The changes to the different kultures in the leaks seem to mostly misses. The new Evil Sunz ability makes me scratch my head for sure... Especially with the Dakka weapon type they've been hyping up which don't get the benefit of being mobile like assault weapons nor do they get the huge damage boost that rapid fire gets. I just hope we have more abilities that interact with them other than the once per game WAAAGH ability. Rokkits going to heavy is unfortunate too since that reduces the mobility of some units. GW sure does know how to make all of that look like 100% upgrades though in their articles as usual.

As usual GW has started getting a lot more sheepish with some codexes and seems to be releasing a codex written by two complete strangers amalgamated at the last second.

[Mattb]

@Matt, I saw the Ork codex leaks too and its hard to tell how good or bad things will be without seeing the entire picture but the things that are leaked are pretty mediocre at best. Most of the changes are side-grades and even the straight up upgrades like some guns getting more shots being the bare minimum to keep up with power creep. The way they have dealt with popular tournament lists by putting more limitations on them is kinda annoying though. Stuff like forcing buggies and mek guns to stay together after deploying is going to be extremely annoying on dense tables and reduces the flexibility of the buggies. Alternatively, it forces you to use up more valuable slots which also sucks.

The changes to the different kultures in the leaks seem to mostly misses. The new Evil Sunz ability makes me scratch my head for sure... Especially with the Dakka weapon type they've been hyping up which don't get the benefit of being mobile like assault weapons nor do they get the huge damage boost that rapid fire gets. I just hope we have more abilities that interact with them other than the once per game WAAAGH ability. Rokkits going to heavy is unfortunate too since that reduces the mobility of some units. GW sure does know how to make all of that look like 100% upgrades though in their articles as usual.

As usual GW has started getting a lot more sheepish with some codexes and seems to be releasing a codex written by two complete strangers amalgamated at the last second.

Yeah, I'm trying not to be too pessimistic before we actually get to see the whole codex, but just based on the leaks it's looking like this might be the first 'bad' codex of 9th edition. A part from the toughness boost, every buff seems to be coming with its own drawback. People were saying how good the changes were for Gorkanauts... then it turns out they're lords of war.
I'm holding out hope that we still haven't seen all of the dakka rules though and they will let you move and shoot with a penalty (so assualt and rapid fire combined into one).

The only thing that's outright frustrated me so far is my Evil Sunz kulture - it's exactly the same as the last edition except flat out worse. Hell, with all of the weapons changing to either heavy or dakka, half of the clan bonus is almost completely useless. Why would anyone want to play Evil Sunz?

Still, at least we'll finally have some unique crusade stuff to play around with!