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Munkie

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Everything posted by Munkie

  1. I don't disagree with the direction they're taking it, they're just starting at the absolute worst possible place for that direction. If you want to create an edition where "everything is cranked to 11", then you don’t start with the army that was already cranked to 12 last edition and crank that to 13. Telling players they will eventually get cranked to 10 whenever you get around to it doesn't make them feel better. Especially because I've got a hunch poison is going to continue to be a coin flip as to whether or not it functions. Just like in the fluff, where sometimes they accidentally just load throwing darts and forget the poison half the time. Poison wounding everyone on 2+ would fit the fiction they established!
  2. I think that might be a factor in the creep, they've lost sense of the relative scale of in-universe power. When you have all these unique weapons, it leaves the base weapons behind, so they've got to creep up. Only, heavy bolters are going to make autocannons largely obsolete unless they go to damage 3. Multi-meltas are going to make lascannons (and plasmacannons in a lot of cases) largely obsolete, unless there are buffs there too. Lasguns are made out of lasers, which are certainly more advanced than autoguns, shouldn't they be strength 4? It hits harder than a human fist, right?
  3. I certainly don't want anyone feeling dirty, you're always a blast to play. I'm messing up by not buying a Space marine army (and foolishly sold the one I did have). But the people that I most regularly play against play: -Space Wolves/Orks -Space Wolves -Space Marines -Space Marines -Space Marines -(soon) Necrons Who knows how long I'll be trying to play 9th edition. All those poison attacks, utterly useless.
  4. It's weird how much effort they put into making everyone day 1 ready at launch of 8th, and have decided to go back to the old format for 9th. Especially since they've committed themselves to cranking the power this edition (and start that process by cranking the power on the same army they ended last edition absurdly overpowering). I mean, if you want to power things up, why start with the most powerful army? No attempt to even pretend to want to level the playing field? They openly acknowledge how screwed Xenos are in their article then offer the fact that we'll get 9th edition codexes eventually as some sort of comfort. Yes, we all assumed you would write books, what, other than play a different game, should I do in the meantime, GW?
  5. Munkie

    Benford's Law

    Right, that's basically what I "felt" when I watched the episode but couldn't articulate, despite a wall of rambling. The video explains it nicely. I'd summarize it to say: the chances of a choosing a random number that happens to begin with 1 in any given data set can never be lower than 11% (1 in 9). The odds can only go up from there, but average 30% On the other hand, the chances of the number beginning with a 9 can never be higher than 11% (but averages around 5%). This is because you can't get to 9 without having 1,2,3,4,5,6,7&8 already present and watering down your odds. Interesting stuff!
  6. They did! Bless their mustache twirling hearts!
  7. Munkie

    Benford's Law

    Any math nerds amongst nerds wanna nerd out on this? I was watching Connected on Netflix. Check it out if you get a chance. I like Latif Nasser from Radiolab but his curious and excited energy does offer a respite of the more thespian delivery of David Attenborough et al in a lot of documentaries. They had an episode on Benford's Law. In an idiot's words: basically if you choose a subject and choose random numbers of that subject, you'll find this weirdly consistent pattern in the numbers. About 30% of numbers in a data set are likely to begin with the digit "1". About 17% begin with 2, and so on, until the digit 9 at about 5%. It seems weirldy spooky at first right? I mean you can pretty reliably discover tax fraud with this law. If you look at all the numbers in a company or person's accounting and the numbers don't largely conform to Benford's Law, then you have a high degree of probability that they are cooking their books. Crazy, right? But is it that crazy? The whole episode I was thinking "this all makes a lot of sense." Think of it as just a general trends question--"more likely than not"/"less likely than not". Let's choose CDs/DVD owned (I apologize to anyone born this century). If you own CDs, can we agree that it's more likely you own a number of CDs ranging from 10 to 99 digits, as opposed to owning 9 or fewer? I think so. If you own in the double digits of CDs (where likely a large population of the US sits), is it more likely you'd have 10-19. 20-29, 30-39, etc? I dunno, but a fairly random distribution seems reasonable. But you probably have more people that own 10-19 CDs than own 90-99 CDs. Right? 10-19 would be a range that an aspiring collector might decide it's a waste of space, whereas a 90-99 owner is more likely to continue into 100+ than the 10-19 owner is to move into 20+. But what if we look at triple digit CD/DVD owners? I feel like owning discs in the 100-199 range is much, much higher than the 200-299 range. Benford's Law would suggest it's close to double which is verified by my scientific gut check. What about wealth? If you're a millionaire by definition, is it more likely that you have between 1 and 2 million or between 9 and 10 million? Of course the former, because more people can reach that benchmark than the 9-10 range. So Benford's Law itself as applied to the "random" occurrence of numbers (it's not actually random, we just expect it to be random because the pattern is larger than the human mind can arrange without help) does not confuse me. It's simply a function of counting which always starts small and gets bigger, fizzling out at some point due to whatever factors. That "fizzling" or attrition process makes Benford's Law a mathematical inevitability. Given a range of digits from 1-9, a number is more likely to begin with 1 than 2, more likely 2 than 3, more likely 3 than 4, and so on. The ONLY thing that actually interests me about this otherwise obvious pattern is the fairly consistent distribution across data sets. Around 30% 1s, around 17% 2s, etc until 5% 9s. That's a consistency that moves past the obvious conclusion that there are more 1s than 9s. So what's the deal?
  8. I think it should be open-top vehicles only (with a price adjustment to match), but with vox upgrades and the like you could project your aura to a single unit. Something to change the game up from the standard aura sharing we played with all of last edition. It was an interesting mechanic to introduce, but it's gotten a bit stale.
  9. They were/are good, just not well designed. It's basically 3 very small books trapped in one. Each mini-book has 1 HQ "choice", and 1 troops "choice". One has no elites or fast attack, one has no heavy support, and the other has no fast attack. You can fill elites and fast attack with mercenary units, but they have absolutely no synergies with our auras or traits (obsessions). Venoms have max transport 5 so can't carry a squad and an HQ, can't screen an HQ, and offer a 1/6 chance of killing my HQ outright if I buy him his own transport him to keep up. And also, nobody benefits from his auras while he's inside standing on the deck of a vehicle. The problem now is, the stuff that was good before, is better now and the stuff that wasn't very good before, mostly still has problems. As an example, if I'm looking for an HQ that is able to leverage his aura, and has a minimal risk of being shot in the process, you know where it points? An Archon giving re-rolls to Ravagers. The ravagers have 10 wounds, so they protect him until they die, at which point he doesn't matter anymore. Black Heart Archon with Writ of the Living Muse relic and Labrynth Cunning warlord trait with 3 ravagers is where competitive lists started last edition, and this change, along with several others (our troops going up by 50%, 33%, and 25% respectively) only encourages that (except it will often be 2 ravagers because patrols, but already people are taking 2 BH patrols just to get that 3rd ravager and never leave 8th edition). I'm not discouraged from taking Talos, they're bonkers good in 9th (and they were great in 8th too). I'm encouraged to drop a transport and a squad of troops inside to skim points to make it 2 squads of 3 Talos instead of 2 squads of 2. Then my HQ gets to extend his aura to more models and he isn't at risk. I can't spend an equivalent amount on infantry and expect them to keep him alive--they're much too expensive to be nothing but babysitters. Aside from mandatory HQs and troops you will expect to see: -Ravagers -Talos -Razorwing Jetfighter -Voidraven Bomber -Reaper (if using forge world) -Grotesques -Mandrakes -Sslyth On that list, the only 2 newcomers to the competitive scene will be mandrakes and sslyth. The only unit you saw in some competitive lists that you'll not see as much of is wyches.
  10. The 9th edition FAQ came out and I've got to say, I really hate their new Look Out Sir system. The original version was really badly written (because they refuse to ever learn) and needed a re-write. The new system is just illogical. For instance, I can surround a character with 3 units of 2 Talos and you can shoot him all day. If I have 1 squad of 3 Talos, he cannot be shot. 3 offers more protection than 6, because...reasons. I'm genuinely at a loss of what to do with my HQs. They're slower than everything else in the army, can't fit in transports, are very fragile, and are now almost impossible to screen. They really, really, really hate Dark Eldar not space marines.
  11. My God, 12 big shootas... That defensive profile would translate to probably T6, 10 wounds, 4+ armor save which seems very fragile for a flying transport. Definitely not worth 300 points. I feel like a big aircraft transport plane like that should probably have like 14 or 15 wounds. Like a flying battlewagon. It just trades a little bit of resilience for being harder to hit (but easier to see). Maybe 190ish? I dont know what bombs do or what and/or if they cost.
  12. Dang! That's brutal! Are they BS 4+ or 5+?
  13. A rokkit propelled foot, with a bunch swinging ork arms sticking out of it. More orks strapped to the outside, optional. An ork riding it and waving a cowboy hat, "How I learned to stop WAAAGH!ing and love the bomb" style, mandatory.
  14. I was really looking forward to the 6 month anniversary of my request for a Mordheim going ignored! Who knows, maybe someone would've seen the 6 month anniversary and said "oh alright, he's waited long enough. Sure I'll play Mordheim with you!" Now we'll never know!
  15. The obvious solution is to just cut arm sized holes in the side of the drop pod, so orks can punch anything and everything that passes as their drop pod is hurtling towards a planet.
  16. I went to Da Momma's Boyz Brawl with my Taudar in 7th. We were partying the night before the event like DMB does, and a fella declared that everyone there with Tau or Eldar was an asshole. I hated it because I agreed. Sold them soon after the event. It sucks because primaris models are everything space marines always should have been. I support the model changeover, but I dont love slogging through the amphetemized meta while GW works its process.
  17. That was my process with Tau. That was my first real 40k army in 3rd, played them through 4th and split them with orks in 5th. I loved weak Tau. Nobody had any experience playing against them so they had no idea what was coming. Just keep subverting expectations, keep 'em off balance. It was a hoot. When 6th came, they got bonkers strong. Nobody had fun playing against them, I hated playing with them. Sold 'em all with prices to move.
  18. Yeah that's pretty much where I'm at. I'm ostensibly part of a competitive regional team but I'm mostly there to be "the field" on batreps, give practice games to the legit competitors on the team, and fill the room on tournament days. This is a role I'm well suited for--able to deliver a vision blurring jab to the snout that makes you fight off your heel, but unwilling to commit to the decision usurping finishing combo. What I'm not interested in doing is filling out a tournament and playing against the same faction 2 of 3 or 3 of 3 as the last few tournaments of ITC 8th were. I can only imagine they'll become more prevalent. I'm down to play games, but I don’t want to rejoice at the understandably rare occasion I don't play marines.
  19. I am looking forward to seeing what random skew lists shoot through the meta. When you can anticipate at 60-75% presence of a single codex (and subsidiaries) you can tailor a list more specifically. I've heard good things about Tyranids too, but can't speak to myself. Cheap/fast troops and monstrous creatures. Checks out 🤷‍♂️?
  20. On topic, I can only offer the adversary's perspective. The only dreadnought of olde that scared me was the double autocannon/missile launcher variant. It had the right mix of volume and quality of fire that it seemed efficient at knocking my paper airplanes out of the sky. Every other shooty build was too low impact, either leaning into volume or quality of fire, but never both. Being slow, of medium defense, and inconsistent offense, I mentally put them into the "to be dealt with when an opportunity presents itself" column (not where you wanna be on my priority list). In previous editions, melee dreads were easily contained with their 2 attacks. Wyches have 4+ invuls so can tarpit dreads all day. When dreads got 4 attacks base, I did a double attacks double-take. All of a sudden, the dreadnought took off its glasses and let its hair down, shaking cascading, smashy locks about it's broad shoulders. Weird, dreadnaughty fantasies aside, all this is to say, the mixed role dread will probably serve you best in a list this size. You don’t have numbers to legitimately fill out a take-all-comers list, so flexibility is a must. My $0.0201
  21. I've fallen in love with Talos in 9th edition for the same reasons. Except they're not stompy, they're....hover-menacingly-just-above-the-ground-y. But still smashy and blasty.
  22. I think that's a realistic expectation for their 2nd 9th edition codex, but more likely in 10th ed. Making them absurdly over-the-top good is the best way to change over that model line quickly. They won't power them down until the changeover is complete.
  23. So now that the multi-melta has made the lascannon largely obsolete, the only question is how long until the space marine lascannon goes to Str 10, AP-4? Since their new design philosophy is "if something exists in 40k, then space marines must have the best version of that thing" then a boost to space marine lascannons is inevitable, isn't it? I really like the 9th edition rules, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that 9th edition will be the least diverse meta the game has ever seen. That appears to be the goal.
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