Games Workshop has released two, TWO, FAQ / Errata documents since 8th has released (about one month).

NB. All costs are AUD in this discussion.

Like or hate the massive amount of errors and rules conundrums their proof readers / rules writers give us. Like or hate the company. Like or hate their changes. This is a good thing but raises several points of discussion.

Living Rulesets or regular changes are not uncommon – we see them quite often with patches or updates for computer games to fix bugs or change “overpower / underpowered” options. From memory, Blizzard did this regularly with Starcraft and Warcraft RTS games but importantly, had zero impact on customer’s monetary investment. You have the software and changes made to unit performance within that software did not require an outlay in cost. Other examples such as this can include Dungeons and Dragons and to a certain extent, MTG. While Magic has a big monetary component, changing a deck based upon changes to a handful of cards would generally not cost you several hundred dollars.

With war dollies – it can. We will take a recent example from Warmahordes – Una2 and her Griffons. Briefly, the Scarsfell was a very points efficient light beast – it had an extra attack and the ability Long Leash so allow it to roam around and kill things far away from its caster and native high defense with the Dodge animus (i.e. you need to invest a rather larger sum of points to kill it for if you miss once, it will move out of range). Throw in Flight and a high native move stat and it was a great package for a cheap cost. Una2’s abilities and feats turned this option up to the 9’s giving bonuses to hit and damage when next to another Griffon and a feat which made them immune to melee damage for a turn. Rush them up into the opponent’s face, Feat and say what you going to do? This was a very obvious strong list and Griffons were soldout worldwide for a long time, even prior to this as they were a solid model (particularly for Tanith lists).

Enter the nerf bat. Una2’s abilities were powered down and Griffons lost Long Leash. Not only did this destroy this list in particular but it made Griffons far less viable options in other lists and we went from a state of seeing them regularly in lists to not seeing them at all. Now most people would predict the Una2 list was going to be toned down – while it was not game breaking it was a very strong list and alterations to her Feat and changes to Griffons were expected. Going out and buying 8 Griffons was unwise yet there were definitely people who did this or people like myself who had been after Griffons for other lists, would pick up 2-4. Post nerf bat however, and while not useless models, you have $X invested in models which are not going to be ideal choices due to an over correction.

There’s two concerns here. The first is the person chasing the ‘meta’ or buying 8 Griffons in “win now” mode trying to take advantage of a list that is strong due to a variety of reasons (i.e. being new, no counters, overpowered rules, rules oversights, etc.) for the period of time it will be available. We have seen this already in 40k 8th with Razorwing Flock spam and Storm Raven lists. Chasing the meta is never going to net you overall positive results. You may clean up in your local group due to experience level / power level interactions but time and time again we have shown that better plays with well-rounded lists win (well until 7th edition at least) at big events, regardless of list. Readers of 3++ by now hopefully abide by the notion that going with a list and making minor tweaks and changes over a longer period of time while playing that list over and over again will net you far more benefits than “chasing the meta”, regardless of what your local opponents bring. I continue to cringe when I see people tailoring lists or when receiving / giving list advice, asking what they may be facing. Changing your list in light of small factors like that will often be to the detriment of your overall list / gameplay unless you’re covering a gap that is more widely applicable (i.e. not having DXD weapons and losing regularly to a mech list and adding in Lascannons is not tailoring against the mech list but adding that facet to your army).

An example from MTG as I try to be all inclusive. Years ago when I played somewhat regularly I had a Blue deck that was just a wank to play against. It would force creatures back to your hands and discard your hand while interrupting and blocking all your damage. It was a SLOW list though and anything that could put out early or consistent minor damage would beat it. There was one player with a Black deck that would regularly win somewhat larger events outside of our local group and he would constantly lose to my Blue deck even though I would not do well in the grand scheme of the event. Rather than tailoring to beat me and then losing the advantages of his deck (we were never playing with sideboards btw), he continually reviewed how he could change his strategy and what issues my deck was bringing he could not answer. A handful of card changes to deal with interrupt / unblockable / grind type lists and alteration of his normal card placement and suddenly he was winning 50-60% of the games against my Blue deck and still was managing against everyone else just as readily. Rather than full-scale altering his deck to deal with the one deck he was having trouble with, he took it to the grass roots and while some minor changes were necessary which did not dilute the strength of the list, his main alteration was his early game strategy.

The second concern from the Una2/Griffon example is unintended consequences. Chasing the meta is bad and I do not really feel bad for anyone who goes out and buys 6 Storm Ravens for $400 and then has an essentially useless army with major tweaks needed. The person who bought 2-3 Storm Ravens though because they make a good addition to the army – I have qualms if that person then feels like they cannot use them at all and I have to applaud Games Workshop on the elegant way they handled the Storm Raven issue. Storm Ravens themselves (and other fliers) are still extremely viable options but they cannot be the entire make up (or significant portion) of your army without opening a significant weakness. The Griffons; however, while expecting a nerf, took one of their main advantages away while making none of the other Griffons better (this was one of the key reasons behind the nerfing). The result was that while Una2 was brought back into line, the Griffons which were not the problem were kneecapped and faded from view. So while the person chasing the meta and tossing down $160 on Griffons was punished, so were the other players making more balanced lists who plopped down $60.

Now GW prices and army sizes are not applicable to many other games – while PP prices are similar you often don’t need the amount of models a GW army does but a similar principle applies here. A change in an X-Wing models effectiveness is $24, PP model $10-$40 while a change in a GW model starts expensive and goes up from there as there are more often multiples or triples. Tau players with their 6+ Crisis Suits and 3+ Broadsides and 2+ Riptides for example (which made the core of balanced lists from 3rd edition onwards sans the Riptides) are looking at $400-$600 depending on when they bought them and from where. That’s a lot of money that is now not super useful in this edition and for someone who has not been collecting for a long time, may not have the other models necessary to put together a competitive list for 8th edition. That being said, this was an edition change and things like that are unfortunate and expected. Whole armies have languished at times (Dark Eldar, Necrons, Sisters of Battle, Tyranids, etc.) without a codex, let alone update, for years and a decade in some cases.

So where is all of this going? I am certainly not complaining – I love the involvement GW has had so far with 8th edition. They are no where near perfect, no games company is, and while I don’t agree with every change they have made, their willingness to address issues and have a dynamic or living ruleset is good. PP has had some teething issues with the way they are adapting their approach (see essential Skorne re-write and current Trollbloods re-write) but they are admitting to their errors and trying to address them. If GW can do the same, while the scale may be different, this cannot be but a good thing and I hope we continue to see the elegant adjustments they made with Storm Ravens and not the ham fisted silliness of nerfing Starcannons due to 3rd edition hangover (still).