New Space Marines

[me_in_japan]

I don't think Auxryn was suggesting you should take all of those FOC slots at once, just that the limitations on any given slot were now greatly reduced. Eg instead of being limited to 3 heavy support, with only a little fiddling about you can have 8 HS instead.

[Primarch]

FOC and Allies related nonsense aside, the new book is growing on me. Overall, it didn't really add much in the way of cool new options, but it also didn't take anything away from what I like about Marines. They are still a solid all-round force, which should be able to hold it's own against most opponents.
I'm still waiting to see what FW are going to do with their dozen or so Chapters, as I have small forces for Astral Claws and Mantis Warriors already and have been considering what colours to paint the 200 or so unaffiliated minis I have lying around....

[Konrad]

Good god. And I thought I was being obviously ridiculous...

Nope, GW is being obviously ridiculous.
It is possible in a 2000 point game to have any mixture of the following:
5 HQs (3 compulsory), 14 Troops (5 compulsory), 7 Elites, 7 Fast Attack, 7 Heavy Support and 1 Fortification.
In other words, the FOC isn't worth a damn as you can fairly easily get round any restriction by min/maxing troops. I think marine scout squads now come at 55 points and Chaplains at 90.
Thats 545 points spent to cover the minimums and then you can just spam away nearly 1500 on one slot. 6 Land Raiders anyone? 21 Land Speeders with enough spare points to buy a terminator squad?

There isn't anyone on here dumb enough, obnoxious enough, or douchey enough to pull a stunt like that, is there?

Hey! There isn't! Yeah!

[Konrad]

. This means you can paint each tactical squad differently and taste the rainbow.

Say, who was the primarch of the Rainbow Warriors?

Charles

[Auxryn]

It would be really cool if Forge World came up with Chapter Tactics for all their custom Chapters. That would be interesting to read all by itself.

[Primarch]

It would be really cool if Forge World came up with Chapter Tactics for all their custom Chapters. That would be interesting to read all by itself.

They did. Imperial Armour books 9 and 10 contain a load of them. However, they all need a bit of a rewrite to be officially playable under the new codex.
They cover rules for:
Executioners,
Mantis Warriors,
Lamenters,
Astral Claws,
Red Scorpions,
Space Sharks,
Minotaurs,
Salamanders (three new characters),
Howling Griffons,
Star Phantoms,
Flame Falcons,
Nova Marines,
and a couple more I think.
The Minotaurs also got a load more stuff in IA 12 as well.

[Colonel Voss]

Yeah it would be interesting to see. Overall though I just want to sit down and read the book and see. Probably will have to wait till I can get prim up here for a game of something.

As for the FOC, yeah you could load up one way much more easily now but what would you be loosing in the process. The choice is yours after all and you could pay if you put too much emphasis on one thing.

[me_in_japan]

As for the FOC, yeah you could load up one way much more easily now but what would you be loosing in the process. The choice is yours after all and you could pay if you put too much emphasis on one thing.

That assumes there's a carefully worked out balance of points/slots and units. Eg if I spend most of my points in heavy support I run the risk of getting whipped in CC. Sadly, this being GW I very much doubt that this is the case. Allowing players to spam to the nth degree has just opened the floodgates to cheese-o-win. I have neither the time nor the inclination to do so, but I am sure there are folks out there who have already worked out that (for example) having 8 land raider crusaders is an auto-win button. To be honest, I don't think GW needs to take responsibility for this. If a player wants to be a cheesemongering asshat then the game developers ain't gonna stop him/her. Rules are, as GW point out often, simply a framework. If you don't like em, make up your own.

[frans]

Why all doom and gloom, how about this:

You can ally with yourself....

That is awesome then you could make an awesome raven guard list, why not use divination can’t see anyone who would object. I would love to bring out my “witch burning sisters”/”heretic hunting Dark Angels” .

[Auxryn]

You couldn't do 8 Crusaders in 2000 pts because the points won't fit, but you might be able to do 6 with Black Templars and Chaplains inside. That could be a really cool and themed list. It would have some bad match ups like any extreme list, but it might be fun. In actual practice you can only either get 4 Land Raiders loaded almost to the gills with men or 6 Raiders and 4 mostly useless scout squads. Some people have taken Raider-heavy lists to tournaments and the conclusion is that you won't win the tournament but you will win some games. The good matchups are really good but the bad matchups are really bad. It's not good for casual games because you are not likely to have a fun, close game.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure Games Workshop doesn't care to balance the game as much as we expect in, for example, computer games like Starcraft. Doesn't mean it's impossible to precisely balance a strategy game, it's been done before, but it is hard. Just means that 40k is more of a friendly game and when you play a pick up game you need to be considerate of your opponent. Some miniatures games pay more attention to trying to foster a competitive tournament environment. GW doesn't. As far as I know they don't support tournaments in any way.

Anyway, the game is still good enough to allow a lot of tactical depth and a lot of good list-building options within any (or at least most of the) codexes.