Lexington

Look, I'm in my 40's and literate and therefore find the whole "YouTuber" thing bewildering and sort of offensive, but it's hard not to hear "40K feels like homework now" and not feel at least a little bit of sympathy.

Nice to see the old Zodgrod poking his warty old head out, even if it’s just for a moment. The newer one’s phenomenal in its own way, but doesn’t really capture the pure cussedness of the original.

Tycho from the Pennies Arcade more or less had 11th Edition's number from the start - "I wonder what the game would look like if it was made with ninety-five percent of its players in mind." Something tells me you're not very familiar with the Ork Codex if you think that's the extent of the rule and its applications.

There's a lot, but as an example: I tried explaining the intricacies of using/tracking "Riled Up" to another friend - a very smart and capable guy who was the absolute terror of our college gaming club back in 3rd/4th Ed - and I swear you could see his mental train skid off the rails, fall into a ditch and explode into a fireball of confused irritation. This was about a third of the way into the explanation, by the way.

I have a sneaking suspicion that @ThaneOfTas is right, and we’ll end up with a 12th Edition wiping the slate clean in a few years, here, so it all seems kind of futile anyway. No idea if that’s currently GW’s plan, but I get the feeling that between these gaps and the sort of absurd complexity that’s being baked into Codexes*, 11th is going to get a bad reputation before long. * Seriously, an Ork-on-Ork game with the new Codex last weekend had me yearning for the comparatively simple ways of Infinity. Infinity! The game with a learning curve like a cliff face!

I don’t think they’re dullards in any real way, but I do think they get into the weeds of over-engineering and needless complexity in their rules design. Not sure if that’s due to their actual preferences as game designers or because it’s what the fan base (especially the competitive crowd that they clearly design for) demands of them, but it sure did make my first game with the Ork Codex this weekend into something of an ordeal. I miss when units just did what they did on their unit entry, and didn’t have three or four levels of extra conditional rules baked into them.

I doubt GW views or tracks it this quite this way - they're probably not that concerned with 'Suppressors' as a concept so much as the production logic involved. They have a big production bottleneck right now, and one part of handling that seems to be trying to scale down the frankly absurd amount of Marine SKUs that are available in one way or another. With those kinds of limitations, they're choosing what stays and what goes, and of the things that live in the weird limbo of "were in a big box, never got their own separate release," Suppressors are one of the easiest things to dump. Unlike Outriders, they don't have existing synergies with character boxes, and they compete with Inceptors, Assault Intercessors and now Vanguard Veterans for the "flying Space Marines" niche. Bad luck for Suppressors, but I doubt it's a case of GW looking at something that's never been released on its own anyway and saying "well, they didn't sell." Gonna engage in Extreme Pedant Mode here and note that the just-retired Bryan Nelson Ork Boyz, which defined the look of Orks 'till recently, were released in early 3rd, less than a year into the edition. ;)

I tend to buy themed dice for my armies, though it’s typically been big blocks of Chessex 12mms with a matching color scheme. It’s great for chucking big handfuls of 20+ attacks, but they do feel kinda piddly and difficult to tumble properly on single die rolls. More recently, I’ve been getting larger 16mm ones with faction symbols on them (finally managed to find some great Evil Sunz ones!), but mostly haven’t bought GW’s. Whenever I’ve looked for one of my factions, the color schemes just feel weird, and their readability is a bit questionable. Plus they’re ‘spensive. Just usually a better option out there.

Maybe. It's interesting to note that both Space Marines and Orks are seeing significant shifts upwards in points costs, necessitating smaller armies overall. One bit of info from GW's most recent financial report is that they're making long-term changes in their business to account for the current US tariff situation. I wonder if they foresee the costs of a full army alienating some newer customers, and are adjusting the size of the game accordingly.

Disappointed that Intercessors aren’t getting Special/Heavy Weapons to fully emulate old Tac Squads. Really thought they might go there this time around.

I appreciate how they're handling Kombi-Weapons on MegaNobz, where they're just different weapon profiles that you choose from when the unit shoots. No worrying about which model has which weapons, but truer to the purpose/use of the weapons than the generalized 10th Ed version. I imagine we'll see this same approach with Sternguard and Chaos Terminators.

Lootas/Burnas being out of the Codex is kind of sad, but now that Legends is in the App, no reason not to play them anyhow.

Curious how the amalgamated 'Warbuggies' entry ends up working. Genericized weaponry like the Kans? Maybe just several upgrades living within a single entry? Guess we'll find out. Odd to see the Squigbuggy living out there on its own, maybe they just wanted to keep an Indirect Fire buggy option open?

Eesh, that Mek price. Thought I'd get one for funsies, but at that price I'l just stick with some easy conversion. Same with the Trukk. It's an amazing model, and I really wanted to get a few for this little detachment of new Boyz I'm putting together. At that price, tho, well...I did just find an STL set that recreates and expands on the chassis of the old Gorkamorka Trukk, which I've always had a soft spot for. Guess that's our answer.

Huh, the system of top head part/bottom head part is interesting. Imaginably the new Warboss’ head swaps will work similarly.