You might have heard the rumors about how Chapter Approved book will be like. Sure, these are only rumors, so you should take it with a grain of salt. However, it brought us some new ideas.
The main point of the rumors is that that the book, scheduled for the end of this year will contain not only adjustments for the released codices but for the factions that don’t have one yet. That thing has caused intensive discussions among wargamers. On the one hand, it’s great – now factions without codex obviously have fewer possibilities. Game practice shows clearly show that there are stratagems and tactics which can actually change the game. GW should have probably heard the complaints from orks, drukhari, and other factions without a codex, and decided to bring them something to make waiting easier.
However, you have to pay one more time for the same thing. First, you paid for the Index, then you are going to pay for the Chapter Approved, and then you will pay for the full-scale codex. Or, if you already have one, getting CA will also be useful, since there you’ll find some changes for the other factions. Nice marketing strategy, isn’t it?
But what could you expect? We used to have some new rules only with every new edition. And if your codex contained mistakes or became outdated, the only thing, you could do, is to wait and suffer (Right, CSM?) Now GW rapidly reacts to the players’ requests and correct their own mistakes. For example, nobody uses Deathshroud terminators now because of the exorbitant price and poor vitality. If you take the rumors seriously, you’ll find them 15 pts cheaper for the model. Which gives them chances to appear useful. And units in this book not only become cheaper – for example, your favorite Stormravens and Guilliman are getting more expensive. That’s really nice for the balance.
Such micro-corrections in balance will keep the game up to date and playable much longer. And we won’t need to re-launch the edition as it was with the 7th. GW promised us 10 books before the end of the year, so they kept the promise. And if you don’t count Eldar and Tyranids, right in the same order that we’ve predicted. CA release will help the owners of the other armies wait until the Christmas holidays end. Also, GW won’t need to hurry and make new books standard and plane.
So, the strategy is totally right. The main reason for the criticism is the fact that we have to pay for all those rules. And the price is quite high. And this is the main GW mistake. We have a lot of wargames with free rules. We even have an example from GW – with Age of Sigmar, where you have unit’s rules on site for free and always available for changes. This doesn’t stop the company from making full-scale codices. But unit’s rules definitely should be free and available online. This was discussed at the end of the 8th edition, and players really accounted for it. Well, now we can only wait and hope that the policy will change. What do you think? How would it be better to distribute the rules? And what do you expect from your favorite faction?
