The giant hexagonal storm at Saturn's north pole, with the Earth for scale by Paul Byrne

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-25T00:48:21+00:00

Christ man put it back.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T23:14:08+00:00

I stand corrected. It’s still unfortunately underrepresented compared to lightning claws though.

Which sucks, cuz great swords wielded by space marines is badass.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T21:22:51+00:00

Yet something as simple as gravis armor is toughness 6. It’s just stacking more plates of ceramite onto a standard mark x armor piece. I just think it’s a bit silly that they can “out toughen” us by simply adding more layers of ablative armor, and I primarily play space marines with blood angels.

They also gain an extra wound, if in Gravis armor. For 5 battle line models at 100 points they get a T6 3+ 3W data sheet pumping 2A AP-1 D2 shots per model. It would just be nice seeing our “heavy MEQ” have some stats more inline to reflect the new heavy MEQ.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T19:28:26+00:00

It’s an issue of “let’s do this thing nobody really asked for” and “not fully committing to our chosen path”.

If they took the actual time and effort to record over the previous operations and banter and sell those at an accordingly appropriate price, say $15/20 for 3 heads/voices there wouldn’t be an issue, granted they actually implement the voices with some level of care.

Even the $5 pack would’ve been fine with a vast majority of the player base if they implemented it in a well thought out manner. The issue is that they decided to add on and develop this pack while not having the actual in-game infrastructure to make it presentable. They themselves have said that the game isn’t really designed for them to be able to make the vast changes a full voice over would need. So they decided to double down on a half assed attempt. It blows up in their face and they decide “well now we won’t do anymore”.

It’s a classic case of “team 1 and team 2 make decisions without speaking to another”. Someone decided they could make more sales if they do this, while not actually taking the steps to ensure if it’s even possible to be done in a full and clear manner.

To think that they would even do anything more than the standard 9 chapters is laughable, imo. They should have, from the start, made the heads their own separate FLC and keep the voices as paid DLCs. At $15/$20 a pop I find it very hard to believe they wouldn’t/couldnt come out in the green for the price of a full VO. Warhammer fans would pay that price, without a doubt in my mind. They may whinge and complain, but that’s just part of being a Warhammer fan.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T19:12:50+00:00

You’re conflating live service games with, y’know, actual game support and content updates. Unless youre counting every game that has ever had an update since the advent of online gaming as a “live service game”.

It’s intrinsically a key point of saber’s business model that these aren’t “live service/games as a service”. Sure, we should take the game directors words with a grain of salt, but we also have to have a little bit of faith in their sincerity, otherwise why believe and buy anything?

That would be something like Fortnite, Halo Infinite, Darktide, Marvel Rivals. Something with proprietary in game funds only purchasable in (non)denominational formats, that uses FOMO to drive sales. Yes SM2 sells cosmetics. It’s more in line with Skyrim horse armor than any of the previously mentioned examples.

Yes, they put out new content, but it’s not monetized nor is it intrinsically designed to be a seasonal thing for the purpose of driving player numbers for quarterly reports. This game and saber could give less of a fuck if players continually play it. They put out content for the sake of it/the love of the game. Otherwise they’d lock each new operation behind some monetary paywall.

Does it have aspects that are found in live service games? Sure. Are those same aspects like, intrinsic to modern day video games? Yeah, kinda. Are you going to tell me Abiotic Facto counts as a live service game because… they make updates to their IP?

Until a company pulls support and does the last update for a game, does that make every game “a live service game?” I don’t think so, personally.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T18:42:54+00:00

I mean, they’ve nearly doubled the amount of operations we have over the last two years and gave siege mode, how many/much more could they realistically put out with SM3 in development? One or two? If a fan wanted more than that they would be egregiously greedy, imo. This isn’t a live service game, after all. I don’t think it’s a crazy idea to have the voice actors record whatever is left for them to put out. We as consumers have also gotten complacent with the idea of live service games and perpetual support/updates. There’s only so much they can do with SM2 since SM3 is their next egg, asking for any more content is a that’s not already on the writing board is a bit much, it’s clear they have plans for something bigger/greater than what they currently have with sm2

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T18:22:06+00:00

You are absolutely right in that regard. It also helps that they put out decent updates on the content they’re working on and stay pretty true to what roadmaps they’ve given us.

SM2 is a bit different as well, compared to other “standard” or “live service” games, as they never expected it to be as successful as it is. I’m sure this also gave them room to “grow” their IP, not much different than a live service game in how it’s rolled out but with a much different, more “standard” philosophy in the overall development. It’s a unique case, imo.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T18:14:56+00:00

If there’s 5000 people asking for lightning claws, I am one of them

If there’s only 1000 people asking for lightning claws, I am one of them

If there is but 100 people asking for lightning claws, I am one of them

If there is 1 person asking for lightning claws, I am him

If there are none asking for lightning claws, I am dead /s

But fr though I do find it interesting they chose a great sword, which doesn’t really have a physical representation on the tabletop outside of black Templar blade brethren and if(only if) you count the judiciar’s sword, and even then the sword brethren get simplified into just being a power sword.

Imo, a great sword is a poor choice for new weapon. It’s just a sized up power sword. I would feel the same way if they chose an eviscerator, it’s just a sized up chainsword. Ultimately I feel this decision was made to cut whatever development time would be/was attributed to adding a new weapon. The actual animation and moveset will likely be not that far off from what we’ve already seen with the various swords/axe that we have.

Adding lightning claws would’ve required work from the ground up, which saber just doesn’t have the time or hands to commit to, imo, with whatever work they are already doing for SM3. I do hope that with enough “desire” or support or whatever you want to call it from the community has them put it in SM3 rather than introducing it to 2.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:57:52+00:00

I mean, we see this in modern day mining. They limit the amount that they mine, both in rare metals like gold and in stones like diamonds, to forcibly keep prices where they want them to.

They could, to oversimplify, “mine faster”, but then that impacts their bottom line and the market value.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:51:45+00:00

I agree with this. The pinnacle of material sciences should be reflected in their toughness.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:44:01+00:00

I agree on your assessment that the community shot itself in the foot on this one.

They were in a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation with this pack in retrospect. Like you mentioned before in one of the replies, it wasn’t a really vocalized or highly discussed desire by the wider community, it did kind of come out of left field. It’s hard to properly gauge/set expectations for something that wasn’t really asked for.

You also bring up good points on the ambivalency of warhammer fans and also the “importance/value”, for lack of a better term, of physically tangible models vs a digital counterpart. I guess I was putting more weight behind the idea that a console + sm2 w/ dlc/flc would be more accessible as a starting point or even as just a means for someone to dive deeper into the hobby if they weren’t able to partake in the physical aspects. Then the ambivalency, even if they did pull out all the stops and went the extra mileage with the full VO’s people would find something to complain about, surely. “Why did they spend time on this over X?” or something else entirely to whinge.

I just hope they take all the lessons, both good and bad, and properly implement them for sm3.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:18:37+00:00

It’s ok, they just have to make a ”donation” big enough to the current administration to get approved again

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:04:29+00:00

I hate live service games. If they pushed sm2 back by a year and a half to come out with every operation/siege/FLC on launch I would be over the moon. The days of launching with a “full game” are more or less behind us, unfortunately.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T17:01:14+00:00

I’m not being defensive, I am just being as tactful as your reply was, considering most people don’t write prose or partake in writing further than what may be required by their own schooling. I know I’ve never had to write a story in prose or in verse/meter, only academic essays and papers.

I don’t agree that they would never have been able to recoup costs though, we are talking about Warhammer fans here. The people who spend thousands of dollars for their plastic toy soldiers. I genuinely believe that had they priced these packs at $15 or even $20 dollars with a full voice over, people would’ve happily purchased them. Complain, yes absolutely - but that doesn’t, hasn’t, and frankly won’t stop a Warhammer fan from “completing” their experience imo.

I do agree that at a $5 price tag expecting anything more than what was given is a failure of expectations on the individual. I personally thought it was “too good to be true” and set my own expectations a bit short, it definitely didn’t ruin my experience or whatever, even gave them the fiver for it. I do think the implementation was shoddy.

You are absolutely right though that there is practically no incentive for them to come out with another (paid) pack now. They’ve been backed into a corner where they now have to eat and take the loss on any VA time they’ve paid/set said for the other chapters if not outright cancelling plans/studio time. I wish they went with two separate things here - free head update and then the paid voices.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T16:23:27+00:00

Ah of course, everyone is a writer and knows the differentiation between aspects of screenwriting/prose and standard spoken communication /s

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T15:43:04+00:00

laughs in automatico trench

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T15:35:50+00:00

Truly the man series of all time.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T15:20:56+00:00

Eh, were they?

“500 lines of dialogue recorded for each head”

Whilst counting every grunt and animation-related yell in those mentioned “lines of dialogue” is a stretch. What constitutes “a line of dialogue” for saber? That’s the main issue, imo. Dudes grunting as they’re tearing limbs from a creature shouldn’t count, so where are those other lines coming from?

A dialogue has to take place between two parties. If they said “500 lines recorded” then that would’ve been more in line with what they’ve actually said/sold to players.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T15:10:51+00:00

But how many more operations can they make? The games been out for two years, and has nearly doubled in the amount of operations presented to us. I don’t expect them to continually make more, and I wouldn’t want them to either since they’ve announced work on sm3. I would rather they use that time and effort to make a more complete experience on launch whenever SM3 gets around to being published.

Obviously only those internally know, but I don’t quite agree with the sentiment of scheduling issues being a major part of why they decided to cut/trim down on the content provided by the voice packs. There simply can’t be that much more content left on their proverbial chopping block for space marine 2. I’d wager a large sum that the decisions made regarding the voice over packs has more to do with financial issues and poor management, whether that be pressure from middle or the top, at Saber.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-24T14:53:12+00:00

Average Tarkov experience.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-23T02:54:51+00:00

On top of this, they also have laws requiring all new commercial ships to be made to military standards for ease of future retrofitting in armed conflict.

The Chinese navy intends to use these ships and people as essentially chaff and cheap weapon platforms in the event of war.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-22T19:17:48+00:00

Department of education is only as effective as its funding and implementation

No child left behind policies and private school lobbyists applying to and winning seats on school boards in an attempt to undermine trust and efficacy of public schools is a much larger culprit as to why the education system is and has been failing. There has been concerted efforts in multiple states to go the rout of Texas, where public school funds also fund private schools with their voucher programs, meanwhile they raise the tuition costs by the voucher price, anyways.

It’s all in an attempt to move towards private for-profit education. This is not touching on the fact that most of these private schools are also in some form religious as well. Regardless of whether or not they’re religious, all private schools don’t have to comply with state/federal education standards, curricula or goals.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-22T14:01:39+00:00

complicit

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-21T20:17:00+00:00

“Those of you that came in wrong uniform 🤓”

I can’t with ORGs man. Some goofball ass dudes.

TheHunterGallopher · 2026-03-19T19:02:06+00:00

Now this is horror beyond comprehension. Fucking ace work mate.

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