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Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

Back in RT / 2E, 40k used all of the DnD polyhedrals. It was a great thing to standardize the game to standard d6s, while removing the Sustained Fire die. Also nice to standardize on a single Flamer template.

   
Made in us
Battlewagon Driver with Charged Engine




Between Alpha and Omega, and a little to the left

I think I'll be the contrarian voice here and ask: why should heavily armored unit get the same benefit from cover as a lightly armored one? Especially since that the cover would actually do less for poorly armored unit against armies with a higher BS, a -1 from light cover vs a 5+ save is 25% less hits vs 33%, while a BS 3 firing in kind would be the same against no armor but would stack on top of armor that does save, and with a -2 from heavy cover vs a 4+ cover as that would be the same with a BS of 4 (50%) and would be worse with BS 3. So it's a double bonus for armies like space marines.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/12 20:43:50


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Made in us
Leutnant





Louisville, KY, USA

If given the task of redesigning 40K, I'd take copies of the 6th and 7th ed rulebooks, hand them to Alessio Cavatore with instructions to "make these play like the happy offspring of 5th ed and Warpath. Bring it in at 84 pages, cover and fluff included."

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/13 03:11:14


 
   
Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





The biggest changes should be simplifying assault and removing a vast majority of the special rules. Trying to teach a new player the game goes really well until I get to the assault part. Declare charge, overwatch, saves, roll charge distance, 3" movement to get in base contact, work out all the different weapon profiles, roll to hit, roll to wound, armor save, tally up wounds, Ld test, initiative off, check for ATSKNF, consolidate. All this for 1 squad during 1 minor phase of the game.

Why do we need 127 different special rules, some applying to only one unit, some that do basically the same thing as others?

I'm fine with IGOUGO, most other TTWGs use the system and it's fine.
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought





The Beach

 MWHistorian wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
Just fix cover to the point that it helps all types of units and not just low armored ones.


The whole cover vs armor thing is terrible. Maybe my #1 gripe with the core rules.

The worst part is they've known since 3rd Edition that cover was borked, and stuck with the Cover Save system. It either needed to be an additional save, or better, just been a To-Hit modifier like it was in 2nd and RT.

Marneus Calgar is referred to as "one of the Imperium's greatest tacticians" and he treats the Codex like it's the War Bible. If the Codex is garbage, then how bad is everyone else?

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Made in gb
Steady Space Marine Vet Sergeant




England

Shotguns at the ready Necron players, because i would remove Necrons. Personally they feel so out of place in a universe where aliens run rampant. Also i would mould Dark Angels into the Space Marine codex. Mabye the Blood Angels as well, but mainly Dark Angels. Their units are too similar to SM, and so is their style of play. Finally, i would do something to make 40k actually futuristic. For example, the best weapon a human super soldier has is a gun that shoots exploding shells, or one of the best anti tank weapon is a gun that shoots very hot metal.

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Made in us
Ultramarine Librarian with Freaky Familiar





Southern California, USA

If I had to remove an army from the game it'd be Dark Eldar. They serve no purpose to the overall narrative than to either troll the Imperium or be all dark n' edgy. I don't know, in a game set in a galaxy of conflicts that span entire star systems I don't get why there is a whole model line dedicated to a group of individuals that raid stuff.

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Made in au
Beast of Nurgle





As has been mentioned already in the thread ,the biggest problem I see is a lack of direction with regard to the scale.
GW needs to decide whether they are creating a game of small skirmishes or monstrous battles, not trying to shoehorn them into the same thing.
Having these ridiculously huge models like the Riptide and Lord of Skulls in games where there is only a handful of infantry always seems so silly and cartoonish to me. There needs to be a clearer separation between standard standard 40k battles and Apocalypse.

2500 Warriors of Chaos
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Made in gb
Lieutenant Colonel




I think there should be clear division in the game sizes.


Rules with detailed MODEL interaction focused rules.

'Small 'skirmish for new players 'an easy in'.(Kill team /40k in 40 mins type.)
This grows into' larger 'skirmish game.(2nd ed size.)

Rules with detailed UNIT interaction rules.

'Small'battle game , (3rd ed size..)
This expands to'massive' battles, (Apocalypse.)

This way there is a simple and clear progression through the game sizes and types, that players can easily identify with.
And the core rules can be used in both game types, just the element of interaction changes from model to unit.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/13 12:10:05


 
   
Made in gb
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain





Earth

 WarbossDakka wrote:
Shotguns at the ready Necron players, because i would remove Necrons. Personally they feel so out of place in a universe where aliens run rampant. Also i would mould Dark Angels into the Space Marine codex. Mabye the Blood Angels as well, but mainly Dark Angels. Their units are too similar to SM, and so is their style of play. Finally, i would do something to make 40k actually futuristic. For example, the best weapon a human super soldier has is a gun that shoots exploding shells, or one of the best anti tank weapon is a gun that shoots very hot metal.


If you think dark angels play the same way as normal marines your doing it wrong.

Greenwing: yep pretty much the same
Ravenwing: not even remotely, even white scars play differently
Deathwing: codex marines can't even do this.

However, I still agree with your fundamental point, all marines could be rolled into codex marines but with supplements, these would cover just the unique units and army special rules.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Thing with the dice, drop the d6 and use d10, d12, d20 and the rest but do it sensibly. Example is in order, this is from a WW2 navy game, the same situation but two rules systems.

The situation is the HMS Prince of Wales firing its main weapons batteries at a target, this is 10x 14" guns.

System one, Victory at Sea, somewhat similar to warhammer, uses D6.
Player rolls 1d6 for each gun barrel, thus 10d6 the misses are removed, each hit then does three damage, each of which is a further dice to see if the shell did anything or not. So similar to WH we have each weapon rolling to hit, then rolling to wound, here with the potential to do multiple wounds done slightly differently - its a lot of dice

System two, Micronaughts, uses a d20
Player rolls 1d20 to hit, this determines if they have the range to the enemy or not, if they have a second 1d20 is rolled to see how many of the tend shells fired have actually hit. There is no "to wound" roll, a hit does 'x' damage, a near miss 'y' and a total miss 'z'.

Both systems then roll for hit locations etc

Point being, you can use the d20 to get a wider range of results, without the need for a bucket full of dice.

Back to 40k.

Say a mob of orks assault something, once you get through all the initial stuff and the orks actually smack something they roll 1d6 for each attack, assuming you can find enough space to actually roll them or do it in batches. Such a huge number of dice will give the average result or there abouts more often than not.

So why not give each model a single d20, with a level of success - exceed that by a bit and you hit twice, a bit more you hit three times.

Down from 3-4 dice per model to one per model, could even go to one per squad with a lookup to see how many blows actually landed.

Point?
There are a great many ways to resolve actions that don't involve yahtzee with models, they can be balanced a lot better as it becomes a lot harder to simply swamp the enemy with die rolls.

If I was recreating 40k the first thing I;d do is get my hands on and play a good few other games of the desired scale to get a feel for what works and what doesn't then make the game around the best of the best for the core mechanics.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

Easy way to redesign 40k:

1) Pick up a copy of Bolt Action
2) Add 40k-esque things to the rules
3) ???
4) Profit

Seriously, Bolt Action is basically what 40k should be if it wasn't limited to WW2.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/13 13:59:20


- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in be
Longtime Dakkanaut




The more I read suggestions, the more I'm happy the game is as it is.

The only thing I would change to 40K is move all rules content to digital for free (+ print on demand) to accelerate the release schedule even more (which they have vastly improved already).
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





Norfolk

Hmm a complete redesign of 40k eh?

As someone who was pretty much put off ever playing 40k again by 6th and 7th there's a lot of work to do as in my opinion most of it needs to be thrown out.

The first issue is one of scale as suggested by several others. Is 40k a platoon or company sized game? The force org char suggests a platoon but many armies approach company sizes with ease (looking at you guard, nids and orks). Given the size/cost of the miniatures I would say that 40k should be a platoon system. To enforce that I would reduce the recommended points level to a reasonable amount (say 1000 points) and change the force organisation to be a percentage system ala WHFB.

HQ: 0-25%
Troops: 25+%
Support: 0-50%
Elite: 0-25%

Support would be a merging of FA and HS units. However to prevent abuse of the system particularly powerful FA or HS units should be reclassified as Elite. In addition to the percentage system from WHFB I would also pinch the limit on repeat choices, say 0-2 of any unit type from support and 0-1 in elite and HQ. Yes that's right no more spamming just one or two for flavour. The bulk of an army should be it's basic troops! Of course certain characters could change things abit.

Oh and allies and huge apoc units are gone. Keep those for Apoc games.

Next thing is the turn structure, I would personally switch to an alternating activation system with each phase being something each unit goes through individually. This should ensure that all players are constantly engaged in the game rather than sitting around waiting for ages. At the start of each game turn the players will roll for initiative, something simple like 2D6+warlords ld would do. Winner goes first.

Alternating activation does open up one issue and that's the new psychic phase which is in theory a good idea. The way I would work that is that at the start of each game turn the player with initiative (ie the one going first) rolls 2d6 for the number of dice available to each player. Now to pinch something else from Fantasy for each psyker in their army the players should roll a D6 and on the roll of a 6 get an extra dice (up to a cap of 12). Yes it's the channelling system. Now those dice are to be used for both casting and defending against psychic powers, which should make for some fun tactical decisions. As for getting the powers off well that's going to again pinch a basic idea from fantasy, just beat the total needed. With a double 6 being a warp related issue ala miscasting. Mastery levels act like wizard levels and provide a bonus to casting/defending and determine the number of powers you can take.

Beyond that the shooting phase really needs some work. Cover save? pah replace them with a to hit modifier, add others for long range, point blank, snap firing etc That would get rid of most issues in addition I would also take the armour modifiers from fantasy and ditch the AP system. So a strength 4 weapon would make a 4+ save into a 5+ etc. Of course the armour piercing rule could also be brought over for an additional -1 to a save. Against vehicles AP would simply give you +1 on the damage chart.

Assault also needs work. Overwatch currently makes assault almost worthless. I would get round that by simply making it so that shooting from overwatch at an assaulting unit is using that units activation for that turn and a unit that has already been activated can't do it.

Now onto special rules, dear god these need some work, most of them should go as quite frankly they add little to the game. I've not got a definitive list but yeah these need to be thinned down quite drastically. In addition no codex would be filled with it's own rules either. It's bad enough having to memorise the huge number in the book without additional ones in every codex. Sure add a couple for particularly unique units and maybe an army wide one but the rulebook stuff should really cover most things.

Flyers, I know they're not popular amongst a lot of players but honestly I think an aerial element is a good thing even in a squad sized game it's just got to be appropriate, no fighter jets or dogfights. Instead dropships and gunships should be the order of the day. The current rules are ok but need a bit of tweaking, for one thing infantry should have easier or rather cheaper access to AA weapons beyond taking a piece of scenery in your army (seriously who takes flak missile at their current cost?).

So that's some of my opinions of rules out of the way now for armies. There needs to be a huge reduction in the number of codexes available. Currently pretty much half of the armies out there are bloody space marines. I would consolidate all the SM rules into one book, if its possible to go from the Ultrasmurfs to the Black Templars in one book it's certainly possible to integrate all the others (except maybe GKs). I would also combine the CSM and CD books, Legion rules would also be introduced. For the rest of the codexes rules similar to the SM chapter traits would be introduced. Small pointless armies like the Storm Troopers (sorry Militarum Tempetus) would be rolled into the suitable parent codex. One final thing I would bring back the 3rd ed style basic army lists in the rulebook thing simply to make getting into the game easier/cheaper for beginners

So there's some of my ideas for fixing 40k some are huge changes others are small. Feel free to rip my ideas to shreds.





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Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Verviedi wrote:
Keep the game the size it is

Lower prices by 40%

Radically change the force org. 1 HQ and 2 troops are mandatory. For each 2 troops choices in the army you may take 1 Fast Attack, 1 Heavy Support, and 1 Elites choice.

Two pretty awful ideas right there.

40% cut would mean they are cheaper than half-assed Kickstarter models or Chinese recasters. Given their financial problems, they would shut their doors within a year.

Troop quality and point cost varies quite a bit between armies, so it can't be something as blanket as 2 troops = 1 special thing. Guard have a much easier time getting two cheap troops on the table to justify more battle tanks than say, Space Marines. You'd be better off going back to percentages, like 1+ HQ up to 25% of the battle value, 25%+ troop units, the rest can be whatever you want.
   
Made in us
Brigadier General






Chicago

First off, I'd bring back the movement stat.

 ImAGeek wrote:
I think really they need to pick a scale, so that's where I'd start. Is it a Skirmish game, or a mass battle game? At the moment it has the rules of a skirmish game but the model count of a much bigger game, which means there's tonnes of rules bloat and turns take ages.

I don't know which I'd pick, but I think making a decision would be a good place to start.


This almost exactly sums up my feelings about 40k. Despite having some outdated elements, at it's heart, it's a fine set of rules for up to about small platoon (Kill team) level that at unfortunately have been bogged down by loads of special rules. Additionally, for some reason, it's been stretched up to company level (standard size games of 40k) of play and even Battalion level if you count Apocalypse, without the appropriate increased level of abstraction that a larger scope game requires. Rolling different dice for different sets of weapons in a squad when you're playing at the company or battalion level is just sillyness, and if we weren't all rasied on 40k, we'd see it as such.

I'd actually like to see 3 separate rulesets with varying degrees of abstraction for Platoon, Company and Battalion level of play. The units could keep the same statlines, and play at the platoon level would be virtually the same as it is now, though with some reorganization and simplification of the mound of special rules. However at the higher levels of play certain stats and special rules wouldn't be used and a squad's firepower would be increasingly abstracted.

Unfortunately this is never going to happen because in order to sell a new codex, there has to be something "New" about it. All the factions and nearly all the units in 40k have already been done multiple times, so besides adding units, the only way to make a faction "new" is to give it a new layer of special rules that only exacerbates an already over-burndened ruleset. GW players have contributed to this trend themselves and have developed something of an obsession in wanting their units fluff to be replicated in-detail in their unit's game stats, but that's a whole other issue.

I also have alot of gripes about the number of codicies, price, etc, but a fundamental change to the game in terms of determining the levels of abstraction and detail in different levels of play is a much better place to start.


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Made in se
Longtime Dakkanaut




An explicit aim of mine would be to make the game easy and not too costly to properly get into. I'd want people to be able to pick up a battleforce box of 750 points and have that be a genuinely good core for tournament play and preferably a respectable 750 points list in its own right (or whatever points total, it's arbitrary anyway).

I think something could seriously be done with snap-together models that came moulded in a specific colour for each army so you could at least immediately differentiate yours from another faction. The Gundam model kits that Bandai does are completely insane and don't just come moulded in mostly the colours they're supposed to be but also make up a fully articulated figure without the need for any glue. To top it off they're remarkably cheap although very low labour costs and sheer scale probably account for a lot of that. Still, it'd be something worth looking into. Showing that someone can easily pick out some details with basically a silver sharpie and maybe a dark wash is a much easier introduction to the modelling hobby than what currently exists.

Some people just want game pieces and having theirs look something other than drab grey out of the box would be a great thing, imho.
   
Made in us
Cosmic Joe





Rosebuddy wrote:
An explicit aim of mine would be to make the game easy and not too costly to properly get into. I'd want people to be able to pick up a battleforce box of 750 points and have that be a genuinely good core for tournament play and preferably a respectable 750 points list in its own right (or whatever points total, it's arbitrary anyway).

I think something could seriously be done with snap-together models that came moulded in a specific colour for each army so you could at least immediately differentiate yours from another faction. The Gundam model kits that Bandai does are completely insane and don't just come moulded in mostly the colours they're supposed to be but also make up a fully articulated figure without the need for any glue. To top it off they're remarkably cheap although very low labour costs and sheer scale probably account for a lot of that. Still, it'd be something worth looking into. Showing that someone can easily pick out some details with basically a silver sharpie and maybe a dark wash is a much easier introduction to the modelling hobby than what currently exists.

Some people just want game pieces and having theirs look something other than drab grey out of the box would be a great thing, imho.

The Bandai Gundam kits are remarkable feets of engineering, but I've never seen their equal. The Dream Forge Leviathan comes close, but costs way more.
As for the coloring, I can see that. Just don't go pre-painted on me.



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Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





Oh a couple more things, less randomness! Maelstrom cards should be a set amount of VP and discard/redraw if you get one you can't complete. Run distance should be your initiative, charge distance should be WS + initiative. I'm tired of running 1 inch or charging 2-3 inches with what are supposed to be units that charge headlong into battle. Warlord traits should be handled like SW sagas from their old codex, you pay points for 1 specific trait that you can build your army around or have the option to roll for rulebook traits without spending any points on them. Psykers should be able to exchange their primaris power for the ability to choose 1 power from the table. If everyone is choosing invisibility or iron arm, those powers need to be nerfed a little bit and the other powers in the table buffed a little bit so there isn't an auto take from every table. They're already paying the points for psychic levels, let them choose a power but have less overall powers.

All of these steps would lead to better casual games, better narrative games, better tournament games and less house rules. Nobody loses. However, GW is either too stupid, lazy or incompetent to pull this off, take your pic (my money is on all of the above).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finally, why is purge the alien a rulebook mission?! We don't need a rulebook to tell us to go out there and kill each other. We can just agree before a game "I don't feel like focusing on objectives today, let's just blast each other to bits." Purge was written for little Timmy with his unbound army of 3 riptides, 3 wraithknights and 3 Flyrants so he doesn't have to bother to actually play the game, he can just throw dice as he goes "pewpewpew I WIN!!!"

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/14 03:39:16


 
   
Made in ca
Khorne Rhino Driver with Destroyer




Ontario, Canada

id re do the tau and eldar codex's so they could be at the level the majority of other codex's are and bring back the 3rd ed force comp.


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Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





If the game's fundamental rules were better, tau and eldar wouldn't be so overpowered. Why can you kill a walker or cripple its best weapon with 1 shot but a MC takes the full brunt of your entire army and keeps coming at you at full strength? Why is a gunline far and away superior to a quick hitting assault force? That's why tau and eldar are so powerful, because gun lines and monstrous creatures are so much better than anything else in the basic rules of the game. Sure the wave serpent is powerful, but if the wraithknights backing them up were more on the level of dreads, they wouldn't be so scary. It's the same thing with riptides. If you could drop a melta next to them and 1 shot them or assault them with a set charge distance and no overwatch (from the entire freaking army in this case), they would just be considered strong units instead of OP cheese whiz.

TL; DR Fix the core rules and the "broken" codexes won't be so broken any more.
   
Made in ca
Sister Oh-So Repentia




Canada

I'd reduce attacks to one dice roll, hitting is a function of WS or BS, STR and the dice roll. In melee this needs to beat the WS, armor, toughness and cover of the defender, in shooting it's BS, STR and roll vs Armor/Cover/Toughness. A hit is a wound. Doubling out STR vs Toughness still is an insta kill. Dodgy characters get bonuses to cover, bulky characters get penalties to cover as bigger things are easier to hit. Have a rule for outnumbering someone that reduces defensive WS when getting swarmed, which lets combat monsters actually get wounded by hoards of little guys. Invul saves could still exist, but would have to be rare and expensive. One can eschew attacking in melee to instead add their roll to defense.

My initial thought was to just flip armor values, 2+ becomes armor 5, 3+ = 4 etc. So for a guardman to kill a space marine, he adds his BS 3 to his lasgun's STR 3 and rolls a dice vs Armor 4 (previously 3+) toughness 4, and, at point blank, no cover, no movement penalties, he needs a 2+ wound the Space Marine. But if the Marine has +1 cover from running flat out, and another from partial concealment, and the guardsman moved, then he's suddenly getting wounded on a 5+. Decoupling armor from armor saves lets you play with armor values though, if point blank shots to power armor or terminator armor shouldn't have such a high chance of penetrating, it's a lot easier to play with the odds here, than to filter based on hits/wounds/saves (where you can have something like a 5% chance of getting a wound with a shot). Concentrating fire could let you opt to reduce the number of hits to increase the STR of the attack. This lets you have a Terminator with armor that no single lasgun can penetrate, but say a squad of ten might be able to (each extra guy adds +1 STR). This would mean that a melta gun really would be worth as much or more than the squad it's in. This also lets movie marines be a thing, if we want them to be.

Turns have move misc, and attack phases. In each phase units take turns doing their thing based off of initiative and leadership. If init is tied, the player who has the unit with the highest leadership on the table chooses which goes first (better commanders are better). In movement, lowest initiative starts, and higher initiative units get to react. In Misc and attack, the reverse is true. Misc phase is for running or taking cover or psychic powers or what not. Init test to do more things (run and take cover for instance). Attack phase is when attacks happen. Charges, shooting, psychic attacks (which are different from powers, as they are trying to kill rather than buff/debuff). If a unit has already shot, they don't get to overwatch. On a leadership check, a unit can deliberately lower their Init so that they act after someone else, it's risky and requires battlefield awareness beyond I kill the thing', hence the check.

Rather than snap firing, doing things other than aiming and shooting gives various BS penalties, these can drop BS below zero. This lets you shoot wildly, but also gives low BS units a reason not to just do every action possible. Moving is one penalty, running an additional one, taking cover another, shooting at flyers or fast moving objects another. Similarly, wargear or abilities would give penalties to opponents defenses, reducing cover, or armor. Again, being a sliding scale means that there aren't any all or nothing powers, just higher or lower bonuses. Skillful play could see penalties on an opponent high enough that no roll is needed, and the doomed unit just removes models based on how many wounds they take. Facing would be a thing, based on what direction they last moved or shot, getting flanked or ambushed gives a penalty to cover and WS if relevant.

Running and charging would be based off of Init, faster units are faster, war gear like jump packs or bikes would add to that range, but not to Init. Hammer of Wrath could still be a thing, maybe get it if the charger charged more than a certain distance. Bonuses to cover based on speed still apply, additional snap fire penalty for overwatch applies. Getting charged from the back stops defender from overwatching. Shooting into melee is allowed, allies grant cover to enemies, and if you miss only by the margin of the cover bonus granted by your teammates, you resolve the hit against them instead.

I like the potential for army model count disparities, guard should be a swarm of guys against some monstrous giant thing from beyond that should not be. 'Nids should be able to be a wave of flesh that just swarms over you, or a bunch of giant monsters that cannot be stopped. A bunch of cultists starting as a swarm army, but completing a blood ritual that summons a giant daemon by sacrificing themselves is awesome.

TL;DR: Remove a lot of the randomness, make the game more about maneuvering for advantage, fix IgoUgo.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/12/14 07:42:14


 
   
Made in us
Irked Necron Immortal




Sentient Void

I would keep it simple with one major task and a philosophical shift.

Create a Skirmish supplement that does not require the main rulebook to play (but still requires a Codex). The format needs to support multiplayer. Support for a reduced size format will make the game MUCH easier to get into at entry level. The current edition rules will still be needed for the full game.

Recognize that the epitaph "Xenos" is a racial slur made up by the human cockroaches.

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Made in ca
Fixture of Dakka





Ottawa Ontario Canada

As has been stated by many people, the issue is they tore down the wall between apoc and 40k and are trying very hard to pretend it's not a bloated and contentious mess.

The honest to god easiest fix is just formatting the scale of game in terms of points and have that correspond with a greater and greater availability of silly crap.

What's hurting 40k is there's no bare bones simple starting point anymore, everyone's just making up their own game. It's hard to believe that this was a game that once required opponent's consent just to use a special character.





If I was king of 40k, this is what I'd do. I'd recognize that people play at varying scales and do a better job of facilitating better communication between strangers IE potential new opponents. So, simply put, I'd index point level to what is allowed into the core game. I'd also ease restriction of foc as point level increased.


0-1500pts single codex, one foc (cad or whatever)
1500-1850pts - allow an allied detachment, basic fortifications (bastion, aegis, nothing too crazy)
1850pts-2000 - hello lords of war, super heavies and formations
2000 and beyond, welcome to apocalypse, do whatever you want, forge that narrative you nasy thang you!


The details can be debated, the point I'm getting at is if we can get to a point where all that needs to be agreed upon by both parties is a point level and everything else will fall in place. Right now we've got culture instead of rules largely dictating things and it's incredibly subjective what may be considered a "faux pas" in any given flgs or gaming group.

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Douglas Bader






 Toofast wrote:
Finally, why is purge the alien a rulebook mission?!


To balance the game. Seriously, this is a leftover thing from the old days when GW at least tried to make a game instead of saying "play with your toys however you like and FORGE A NARRATIVE". If the game is nothing but objective missions MSU armies have a huge advantage because they can cover the entire table in scoring units, often scoring units that have fast movement rules and/or transports to allow them to quickly reposition to claim a different objective. And that's on top of the general flexibility of having two independent units vs. a single powerful unit in a game where you can't break up squads/split fire between targets/etc. Kill point missions exist to add a drawback to this strategy. Your MSU army might have a big advantage in objective missions, but if you roll kill points you're screwed. Suddenly all those wonderful three-model Eldar jetbike units are just free VPs for your opponent to harvest, and you have way more potential VPs on the table than your opponent. Now building a MSU army gains a risk vs. reward element instead of being a default choice.

Unfortunately, most competitive players in 5th didn't understand this balancing factor and whined endlessly when their MSU transport spam armies sucked at kill point missions. So third-party tournaments pretty much removed them, and GW followed that trend.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/14 17:46:44


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in ca
Fixture of Dakka





Ottawa Ontario Canada

 Peregrine wrote:
 Toofast wrote:
Finally, why is purge the alien a rulebook mission?!


To balance the game. Seriously, this is a leftover thing from the old days when GW at least tried to make a game instead of saying "play with your toys however you like and FORGE A NARRATIVE". If the game is nothing but objective missions MSU armies have a huge advantage because they can cover the entire table in scoring units, often scoring units that have fast movement rules and/or transports to allow them to quickly reposition to claim a different objective. And that's on top of the general flexibility of having two independent units vs. a single powerful unit in a game where you can't break up squads/split fire between targets/etc. Kill point missions exist to add a drawback to this strategy. Your MSU army might have a big advantage in objective missions, but if you roll kill points you're screwed. Suddenly all those wonderful three-model Eldar jetbike units are just free VPs for your opponent to harvest, and you have way more potential VPs on the table than your opponent. Now building a MSU army gains a risk vs. reward element instead of being a default choice.

Unfortunately, most competitive players in 5th didn't understand this balancing factor and whined endlessly when their MSU transport spam armies sucked at kill point missions. So third-party tournaments pretty much removed them, and GW followed that trend.


Peregrine, I don't disagree with the intent for kp, but you must admit it handles that pretty terribly, even more so when relegated to once every 6 games lol. Plenty have events have forced kp into almost every mission and all it did was make the game less enjoyable IMO.

But again this is the flaw of 40k we agree on, they don't even bother making the attempt anymore, it's all "only positive people can talk, if you have a problem with the game it's not the games fault or those who make it, it's you for having a poor attitude, didn't you know 40k was a role playing game with combat elements all along? I sure did, you just need to forge that narrative" .

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/14 17:53:04


Do you play 30k? It'd be a lot cooler if you did.  
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






 Crablezworth wrote:
Peregrine, I don't disagree with the intent for kp, but you must admit it handles that pretty terribly, even more so when relegated to once every 6 games lol.


I do agree that it shouldn't have been reduced to 1/6 of the missions. The 5th edition mission table was much better IMO, and kill point missions were a much bigger factor. But I suspect GW listened to the whining and crying from "competitive" players who didn't like the fact that their "competitive" army automatically lost kill point missions and changed the rules to accommodate them.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought





The Beach

HandofMars wrote:
Troop quality and point cost varies quite a bit between armies, so it can't be something as blanket as 2 troops = 1 special thing. Guard have a much easier time getting two cheap troops on the table to justify more battle tanks than say, Space Marines.
They already do, don't they?

Marneus Calgar is referred to as "one of the Imperium's greatest tacticians" and he treats the Codex like it's the War Bible. If the Codex is garbage, then how bad is everyone else?

True Scale Space Marines: Tutorial, Posing, Conversions and other madness. The Brief and Humorous History of the Horus Heresy

The Ultimate Badasses: Colonial Marines 
   
Made in be
Longtime Dakkanaut




KP is a lot better than most objectives, when its point based. Otherwise it's rubbish.
   
Made in us
Land Raider Pilot on Cruise Control






After a really bad game I played I'd do this:

Get rid of maelstrom. The last game I played with them was so unbalanced (player got easily fulfilled cards while I got cards like "travel to the moon" or "solve Climate Change) that it really is just beyond even salvaging. The game is already random enough!

On a separate note all wave serpents must be buried in the Nevada desert and never spoken of again and the Eldar codex must be nerfed to being the most average thing ever to exist (not bad though) as punishment for the Codex that might have single handedly ruined warhammer 40k (for me at least.)

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/12/14 20:31:48


 
   
 
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