H.B.M.C. wrote: Why? You want to remove any and all difference from Marine Chapters?
Would not a better solution be to find a way to add flavour to different armies without the inherent complexity that GW has included.
There should still be unique Chapter-locked units and Relics IMO.
I'd allow armies to be flavoured by their selection of 5 Stratagems from a list of 25ish generic Stratagems, which Stratagems you pick says something about the force you are playing, the same list might either use some version of transhuman to valiantly hold a position or use a repositioning Stratagem to sneakily avoid taking damage on key units. If flamers are cheap enough I don't think Salamanders players need to be hit over the head with a rules stick to use flamers.
Why did CSM players run Slaanesh Daemon Princes all over the place? Because the points cost on the lash psychic power was off, make it 30 pts more expensive and people could express their warband's favour of Khorne without being at a huge disadvantage in 5th. Make Helldrakes cost more and you could run a heretic warband without Daemon Engines and have a chance in 6th. Would giving armies without Helldrakes the ability to spam more Spawn or get +1 Ld make up for their lack of access to the undercosted Helldrake? No. How many Word Bearers lists vs how many Alpha Legion lists have we seen? Has Chapter Tactics really worked out for Word Bearers players? How about Necrons being incentivised to play the Silent King with every Dynasty other than the Silent King's Dynasty? Iyanden players being forced to spam Guardians instead of Wraithguard?
It is impossible to balance +1 BS vs +1 WS when the same buff can be applied to a range of units at no cost. Chapter-locked Crusade upgrades would be fine.
At no point did I say that that required keeping all the rules they currently have.
Don't put words in my mouth please. It's not constructive.
Speaking of not constructive, what's your solution? So far all that you seem to have said is "don't remove rulers because then everything will be the same". Apparently that's not what you meant though. Since you haven't stated what you meant we have to draw our own conclusions from what you actually said. That's not putting words in your mouth, that's just deductive reasoning.
vict0988 wrote: There should still be unique Chapter-locked units and Relics IMO.
Ok, I don't disagree, but I don't see what that requires the removal of rules for individual Chapters. I think Space Wolf Marines should function differently to Imperial Fists who should function differently to Iron Hands.
Does that specifically mean keeping all the rules they have now? Of course not, and despite some people's attempts to make it out as though I did say that, it's not what I'm suggesting at all.
This isn't a binary thing. It's not "All the rules GW has" or "Get rid of 'em all!". Pendulum rules design is what GW does. What they should be going for is more nuance. More of a middle ground. Find a balance between endless layered rules and the 4th Edition 'Chaos' Codex where everything was generic Marines and all flavour and colour had been stolen from the world, ruining the dreams of children the world over.
Ok, that's a little melodramatic, but you get what I'm going for.
vict0988 wrote: I'd allow armies to be flavoured by their selection of 5 Stratagems from a list of 25ish generic Stratagems
That's less a "Marine" thing and a "How would I restructure Strategems" thing, though.
If it were me I wouldn't get rid of army-specific Strats, but there wouldn't be 3+ pages per army/faction. There might be 10, and then you pick which of those 10 to bring, and how many you can bring is based upon the game sizes (the 4 that GW have established, yet don't use enough as a scaling mechanic for the general rules). This would be on top of 10-12 generic strats that everyone has access to. Of course, there'd be no equipment strats ('cause equipment should be wargear you pay points for), and there'd be no 'gotcha' strats like Transhuman (reactionary strats are a good idea, but not ones that lock your opponent behind sudden mythical durability that only affects one unit for a turn for some reason - there's nothing strategic about transhuman strats and their ilk!).
But, again, this isn't a Marine thing. This is an overall strat thing and whilst, yes, it would affect Marines, it's not specific to them.
vict0988 wrote: ... which Stratagems you pick says something about the force you are playing, the same list might either use some version of transhuman to valiantly hold a position or use a repositioning Stratagem to sneakily avoid taking damage on key units. If flamers are cheap enough I don't think Salamanders players need to be hit over the head with a rules stick to use flamers.
I think it'd be better to make the unique Chapter units what allow things like Sallie Flamers to come to the fore. Given them Firedrakes (or whatever they're called) or the Pyroclaster squads (again, I'm probably getting the name wrong). They don't necessarily need to have an army-wide rule that makes their flamers better, per se, but can have a list/units that favour such things.
vict0988 wrote: Why did CSM players run Slaanesh Daemon Princes all over the place? Because the points cost on the lash psychic power was off, make it 30 pts more expensive and people could express their warband's favour of Khorne without being at a huge disadvantage in 5th. Make Helldrakes cost more and you could run a heretic warband without Daemon Engines and have a chance in 6th. Would giving armies without Helldrakes the ability to spam more Spawn or get +1 Ld make up for their lack of access to the undercosted Helldrake? No.
I'll be honest, I'm not 100% certain what you're referring to here.
vict0988 wrote: How many Word Bearers lists vs how many Alpha Legion lists have we seen? Has Chapter Tactics really worked out for Word Bearers players?
It's funny, but I was thinking about Word Bearers the other day whilst I was out on a walk, specifically the leaked Legion rules from the utterly atrocious-sounding upcoming Chaos 'Dex, and there is an answer to your question.
Word Bearers have sucked ever since GW kneecapped them by removing Daemons from the Chaos book.
Think about it, Word Bearers were the super-devoted Chaos guys that were basically Chaos Cultists, but in Astartes form. In 3.5 they got more Troops choices than everyone else, and could just pile on the Daemons. They had Dark Apostles, which no one else could get. I loved 'em.
But now everyone gets their Dark Apostles, and they can't get Daemons anymore. What exactly is the point of Word Bearers now other than being an outlet for those bitter about their father? They took away the essence of what Word Bearers could or should be, and in the new book super-docrine rule is: When using a pistol/assault/melee = 6s to wound cause 1MW.
Wow. So thematic. You can almost hear the chanting.
(The other Legions ain't that much better, TBH)
vict0988 wrote: How about Necrons being incentivised to play the Silent King with every Dynasty other than the Silent King's Dynasty? Iyanden players being forced to spam Guardians instead of Wraithguard?
You're confusing the issue here. Just because GW is bad at writing their ideas into rules doesn't mean the ideas are bad.
It's the conceptualisation vs implementation concept.
GW: Great at coming up with cool ideas. Also GW: Really bad at taking those ideas and working them into practical rules.
It's why we see escalation of ideas in Codices, and how suddenly the latest books have 'Ignore Invulnerable' rules. Given it 8-12 months, and the next crop of books will react/escalate from that, with un-ignorable invulnerable saves. It's because they're doing everything on the fly, rather than trying to rationalise things from the start and create a broader set of scalable rules. They introduce rules mechanics or concepts as quickly as they abandon them, and are obsessed with making everything 'bespoke', which is how we end up with exceptions to exceptions to exceptions to exceptions, as well as endless rules that all do roughly the same thing, but are all ever-so-slightly unique for no practical or actual gain.
It's the layers and layers of rules that should be removed. Keep one or two armywide rules and then a specific chapter rules. Done.
SM have countless rules that stack with each other.
Keep something like: the morale thing, ability to combat squad and the chapter trait. No bolter discipline, doctrines, shock assault and chapter specific layered rules such as Savage Fury for space wolves.
Blackie wrote: It's the layers and layers of rules that should be removed. Keep one or two armywide rules and then a specific chapter rules. Done.
SM have countless rules that stack with each other.
Keep something like: the morale thing, ability to combat squad and the chapter trait. No bolter discipline, doctrines, shock assault and chapter specific layered rules such as Savage Fury for space wolves.
May I redirect you to the "do bolters need a buff across most platforms" thread? Because unless you consolidate some of the layered rules into the base profiles you're just making something worse in the name of simplicity and does nothing to tackle the recent power creep. In concept I do agree though.
Blackie wrote: It's the layers and layers of rules that should be removed. Keep one or two armywide rules and then a specific chapter rules. Done.
SM have countless rules that stack with each other.
Keep something like: the morale thing, ability to combat squad and the chapter trait. No bolter discipline, doctrines, shock assault and chapter specific layered rules such as Savage Fury for space wolves.
May I redirect you to the "do bolters need a buff across most platforms" thread? Because unless you consolidate some of the layered rules into the base profiles you're just making something worse in the name of simplicity and does nothing to tackle the recent power creep. In concept I do agree though.
The "bolter problem" is actually an "everything else" problem, though. If the wide-ranging changes being talked about here were implemented you could easily also see a general reduction in a lot of the power-crept profiles for other guns we've seen recently, which would then remove the need to buff the bolter.
Why did CSM players run Slaanesh Daemon Princes all over the place? Because the points cost on the lash psychic power was off, make it 30 pts more expensive and people could express their warband's favour of Khorne without being at a huge disadvantage in 5th. Make Helldrakes cost more and you could run a heretic warband without Daemon Engines and have a chance in 6th.
Most of the time, when you points nerf the good options in a codex, they do not have the options to replace the good things and this even goes for armies, which potentialy have a lot of unit options. 20pts more expensive void weavers would still be run. If they started to cost 200 or 250pts, no one would play harlequins.
If the wide-ranging changes being talked about here were implemented you could easily also see a general reduction in a lot of the power-crept profiles for other guns we've seen recently, which would then remove the need to buff the bolter.
Only could doesn't mean would. And no one wants to wait for 2/3 of an edition, just so other factions are downgraded enough so you can have more fun. Specially as in , at least the two last edition, around the mid of them GW goes in to hyper rule mode. Just compare the GK or BT codex to any marine starter book.
Why did CSM players run Slaanesh Daemon Princes all over the place? Because the points cost on the lash psychic power was off, make it 30 pts more expensive and people could express their warband's favour of Khorne without being at a huge disadvantage in 5th. Make Helldrakes cost more and you could run a heretic warband without Daemon Engines and have a chance in 6th.
Most of the time, when you points nerf the good options in a codex, they do not have the options to replace the good things and this even goes for armies, which potentialy have a lot of unit options. 20pts more expensive void weavers would still be run. If they started to cost 200 or 250pts, no one would play harlequins.
The point of adjusted a unit's points value isn't to make it unplayable and never taken, but to make it fair. If 20pts is enough to make a Voidweaver fair while not discouraging Harlequins players from not taking it or using their army, that's a good thing.
It is impossible to make a unit like voidweavers fair. It is always going to be, you take 6-9 or it costs too much for it does meaning mono harlequin armies are dead, and DE or CWE don't have much reason to run harlis as ally.
Over the last two editions I have seen how GW point drops and rises work. And they never worked the way you describ it. It was always either zero impact changes, like GK terminators droping from 42 pts to 40pts, or it is something what was done to the castellan.
GW doesn't fix stuff, they either ignore or kill things. Where are all the centurions, aggresors, inceptors , eliminators etc that marines run? On the flip side points changes to DE didn't change a thing, specially after their main opponents at the top got nerfed hard. SoB paragon suits went down in points, no one runs them, and that is a new unit for a new codex. Same with all the SoB, Primaris etc tanks. No one takes them, and GW did drop their point costs.
If the wide-ranging changes being talked about here were implemented you could easily also see a general reduction in a lot of the power-crept profiles for other guns we've seen recently, which would then remove the need to buff the bolter.
Only could doesn't mean would. And no one wants to wait for 2/3 of an edition, just so other factions are downgraded enough so you can have more fun. Specially as in , at least the two last edition, around the mid of them GW goes in to hyper rule mode. Just compare the GK or BT codex to any marine starter book.
You realise this entire discussion is completely theoretical, right? GW aren't going to implement sweeping changes to army-wide rules or change weapon profiles wholesale and we know this. We're simply speculating what the game would look like, and whether it would be improved, if these changes happened. Realistically, the kind of changes I'd like to see would require a complete reset and a new edition.
Blackie wrote: It's the layers and layers of rules that should be removed. Keep one or two armywide rules and then a specific chapter rules. Done.
SM have countless rules that stack with each other.
Keep something like: the morale thing, ability to combat squad and the chapter trait. No bolter discipline, doctrines, shock assault and chapter specific layered rules such as Savage Fury for space wolves.
May I redirect you to the "do bolters need a buff across most platforms" thread? Because unless you consolidate some of the layered rules into the base profiles you're just making something worse in the name of simplicity and does nothing to tackle the recent power creep. In concept I do agree though.
Yeah, removing layers of rules has nothing to do with reducing power creep. Or at least it's not the main goal.
It's just making the game simpler and much more fun/smooth to play. Of course armies have to stay on a comparable level of competitiveness. I wasn't talking about removing abilities in a vacuum, in the SM case for example if GW axed most of their layers of rules they could certainly be compensated in some way: different points costs, a change for some stats, etc... not to mention that the loss of powerful bespoke rules to other factions might already be a significant buff for SM.
Karol wrote: It is impossible to make a unit like voidweavers fair. It is always going to be, you take 6-9 or it costs too much for it does meaning mono harlequin armies are dead, and DE or CWE don't have much reason to run harlis as ally.
Over the last two editions I have seen how GW point drops and rises work. And they never worked the way you describ it. It was always either zero impact changes, like GK terminators droping from 42 pts to 40pts, or it is something what was done to the castellan.
GW doesn't fix stuff, they either ignore or kill things. Where are all the centurions, aggresors, inceptors , eliminators etc that marines run? On the flip side points changes to DE didn't change a thing, specially after their main opponents at the top got nerfed hard. SoB paragon suits went down in points, no one runs them, and that is a new unit for a new codex. Same with all the SoB, Primaris etc tanks. No one takes them, and GW did drop their point costs.
Just because GW sucks at balancing does not mean that something is 100% impossible. It is possible even if GW is likely to get it wrong. Paragons and Primaris tanks aren't taken because they still cost too much for what they offer. If GW had reduced their points enough, people would think about taking them, but GW didn't do that so people don't.
GW failing to do something properly =/= it being impossible to do
Also I find it odd you mention Inceptors and Eliminators when people still use them. One of the recent top Black Templar lists used Inceptors are a core part of their army and at least before the Nachmund missions came in (I can't say too much about if the changed secondary missions has effected it at all) people would take Eliminators for their JSJ utility with the carbine.
You realise this entire discussion is completely theoretical, right? GW aren't going to implement sweeping changes to army-wide rules or change weapon profiles wholesale and we know this. We're simply speculating what the game would look like, and whether it would be improved, if these changes happened. Realistically, the kind of changes I'd like to see would require a complete reset and a new edition.
Daedalus81 wrote: Now we're facing layering of rules. You can't precisely point things when people might not use that particular rule. It wouldn't exactly be fair to point Battlesuits as if they have extra AP and full rerolls. You need appropriate restrictions within those items. CORE has been somewhat half baked at times, but that is one lever they at least had the forethought to create at the onset.
Harlequins are the army where points AND layering are out of whack. Stuff like Battlesuits are not wildly cheap - they just stack so much gak they become nuts in addition to being efficient ( and often using a poorly regulated rule - ooLOS shooting ).
Not really convinced you can't price in rules. Its generally a safe assumption that if its there people will use it. If people use it, other people will start using it as everyone learns about it.
This may make for a badly designed codex - because you have to build the way its "designed to" synergy wise. But if you are going to have those rules, you have left yourself no other option.
I agree many of the issues in 40k are due to compounding synergy. Tau probably shouldn't have seen
A) improved datasheets and weapons
B) improved Mont'ka
C) improved markerlights
D) improved chapter tactics, warlord traits, stratagems etc
All at the same time.
But if they were going to, they certainly needed to be dramatically more expensive per point than they are. And any half sensible play test (or someone with 30 minutes in a spreadsheet) should have concluded this.
I know the game isn't just a function of A on B duels. There is more than simple mathhammer. But when such analysis shows units being massively ahead of the rest, they almost always prove to dominate the game. The voidweaver should have been incredibly easy to pick up. (I sort of regret not jumping up and down more when the rules first came out in order to be able to claim more of a "I told you so" here. But I think like many I kind of got bored of the book by the time I reached the Harlequin datasheets. So the reaction was just "that seems a bit good... now onto Ynnari anything interesting there?")
Something like Mont'ka you can price in for sure. Other stuff is wishy washy. I actually hadn't seen the prismatic cannon until Harlies hit the scene officially and I felt like even the haywire cannon was too much. Definitely a huge miss on GW.
vict0988 wrote: Throw Chapter Tactics, Combat Doctrines, Super Doctrines and Angels of Death into the garbage where they belong.
Why? You want to remove any and all difference from Marine Chapters?
Would not a better solution be to find a way to add flavour to different armies without the inherent complexity that GW has included.
Flavor comes from army composition more than special rules IMO.
Not even that. Flavor comes from background.
Rules nonsense can be justified however you like, especially the limited set of rules nonsense that GW uses- 6s=bonus, -1 damage, reroll 1s, only wounded on 4+, +1 to <blank> IF <condition>, immune to morale (well, extra combat vanishings, which is used instead of morale), etc
Examples: Cyborgs are tough, fleshy is even more tougher, magic is also tough, murder elves are tough if they... wait long enough, or are super dodgy or lucky, genetic engineering is tough, but only sometimes, and so on.
If Porsche sells you a car and you find out the breaking system is faulty you cannot keep driving it, you have to get it to a mechanic or have it returned otherwise you'll end up rear-ending someone or hitting a pedestrian. If you find out Voidweavers are too OP for your casual meta you have to talk to your opponents about how you can have more fun games in the future, maybe you could bring a melee army, maybe fewer points, maybe proxy as haywire. You can also ask on forums how people use Harlequins casually to help inspire something that'll work for you and your community.
I'm sorry but the dealer sold you a car with problems and it's not the dealer's fault for being shady?
If Porsche sells you a car and you find out the breaking system is faulty you cannot keep driving it, you have to get it to a mechanic or have it returned otherwise you'll end up rear-ending someone or hitting a pedestrian. If you find out Voidweavers are too OP for your casual meta you have to talk to your opponents about how you can have more fun games in the future, maybe you could bring a melee army, maybe fewer points, maybe proxy as haywire. You can also ask on forums how people use Harlequins casually to help inspire something that'll work for you and your community.
What? Your analogy demonstrates the exact opposite of what you're trying to show. In this case the fault lies with the dealer or Porsche themselves, so the correct remedy is for them to fix it, free of charge. In the UK they'd actually have a legal requirement to do so. In your scenario the analogous approach would be to not play 40k until GW fix it properly.
Blackie wrote: The problem with handicaps at tournaments is that not players or factions should get the handicap but lists. A player might be top ranked and decides to bring a non optimized list or even a bottom tier army. Should he get an handicap based on his ranking? An army might be top tier but a player might choose to bring a non optimized list. Should that bad or mid tier list be affected by an handicap just because that faction has the highest WR?
But putting handicaps on lists means that TOs arbitrary decide who's getting the handicap before starting the tournament. IMHO it's the only way to make it work at competitive levels but it requires fair TOs and lots of players would not accept arbitrary decisions.
Makes me think of the old comp scores. A method with it's own issues.
Why did CSM players run Slaanesh Daemon Princes all over the place? Because the points cost on the lash psychic power was off, make it 30 pts more expensive and people could express their warband's favour of Khorne without being at a huge disadvantage in 5th. Make Helldrakes cost more and you could run a heretic warband without Daemon Engines and have a chance in 6th.
Most of the time, when you points nerf the good options in a codex, they do not have the options to replace the good things and this even goes for armies, which potentialy have a lot of unit options. 20pts more expensive void weavers would still be run. If they started to cost 200 or 250pts, no one would play harlequins.
And what is the problem with more expensive voidweavers still being taken?
The point isn't to nerf good options so people run something else, the point is to nerf broken options so they become more fair.
There is no problem with people running 9 voidweavers. The problem is a voidweaver is obscenely good for its cost. If the voidweaver has a 'fair' cost then no one will care you bring 9 just because you can, in the same way no one cares if you bring 9 IG sentinels or 9 GSC ridgerunners.
The problem is the price of the unit, not how many of them you bring.
and if voidweavers being a 'fair' price means no one will play harlequins that is just another indication of how fethed the balance in 40k is atm. If its not omgwtfbroken its apparently not worth using.
If Porsche sells you a car and you find out the breaking system is faulty you cannot keep driving it, you have to get it to a mechanic or have it returned otherwise you'll end up rear-ending someone or hitting a pedestrian. If you find out Voidweavers are too OP for your casual meta you have to talk to your opponents about how you can have more fun games in the future, maybe you could bring a melee army, maybe fewer points, maybe proxy as haywire. You can also ask on forums how people use Harlequins casually to help inspire something that'll work for you and your community.
What? Your analogy demonstrates the exact opposite of what you're trying to show. In this case the fault lies with the dealer or Porsche themselves, so the correct remedy is for them to fix it, free of charge. In the UK they'd actually have a legal requirement to do so. In your scenario the analogous approach would be to not play 40k until GW fix it properly.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
I refuse to dive further into the Porsche analogy, sorry.
If Porsche sells you a car and you find out the breaking system is faulty you cannot keep driving it, you have to get it to a mechanic or have it returned otherwise you'll end up rear-ending someone or hitting a pedestrian. If you find out Voidweavers are too OP for your casual meta you have to talk to your opponents about how you can have more fun games in the future, maybe you could bring a melee army, maybe fewer points, maybe proxy as haywire. You can also ask on forums how people use Harlequins casually to help inspire something that'll work for you and your community.
What? Your analogy demonstrates the exact opposite of what you're trying to show. In this case the fault lies with the dealer or Porsche themselves, so the correct remedy is for them to fix it, free of charge. In the UK they'd actually have a legal requirement to do so. In your scenario the analogous approach would be to not play 40k until GW fix it properly.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
I refuse to dive further into the Porsche analogy, sorry.
Your Porsche analogy doesn't make sense, period. That's the ultimate "blame the driver, not the dealership/manufacturer for the faulty brakes they sold the product with"
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
thing is the codex kinda HAS to spam SOMETHING considering its got 4 non character datasheet.
if its not voidweavers, its gonna be bikes, which equally gak on guard
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Or you just like void weavers and think they are neat, and are just as reluctant to change armies as the Guard player is (given that basically anything from the Harlequin lineup will break them).
The solution isn't to never run voidweavers into Guard because otherwise you are a terrible person.
The solution is to make sure the game is balanced by it's creators so running voidweavers into Guard isn't so derpy.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Or you just like void weavers and think they are neat, and are just as reluctant to change armies as the Guard player is (given that basically anything from the Harlequin lineup will break them).
The solution isn't to never run voidweavers into Guard because otherwise you are a terrible person.
The solution is to make sure the game is balanced by it's creators so running voidweavers into Guard isn't so derpy.
That's all fine and dandy, but what can be done NOW, not later when GW gets around to it?
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Or you just like void weavers and think they are neat, and are just as reluctant to change armies as the Guard player is (given that basically anything from the Harlequin lineup will break them).
The solution isn't to never run voidweavers into Guard because otherwise you are a terrible person.
The solution is to make sure the game is balanced by it's creators so running voidweavers into Guard isn't so derpy.
That's all fine and dandy, but what can be done NOW, not later when GW gets around to it?
Agitating to make sure it doesn't happen again is part of what can be done.
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Or you just like void weavers and think they are neat, and are just as reluctant to change armies as the Guard player is (given that basically anything from the Harlequin lineup will break them).
The solution isn't to never run voidweavers into Guard because otherwise you are a terrible person.
The solution is to make sure the game is balanced by it's creators so running voidweavers into Guard isn't so derpy.
That's all fine and dandy, but what can be done NOW, not later when GW gets around to it?
Focusing attention and complaints onto the actual cause of the problem (GW's rules) rather than a symptom (players using said rules) is a start. Doing any less just creates a fanbase where the players are to blame for all of the failings of the developer, which means that no change will come as the developer never has motivation or incentive to improve.
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
Many things can be done, but the first priority should be compelling GW to fix it.
Saying "GW is doing a gakky job and is being a gakky company and they should fix it" is part of the solution, and fighting against that statement is fighting against part of the solution. No one has said 'players should NOT talk to each other before a game.' They are saying 'players should not HAVE to talk to each other before a game.'
Form a syndicate so your community only has one of each codex to limit profits on bad products and don't spam Voidweavers against Astra Militarum.
This is the ultimate "GW is innocent, it's the player's fault for not organizing into a governing body to oversee 40k games for fairness" thing I've ever seen and it's hilarious.
You are a bad person for spamming Voidweavers against IG players, you probably pour cereal on top of milk.
Or you just like void weavers and think they are neat, and are just as reluctant to change armies as the Guard player is (given that basically anything from the Harlequin lineup will break them).
The solution isn't to never run voidweavers into Guard because otherwise you are a terrible person.
The solution is to make sure the game is balanced by it's creators so running voidweavers into Guard isn't so derpy.
That's all fine and dandy, but what can be done NOW, not later when GW gets around to it?
Agitating to make sure it doesn't happen again is part of what can be done.
Because I've never done that right? I've never said people should stop buying GW rules products until they get things right have I? You have to remember the forum rules as well, so I say you should buy codexes once as a group and share them amongst yourselves to minimize GW profits on badly designed books. GW already knowns they fethed up, they are in contact with the ITC and the ITC podcasters are saying that 40k is going to take a massive hit if GW doesn't fix their gak as soon as possible. If GW had hired me we would be playtesting properly and nothing like Harlequins would be released, because I'd have the Indian from Fiverr calculate the efficiency of prism cannon Voidweavers so I'd have a more balanced first guess at their points cost and then I'd make sure that someone played a list with 9 Voidweavers at least once during playtesting. These things aren't done now and that is GW's fault.
VladimirHerzog wrote: thing is the codex kinda HAS to spam SOMETHING considering its got 4 non character datasheet.
if its not voidweavers, its gonna be bikes, which equally gak on guard
It's amazing that I've played a dozen games against Harlequins without encountering a Voidweaver and now suddenly you cannot play without them. You can just bring 1800 pts in your 9x Voidweaver list, something I brought up earlier as well. It's not the IG player's fault that GW messed up, they don't deserve to get destroyed for the grave mistake of not chasing the meta and getting 9 Voidweavers.
I have never said wait for GW to do it.
I have never said don't complain to GW. Please complain to THEM.
I asked what can you the "boot on the ground" do about it, right now? Ya know to effect the game that you are playing tonite. Not the game you'll play on Tuesday or the game you'll play in that GT, I mean right frickin now? If you wait, get used to it. Or, take control of your enjoyment and do something locally about it.
We play open war narrative missions using matched play points. Then we work out what works/doesn't and go from there.
GW could make that either easier or non-existent, but relying on GW to fix stuff is quite possibly the biggest waste of time out there(40k related).
thing is the codex kinda HAS to spam SOMETHING considering its got 4 non character datasheet.
if its not voidweavers, its gonna be bikes, which equally gak on guard
Not at all, unless you consider 4-6 5 man squads of troops in their transports a spam. Units are pretty expensive and before this codex voidveavers were capped to 3. So yeah spamming voidweavers is definitely a WAAC or TFG move.
3-5 characters, 4-6 troupes in transports, 2-3 voidweavers and 6-10 bikes are more than 2000 points.
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
If anything I think 9th-10th will be more akin to 6th-7th. People will (hopefully) see that GW hasn't actually changed or know what they're doing and look elsewhere.
hard to tell what GW will do, the 3 year Edition plan is messed up for sure because of the global situation
so everything is possible, from an "could have been an Errata" Edition up to a big reset
the one thing I am very sure about is that people will not see that nothing has changed but go for it because "this time"
but, from my past experience, as soon as people have played other games (don't mean as close to 40k as possible alternate rules, but really different games) they hardly go back to GW rules
the one thing I am very sure about is that people will not see that nothing has changed but go for it because "this time"
but, from my past experience, as soon as people have played other games (don't mean as close to 40k as possible alternate rules, but really different games) they hardly go back to GW rules
Or they quit. They stay for an edition, then wait for the next codex update, and if that is bad or if the game is in a bad state when it comes out, they quit specially if they are marine players.
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
If anything I think 9th-10th will be more akin to 6th-7th. People will (hopefully) see that GW hasn't actually changed or know what they're doing and look elsewhere.
You're welcome to leave this abusive relationship at any time.
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
If anything I think 9th-10th will be more akin to 6th-7th. People will (hopefully) see that GW hasn't actually changed or know what they're doing and look elsewhere.
You're welcome to leave this abusive relationship at any time.
And there's never been a better time to do it, honestly. There's SO many other good wargames out there, lots of them even letting you use your 40k models.
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
If anything I think 9th-10th will be more akin to 6th-7th. People will (hopefully) see that GW hasn't actually changed or know what they're doing and look elsewhere.
You're welcome to leave this abusive relationship at any time.
And there's never been a better time to do it, honestly. There's SO many other good wargames out there, lots of them even letting you use your 40k models.
Yup, but instead they're seemingly here living the 40k dream, hoping the game dies and feeling downtrodden about it.
Well there can be countless other games existing, but if the only fandom that exists in large enough numbers to have opponents to play is GW games, and store only sell GW stuff, after they got burned on what Privateer Press did, the play something else, is not really an option. And it is kin to telling someone to get smarter an richer, if they don't like the life they have right now.
And there's never been a better time to do it, honestly. There's SO many other good wargames out there, lots of them even letting you use your 40k models.
True but if nobody around you plays them, but 30 people play 40k, it doesn't really matter how good all those other games are. I can either play 40k or play games like WMH/Infinity alone on my kitchen island because there's no other players in a 100 mile radius.
I think it is unfair to tell people who still love 40k to feth off.
I want to count 40k among the stable of games I am proud to play, rather than being disappointed every time I throw down on the table. I don't want to just quit.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think it is unfair to tell people who still love 40k to feth off.
I want to count 40k among the stable of games I am proud to play, rather than being disappointed every time I throw down on the table. I don't want to just quit.
QFT. Remember, pretty much everyone here has put significant time and money into making a 40k army, and you don't do that on a whim - there's something in 40k that draws (or drew) us to it. The game doesn't have to be perfect for any of us in particular, but insisting that people who aren't happy shut up and leave is just as (if not more) abusive as the gak GW pulls.
Dudeface wrote: Yup, but instead they're seemingly here living the 40k dream, hoping the game dies and feeling downtrodden about it.
You can use a three-syllable word correctly, so you are smart enough to realize that "criticising the game in a discussion" and "wanting the game to die" are different things.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think it is unfair to tell people who still love 40k to feth off.
I want to count 40k among the stable of games I am proud to play, rather than being disappointed every time I throw down on the table. I don't want to just quit.
QFT. Remember, pretty much everyone here has put significant time and money into making a 40k army, and you don't do that on a whim - there's something in 40k that draws (or drew) us to it. The game doesn't have to be perfect for any of us in particular, but insisting that people who aren't happy shut up and leave is just as (if not more) abusive as the gak GW pulls.
I'm unsure if you're annoyed at the person saying they hope people stop playing the game next edition when they realise how evil GW are, or me for suggesting they are welcome to get out now if it's causing them so much grief that they want others to leave?
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think it is unfair to tell people who still love 40k to feth off.
I want to count 40k among the stable of games I am proud to play, rather than being disappointed every time I throw down on the table. I don't want to just quit.
QFT. Remember, pretty much everyone here has put significant time and money into making a 40k army, and you don't do that on a whim - there's something in 40k that draws (or drew) us to it. The game doesn't have to be perfect for any of us in particular, but insisting that people who aren't happy shut up and leave is just as (if not more) abusive as the gak GW pulls.
I'm unsure if you're annoyed at the person saying they hope people stop playing the game next edition when they realise how evil GW are, or me for suggesting they are welcome to get out now if it's causing them so much grief that they want others to leave?
Are the people who say "they hope people stop playing the game next edition when they realise how evil GW are" doing so because they feel criticism of the game/publisher is grounds for telling the criticizer to stop talking and go away?
Racerguy180 wrote: Okay, but what can you do, right now to mitigate the shittiness of GW's job?
If the answer is "wait for GW to do something about it"...keep waiting, I'm sure they'll get around to it sooner or later.
of course waiting is the thing, specially now with Squats being out the former "boycott" social media crowed has turned 180° and is now on the full "10th will be the best edition ever because GW now listens again to the community"
"it will be balanced as everyone will be on the same level, it will be the last edition because GW now hast the game they wanted and there is no need to change things, they will release even more smaller new factions and Aliens etc, etc."
and this all from a single picture
so the answer is, go for a different game, use your models/collection with different rules and be happy
because no matter what is done now and how 40k is fixed, as soon as 10th hit everything is gone and forgotten and the circle starts again (we have seen this with 4th to 5th, 7th to 8th and we will see this again with 10th)
If anything I think 9th-10th will be more akin to 6th-7th. People will (hopefully) see that GW hasn't actually changed or know what they're doing and look elsewhere.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think it is unfair to tell people who still love 40k to feth off.
I want to count 40k among the stable of games I am proud to play, rather than being disappointed every time I throw down on the table. I don't want to just quit.
QFT. Remember, pretty much everyone here has put significant time and money into making a 40k army, and you don't do that on a whim - there's something in 40k that draws (or drew) us to it. The game doesn't have to be perfect for any of us in particular, but insisting that people who aren't happy shut up and leave is just as (if not more) abusive as the gak GW pulls.
I'm unsure if you're annoyed at the person saying they hope people stop playing the game next edition when they realise how evil GW are, or me for suggesting they are welcome to get out now if it's causing them so much grief that they want others to leave?
Are the people who say "they hope people stop playing the game next edition when they realise how evil GW are" doing so because they feel criticism of the game/publisher is grounds for telling the criticizer to stop talking and go away?
See above, it read to me as a "GW crap, game is crap, I hope people move on" which is injecting negativity to try and encourage people to leave, to induce a failed game/company.
Well I am just tired of the constant "but this time GW"
Every Edition and every army release the same and each time "this time" does not come
If you love 40k, love it for what it is and not for something it will never be
If this is not your game now it will never be as GW won't change
So stop pretending it will "soon (tm)"
What is going to happen now, just go back and read dakka threads from 4th/5th, 6th/7th and 7th/8th edition changes and you will know
And it won't be different "this time"
And if you don't like what 40k is now, rather leave sooner than later it want change
It's not tactically deep.
It's strategically easy to figure out.
It's not good for role-playing.
The rules aren't immersing.
if you ever expect this to change, I have some bad news for you as the times in were GW focused in making good games (and not just good enough for not everyone to leave instantly) are long gone
I can enjoy a Thursday evening with a couple of my buddies with some cigars and brandy on my porch with much less pre-effort, much less clean up, and much less fear of ruining someone's day.
For me, the game of 40k is a way to engage with and interface with the universe, to have "your dudes" exist as a participatory experience with the story GW is trying to tell, almost like DND with GW as the GM and other players telling their own story rather than NPCs.
It's not tactically deep.
It's strategically easy to figure out.
It's not good for role-playing.
The rules aren't immersing.
We're all trafficking in opinion here- objective standards for these things do not exist, and therefore it cannot be otherwise.
My opinions differ somewhat, or at least contain more nuance than the strict all-good/ all-bad dichotomy.
Whether or not the game is tactically deep depends on how you define "Tactics." Folks who are strict wargame/ simulation enthusiasts are far less likely to see 40k as a tactical game because it doesn't make very effective use of the types of tactics that people expect from wargames and simulations. People who appreciate boardgames and CCGs and don't mind examining 40k through that lens have an easier time understanding that combining layered effects such as auras, traits and strats at the right time and place IS a tactic- it's just not the type of tactic that appeals to people who expect and prefer more conventional wargame tactics like using facings, suppression
fire, etc.
Whether or not it's strategically easy to figure out is a matter of scope. Game by game? Well, yeah, I certainly agree that's pretty strategically easy to figure out. But then I think of all the people who struggle with strats because they claim they need to memorize every strat of every possible enemy in order to play. Personally, I've never felt that way about the game, but my issue is that I only play Crusade campaign style, so I'm concerned with long term campaign and story-based strategy as much as the strategy of the individual games.
The role-playing question is an interesting one to me, because my Crusade experience is very much akin to role-playing games. Obviously any purpose-built RPG is going to be a better RPG than any table-top game that contains RPG elements. But 40k has never been a better RPG than it is now... Though I will say, there's a lot riding on how they handle Chaos, because they are the ultimate Warband faction, and their rules need to reflect that. But Crusade has been very good from the 25PL- 40PL range- provided you've been lucky enough to have your bespoke codex content yet. The Tau, GSC, Druhkari, and Sisters Crusade content is really off the charts; Armies of Faith and Torchbearer Fleets are very cool. The previews of the Nid Crusade content look promising too.
As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
What I will say, by way of agreement, is that I don't feel that anyone is likely to experience the game at its best if all they do with it is play unrelated 2k matches in stores. The game is made to do so much more than that- even matched play is meant to be more than that as Matched does include Incursion Missions in addition to Strike Force missions, and it does also have campaign content.
I think there are a lot of people who want 2k matched to be the game at its best. They expect that, because it's the default mode. And it is certainly fair to say that the game should be fun in any format and at any size. But using a 2k roster to field 25PL games in a map-based campaign is just awesome- there's a whole other layer, because you can only use 25PL at a time, so you can have different parts of your roster specialize against specific opponents within the campaign; you can choose to grow veteran units at the opportunity cost of keeping other units green until their turn comes; you can grow your army fast or slow.
And make no mistake about it; the game IS specifically designed to facilitate and encourage this type of play. Your preferences, desires, gaming environments or other circumstances may make it improbable or even impossible for you to play it that way. But it is worth acknowledging that things some people feel are lacking from the game are merely lacking from their preferred format.
I appreciate the post above as it really dives into some specifics on the current game.
A game design/analysis tool I've found helpful over the years is to consider the "types of thinking" a given game require. You can break types down into three big buckets:
(1) Spatial modes of thinking: things having to do with positioning and maneuver across geographic space, where matters of proximity, distance, orientation, etc matter and being able predict or envision possible future physical board states. The domain of abstract strategy games but also many "tactical" or strategic warfare games.
(2) Psychological modes of thinking: relates to the psychology of opponents, ability to bluff and feint and deceive, okay mind games, leverage personal knowledge and insights of other players, understanding others risk tolerances, etc. Encompasses games from poker to modern social deduction and party games.
(3) Logistical modes of thinking: pertains to things that can be calculated, optimized, or deducted to correct solutions, risk management, logistics, resource management/conversion, etc.
What we've seen, especially in the last 10-15 years I feel, is a heavy shift it many games more towards logistical modes of thinking. We can see this in the evolution of 40K - changing from a game with lot of detail and rules geared around "spatial thinking" shifting and giving way to logistical thinking. Where once we were primarily concerned about leveraging cover and LoS, and individual model facing (ala 1st and 2nd Ed), and vehicle facing, and lines of retreat - we are now concerned with managing pools of CPs and optimizing stacking stratagems and other layered numerical advantages. Position and maneuver had been dramatically simplified and replaced with a system heavily geared around optimization and execution of a pre-programmed plan of action.
Furthermore I'd stress that a tabletop game with models, terrain, etc. is exactly the ideal type of game for spatial thinking. It plays to the strength of the medium. Whereas logistical gameplay is much condusive to board or card games.
kodos 803732 11342742 wrote:
If you love 40k, love it for what it is and not for something it will never be
So what is 40k then?
It's not tactically deep.
It's strategically easy to figure out.
It's not good for role-playing.
The rules aren't immersing.
So what is 40k?
I'm going to go with: "An entertaing enough way to spend Thur evening with some friends."
I don't think it's ever needed to be more than that.
For 100s to thousands more dollars than Mansions of Madness or Cards Against Humanity?
This defense is really mind boggling.
You're back in your world of black and white opinions again. This isn't a "defense" its a subjective feeling of what something is to someone.
There isn't just your view that the game is dumb and weak which is an attack from your wording, nor a defensive argument of it's good and intellectual.
For 100s to thousands more dollars than Mansions of Madness or Cards Against Humanity?
This defense is really mind boggling.
The cost of those "100s to thousand more dollars" shouldn't be referred to the game. It's the cost of the hobby, not (only) the game. Those dollars might be a worthy investment if you like to assemble, paint and collect/display the models, other than playing. If you're only interested in playing something, rather than specifically playing 40k, I have bad news for you.
I know this isn't the answer people want to hear but I think boycott is the only way forward at this point. The only metric GW seems to care about is sales. Give the game a break for a year, email them to tell them why. Stop buying their stuff at the very least and, again, tell them why.
40k is way overheated and until GW are willing to make some changes to the way they write and publish rules it won't change, can't change. They need universal rules to make opponents' armies legible. A dice overhaul to add granularity. Digital rules and list building. New staff with skills in design & stats in the 40k balance team.
I may be biased, having gotten out of the game about 18 months ago in favour of the Infinitely better game made by Corvus Belli. I won't be back until GW turn things around, and they won't turn things around until something makes their shockingly poor game design & management translate into a hit to their bottom line.
@Blackie
yes and no
to play the game, you just need the rules
the models are optional so the game looks better (although marketing tells you, that you need the best looking models to play the game of course)
but the rules itself are not very special, and the 40k experience comes with the models and the background story of those, not with the rules
other games, were the rules are written in a way to simulate the specific kind of warfare from that time (which can be very simple and streamlined, or very detailed) hence why we see so many different rules in historical wargaming and some cover only a brief period of time
for those games you don't need any models to make it a game for that specific setting because the immersion comes from the rules/gameplay
while those that cover a broader time frame need the models to make the difference
that said, does 40k the game, cover the different aspects of the factions?
could you tell by the rules alone that this is Ultras against White Scars or Tau VS Guard without models on the table?
if yes, the 100s of Dollars are for the hobby, and optional, if no well, 40k the game is not about the rules
but the rules itself are not very special, and the 40k experience comes with the models and the background story of those, not with the rules
Exactly this. If those models, background, IP, etc.. are not enough for someone, 40k is not the kind of entertainment (or even challenge) that that player is seeking.
grouchoben wrote: I know this isn't the answer people want to hear but I think boycott is the only way forward at this point. The only metric GW seems to care about is sales. Give the game a break for a year, email them to tell them why. Stop buying their stuff at the very least and, again, tell them why.
40k is way overheated and until GW are willing to make some changes to the way they write and publish rules it won't change, can't change. They need universal rules to make opponents' armies legible. A dice overhaul to add granularity. Digital rules and list building. New staff with skills in design & stats in the 40k balance team.
I may be biased, having gotten out of the game about 18 months ago in favour of the Infinitely better game made by Corvus Belli. I won't be back until GW turn things around, and they won't turn things around until something makes their shockingly poor game design & management translate into a hit to their bottom line.
That will never work because GW is too big. Last time there was an organised boycott I seem to remember a lot of people making fun of those supporting it and it quickly got forgotten because GW released something new and shiny, the plastic Krieg models if I recall? The best you/we can hope for is a repeat of 6th/7th where GW screws itself and the game up so badly that even the die-hard fanboys can't ignore it. Luckily we seem to be heading that way of late.
grouchoben wrote: I know this isn't the answer people want to hear but I think boycott is the only way forward at this point. The only metric GW seems to care about is sales. Give the game a break for a year, email them to tell them why. Stop buying their stuff at the very least and, again, tell them why.
40k is way overheated and until GW are willing to make some changes to the way they write and publish rules it won't change, can't change. They need universal rules to make opponents' armies legible. A dice overhaul to add granularity. Digital rules and list building. New staff with skills in design & stats in the 40k balance team.
I may be biased, having gotten out of the game about 18 months ago in favour of the Infinitely better game made by Corvus Belli. I won't be back until GW turn things around, and they won't turn things around until something makes their shockingly poor game design & management translate into a hit to their bottom line.
That will never work because GW is too big. Last time there was an organised boycott I seem to remember a lot of people making fun of those supporting it and it quickly got forgotten because GW released something new and shiny, the plastic Krieg models if I recall? The best you/we can hope for is a repeat of 6th/7th where GW screws itself and the game up so badly that even the die-hard fanboys can't ignore it. Luckily we seem to be heading that way of late.
The last time there was an "organised boycott" it did nothing because it was a tiny minority of people mostly complaining online. The areas where people did try to boycott 40k, there were posts from flg owners telling people they were being put out of business. All it did was hurt little independent shops.
The only people boycotting who won't hurt others by collateral are the people who either bought from GW direct or were willing to spend the same amount on other products at their local.
content from a lot of people on social media, direct or indirect advertising them and keep things alive
a lot of people playing the game despite all negativity
for a boycott to work, it is not stopping to buy GW models it is about stopping to play the game and stop talking about it
not buying won't hurt GW much (the little amount a veteran buys does not matter anyway to GW hence they don't have much support for those in the first place), same as bad news are better than no news
but if people walk into the shop/club and have a hard time finding a game because people are playing something different (with or without GW models), this hurts as it interrupts the steady flow of new players coming in that GW needs to big numbers
the same if all the hobby channels in Youtube make battle reports, lore videos or model reviews about something else, as soon as people stop talking it hurts as it is harder for new players to get into it
PS: the last boykott from Youtube because of GWs policy, was going in that direction (like the Reddit 40k Meme sub only allowing Battletech Memes), it just did not lasted very long
even the hardcore boycotters (? boycottiers?) switched back to how glorious GW is with the Squat preview
Organised boycots don't work. what works is the game getting bad enough to where people simply stop playing and everyone online talks about how their communities are quickly dying, aka what happened in 7th.
People generally came back for 8th, maybe they will come back the next time it happens, maybe they won't. Time will tell.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mezmorki wrote: I appreciate the post above as it really dives into some specifics on the current game.
A game design/analysis tool I've found helpful over the years is to consider the "types of thinking" a given game require. You can break types down into three big buckets:
(1) Spatial modes of thinking: things having to do with positioning and maneuver across geographic space, where matters of proximity, distance, orientation, etc matter and being able predict or envision possible future physical board states. The domain of abstract strategy games but also many "tactical" or strategic warfare games.
(2) Psychological modes of thinking: relates to the psychology of opponents, ability to bluff and feint and deceive, okay mind games, leverage personal knowledge and insights of other players, understanding others risk tolerances, etc. Encompasses games from poker to modern social deduction and party games.
(3) Logistical modes of thinking: pertains to things that can be calculated, optimized, or deducted to correct solutions, risk management, logistics, resource management/conversion, etc.
What we've seen, especially in the last 10-15 years I feel, is a heavy shift it many games more towards logistical modes of thinking. We can see this in the evolution of 40K - changing from a game with lot of detail and rules geared around "spatial thinking" shifting and giving way to logistical thinking. Where once we were primarily concerned about leveraging cover and LoS, and individual model facing (ala 1st and 2nd Ed), and vehicle facing, and lines of retreat - we are now concerned with managing pools of CPs and optimizing stacking stratagems and other layered numerical advantages. Position and maneuver had been dramatically simplified and replaced with a system heavily geared around optimization and execution of a pre-programmed plan of action.
100% this. 40k is a lot more about book keeping of special rules and abilities then it is about movement on the table compared to 3e through 5th (and perhaps earlier but I started in 3e)
There's no need to boycott, just don't pay for things you don't think they have that value.
For those who already have the models, playing without buying new stuff has the same effect of boycott, it's still no money for GW. It's what I already do because I'm not willing to pay the current GW prices for 40k's models. It has nothing to do with the game's rules but the concept is the same.
For 100s to thousands more dollars than Mansions of Madness or Cards Against Humanity?
This defense is really mind boggling.
The cost of those "100s to thousand more dollars" shouldn't be referred to the game. It's the cost of the hobby, not (only) the game. Those dollars might be a worthy investment if you like to assemble, paint and collect/display the models, other than playing. If you're only interested in playing something, rather than specifically playing 40k, I have bad news for you.
I have a gut feeling that the number of people who like to assembled 9 voids weavers, 5 NDKs, 9 buggies, 6-8 raiders, 40-60 of identical infantry models is rather low. I can imagine someone let say liking how X, Y and Z unit looks and having one of each, maybe even with load out options. But I have my doubts there were many people that enjoyed painting and assmbling a horde of poxwalkers and horrors for their soup army.
For 100s to thousands more dollars than Mansions of Madness or Cards Against Humanity?
This defense is really mind boggling.
The cost of those "100s to thousand more dollars" shouldn't be referred to the game. It's the cost of the hobby, not (only) the game. Those dollars might be a worthy investment if you like to assemble, paint and collect/display the models, other than playing. If you're only interested in playing something, rather than specifically playing 40k, I have bad news for you.
I have a gut feeling that the number of people who like to assembled 9 voids weavers, 5 NDKs, 9 buggies, 6-8 raiders, 40-60 of identical infantry models is rather low. I can imagine someone let say liking how X, Y and Z unit looks and having one of each, maybe even with load out options. But I have my doubts there were many people that enjoyed painting and assmbling a horde of poxwalkers and horrors for their soup army.
You're ignoring everyone who doesn't built or own a tourney list.
I have a gut feeling that the number of people who like to assembled 9 voids weavers, 5 NDKs, 9 buggies, 6-8 raiders, 40-60 of identical infantry models is rather low. I can imagine someone let say liking how X, Y and Z unit looks and having one of each, maybe even with load out options. But I have my doubts there were many people that enjoyed painting and assmbling a horde of poxwalkers and horrors for their soup army.
Exactly, as you said they're a tiny and irrelevant fraction of the playerbase. Not sure why you bring them up to the discussion to be honest.
Well I maybe irrelevant, being a single human. but lists with 5 NDKs, 6+ raiders, spamed units etc are common as dirt. Meaning it is something all people playing have to deal with. I could be not playing the game at all, and it would still be a problem.
The role-playing question is an interesting one to me, because my Crusade experience is very much akin to role-playing games. Obviously any purpose-built RPG is going to be a better RPG than any table-top game that contains RPG elements. But 40k has never been a better RPG than it is now... Though I will say, there's a lot riding on how they handle Chaos, because they are the ultimate Warband faction, and their rules need to reflect that. But Crusade has been very good from the 25PL- 40PL range- provided you've been lucky enough to have your bespoke codex content yet. The Tau, GSC, Druhkari, and Sisters Crusade content is really off the charts; Armies of Faith and Torchbearer Fleets are very cool. The previews of the Nid Crusade content look promising too.
I have 2 problems with Crusade as an RPG system; you and I have had this discussion before but I think it bears repeating to the wider audience:
Problem 1: If you don't follow the GW Approved™ way your army is supposed to tell it's narrative, then you don't get to tell your narrative. I'm an Eldar player. The first thing I did when I opened the Eldar codex was flip to the Crusade rules. "Paths, huh?" I said. "I wonder how my grav-tank and Engine of Vaul army will fit into the Path structure."
Spoiler alert: it didn't, and doesn't. I get to continue using the Warhammer 40k rulebook for most of the units in my army - and, what's worse, they're the units whose story I was most excited to tell. So? I'm selling my Eldar locally. Because the Crusade content didn't encourage me to build my character but rather encouraged me to build GW's character and follow their Path progression system. This would be akin to you wanting to play an Elven two-handed fighter in DND and being told "Sorry, Elves can only play archers and battle mages". I've had this problem with Sororitas too but it is even worse for my eldar, to the point where I don't even want the army anymore, if GW's opinion is that the eldar never field tanks or engines of Vaul narratively (or rather that those vehicles will never be narratively significant).
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe:
"Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
PenitentJake wrote: What I will say, by way of agreement, is that I don't feel that anyone is likely to experience the game at its best if all they do with it is play unrelated 2k matches in stores. The game is made to do so much more than that- even matched play is meant to be more than that as Matched does include Incursion Missions in addition to Strike Force missions, and it does also have campaign content.
I think there are a lot of people who want 2k matched to be the game at its best. They expect that, because it's the default mode. And it is certainly fair to say that the game should be fun in any format and at any size. But using a 2k roster to field 25PL games in a map-based campaign is just awesome- there's a whole other layer, because you can only use 25PL at a time, so you can have different parts of your roster specialize against specific opponents within the campaign; you can choose to grow veteran units at the opportunity cost of keeping other units green until their turn comes; you can grow your army fast or slow.
And make no mistake about it; the game IS specifically designed to facilitate and encourage this type of play. Your preferences, desires, gaming environments or other circumstances may make it improbable or even impossible for you to play it that way. But it is worth acknowledging that things some people feel are lacking from the game are merely lacking from their preferred format.
There are things I want from narrative play that Crusade does not and cannot deliver without a rewrite of the core rules. It is not a panacea for issues unless you're ONLY willing to follow the GW Approved™ way that your army is supposed to work. THERE SHALL BE NO SORORITAS TANK UNITS, so sayeth GW. THERE SHALL BE NO ELDAR GUARDIAN ARMIES, LEST THEY PROCEEDETH ON FROM BEING GUARDIANS, so sayeth GW.
You're ignoring everyone who doesn't built or own a tourney list.
yes, show me those foot DE or harlequin armies, orks not running buggies, tyranids not playing some version crusher stamped etc If those lists weren't common and only limited to tournament, then all the forums and w40k related sites wouldn't be in constant uproar about lists that look strangly very much alike tournament lists. And it seems to be a world wide thing too. If you think that the norm for w40k is an army of marine with a unit of tactical marines, intercessors, assault intercesors and other singles then you have to play in a place where highlander is very common.
What I lament most about Crusade play is it seems to have totally replaced narrative missions.
That is to say; actual themed narrative missions retelling key events.
They sell a campaign book telling the story of a particular campaign, packed to the brim with narrative content they say.
We get a smattering of agendas, relics, and abilities for the combatants involved.
Not one mission to retell the story of that climatic battle. Nothing.
The "narrative missions" we get are literally just matched play. There is not difference.
The primary objective are all the same "score VP if you have some of these 6 arbitrary points".
They've replaced secondary objectives with "agendas" which are for all intents and purposes secondary objectives that just give xp instead of vp.
I don't feel like crusade helps me tell a story. It feels like jumping through arbitrary hoops to get xp to spend on extra abilities and relics and stuff. There's no inherent story in there.
You're ignoring everyone who doesn't built or own a tourney list.
yes, show me those foot DE or harlequin armies, orks not running buggies, tyranids not playing some version crusher stamped etc If those lists weren't common and only limited to tournament, then all the forums and w40k related sites wouldn't be in constant uproar about lists that look strangly very much alike tournament lists. And it seems to be a world wide thing too. If you think that the norm for w40k is an army of marine with a unit of tactical marines, intercessors, assault intercesors and other singles then you have to play in a place where highlander is very common.
That is normal and people don't play highlander specifically, they just build rounded fluffy armies.
Tournament play and players are the minority by all accounts.
On the subject of narrative play, and more generally too, 40K is like going off to college - it's entirely what you make of it. Which is to say, in my view the 40K rules as written should be a starting point for making the game and it's universe your own, not the end point.
Of course, this means finding players that are on board with this - be it garage hammer or whatever.
--------------------
We're playing a map based campaign right now, using a set of missions that we designed and that tie into the strategic map. Depending on where the battle takes place and whether both sides are trying to engage each other or one side is trying to avoid the encounter, we have missions covering ambushes, raids, bunker assaults, point control, zone recons, etc.
Most of the role playing comes through because of the persistent and slowly evolving lists and the strategic implications of winning/losing certain battles. The varied objectives sets the stage for interesting and unexpected outcomes, which in turn affect the strategic layer.
Anyway - this is a personal example, but I think our group is willing to take rules as a starting point and just add to them or modify to make the game we want it to be. It would like to think more players and communities would be interested in making the game their own and having those conversations about what people want to get out of their game time. But I get that it's a tough situation to crack.
You're ignoring everyone who doesn't built or own a tourney list.
yes, show me those foot DE or harlequin armies, orks not running buggies, tyranids not playing some version crusher stamped etc If those lists weren't common and only limited to tournament, then all the forums and w40k related sites wouldn't be in constant uproar about lists that look strangly very much alike tournament lists. And it seems to be a world wide thing too. If you think that the norm for w40k is an army of marine with a unit of tactical marines, intercessors, assault intercesors and other singles then you have to play in a place where highlander is very common.
Those people are not posting on reddit or forums.
As with everything, the majority of people are tuned in to the online community. The very fact that you see them talking makes them a minority.
Which is not the say the opinion of the actual majority needs to be different, just that the majority is basically all silent.
I bet there are a ton of foot DE armies, Orks without buggies and non Crushing Stampede nids. Your just not hearing about them.
No one ever had trouble making up rules to play Narrative games, or adjusting rules to fit narrative campaigns. The rulebooks even had guides on how to do this - they were "official" in that sense. There is a whole "CAMPAIGNS" chapter in the 4E rulebook for example, complete with crusade-like unit upgrades but also guides for different types of campaigns (rolling/ladder/map etc), how to build campaign appropriate terrain based on world types (and what rules they might have), and unique and innovative narrative missions. There are stealth missions, where deploying your entire army may be a bigger drawback than sneaking past the sentries with your elite squad, for example.
In 9th, Crusade was different from all this - billed as "pick up and play" where even your most hardcore tournament player could be on the other side of the table from you and you could still tell your story. In fact, I think they said exactly as much on Warhammer community.
Unfortunately, the sacrifices it made to be "playable as a pickup" was most of the content from the CAMPAIGNS section except for the unit progression. and now you can't pickup game with it anyways
I agree the core rules are actively hostile to narrative games. Every victory being a phyrric victory with a handful of non casualties, characters hanging back, units so often getting to do so little. Even if you explicitly roleplay the game, with decisions based on how you thinka unit would behave rather than looking at the gamestate it just does not work for me.
They had random campaign systems knocked up on the back of a beer mat during lunch hour for white dwarf back in the day that were better than crusade and this is ignoring the core rules issues.
You're ignoring everyone who doesn't built or own a tourney list.
yes, show me those foot DE or harlequin armies, orks not running buggies, tyranids not playing some version crusher stamped etc If those lists weren't common and only limited to tournament, then all the forums and w40k related sites wouldn't be in constant uproar about lists that look strangly very much alike tournament lists. And it seems to be a world wide thing too. If you think that the norm for w40k is an army of marine with a unit of tactical marines, intercessors, assault intercesors and other singles then you have to play in a place where highlander is very common.
Those people are not posting on reddit or forums.
As with everything, the majority of people are tuned in to the online community. The very fact that you see them talking makes them a minority.
Which is not the say the opinion of the actual majority needs to be different, just that the majority is basically all silent.
I bet there are a ton of foot DE armies, Orks without buggies and non Crushing Stampede nids. Your just not hearing about them.
You're probably right but the squeaky wheel gets the grease is basically how everything in society works now. So all those people playing armies in non-competitive lists just have to deal with the nerfs they get because of squeaky wheels complaining about win-rates.
kodos 803732 11342742 wrote:
If you love 40k, love it for what it is and not for something it will never be
So what is 40k then?
It's not tactically deep.
It's strategically easy to figure out.
It's not good for role-playing.
The rules aren't immersing.
So what is 40k?
I'm going to go with: "An entertaing enough way to spend Thur evening with some friends."
I don't think it's ever needed to be more than that.
For 100s to thousands more dollars than Mansions of Madness or Cards Against Humanity?
This defense is really mind boggling.
1st; not a defense of anything.
2nd; Sure I can enjoy an evening of board gaming with the right group. The people I play miniature wargames (including, but not limited to 40k) with aren't that group. Maybe 1 or 2, but as a whole....nope.
3rd; Cards Against Humanity is not anywhere on my list of enjoyable things. Because once you know how the people you play it with think there's no challenge & it's just wasting time that could be spent playing anything else. Even Monopoly & Talisman are better than CAH.
4th; What's $ got to do with wether or not I find it entertaining?
But since you don't like my answer, why don't you give it a shot & tell me what you think 40k should be to me.
I have 2 problems with Crusade as an RPG system; you and I have had this discussion before but I think it bears repeating to the wider audience:
Problem 1: If you don't follow the GW Approved™ way your army is supposed to tell it's narrative, then you don't get to tell your narrative. I'm an Eldar player. The first thing I did when I opened the Eldar codex was flip to the Crusade rules. "Paths, huh?" I said. "I wonder how my grav-tank and Engine of Vaul army will fit into the Path structure."
Spoiler alert: it didn't, and doesn't. I get to continue using the Warhammer 40k rulebook for most of the units in my army - and, what's worse, they're the units whose story I was most excited to tell. So? I'm selling my Eldar locally. Because the Crusade content didn't encourage me to build my character but rather encouraged me to build GW's character and follow their Path progression system. This would be akin to you wanting to play an Elven two-handed fighter in DND and being told "Sorry, Elves can only play archers and battle mages". I've had this problem with Sororitas too but it is even worse for my eldar, to the point where I don't even want the army anymore, if GW's opinion is that the eldar never field tanks or engines of Vaul narratively (or rather that those vehicles will never be narratively significant).
I don't disagree with this point. It's true, GW didn't do everything they could have done for every army- there could be more options for every army's Crusade content then there is, and some armies have it worse than others. It's one of the reasons why when I rave about Crusade lately, I tend to identify the army books that have the most innovative content- Crusade is much more fun for my DE or GSC than my Deathwatch.
Obviously, when they can't give us everything, what they are going to try and give us will be the stuff that is most central to the army's over-all identity; they'll also be trying to avoid having content for one faction overlap too closely with content from a different faction. And it is going to lead to lost opportunities to present some very unique fringe possibilities- or even just possibilities that are less common than the core identifying themes. I think that my point is not that it's perfect, but that it is the best it has ever been. Never has any previous version of the game provided ANY faction based long term story arc, or faction specific upgrades. To complain that you can't tell an engines of Vaul story is legit. But it ignores the fact that you CAN tell the story of a Warlock unit that grows together from green initiates to powerful sorcerers until one member leaves to become a farseer, or that you do now have the capacity for the harlequins to actually bring different performances to the battlefield- these are things that you could not do before without either making up houserules or crafting custom missions that made it feel like these things should happen, but then they don't because rules to represent them only exist if you make them and find players who will allow to use them.
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
I can see your point here too; missions aren't written in a way that you see the story in them- you kinda have to analyze the system of abstractions that are the rules and find the story inside. Mission writing is definitely an area for improvement. Even in my descriptions of the fun I've had with Crusade above, you'll see it's the choices about campaign level decisions I write about; mission level decisions are less engaging and dramatic. I won't deny that.
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe:
"Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
This example is interesting to me, because what I read into it is that there IS a story of the battle, and then there is a story that YOU want to tell, and the two don't match.
The story you want to tell, is that despite the fact that the commander has already used all of his cunning and experience to try and take the battle where he wants it to go, he still has more in him to keep giving more orders- he never starts to doubt himself when it seems he's done all he can and it's still not enough; he never gets tired, he never begins to question whether or not his ideas are enough to win the day.
But the story of the game is that your commander was cocky- he came in headstrong, issuing order after order in the opening moments of the battle. But now he is getting tired. He is having doubts. He feels the loss of the troops who have been sacrificed, and he can't help but think about the troops who are left to be lost as a result of his early bravado on the field. In battles to come, if he survives, he will learn to use command more sparingly, saving orders for the moments when they are most needed.
This is what running out of command points means. In D&D, I often wish my fighter had a third and a fourth wind. He doesn't; he has a second wind. And if he burns it on the minion fight so that it isn't there when he needs it against the boss, I don't say "Geez, that's really non-narrative. You'd think if I had the capacity to summon my internal reserves against the skeletons, I'd be even more inspired by the horrifying presence of the Lich to dig even deeper. Gee, this system is kinda broken because it won't let me play my narrative."
Instead, I as a player realize that my character made a poor decision and used a limited resource that would have been better saved for a more pivotal moment.
Now as for not being able to interact with the battle when you're inside a vehicle? I've always thought that was problematic and could use attention. I also think you'll see it when the new dex drops- GW has begun to include text about characters being able to use certain special abilities if they are "on the field or in transports which are on the field." These aren't specifically Crusade rules either, but I take the point that changes to core rules can improve Crusade.
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
Okay, let's break it down for you then:
Show me any rule from an edition before 9th that tells me how to take a battle sisters unit that failed their objective in a game and make them into Sisters Repentia. Then tell me what the rules say they have to do to restore themselves in the eyes of the Emperor. Then tell me what the rules say happens when I do this.
Sure, in games gone by, I could replace the sisters unit from game one with an identically sized unit of repentia for following games... Oh wait, could I? What if the units didn't cost the same points? Guess I couldn't. Assuming I was using the generic list of battle honours that were printed in previous editions, I could have the repentia keep the battle honours earned by the sisters before their fall, but that would technically be a houserule, wouldn't it? I mean, assuming the rest of the people in the campaign let me fudge the points discrepancy in the first place, which is by no means a guarantee. And then I'm sure they'll let me do it all again when the unit redeems itself, right?
Can you show me in previous rules where it tells me what a genestealer cult has to do to take over a planet? I mean this one's trickier, because if such rules exist at all, they'd have to be in the second, seventh or eighth editions because those are the only editions where GSC was playable. And sure, if we're in a map based campaign, I can declare that that the GSC gain control of a planet once they occupy all the territory on that planet. But what game benefits do they get for partial control? Or from other planets already under their control? Guess I'd have to houserule all of that too, huh?
Okay, surely I can do the DE thing in previous versions of the game. So let's see... My mighty Archon is sponsoring two Wych Cults so I can use my captured arena terrioties to feed them extra XP in battle... Oh wait, I can't because arena territories didn't exist in previous versions of the game. Well, that's okay; I can still make little 500 point Cults fight each other... of course, all the missions in previous editions were designed for 1500-2k battles, but that's okay, I can teak it. And then the winner can appear in the realspace raid alongside their sponsor as an independent ally with it's own command structure... Wait a minute, what do you mean there is only one FOC allowed?
Starting to see what I'm talking about yet?
Yes, you could do literally all of the things mentioned above with enough houserules and open minded players. It's just that now you don't have to- all you have to do is find a group who wants to play crusade.
PenitentJake wrote: What I will say, by way of agreement, is that I don't feel that anyone is likely to experience the game at its best if all they do with it is play unrelated 2k matches in stores. The game is made to do so much more than that- even matched play is meant to be more than that as Matched does include Incursion Missions in addition to Strike Force missions, and it does also have campaign content.
I think there are a lot of people who want 2k matched to be the game at its best. They expect that, because it's the default mode. And it is certainly fair to say that the game should be fun in any format and at any size. But using a 2k roster to field 25PL games in a map-based campaign is just awesome- there's a whole other layer, because you can only use 25PL at a time, so you can have different parts of your roster specialize against specific opponents within the campaign; you can choose to grow veteran units at the opportunity cost of keeping other units green until their turn comes; you can grow your army fast or slow.
And make no mistake about it; the game IS specifically designed to facilitate and encourage this type of play. Your preferences, desires, gaming environments or other circumstances may make it improbable or even impossible for you to play it that way. But it is worth acknowledging that things some people feel are lacking from the game are merely lacking from their preferred format.
There are things I want from narrative play that Crusade does not and cannot deliver without a rewrite of the core rules. It is not a panacea for issues unless you're ONLY willing to follow the GW Approved™ way that your army is supposed to work. THERE SHALL BE NO SORORITAS TANK UNITS, so sayeth GW. THERE SHALL BE NO ELDAR GUARDIAN ARMIES, LEST THEY PROCEEDETH ON FROM BEING GUARDIANS, so sayeth GW.
Fair point. But again, I'm not saying Crusade is perfect. I'm saying that it is better than a series of unrelated 2k matched games because even if it doesn't give you EVERYTHING you want, it will give you more than 2k matched does; that being the case if you only play 2k matched, you might be missing out on some cool stuff that the company worked hard to write for you.
Note: I was going to multiquote and respond to other folks who have responded to me, but this is already a long post and if I don't start painting and photographing my wych cult arena, I'm not going to achieve any of my hobby goals for April- it's already one third of the way beyond me.
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe: "Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
This example is interesting to me, because what I read into it is that there IS a story of the battle, and then there is a story that YOU want to tell, and the two don't match.
The story you want to tell, is that despite the fact that the commander has already used all of his cunning and experience to try and take the battle where he wants it to go, he still has more in him to keep giving more orders- he never starts to doubt himself when it seems he's done all he can and it's still not enough; he never gets tired, he never begins to question whether or not his ideas are enough to win the day.
But the story of the game is that your commander was cocky- he came in headstrong, issuing order after order in the opening moments of the battle. But now he is getting tired. He is having doubts. He feels the loss of the troops who have been sacrificed, and he can't help but think about the troops who are left to be lost as a result of his early bravado on the field. In battles to come, if he survives, he will learn to use command more sparingly, saving orders for the moments when they are most needed.
This is what running out of command points means. In D&D, I often wish my fighter had a third and a fourth wind. He doesn't; he has a second wind. And if he burns it on the minion fight so that it isn't there when he needs it against the boss, I don't say "Geez, that's really non-narrative. You'd think if I had the capacity to summon my internal reserves against the skeletons, I'd be even more inspired by the horrifying presence of the Lich to dig even deeper. Gee, this system is kinda broken because it won't let me play my narrative."
Instead, I as a player realize that my character made a poor decision and used a limited resource that would have been better saved for a more pivotal moment.
Now as for not being able to interact with the battle when you're inside a vehicle? I've always thought that was problematic and could use attention. I also think you'll see it when the new dex drops- GW has begun to include text about characters being able to use certain special abilities if they are "on the field or in transports which are on the field." These aren't specifically Crusade rules either, but I take the point that changes to core rules can improve Crusade.
It strikes me that the story of the game in that example isn't anything to do with the commander at all - voxes don't have a cooldown where you can only transmit once per however-long-a-turn-is-supposed-to-last-in-realtime, and a lascannon team halfway across the map deciding that yes, actually, they did make that shot after all wouldn't affect the voxes regardless. Crassus wasn't dealing with vox jamming or equipment malfunctions, no psyker was casting Induce Migraine on him, every other commander on the field would have been able to complete their orders without issue (both before and after Crassus), there's nothing that would prevent this from happening turn one when everyone was still relatively fresh, and there isn't even anything preventing him from opening the top hatch and using flags/lamps/just fething yelling the orders. There's plenty of narrative precedent for Chimeras being mobile command vehicles by default (including special rules in previous codices that explicitly state such). The only reason that Crassus suddenly and inexplicably can't give the order is because of interactions with a metasystem that serves a purely structural purpose.
A better D&D cognate wouldn't be Second Wind, it'd if the rules allowed you to Defend (a full round action) and verbally taunt (as speaking is a free action), but not Defend and verbally Taunt (a standard action, which you can't do alongside a full-round action). (Note: been a hot minute since I played D&D, not sure if the rules are/were actually like that or not. Also, I'm sure most DMs would houserule around that, but we're talking about what we can do RAW here).
Edit: Better example. Also, I suspect there is a difference between "telling a narrative of an event" and "being able to come up with a post-hoc narrative justification for an event". There would be some overlap (eg: "I fire at the Daemon Prince..." "...but the horror of its countenance throws my aim askew!"), but the Crassus example isn't telling a narrative of any of the things either of us have mentioned that could explain it - it's just a flat "computer says no" moment.
I have 2 problems with Crusade as an RPG system; you and I have had this discussion before but I think it bears repeating to the wider audience: Problem 1: If you don't follow the GW Approved™ way your army is supposed to tell it's narrative, then you don't get to tell your narrative. I'm an Eldar player. The first thing I did when I opened the Eldar codex was flip to the Crusade rules. "Paths, huh?" I said. "I wonder how my grav-tank and Engine of Vaul army will fit into the Path structure." Spoiler alert: it didn't, and doesn't. I get to continue using the Warhammer 40k rulebook for most of the units in my army - and, what's worse, they're the units whose story I was most excited to tell. So? I'm selling my Eldar locally. Because the Crusade content didn't encourage me to build my character but rather encouraged me to build GW's character and follow their Path progression system. This would be akin to you wanting to play an Elven two-handed fighter in DND and being told "Sorry, Elves can only play archers and battle mages". I've had this problem with Sororitas too but it is even worse for my eldar, to the point where I don't even want the army anymore, if GW's opinion is that the eldar never field tanks or engines of Vaul narratively (or rather that those vehicles will never be narratively significant).
I don't disagree with this point. It's true, GW didn't do everything they could have done for every army- there could be more options for every army's Crusade content then there is, and some armies have it worse than others. It's one of the reasons why when I rave about Crusade lately, I tend to identify the army books that have the most innovative content- Crusade is much more fun for my DE or GSC than my Deathwatch.
Obviously, when they can't give us everything, what they are going to try and give us will be the stuff that is most central to the army's over-all identity; they'll also be trying to avoid having content for one faction overlap too closely with content from a different faction. And it is going to lead to lost opportunities to present some very unique fringe possibilities- or even just possibilities that are less common than the core identifying themes. I think that my point is not that it's perfect, but that it is the best it has ever been. Never has any previous version of the game provided ANY faction based long term story arc, or faction specific upgrades. To complain that you can't tell an engines of Vaul story is legit. But it ignores the fact that you CAN tell the story of a Warlock unit that grows together from green initiates to powerful sorcerers until one member leaves to become a farseer, or that you do now have the capacity for the harlequins to actually bring different performances to the battlefield- these are things that you could not do before without either making up houserules or crafting custom missions that made it feel like these things should happen, but then they don't because rules to represent them only exist if you make them and find players who will allow to use them.
The whole point of narrative play is to be flexible. To tell Your Story. That's why DND has a DM - no rulebook in the world could be as flexible as the human brain. If GW gave narrative rules that officially empowered a GM, gave them tips and tricks and examples to deal with certain situations, wrote campaign arcs with a DM in mind, I think you'd have a lot better narrative content than crusade.
As it stands, Crusade is just another mode of play just like Matched, that doesn't require any narrative at all - if you want to keep up with the bookkeeping, you can be just as competitive in Crusade as in Matched.
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
I can see your point here too; missions aren't written in a way that you see the story in them- you kinda have to analyze the system of abstractions that are the rules and find the story inside. Mission writing is definitely an area for improvement. Even in my descriptions of the fun I've had with Crusade above, you'll see it's the choices about campaign level decisions I write about; mission level decisions are less engaging and dramatic. I won't deny that.
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe: "Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
This example is interesting to me, because what I read into it is that there IS a story of the battle, and then there is a story that YOU want to tell, and the two don't match.
The story you want to tell, is that despite the fact that the commander has already used all of his cunning and experience to try and take the battle where he wants it to go, he still has more in him to keep giving more orders- he never starts to doubt himself when it seems he's done all he can and it's still not enough; he never gets tired, he never begins to question whether or not his ideas are enough to win the day.
But the story of the game is that your commander was cocky- he came in headstrong, issuing order after order in the opening moments of the battle. But now he is getting tired. He is having doubts. He feels the loss of the troops who have been sacrificed, and he can't help but think about the troops who are left to be lost as a result of his early bravado on the field. In battles to come, if he survives, he will learn to use command more sparingly, saving orders for the moments when they are most needed.
This is what running out of command points means. In D&D, I often wish my fighter had a third and a fourth wind. He doesn't; he has a second wind. And if he burns it on the minion fight so that it isn't there when he needs it against the boss, I don't say "Geez, that's really non-narrative. You'd think if I had the capacity to summon my internal reserves against the skeletons, I'd be even more inspired by the horrifying presence of the Lich to dig even deeper. Gee, this system is kinda broken because it won't let me play my narrative."
Instead, I as a player realize that my character made a poor decision and used a limited resource that would have been better saved for a more pivotal moment.
This seems like a post facto rationalization, rather than a real reason.
He can still give orders, just not out of a Chimera because... why again? He used up all his "cunning" that it would require to... talk into a radio? He was tactically overmatched by the channel dial on the vox? He exerted himself SO HEAVILY that the sheer EFFORT it would take to use the radio is JUST TOO MUCH?
Remember, he's not saving orders. Orders don't cost CP. He's just unable to give orders because he's in the back of a tank - but he could when there was CP. Why does having or not having CP change the status of his ability to give orders out of a tank? What's the narrative there?
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
Okay, let's break it down for you then: /snip Starting to see what I'm talking about yet?
Yes, you could do literally all of the things mentioned above with enough houserules and open minded players. It's just that now you don't have to- all you have to do is find a group who wants to play crusade.
Which are the same people who would be okay with a narrative campaign that included such rules in the past.... hence my point.
I have 2 problems with Crusade as an RPG system; you and I have had this discussion before but I think it bears repeating to the wider audience:
Problem 1: If you don't follow the GW Approved™ way your army is supposed to tell it's narrative, then you don't get to tell your narrative. I'm an Eldar player. The first thing I did when I opened the Eldar codex was flip to the Crusade rules. "Paths, huh?" I said. "I wonder how my grav-tank and Engine of Vaul army will fit into the Path structure."
Spoiler alert: it didn't, and doesn't. I get to continue using the Warhammer 40k rulebook for most of the units in my army - and, what's worse, they're the units whose story I was most excited to tell. So? I'm selling my Eldar locally. Because the Crusade content didn't encourage me to build my character but rather encouraged me to build GW's character and follow their Path progression system. This would be akin to you wanting to play an Elven two-handed fighter in DND and being told "Sorry, Elves can only play archers and battle mages". I've had this problem with Sororitas too but it is even worse for my eldar, to the point where I don't even want the army anymore, if GW's opinion is that the eldar never field tanks or engines of Vaul narratively (or rather that those vehicles will never be narratively significant).
I don't disagree with this point. It's true, GW didn't do everything they could have done for every army- there could be more options for every army's Crusade content then there is, and some armies have it worse than others. It's one of the reasons why when I rave about Crusade lately, I tend to identify the army books that have the most innovative content- Crusade is much more fun for my DE or GSC than my Deathwatch.
Obviously, when they can't give us everything, what they are going to try and give us will be the stuff that is most central to the army's over-all identity; they'll also be trying to avoid having content for one faction overlap too closely with content from a different faction. And it is going to lead to lost opportunities to present some very unique fringe possibilities- or even just possibilities that are less common than the core identifying themes. I think that my point is not that it's perfect, but that it is the best it has ever been. Never has any previous version of the game provided ANY faction based long term story arc, or faction specific upgrades. To complain that you can't tell an engines of Vaul story is legit. But it ignores the fact that you CAN tell the story of a Warlock unit that grows together from green initiates to powerful sorcerers until one member leaves to become a farseer, or that you do now have the capacity for the harlequins to actually bring different performances to the battlefield- these are things that you could not do before without either making up houserules or crafting custom missions that made it feel like these things should happen, but then they don't because rules to represent them only exist if you make them and find players who will allow to use them.
The whole point of narrative play is to be flexible. To tell Your Story. That's why DND has a DM - no rulebook in the world could be as flexible as the human brain. If GW gave narrative rules that officially empowered a GM, gave them tips and tricks and examples to deal with certain situations, wrote campaign arcs with a DM in mind, I think you'd have a lot better narrative content than crusade.
As it stands, Crusade is just another mode of play just like Matched, that doesn't require any narrative at all - if you want to keep up with the bookkeeping, you can be just as competitive in Crusade as in Matched.
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
I can see your point here too; missions aren't written in a way that you see the story in them- you kinda have to analyze the system of abstractions that are the rules and find the story inside. Mission writing is definitely an area for improvement. Even in my descriptions of the fun I've had with Crusade above, you'll see it's the choices about campaign level decisions I write about; mission level decisions are less engaging and dramatic. I won't deny that.
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe:
"Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
This example is interesting to me, because what I read into it is that there IS a story of the battle, and then there is a story that YOU want to tell, and the two don't match.
The story you want to tell, is that despite the fact that the commander has already used all of his cunning and experience to try and take the battle where he wants it to go, he still has more in him to keep giving more orders- he never starts to doubt himself when it seems he's done all he can and it's still not enough; he never gets tired, he never begins to question whether or not his ideas are enough to win the day.
But the story of the game is that your commander was cocky- he came in headstrong, issuing order after order in the opening moments of the battle. But now he is getting tired. He is having doubts. He feels the loss of the troops who have been sacrificed, and he can't help but think about the troops who are left to be lost as a result of his early bravado on the field. In battles to come, if he survives, he will learn to use command more sparingly, saving orders for the moments when they are most needed.
This is what running out of command points means. In D&D, I often wish my fighter had a third and a fourth wind. He doesn't; he has a second wind. And if he burns it on the minion fight so that it isn't there when he needs it against the boss, I don't say "Geez, that's really non-narrative. You'd think if I had the capacity to summon my internal reserves against the skeletons, I'd be even more inspired by the horrifying presence of the Lich to dig even deeper. Gee, this system is kinda broken because it won't let me play my narrative."
Instead, I as a player realize that my character made a poor decision and used a limited resource that would have been better saved for a more pivotal moment.
This seems like a post facto rationalization, rather than a real reason.
He can still give orders, just not out of a Chimera because... why again? He used up all his "cunning" that it would require to... talk into a radio?
Spoiler:
He was tactically overmatched by the channel dial on the vox? He exerted himself SO HEAVILY that the sheer EFFORT it would take to use the radio is JUST TOO MUCH?
Remember, he's not saving orders. Orders don't cost CP. He's just unable to give orders because he's in the back of a tank - but he could when there was CP. Why does having or not having CP change the status of his ability to give orders out of a tank? What's the narrative there?
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
Okay, let's break it down for you then:
/snip
Starting to see what I'm talking about yet?
Yes, you could do literally all of the things mentioned above with enough houserules and open minded players. It's just that now you don't have to- all you have to do is find a group who wants to play crusade.
Which are the same people who would be okay with a narrative campaign that included such rules in the past.... hence my point.
LoL… yeah, dude dropped his last command token, sort of like running out of coins at the pay phone or minutes on the burner phone or maybe the spring in his toy soldier mechanism needs winding, again, or union labor rules compel a smoke break before more orders may be issued…
His fellow officer leading the next platoon over has already used the megaphone on his Chimera, it is physically impossible for more than one Chimera to use the megaphone at a time.
The commander is all cunning-ed out after that infantry squad over there ducked for cover, and those other guys all threw grenades.
He has nothing to do with any of that, but it's been exhausting for him.
His fellow officer leading the next platoon over has already used the megaphone on his Chimera, it is physically impossible for more than one Chimera to use the megaphone at a time.
The commander is all cunning-ed out after that infantry squad over there ducked for cover, and those other guys all threw grenades.
He has nothing to do with any of that, but it's been exhausting for him.
And that's the weird thing with Strats. The way they singularly affect units feels strange at times. Sure sometimes it can work, like with Marine Captain out of spite fighting before dying. However some others are silly. How come just one squad of Primaris Marines or Custodes remembered they can be tougher?
The whole point of narrative play is to be flexible. To tell Your Story. That's why DND has a DM - no rulebook in the world could be as flexible as the human brain. If GW gave narrative rules that officially empowered a GM, gave them tips and tricks and examples to deal with certain situations, wrote campaign arcs with a DM in mind, I think you'd have a lot better narrative content than crusade.
As it stands, Crusade is just another mode of play just like Matched, that doesn't require any narrative at all - if you want to keep up with the bookkeeping, you can be just as competitive in Crusade as in Matched.
I agree 100%. I started moving into more GM based scenario play in Battletech and holy cow it was like being back in the hobby 25-30 years ago. And ALL of my players have enjoyed it immensely so far.
I think 40k could do amazing in a situation where you could have a GM. The only downside is... models are expensive.
In Battletech I have enough for opfor to give my players a variety of scenarios, but they also only need to have a lance or so of mechs and some tanks and infantry or vtol support if they choose.
In 40k - playing narratively could mean needing a lot more generic tactical marines or whatever and that means having players be open to that (this comes from my immersion in 40k player culture where things like tactical marines are almost never in a collection if they dont need to be).
I have the same problem with Crusade as well - the game itself is not immersive... its a war-themed GAME as opposed to a wargame, and the crusade system itself, which I give GW credit for providing, is the skeleton of what could be something a hell of a lot more fleshed out and in depth.
The whole point of narrative play is to be flexible. To tell Your Story. That's why DND has a DM - no rulebook in the world could be as flexible as the human brain.
D&D, like all roleplaying games, has a GM because there are no antagonist or allied NPCs without a gm to play them. Various RPGs offer different levels of structure. And certainly, a GMcan create their own monsters, magic items and character classes, but they generally don't. And when they do, it's an item here or an item there amidst a whole host of ready made templates.
As an example, I give you modules. Because yeah, it's true that some of us run with nothing but the SRD, but it's equally true that there is a whole sub-set of GMs who wouldn't consider running a campaign without the assistance of a published module.
If GW gave narrative rules that officially empowered a GM, gave them tips and tricks and examples to deal with certain situations, wrote campaign arcs with a DM in mind, I think you'd have a lot better narrative content than crusade.
GW did write narrative rules with GMs in mind that give them tips and tricks. GM's were recommended in the Charadon Campaign, and the ways in which a GM could help to manage a campaign were mentioned... But the concept wasn't leveraged as effectively as it could have been.
But then Octarius happened, and campaign trees were provided as exemplars with blank campaign trees for GMs who wished to make their own, as well as GM edicts, and some additional guidance. If Charadon scratched the surface of moderated campaign play, Octarius was written with moderation specifically in mind.
And again, I'm not saying GW shouldn't go further; I think we really need a "Big Book of Crusade" and I think there might even be one coming, but it probably wouldn't make sense to release such a thing until the codex cycle is complete since we've already started down the rabbit hole. It would have made sense for a big book of crusade BEFORE the parade of bespoke content from dexes began, but now that we're on the train it makes sense to ride it til the end, at which point GW can release a book that augments all of the content.
As it stands, Crusade is just another mode of play just like Matched, that doesn't require any narrative at all - if you want to keep up with the bookkeeping, you can be just as competitive in Crusade as in Matched.
I somewhat agree with this statement. Crusade can be just as competitive as Matched with the wrong attitude and/ or group- probably even moreso. I'd be a fool to deny that.
But saying that crusade doesn't require any narrative at all... I'm not so sure I buy that. If you perform agendas to get xp with which you buy battle honours, there is a story there, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. There's a beginning (green) a middle (blooded and battle hardened) and an end (heroic and legendary) and these are linked by cause and effect. Tools exist to allow groups to go deeper than this if they choose, and most will- adding a long term goal for their army as whole, for example. But again, when players choose not to do that, it isn't the game's fault.
Oh, and for the record, the same thing can be done with roleplaying games too. I used to play RPGA Living City events, which were highly standardized and followed particular formats to provide standard outcomes for four-hour convention spots. It wasn't as good as free form D&D, but I never claimed that D&D was a bad game because it allowed for the possibility of RPGA style play for those who were into that sort of thing.
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
I can see your point here too; missions aren't written in a way that you see the story in them- you kinda have to analyze the system of abstractions that are the rules and find the story inside. Mission writing is definitely an area for improvement. Even in my descriptions of the fun I've had with Crusade above, you'll see it's the choices about campaign level decisions I write about; mission level decisions are less engaging and dramatic. I won't deny that.
This seems like a post facto rationalization, rather than a real reason.
He can still give orders, just not out of a Chimera because... why again? He used up all his "cunning" that it would require to... talk into a radio? He was tactically overmatched by the channel dial on the vox? He exerted himself SO HEAVILY that the sheer EFFORT it would take to use the radio is JUST TOO MUCH?
Remember, he's not saving orders. Orders don't cost CP. He's just unable to give orders because he's in the back of a tank - but he could when there was CP. Why does having or not having CP change the status of his ability to give orders out of a tank? What's the narrative there?
And honestly? It was a post facto rationalization. Games that use rules to create stories on the fly often require such things. I train in a character class that gives me an increased critical range- I'm scoring crits on 19's and 20's. I get into a fight where I don't roll over 15 once. Yet everyone else in my party scores a crit and one guy scores three of them over the course of the fight, even though none of them have an increased threat range.
There's no story rationale why that should happen. Statistically, it shouldn't happen. But when it does, I don't talk about the system being non narrative, throw up my hands in angst, sell my books and post on forums that the system is bad because of some of the things that can occasionally happen from time to time.
Instead, when the fight is over, my character might make a comment to the other characters that he didn't sleep well last night, because that would provide a story based rationale for why the rules didn't create the specific scenario I expected. We all know that the GM didn't actually make me roll to see how much rest I got; we know the dice didn't do what they did as a result of mechanics governing the game state at the time the rolls were made. But we'd probably all celebrate the roleplayer for adding a narrative detail to the story to explain what mechanically happened despite the fact that it statistically should not have gone the way it did.
And again, I'll remind you that in the post you quoted, I also said I never liked GW's rules for not being able to do anything when you're in a transport. I also pointed out that guard don't have their 9th dex, so what actually happens with 9th ed guard issuing orders from vehicles is a giant question mark right now. And finally, I pointed out that rules text in some recent releases seems to indicate that there may be some changes on the way.
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
Okay, let's break it down for you then:
/snip
Starting to see what I'm talking about yet?
Yes, you could do literally all of the things mentioned above with enough houserules and open minded players. It's just that now you don't have to- all you have to do is find a group who wants to play crusade.
Which are the same people who would be okay with a narrative campaign that included such rules in the past.... hence my point.
Not necessarily. Certainly, no one open minded enough to play a campaign FULL of house rules would shy away from playing Crusade.
But there might be a fair number of people out there who are willing to play printed Crusade rules because they are official who wouldn't touch houserules with a ten foot pole.
I'll play D&D with someone who tweaks existing material to fit the game, or combines elements from multiple sources, but if we fight 5 OP encounters in a row where all encounters with homebrew monsters, and all we get for it is homebrew magic items in the treasure, I might suggest to that GM that the game would be improved by using more of the printed rules.
I mean, if I had to invent all of the Druhkari territories that we were going to use in our campaign, you think there wouldn't be non-Druhkari players whispering under their breath about how much my house rules suck? Kind of a good thing these rules already exist then, isn't it?
Karol wrote: Well there can be countless other games existing, but if the only fandom that exists in large enough numbers to have opponents to play is GW games, and store only sell GW stuff, after they got burned on what Privateer Press did, the play something else, is not really an option. And it is kin to telling someone to get smarter an richer, if they don't like the life they have right now.
Buy an Infinity starter set, teach a friend to play. It's how we did it when we were nerds with niche hobbies instead of passive consumers.
PenitentJake wrote: ...Not necessarily. Certainly, no one open minded enough to play a campaign FULL of house rules would shy away from playing Crusade...
I have 2 problems with Crusade as an RPG system; you and I have had this discussion before but I think it bears repeating to the wider audience:
Problem 1: If you don't follow the GW Approved™ way your army is supposed to tell it's narrative, then you don't get to tell your narrative. I'm an Eldar player. The first thing I did when I opened the Eldar codex was flip to the Crusade rules. "Paths, huh?" I said. "I wonder how my grav-tank and Engine of Vaul army will fit into the Path structure."
Spoiler alert: it didn't, and doesn't. I get to continue using the Warhammer 40k rulebook for most of the units in my army - and, what's worse, they're the units whose story I was most excited to tell. So? I'm selling my Eldar locally. Because the Crusade content didn't encourage me to build my character but rather encouraged me to build GW's character and follow their Path progression system. This would be akin to you wanting to play an Elven two-handed fighter in DND and being told "Sorry, Elves can only play archers and battle mages". I've had this problem with Sororitas too but it is even worse for my eldar, to the point where I don't even want the army anymore, if GW's opinion is that the eldar never field tanks or engines of Vaul narratively (or rather that those vehicles will never be narratively significant).
I don't disagree with this point. It's true, GW didn't do everything they could have done for every army- there could be more options for every army's Crusade content then there is, and some armies have it worse than others. It's one of the reasons why when I rave about Crusade lately, I tend to identify the army books that have the most innovative content- Crusade is much more fun for my DE or GSC than my Deathwatch.
Obviously, when they can't give us everything, what they are going to try and give us will be the stuff that is most central to the army's over-all identity; they'll also be trying to avoid having content for one faction overlap too closely with content from a different faction. And it is going to lead to lost opportunities to present some very unique fringe possibilities- or even just possibilities that are less common than the core identifying themes. I think that my point is not that it's perfect, but that it is the best it has ever been. Never has any previous version of the game provided ANY faction based long term story arc, or faction specific upgrades. To complain that you can't tell an engines of Vaul story is legit. But it ignores the fact that you CAN tell the story of a Warlock unit that grows together from green initiates to powerful sorcerers until one member leaves to become a farseer, or that you do now have the capacity for the harlequins to actually bring different performances to the battlefield- these are things that you could not do before without either making up houserules or crafting custom missions that made it feel like these things should happen, but then they don't because rules to represent them only exist if you make them and find players who will allow to use them.
The whole point of narrative play is to be flexible. To tell Your Story. That's why DND has a DM - no rulebook in the world could be as flexible as the human brain. If GW gave narrative rules that officially empowered a GM, gave them tips and tricks and examples to deal with certain situations, wrote campaign arcs with a DM in mind, I think you'd have a lot better narrative content than crusade.
As it stands, Crusade is just another mode of play just like Matched, that doesn't require any narrative at all - if you want to keep up with the bookkeeping, you can be just as competitive in Crusade as in Matched.
Problem 2: The core rules themselves aren't immersive. It's hard to write a narrative of a battle action by action with the current structure of 40k. I can go into more detail about this, but the general point is things don't behave on the tabletop the way they would in universe. I can pick some examples out of some prior posts if you would like - in fact, here's one from back in the day:
I can see your point here too; missions aren't written in a way that you see the story in them- you kinda have to analyze the system of abstractions that are the rules and find the story inside. Mission writing is definitely an area for improvement. Even in my descriptions of the fun I've had with Crusade above, you'll see it's the choices about campaign level decisions I write about; mission level decisions are less engaging and dramatic. I won't deny that.
Right now, playing 40k feels like playing a GAME. I'm not re-enacting an epic battle or telling the story of characters on a board.
Captain Krassus screamed into the vox: "All Armageddon Steel Legion, raise high the black banners, now is our time! Fix bayonets!" signaling the epic charge.
BUT he couldn't have predicted the cunning of the Rule System, his true foe:
"Sir, we're out of command points, you can't give orders from within a Chimera!" screamed the driver, as he repeatedly shifted from reverse to forwards, jerkily trying to run Orks over like the zamboni scene in Austin Powers. After all, only a fool would drive past enemy infantry that offered practically no threat and bypass hardened positions with maneuver - and the mechanized units of the Armageddon Steel Legion were no fools!
And thusly on the cusp of victory did the planet of Armageddon fall, defeated not by the cleverness of his foe or superior force or tactics, but by the universal laws which this commander foolishly disregarded when he embarked upon his mechanized transport. Who was he to think he could give orders from a Chimera freely? To be a man in such times...
This example is interesting to me, because what I read into it is that there IS a story of the battle, and then there is a story that YOU want to tell, and the two don't match.
The story you want to tell, is that despite the fact that the commander has already used all of his cunning and experience to try and take the battle where he wants it to go, he still has more in him to keep giving more orders- he never starts to doubt himself when it seems he's done all he can and it's still not enough; he never gets tired, he never begins to question whether or not his ideas are enough to win the day.
But the story of the game is that your commander was cocky- he came in headstrong, issuing order after order in the opening moments of the battle. But now he is getting tired. He is having doubts. He feels the loss of the troops who have been sacrificed, and he can't help but think about the troops who are left to be lost as a result of his early bravado on the field. In battles to come, if he survives, he will learn to use command more sparingly, saving orders for the moments when they are most needed.
This is what running out of command points means. In D&D, I often wish my fighter had a third and a fourth wind. He doesn't; he has a second wind. And if he burns it on the minion fight so that it isn't there when he needs it against the boss, I don't say "Geez, that's really non-narrative. You'd think if I had the capacity to summon my internal reserves against the skeletons, I'd be even more inspired by the horrifying presence of the Lich to dig even deeper. Gee, this system is kinda broken because it won't let me play my narrative."
Instead, I as a player realize that my character made a poor decision and used a limited resource that would have been better saved for a more pivotal moment.
This seems like a post facto rationalization, rather than a real reason.
He can still give orders, just not out of a Chimera because... why again? He used up all his "cunning" that it would require to... talk into a radio?
Spoiler:
He was tactically overmatched by the channel dial on the vox? He exerted himself SO HEAVILY that the sheer EFFORT it would take to use the radio is JUST TOO MUCH?
Remember, he's not saving orders. Orders don't cost CP. He's just unable to give orders because he's in the back of a tank - but he could when there was CP. Why does having or not having CP change the status of his ability to give orders out of a tank? What's the narrative there?
PenitentJake wrote: As for immersive, again I can't agree- but again, I'm a campaign player, so of course I find it immersive- I've got an entire penitent mission working toward redemption, a fledging cult that is infecting citizens with the genestealer curse and a Dark Eldar Archon who is sponsoring two Wych Cults who compete in the Arena for the right to realspace raid, feeding their dead to the mysterious Haemonculus who has taken up residence beneath the Arena.
I don't really understand why this is impossible in any other iteration of 40k - you could tell these same stories in 4th edition, or 2nd edition (Well, DE didn't exist but you get the idea).
Okay, let's break it down for you then:
/snip
Starting to see what I'm talking about yet?
Yes, you could do literally all of the things mentioned above with enough houserules and open minded players. It's just that now you don't have to- all you have to do is find a group who wants to play crusade.
Which are the same people who would be okay with a narrative campaign that included such rules in the past.... hence my point.
LoL… yeah, dude dropped his last command token, sort of like running out of coins at the pay phone or minutes on the burner phone or maybe the spring in his toy soldier mechanism needs winding, again, or union labor rules compel a smoke break before more orders may be issued…
PenitentJake is once again defending the "All-out-of-AA-Missiles Missile-Havoc" but this time with a narrative spin..
Not necessarily. Certainly, no one open minded enough to play a campaign FULL of house rules would shy away from playing Crusade.
But there might be a fair number of people out there who are willing to play printed Crusade rules because they are official who wouldn't touch houserules with a ten foot pole.
I'll play D&D with someone who tweaks existing material to fit the game, or combines elements from multiple sources, but if we fight 5 OP encounters in a row where all encounters with homebrew monsters, and all we get for it is homebrew magic items in the treasure, I might suggest to that GM that the game would be improved by using more of the printed rules.
I mean, if I had to invent all of the Druhkari territories that we were going to use in our campaign, you think there wouldn't be non-Druhkari players whispering under their breath about how much my house rules suck? Kind of a good thing these rules already exist then, isn't it?
I find it very difficult to believe that GWs Crusade rules are well balanced either.
Not necessarily. Certainly, no one open minded enough to play a campaign FULL of house rules would shy away from playing Crusade.
But there might be a fair number of people out there who are willing to play printed Crusade rules because they are official who wouldn't touch houserules with a ten foot pole.
I'll play D&D with someone who tweaks existing material to fit the game, or combines elements from multiple sources, but if we fight 5 OP encounters in a row where all encounters with homebrew monsters, and all we get for it is homebrew magic items in the treasure, I might suggest to that GM that the game would be improved by using more of the printed rules.
I mean, if I had to invent all of the Druhkari territories that we were going to use in our campaign, you think there wouldn't be non-Druhkari players whispering under their breath about how much my house rules suck? Kind of a good thing these rules already exist then, isn't it?
I find it very difficult to believe that GWs Crusade rules are well balanced either.
As a matter of fact, they are not.
Beyond the "normal" power dicrepancy of factions (Harlequins vs guards) there is also vastly unfair crusade content design. From the completly disfunctional and actually hindering Ork crusade content that basically disallows you from having a Big Mek as a warboss because of how the infighting rules work, to the shoddy agendas. Meanwhile you have GSC which have a very well working ascencion idea seizing planets in a system that grant boni and can force a final battle tm.
the ork player is fethed crusade wise whilest GSC may have a blast, as long as someone doesn't show up with the clowns or tau or custodes.....
So no, crusade content for factions runs the same gauntlet as matched play does, except due to the 50 Pl and aquisition point design has a LOT of potential to become even worse.
So then Jake's defence of "GWs campaign rules show less favouritism towards certain factions than homebrew campaign rules" isn't really a good argument?
Sim-Life wrote: So then Jake's defence of "GWs campaign rules show less favouritism towards certain factions than homebrew campaign rules" isn't really a good argument?
Not if you play orks, because regardless if you play matched or crusade you tend to get the short end of the stick, rules design wise (e.g. basically no synergy for orks units available, compared to the extremely well designed GSC codex, which is just overshadowed by certain other problem factions)
And even if you get nice rules, they often are heavily limited to GW's interpretation of how a faction should work (e.g. being basically forced to have a Magus/ Primus / patriarch in gsc, even IF you want to use the list as "count as chaos cult" list or god forbid a GSC recon list around an Jackal Alpha. Or as above mentioned by Unit cue Eldar mechanised / armored forces)
In the end one can not force a small group of people to do stuff they don't like. If a designer has a milion and one ideas for GSC or DE, it will show up in the rules. If a faction is a chore to do for the design team, the rules will be a lot less fun. That is why there should be someone above the designers, who say every faction needs, X, Y and Z, and while those factions have alsoa ton of B and C, we have to give everyone some B and C too. Of course this falls apart as soon as the head designer starts having favourits of his own. And by favourits of his own, I don't mean that he designers rules for himself to be more powerful, but favourits in the sense that he likes desiging rules for a faction more then for others.
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Not Online!!! 803732 11343476 wrote:
Not if you play orks, because regardless if you play matched or crusade you tend to get the short end of the stick, rules design wise (e.g. basically no synergy for orks units available, compared to the extremely well designed GSC codex, which is just overshadowed by certain other problem factions)
And even if you get nice rules, they often are heavily limited to GW's interpretation of how a faction should work (e.g. being basically forced to have a Magus/ Primus / patriarch in gsc, even IF you want to use the list as "count as chaos cult" list or god forbid a GSC recon list around an Jackal Alpha. Or as above mentioned by Unit cue Eldar mechanised / armored forces)
Well that can happen if someone high enough in the design stuff thinks that a faction like orks should be the funny factions with funny rules, just for the sake of funny. Only funny is subjective, so even people looking for fun may not find it so, and people who are looking for well oiled working army or list defintly will be unhappy. And it shows in stuff like the buggy list problem for orks.
It looks as if someone at GW really thought that orks players will jump to buy the new infantry, beast snaggas and maybe a buggy or two. And that only some high end tournament players will run more. I think their suprise, that even outside tournaments a basic ork became a buggy, was genuine.
Not Online!!! wrote: And even if you get nice rules, they often are heavily limited to GW's interpretation of how a faction should work (e.g. being basically forced to have a Magus/ Primus / patriarch in gsc, even IF you want to use the list as "count as chaos cult" list or god forbid a GSC recon list around an Jackal Alpha. Or as above mentioned by Unit cue Eldar mechanised / armored forces)
If you're trying to use a 'dex to represent something else entirely, such as your Chaos cult example, don't be surprised if the Crusade content for it doesn't fit.
I'd also say I don't think it is unreasonable for this first stab at Crusade to focus on a more typical progression cycle for a faction.
Not so sure what's going on with the Ork material, though - haven't read that.
Not Online!!! wrote: And even if you get nice rules, they often are heavily limited to GW's interpretation of how a faction should work (e.g. being basically forced to have a Magus/ Primus / patriarch in gsc, even IF you want to use the list as "count as chaos cult" list or god forbid a GSC recon list around an Jackal Alpha. Or as above mentioned by Unit cue Eldar mechanised / armored forces)
If you're trying to use a 'dex to represent something else entirely, such as your Chaos cult example, don't be surprised if the Crusade content for it doesn't fit.
I'd also say I don't think it is unreasonable for this first stab at Crusade to focus on a more typical progression cycle for a faction.
Not so sure what's going on with the Ork material, though - haven't read that.
It can't even represent a recon talon lead by a jackal effectivly.
So no it isn't even good in that regard either for GSC.
Harlequins on 72% win rate.
Tyranids 61%. Custodes 59%. Tau 58%.
GSC (56%) did well, as strangely enough did DG & Sisters (both on 55% respectively) - but that was with a small number of players, so there may be exceptional circumstances.
I think the real hostility is how tournament results are now wall to wall of the 2022 codexes (and Tyranids I guess, although apparently some events were allowing the new codex because its all online so why not really, and Crusher Stampede should have got crushed a long time ago).
Sim-Life wrote: So then Jake's defence of "GWs campaign rules show less favouritism towards certain factions than homebrew campaign rules" isn't really a good argument?
Yes let's read when Jake said GW's campaign rules showed less favouritism:
I don't disagree with this point. It's true, GW didn't do everything they could have done for every army- there could be more options for every army's Crusade content then there is, and some armies have it worse than others. It's one of the reasons why when I rave about Crusade lately, I tend to identify the army books that have the most innovative content- Crusade is much more fun for my DE or GSC than my Deathwatch.
Do you remember Jake saying not all Crusade content is created equally?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
What I did say is that when someone makes up their own rules, they tend to encounter more resistance from players than when they use something from a book- even if people HATE the thing from the book. When a rule is official, whether it's good or not, you have ground to stand on when using it. This is the reason the "cult of officialdom" exists- and I don't know too many players who would say there is no Cult of Officialdom.
Not related to anything in the thread so far I think GW could significantly improve the game with a handful of small changes.
1) Add a pre-game psychic phase, disallowing powers that target enemy units.
2) Waive movement restrictions on defensive strats if your army hasn't had a turn yet.
3) Switch from 12 CP up front plus one per turn to 3 CP up front plus 3 per turn. Adjusted for game size, obviously.
4) Do away with the +/- 1 cap, replace it with a method of hitting/wounding when you need more than a 6. Bolt Action's system where if you roll a six then you get to roll another d6-3 and add it to the first die springs to mind.
5) Building on #4, add a standard a -1 to hit and to wound on shots if the target is outside of half range. Heavy weapons also get a -1 to hit inside 1/4 range for being unwieldy.
6) Indirect fire weapons always count as shooting through dense cover if they don't actually have LoS.
All of that is aimed at reducing turn-one lethality and making maneuvering into ideal ranges more important without needing to rewrite all the codexes. I'm 100% certain that there are things I'm not thinking of that would be broken under that set of changes, I'd be curious to hear what they are as long as there are also thoughts on how to address them.
Sim-Life wrote: So then Jake's defence of "GWs campaign rules show less favouritism towards certain factions than homebrew campaign rules" isn't really a good argument?
Were you expecting a rational argument from someone who thinks PL is a better balancing mechanism than points?
Sim-Life wrote: So then Jake's defence of "GWs campaign rules show less favouritism towards certain factions than homebrew campaign rules" isn't really a good argument?
As a habitual homebrewer I find the homebrew-favoritism thing to be wildly overblown, simply because anyone who writes homebrew rules they actually expect to play has to have enough understanding of game design to realize they need to make the game work for the whole design space, not just for their stuff. Homebrew rules have a reputation for being unbalanced and written by people with a narrow view of a game that'd make them win more, and that certainly exists among people who are trying for the first time without much experience or knowledge, but I don't think it's fair to tar all homebrew rules ever as inherently less well put together than official rules, especially when you're comparing them to GW rules.
(The loyalist-SM v. Chaos-SM relationship is more biased than any homebrew project I've ever read, and it's been going on for as long as I've been playing the game, and yet somehow people still reject homebrew rules as biased towards the armies the writers play and don't reject GW as biased towards the armies the writers play.)
"...but the horror of its countenance throws my aim askew!"), but the Crassus example isn't telling a narrative of any of the things either of us have mentioned that could explain it - it's just a flat "computer says no" moment.
