I finished reading through 6th Edition rules and listing the the initial podcasts discussing first impressions. I'm hearing a lot of concern from the competitve folks that they think games will be longer, the scenarios are unbalanced, broken allies, etc. When reading through the book I saw lots of emphasis on "developing the narrative" which makes me wonder if GW has essentially made a statement about competitve play? By crafting a rules set that may have inherently unbalanced scenarios that empasize cinematic game play as opposed to competitve gameplay, lengthens game time and complicates the game (two FOC, allies, boatload of USRs) are they telling gamers we prefer people have fun with this game as opposed to gearing it towards tournament play?

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with either supposition but I know from listening to podcasts and reading blogs over the past 2 years that competitive players have been complaining that they generally get the short end of the stick from GW and over on the Fantasy side apparently 8th edition has really hurt competitve play so is the 40k 6th edition rule set following that general theme? Is the competitve side getting the short end of the stick? Is it too early to tell? Is it just a matter of pruning away rules and scenarios to make it competitve?

I actually got the same distinct impression. It certainly feels like GW is making a conscious effort to reward fluffier play at the expense of competitive.

Personally, that actually doesn't bother me all that much. I think that previous versions of the rules encouraged an amount of competitive play incongruous with a game of chance like 40k.

It's pretty obvious from the rulebook itself and the aforementioned "forging a narrative" boxes that the point of the game is not to be an exacting chess match, but rather a big spectacle of a cinematic game. That's the impression I'm getting from the new rules, and I like them a lot. I play this game to have big cool battles between my spacemen with my buddies and it just serves to make that even better.

I dont know for sure as I have only a scratch of games played under 6th. But lets look at this:
1) Crazy FOC and Allies Rules that "force" people to buy models outside of their chosen army - Marketing Ploy? No..GW would NEVER do that
2) GW Tournament support gets worse and worse every year, and the best events are def NOT GW events

So I dont think its that GW doesnt care about competitive players, more that GW just doesnt care about players period. They are going to continue to produce a product and adjust rules that will warrant the most figure sales, whatever business model that is. Also look at how much better your basic infantry guy is now, and how much weaker vehicles are. Last edition MECH was brutal, now they are meh. They did the same thing in WHFB. Last edition CAV was brutal, now they pretty much suck, with certain exceptions. Making one army virtually unplayable (wasnt a popular army anyway, so GW didnt really care). This causes you to adjust your list of your chosen army, or start a new army (i.e. buy more models either way). Next edition you will probably see a switch back to vehicles being brutal, with a price increase right before the release. Look at how good flyers are in this edition and how much of a push on flyers there has been in the past 6 months prior to this edition. Its the same as codex creep, and again I will say it, GW doesnt care about its players (competitive OR casual), they care about sales. To be honest if I didnt enjoy the painting and converting aspect of this hobby as much if not MORE than the playing....I would have bailed on GW a while ago, but I am in it for the complete hobby, not just playing (competitve and casual).

I'd say that the answer to the OP's question is a definite yes. (This is not meant to be negatively critical of what 6th edition is as a game, but part of my own evolving evaluation of the new game. I've posted over the last week that I think 6th ed is a poor game system, however, the more I play the more I'm enjoying it and it still feels wonky but it's fun. I tend to giggle every time I get to use "Look Out Sir!" Do I think 6th is well designed? No. Do I think it's fun? Yes. Do I think it's tournament friendly? Heck no!)

GW's attitude toward the competitive tournament scene is no secret. They don't like it. They don't engage it and their pulling of support for competitive events is clearly indicative of their position. This rule set is absolutely a beer and pretzels narrative focused ruleset that requires TOs to remove a great deal of substance to get a tournament rule set.

I'm very curious to see what the Nova Open does with 6th edition. The sheer number of house rules tournaments that are going to issue forth from the launch of 6th edition is going to be something to watch. I do not envy the guys working on these issues. GW made a clear and stark statement with 6th edition regarding the tournament scene either actively or passively.

Not a rant, but man is this going to be interesting to watch. I wonder if this won't kill competitive play in some ways... I also wonder if TOs won't just codify 5th edition rules and codexes and keep playing 5th... Interesting times...

Well, considering fantasy is incredibly balanced compared to 40k... competitive play should be easier, as most lists are competitive!

If GW tried to take 40k in the same direction, kudos to them! I'm sick of 'autowins/loses' just because you want to take a cool unit, or make a fluffy list.

In fantasy, a fluffy army is still a good army, in 40k, a fluffy army generally sucks, with a few exceptions. I am of the opinion that if 40k becomes LESS competitive and more fluffy, everyone wins. In tournaments, you won't see the same style of list over and over, and people can have fun with their army instead of gearing it to win and fielding grey models because they cba painting, and just want to win with their internet army.

/rant


Von Chogg

Also, does the 6th ed rulebook make any mention of 'ard boyz? I'm pretty sure the 5th ed rulebook did.

Now that I think about it, I don't seem to recall 6th ed mentioning tournaments at all - they only referenced general events like games day and played up things like golden demon more than before.

Don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetance. The only public discussion about competitive players that has come out of GW at all in the last three years has been Jervis pontificating in his monthly emotional tampon article in WD. The company as a whole just wants to sell stuff and any effect on tournements is purely accidental.

The design staff stated rather plainly they moved away from designing a balanced competitive ruleset at their open day seminar, and the book really does reflect that.

There's a lot of "Oh well you just haven't played any games yet/it's only been out X days" etc comments, but there is zero secret from GW's staff and the rulebook itself that this edition wasn't intended to be a competitive balanced ruleset to fix the issues of previous editions, it's there to provide a framework to create imaginary epic moments with GW's plastic army men.

The rules are not there for the "game", they are there to provide a purpose for the models.

The rules are still conductive to competitive play and in many ways it leveled the playing field for everyone.

The scenerios are well structured and the addition of fortifications adds a new element to the game.

Wouldn't custom rules for tournaments work fine? I mean, plenty of other games have tournament rules.

When I hear people complaining over 6th edition in tournament setting it mostly boils down to not being able to use the same combinations they were used to.

In CCG's the meta shifts every 6 months, when a new set is released In 40K the meta shifts every Edition, and to a lesser extent whenever a new ocdex is released.

I think the complaining is just a Knee Jerk reaction to "change".

Whatever strategy is dominant is usually blunted in the next edition. When I played the RAW DEAL CCG the best new strategy in each expansion had cards that would deliberately foil it in the next expansion.

When the Meta changes players are forced to come up with new strategies. Players learn to adapt and not just play the same ube combination over and over.

I'm all for competitive play, but, when I go to a tourney and out of 20 players I see 10 lists that are almost the same, it really takes any fun out of it.

I personally hope that 6th will get more people to bring what they like instead of the current interwebs power list, but alas your average tourney player has no imagination, and only wants the prizes.

Vaktathi wrote:The design staff stated rather plainly they moved away from designing a balanced competitive ruleset at their open day seminar, and the book really does reflect that.

There's a lot of "Oh well you just haven't played any games yet/it's only been out X days" etc comments, but there is zero secret from GW's staff and the rulebook itself that this edition wasn't intended to be a competitive balanced ruleset to fix the issues of previous editions, it's there to provide a framework to create imaginary epic moments with GW's plastic army men.

The rules are not there for the "game", they are there to provide a purpose for the models.

Yep, sadly. They are rich enough to create some stunning wargame, it would sell anyway maybe even better yet they go the cheap route nontheless. Imagine the great fluff + those great models + best wargame rules, complete win. They're too small for that apparently, for total quality.

It dosent bother me what people say that much, there is always someone complaining about something. Personally i like the 6th edition.

Im glad they seem to have eliminated such options from WH40k. I dont ever recall a feel to play against such players who only desire is a quick win, I play the game to enjoy myself and not to be a WAAC/competative person. I loved what GW did to 8th in fantasy, and Im glad to see that they continued the trend with 6th. And if the tournament scene suffers I must say I acctualy dont care,. So to sum it up I love 6th

Yes because it's all about quick win and WAAC, not a good ruleset and balance at least equal to those 8+ boardgames. And yes competitive excludes fluff/ casual. Oh wait...

Plumbumbarum wrote: there's Calgar walking in the front with 10 tactical marines and they get under fire - it's either 10 man doing nothing but jumping to catch bullets with their bodies or papa smurf doing nothing but ducking and hiding behind their backs and making tiny jumps from one to another as they get shot ..

Epicly amusing.

The rest of your post, not soo much.

While I can certainly see the greivance this has caused the competitive scene, I haven't had this much fun playing 40k since 2nd edition. So I can't be too mad at GW.

I never planned on playing this game for tournaments, just for fun.

A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers, if anything, it should enhance those experiences as well by ensuring that everyone gets to use their toys without feeling like they're fielding dead weight (which can take away from the fun and/or narrative experience) and making sure everything is functioning in a proper manner without interruptions to the narrative, or games going awry when one side utter crushes another (which very often does not make for fun games).

Many other games manage to much better write their rules, balance their units types and their factions, and still be very fun and perfectly able to portray a fluffy/narrative atmosphere.

GW has decided to go...a different route.

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers, if anything, it should enhance those experiences as well by ensuring that everyone gets to use their toys without feeling like they're fielding dead weight (which can take away from the fun and/or narrative experience) and making sure everything is functioning in a proper manner without interruptions to the narrative, or games going awry when one side utter crushes another (which very often does not make for fun games).

I'm not so sure. Every time GW has tried to tighen up the game to be more balanced, it's resulted in a very stale game with no flavour. While it's the way they've done it, I'd rather they didn't try. 40k is at its best when it's over the top, random and crazy, and 6th is proving to be buckets of fun.

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers, if anything, it should enhance those experiences as well by ensuring that everyone gets to use their toys without feeling like they're fielding dead weight (which can take away from the fun and/or narrative experience) and making sure everything is functioning in a proper manner without interruptions to the narrative, or games going awry when one side utter crushes another (which very often does not make for fun games).

Many other games manage to much better write their rules, balance their units types and their factions, and still be very fun and perfectly able to portray a fluffy/narrative atmosphere.

GW has decided to go...a different route.

QFT. Malifaux and Dark Age are both better-balanced (not flawlessly-so, but significantly better), and yet follow systems of rules which are greatly more streamlined and intuitive, while still creating an immediate narrative (look at Malifaux's scenarios and subplots, by way of example). If GW meant anything by their commitment to 'excellence' they would have done the work necessary to achieve this with 40k, as it is, they've presented us with a game, even if it successfully simulates 'cinematic battles' (by which I'm far from convinced, unless Abaddon killing five sergeants and nobody else is 'cinematic'), has less tactical weight and more randomness than ever.

Better cinematics come from good tactical resolves than dice throws for space marines drowning in the mud, imo. It's like epic war movie with battles showed from eagle eye perspective vs Anaconda 4.

There were a lot of awesome moments in 5th and not forced by rules or random throws. Rarer maybe, but so even better for me. I am not by any means saying 5th was perfect or sth and 6th has its highs too but with that whole cinematic route, it's not exactly good at being cinematic imo.

adamsouza wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote: there's Calgar walking in the front with 10 tactical marines and they get under fire - it's either 10 man doing nothing but jumping to catch bullets with their bodies or papa smurf doing nothing but ducking and hiding behind their backs and making tiny jumps from one to another as they get shot ..

Epicly amusing.

The rest of your post, not soo much.

Care to elaborate? Not meant to be amusing tbh (the rest) but not sure what you mean, post, signature?

40k has always been about cinematic experience rather than game balance. People who play tournaments are playing it in a way that it is not designed to be played, hence why they tend to whine a lot more.

Having said that, there are some things that are just plain stupid - the warlord traits are irritating as hell, as are pretty much all the random things.

Vaktathi wrote:The design staff stated rather plainly they moved away from designing a balanced competitive ruleset at their open day seminar, and the book really does reflect that.

I think this is only because they are incapable of making a balanced game, not because they wouldn't want to.

-Loki- wrote:I'm not so sure. Every time GW has tried to tighen up the game to be more balanced, it's resulted in a very stale game with no flavour. While it's the way they've done it, I'd rather they didn't try. 40k is at its best when it's over the top, random and crazy, and 6th is proving to be buckets of fun.

Again, they're inept, and the reason their idea of balance is flavourless is because they're incapable of doing basic game design. The "lead designer" for 5th was a translator with no actual game design credentials, and it appears as if their hiring criteria for game designers is to give the job to whatever 20-something is hanging around the studio that day. Balance & Flavour are not mutually exclusive.

As for 6th being fun - I can buy that, if you're playing with a limited set of players and trust them all. It will cease to be fun the first time you play someone outside of your small circle who puts an army on the table where one model can soak over 50 wounds and you're left feeling unable to do anything to it.

Redbeard wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:The design staff stated rather plainly they moved away from designing a balanced competitive ruleset at their open day seminar, and the book really does reflect that.

I think this is only because they are incapable of making a balanced game, not because they wouldn't want to.

You could say the same thing about pretty much every RTS game ever made. Look at the release version of warcraft 3, or dawn of war. The only ones that ARE balanced are boring, for good reason. You can mathematically balance a system easily, but it'd be boring as hell and lack any fun whatsoever. If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical. They also playtest in a "casual" environment, rather than playing with dicks who're trying to win by whatever means possible. It's not GW's fault if you choose to play with such people.

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers...

Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players. If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players. Look at Warmachine; their initial attitude was very much "this is a game for stomping face, play our tabletop RPG if you want narrative, you pansies", the rules reflected that attitude, and those rules were not as conducive to narrative play as other rulesets - "Counts As" as a concept was explicitly banned initially. When they moderated that attitude somewhat, the immediate response from the competitive community was "you're sacrificing OUR gameplay to cater to narrative players", and they were correct, just as it is correct to say that making 40K more competitive would sacrifice the options which make it such a useful narrative gaming ruleset in order to provide the tighter, more focused rules that competitive gamers want for tournaments.

GW has decided to go...a different route.

And good for them, they've been trying to pretend that they are all things to all gamers for several editions now, and the result were rules that didn't work particularly well for either crowd.

Redbeard wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:The design staff stated rather plainly they moved away from designing a balanced competitive ruleset at their open day seminar, and the book really does reflect that.

I think this is only because they are incapable of making a balanced game, not because they wouldn't want to.

-Loki- wrote:I'm not so sure. Every time GW has tried to tighen up the game to be more balanced, it's resulted in a very stale game with no flavour. While it's the way they've done it, I'd rather they didn't try. 40k is at its best when it's over the top, random and crazy, and 6th is proving to be buckets of fun.

Again, they're inept, and the reason their idea of balance is flavourless is because they're incapable of doing basic game design. The "lead designer" for 5th was a translator with no actual game design credentials, and it appears as if their hiring criteria for game designers is to give the job to whatever 20-something is hanging around the studio that day. Balance & Flavour are not mutually exclusive.

As for 6th being fun - I can buy that, if you're playing with a limited set of players and trust them all. It will cease to be fun the first time you play someone outside of your small circle who puts an army on the table where one model can soak over 50 wounds and you're left feeling unable to do anything to it.

"I don't like what they do, so that means they're incompetent."

Really mature

The fact that they didn't even try to toss Nids a bone regarding the Allies rule tells me they don't really care.

"Here is an official system that open tons of new strategies and balance issues. No, you can't have it. No, you have no alternative rule to make up for it".

Many of the rules are also borderline anti-competitive. Victory points for going first? Victory points for having drop pods on your list?

I don't see it so much as incompetence as sheer laziness. smaller studios update their books more often, even using this fancy Intrawebs thingamabob to change units and rules almost in real-time, and have forums where they can deal directly with their whining but ever-paying fans.

GW's olympic indifference is very much calculated. They don't think it's worth the effort and so far they are right, as people keep buying.

Every time someone compares GW to other game companies, though, I've got to chuckle.

If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it. That's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

Plumbumbarum wrote: Care to elaborate? Not meant to be amusing tbh (the rest) but not sure what you mean, post, signature?

I did not find your sarcastic post amusing, but I did enjoy your sig.

Sephyr wrote:The fact that they didn't even try to toss Nids a bone regarding the Allies rule tells me they don't really care.

Conversely.
"The fact that Tyranids are allowed allies at all shows how little they care about the fluff".

Which allies allowed is fluff based decision, not a balance based one. It makes sense Nid don't get allies.

From a game balance point of view, they should have gotten something to compensate for this.

Some thing like extra force organization slots could have easliy been included in the Nid FAQ to try and compensate for the lack of allies.

Scissorheart wrote:Next I spoke to Phil Kelly (the dude) who again is a really sound guy (and by the way - he isn't leaving GW).
(...)
He also shared his personal opinion on 5th edition and said (with the greatest of respect) that Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function (which I personally agreed with). His words were that it ‘lost its craziness’. 6th has therefore moved to address this and give more feel and character to the units and the game as a whole. It does seem to be a consensus amongst GW staff that 2nd was a great edition in many ways (although obviously broken in others).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/462603.page

Ailaros wrote:Every time someone compares GW to other game companies, though, I've got to chuckle.

If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it. That's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal than your local fine fancy burger establishment, because look how many people eat there every day and come back for more!

There are many reasons for a inferior (or "more flawed" to be accurate) model to persist in the face of alternatives: Marketing, consumer conservatism (also known as sunk cost falalcy: "I already have $3000 worth of this, not switching now!"), local factors (your friends play this, so you are going to play what they play), or just joining the bigger team (It's bigger!).

Any game being the "best game" is entirely subjective. Having the most players is not. Having the best minis is again a matter of opinion.

I am in a 40K forum because it's the best place to have 40k-centered discussions. I'm also on other forums and whe the issue comes up, I argue along roughly the same lines.

As for whining, it's not only a very handy thing to accuse others of instead of actually engaging what they wrote, but the latest medical data says it increases good cholesterol and improves muscle tone!

Sephyr wrote:

There are many reasons for a inferior (or "more flawed" to be accurate) model to persist in the face of alternatives: Marketing, consumer conservatism (also known as sunk cost falalcy: "I already have $3000 worth of this, not switching now!"), local factors (your friends play this, so you are going to play what they play), or just joining the bigger team (It's bigger!).

So, the free market doesn't exist, people never change their minds?
40k has been around in its modern format for decades, I can remember 2nd edition as a kid. If it sucked, people would have moved by now.
Tabletop games are incredibly hard to write rules for. With so many armies, so many units and combinations of special rules and equipment...something's going to go wrong.

Testify wrote:
You could say the same thing about pretty much every RTS game ever made. Look at the release version of warcraft 3, or dawn of war. The only ones that ARE balanced are boring, for good reason. You can mathematically balance a system easily, but it'd be boring as hell and lack any fun whatsoever. If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical. They also playtest in a "casual" environment, rather than playing with dicks who're trying to win by whatever means possible. It's not GW's fault if you choose to play with such people.

These are both poor arguments.

First, it is hard to mathematically balance everything, but you don't need to mathematically balance everything, just a reasonable amount. And, by doing so, you also cut down on the playtest requirements. Neither option alone is a good one, but together, they actually complement each other fairly well.

No one is expecting 100% accuracy or perfection. But missing the blatantly obvious things seems that they're not trying.

As for the 'choose to play with such people' argument: Well, first of all, there's nothing inherently wrong with playing a game to win a game. We're not talking about cheaters, we're talking about people who read a few rules interactions and formed a combo. But, secondly, we don't always choose who we get to play with. If you're playing at a game store, you're matched with whoever shows up to play. If you're at a torunament, you play against whoever you're paired with. If rules allow asshattery, then it is the rules that are at fault.

Yodhrin wrote:
Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players. If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players.

Do you have any data to back up this assertion? No. You're got one example. WotC has done an excellent job in making a game that allows for competitive play, and yet appeals to the casual gamer. There are more casual MtG players than competitive ones, and their rules are designed to support competitive play. There are plenty of games that are written tightly enough for competitive play, and yet have thousands of casual fans. Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, even Boggle....

..., just as it is correct to say that making 40K more competitive would sacrifice the options which make it such a useful narrative gaming ruleset in order to provide the tighter, more focused rules that competitive gamers want for tournaments.

Hardly. A good start would be getting rid of unbalanced random effects. Different psychic powers have different effects and strengths than others. Yet they're determined randomly in 6th. Why don't you randomly roll for your squad upgrade weapons too? Some powers are just better. If I get a better power and you get a worse power, we're no longer playing on an even playing field. If I have to pay 10 more points than you to have that better power, well, now there's actually a tradeoff. But it's hard to assign point values and easy to write a random table. So GW took the easy way out, resulting in games that will be won because one player rolled an awesome power and another didn't. And this is what they're pushing as "fun".

Yodhrin wrote:
"I don't like what they do, so that means they're incompetent."

Really mature

Redbeard wrote:

Testify wrote:
You could say the same thing about pretty much every RTS game ever made. Look at the release version of warcraft 3, or dawn of war. The only ones that ARE balanced are boring, for good reason. You can mathematically balance a system easily, but it'd be boring as hell and lack any fun whatsoever. If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical. They also playtest in a "casual" environment, rather than playing with dicks who're trying to win by whatever means possible. It's not GW's fault if you choose to play with such people.

These are both poor arguments.

First, it is hard to mathematically balance everything, but you don't need to mathematically balance everything, just a reasonable amount. And, by doing so, you also cut down on the playtest requirements. Neither option alone is a good one, but together, they actually complement each other fairly well.

Only possible if you drastically reduce the number of variables in the game. So tell me, what special rules would you get rid of? What aspects of the game would you remove?

Redbeard wrote:
No one is expecting 100% accuracy or perfection. But missing the blatantly obvious things seems that they're not trying.

It's not blatently obvious at all. Blatently obvious would be an error in the BS table. What "blatently obvious" things are you talking about, that YOU immediately spotted but that evaded professional games developers during a 2 year long development process?

Redbeard wrote:
As for the 'choose to play with such people' argument: Well, first of all, there's nothing inherently wrong with playing a game to win a game. We're not talking about cheaters, we're talking about people who read a few rules interactions and formed a combo. But, secondly, we don't always choose who we get to play with. If you're playing at a game store, you're matched with whoever shows up to play. If you're at a torunament, you play against whoever you're paired with. If rules allow asshattery, then it is the rules that are at fault.

No because you're choosing to play the game in a way that isn't intended to be played. A random guy at the game store is one thing, tournaments are another.

Sephyr wrote: That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal than your local fine fancy burger establishment, because look how many people eat there every day and come back for more!

Maybe the claim is that the product isn't necessarily better, but the business making decisions of the company have been better than previous/current miniature/games companies.

Because it's true, other companies have arisen to steal GWs thunder, but many have failed miserably. Only PP and maybe Battlefront have weathered on over the years. At my FLGS there was a surge in interest in WM/H but now the play group has stabilized with no real signs of growth. The shop owners have started to grumble about things like slow selling Battle Engines and Colossals. Yes 40k remains a stable source of income for them.

Ailaros wrote:If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

You are aware that GW's sales volumes have been shrinking for the last five years or so, yes? It's all in their shareholders' reports.

Ailaros wrote:Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

Ailaros wrote:40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it.

It embarrasses me even to have to explain why 'most popular' doesn't equate to 'best'... and seriously, if you think that grotesquely-proportioned, skull-encrusted models riddled with air bubbles are somehow the peak of miniature-making, then I presume you've never looked at (much less painted) anything by Studio McVey or CMON.

Ailaros wrote:hat's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

It is of course a condition of playing 40k that we must all suspend our critical faculties, and that any and all disappointment with the game is just 'whining'. It would be easy for me to label you an uncritical fanboy, but rather than throwing around ad hominem insults, why don't you try to engage constructively with some of the criticisms made in this thread?

Testify wrote:
if you drastically reduce the number of variables in the game. So tell me, what special rules would you get rid of? What aspects of the game would you remove?
...
It's not blatently obvious at all. Blatently obvious would be an error in the BS table. What "blatently obvious" things are you talking about, that YOU immediately spotted but that evaded professional games developers during a 2 year long development process?

It's not all about removing. But, one good example here, would be that you set up terrain and objectives prior to picking table sides.

The way things are written now, there is no incentive to create a balanced table or a balanced mission. Terrain density allows for quite a few tricks during terrain placement, and whenever there are an odd number of objectives, one player can distribute them to create an obvious example. If you pciked table sides after setup, there would be an incentive to make the terrain more reasonable for both players and you'd want to place the objectives so that you'd have an even chance of getting to them regardless of what side you're on.

Redbeard wrote:
No because you're choosing to play the game in a way that isn't intended to be played. A random guy at the game store is one thing, tournaments are another.

Right, because GW doesn't sanction tournaments.

I think it's clear gw doesn't care about competative play. The new rules are a good indication of this, but the better evidence is what GW says.

GW has always said they are a model company not a game company. Translation we make toys not a board game. Whe. You make toys your goal is to sell more toys and creat an environment where the buyers think there toys are cool and plays with them. Thus the rules are just a way to help people play with their toys. The brb basically acknowledges this when it tells you go a head and make up your own rules if you want. What is their concern? Have fun playing with your toy (so you will buy more of them).

If they thought of themselves as a game company the rules would reflect that mind set. They would be extensively tested to achieve balance and tactical depth. Why do people play monopoly after 80 years because the rules are simple/well balanced and every game is different based on the person you play.

Sephyr wrote:That's quite a fallacy. It's like saying McDonalds is _obviously_ a finer meal

I said "better", not "finer".

I've gotten a decent amount of happiness from McDonalds in the few handfuls of times I've eaten there over the past years. I've gotten no happiness whatsoever from Les Halles. The latter has critically acclaimed food, while McDonalds doesn't. The fact is, though, that I've actually been able to eat at McDonalds, and I haven't at Les Halles. Therefore, in real terms, McDonalds has done better for me than any fancy french restaurant.

Which is something that people very, very easily overlook. Aesthetics is fine, and one can make a variety of judgements along these lines. In the real world, though, you've got to look at actions, not words. In action, people buy 40k minis and play 40k. It is therefore, empirically, better.

Redbeard wrote:Miniature wargaming has a similar lock-in effect. 40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the game with the most players.

So? The means by which people get the most enjoyment, over all, doesn't change the fact that the most people get the most enjoyment from it.

Redbeard wrote:But, having the largest market share gives them a solid foothold, regardless of whether the rules are good or bad. Just like Facebook.

But come on. Alta Vista used to be the biggest search engine, and google slaughtered it in a matter of a year or two. Apple used to have 100% of the market share of PCs, and in less than a decade they nearly went bankrupt. I can think of countless examples of old companies being beaten out by new, better ones.

If something is really better, it will outcompete something that's worse, even if it has a larger market share.

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Zoned wrote:

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Frankly I find that claim laughable. There are dozens of GWs in the UK, everyone has heard of them. They are firmly entrenched in the nerd mindset. I hadn't heard of warmachines 'til I joined dakka, and, quite frankly, it looks like gak

Ailaros wrote:
But come on. Alta Vista used to be the biggest search engine, and google slaughtered it in a matter of a year or two. Apple used to have 100% of the market share of PCs, and in less than a decade they nearly went bankrupt. I can think of countless examples of old companies being beaten out by new, better ones.

If something is really better, it will outcompete something that's worse, even if it has a larger market share.

It's not about market share, it's about the barrier to change. Alta Vista vs Google? Okay, what lock-in effect did Alta Vista have? What does Google have? NONE. People might need to change the url they type for a search. But, with social things, like games, market share is a barrier to change.

Game companies have a lock-in. You've already paid for and painted a bunch of figures. To switch games, you need to re-buy everything. And, you have to convince your friends to do the same. Games are social, you're not operating in a vacuum. Your choice isn't something you make alone, there's a dependency on other people. Hence, why my example was Facebook, and why Goggle has been having massive issues displacing them, despite two or three attempts, with better software.

Testify wrote:

Zoned wrote:

English Assassin wrote:
Malifaux and Warmachine have both been around since 2003, Infinity since 2006, and all three continue to grow in popularity; indeed according to IGN, Warmachine recently overtook Warhammer Fantasy in popularity.

All the companies you mentioned are privately owned and it is difficult to ascertain how well they are actually doing. Can you link the article from IGN that says WM is doing better than WHFB? I'd like to see how they determined which game is doing better.

Frankly I find that claim laughable. There are dozens of GWs in the UK, everyone has heard of them. They are firmly entrenched in the nerd mindset. I hadn't heard of warmachines 'til I joined dakka, and, quite frankly, it looks like gak

And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Redbeard wrote:
The way things are written now, there is no incentive to create a balanced table or a balanced mission. Terrain density allows for quite a few tricks during terrain placement, and whenever there are an odd number of objectives, one player can distribute them to create an obvious example. If you pciked table sides after setup, there would be an incentive to make the terrain more reasonable for both players and you'd want to place the objectives so that you'd have an even chance of getting to them regardless of what side you're on.

If you want to create a balanced table, make one. And if you want to do "tricks" with the terrain placement, then you're a WAAC.
Honestly, do you complain to blizzard about WOW being broken because it doesn't force other players to be nice to you?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Testify wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Obvious strawman is obvious.

Try again and not be a dick about it. Look at the North American distribution of GW. Hell, even in continental Europe. GW may be the one and only over here in Blighty, but overseas their presence is next to nothing.

adamsouza wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote: Care to elaborate? Not meant to be amusing tbh (the rest) but not sure what you mean, post, signature?

I did not find your sarcastic post amusing, but I did enjoy your sig.

I ussualy don't post in such manner directed at others (except GW, JP Morgan, McDonalds, Haliburton etc) and don't like others doing so, was heavily drunk after a bad day as my friend is close to death in the hospital and there was a lot crucial decision making. So more of giving vent than trying to be witty I guess, sorry for the tone.

Testify wrote:If you want to balance something AND make it fun to play, you have to playtest it thousands, tens of thousands of times, which is impractical

Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

Yodhrin wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers...

Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players. If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players.

Except it doesn't. There's imense fluff already and competitive games are narrative as well. Tabled in second turn? "The only thing staying between the unstopable Hive Fleet Papadopoulos led by the standard Hive Tyrant nr 2165 and the 500 bilion population planet was Marneus Augustus Calgar with his men. For the first time in his life, for a tiniest observable part of second a shade of doubt shone in the eye of the God of War, just after seeing the deadly genestealers approaching the mighty Terminators he ordered to stay as close as possible to the hill in between them and enemy " I'm not good at English enough but you can write a book before getting to assault phase of the first turn, in the end it's just a story of a decesive win. Up to this point it wouldn't contain a snake eating a space marrine in the forest but does a good war story really need that?

And yes for people who want a narrative overload there are rpgs. This is a wargame, is advertised as such maybe they should split it to two games or maybe they should make a section of core rules and add another narrative one building up on that core. The core should be a proper balanced wargame ruleset suited for competitive play, other than that what's the point of FoC, points, and stretched to extreme, rulebook. I can make up rules for narrative game in 30 minutes just as for a quick rpg session if the outcome of the battle is less important than a story told.

Yodhrin wrote:... just as it is correct to say that making 40K more competitive would sacrifice the options which make it such a useful narrative gaming ruleset in order to provide the tighter, more focused rules that competitive gamers want for tournaments.

Could you give an example of potential options to sacrifice? Because I think making the game competitive does not require removing options, just more options mean more work to balance them. Maybe we think about other things though.

Yodhrin wrote:And good for them, they've been trying to pretend that they are all things to all gamers for several editions now, and the result were rules that didn't work particularly well for either crowd.

I think this is exactly what 6th edition is because if this is all about forging a narrative, why the ridiculous Look Out Sir explanation? That is only instigating laughs at my table so maybe GW meant a good comedy... It is not what I want as a wargame, it is not what I want as adventure/ wargame hybrid, it's just not a good ruleset. It's not bad to the point of leaving the game but mediocore and somehow dissapointing imo, especialy seeing the art design and thinking what if they cared that much for the rules.

Grimtuff wrote:

Testify wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:
And GW's presence in other countries is just as ubiquitous is it? Erm, no.

Oh no, I deeply care about the tabletop toy market in Equatorial Guinea, it keeps me awake at night.

Obvious strawman is obvious.

Try again and not be a dick about it. Look at the North American distribution of GW. Hell, even in continental Europe. GW may be the one and only over here in Blighty, but overseas their presence is next to nothing.

Is that why the warmachine section on dakka is so much bigger than the 40k section? GW are the most popular tabletop model game by far, I've no idea why people insist on denying it.

See, it's a disagreement of the term "better" here. You could choose to make the distinction based on aesthetics (which, as a some-time game designer, I could certainly enter a discussion, myself), but I don't think that any particular person's aesthetics are the way to determine quality here.

To me, the best game is the one that gives the most enjoyment to the most people. In this case, regardless of barriers to entry or stickiness or whatever, 40k wins. More people get more enjoyment than from anything else.

And that's something I think game critics miss when they really, really shouldn't. However much a game is superior by aesthetics, if it doesn't give more enjoyment, it doesn't matter if it was "better designed" or not. What's important is how many people have fun playing it.

For example Civilization 5 is a "better" game for a lot of reasons (better balanced combat system, better integrated economic model, etc.), but it's just not as fun as Civilization 3, where I got to spam the hell out of samurai and blow up the world. Regardless of principles of game design, whatever is fun, in the world of games, is better. Perhaps game designers should have less pretense with regard to their art...

This has all borne out in the market, of course. Lots of games have popped up, and lots of people have given them a decent try. In the end, they're back to playing 40k.

That's what matters.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

If your standards mean that any imperfection whatsoever in unacceptable, then fine. GW can't delay the release of a ruleset for years on end in order to find relatively small glitches. All productions have to balance between glitch-finding and release schedules.

Testify wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Kind of their job... this is the most expensive game I've ever spent my money on, I can't get my head around such arguments made for GW.

If your standards mean that any imperfection whatsoever in unacceptable, then fine. GW can't delay the release of a ruleset for years on end in order to find relatively small glitches. All productions have to balance between glitch-finding and release schedules.

Any imperfection... did you read the rulebook by any chance? Some blogs put elaborate articles to make the rules clear, I play tones of various boargames and the rules in 40K are poorly written, in my opinion mediocore, prone to abuse, ridiculous in explanations etc. Perfection is not possible and unnecessary here it's not work safety rules or sth, I want proper, balanced, tactical wargame with clear rules that are not exactly realistic maybe but at least making sense. 5th edition wound alocation example comes to mind, with one hormangaunt visible and after him being shot the others coming near him checking if he's fine and dying one after another.

As for 40K being on top, it has best fluff and incredibly visualised, the pinnacle of ripping off and merging all the great themes around and making them better.

Testify wrote:
If you want to create a balanced table, make one. And if you want to do "tricks" with the terrain placement, then you're a WAAC.

I disagree. The rules encourage you to layout the terrain in a manner most advantageous to you. From page 120:

If you're the using alternating terrain method you shouldn't worry about setting up the scenery on the board in such a way that it suits your army. All the greatest generals carefully select the locations where they fight so that it favours their own army and hinders their opponent's. So, if you were the commander of a Tyranid assault swarm, you should think of placing plenty of scenery in your half of the table to block the opponent's lines of sight and provide cover, while the commander of an Imperial Guard tank force might decide to set up very sparse terrain, to maximize their fields of fire.

You're actually encouraged to make the terrain as advantageous as possible. I guess following the designers intent is now considered WAAC?

Honestly, do you complain to blizzard about WOW being broken because it doesn't force other players to be nice to you?

I don't play Blizzard games. But, even if I did, it's a different beast entirely. Playing a one vs one (or two v two) game, the goal is to win. How do you win at WOW? Winning is not an objective in a MMORPG. (In fact, the objective, from Blizzard's POV is to get you addicted so you keep shelling out cash month after month, but that's another issue).


You have a real problem making an objective assessment of the game. You keep relying on slurs and insults (WAAC) to make this personal. But I guess that's because the objective facts are that the game design is lacking, and the only way to justify it is to shift the blame to the players who don't play how you think they should.

Yodhrin wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:A quick note, having a tight, well written ruleset that works for a competitive scene doesn't take away from "fun/casual/fluff/scenario" games or gamers...

Except that it does. If you emphasise competitive play in the rules, then you will get more competitive players.

Not necessarily true at all. I can think of plenty of games where this isn't the case. Heavy Gear, Firestorm Armada, Flames of War, etc. I've pointed out why a balanced ruleset helps everyone. There are ways to have wackiness and scenario driven gameplay and even mis-matched forces balance out, Heavy Gear does it quite nicely. For instance, you may be playing a game on planet empty-sand-dunes, or in a town at night in the middle of a corrosive sandstorm, with one side playing a special ops force with elite troops and heavy firepower that has to quickly annihilate everything, the other a rear echelon 2nd line reserve element that merely has to live long enough to get out a message and get a scan of a couple of the enemy machines.

If you emphasise narrative play, you will get more narrative players. Look at Warmachine;

Warmachine is a game where it is entirely geared toward the same kind of mindset as the competitive Magic CCG crowd, games can have competitive rulesets and not be geared toward that market. Just because Warmachine is like that doesn't mean all games written with balance in mind are like that. Warmachine is a single game out of dozens in the tabletop world.

And good for them, they've been trying to pretend that they are all things to all gamers for several editions now, and the result were rules that didn't work particularly well for either crowd.

And yet other games seem to be capable of it.

"I don't like what they do, so that means they're incompetent."

Really mature

To be fair, they have a point. Allessio didn't get his job because he had any game design or experience or a knack for it, got hired because he could translate text and because he placed well at several tournaments and got to know some people at GW. Gav Thorpe didn't have any game design experience either when he started but wrote fluff. One will notice that at many other game companies, the employees and designers typically have experience elsewhere in some sort of capacity before joining, at GW this is very much the opposite case. Then we end up with armies that consistently have units nobody takes and others that people routinely take, and are noticed immediately by 90% of the playerbase as soon as they open the book, we have rules ambiguities that go on for entire editions or more and often never get addressed or only get addressed in the most evasive manner while irrelevant questions get a full paragraph of FAQ text, etc.

Ailaros wrote:Every time someone compares GW to other game companies, though, I've got to chuckle.

If GW were really so terrible and everybody else were really so awesome, why hasn't 40k been taken over by other games? To me, this is disproof of said hypothesis.

Yes, people now talk about infinity and malifaux, but a few years ago, everybody was talking about confrontation and AT49 and heroclix, and who plays those anymore? Not as many people as play 40k, not by a long shot.

40k, despite its imperfect rules set, is still the best game with the most players and the best minis. That's why people play it. That's why you're on a 40k forum for goodness sake. Whining about it is just that - whining.

40k has several advantages that are longstanding and unique. First, they're a UK company that escaped the annihilation of the US tabletop market in the late 80's/early 90's when Hasbro bought up half the companies in the market and subsequently nearly killed off the hobby. This allowed them to rise to the top where they were merely one amongst many before. This has given them a market position and visibility that others simply cannot match or ever hope to overcome any time soon.

Their IP is the second thing. They really do have a very cool IP in the 40k universe, they've pretty much included all the cool aspects from every other IP and dialed it up to 11. 40k's IP is GW's most valuable asset and they know this. And to be fair, it's pretty much 40k that keeps GW afloat, Warmachine already outsells Warhammer Fantasy and the Tolkien games combined.

GW also didn't really cost any more than most others until recently, so that wasn't an issue, but that's rapidly changing as GW increases their prices at double to triple the rate of inflation and army sizes creep ever upwards.

As for other games, I never once witnessed a game of AT-43 and only one of Heroclix, never saw much discussion aside from "That looks cool!". We have running Infinity and Malifaux leagues now at my FLGS and far more interest than anyone ever showed in either of those two other games. From a personal perspective, a couple years ago 40k and Fantasy were the only games in town with the rare Warmachine event. Now we've got half a dozen other games in routine play with 40k simply being the largest amongst many and Fantasy being no larger than anything else as opposed to being the only games around.


And just because GW the biggest doesn't mean they are the best, correlation and causation and all that.

Vaktathi wrote:First, they're a UK company that escaped the annihilation of the US tabletop market in the late 80's/early 90's when Hasbro bought up half the companies in the market and subsequently nearly killed off the hobby.

Actually, this is an important point. For those saying that GW is winning only because it's big, look at what happened to battletech. Battletech was THE game to play, with GW-esque amounts of merchandize in local stores, with local gaming nights. It also had tons of fluff, an expanding rules system and player base, and a large, expanding line of miniatures.

By all rights, if bigger systems naturally guaranteed that they would continue by sheer means of their size, then the utter implosion, neigh-disappearance, and ultimate sale to Hasbro wouldn't make any sense at all.

Put short, if a large game system put out by a large game company can be beaten if it isn't doing a good enough job. GW isn't still the biggest purely because they're the biggest.

So red beard, you seem to have all the answers...GW being so inept.

I want specific examples of how you would fix the game, including army balance. I want you to mention exact things here, no nebulous cop-outs and dissembling. Tell me the blatantly obvious things they're missing.

I want you to explain how the game should function without random elements, up to and including:

-terrain placement (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-opponent's army and unit selection (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-Also, how should we play without dice, being a random element intrinsic to the game and what not.

And please stay away from opinions dressed up as fact, stating things are objective does not make them so, and if you want to pull out the 15yrs experience stuff we're gonna' need a resume or something.

But what's the point? There's no way to compare any given opinions to any objective standard.

How do we know that the opinions of any game designer, you me or redbeard are actually good or not?

Internet consensus.

If there is whining, you probably did ok.

If there is no whining, you did awsome. Or there was a zombie appocalypse and nobody can get to their PC.

If there is tons and tons and tons of whining, its probably Warseer.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Any imperfection... did you read the rulebook by any chance? Some blogs put elaborate articles to make the rules clear, I play tones of various boargames and the rules in 40K are poorly written, in my opinion mediocore, prone to abuse, ridiculous in explanations etc. Perfection is not possible and unnecessary here it's not work safety rules or sth, I want proper, balanced, tactical wargame with clear rules that are not exactly realistic maybe but at least making sense. 5th edition wound alocation example comes to mind, with one hormangaunt visible and after him being shot the others coming near him checking if he's fine and dying one after another.

As for 40K being on top, it has best fluff and incredibly visualised, the pinnacle of ripping off and merging all the great themes around and making them better.

Yes I have read the rulebook. I can honestly say my gaming group has never had a problem with it, I don't think most people have. Most complaints step from the internet. I will restate what I put above - 40k is an incredibly complex game with hundreds of variables, and millions of possible combinations. GW can only do so much playtesting.
Don't expect me to defend 5th edition wound allocation though

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You're actually encouraged to make the terrain as advantageous as possible. I guess following the designers intent is now considered WAAC?

We always just deploy terrain before the battlefield...though if you follow the instructionsI don't see how it can be gamed. Each 2 by 2 section can have D3 terrain pieces. How can you screw over an opponent's entire deployment zone like that?

Plumbumbarum wrote:
You have a real problem making an objective assessment of the game. You keep relying on slurs and insults (WAAC) to make this personal. But I guess that's because the objective facts are that the game design is lacking, and the only way to justify it is to shift the blame to the players who don't play how you think they should.

I don't spend 2 hours on the bus 3 days a week to play a poorly-designed game There are plenty of players who LOVE the gw rules.
Also bare in mind this - the 40k rules are designed primarily for teenagers, about 12-16. Plenty of people outside of this range play, but it's not aimed at them. I assume the much less popular ones are aimed at an older audience.

Grey Templar wrote:Internet consensus.

If there is whining, you probably did ok.

If there is no whining, you did awsome. Or there was a zombie appocalypse and nobody can get to their PC.

If there is tons and tons and tons of whining, its probably Warseer.

I note that there is no option for "You screwed up badly". But I guess the fanboy mindset sort of edits that out of the spectrum.

I also love how people assume that basic changes that any sound and playtested design would include (Making the Victory Point conditions less suscetible to raw luck, offering Tyranids some compensation for not being able to ally, reworking the warlod tables so they are not useless half the time) is some earth-shattering quantum mystery that we mortals outside of GW should never question lest we melt our little brains.

Ailaros wrote:But what's the point? There's no way to compare any given opinions to any objective standard.

How do we know that the opinions of any game designer, you me or redbeard are actually good or not?

We don't, that is the point.

I was being sarcastic there.

The Internet is a poor guage of quality. Its where all the whining that goes on gets dumped, magnified, cooked, and inflated to be bigger then it is.


Could GW have done a better job? Hell yeah.

Could they have done worse? O'yeah.

Did they do ok? Yes. 6th is, IMO, better then 5th in many ways. I think a decent balance was struck between competitive and casual play. There is the usual lack of proofreading and editing but we should all be used to that by now. It gives us stuff to talk about in YMDC

@rxghost, I'll bite. IMO if gw seriously cared about competative play there is one thing they should do differently when releasing a new edition. either simultaneously release new updated codexes with each edition, have significant substantive changes to codexes via FAQs, or adequately play test new editions to identify flaws in new rules interacting with old codexes.
The best example of games workshop completely failing at this is the harlistar deathstar. How is it cinamatic to have a unit that with the help of fortune has only a 1/32 chance of taking a wound (even more rediculous with look out sir which I haven't decided breaks vects force field or not). the death star isn't even power gaming it's fluff gaming and they have a rule set that allows this. Of course it's also a dynamic that makes you take 60 rolls all at one time. Simple fix either nerf fortune (elder only, coversaves only, armor save only, does not for for invulnerable saves ect), nerf how fortune works with allies, or nerf vect.

RxGhost wrote:So red beard, you seem to have all the answers...GW being so inept.

I want specific examples of how you would fix the game, including army balance. I want you to mention exact things here, no nebulous cop-outs and dissembling. Tell me the blatantly obvious things they're missing.

Not pointed at me but carnifex costs 160 points, top of my head.

Carnies do need to be cheaper. But not as much cheaper since 6th fixed alot of MC problems.

Grey Templar wrote:Carnies do need to be cheaper. But not as much cheaper since 6th fixed alot of MC problems.

No, no. The tyranids have been over-taken by newer, cheaper armies. This is games workshop's fault, a deliberate ploy to sell more imperial armies. If you disagree with this, you're a fanboy.

RxGhost wrote:So red beard, you seem to have all the answers...GW being so inept.

You're playing the pedantic game. Show me where I said I had all the answers.

I want specific examples of how you would fix the game, including army balance. I want you to mention exact things here, no nebulous cop-outs and dissembling. Tell me the blatantly obvious things they're missing.

I'll give you a handful, and I'll point you to the fix for random terrain that I explained just a few posts back too.

Psychic powers:

There are four ways to balance psychic powers, while still allowing powers with vastly different effects. GW is currently using one of them.

1) Cost to cast (warp charge, in 6th)
2) Cost to have (GW did this in prior editions. I think the Eldar codex is an example of this. Fortune costs more than Guide.)
3) Chance to use (a more powerful effect can have a -1 or -2 Ld penalty to go off. Or a higher risk of invoking Perils)
4) Availability in the codex.

Currently, you roll on a table, maybe you get something awesome, maybe you get something that doesn't really fit with the rest of your army's design. Rather than apply any of the other balancing factors that would be possible, they said, screw it, random is good enough.


Warlord traits:
I play orks. The most in-character table for me to roll on would be Personal Traits. I'll never pick that, because I'm going to get Furious Charge... which I already have. Space Wolves seem like another army designed for a Personal Trait warlord, but they'll end up with Counter-attack, which they already have.

Again, you can assign point values to these and let people pick the one that works with their army. I think, without having done any playtesting, that Legendary Fighter is probably the most powerful warlord trait, because it is the only one that can actually net you Victory Points. Just throwing out some values (and remember, to do this for real, there'd be playtesting involed), require that each warlord buy a warlord trait. Legendary Fighter is 50 points. You can choose to have night fighting on turn one is 5 points.

I want you to explain how the game should function without random elements, up to and including:

-terrain placement (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-opponent's army and unit selection (random, can't be planned for until you come to the table)
-Also, how should we play without dice, being a random element intrinsic to the game and what not.

I've never claimed that there should be no random elements. I don't believe that random effects that have a big swingy effect on the game are good design. Something does d3 hits - okay. Something has a 1-in-6 chance of eating a few hundred points from one player (Virus Outbreak) - how does this really benefit the game. The player who loses the game for it knows they lost because of a fluke roll. The player who won the game knows it was because of the virus. How is this enjoyable for either? Roll 2d6 and on a 2, you win! Yay!

if you want to pull out the 15yrs experience stuff we're gonna' need a resume or something.

Of course you are... Tell you what, if you're actually interested and not just acting like a toughguy, PM me.

They got alot better with 6th edition.

Grey Templar wrote:Carnies do need to be cheaper. But not as much cheaper since 6th fixed alot of MC problems.

Yes in 6th I can't really say, haven't play enough games. Serves as the example for GW doing it wrong though and it's not just mr. Cruddace (I like his codex btw) as GW as a whole could have reacted after a while of monitoring the game.

Except GW's got an irrational fear of the Internet, and of giving away free stuff. So they will never put out online rewrites of existing codices.

Grey Templar wrote:Except GW's got an irrational fear of the Internet, and of giving away free stuff. So they will never put out online rewrites of existing codices.

#
Forgeworld have a gak load of free rules. The DKOK list is entirely free.

Grey Templar wrote:Except GW's got an irrational fear of the Internet, and of giving away free stuff. So they will never put out online rewrites of existing codices.

So, would be nice to properly playtest them before, or embrace internet, or they're kind of inept. It wouldn't be that much of an issue if their stuff wasn't that expensive.

btw there are a few things that are imo much better in 6th - glancing vehicles, focus fire, reserve rules, wound allocation (bar LOS!, for ICs especially). It's like few people with different visions dsigned it and didn't achieve a consensus.

Ailaros wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:First, they're a UK company that escaped the annihilation of the US tabletop market in the late 80's/early 90's when Hasbro bought up half the companies in the market and subsequently nearly killed off the hobby.

Actually, this is an important point. For those saying that GW is winning only because it's big, look at what happened to battletech. Battletech was THE game to play, with GW-esque amounts of merchandize in local stores, with local gaming nights. It also had tons of fluff, an expanding rules system and player base, and a large, expanding line of miniatures.

By all rights, if bigger systems naturally guaranteed that they would continue by sheer means of their size, then the utter implosion, neigh-disappearance, and ultimate sale to Hasbro wouldn't make any sense at all.

Put short, if a large game system put out by a large game company can be beaten if it isn't doing a good enough job. GW isn't still the biggest purely because they're the biggest.

FASA had a lot of other...internal issues going on, and wasn't anywhere *near* as big as GW was when it closed in 2001. FASA is not a great comparison here. The problem wasn't their tabletop games, it was some very poor investment in odd schemes (the BattleTech centers...) and management decisions that the primary owner didn't want to deal and him believing that there was no long-term future in tabletop games.

Testify wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Except GW's got an irrational fear of the Internet, and of giving away free stuff. So they will never put out online rewrites of existing codices.

#
Forgeworld have a gak load of free rules. The DKOK list is entirely free.

Yeah, but FW is kinda free to do its own thing since the models are even more expensive. Nobody's going to run a DKoK list with regular guardsmen.

Redbeard wrote:
You're playing the pedantic game.

Asking for you to back up your opinions with facts makes me pedantic? I do not think that word means what you think it means...after all, it wasn't so long ago that I read:

Redbeard wrote:
Do you have any data to back up this assertion?

But if insulting me makes you feel better, keep at it, I've got skin thick like an old-blood.

Redbeard wrote:
There are four ways to balance psychic powers, while still allowing powers with vastly different effects. GW is currently using one of them.

1) Cost to cast (warp charge, in 6th)

Yup, that's new for 6th alright.

Redbeard wrote:
2) Cost to have (GW did this in prior editions. I think the Eldar codex is an example of this. Fortune costs more than Guide.)

You have to pay points for a psyker, psykers come with a selection of powers specific to their model as part of their cost. I know what you're trying to say, with each individual power costing a specific amount of points that you buy like upgrades, but I don't think the Eldar piecemeal way is a good example to follow, especially in the face of the reality that just about everyone's Farseer build is identical to anyone elses (they pick Eldrad, HA!). No, for reals, everyone uses the exact same load out on their farseers, it's practically a fixed cost unit that requires more bookkeeping.

Redbeard wrote:
3) Chance to use (a more powerful effect can have a -1 or -2 Ld penalty to go off. Or a higher risk of invoking Perils)

So models that can cast psychic powers don't have their own leadership value that can affect chance to use? There aren't any armies that have some sort of way to force a change in this value? I guess 6th got rid of Ruins of Warding/Witnessing, Shadow of the Warp, Death Leaper's d3 Leadership penalty, stop me if you've heard this joke, I know it's old.

Redbeard wrote:
4) Availability in the codex.

Currently, you roll on a table, maybe you get something awesome, maybe you get something that doesn't really fit with the rest of your army's design. Rather than apply any of the other balancing factors that would be possible, they said, screw it, random is good enough.

No, currently you can use the exact same rules that your codex has for psychic power selection OR you can roll on the table and you can always take the primaris power if you didn't like what you got. I bet you can get something that does fit with the rest of your armies design, with the current balancing factors already in place and simply not using the random system. You know,stuff like point cost of model and powers available for some codices and not for others.

Redbeard wrote:
Warlord traits:
I play orks. The most in-character table for me to roll on would be Personal Traits. I'll never pick that, because I'm going to get Furious Charge... which I already have. Space Wolves seem like another army designed for a Personal Trait warlord, but they'll end up with Counter-attack, which they already have.

Again, you can assign point values to these and let people pick the one that works with their army. I think, without having done any playtesting, that Legendary Fighter is probably the most powerful warlord trait, because it is the only one that can actually net you Victory Points. Just throwing out some values (and remember, to do this for real, there'd be playtesting involed), require that each warlord buy a warlord trait. Legendary Fighter is 50 points. You can choose to have night fighting on turn one is 5 points.

So let me understand your position, the warlord traits system is random and broken because there's a 1-in-6 chance you might get an ability you already have levered against the 5-in-6 chance of getting something else, and that's assuming you roll on a single list of the three offered? That's like the safest odds you can possibly get in this game and you think that it's an example of how the system doesn't work? I must have read your statement wrong, that cannot possibly be what you're trying to say, help a brother out. Space Wolves would end up with (a conditional) Counter-Attack one sixth of the time if they chose Personal Trait.

Redbeard wrote:
I've never claimed that there should be no random elements.

Redbeard wrote:
A good start would be getting rid of unbalanced random effects

Just throwing those out there, oh, here's another good one:

Redbeard wrote:
I don't believe that random effects that have a big swingy effect on the game are good design. Something does d3 hits - okay. Something has a 1-in-6 chance of eating a few hundred points from one player (Virus Outbreak) - how does this really benefit the game. The player who loses the game for it knows they lost because of a fluke roll. The player who won the game knows it was because of the virus. How is this enjoyable for either? Roll 2d6 and on a 2, you win! Yay!

You crowded your last remaining scoring units on the objective and attempted to hold out to win. I managed to get my wounded vinidcator in range and blast them out of the mountain with a difficult shot that didn't scatter. I win based on a single dice roll? Didn't you have to make saves and allocate wounds? Didn't we just play a whole game with a series of causes and effects that lead to that ultimate roll? Is the system broken?

Also, your Virus Outbreak example is farther from reality then my butt is from Mars. Both the way you describing it working (it's not that dangerous) and the effect it can have on the game are grossly exaggerated and ill-informed. If you're worried about triggering it, you can simply keep other units 12" away when activating an Archaeotech Artifact or simply not approach it with expensive units. That and the Virus Outbreak has only a 1-in-36 chance (2 on a 2d6 roll to generate) of even manifesting as an Acrahaeotech Artifact effect.

Redbeard wrote:
Of course you are... Tell you what, if you're actually interested and not just acting like a toughguy, PM me.

Again with the insults, but that's okay, I forgive you; I'm cool like that...I get an extra die on my leadership test and can pick the two lowest.

You have a real problem making an objective assessment of the game. You keep relying on slurs and insults to make this personal. But I guess that's because the only way to justify it is to shift the blame to the players who don't play how you think they should.

Oh wait, hold on...you had something to say about that to?

Redbeard wrote:
You have a real problem making an objective assessment of the game. You keep relying on slurs and insults (WAAC) to make this personal. But I guess that's because the objective facts are that the game design is lacking, and the only way to justify it is to shift the blame to the players who don't play how you think they should.

Just so we're on the same page.

I was being facetious about asking for a resume, it'd be a worthless document anyway.

Aaaaand this has now gone full slow, and you never go full slow.

I found Warmahordes to be quite boring actually, especially with its "We have giant Robots and monsters fighting, why do we need a story?" outlook. Also, I like to play a shooting army, which in WM/H if i wanted to do that i'd be hard pressed since they put so much emphasis on getting in close, the whole PLAY LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR!! thing. The ruleset was solid but it had no variety, Machine A acts like Machine B which acts like Machine C. Sure you might have slight differences, but a Heavy Mech is a Heavy Mech.

To me Warmachince functions like magic only with Models.

Now about the competitiveness of WH40k. Well it was never meant to be competitive in the first place right? Its a beer and pretzels game, had fun with your mates game. So I can't blame GW for it not being competitive. Thats up to the TO and other Crunchy players to fix.

Offhand, my list of 'incredibly stupid obvious things GW has done.'


1) As has been mentioned, the terrain setup. I'm going to put a giant pillar in front of your bastion. That makes perfect sense. Oh, and now you can't see past it for it to do anything.

2) Pyrovores

3) Stormtroopers. I get the idea, I like the idea but surely someone would have looked at it and gone "wait... these are as many points as a marine?"

4) Vendettas. Even in 5th someone should have been able to glance at their costs and gone 'no, thats stupidly cheap.' It's even too cheap accounting for the 'ooh shiny, make people buy it' sales factor. It's now even nastier in 6th.

5) Flyers in general in 6th. They could have fixed this with the whole Flakk missile thing, but actively decided not to.

6) Scaling abilities. This comes up a lot in both extreme, whether its Sisters faith points the same no matter the size of the game, to Vulkan effecting every melta weapon, whether it's a 500 point game, or 5000.

7) 6th edition barrage rules.... I read them and immediately went 'what the frig is this guy talking about?'

8) Grey Knights, particularly during 5th. I could split this into (a) (b) or (c) if I really wanted to. But surely someone must have looked at it and gone 'so, psychotropic grenades basically mean I autowin almost 5 out of every 6 combats I get into? Then there's rad grenades, fortitude.... Cleansing flame, vindicares anti tank shot. Plus, loads I haven't mentioned.... There's loads that is really a massive, 'how couldn't you spot that'd be a big issue for most players? - Particularly the casual ones.

9) More tyranid codex stuff, but I'm not an expert on them to really comment.

And finally....

10) 6th edition allies. Not only is the table utterly illogical fluffwise (Black Templars really dislike sisters of battle? Someone should tell Grimaldus that.) but... anyone could see that having it as part of the main rules, as opposed to back of the book stuff ala fantasy, is just asking for random jerks to be well, random jerks, except now they have the book on their side. As has been said before, you can choose not to play against them but since it's now 'official' and in The Book, you've lost the high ground and may end up looking like the random jerk

I agree, Pyrovores are crazy strong now. They were good before, but now they're even better.

Warmachine lost my interest when I found out that in competitve play you don't use all those giant hulking cool robots you bought, assembled, and painted because massed infantry is just better.

40K is NOT chess. All variable are not equal and chance plays a big factor into it. The tournament players will adjust accordingly.

If you are looking for shooty armies in Warmahordes, you can check out Cygnar, Retribution, and Legion of Everblight. All 3 of those armies can be played with lots of shooty elements and do well.

And you can play a competitive Warmachine army with lots of jacks, assuming you are using a jack caster. Karchev usually runs with 3 heavy jacks and that's basically the whole army. And he is a very powerful warcaster. Cryx has Mortenebra, Protectorate has Reznik & Amon, and Cygnar has Darius. Oh, and the elves have Vyros.

The thing about Warmachine is that most casters can support 2-3 jacks max, so you fill out the points with infantry and solos. I don't know what faction you were looking at or how many jacks you wanted to run, but that is one of the limitations of the focus system.

On the other hand, if you run Hordes, it is possible to run nothing but warbeasts with a few support pieces.

RxGhost wrote:I agree, Pyrovores are crazy strong now. They were good before, but now they're even better.

This, just this. I'm genuinely not sure if your sincere or not.

I am totally serious. My pyrovores were always useful in 5th, and they were much improved by the new rules.

Only warning, folks - if you can't discuss this without bickering, or spamming the forum with OT images, I'm going to take your toys away.

I am getting a bit irritated by comments like "GW have added allies back in to force players to buy new models".

I think they did it because lots of players complained that they couldn't mix and match their old models. I think the idea is that if you have bits of different armies laying around already, you can now legally use them as one force.

We can't have it both ways

Testify wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Carnies do need to be cheaper. But not as much cheaper since 6th fixed alot of MC problems.

No, no. The tyranids have been over-taken by newer, cheaper armies. This is games workshop's fault, a deliberate ploy to sell more imperial armies. If you disagree with this, you're a fanboy.

If you really, truthfully believe that any company would deliberately sabotage a whole line of their own products for any reason, your're not even worth listening to.

Casbyness wrote:I am getting a bit irritated by comments like "GW have added allies back in to force players to buy new models".

Yeah, I never understood this either. I mean, you don't have to take allies...no one is getting forced into anything.

RxGhost wrote:

Casbyness wrote:I am getting a bit irritated by comments like "GW have added allies back in to force players to buy new models".

Yeah, I never understood this either. I mean, you don't have to take allies...no one is getting forced into anything.

And in many cases the Allies are only situationally more effective then just taking your own codex units.

GKs really don't get much benifit from taking SW allies. And taking IG covers a long ranged combat shortcoming, but it means you also have less GKs to do what GKs do.

Allies still cost points. Points you could spend on your own army.


Tau and IG can take some decent melee units now, but at a cost of taking less Tau units. That might mean one less unit of Crisis Suits and a Hammerhead instead of Broadsides. Or maybe 3 Veteran Squads in Chimeras instead of 5. 2 units of 2 LRBTs instead of 2 units of 3, etc...

Ailaros wrote:I actually got the same distinct impression. It certainly feels like GW is making a conscious effort to reward fluffier play at the expense of competitive.

Personally, that actually doesn't bother me all that much. I think that previous versions of the rules encouraged an amount of competitive play incongruous with a game of chance like 40k.

The problem is key elements of 6th that have potential to help "forge the narrative" (allies) are easily abused by those that choose to do so.

For proof read some threads in the tournament discussion section or the various batreps by the usual suspects...

6th has great potential to facilitate fluff/narrative/campaign play, but at the same time has some elements that are ripe for abuse by those looking to play sportshammer.

More than ever it is going to be important to choose your opponents wisely and/or find like minded individuals to play with...

I'll just say that it forges one hell of an engaging narrative when I refuse to play against any Necron army because of how blatantly overpowered they are.

My take on things and many will likely disagree.
I believe competitive play hurts the hobby to a degree. its fun to go to tournis and i do, but when you mingle with tourni players a lot of emphasis is placed on winning through list building. GW does profit from selling models used in those lists, but they fill their codex with many options and models that are very unrepresented on the gaming battlefield. Have you seen many rippers or pyrovore being played in tournis? Maybe. but not usually in the overwhelmingly spammy genre of tourni player lists. So GW invested in molds to make these models that dont sell at all because the tourni scene is pushing players to more play less variety and more spam. Tourni play also puts lots of pressure on the new younger gamers who find it harder and harder to play with lists that are made up of models that they have in their collection (often bought because they are just cool models with a few fun rules.) The emphasis on WAAC lists may be reducing the number of new players. Just my .02$ and likely a lot of you will disagree.

That problem can be mitigated by making those less popular units worth taking in the first place. People never run rippers or pyrovores because they're terrible, because GW doesn't take the time to write rules that make them worth using. If every unit was made to be useful and viable, then armies would be more variable as there are more options made available for all levels of play.

Just look at Infinity. Most of the units are very well balanced, and because of that, you end up seeing a much wider variety of armies in all settings.

Fafnir wrote:...pyrovores because they're terrible, .

Pyrovores are fantastic, I've been using them since they came out. 6th made them even better.

The biggest problem I see with most army lists and the way people 'play' is pretty much the internet. A lot of people comment about things they don't know a lot about or make assumptions about units and tactics they've never tried.

Part of having a winning strategy is being able to take the things that are good about a unit, and then maneuvering them in a way to maximize that advantage against your opponent, or at least to minimize his.

Look at the sorry state of affairs the meta-game left 5th edition in. Vehicle spam against melta spam against spam spam spam baked beans spam and spam, it was pathetic and it made me feel ashamed of the hobby in general. And a lot of those lists weren't even that good unless you were fighting another spammy 'tourney' list, which thanks to people giving and getting terrible advice on how they should play was all there was for.

I hope GW continues to ignore what has been the model of 'competitive play', it is weak, unoriginal and boring; it deserves no better.

Casbyness wrote:I am getting a bit irritated by comments like "GW have added allies back in to force players to buy new models".

I think they did it because lots of players complained that they couldn't mix and match their old models.

Certainly.

I mean, their first step in this direction was with Apocalypse. It doesnt' come as much of a surprise that it's made its way to regular 40k. GW likes giving players with several large armies a lot of leeway, which was clearly where GW was intending to go.

Of course, what competitive players do with this...

CT GAMER wrote:The problem is key elements of 6th that have potential to help "forge the narrative" (allies) are easily abused by those that choose to do so.

Definitely. My opinion on allies is that they won't make any players WAAC, but they will certainly do much to reveal them.

WAAC players will be drawn to ally abuse like a moth to flame...

First of all, Pyrovores are objectively terrible. You may have had a few good games with them, but that may just be a symptom of your local metagame.

And once the metagame for 6th edition is developed, you'll see Leafblower spam (more potent than ever before), shooty mech spam (it's changed, but it will still be dominant), Necron Spam, and other delicious spam.

The competitive metagame is only boring because GW makes very few things worth taking in the first place. GW encourages a boring competitive metagame with their poor rules design.

"Objectively terrible?"

That's a pretty big claim. I have amassed no small quantity of experimental data and practical application of this carbuncle in the colon and I can tell you with confidence that my results, tested in the field, have shown that they are not, in point of fact, objectively terrible.

How many games have you used the Pyrovores in yourself? Can you give me a run down on tactics and use, I'd like to compare notes since you seem to have the inside track on how-to's and what-nots.

I would find a use for pyrovores, particularly under the new disembark rules, IF they weren't in the Elites slot, and IF I could park a Prime in their pod with them.

I'd never, ever take them over Hive Guard, Ymgarl, Zoanthropes, the Doom, or even stock Lictors.

I don't see why people complain about spam so much. I play IG, and if my list doesn't have at least 8infantry squads and 2-3 Russes I'm doing something wrong. Is that spam, yes I'm spamming Infantry squads and leman russes, But its Fluffy spam, not WAAC. Their is a difference.

Also its not GW that makes the competitive meta in 5th favor mech, it was Tournaments. Where they have limited terrain, and a time limit. If i wanted to play foot anything, we wouldn't get past turn 4. If my foot guard and my buddies foot orks played, we wouldn't get past turn 2-3. Thats because tournaments put artificial restraints on the game that where not intended to be there. I'm going to use some old folksy wisdom here, (I've been at my grandparents house all weekend, so its fresh in my mind,) "Remember when you point a finger at someone that you have 3 pointing back at yourself." We, as in all competitive players, are behind the spam mech meta, not just GW.

Grey Templar wrote:

RxGhost wrote:

Casbyness wrote:I am getting a bit irritated by comments like "GW have added allies back in to force players to buy new models".

Yeah, I never understood this either. I mean, you don't have to take allies...no one is getting forced into anything.

And in many cases the Allies are only situationally more effective then just taking your own codex units.

GKs really don't get much benifit from taking SW allies. And taking IG covers a long ranged combat shortcoming, but it means you also have less GKs to do what GKs do.

Allies still cost points. Points you could spend on your own army.


Tau and IG can take some decent melee units now, but at a cost of taking less Tau units. That might mean one less unit of Crisis Suits and a Hammerhead instead of Broadsides. Or maybe 3 Veteran Squads in Chimeras instead of 5. 2 units of 2 LRBTs instead of 2 units of 3, etc...

In many instances there's a huge advantage to that, if you can spend points on other units to cover a critical weakness when you've got plenty of units that can expound on your strengths already...where's the downside? Especially with Tau...

There's a reason a lot of armies lack certain things, and spending points on units outside the codex doesn't mean your weakening what you could otherwise take, that's a ridiculous argument. In many cases, the points spent on allies may do the same job better, may be far more cost effective, or may cover a gap you need covered that was never intended to be covered and by doing so now the army is far more capable than it was ever intended to be.


Did everyone completely forget the sillyness of Daemonhunter mystic bands+IG overnight?

RxGhost wrote:"Objectively terrible?"

That's a pretty big claim. I have amassed no small quantity of experimental data and practical application of this carbuncle in the colon and I can tell you with confidence that my results, tested in the field, have shown that they are not, in point of fact, objectively terrible.

How many games have you used the Pyrovores in yourself? Can you give me a run down on tactics and use, I'd like to compare notes since you seem to have the inside track on how-to's and what-nots.

My experience and results say otherwise, and especially for the slot they take up. It's why none of the Pyrovores I, or anyone I know bought, saw the field after the first few games with them.





I don't think I've ever seen a group of people so happy not to have balance, that a well written set of rules designed to give all players an equal footing was a bad thing, and that narrative play depending so hugely on the game not functioning as a balanced ruleset. That their enjoyment depending on the rules not functioning smoothly, and that abusive mechanics were mandatory for fun, fluffy play.

I'm not a hugely competitive player, I rarely attend tournaments anymore, I'm much happier playing a pre-designed fluff scenario or the like, and don't care too much about winning or losing, but I want to feel like it's all starting off from an even footing, that the models I'm playing with are capable of fulfilling their role (and nothing kills a narrative like a unit being bad at what it is supposed to do), that my heavy battle tanks and IFV's are going to just fall apart after their paint job gets scratched a few times (or that there's at least a hope of survival in an assault...) and that the game isn't going to be about what side has the most gimmicks and rules bending abilities, and 6th does not do that by design, and many seem to be cheering this.

Vaktathi wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a group of people so happy not to have balance, that a well written set of rules designed to give all players an equal footing was a bad thing, and that narrative play depending so hugely on the game not functioning as a balanced ruleset. That their enjoyment depending on the rules not functioning smoothly, and that abusive mechanics were mandatory for fun, fluffy play.

I'm not a hugely competitive player, I rarely attend tournaments anymore, I'm much happier playing a pre-designed fluff scenario or the like, and don't care too much about winning or losing, but I want to feel like it's all starting off from an even footing, that the models I'm playing with are capable of fulfilling their role (and nothing kills a narrative like a unit being bad at what it is supposed to do), that my heavy battle tanks and IFV's are going to just fall apart after their paint job gets scratched a few times (or that there's at least a hope of survival in an assault...) and that the game isn't going to be about what side has the most gimmicks and rules bending abilities, and 6th does not do that by design, and many seem to be cheering this.

And really, it's not like it's impossible do do all this while being balanced and competitively sound either. Once again, I'll bring up Infinity. Almost every single unit in the game can perform competently at specific roles, and each army itself is fairly balanced in its design. Furthermore, each model acts extremely closely to its fluff (more so than many 40k units, in many regards), and battles can certainly become very cinematic, especially during decisive moments that the game encourages players to set up against one another through the core principles of the game's very design.

So it's certainly possible to get it right. The issue is that GW doesn't seem to care to do it.

Vaktathi wrote:I don't think I've ever seen a group of people so happy not to have balance, that a well written set of rules designed to give all players an equal footing was a bad thing, and that narrative play depending so hugely on the game not functioning as a balanced ruleset. That their enjoyment depending on the rules not functioning smoothly, and that abusive mechanics were mandatory for fun, fluffy play.

The thing you're missing is that "fun" and "balanced" are not necessarily the same thing. If you only get fun from 40k by having it be a serious competitive environment (sleek rules, properly balanced, etc.), then odds are you weren't having fun in 5th ed already, much less 6th.

If, however, you derive fun from other sources, then it is very possible to have a game that is both fun and not balanced. If you divorce these two ideas from each other, then the idea that a less-balanced system can also be more fun will make more sense.

The difficult thing here is that "fun" is something that's very poorly understood by psychologists, much less game designers. If the point of making a game is to provide fun, then other considerations, such as balance, are of secondary importance.

But the thing is that balance and fun do not have to be exclusive of one another.

No, but neither is the opposite true.

It is possible to make a game that is fun and perfectly balanced, and it's possible to make a game that is fun an hideously unbalanced (like Volga Bulgars or Axis and Allie).

If, in order to be fun for you, a game has to be balanced, that has much more to say about you than about games in general.

YakManDoo wrote:

I also wonder if TOs won't just codify 5th edition rules and codexes and keep playing 5th... Interesting times...

That outcome is earnestly to be hoped for. Even better would be players actively continuing to play earlier editions, of both BBB and codices.

Testify wrote:Is that why the warmachine section on dakka is so much bigger than the 40k section?

No, that's because the Privateer press forums are incredibly awesome.

I'm a casual player.

There is absolutely zero fun in winning a game if my win comes not from a better plan, deployment, tactics, recognition of opponents plan etc. That's why balance and ruleset is important, to ensure that there are no automatic or entirely luck based wins. If the outcome is unimportant, you don't need a rulebook. If I win only because of luck or too much advantages coming from lack of balance, it's 3 hours wasted and I'm sore but I enjoy loosing in proper games when my opponent makes some good move or his plan works. Not sure btw what WAAC actualy is but unless it's a cheater, I see no problem, if he's good and won, congratulations and thank you for the game. If I know the only way of beating him that day was to replace 70% of my army which against other fluff armies was working quite well, I know it's not a supposed WAAC fault.

The way tournaments and lists there look is entirely beause of GW writing. If they balanced the rules, units and combos, you would have much bigger chance taking your fluff list to a tournament and, asumming you didn't make obvious synergy mistakes, could win through a better tactics. The total overhaul of the field rules maybe, playtesting and monitoring a game, a clear vision for the game, don't know, more work is needed here and I'm quite sure of it. Wargames are there to make you think I thought, not just roll the dice to see something awesome.

Ailaros wrote:
If, however, you derive fun from other sources, then it is very possible to have a game that is both fun and not balanced. If you divorce these two ideas from each other, then the idea that a less-balanced system can also be more fun will make more sense.

Anecdotal experience here, but over the last 6-7 months three starting players to my group (of around 10-14 people that actually do show up and play) have given up entirely because of balance issues. A Tau player got disheartened at how bad his army performed at anything other than cracking AV14 and being shot off the board by IG and Necrons, A Nid player got bored of almost every game having his pionstakingly-painted MCs missile's and lascannoned away by turn 2, and the daemon player pretty much ragequit after some games with his also-starting friend who plays GK.

In all cases they spent months buying and painting the armies (Hell, the Nid player actually did a much sweeter job of painting his first army in the hobby than I can do now after a lot of practice!) and were just beggining to try them on the board. For some it took 5 games for them to see that their forces were not doing what they wanted and in some cases not doing much at all.

Now mind, in many cases they had veterans watching the games and offering advice. The fact is, there was often not much they could have done different. and in some cases it really was newbie vs. newbie and one was getting flattened 6 out of 6 times. I can't blame them for not being happy with "Maybe the new codex/edition will fix it" as an excuse to keep playing. Can you?

To purposefully leave that state of affairs unchanged just boggles my mind, especially in the age of Twitter and iPads, as well as competition from video games and MMOs where consumer feedback can mean a patch or fix within weeks or even days.

I admit it's possible to have fun in an unbalanced game. What will usually happen is that people will gravitate to the strongest faction/build and create a lot of wasted products (as seen by so many local clubs here that are basically 80% Marines slapping marines, someone's randon xenos army that is more a painting project than a gaming one, and someone's second army of Necrons or orks). If your vision of a fun 40K future os Blood Angels facing Space Wolves forever across every board, I guess that's fun. Chess has had the same army builds for ages, after all, but at leaste there aren't a grey and a red set of pieces that no one uses because they're crap.

I'd say that a reasonably balanced setting makes it possible for more people to have more fun over more time, though.

Sephyr wrote:
...
In all cases they spent months buying and painting the armies (Hell, the Nid player actually did a much sweeter job of painting his first army in the hobby than I can do now after a lot of practice!) and were just beggining to try them on the board. For some it took 5 games for them to see that their forces were not doing what they wanted and in some cases not doing much at all.

Now mind, in many cases they had veterans watching the games and offering advice. The fact is, there was often not much they could have done different. and in some cases it really was newbie vs. newbie and one was getting flattened 6 out of 6 times. I can't blame them for not being happy with "Maybe the new codex/edition will fix it" as an excuse to keep playing. Can you?
...
I'd say that a reasonably balanced setting makes it possible for more people to have more fun over more time, though.

Exactly this. A poorly balanced game doesn't just hurt competitive players, it hurts anyone who randomly picks a 'bad army' and that's a player who's going to quit the game. GW got their one army sale from that player, and no more.

What Sephyr and Redbeard said sums up the problem nicely on balance, IMO. I have seen many people buy models, play the game and leave the hobby because of balance issues regardless whether they started with an army with serious problems or started with a better force. Now some of these players might leave anyways but others would continue (especially with the investments already made) if 40K was a good game rather than a game with enormous potential that often fails.

And it is ridiculous to argue that balance/tight rules reduce fun. The casual player and competitive player benefits from good balanced rules. Sure you might find someone that enjoys spending loads of money, lots of time building and painting models and has a great time getting slaughtered game after game; year after year, but I think this is an odd person. As someone said, for many it is not whether you win or lose (but you are trying to win), it is that when you set up your pieces that you feel you have a good chance of winning and the units performing their roles decently towards that end.

GW could make a fairly balanced game if they put some real effort towards it. Look at tyranids in 5th edition versus GK. This was an uphill battle for nids with 2 players of equal skill. Nids had serious issues the day their dex was released and throughout 5th GW could easily have issued an errata to correct many of the issues to make the army much more balanced internally and externally - they chose not to. How many average nid players do you think really had fun playing armies that stomped them regularly and/or were forced into using a few units over and over because of the poor balance. This is not my idea of having fun.

Redbeard wrote:Exactly this. A poorly balanced game doesn't just hurt competitive players, it hurts anyone who randomly picks a 'bad army' and that's a player who's going to quit the game. GW got their one army sale from that player, and no more.

You're talking past yourself, though. You are saying that there are two groups of players, competitive players, and players who don't like losing. That's the same group of players, described twice.

What I am saying is that there are players out there who are ACTUALLY not competitive (or at least are much, much less competitive). For people who are ACTUALLY not competitive, the fact that the game isn't perfectly balanced really won't matter to them. Actually.

5th edition was geared to allow more competitive players to play in a more competitive environment. It looks like GW thinks that this was a mistake with the direction they've been moving in as of late. They are re-writing things, on purpose, to drive competitive players out of the game, and return its fan base towards non-competitive gamers.

As Sephyr notes, it's going to be very difficult for GW to make 40k as balanced of a game as lots and lots of other alternatives out there, nor, do I think, they should. As such, if they're not going to be a properly competitive game, then it doesn't make sense for GW to compete against other games for which allows for the most competitive play. If the idea of non-competitive play really makes no sense whatsoever to you, then of course you're not going to understand what GW is doing. In this case, though, it's a failure of understanding, not a failure of GW policy.

Ailaros wrote:What I am saying is that there are players out there who are ACTUALLY not competitive (or at least are much, much less competitive). For people who are ACTUALLY not competitive, the fact that the game isn't perfectly balanced really won't matter to them. Actually.

So your argument is what? That Warhammer 40,000 is perfect for people who, when they play a game, don't try to win? Great selling point! "Warhammer 40,000: the game for all those people who are used to being told that it's the taking part that counts!"

More pertinently, as nearly a page's worth of other posters have pointed out - and as you have entirely failed to address - 'competitive' doesn't equate to WAAC, it's just a matter of wanting to play a game where the two players' respective decisions dictate the outcome, not whether one picked from an overpowered/underpriced list, and certainly not because one player got a single lucky roll on a chart.

Ailaros wrote:5th edition was geared to allow more competitive players to play in a more competitive environment. It looks like GW thinks that this was a mistake with the direction they've been moving in as of late. They are re-writing things, on purpose, to drive competitive players out of the game, and return its fan base towards non-competitive gamers.

You do realise that 40k has essentially been the same 'competitive' game since 1998; more than half of its lifespan? Even if the present writers' babble about 'narrative' and 'cinematic' gameplay means anything beyond an excuse for being incapable of or unwilling to write balanced rules, don't be surprised that a significant proportion of the playerbase are disappointed at an edition which inserts more random elements and diminishes the impact of player choice.

English Assassin wrote:So your argument is what? That Warhammer 40,000 is perfect for people who, when they play a game, don't try to win? Great selling point! "Warhammer 40,000: the game for all those people who are used to being told that it's the taking part that counts!"

As I said...

Ailaros wrote: If the idea of non-competitive play really makes no sense whatsoever to you, then of course you're not going to understand what GW is doing.

Furthermore...

English Assassin wrote:More pertinently, as nearly a page's worth of other posters have pointed out - and as you have entirely failed to address - 'competitive' doesn't equate to WAAC

I understand the difference between competitive and WAAC. Statements I'm making affect both groups (well, the group and its subgroup).

English Assassin wrote:it's just a matter of wanting to play a game where the two players' respective decisions dictate the outcome, not whether one picked from an overpowered/underpriced list, and certainly not because one player got a single lucky roll on a chart. ...don't be surprised that a significant proportion of the playerbase are disappointed at an edition which inserts more random elements and diminishes the impact of player choice.

If you don't like the idea of losing a game because of unlucky rolling of dice, then you really need to stop playing 40k. 40k is a dice game, not a serious strategy game. If you don't like the random, then go play some game that doesn't have randomness.

Ailaros wrote:

Redbeard wrote:Exactly this. A poorly balanced game doesn't just hurt competitive players, it hurts anyone who randomly picks a 'bad army' and that's a player who's going to quit the game. GW got their one army sale from that player, and no more.

You're talking past yourself, though. You are saying that there are two groups of players, competitive players, and players who don't like losing. That's the same group of players, described twice.

First, I'm not saying there are two groups of players. There is a wide spectrum of players. There are players who only want to play at the top level of competitiveness. There are players who are more competitive than that, who are willing to cheat to win. There are players who want to play competitively, but within a more restrictive set of conditions for themselves (such as adhering to fluff, or only playing one faction). There are players who want to play with their friends and have narrative stories. There are players, like myself, who play both in competitive settings and also as a basement gamer having a few beers with friends.

Some players who play competitively don't mind losing - they see it as part of a process. Some people who play "for fun" do mind losing. Some people actually cheat in casual games because they want to win. Honestly, I've encountered more of the former than the latter.

I've been gaming (not just 40k) for a long time, over 30 years now. I have yet to encounter this mythical figure that you described of a person who is willing to lose forever. It's a one-on-one game. I don't care how non-competitive a person is, they're only going to take so much kicking before they try something else. It's one thing to play for thematic reasons and to be okay with losing. Everyone has a breaking point though. People who are truly non-competitive are simply not going to play the game at all. The act of participating in a one-on-one game implies some amount, however minimal, of wanting to win.

As Sephyr notes, it's going to be very difficult for GW to make 40k as balanced of a game as lots and lots of other alternatives out there

It's only difficult because they are not trying. Lots of things are difficult. The idea that we shouldn't do things that are difficult is, to me, against what it means to be human. We went to the moon. That wasn't easy. We build skyscrapers. That's not easy. People run marathons - that's not easy. "It's hard" is an excuse that a toddler uses.

As such, if they're not going to be a properly competitive game, then it doesn't make sense for GW to compete against other games for which allows for the most competitive play.

Again, there's no reason to assume everything has to be binary. There's a wide spectrum out there, and just because your goal is not to be the most competitive doesn't mean you should make no attempt at all at having a balanced game.

If the idea of non-competitive play really makes no sense whatsoever to you, then of course you're not going to understand what GW is doing. In this case, though, it's a failure of understanding, not a failure of GW policy.

So you're saying if we don't agree with you, it's because we don't get what they're trying to do...?

From the most basic concept in this game, the goal is to have a mechanism by which two players can have a fair battle with their toy soldiers. If true non-competitive play was the goal, there would be no need to have points for units. You would make an army that fit some published fluff that they came up with, and you'd set up your men, and discuss with your opponent how things should go. There would be no need of dice, or any other randomizing factor, because you'd just be creating a visual story with your toy soldiers, and some people would be more than happy doing just that. In fact, there are people whose hobby is painting historical miniatures and making dioramas of battles. They don't need rules to decide who is winning the scene they're creating, they just do what looks cool. I've played diceless games before, they're plenty of fun (with the right people). And that's really a non-competitive game.

By introducing a rules mechanism (points) by which two strangers can supposedly have a "fair" battle, there is some expectation that if you follow those rules, you'll have a fair battle. That's what the company is selling, that's what the players are buying. Why then is it seen as acceptable for this product, this system, to be flawed. For all the complaints about bubbles in Finecast products, you're getting far less of what you're paying for when you purchase a GW rule book.

And apologists, like you, seem to think this is acceptable. You're happy to buy a flawed product and even defend the flaws as a way to keep it non-competitive. When PC games have flaws like these, they get patched. Other companies patch their rules. GW doesn't need to, it has fanboys to defend them. "It's hard". No, it's not. When the exact same model with the exact same weapons and exact same stats can cost a different amount of points based on what color it is painted and what iconography is sports, that's not hard to spot. Tournaments run around the world every weekend. There's data to be mined, and points provide the easiest, most flexible balancing factor possible. Gee, everyone who can is taking units of Long Fangs - think they could be patched to cost a few more points?

I understand the difference between a non-competitive game and a flawed game, and GW is the latter.

English Assassin wrote:

Ailaros wrote:What I am saying is that there are players out there who are ACTUALLY not competitive (or at least are much, much less competitive). For people who are ACTUALLY not competitive, the fact that the game isn't perfectly balanced really won't matter to them. Actually.

So your argument is what? That Warhammer 40,000 is perfect for people who, when they play a game, don't try to win? Great selling point! "Warhammer 40,000: the game for all those people who are used to being told that it's the taking part that counts!"

More pertinently, as nearly a page's worth of other posters have pointed out - and as you have entirely failed to address - 'competitive' doesn't equate to WAAC, it's just a matter of wanting to play a game where the two players' respective decisions dictate the outcome, not whether one picked from an overpowered/underpriced list, and certainly not because one player got a single lucky roll on a chart.

Ailaros wrote:5th edition was geared to allow more competitive players to play in a more competitive environment. It looks like GW thinks that this was a mistake with the direction they've been moving in as of late. They are re-writing things, on purpose, to drive competitive players out of the game, and return its fan base towards non-competitive gamers.

You do realise that 40k has essentially been the same 'competitive' game since 1998; more than half of its lifespan? Even if the present writers' babble about 'narrative' and 'cinematic' gameplay means anything beyond an excuse for being incapable of or unwilling to write balanced rules, don't be surprised that a significant proportion of the playerbase are disappointed at an edition which inserts more random elements and diminishes the impact of player choice.

Spot on.

GW's attitude reminds me of the theme of the classic SF story, "The Gulf Between": A MACHINE DOES NOT CARE. GW is a machine that has programmed itself with the business model that the way to make the most money is to condition gamers to whine about the game getting "stale" every few years, and constantly bring out new rule sets whose primary if not only motivation is to get fanboys to snap up a bunch of new product. They then sit back and watch as those same fanboys have paroxysms of ecstasy about how cool the new rule sets are and how you can "still" do some things you used to be able to do with the old rule sets, and buy enough new product to overcompensate for those players they have alienated sufficiently to drive out of the market. They don't care about dissatisfied players because in their view (which unfortunately has a factual basis) they get more sales from newbies, fanboys and 9-year-old brats whose daddies have too much money than they lose from those same dissatisfied players.

Until market conditions change sufficiently to change that programming, the GW machine will continue not to care what we think.

If GW isn't doing in practice what you have perfected in your mind, it's because they're a bunch of lazy idiots? Ignoring the reality around oneself and ignoring the transmission by which desire becomes reality will give you a really bad attitude. I'm sure if only the sheeple would wake up and elect you president, then the entire world would finally be fixed properly as well...

40k is a game where you throw a vague sense of balance and a lot of rules and minis over what is fundamentally a dice game where the results are determined by chance. If GW's decision on where to draw their lines of making a game competitive is incongruous with what you desire for a competitive game, then don't play 40k. It doesn't mean that GW is making a game that is bad objectively, just bad subjectively, compared to what you want out of a game.

You are assuming that there is a gold standard (of which you have secret knowledge) that GW is too lazy and stupid to achieve, when in reality there is no such standard. That GW doesn't choose to make the game the way you want the game to be made doesn't mean that 40k is a bad game, or that GW is a bad company.

Ailaros wrote:
40k is a game where you throw a vague sense of balance and a lot of rules and minis over what is fundamentally a dice game where the results are determined by chance. If GW's decision on where to draw their lines of making a game competitive is incongruous with what you desire for a competitive game, then don't play 40k. It doesn't mean that GW is making a game that is bad objectively, just bad subjectively, compared to what you want out of a game.

You are assuming that there is a gold standard (of which you have secret knowledge) that GW is too lazy and stupid to achieve, when in reality there is no such standard. That GW doesn't choose to make the game the way you want the game to be made doesn't mean that 40k is a bad game, or that GW is a bad company.

Actually, it is possible to make an objective judgement about games, just like it is possible to make an objective judgement about art. One way of doing so is by comparing stated goals with results.

Stated Goal: two armies with the same point value will be balanced.
Obvious violation: 420 buys 7 Space Marine Predators, or 6 Chaos Space Marine Predators, with identical stats and behaviour in the game. 6 != 7, so this is not a balanced game.

These aren't goals I'm making up for the game, these are goals that GW has put forth, and then failed to meet. This is not my subjective desire for the game, this is them failing to meet their own stated goal. That is objectively poor design.

Redbeard wrote:Stated Goal: two armies with the same point value will be balanced.
Obvious violation: 420 buys 7 Space Marine Predators, or 6 Chaos Space Marine Predators, with identical stats and behaviour in the game. 6 != 7, so this is not a balanced game.

The spikes on the CSM predators make up the difference in points.

Redbeard wrote:Stated Goal: two armies with the same point value will be balanced.

Firstly, where does it explicitly say this? It is implied, but where is it actually stated?

As for stated goals, it's pretty easy to find examples where they explicitly state that the purpose is to make a game that is dramatic, cinematic, and that should be concluded with a handshake and some beers. That's what they're trying to do.

I can't find anything where GW says that it's trying to create a perfectly balanced game that supports players playing as competitively as they can (or care). In fact, they've done the opposite, what with no longer making a mention to things like 'ard boyz in the rulebook.

Even then, this is sort of beside the point. Artist statements are worthless, despite how much the artists want to pretend they're not. The value that someone gets is the value that the consumer gets, not what the artist states the value should be.

Ailaros wrote:If GW isn't doing in practice what you have perfected in your mind, it's because they're a bunch of lazy idiots?

A careful reader of my post would have noticed that I didn't say GW was "lazy" or "idiotic." I said that GW doesn't care. More specifically, it doesn't care if it alienates a portion of its existing customer base, since it always seems to somehow bring in more $$$ from newbies, fanboys and 9-year-old brats' rich daddies than it drives away.

Ailaros wrote: Ignoring the reality around oneself and ignoring the transmission by which desire becomes reality will give you a really bad attitude.

A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices. Now who's ignoring reality? Oh, and "the transmission by which desire becomes reality" sounds like pseudo-intellectual bloviation by a college freshman who's just enrolled in his first philosophy class.

Ailaros wrote:I'm sure if only the sheeple would wake up and elect you president, then the entire world would finally be fixed properly as well...

I couldn't have put it better

Ailaros wrote:40k is a game where you throw a vague sense of balance and a lot of rules and minis over what is fundamentally a dice game where the results are determined by chance. If GW's decision on where to draw their lines of making a game competitive is incongruous with what you desire for a competitive game, then don't play 40k. It doesn't mean that GW is making a game that is bad objectively, just bad subjectively, compared to what you want out of a game.

Replace "bad" with "good" and you have the attitude of the GW enthusiast.

Ailaros wrote:You are assuming that there is a gold standard (of which you have secret knowledge) that GW is too lazy and stupid to achieve, when in reality there is no such standard. That GW doesn't choose to make the game the way you want the game to be made doesn't mean that 40k is a bad game, or that GW is a bad company.

No, you are assuming such a standard. You are also assuming that "doesn't care" = "bad company." I am making an observation based on GW's marketing behavior. You are creating a straw man based on an imagined moral judgment.

As for 40K being a "bad game," others have commented at length on how that determination might be made. I make no such statement. Rather, my position is that 40K 6th edition in general, and as to certain specific rules in particular, is a worse game IMO relative to previous versions.

So now you're arguing that we cannot judge the success of an endeavor by whether it meets, or fails to meet, the goals set forth by its creator.

Whatever dude, we're not going to agree.

Ailaros wrote:
As Sephyr notes, it's going to be very difficult for GW to make 40k as balanced of a game as lots and lots of other alternatives out there, nor, do I think, they should. As such, if they're not going to be a properly competitive game, then it doesn't make sense for GW to compete against other games for which allows for the most competitive play. If the idea of non-competitive play really makes no sense whatsoever to you, then of course you're not going to understand what GW is doing. In this case, though, it's a failure of understanding, not a failure of GW policy.

You are misreading my point, then. It may be hard to make an extraordinarily balanced game, but it's quite easy to at least correct the worst imbalances. Recosting units that never see use takes only some math and a FAQ update. Same goes for units that lost their purpose entirely, like Genestealers, Kommandos and Mandrakes. This is the kind of thing that 2-3 game designers could set a weekend asde to hammer out the metagame, then a week more for playtesting, and then just drop the update in the next WD and/or the website.

Worse yet, GW sort of does tinker with the game, although in in a weird, chaotic way. They updated DA and BT storm shields, for instance. Then they nerfed Warptime and Lash of submission, because apparently those powers had been making CSM armies rule the metagame and gobble tournaments for the last 4 years.

TL;DR version: It can be hard to create a metagame that is mostly level across all factions in terms of capability and competitiveness. But it is really, REALLY EASY to do a better job than Games Workshop is doing currently.

By introducing a rules mechanism (points) by which two strangers can supposedly have a "fair" battle, there is some expectation that if you follow those rules, you'll have a fair battle.

Really? I'd never expect that. As with so many wargames where you build your force via a points system it is always very easy to put up a force against another force and face almost guaranteed loss, no matter how 'perfect' the points. Fair fight invloves far more than a good points system. My perfectly pointed axe wielding barbarians are almost certainly going to lose against those parthians on that open map, and probbaly almost certainly win in that heavy forest.

Within that limit though 40k does allow a fair battle between 2 strangers. I used to play a warrior heavy nid force back in 3rd edition when they were considered garbage, yet I still played plenty of good close games, and won a good number. The only place I had to play was one of the 3 nearby GW stores, so I was nearly always playing against strangers, anything from 12 year olds to 40+ year olds, tourney players and not. I may well have lost at a tourney against the good tourney players, but I didn't go to tourneys. Against random strangers, however, I was far more likely to meet someone like me who didn't create tourney winning lists, they just played with the models they liked/had. Like it or not the vast majority of players (that I've come across in the UK) simply don't do tournies.

I have a similar agument with a couple of extremely good tourney players in another game, they keep suggesting rules changes to 'fix' the game. Their 'brokeness', however, is largely down to 2 factors, 1) they are very good and understand all the tactics and tweakiness and 2) the tourney setting itself heavily favors certain styles of play. The tourney scene for that game is a very tiny subset players, and the forces they complain about being weak have a greater than 50% win rate across the tourneys so far, yet they are seen as gimped. It is indeed unlikely that force will ever win a tourney, but their win rate is pretty much bang on what you'd expect for a 'balanced' force. The point being that those who are really good will never lose to them but those who are not so hot regularly lose to them. It is not sufficient to say that '2 players of equal skill' will find X or Y balanced, you need to say what level of skill as that has a major impact on how 'balanced' armies will be. Player skill has a big impact on both making best use of yor forces and exploiting enemy weakness.

The same with 40k, just because unit X Y or Z are seen as useless does not mean they are in a game between 2 random strangers who may neither undertand that weakness well, or be able to exploit it (due to skill or simple lack of the counter units in a random matchup).

I have yet to encounter this mythical figure that you described of a person who is willing to lose forever. It's a one-on-one game. I don't care how non-competitive a person is, they're only going to take so much kicking before they try something else.

I play with him every week, one of our gaming group has been losing 99% of his games (primarily games other than 40k) for the last several years. No matter how much we try to give him advice he ignores it and does what he thinks is best, even though it nearly always loses him the game. He well understands he is the worst gamer in the group, but he is a great laugh to play with and enjoys most of what we play.

The act of participating in a one-on-one game implies some amount, however minimal, of wanting to win.

So your argument is what? That Warhammer 40,000 is perfect for people who, when they play a game, don't try to win?

There is a difference between wanting/playing to win and being bothered about actually doing so. I always play any individual game to win. But I don't concern myself that much with whether I do actualy win or not, and neither do I worry about whether my army is likely to win or lose just because of what I choose to field. Having just got back into 40k a couple of months ago I have gone for a warrior heavy nid list again (nostalgia!). I'm aware of how bad they may be, and that the serious 40k player in our group is going to kick my ass routinely.




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Redbeard wrote:
Stated Goal: two armies with the same point value will be balanced.
Obvious violation: 420 buys 7 Space Marine Predators, or 6 Chaos Space Marine Predators, with identical stats and behaviour in the game. 6 != 7, so this is not a balanced game.
.

That is a ludicrous goal. I could go to almost any other game, that I'm familar with, and come up with clearly unbalanced forces. It is easy to choose 2 forces that are not balanced.

The goal should be that it is possible to have 2 forces that are balanced on points. If you choose to come up with forces that have imbalances then so be it.

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Ailaros wrote:

What I am saying is that there are players out there who are ACTUALLY not competitive (or at least are much, much less competitive). For people who are ACTUALLY not competitive, the fact that the game isn't perfectly balanced really won't matter to them. Actually.

+1

40K is a setting with a strong setting/story a setting that can be used to shape one's battles/scenarios/army design/etc.

Yes it is a miniatures game, but it also in many ways has the potential to be far more: a 3D battle rpg of sorts.

What I mean by this is that each game is potentially a cinematic "what if" that players set up and play out. Things like ambushes, last stands, desperate breakouts, etc. are all very cinematic "what ifs" that don't have to be played by equal armies nor do they need to represent toally balanced match ups.

This is the difference between "narrative play" and "competative play". For example I once played a last stand battle as the climax to a campaign in which my faction had been badly decimated over the course of the campaign weeks.

I was vastly outnumbered/out pointed but in a good defensive position. Even though I had little chance for true victory in the normal 40k compeative sense, the battle served the narrative in the context of the campaign we had forged and so it deserved to be played as a way to finish the campaign's story arc and reward those that had fought so hard to defeat my faction and claim campaign victory. A movie or novel doesnt just end because one side decides they can't win or the war is unfar. Players should commit to playing their parts to the end regardless of if this means being the victor or the defeated. Players who commit and carry through with creating a complete narrative experience that focuses on telling the story not their win/loss tallies will be rewarded with some great gaming experiences.

For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

The game was stacked. The outcome pretty much certain, but it was still one hell of a game and one I fondly remember to this day. It had narrative, cool themed terrain and represented a classic scene (last stand)played out on our table top.

I remember a guy watching us setting up the game who was totally perplexed by our game. He couldnt fathom why I would play a game I had no chance of winning, why waste my time? He was almost angry that anyone would want to play me when they had such an advantage. He stated he would just quit and get a "real game" in instead...

Some people just don't understand the potential for what 40K can be beyond simply a competative entity. They are missing out on a whole other layer of wargaming imho.

Again, it comes own to finding people that share your vision, have similar mentalities when it comes to competition, and who appreciate the game on the same level you do...


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LordOfTheSloths wrote:

A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices.

Care to offer proof of this? Verified data perhaps? Curious...

puree wrote:

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Emm, no. Very much not. There is a reason why Space Wolves pick Long Fangs by the bucket and vanilla SMs avoid them like the plague: It's because they fulfill the same role, in the same slot, and one of them is both cheaper and better. Now, if you can explain to me what is the fundamental weakness of the SW codex that needs to be addressed by giving them a cheaper, better unit, we may get somewhere.

But "Umm, there must be a good, logical reason why some expensive models suck and some cheap models rule" is a statement that border on insanity if you don't offer that rationale in the following sentence.

Example: Dark Eldar pay less points for power weapons than Space Marine sergeants/chaos champions. However, they have lower Strength and Toughness, as well as less durability, meaning said power weapon will not wound as much and not be around as long. Therefore, lower point cost.

Ailaros wrote:

It is possible to make a game that is fun and perfectly balanced, and it's possible to make a game that is fun an hideously unbalanced (like Volga Bulgars or Axis and Allie).

If, in order to be fun for you, a game has to be balanced, that has much more to say about you than about games in general.

+!

RxGhost wrote:I hope GW continues to ignore what has been the model of 'competitive play', it is weak, unoriginal and boring; it deserves no better.

You got it backwards, it's GW who created the model with lack of balance. Still, although I don't attend "competitive play" as you understand it, I don't find the idea weak, unoriginal and boring.

Sephyr wrote:Anecdotal experience here, but over the last 6-7 months three starting players to my group (of around 10-14 people that actually do show up and play) have given up entirely because of balance issues. A Tau player got disheartened at how bad his army performed at anything other than cracking AV14 and being shot off the board by IG and Necrons, A Nid player got bored of almost every game having his pionstakingly-painted MCs missile's and lascannoned away by turn 2, and the daemon player pretty much ragequit after some games with his also-starting friend who plays GK.

In all cases they spent months buying and painting the armies (Hell, the Nid player actually did a much sweeter job of painting his first army in the hobby than I can do now after a lot of practice!) and were just beggining to try them on the board. For some it took 5 games for them to see that their forces were not doing what they wanted and in some cases not doing much at all.

Now mind, in many cases they had veterans watching the games and offering advice. The fact is, there was often not much they could have done different. and in some cases it really was newbie vs. newbie and one was getting flattened 6 out of 6 times. I can't blame them for not being happy with "Maybe the new codex/edition will fix it" as an excuse to keep playing. Can you?

To purposefully leave that state of affairs unchanged just boggles my mind, especially in the age of Twitter and iPads, as well as competition from video games and MMOs where consumer feedback can mean a patch or fix within weeks or even days.

I admit it's possible to have fun in an unbalanced game. What will usually happen is that people will gravitate to the strongest faction/build and create a lot of wasted products (as seen by so many local clubs here that are basically 80% Marines slapping marines, someone's randon xenos army that is more a painting project than a gaming one, and someone's second army of Necrons or orks). If your vision of a fun 40K future os Blood Angels facing Space Wolves forever across every board, I guess that's fun. Chess has had the same army builds for ages, after all, but at leaste there aren't a grey and a red set of pieces that no one uses because they're crap.

I'd say that a reasonably balanced setting makes it possible for more people to have more fun over more time, though.

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Ailaros wrote:

5th edition was geared to allow more competitive players to play in a more competitive environment. It looks like GW thinks that this was a mistake with the direction they've been moving in as of late. They are re-writing things, on purpose, to drive competitive players out of the game, and return its fan base towards non-competitive gamers.

And this is all because they started with false assumption, judging from claims like "Alessio Cavorte seemed to want to make the game more competitive and simplified. He (Jervis or Kelly, not sure) thought that this made the game a little to flat and generic in its function" which implies that competitive has to be simplified, flat and generic in it's function. In my opinion no, simplyfying is just the easier way to do it and not simplified + competitive and balanced mean just more work. I see a possibility that the latter is what GW tries to avoid, out of fear of failure or laziness or carelesness or sth different maybe.

Ailaros wrote:
If you don't like the idea of losing a game because of unlucky rolling of dice, then you really need to stop playing 40k. 40k is a dice game, not a serious strategy game. If you don't like the random, then go play some game that doesn't have randomness.

How many games are deicided by unlucky roll? 1 of 100? 1 of 1000? As a rare occurence this is acceptable, just like in sport some 4 class lower team beats the stars team from time to time. But if the new edition is released and the chance for a game decided by an unlucky roll gets bigger, this is wrong direction. The serious strategy game is the right direction, if you're right and this is not it (and I think it is despite the many shortcomings) then they should change it. I'm casual, I play for fun which equals stretching my brain a bit over beer and pretzels, if there's no stretching I can have beer and pretzels but switch a game for, let's say, rpg session with miniatures? Just discussion? Women company? That's "fun" too and the cost is 1/100.

Love chess for example but having an open board, various armies looking great and risk managment type of gameplay is great as well, or even better, as long as it's not a senseless dicefest.







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CT GAMER wrote:40K is a setting with a strong setting/story a setting that can be used to shape one's battles/scenarios/army design/etc.

Yes it is a miniatures game, but it also in many ways has the potential to be far more: a 3D battle rpg of sorts.

What I mean by this is that each game is potentially a cinematic "what if" that players set up and play out. Things like ambushes, last stands, desperate breakouts, etc. are all very cinematic "what ifs" that don't have to be played by equal armies nor do they need to represent toally balanced match ups.

This is the difference between "narrative play" and "competative play". For example I once played a last stand battle as the climax to a campaign in which my faction had been badly decimated over the course of the campaign weeks.

I was vastly outnumbered/out pointed but in a good defensive position. Even though I had little chance for true victory in the normal 40k compeative sense, the battle served the narrative in the context of the campaign we had forged and so it deserved to be played as a way to finish the campaign's story arc and reward those that had fought so hard to defeat my faction and claim campaign victory. A movie or novel doesnt just end because one side decides they can't win or the war is unfar. Players should commit to playing their parts to the end regardless of if this means being the victor or the defeated. Players who commit and carry through with creating a complete narrative experience that focuses on telling the story not their win/loss tallies will be rewarded with some great gaming experiences.

For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

The game was stacked. The outcome pretty much certain, but it was still one hell of a game and one I fondly remember to this day. It had narrative, cool themed terrain and represented a classic scene (last stand)played out on our table top.

I remember a guy watching us setting up the game who was totally perplexed by our game. He couldnt fathom why I would play a game I had no chance of winning, why waste my time? He was almost angry that anyone would want to play me when they had such an advantage. He stated he would just quit and get a "real game" in instead...

Some people just don't understand the potential for what 40K can be beyond simply a competative entity. They are missing out on a whole other layer of wargaming imho.

Again, it comes own to finding people that share your vision, have similar mentalities when it comes to competition, and who appreciate the game on the same level you do...

I'm confused. I would enjoy a game you describe but that doesn't change the fact I want a balanced competitive core ruleset, for the sake of the other games, to know if I really had no chance, because that's what company designing a game and cashing on it should do etc. You could still play your games with the ruleset I describe, I can't play competitive games with the unbalanced ruleset that for your games is fine. Not to mention, this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Plumbumbarum wrote:[this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Semantics.

We control representations of people with various stats/skills/abilities battling in a detailed fictional setting and use dice to resolve actions. The models are built and painted to represent specific things within that setting.

How is this any different than an rpg?

Otherwise why do we need any fluff at all? We could have generic human space warrior squd A vs. close combat alien squad C.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Yes, we usually play with rather dense terrain (ruins/statues). The very first time, he actually deployed poorly, but after that he was very careful to hide his MCs.

The thing is, most players know how to have good fire lanes for at least some of the troops. You may be hidden from the Predator on the left, but the Long Fangs on the right can see you. And if you hide your beasts too much, you usually either leave your troops out of synpase or waste your heavy hitters hiding in the back.

CT GAMER wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:[this is a wargame at least was last time I checked, not an rpg.

Semantics.

We control representations of people with various stats/skills/abilities battling in a detailed fictional setting and use dice to resolve actions. The models are built and painted to represent specific things within that setting.

How is this any different than an rpg?

Otherwise why do we need any fluff at all? We could have generic human space warrior squd A vs. close combat alien squad C.

I can make a ruleset for an rpg just judging odds in my mind, it does not have to be balanced that much as it's really about the story there. The ammount of system needed there is only to assure that I didn't resolve someone jumping over the hole with out of my ass decision, and more complex systems are for game masters that have trouble being just. It's the game of imagination and there's no really a winner or competition (if so, rarely and still not that much about a win) just a story.

Wargame has a board, two player and only one can win, objectives, armies, unit organisation etc. World of difference.

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point. Btw a good balanced tactical oriented ruleset would help your story based 40k games (so war stories) making more sense, or maybe you like chaos warriors sacrificing themselves for their Sir! or other ridiculousness.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point.

Gw seems to be implying otherwise this edition...

Sephyr wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

I'm in total agreement with your post but have a question about the underlined part, were the terrain applied by the book?. Kind of helps Nids...

Yes, we usually play with rather dense terrain (ruins/statues). The very first time, he actually deployed poorly, but after that he was very careful to hide his MCs.

The thing is, most players know how to have good fire lanes for at least some of the troops. You may be hidden from the Predator on the left, but the Long Fangs on the right can see you. And if you hide your beasts too much, you usually either leave your troops out of synpase or waste your heavy hitters hiding in the back.

We use 2 large los blocking terrain pieces + walls and 2 small forests (still not over 25%) and that really helps nids but yes, they are hard to play and of course unbalanced.


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CT GAMER wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Fluff is to give you a mood for the battle, not to write books during a game, you can if you want but that's not a point.

Gw seems to be implying otherwise this edition...

It's a mixed bag imo, like few people with different ideas designing it, or trying to cover all bases with narrative excuse to work less in the future. Some changes really improve the wargame part imo like early less random reserves, mc boost, glancing vehicles. They added some cheap cinematics but the core game is still a wargame, just compare the place taken by forging the narrative boxes vs rules.

But if you're right, it should be obvious that people drawn to it because of wargame direction of 5th give negative feedback, and it's kind of lame from GW to do such thing. Make two games, or competitive ruleset with optional narrative rules, or sth.

5th to be fair had several issues. The core rules were designed one way with one design mentality (awkwardly attempting to "streamline" the game while making it more complex in others) in mind by Alessio, and then immediately the first codex book written by a different author (primarily Ward) went another, very different way, with all sorts of exceptions to core rules for huge numbers of units and gimmick abilities and continued to do so with his other books, with two other authors writing prominent books that didn't fit either of these design philosophies.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:
A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices. Now who's ignoring reality?

I began 40k in early 5th edition and very first messages I read on 40k board were veterans complaining how 5th edition was worst iteration of the game yet, and how their armies had been ruined and they were quitting the game. Funny how it goes.

Yes 5th was a mediocore ruleset with a lot of ridiculousness but 6th seems equaly mediocore with a lots of ridiculousness at best, and to add insult to the injury they start with claim that they are not making it competitive for drama tension and craziness plus all the random tables and I have already read about some big random table in CSM codex. 6th might even turn out slightly better after seeing the codieces etc but imo still won't live up to fluff, models and ofc price.

CT GAMER wrote:
For me the battle was a chance ot see how long I could hold out, how many enemy characters I could take with me to hell, how many bragging rights I could earn by refusing to go easy into t the dark night, etc. My heros suffered tragic deaths, but died forging legends of themselves (at least in our minds )

I'm with this guy.

Winning is great, but having fun in the process is more important. Whenever it becomes clear that I'm not going to win, I usually come up with an entirely new objective. Like seeing how many Firewarriors my Primus Psyker can take down in close combat, or taking my revenge on Straken, etc.



Personally I've enjoyed 6th Ed immensely, significantly more then 5th. The new scenarios, secondary objectives, Warlords, challenge rules and everything else makes for a much more narrative and engaging game.

In 5th ed most games felt 2 dimensional. I'm taking these objectives, because that's how you win.

In 6th, when you play a game like The Big Guns Never Tire, it felt like the game had more substance and meaning. Just the small snippets of fluff about both sides making a push into no mans land, and suddenly, the objectives weren't just counters on the field they were strategically important locations for gun emplacements.

I've also enjoyed the game because of the increase in randomness, at first it seems weird, but it means that every once in a while you come across an epic event that shouldn't have happened statistically speaking, or couldn't have happened at all in 5th.

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.


In another game against Tau, I had a Primus Psyker charge a squad of Firewarriors by himself. I needed to role a 10, to get into combat, but I had to risk it. The Tau had just wrecked all my chimera's and Vets were out in the open, just waiting to get gunned down. The Primus took a wound from overwatch. We were both visibly tense as I rolled for charge distance. It was almost like a scene from a movie as the first die landed revealing a 4, while the other kept spinning for just a fraction of a second more before revealing a 6, exactly what I needed to make it into combat. The Primus killed a few tau and locked. In 5th, a 10 inch charge isn't even possible, but in 6th, a Primus Psyker was able to charge heroically into a squad of xenos, taking heavy fire only to slam into the squad and distract them long enough for his men to make it out of danger.



Maybe I've just had good experiences so far, but I've been having so much fun with 6th, it makes me wonder why I bothered with 5th at all.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.

Where's fluff in that, Hive Tyrant is not that stupit and honorable would just kill all of them. If the challenge is drawing Tyrant attention through throwing rocks, again not that stupid. Could happen in 5th assuming the Tyrant would roll a lot of 1s just would be very rare as it should, not forced by some cinematic rule. Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

Throwing 3 squads for certain death just to stop a Tyrant for 3 turns is more what I connote with 40k

Sephyr wrote:

puree wrote:

As to the preds, I'm not familar with those codices, but in the general sense there are good logical reasons why one army may pay more than another for an identical item. Army balance is not determined by the cost of individual items, but what you can take overall. A unit that covers a major weakness in 1 force may well cost different to the identical unit in another army where it provides nothing obvious over anything else they can take.

Emm, no. Very much not. There is a reason why Space Wolves pick Long Fangs by the bucket and vanilla SMs avoid them like the plague: It's because they fulfill the same role, in the same slot, and one of them is both cheaper and better. Now, if you can explain to me what is the fundamental weakness of the SW codex that needs to be addressed by giving them a cheaper, better unit, we may get somewhere.

But "Umm, there must be a good, logical reason why some expensive models suck and some cheap models rule" is a statement that border on insanity if you don't offer that rationale in the following sentence.

Emm, yes, very much so.

I was not discussing any specific example (as I noted I don't know the codices mentioned), but the general point that just becuase an army can take a pred at X pts and another can take the identical pred at X - ??pts does not mean that the armies are not balanced which is what the other poster was saying. Based on the argument being made in the earlier post it is the army as a whole that should be reasonably balanced. The usefulness and hence value of a pred in army A may very well be a lot different to that in army B.

To best of my knowledge vanilla SM don't even get the choice of Long fangs, though (correct me if I'm wrong) unlike vanilla SM the wolves cannot have heavy weapons in their tactical squad equivalents. You may disagree with the specifc points values (again I can't comment on the specific point), but that is exactly what I'm talking about, because 1 army can have heavy weapons in a variety of squads and another cannot then the relative value of the heavy weapon in the heavy support squad is likely different within each army.

puree wrote:

I was not discussing any specific example (as I noted I don't know the codices mentioned), but the general point that just becuase an army can take a pred at X pts and another can take the identical pred at X - ??pts does not mean that the armies are not balanced which is what the other poster was saying. Based on the argument being made in the earlier post it is the army as a whole that should be reasonably balanced. The usefulness and hence value of a pred in army A may very well be a lot different to that in army B.

That's not really the way they did it though, it's basically "2000-2006" they cost X, 2007 they cost Y, 2008+ they cost Z. There's nothing about balance between these armies, merely design philosophy changes between different authors.

To best of my knowledge vanilla SM don't even get the choice of Long fangs, though (correct me if I'm wrong)

They have Devastators, they cost more even at min size, can't take as many heavy weapons, and cannot split fire unless 10 strong and cost twice as much as a kitted Long Fang unit with more guns.

unlike vanilla SM the wolves cannot have heavy weapons in their tactical squad equivalents.

A non-issue, nobody would take them even if they could on Grey Hunter squads, and most SM players would bend over backwards to take Grey Hunters instead of Tac's, hence the mass evacuation to the SW codex and the torrent of "counts-as" SW armies of the past few years.

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

But the bad/unlikely/improbably stuff is the reason I play 40k.

If I wanted realism, I wouldn't play a game with space demons, space wizards, and space orcs.

I play 40k, because I want to enjoy ridiculous over the top improbable heroism.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:
Anyway sounds like a bad hollywoodish story fluff - wise, good grimdark story imo would be Hive Tyrant viciously shredding them to pieces maybe them buying a little (1 turn) time with the sacrifice, not being at all important in the end.

But the bad/unlikely/improbably stuff is the reason I play 40k.

Fine that was only my opinion.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:If I wanted realism, I wouldn't play a game with space demons, space wizards, and space orcs.

It's not about realism but making sense fluff wise and fitting the mood. Like no rainbow unicorns and no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason. Throwing rocks at a Carnifex to challenge it could obviously work but that's on the other hand impossible rules wise. Challenge rule is neither good for narrative nor balance/ competitivness imo.

btw I had a few fights Calgar vs Hive Tyrant for example in 5th both ranged and cc not forced by the rule but came out from situation on the board. Rarer but so much better imo

Thatguyoverthere wrote:I play 40k, because I want to enjoy ridiculous over the top improbable heroism.

I like to see improbable heroism worth nothing and heroes chewed to gelatin, probably comes from my army choice though

LordOfTheSloths wrote:A substantial portion of the existing player base is dissatisfied with 6th ed and/or recent codices.

Citation needed.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:my position is that 40K 6th edition in general, and as to certain specific rules in particular, is a worse game IMO relative to previous versions.

What rules, and why?

Sephyr wrote:You are misreading my point, then. It may be hard to make an extraordinarily balanced game, but it's quite easy to at least correct the worst imbalances. Recosting units that never see use takes only some math and a FAQ update.

You're approaching this from the wrong end though. GW promotes tailored lists, and in that environment many units that never see use, are suddenly useful.

Plumbumbarum wrote:no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason.

Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:no Hive Tyrants taking challenges for whatever reason.

Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

Well, there is that whole fluff thing about Hive Tyrants giving about as many gaks as a honey badger.

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Honestly, I feel it will be sorted out in the eventual codex, where tyranids will have something similar to skaven where they can issue, but they can decline challenges without taking penalties.

As such, since GW has its current policy, we are forced to deal with weird things until GW gets around to writing a codex for a specific army.

Fafnir wrote:Well, there is that whole fluff thing about Hive Tyrants giving about as many gaks as a honey badger.

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Because it wants to take out the enemy leadership elements? Because the only person stepping up to fight it is the brave and noble character? Because the enemy character shot it in the face to get it's attention and it worked?

If Ripley can challenge an Alien Queen, and Dr Alan Grant can challenge a Tyrannosaurus Rex, I see nothing wrong with anyone challenging a hive tyrant.

If you're worried that having it cower in shame for refusing the challenge is unfluffy, then just use your imagination. Imagine the creature is stomping around in frustration while everyone else does their best to avoid/distract it.

Kaldor wrote:

Because it wants to take out the enemy leadership elements? Because the only person stepping up to fight it is the brave and noble character? Because the enemy character shot it in the face to get it's attention and it worked?

In which case it's likely got tons of minions that will also fight with it.

If Ripley can challenge an Alien Queen, and Dr Alan Grant can challenge a Tyrannosaurus Rex, I see nothing wrong with anyone challenging a hive tyrant.

Ripley only fought the Queen after she escaped with no drones (and thus, nothing else to join in the fight) and Ripley was very clearly the only thing around that wasn't either torn in half already, a small inanimate child fleeing/hiding in terror, or an inanimate object, and thus, was the only thing *to* fight. I don't recall Jurassic park since I haven't seen it since I was a wee lad in the early 90's sadly, but a T-Rex is a relatively dumb, largely solitary beast (akin to a Carnifex), not a cunning hive commander with psychic control of untold numbers of minions.

If you're worried that having it cower in shame for refusing the challenge is unfluffy, then just use your imagination. Imagine the creature is stomping around in frustration while everyone else does their best to avoid/distract it.

My issue is that a Hive Tyrant would fight something one on one without the aid of its minions. A challenge is a duel between two opponents without interference, I just cannot see a Hive Tyrant engaging in such a combat.

Vaktathi wrote:I just cannot see a Hive Tyrant engaging in such a combat.

But, it's minions are busy fighting the rest of the opponents squad?

Or in the case of a lone opponent, the enemy character manages to simply stay out of reach of the Hive Tyrants minions. The Tyrants minions will give it re-rolls, which you can rationalise as them attempting to attack the hero while he attempts to keep the Tyrant between himself and the rest of the minions.

It's a cinematic effect, like how in the movies goons run in to be beaten up by the hero one by one. I see no problem with it.

Kaldor wrote:
It's a cinematic effect, like how in the movies goons run in to be beaten up by the hero one by one. I see no problem with it.

Well, we'll have to disagree on this point, since I hate it when that happens in movies, and find it to not be 'cinematic' at all.

Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

I imagine that it would accept the challenge because Tyrants are smart. They understand fear and how to demoralize an enemy...and there's really little that can defeat them in combat so step up to the plate!

RxGhost wrote:I imagine that it would accept the challenge because Tyrants are smart. They understand fear and how to demoralize an enemy...and there's really little that can defeat them in combat so step up to the plate!

That can be accomplished by mobbing him to death and showing how irrelevant their pride and skill is. There's zero need for a Hive Tyrant, who may not understand such concepts, to go that route to accomiplish that goal, and if it thinks that it can't win it's not going to shrink back it's going to call all its friends to help it.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

It's not really putting fluff/lore over competition, it's emphasizing randomness and Michael-Bay-esque "kirpow-fwoosh-BOOM!" moments, "epic" moments if you will, often forced (and thus, get old very quickly), over anything fluffy, and just wait till you look at the vehicle rules, nothing says fluffy like tanks falling apart after 3 hits that scratch the paint on their armor.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

The thing is, aside from fighting Necrons, mechanized shooting armies, ie, the armies that were dominant in 5th, still will have all the tools required to be dominant in 6th. Combined with the complete shafting of assault armies, the top dogs of 5th edition really haven't lost too much. It may have been 'designed' to target the 5th edition metagame, but it certainly has done a terrible job of doing it.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Here's a nightmare scenario for you: The next Tyranid codex is written by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At which point we learn that Tyra-nehekhar-on-ids also have dynasties, also have a sense of honor, have been in secret alliance with the Legion of the Damned, used absorbed Flame Falcon DNA to produce pyrovores, and were actually created as berserker weapons by Star Gods from a galaxy far, far away from the Milky Way and drifted this way over millions of years after first shredding said Star Gods. Oh, and that the Queen of All Norn Queens once carved its initials on the Emperor's heart, which is the real reason he has been locked up in the Golden Throne.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Tell that to the Alien Queen that fought Ripley when she challenged her...

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

Alien Queen vs Ripley was personal but above all it was proper target priority, as Ripley with her mother instinct was very dangerous but If there was a squad with grenade launcher, they would be attacked first (going by logic, not hollywood logic). Besides I think Alien Queen was rather dumb compared to Hive Tyrant.


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LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Here's a nightmare scenario for you: The next Tyranid codex is written by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At which point we learn that Tyra-nehekhar-on-ids also have dynasties, also have a sense of honor, have been in secret alliance with the Legion of the Damned, used absorbed Flame Falcon DNA to produce pyrovores, and were actually created as berserker weapons by Star Gods from a galaxy far, far away from the Milky Way and drifted this way over millions of years after first shredding said Star Gods. Oh, and that the Queen of All Norn Queens once carved its initials on the Emperor's heart, which is the real reason he has been locked up in the Golden Throne.

I guess nothing similar will happen as indicated by Tyranids having no allies in the book but I still can be wrong...

CT GAMER wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Tell that to the Alien Queen that fought Ripley when she challenged her...

As I noted earlier, it's not like the Queen had any drones, or that there was anyone else around but a torn in half robot and a frightened little girl, only one thing posed any sort of threat from the queens point of view and she didn't have much of a choice or any backup, unlike a Hive Tyrant (who is much more aware and even more connected to its always present drones). Not really a comparable thing.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Nids should have a special rule for avoiding challenges. They can't accept them, but can instead have several lesser species swarm the guy. So for example of a horde of genestealers charges a squad of terminators with a special character. Rather than a conventional challenge they can "Swamp" the IC and treat several models as a single character for the purposes of a challenge, with all the IC's attacks going against the models dedicated to attack him, while the attacks of the models specifically sent against him are only made against him.

So,
20 Termagaunts
charge
10 Marines
5 Gaunts "swamp" the squad leader
all of the squad leader's attacks go against the gaunts that are swamping him, while all of the gaunts only make attacks against the squad leader.

Plumbumbarum wrote:Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Without trying to be rude, I really didn't understand your post. Can you reword it for me?

This thread is grossly off topic. If you want to discuss tyranids in challenges, do it somewhere else?

Please guys / girls, we need to get a grip. If 40k is soooooo bad and GW are soooooooo bad, go off and play warhamchine, hordes, inifnity, magic the gathering or another format of game. As you can see from sales, many people enjoy it. I've payed inhuman amounts of money on this hobby, enough to maybe buy a nice car and more. I know the rules are broken for completetive play, Mat Ward breaks armies, but I wouldn't care diffrently.
We play this game for the thrill to open a new box of minis, for the amazement of a new painted mini that we are so proud of, for the great game we play, for the thrill of winning a game, for desigining our list and thinking 'oh yes, I like it', for the look on an opponents face, for the paint on our hands after a hard day of painting our minis.
We began this hobby for diffrent reasons, but together, we're a community, we are a unit. Okay, GW rips us off, doesn't balance the game, and has tottaly bias lore, but do we care ?
If you started the hobby, your a part of the hobby, you are the hobby, without you, there is no hobby.
Stop complaining about rules, if needs be, homebrew rules, use an older rulebook, but really, without the community, a game is nothing.

...or write the Dakka Core rules

Dread Captain wrote:Please guys / girls, we need to get a grip. If 40k is soooooo bad and GW are soooooooo bad, go off and play warhamchine, hordes, inifnity, magic the gathering or another format of game. As you can see from sales, many people enjoy it. I've payed inhuman amounts of money on this hobby, enough to maybe buy a nice car and more. I know the rules are broken for completetive play, Mat Ward breaks armies, but I wouldn't care diffrently.
We play this game for the thrill to open a new box of minis, for the amazement of a new painted mini that we are so proud of, for the great game we play, for the thrill of winning a game, for desigining our list and thinking 'oh yes, I like it', for the look on an opponents face, for the paint on our hands after a hard day of painting our minis.
We began this hobby for diffrent reasons, but together, we're a community, we are a unit. Okay, GW rips us off, doesn't balance the game, and has tottaly bias lore, but do we care ?
If you started the hobby, your a part of the hobby, you are the hobby, without you, there is no hobby.
Stop complaining about rules, if needs be, homebrew rules, use an older rulebook, but really, without the community, a game is nothing.

You are making a basic mistake of taking your motivation and generalizing it to include the whole community. Which is odd, because you admit others are in it for different reasons, and then just blow off their reasons in favor of yours.

I have the spare time and resources to have two, -maybe- three armies at the 2000 points level. That means I can insulate myself a bit from GW's balancing issues: maybe one or two codices will be borked, but the other will be alright, right? Hey, I can even maybe go fullmetal WAAC and just collect 'safe' armies that lead in sales and get more forgiving treatment.

But that's not the case for many of my friends. And I am entitled to 1-) expect the hobby and GW to be better, since I'm paying for it, and 2-) worry that the present course is locking my friends out of the hobby, giving me less people to play with, less armies to fight against (as the remaining people flock to the top dog factions), and eventually harm my ability to keep playing.

That's what gets me when a certain type of poster goes "Stop whining, shut up or go play something else". I and many others are trying to stay in, give GW money and bring other hobbyists into the fold to make a larger, healthier hobby. Holy crap, how we're trying.

So I said a bunch of pages ago, use custom rules for tournaments... why is that a problem? This is not to say that some of the rulings in 6th aren't unclear, or that some of their design decisions may not have been great.

I'm fairly certain 'Ard Boyz has already always used custom scenarios that are more competitive, an addendum saying 'no allies' shouldn't be too difficult for them.

Also if you don't like how something works, house rule it.

Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

Or is "Runes of Warding for everyone!" as bad as it gets?

You can easily come up with fluff excuses for a Hive Tyrant to engage your own Warlord 1 on 1. It has even happened twice in fluff. Swarmlord vs Calgar and Kraken Hive Tyrant vs Yriel.

In 40k, enemy commanders are prone to fight one another to make it more cinematic.

Jidmah wrote:Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

No.
Ever since the community heard about allies and started complaining about broken game balance, I haven't seen a single broken list.

Jidmah wrote:Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

Or is "Runes of Warding for everyone!" as bad as it gets?

Define broken.

The Eldar/Dark Eldar Harliestar seems fairly obnoxious, between two 2+ save characters (Vect, Phoenix Lord), and Eldrad giving them re-rolls. The number of special rules the unit gets is pretty impressive, and it's super resilient. The phoenix lord can take the hits that might cause instant death, vect can take AP1/2 hits on his invul (and regen wounds he might take with his orbs), the whole thing gets re-rolls to hit everything, can Doom their target, and has both Runes of Warding AND Eldrad as a level 3 psyker for psychic defense.

Grots + Epidemius Daemons looks like it has some potential for abuse. Early lists are doing okay, and there's bound to be some refinement involved. Of course, it's as subject to the whims of chaos as all daemon armies, so that's always a limiting factor.

I'm not sure anything is quite as broken as the non-ally Necron flyer wing yet. This is almost certainly due to the fact that almost no codexes have any skyfire available to them, and so overloading someone's ability to cope with flyers is not all that hard, as Necrons can take a flyer as a dedicated transport. A flyer wing went undefeated over the weekend at the monthly Chicago tournament, piloted by a player who typically does not place in the top for battlepoints (just throwing out that it's not a win to be discounted due to established player skill). I'm sure that as more codexes come out, this list will be weakened, but that does little to help people playing now.

Yeah, but at least the Harlistar can be defeated by maneuvering around it and hitting it from an angle that doesn't hit the Shadow Field/Pheonix Lord first.

And its still Eldar/Dark Eldar. Not exactly scary in the rest of the list.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Without trying to be rude, I really didn't understand your post. Can you reword it for me?

Sure. The situation is

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.

You wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

So the squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire (which they can't as they're charging and challenges are part of cc - "to issue a challenge, nominate a character in one of your units locked in the combat to be a challenger" - but let's leave it like that)

Tyrant throws its cc dice, let's assume it makes enough wounds to kill a squad leader with entire squad or at least a few troops (as this is what would most likely happen). But, as rules wise it was challenged, it only kills a squad leader and is potentialy slowed down as it has to deal with a whole squad the next turn or loose another turn.

But as fluff wise it does not care about the challenge, it just ignores the squad leader effort to get its attention. If the squad leader steps up the plate, he dies on the way and his man die next in whatever trench they're sitting. If he steps up to the plate and tries evasion with throwing rocks, insults, eye games, distraction, impugning heritage or whatever comes to mind to suck up all the attacks from the Tyrant, it doesn't work and ends with the squad leader looking at his men flying intestines and being chewed in the middle or in the end. Hive Tyrant is a smart efficient killer and main tactician of his army and not John Wayne or a wild hog, the plan to slow it down might be obvious to it and it has no reason to get sucked into duel and loose time, no circle fight of any kind should happen. Hive Tyrant should be able to ignore chalenges, the rule doesn't fit the fluff.

So whatever efforts made to chain Hive Tyrant into a duel it does not want to attend should fail and after refusing the challenge all should end with either normal combat or look out sir!, the former being the challenger is in the range of sharp something and dies and the latter being the challenger tries some cheap tricks and is ignored so just avoiding the combat and his men die first.

Harriticus wrote:You can easily come up with fluff excuses for a Hive Tyrant to engage your own Warlord 1 on 1. It has even happened twice in fluff. Swarmlord vs Calgar and Kraken Hive Tyrant vs Yriel.

In 40k, enemy commanders are prone to fight one another to make it more cinematic.

The Swarmlord might want to get Calgar but should be able to ignore a sergant trying puny tricks to stop it on the way.

The Eldar/Dark Eldar Harliestar seems fairly obnoxious, between two 2+ save characters (Vect, Phoenix Lord), and Eldrad giving them re-rolls. The number of special rules the unit gets is pretty impressive, and it's super resilient. The phoenix lord can take the hits that might cause instant death, vect can take AP1/2 hits on his invul (and regen wounds he might take with his orbs), the whole thing gets re-rolls to hit everything, can Doom their target, and has both Runes of Warding AND Eldrad as a level 3 psyker for psychic defense.

Which can be stopped by snipers, deepstriking, outflanking, or just overall good positioning, not to mention costs an obscene amount of points.

Redbeard wrote:So now you're arguing that we cannot judge the success of an endeavor by whether it meets, or fails to meet, the goals set forth by its creator.

One of the points I've been making this entire time is that we can't objectively judge it.

Plumbumbarum wrote:How many games are deicided by unlucky roll? 1 of 100? 1 of 1000?

All of them.

Vaktathi wrote:The core rules were designed one way with one design mentality... and then immediately the first codex book written by a different author (primarily Ward) went another, very different way, and continued to do so with his other books, with two other authors writing prominent books that didn't fit either of these design philosophies.

Yeah, I think this would be my real gripe here. It's not the imbalance that bothers me per se, so much as the incongruity. I don't hate playing against BA because they're overpowered, I hate playing against them because I feel like I'm playing against someone who is playing a different game than I'm playing. The first time I played against our current BA rules, I really thought the other person was lying to me the entire game every time he said "yes, but blood angels can do that". Turned out he was right...

Sephyr wrote:That's what gets me when a certain type of poster goes "Stop whining, shut up or go play something else". I and many others are trying to stay in, give GW money and bring other hobbyists into the fold to make a larger, healthier hobby. Holy crap, how we're trying.

Ug, whiners with a martyr complex are the worst kind of whiners.

GW only pays attention to people's actions, not hot air being blown around on the internet. If GW makes changes, and you give GW money, you are giving assent to the changes. It doesn't matter your opinions.

Vaktathi wrote:It's not really putting fluff/lore over competition, it's emphasizing randomness and Michael-Bay-esque "kirpow-fwoosh-BOOM!" moments, "epic" moments if you will

lol. This is really the core of it. GW has made the statement that it wants the rules to be written by micael bay, and for players to play as such.

Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, I think this would be my real gripe here. It's not the imbalance that bothers me per se, so much as the incongruity. I don't hate playing against BA because they're overpowered, I hate playing against them because I feel like I'm playing against someone who is playing a different game than I'm playing. The first time I played against our current BA rules, I really thought the other person was lying to me the entire game every time he said "yes, but blood angels can do that". Turned out he was right...

Yeah, that feeling has really been very awkward in the last few years and ultimately the idea that "hey...that's not supposed to be possible" may be more of an issue than the actual imbalances, it's people feeling like they're being run-around, and such rules/abilities have gotten more and more prevalent.

We've had some very radical shifts in design philosophy in the last few years, just the period from 2006 through 2008 you can see at least 3, I'd argue 4 major shifts in the way they design the rules and books, and we're still trying to cycle out of that.

Plumbumbarum wrote:it has no reason to get sucked into duel and loose time, no circle fight of any kind should happen. Hive Tyrant should be able to ignore chalenges, the rule doesn't fit the fluff.

No.

The Hive Tyrant attempts to ignore the squad leader but every step he takes, the squad leader leaps in front of him, blasting him with his lasgun or bolter. The Tyrant attempts to engage the rest of the sqaud, but they are falling back and adding their covering fire to the combat. Eventually the Tyrant realises that he will have to devote some time and effort to destroying the squad leader.

You might say that the Tyrant is capable of destroying the squad leader, and also engaging the rest of the squad.

But this is not fact, it is your own projection of how you want the combat to go. If the squad in question is not attempting to engage the Tyrant as a cohesive whole, the tyrant will have a problem.

With GW's overuse of the word, and with the fact that people just seem to eat it up, I've really come to hate the word 'cinematic.' It's as if people use it as an excuse for anything now.

... anything, such as?

As Ailaros stated "Yeah, I think this would be my real gripe here. It's not the imbalance that bothers me per se, so much as the incongruity. I don't hate playing against BA because they're overpowered, I hate playing against them because I feel like I'm playing against someone who is playing a different game than I'm playing. The first time I played against our current BA rules, I really thought the other person was lying to me the entire game every time he said "yes, but blood angels can do that". Turned out he was right..."

I had the same feeling when I played my nids against GK the first few times last edition. Some things just seemed absurd. It felt exactly like we were playing different games. It does have something to do with different author's design philosophy when writing dexes but imbalance is still a part of that. I don't expect the game to be perfectly balanced. With a continuously evolving game like 40k with a few new dexes coming out each year I think it is difficult to balance everything even close to perfect. However, it is not hard to somewhat balance a dex internally and externally, and a company that cares about its product would use the errata/FAQ updates to correct poorly worded/bad rules, bad stat lines, bad weapon stats and adjust point costs if necessary. Certainly after 3-6 months it is pretty clear (if not sooner) what just doesn't work or was screwed up. GW has corrected the odd thing in the past through errata. They are just not consistent across the board. It is just a minimal effort to balance the game and saying it is a 'narrative' game and not meant for 'competitive play' so it doesn't matter is a cop out.

That's always part of the confusion around this issue as well. "Fixing errors" implies that everybody agrees on what is an error. If you think that something is designed wrong, and GW isn't changing things to be what you want them to be, that doesn't mean that GW is being careless or lazy. Your vision of game design probably doesn't match GW's, but it's GW's game, so they don't have to make it in your image. Them deciding to ignore you on principle isn't the same thing as being unable or unwilling to change their rules.

Certainly there are some real errors and questions that pop up (for example, a basilisk has a 36" minimum range when firing barrage, except barrage weapons no longer care about minimum range? That should have at least been FAQed), and it would be nice if things were a little more fluid than a bi-yearly FAQ (although I don't know if I'd want it to be that much more fluid). To say that GW is horribly unbalanced and that they need to redesign things exactly the way you want them to be designed right now and they're terrible people if they don't what's wrong with them...

.. well, nobody is obliged to act on people throwing a tantrum.

Ailaros - nobody is throwing a tantrum (except maybe you). It is called a discussion. And though I agree that we will all not agree on everything we may think needs adjustment (or not) there is a big difference with design philosophy issues and rules that don't work properly or units that are poorly designed resulting in little of them seen in games. The day the nid dex came out the trygon tunnel and pheromone trail were clearly not going to be useful (although it is something you pay for in the point cost), and I doubt GW sold a lot of pyrovores because of its rules and FOC location.

I never said GW had to accept my opinion or that only I had the right idea of how nids or 40K rules should be written. I was giving my opinion of how I viewed issues. You complain that you don't like the fact that the dexes are written by different people so that they do not always mesh well. I could say the same thing about your comments - why should GW care whether you feel like you and your opponent are playing different games? Its their game and they can design it any way they want. The same person could write all the dexes and you still might feel that your playing a different game than your opponent.

The point is that as customers of their product we can discuss what we like and dislike about it and why, as well as comment on what we think might improve it. We are not shills for the company and don't have to salivate over everything GW does.

Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

adamsouza wrote:When I hear people complaining over 6th edition in tournament setting it mostly boils down to not being able to use the same combinations they were used to.

In CCG's the meta shifts every 6 months, when a new set is released In 40K the meta shifts every Edition, and to a lesser extent whenever a new ocdex is released.

I think the complaining is just a Knee Jerk reaction to "change".

Whatever strategy is dominant is usually blunted in the next edition. When I played the RAW DEAL CCG the best new strategy in each expansion had cards that would deliberately foil it in the next expansion.

When the Meta changes players are forced to come up with new strategies. Players learn to adapt and not just play the same ube combination over and over.

Truthssss

Lets not forget that 40k requires a far large time and effort investment than a CCG (though not necessarily money over the long run...), and you aren't able to play as many games (play a magic game in 10-30 minutes, or play a 40k game in 90-180 minutes).


Sure there's knee-jerk reaction to change, then there are legitimate issues and much of what was broken in 5th remains so in 6th.

Chalking it all up to butthurt tournament players is ridiculous and just betrays angsty "that'll show you!" attitudes, and many of the biggest tournament players couldn't care less, as 6th creates all sorts of new and wondrous ways to break the game.

Vaktathi wrote:
Chalking it all up to butthurt tournament players is ridiculous and just betrays angsty "that'll show you!" attitudes, and many of the biggest tournament players couldn't care less, as 6th creates all sorts of new and wondrous ways to break the game.

All things considered, there's even more potential to break the game.

I was carfeful to use "I" and "mostly" and didn't chalk it all up to anyone.

My personal observation, from what I've read and heard, was that most of the 6E complaints, that observed, boiled down to that players could no longer use their favorite power combination/strategy from 5E.

Short of Snikrot (FOR SHAME!), my favourite units look to only have become more viable, or have retained their level of usefulness. Doesn't change the fact that 6th edition has a lot of problems, is not necessarily an improvement over 5th edition, and is not a direction I would like to see the game move in.

Ventus wrote:Ailaros - nobody is throwing a tantrum (except maybe you). It is called a discussion. And though I agree that we will all not agree on everything we may think needs adjustment (or not) there is a big difference with design philosophy issues and rules that don't work properly or units that are poorly designed resulting in little of them seen in games. The day the nid dex came out the trygon tunnel and pheromone trail were clearly not going to be useful (although it is something you pay for in the point cost), and I doubt GW sold a lot of pyrovores because of its rules and FOC location.

I never said GW had to accept my opinion or that only I had the right idea of how nids or 40K rules should be written. I was giving my opinion of how I viewed issues. You complain that you don't like the fact that the dexes are written by different people so that they do not always mesh well. I could say the same thing about your comments - why should GW care whether you feel like you and your opponent are playing different games? Its their game and they can design it any way they want. The same person could write all the dexes and you still might feel that your playing a different game than your opponent.

The point is that as customers of their product we can discuss what we like and dislike about it and why, as well as comment on what we think might improve it. We are not shills for the company and don't have to salivate over everything GW does.

Spot on.

The smug, superior attitude of certain GW devotees really gets tiresome. Fortunately, those who don't ask "How high?" when GW says "Jump!" can express our opinions regardless of whether or not said GW devotees approve of what we say. As for those who genuinely agree with or like new games every four years, good on you. Just don't expect that view to be universal. And don't think you're somehow superior to those who don't agree.

Fafnir wrote:Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

Examples please?

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

Examples please?

Terribly random Vehicle damage, your tank can either blow up from the first shot or stay alive indefinitely. Deep strike mishap table where 1/3 chance that your unit dies, just like that. Reserve table where it is pretty likely that your reserve unit never arrives when you need it.

No, wait...sorry...those were 5th edition random stuff.

Never mind!

Ailaros wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:How many games are deicided by unlucky roll? 1 of 100? 1 of 1000?

All of them.

??? Even the article states that it's only decided by luck if the players are closely skilled. I would say that's also not true, even in flawed 40K. You're dismissing the fact that mostly the actions will have predictable outcome so you can plan, move and react to the actions on the board accordingly. That's controlable actions that are most important not dice throws and between closely skilled players no game is identical, there are tons of possible errors, worse and better plans etc. There might be a rare game so close that it is dice that decides it but most of the time it's how you play not how you throw. New random tables and more random moves might at some point break it ofc and make it a total luckfest indeed, that's why 6th takes imo a wrong direction.

Ailaros wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:It's not really putting fluff/lore over competition, it's emphasizing randomness and Michael-Bay-esque "kirpow-fwoosh-BOOM!" moments, "epic" moments if you will

lol. This is really the core of it. GW has made the statement that it wants the rules to be written by micael bay, and for players to play as such.

You have not dissmissed the notion that there is a move to cheap cinematics in 6th with your answer.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:it has no reason to get sucked into duel and loose time, no circle fight of any kind should happen. Hive Tyrant should be able to ignore chalenges, the rule doesn't fit the fluff.

No.

The Hive Tyrant attempts to ignore the squad leader but every step he takes, the squad leader leaps in front of him, blasting him with his lasgun or bolter. The Tyrant attempts to engage the rest of the sqaud, but they are falling back and adding their covering fire to the combat. Eventually the Tyrant realises that he will have to devote some time and effort to destroying the squad leader.

You might say that the Tyrant is capable of destroying the squad leader, and also engaging the rest of the squad.

But this is not fact, it is your own projection of how you want the combat to go. If the squad in question is not attempting to engage the Tyrant as a cohesive whole, the tyrant will have a problem.

The former is your projection, the latter is mine. Your is against the rules though as the squad that contains a challenger has to be locked in combat to issue a challenge, they can't be failing back and adding covering fire to the combat. Sitting ducks could be acceptable but this interpretation is taken too far, they made the move into cc (charge) but are failing back the same time? Also the squad leader can't leap in front of the Tyrant after recievieng enough wounds to be killed. So either he dies or leaps around while the rest of the squad locked in cc is dying. Keep in mind I'm open to ideas of how the squad leader sucks Hive Tyrant into a duel it does not want to attend, just don't see a valid one.



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adamsouza wrote:I was carfeful to use "I" and "mostly" and didn't chalk it all up to anyone.

My personal observation, from what I've read and heard, was that most of the 6E complaints, that observed, boiled down to that players could no longer use their favorite power combination/strategy from 5E.

My ouflanking genestealers heavy list got nerfed as hell and I don't mind, I like that particular change. I want my enemy to have more possibilities than turtling in the middle and with more terrain on the board that particular change might benefit tactical play. I'm still going to complain on 6th because it's almost clear to me it's flawed, not by much improved and not good enough. It's like finecast vs metal, better here, much worse there, flawed a lot.

Backfire wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

Examples please?

Terribly random Vehicle damage, your tank can either blow up from the first shot or stay alive indefinitely. Deep strike mishap table where 1/3 chance that your unit dies, just like that. Reserve table where it is pretty likely that your reserve unit never arrives when you need it.

No, wait...sorry...those were 5th edition random stuff.

Never mind!

5th was not much better, if so and 6th has elements you mentioned improved, I don't see anyone denying that. 6th with all the codieces out might even end up better, more tactical, funnier and even by some miracle or accident more balanced with all the craziness counted properly into the system. Hope is the fool's mother they say though and count me the odds of that.

Plumbumbarum wrote: The former is your projection, the latter is main.

No, both scenarios are a projection. An imagination of how the models on the tabletop would be acting in a video recreation of the events created by the game.

Your is against the rules though as the squad that contains a challenger has to be locked in combat to issue a challenge, they can't be failing back and adding covering fire to the combat, sitting ducks could be acceptable but this interpretation is taken too far, they made the move into cc (charge) but are failing back the same time?

They aren't falling back as per the rules, but stepping back. Close Combat in 40K is anything from a hands-around-your neck affair with combatants rolling in the mud, to a short ranged fire-fight where no one actually lays hands on the enemy. It is often described as a moving, sprawling melee, and allows plenty of room for a squad of men to scramble away from a Hive Tyrant while their squad leader stands in front of them.

Also the squad leader can't leap in front of the Tyrant after recievieng enough wounds to be killed. So either he dies or leaps around while the rest of the squad locked in cc is dying.

Bear in mind that the round of combat is quite quick. By the time the Tyrant has finished off the squad leader and closed in on the rest of the squad, we're into the second round already.

Ailaros wrote:.. well, nobody is obliged to act on people throwing a tantrum.

Nobody's throwing a tantrum, so why don't you try addressing the points made, rather than smugly taking refuge behind the mantra of 'cinematic', 'beer and pretzels' and 'hurr durr there's a random element so player skill is entirely irrelevant' (an argument I've already demolished in another thread). Comparisons with Chess, Go, etc. are irrelevant and misleading; they are abstract strategy games, not tactical simulation games, which is how Warhammer 40,000 has always (at least to this point) defined itself (see below). Oh, and you could refrain from patronisingly dismissing any and all discussion of the game that isn't unfettered praise as 'whining', and anybody who wants a tactical challenge (which requires the game to be as fairly balanced as is reasonable possible) as a WAAC jerk too.

"When arranging a battle, players agree on a particular points limit for each side... within this total, the battle will be a fair match, decided by good tactics and a little bit of luck." Warhammer 40,000 5th edition, page ix.

...and indeed...

"...battles are entertaining challenges in which you try to out-think and out-play your opponent, taking advantage of what good luck comes your way, but ultimately relying upon sound tactics to win the day." Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, page 4.

To reiterate: GW have indeed said they want a more cinematic game, they seem to have decided to realise this by inserting more elements of randomness (single random card draws for psychic powers and single die rolls for warlord traits, charging and exploding terrain) the odds of which can't be managed or predicted, only reacted to, unlike, say those of hitting and wounding a given target with a given (and large) number of attacks and known statistics. You should be unsurprised that those of us who appreciated the element of tactical decision-making in the game are disappointed, and that we're going to point out what we see as flaws (on which, it bears pointing out, there seems to be quite a consensus).

Oh, and we're not asking for 'perfect' game balance, just for designers capable of realising that if a tactical marine costs 16 points, a storm trooper with poorer stats and equipments should not cost the same number, or that when a devastator marine with a lascannon costs 51 points, a long fang with the same weapon and a nifty special rule should not cost 40 (which, by the way, rather gives the lie to your insistence that empirical judgements about balance are impossible to make). Do you really think that fixing errors like those would have taken an unfeasible quantity of the studio's time? Do you really think it would have been impossible for the game's writers to come up with a less time-consuming and dice-heavy mechanic than 'Look out Sir!' or a less-abusable but still-cinematic mechanic for challenges?

Backfire wrote:Terribly random Vehicle damage, your tank can either blow up from the first shot or stay alive indefinitely.

We've now reached the eighth different iteration of 40k's vehicle rules; it seems GW just have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to writing them.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote: The former is your projection, the latter is main.

No, both scenarios are a projection. An imagination of how the models on the tabletop would be acting in a video recreation of the events created by the game.

That's what I said "Main" should have been "mine", see it now. I have to type fast I'm at work, sorry for bad grammar.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:Your is against the rules though as the squad that contains a challenger has to be locked in combat to issue a challenge, they can't be failing back and adding covering fire to the combat, sitting ducks could be acceptable but this interpretation is taken too far, they made the move into cc (charge) but are failing back the same time?

They aren't falling back as per the rules, but stepping back. Close Combat in 40K is anything from a hands-around-your neck affair with combatants rolling in the mud, to a short ranged fire-fight where no one actually lays hands on the enemy. It is often described as a moving, sprawling melee, and allows plenty of room for a squad of men to scramble away from a Hive Tyrant while their squad leader stands in front of them.

Normal close combat does not alow scrambling away from attacks, the challenge rule does somehow but assuming the challenge is accepted. I see it that if Hive Tyrant gave enough wounds and is ignoring the challenge, it kills in a standard manner. The image you portray is more of an easily distracted raged bull than a swift intelligent killing machine. Anyway let's agrre to disagree, you can interpret it like you do but it's stretched imo.





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English Assassin wrote:

"When arranging a battle, players agree on a particular points limit for each side... within this total, the battle will be a fair match, decided by good tactics and a little bit of luck." Warhammer 40,000 5th edition, page ix.

...and indeed...

"...battles are entertaining challenges in which you try to out-think and out-play your opponent, taking advantage of what good luck comes your way, but ultimately relying upon sound tactics to win the day." Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, page 4.

Thank you, will quote that probably to the point of trolling from now on. Missed that somehow in the books probably because I rarely read such explanations, doesn't change the fact that it all seemed obvious from the start.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Spot on.

The smug, superior attitude of certain GW devotees really gets tiresome. Fortunately, those who don't ask "How high?" when GW says "Jump!" can express our opinions regardless of whether or not said GW devotees approve of what we say. As for those who genuinely agree with or like new games every four years, good on you. Just don't expect that view to be universal. And don't think you're somehow superior to those who don't agree.

I actually was starting to write up another response, but at this point I no longer think Ailaros in particular is arguing in good faith. I mean, he actually deployed the whole "Well, it's a random dice game, it's pointless to even try to balance it!" gambit. The fact that none of the arguments I presented got a fair response also doesn't help.

Back on topic, though, I do wish that the Chaos Daemons WD update coming in august meant a step in a more dynamic, frequently-revised-and-updated direction aimed at leveling the field a bit more. I'd have nothing but praise for GW if that was the case. But so far it seems they are only doing it because they re-did the model line and want the models to sell (and they won't, if they are utter gak on the tabletop).

Plumbumbarum wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

"When arranging a battle, players agree on a particular points limit for each side... within this total, the battle will be a fair match, decided by good tactics and a little bit of luck." Warhammer 40,000 5th edition, page ix.

...and indeed...

"...battles are entertaining challenges in which you try to out-think and out-play your opponent, taking advantage of what good luck comes your way, but ultimately relying upon sound tactics to win the day." Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition, page 4.

Thank you, will quote that probably to the point of trolling from now on. Missed that somehow in the books probably because I rarely read such explanations, doesn't change the fact that it all seemed obvious from the start.

Glad to be of service! Likewise, I don't believe I had ever read either introduction before, since 40k's nature is so profoundly obvious.

To return for a moment to the disingenuous apples and oranges comparisons with Go, Chess, et al, here are my paraphrases of Board Game Geek's very dry and rambling definitions of strategy games and wargames:

Strategy games generally:
* Are non-thematic;
* Use simple and straightforward mechanics;
* Presume perfect information;
* And contain little to no randomness.

Wargames generally:
* Depict military actions;
* Are strongly thematic and simulationist;
* Are commonly more detailed and complex in rules and game pieces;
* Employ controlled random elements in the form of unit statistics;
* And are won by achieving one of a number of specific victory conditions.

Now which one of those two sounds more like Warhammer 40,000..?

It occurred to me that it was worth further illustrating my refutation of the assertion that randomness is antithetical to meaningful competitive play which I began in another thread. Over on Board Game Geek - a community in which there is a conscious and admitted bias towards abstract games with little or no randomisation (in other words, Eurogames, e.g. Caylus and Brass, to pick two favourites) - what's the number one game? Why it's Twilight Struggle, a strongly thematic card-driven wargame (not, I should clarify a miniatures wargame, but nonetheless a two-player game in which the theme is military and the gameplay highly competitive) about the Cold War. And why, because despite the game being driven by the apparently random mechanic of card draws from a deck, the rules offer the both of the players opportunities to manage, reactively and proactively, the fruits of chance, on both the 'strategic' (by which I mean in this instance the long-term and/or macro-scale) and 'tactical' (the short-term and/or micro-scale) levels.

Despite the BGG community's relative bias away from wargames towards the shuffling of wooden cubes from one place to another while vaguely pretending to model renaissance economics or classical agriculture, there are a good few wargames in their top 100, and - surprise, surprise - every one of them employs some measure of randomisation, and offers the players the in-game tools to manage it.

(It is particularly worthy of note that only two GW games rank in that top 100, Space Hulk and Blood Bowl; it is, I would suggest, no coincidence that they are GW's most mechanically elegant and (at least out of the box, ignoring their dodgy supplements) balanced - though not symmetrical - games.)

I find it's also worth picking on the assertion that Warhammer 40,000 is suddenly a 'beer and pretzels' game - a term which it's worth pointing out I had never heard used in relation to 40k until apologists (who curiously - or not - seem to be the same people who apologise for Finecrap and price rises) began using it to excuse 6th edition. Now, whilst I'm aware that there's no 'official' definition of that term, I believe it would be fair to venture the following (again pillaged from BGG) as the broadly-agreed qualities sought in such a game.

Beer and Pretzels games generally are:
* Accessible by gamers and non-gamers alike;
* Short (definitely under an hour, though typically much shorter);
* Limited rules (typically one page that can be distilled into a 5-minute-or-less explanation);
* Humorous (intentionally or not);
* Highly random;
* And social (usually in the form of reprisals).

How many of those categories do you think Warhammer 40,000 meets? Not one bar the presence of a random element. Munchkin, Fluxx and Kill Doctor Lucky are all archetypal examples of beer and pretzels games, Warhammer 40,000, with its 400 page rulebook, 4-hour playing-time and £200+ minimum investment is not.

Everyone has the same , moans, and complaints with every new edition. I find it funny with so many people denouncing GW and the direction the game goes every time... yet you will still play and buy the models but still wine about it. Its like saying a steak tastes like gak but eating it anyway and demanding a refund. Lets be honest the game is what you make of it and if your not getting what you want out of it then... wait for it.... crazy thought here.... STOP PLAYING!

I am a beer and pretzels/ laid back player, meaning I love the modeling, painting, and gaming side of the game but could care less if I win games or not. Its just a nice pass time that lets me be creative and keeps me out of trouble. If you are different... and not getting what you want then play a different game or change your attitude. It will probably be a lot more constructive use of your time then hoping GW will meet YOUR standard. lol

I personally like 6th so far much better than 5th rules wise. Its has its flaws and its quirks, and yes GW is still a greedy money hungry buisness (and not a very smart one at that ) but really if a new edition ruins the game for you then maybe you are playing for the wrong reasons. IMO

peace

Laughing God wrote:Everyone has the same , moans, and complaints with every new edition. I find it funny with so many people denouncing GW and the direction the game goes every time... yet you will still play and buy the models but still wine about it. Its like saying a steak tastes like gak but eating it anyway and demanding a refund. Lets be honest the game is what you make of it and if your not getting what you want out of it then... wait for it.... crazy thought here.... STOP PLAYING!

personally, I largely have, I got in a good number of games the last few weeks and just no longer find it fun, I haven't bought much from GW in the last year and have started 3 other game systems instead (Infinity, Heavy Gear and Firestorm Armada). That said, I have a ton of GW stuff, I have 2 IG armies, enough CSM stuff to run 2 armies if I felt like it, I have Eldar, Tau and enough Tyranids, GK's and Sisters of Battle to play decent sized games with.

I would like a reason to spend more on GW stuff however as I like the models and like the universe and I like the other 40k players in my area. GW however seems to just keep finding and going after exactly what would dissuade me from doing so between a ruleset more suited to a Michael Bay script than a tabletop wargame, and price increases that mean I can get into 3 other game systems full bore for the cost of a new 40k army.

I am a beer and pretzels/ laid back player, meaning I love the modeling, painting, and gaming side of the game but could care less if I win games or not. Its just a nice pass time that lets me be creative and keeps me out of trouble. If you are different... and not getting what you want then play a different game or change your attitude. It will probably be a lot more constructive use of your time then hoping GW will meet YOUR standard. lol

I personally like 6th so far much better than 5th rules wise. Its has its flaws and its quirks, and yes GW is still a greedy money hungry buisness (and not a very smart one at that ) but really if a new edition ruins the game for you then maybe you are playing for the wrong reasons. IMO

peace

I'll repost my earlier sentiments here: I'm not a hugely competitive player, I rarely attend tournaments anymore, I'm much happier playing a pre-designed fluff scenario or the like, and don't care too much about winning or losing, but I want to feel like it's all starting off from an even footing, that the models I'm playing with are capable of fulfilling their role (and nothing kills a narrative like a unit being bad at what it is supposed to do), that my heavy battle tanks and IFV's are going to just fall apart after their paint job gets scratched a few times (or that there's at least a hope of survival in an assault...) and that the game isn't going to be about what side has the most gimmicks and rules bending abilities, and 6th does not do that by design, and many seem to be cheering this.

Laughing God wrote:Everyone has the same , moans, and complaints with every new edition. I find it funny with so many people denouncing GW and the direction the game goes every time... yet you will still play and buy the models but still wine about it. Its like saying a steak tastes like gak but eating it anyway and demanding a refund. Lets be honest the game is what you make of it and if your not getting what you want out of it then... wait for it.... crazy thought here.... STOP PLAYING!

I am a beer and pretzels/ laid back player, meaning I love the modeling, painting, and gaming side of the game but could care less if I win games or not. Its just a nice pass time that lets me be creative and keeps me out of trouble. If you are different... and not getting what you want then play a different game or change your attitude. It will probably be a lot more constructive use of your time then hoping GW will meet YOUR standard. lol

I personally like 6th so far much better than 5th rules wise. Its has its flaws and its quirks, and yes GW is still a greedy money hungry buisness (and not a very smart one at that ) but really if a new edition ruins the game for you then maybe you are playing for the wrong reasons. IMO

Ah, the "you're having the wrong sort of fun" and the "love the game uncritically or GTFO" arguments. What joy.

Now, if you'd had the courtesy to read the thread before posting, you'd have seen both of them rebutted already.

Since you evidently didn't, however, here we go again. Firstly, you seem to be labouring under a misapprehension, you say you "could (sic) care less if you win games or not"; so, do you move your models randomly? No? Because if you are trying to win the game, you are being competitive. That's what the word means. Enjoyment of the game for a competitive player isn't contingent on winning, it's contingent on endeavouring to win in an evenly-matched contest. Moreover, you're more into painting, well, good on you! I'm interested in the game's meaningful tactical challenge; it doesn't disappoint me to lose because I'm outsmarted by my opponent, it does to lose (and likewise would give me no pleasure to win) because one of us drew a lucky card or made a single lucky roll at the beginning of the game.

That you're not interested in the game's tactical aspects doesn't bother me; how nice it would be if you could show other players the same consideration. I consider painting dozens of Space Marines the same colour a tedious chore, but I don't resent you for not thinking so. Or is your enjoyment of the game so fragile that the notion that others might enjoy it differently threatens you?

Secondly, this is a thread about competitive play, if you are not interested in that, why did you feel the need to post at all? A number of those of us who enjoy the game's competitive elements feel disappointed by 6th edition's jemmying-in of added randomness; are we forbidden from sharing our opinions? You, after all, could go and create a thread about how much you love the new edition, and how you don't care about competition, rather than chiming-in so unnecessarily in this one.

Laughing God wrote:Everyone has the same , moans, and complaints with every new edition. I find it funny with so many people denouncing GW and the direction the game goes every time... yet you will still play and buy the models but still wine about it.

Reasons to stay

- I already have an army
- the fluff is great despite Matt Ward constantly trying to change this fact
- I'm used to it, know the units codieces etc , new wargame is a ton of new abstract knowledge about fluff and units
- the game has it's sparks of brilliance, just it should be much better and actualy improving insted of better here, worse there
- 6th does not break it to unplayable level, just takes imo wrong direction

All that doesn't mean I have to agree with any crap the over-relaxed company drops at me. I have a right to give feedback after all I've spent and GW should be happy to take it, feedback is a positive thing for any company that wants to better itself. I work in quality managment and constructive critique is what I strongly need to improve the product. You find it funny, I find it strange you find it funny.

Besides, I have my way to react. I haven't buy a single finecast model yet and am not going to, it's either converting plastics or buing used metals. Also I had that attitude like "I should buy less but new models from GW to support them" but after reading 6th I've just spent my 70$ equivalent meant for models on used stuff. Not to mention I'm still not sure whether I'm going to play 6th or stay with 5th. I'm also going to stop supporting GW, choose the best set of codieces and write my own rules if the game goes further towards "cinematic fun" with next edition or codieces, just don't have enough time now

I still have faith in them after seeing how the more we went by the 5th edition book, the more balanced matches seemed to become. There was some balance and potential for a great game, that's why it's even worse to see design choices for 6th.

Laughing God wrote:I am a beer and pretzels/ laid back player, meaning I love the modeling, painting, and gaming side of the game but could care less if I win games or not. Its just a nice pass time that lets me be creative and keeps me out of trouble. If you are different... and not getting what you want then play a different game or change your attitude. It will probably be a lot more constructive use of your time then hoping GW will meet YOUR standard. lol

You don't get it imo, it's the matter of quality of the game not being laid back or WAAC or in the middle. We often play games beyond turn 7 to see what happens, space marines player drops potential win to take revenge for his hq and so on. If I win too often with someone, I start to feel bad - I don't handicap myself purposefuly to loose then because that's disrespectful and I wouldn't like someone to do that but it hinders my enjoyment somehow. Same time I want 40k to be more tactical, better balanced, suited for competitiveness game because I like to think/ plan/ strategise, because I want my wins and loses to have meaning and because I want top quality game for a top price.

"My fun is not your fun." I totally get, Lead-dude. I guess the lapse in my understanding is, from my point of view: think/plan/strategize elements can only come from me.

I am the one who makes those decisions regardless of the rules.

Here, let me put it in a way that I can express better.
I like Street Fighter 4. Honda is my favorite character. Honda is not a popular character or a particularly well regarded one. I don't care, I'm going to play the character I like, within the system that may or may not be totally balanced. I have a 75%+ win average with Honda, and am in the top 500 players in the world with him according to my ranked match statistics.

I also like Dee-Jay and Amon. I don't often win with either of them (I think I'm below 40% average there), but you'd better believe I'm trying. Whether or not they're good characters is irrelevant, because I enjoy playing even if I know I will probably lose...there's something in a victory of that uphill fight that just isn't the same in other places.

I also like good competition, I don't like beating up on scrubs or noobs because those matches don't make me better. They don't force me to find alternate methods of attacking and maneuvering; easy wins are often empty ones.

Sometimes the opponent has a better character, sometimes the opponent is a better player, sometimes the biggest opponent is me. The way I think and do things and my inability to change tactics or refocus when I need to can kill that game faster than a BS Seth wall combo. But that's okay, because that's what playing the game is.

No system is ever going to be perfect, or 100% balanced or whatever, but you can make it what you want.

If you want competition, truly want competition then you can't worry about a win or a loss. They won't ever HAVE meaning because they're meaningless. The only metric in competition that can matter is your own progress and how you grow and learn and face that next competitor...protip, it will probably be Ryu, everyone uses him.

tl;dr The magic was inside you all along.

That is a flawed example, RxGhost. SSF4 is far more balanced than WH40k 6th ed, you can control every aspect of the game, your headbutt attack won't send you flying half screen one time, then full screen next, they're all under your control. So losing a game is never due to bad luck but always due to your skill.

You simply cannot control the random warlord trait, random charge distance, random psychic power, random everything. If we're to put it into perspective, this would mean you have to pick random everytime in SSF4, your ultra would obviously be randomed, your move list will also be random, sometimes you will have your headbutt on Honda, other times not. And then after all that randomness, you're expected to have fun and win by "skills". What happen if your opponent randomed his main while you got a character you don't play? Is that still a fair game? Funny enough, that was just what happened last time I played random against my friend, he'd get all the characters he mains, while I kept getting Hakan or Gouken or character I literally have no idea how to play! Were we having fun though? Yes we were, but was that a fair game? Obviously not.

I think people are using "fun" and "cinematic" to ignore balance. They are not mutually exclusive, a game can be balanced and fun to play.

Let's pull another game here, Texas hold'em or poker, you get the random: you don't know what card you'll get, but you have the tactical part, such as folding, bluffing, and using bets to tactically trick your opponents into doing what you want. You also have somewhat an idea of what everyone is holding.

Or let's go for the more nerdy example, MTG. Again, you never know what card you'd draw, but that is somehow controllable by careful deck building.

However, no amount of tactical planning or advanced critical thinking, even if you pose as the thinking man for a week, you still wouldn't have gained any control over the random charge distance, random warlord trait, random psychic power, etc...

What I'm saying here is that a certain amount of randomness will adds to the fun, you can see it in every game, even if we go back to SSF, with the exception of playing IRL, you wouldn't know who you'll be up against. But clearly here that GW has gone overboard with the randomness, and in a very broken manner: Why is it that assault has to deal with all that uncertainties? Why don't we apply the same random for shooting? You don't even have to go far, I've seen many posters here coming up with examples how their super high tech guns could go wrong.

TL;DR version: A good amount of randomness is good, but excessive randomness is bad. It's like drinking and everything!

Baronyu wrote:
However, no amount of tactical planning or advanced critical thinking, even if you pose as the thinking man for a week, you still wouldn't have gained any control over the random charge distance, random warlord trait, random psychic power, etc...

I'm sorry but this is just an absurd analogy. Don't plan a tactic based on having to roll well on a decisive charge, don't build an army which falls apart if you get a wrong Warlord trait or wrong Psychic power. Of course if you're really unlucky, you CAN be undone by those things, but absolutely minimum amount of planning will minimize those factors. Hey, charging through difficult terrain was already random in 5th edition and many a charge failed because of that.

It's just like in MtG where you plan your deck composition so that chances of drawing either too much or not enough land is minimized. Despite that, you can still lose if you draw nothing but land. It's unavoidable and "no amount of advanced critical thinking" will give you control over that.

It's exact same thing.

The problem with much of the randomness in 6th is that it's not so much "did I draw the wrong card", it's "I just drew a blue Counterspell in a mono-white deck, my opponent just played Channel and Emrakul...", especially when it comes to stuff like Warlord abilities (I may have been exaggerating on that draw there, but it gets the point across)

Backfire wrote:

Baronyu wrote:
However, no amount of tactical planning or advanced critical thinking, even if you pose as the thinking man for a week, you still wouldn't have gained any control over the random charge distance, random warlord trait, random psychic power, etc...

I'm sorry but this is just an absurd analogy. Don't plan a tactic based on having to roll well on a decisive charge, don't build an army which falls apart if you get a wrong Warlord trait or wrong Psychic power. Of course if you're really unlucky, you CAN be undone by those things, but absolutely minimum amount of planning will minimize those factors. Hey, charging through difficult terrain was already random in 5th edition and many a charge failed because of that.

It's just like in MtG where you plan your deck composition so that chances of drawing either too much or not enough land is minimized. Despite that, you can still lose if you draw nothing but land. It's unavoidable and "no amount of advanced critical thinking" will give you control over that.

It's exact same thing.

There's a difference between controllable random(MtG deck building) and uncontrollable random(Randomhammer40k). Difficult terrain penalty is acceptable, because we can circumvent that, we could go around it, sacrifice our initiative, shoot instead of assault, etc... But random assault is simply unavoidable, there is no amount of planning that could overcome that. It really isn't as tactical as some people make it out to be, you'll just eventually settle at a distance you feel the safest, whether it's 2", 5" or 7" is up to you, and then it's the same every game. That's not tactical fun, is it? That's no different from remembering that power sword is now AP3...

And yes, that's what I was saying, you can't plan anything around all the new random craps in 6th ed, hence it's not tactical.

Then it's basically what Vaktathi said: More random does not mean better fun/balance, an amount of random in any game is good. I could list more games that are fun, balanced and still have some random factors, but I fear that might derail the thread.

And @Vaktathi, I don't think that's exaggeration: 6th ed, careful planning equate to careful deck building in MtG. Then random warlord traits and stuffs mean you should insert some random cards into your deck to make the game "interesting" and "tactical", you might get the trait/card that you want, or you might not! So, much, fun.

Baronyu wrote:
Difficult terrain penalty is acceptable, because we can circumvent that, we could go around it, sacrifice our initiative, shoot instead of assault, etc...

No you couldn't. Most people played with not nearly enough terrain in 5th, i.e. 25% of the board. As someone who played gunline, I could make damn sure you had to difficult terrain test 90% of the time you charged me. All I need is a single dude behind a rock and wham, difficult terrain. In 6th you have a)a gaurenteed +3 inch pile-in move, meaning you get a hell of a lot more guys in combat, and b) don't lose your charge bonus for being out of range. Those two things easily compensate for 2D6 charge range.

Assualt got the nerf it needed, stop whinging.

Vaktathi wrote:The problem with much of the randomness in 6th is that it's not so much "did I draw the wrong card", it's "I just drew a blue Counterspell in a mono-white deck, my opponent just played Channel and Emrakul...", especially when it comes to stuff like Warlord abilities (I may have been exaggerating on that draw there, but it gets the point across)

No idea what Channel and Emrakul are but I'm going to assume its a kitten covered in spikes and that makes me angry.

The random warlord traits, is rubbish, as are the random mystery terrain (OH LOOK MY TREE IS ACTUALLY A MONSTER. WHAT A TWIST!) and the mysterious objectives is pretty dumb as well.
i think random charges are cool, as it does make the game more realistic, failed charges could be explained in a lit of different ways.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:
i think random charges are cool, as it does make the game more realistic, failed charges could be explained in a lit of different ways.

random dice rolling is HUR HUR GW Y U STOOPID.
But a space marine missing a land raider from 2 foot away? Happens 1/3 of the time

On the table the models are static, but they're used to represent constantly moving soldiers and vehicles, abstract things. The failed charge could be that the land raider is moving too fast for the marine to catch, stuff like that.

Note that if it was 2 feet away then even a 2in roll should have caught it if your talking like its a real marine charging a real raider. On the other hand, if your being serious the max charge range for a marine is 12inches, so they're was no way you would have made the charge anyway.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:On the table the models are static, but they're used to represent constantly moving soldiers and vehicles, abstract things. The failed charge could be that the land raider is moving too fast for the marine to catch, stuff like that.

Note that if it was 2 feet away then even a 2in roll should have caught it if your talking like its a real marine charging a real raider. On the other hand, if your being serious the max charge range for a marine is 12inches, so they're was no way you would have made the charge anyway.

I meant with a melta gun, sorry, poor wording on my part. Hitting the side of a barn door and all that.
Shooting has suffered from "lolfails" since time immorial. Close Combat was always a lot more reliable, and that irked me. I've had 3 BS4 meltaguns miss the side of a tank from 3 inches away, assault guys can cope with rolling snake eyes every once in a while

Testify wrote:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:On the table the models are static, but they're used to represent constantly moving soldiers and vehicles, abstract things. The failed charge could be that the land raider is moving too fast for the marine to catch, stuff like that.

Note that if it was 2 feet away then even a 2in roll should have caught it if your talking like its a real marine charging a real raider. On the other hand, if your being serious the max charge range for a marine is 12inches, so they're was no way you would have made the charge anyway.

I meant with a melta gun, sorry, poor wording on my part. Hitting the side of a barn door and all that.
Shooting has suffered from "lolfails" since time immorial. Close Combat was always a lot more reliable, and that irked me. I've had 3 BS4 meltaguns miss the side of a tank from 3 inches away, assault guys can cope with rolling snake eyes every once in a while

Agree with you there. Also assault happens twice a game turn and is more killy then shooting, with some exceptions (IG)

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

Examples please?

-Codex: Necrons. That army is so overpowered at this point that I will simply not play against anyone running them.
-"Wall of Draigo" wound allocation
-Random charge distance
-Random warlord abilities
-Mysterious terrain
-Random psychic powers

Just a few.

Fafnir wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Such as game mechanics that either don't make sense or are flawed.

Horribly balanced, both between and within codecies? "but it's more cinematic that way"
Poorly thought out random elements that take control away from the player? "but it's more cinematic that way"

Examples please?

-[1]Codex: Necrons. That army is so overpowered at this point that I will simply not play against anyone running them.
-[2]"Wall of Draigo" wound allocation
-[3]Random charge distance
-[4]Random warlord abilities
-[5]Mysterious terrain
-[6]Random psychic powers

Just a few.

1. People need to find new tactics and stop relying on last edition's meta.
2. Easily overcomable
3. Perfectly reasonable.
4. Complete Crap
5. See number 4.
6. This one's iffy, but I enjoy the Fantasy magic rules and wish they had pretty much copied and pasted from 8th Ed fantasy.

Baronyu wrote:You simply cannot control the random warlord trait, random charge distance, random psychic power, random everything.

No, but you can manage your response to a known risk, and modify the level of risk, by making tactical choices.

The player that does this the best, will (generally) be the winner.

Vaktathi wrote:Difficult terrain penalty is acceptable, because we can circumvent that, we could go around it, sacrifice our initiative, shoot instead of assault, etc... But random assault is simply unavoidable, there is no amount of planning that could overcome that. It really isn't as tactical as some people make it out to be, you'll just eventually settle at a distance you feel the safest, whether it's 2", 5" or 7" is up to you, and then it's the same every game. That's not tactical fun, is it? That's no different from remembering that power sword is now AP3...

And yes, that's what I was saying, you can't plan anything around all the new random craps in 6th ed, hence it's not tactical

That's demonstrably untrue, though. You have other options.

You can move closer, reducing the odds of a failed charge. You can move multiple units into assault range, reducing the odds of a failed charge. You can elect to use your jump packs in the assault phase, reducing the odds of a failed charge. You can use other rules to your advantage (does fleet still do something? I forget) to further reduce the odds of a failed charge.

Fafnir wrote:-Codex: Necrons. That army is so overpowered at this point that I will simply not play against anyone running them.
-"Wall of Draigo" wound allocation
-Random charge distance
-Random warlord abilities
-Mysterious terrain
-Random psychic powers

Just a few.

Yes, but why are they all bad? I mean, what's wrong with wound allocation? Why do you hate random charge distances? What's wrong with Necrons (I haven't had a chance to play against them yet) etc.

It's a bit funny how you can tell with 90% accuracy what army someone plays based on theur style and degree of support for GW in general and 6th Ed in particular.

Reinforcing Fafnir's point:

1-Necrons are absurdly full of nigh-impossible to counter builds in this edition, and that before you factor in the allies they can get. "Finding new tactics" is an easy word to throw around, but not everyone is IG to spam flyers to counter their dedicated-transport flyers, for instance.

2-Wound allocation shenanigans may actually be more of a pain in this edition with Look Out Sir, showing that GW is not really about 'shaking up those old internet lists'. Hell, some old boogeymen rule abuses like nob bikers seem poised to make a comeback, showing that there is no bug that can't be made into a feature.

3-Random charge distance is only perfectly reasonable if all movement and weapon ranges also become variable. there is no strategic flaw involved in rolling a 3 for charge distance when you are 4 inches away from the target unit and then being vaporized as you sit there next turn.

4- As posed before, the warlord tables are amateur-level design. The odds of rolling a result that is useless (bonuses in ruins with no ruins on the table, Counterattack when you're a Space Wolf, offensive bonuses on a desencive HQ and vice versa, etc) while your oppinent actually gets some that is handy again require no skill or planning.

They could have grouped them as Offensive, Defensive and Strateic, for instance, or have let you modify the dice roll by +1 or -1, like armor bonuses in deathwatch, to make it flexible.

5- Mysterious terrain actually doesn't bother me that much, though it too shows that the addiction to random effect tables is as strong as ever at GW. For most things, that is: Space Marines and IG likely won't ever suffer from worse than a Gets Hot! 'random' issue while it seems your Chaos Lord may get to turn into a Spawn after -winning- a challenge.

6- Same as #4. Let psykers add of subtract they Mastery to the roll for picking powers or give them a straight +1 or -1 for a favored discipline. it creates variation while also not letting players stick to the same power set 100% every time. Really, it's scary how simple this is.

I will admit that random charges would have worked alot better if movement was like in fantasy. Each model has a base movement, and its that plus 2d6. And if you fail you still move forward the larger of the two dice.

Psykers choosing their spells, I mean powers, is almost exactly like fantasy, which IMO has the better core rules.

As for the Crons, just wait until more skyfire units are released, then the air force wouldn't be as potent.

Also with the right positioning and forethought wound allocation isn't that bad, and nobs only have a 4+ LoS! so its not as bad as Draigowall, (Which really isn't a problem if you actually think on how to position your models.) I overall like this edition better then 5th, especially the nerf to assault, It was needed. Even if it ruined my favorite way to play Guard, power blobs.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:Draigowall, (Which really isn't a problem if you actually think on how to position your models.)

Trust me on this, I play Draigowall. If someone tries to position to get around Draigo, they will suffer for it. Harshly.

Really though, short of Necrons auto-winning against mechanized lists, and flyer lists being the new top dog, the metagame hasn't been shifted as much as some people think. Mechanized shooty armies are still incredible (and let's face it, Necrons shaft everything now, so auto-losing to Necrons as mechanized isn't really that big a deal), being more reliable at the cost of less overall durability, which is a decent trade-off. Leafblower style lists will be more powerful than ever before, with the new deployments (especially anvil/hammer) and ability to hurt more than one vehicle at a time, as well as the complete trivialization of assault-based special reserves (outflank, ambush, etc.).

Really, short of flyers (which, let's face it, is really just an evolution of the same mechanized lists we've been playing in 5th), nothing has been given the tools needed to rise to the same level of dominance that the top lists in 5th edition had. What's more, most of those same top lists didn't suffer enough to lower them to the level of everything else, and in some cases even got better.

You put Draigo out Front right? So he soaks up all the wound, okay, I flank around to the side, and hit the pals. They are closest so they have to take the wounds. Plus Draigowings are expensive points wise, so your on;y going to have 1-3 scoring units right? In an 1850 list I have 9-12 scouring units, even more if we're playing mission 3 and 4. I respect Draigowing its a tough list, but its not invincible.

Mech wasn't really a big deal for me in 5th, I played mech for a bit, then went to footguard, which really excels against 5th ed meta since it has no vehicles besides the russes.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I will admit that random charges would have worked alot better if movement was like in fantasy. Each model has a base movement, and its that plus 2d6. And if you fail you still move forward the larger of the two dice.

Don't forget though, charging in WHFB means you forfeit your normal movement. In 40K you can still move, than attempt an assault. So it's kinda like WHFB, except if you fail you can still move 6" in any direction, and your 'charge' range is 6+(2D6)