A discussion with a friend has me contemplating trying my hand at fantasy. I've always liked the fluff quite a bit, but my tabletop experience is pretty well exclusive to the current edition of 40k.

If there's anyone out there with experience with both, how do they compare in terms of rules, gameplay experience, etc?

To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

I've never actually seen any balance issues with 40k except possibly with one or two armies because they may be too overpowered. As for WHFB, it's more of an each army has their unique strength approach (ex. Skaven drowns the enemy in sheer numbers and trades luck for strength while the Warriors of Chaos have more of an approach on small, expensive but quite powerful forces and potent magic.)

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

My group has been playing for 20 years. We play 40k, when and most other GW games
Though I have little experience with tournament style players I have found there to be lots of balance amongst players of equal skill and requires more tactics than 40k. IMO
The majority of games in my group end very close. There is the occasional crushing defeat but they are rare.
Is this possibly because we know how each other plays..maybe but We have alot of fun with WHFB .
I'd say give it a try for sure.

I find 40K to be rather silly in terms of game balance. I still stand by my original assessment that

WHFB is a beer and pretzels game.
40K is a coke and pizza game.

Or something like that. I read 40K books and laugh at how unbalanced it is. You can pick up any 40K book and build lists that have no way whatsoever of winning unless you're fighting someone who did likewise. You're basically required to take some things and group others. I find that very limiting.

If you took nothing but Core troops in WHFB and your hero/lord requirements, you wouldn't be super competitive, but you could still win.

Also, 40K seems more mercenary in forcing players to buy stuff to win. New models in Fantasy aren't necessarily better. An arachnarok spider is cool, but you certainly don't need it. If you had your old Lizardman army from 7th, it's about as good as it was in 8th.

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

DukeRustfield wrote:

Or something like that. I read 40K books and laugh at how unbalanced it is. You can pick up any 40K book and build lists that have no way whatsoever of winning unless you're fighting someone who did likewise. You're basically required to take some things and group others. I find that very limiting.

This is kind of what I was hoping to hear, in a roundabout way. It would be really nice to be able to pick up a book and go "I want to use this because it looks cool" rather than having to rely on math-hammering out optimal builds to make things work.

Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

Warhammer provides the player with a more tactical game then 40k and skill will decide who wins most of the time rather then list choices.

8th edition a great rule set atm (played since 4th) and a huge improvement over previous editions doing away with a lot of the fiddly measuring that could cause arguments in 7th.

It was controversial when 8th dropped and everyone was running huge hordes now as more 8th army books have come out and players have gotten better at 8th the move is towards big monsters and high armor units.

Its does have downsides compared to 40k in that there is no noob proof army like SMs to start with, but this just means you are not playing the same faction or a variant of said faction 70% of the time.

With the current army book balance reaching the best of I have ever seen for any GW game, Not perfect by any means but so much better then anything I have ever played from GW.

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

Pray tell why you think 8th edition is such a bad rule set? Also, if WHFB wasn't selling do you think GW would still be carrying it?

The newest edition of fantasy is rubbish. I played it for about 2 months after it came out and was bitterly disappointed. This is a shame because I had preferred fantasy to 40k before 8th dropped. Now I've got a beautiful VC army, that never gets played. This is annoying because it is the only army I've got that is fully painted!

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

There's people that pop in every once in a while and say stuff like this. 8th is the most balanced the game has been in at least half a decade. Maybe in 1943 there was some golden age, but I wasn't born so I don't know.

40K is certainly more popular in the US. Because it's grimdark tough guys standing 10 feet tall taking their teenage angst out on the billion trillion zillion planets with their space phallics.

DukeRustfield wrote:

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

There's people that pop in every once in a while and say stuff like this. 8th is the most balanced the game has been in at least half a decade. Maybe in 1943 there was some golden age, but I wasn't born so I don't know.

40K is certainly more popular in the US. Because it's grimdark tough guys standing 10 feet tall taking their teenage angst out on the billion trillion zillion planets with their space phallics.

Yeah I love 8th haters "I dont play 8th its horrible total rubbish but I still frequent 8th forums..." I dont play 6th 40k very much because to me it was a bad rules set however I dont go on the 40k forums to talk gak about some game that a lot of people clearly love because what on earth does that accomplish? I liken it to the wrmahorde players that frequent every GW forum and claim it to be the pinnacle of gaming with an entry cost of less then 50 cents and a rule set written by wargaming monks who ejaculate wargaming excellence. (to calarify warmahordes IS a good ruleset but like all rulesets its a long way from perfect)

I play and have played both. I prefer the fantasy ruleset. The differences between the two games' rules, from what I've experienced, come down to the following:

1) In Fantasy, the movement phase is the game. Positioning, facing, and unit composition and structure are very important, and the movement phase boils down to measuring precise distances and placing units. Because of this, you'll like Fantasy if you like chess.

2) In 40k, the shooting phase is the game. Unit equipment and target selection and priority are very important, and the shooting phase boils down to rolling lots of dice. Because of this, you'll like 40k if you like Yahtzee.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that chess is "better" than Yahtzee, so I made these comparisons with no sarcasm. I prefer Fantasy because I like that tactical positioning that comes along with movement. I enjoy rolling dice less. You roll dice in both games, but for me, 40k FEELS like the game is rolling dice. Not so much with Fantasy.

On a more specific note, I also agree with Duke about the army books for 40k.

If you have only ever played 40k, you should at least try fantasy. It's not like its a huge commitment try a demo game, or even buy a starter army (isle of blood is cheaper then a riptide!)

8th edition is in a good spot now where it has been out enough that most armies are updated under it, but it is likely to be out a while longer. Most armies are pretty well balanced against each other.

Many core rules concepts (like wound tables) are the same, so it is pretty easy to pick up.

40k has a big advantage in that everyone plays it. That said, as long as there's enough players to get a game when I want a game, I could care less about its overall popularity.

Fun is subjective, there are lots of great games out there worth trying.

I started with 40K, and have recently moved towards Fantasy. Quite Frankly, I like the Fantasy 8th Edition rule set far more than I like the 5th and 6th edtions of 40K.

40K is a fun game, don't get me wrong, and I still like bringing my Eldar and Slaanesh CSM out ocasionally, but quite frankly I have been having a lot more fun playing my Bretonnians and Orcs and Goblins.

Here are my reasons.

1) The first, and most obvious difference is the Magic Phase. This just feels so much more intuitive and interesting than 40K psychic powers. More powerful spells are more difficult to cast, and your opponent has dispel dice so he may be able to block some of them! Overall there is a lot more depth to the phase, and Irresistable Force is much more interesting and common than Perils of the Warp.

2) Positioning. My favorite thing about the Eldar was how fast they were. Zooming about, and shooting scatter lasers into weak spots was a very rewarding playstyle. But overall 40K doesn't care at all about which way your units are facing. Fantasy adds an entire new element with the importance of unit facing, there are huge benefits to Flank and Rear charges, units may only shoot in their front arc. It adds another whole element to the game and opens up a lot of strategic options.

3) More of a focus on Movement and Close Combat. You know how people on forums complain about Dwarves, or Gunline Empire? Heres a protip, its the same group of people who would be complaining about Tau or Gunline IG in 40K. At the end of the day gunlines are just not really fun to play against.
For me at least, 40K is at its best somewhere between close combat and 24 inches. In close range fire fights where considerations such as rapid firing but putting yourself at risk of a charge, and other issues come into play. But this is watered down by 40Ks (understandably) much higher focus on powerful long ranged weaponry, and entire factions like Tau or IG specialized in shooting from across the board, with high strength low ap and often cover ignoring weapons. It really moves the game away from 2 players dancing in all phases to one player playing his shooting phase, while the other player desperately tries to make the other two phases (movement and close combat) relevant to the game, and frustratingly oftentimes the gunline will win.
Thats not to say that this doesn't ever happen in fantasy- As has been mentioned Dwarves and other Warmachine Heavy armies can be very frustrating to play against. But on the whole even with those armies shooting is more unreliable Warmachines can misfire, modifiers to shooting make it far more inacurate than it is in 40K, etc. So while shooting is far from irrelevant, it is an equal part of the game to movement and close combat. Even Dwarves will bring great weapons on pretty much every trooper so that when close combat hits they still have teeth!

I think 8th ruined fantasy.... but it is still a far better game then 40k. 40k is like everyone said you pick your gear you put guys down and roll for 45 minutes.... gets boring quick.

Fantasy 8th edition has a few big problems, like the idea that some lords are useable. Most aren't every army needs a level 4 wizard as the lord and since their is a restriction on the total % of points a lord can be this means he is your only lord. So guys like krokgar any ogre lords except a slaughtermaster will just get you killed. Magic is disgustingly over important it is basically a small mans world or harry potter. Your casters cast spells your other men die and if you cast more spells you win 80%+ of your games. It is all about magic, magic and more magic, charging is random for some reason because people never know how far they can run sometimes your men will just stand their looking at you while your enemy takes another shot.

Unless you play one of the big 5 armies you will NEVER get an update. A few armies got to much love and books while others get none, warriors of chaos got 2 updates lizardmen got 2, orc and goblin got 2, skaven got 1, highelves got 1, daemons got 2. So unless you want one of them I might hold off.

So if your a fan of harry potter or are a really little guy trying to make a difference do what the rest of us do hold out for the 9th edition and see if it gets better.

anyone who argues with me ask them how the puplre sun treats them or testicles or what ever his name is from high elves.

 Tangent wrote:
I play and have played both. I prefer the fantasy ruleset. The differences between the two games' rules, from what I've experienced, come down to the following:

1) In Fantasy, the movement phase is the game. Positioning, facing, and unit composition and structure are very important, and the movement phase boils down to measuring precise distances and placing units. Because of this, you'll like Fantasy if you like chess.

2) In 40k, the shooting phase is the game. Unit equipment and target selection and priority are very important, and the shooting phase boils down to rolling lots of dice. Because of this, you'll like 40k if you like Yahtzee.

I'm not one of those people who thinks that chess is "better" than Yahtzee, so I made these comparisons with no sarcasm. I prefer Fantasy because I like that tactical positioning that comes along with movement. I enjoy rolling dice less. You roll dice in both games, but for me, 40k FEELS like the game is rolling dice. Not so much with Fantasy.

On a more specific note, I also agree with Duke about the army books for 40k.

This shows a lack of understand of the 40K ruleset. Movement, order of movement, deployment, and unit positioning are critical components of 40K play.
Side note: I love chess. I have 8 different sets and play lots of variants. Your analogy is not accurate.

I wouldn't play fantasy if someone gave me a free army. I would sell it and get more 40k stuff.

I do agree that 40K is 60% list-building, 30% alpha strike and then 10% tactics
Of course, you can replace "10% tactics" by "10% Helldrakes" or "10% Monstrous Creatures"

I don't enjoy 8th Ed of WHFB due to the overkill that magic is, but mainly due to the Manoeuvering that got over-simplified with "teleport charges" and no wheels (still much more important than in 40K)

Experiment 626 wrote:

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

In the most recent major UK tourney, DoC won it, and dominated the top 2 spots on the podium. Check #Clash13 on twitter. The book is actually quite good if you take off your whinging glasses and read it.

And the Top books are Ogres, WoC, DE, and Skaven. Empire are top mid, and vampires can be at a stretch.

New Lizzies look to be good, but time will tell. I still maintain my vendetta against saurus though.

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

And if you look up, you will see a typical 40k fanboy, doing what he does best. Soon he will begin shouting and throwing various obscenities out in order to be heard and make people listen.

In all seriousness, there isn't much really wrong with 8th ed, apart from magic and steadfast. There are ways around each. I.E. Comp and MC.

8th is a great edition to start fantasy, with good books, balanced(mostly) rules, and lovely models.

WHFB is certainly a lot more balanced than 40k. 40k has been seeing a power creep recently, whereas the new 8th Edition Books have started bringing all the Fantasy armies in line, so they're all pretty much on-par with each other. In WHFB, every army, and almost every list, can win against every other. In 40k, if you have Daemons and your opponent has GK, that's a loss for you, or if you have Nids and your opponent has DE, that's a loss for you. At the very least, you're fighting a massive uphill battle. In WHFB, a Bretonnian army can quite easily beat a Skaven army, they will just require more skill to do so. What I like about WHFB that I hate about 40k is that there's no - or very little - spam. In 40k you can take a good unit (i.e. a Night/Doom Scythe) and spam it and win. You can't in WHFB. Let's say I spent 75% of my points on Skavenslaves. Skavenslaves are a fantastic and competitive unit, just like the Necron Fliers, but my list would be pretty awful if I did. In Fantasy, each unit has to support each other, right from your General to your basic Core Troops. That's how you win.

The WHFB ruleset is also far, far stronger in my opinion. It suffers from flaws, I admit, but they are very few. I like 6th edition 40k too, but a lot of the rules they've brought in just make for a boring game. The 40k rules make sitting behind an Aegis all game a viable tactic. With Fantasy, you have to manoeuvre your units, carefully positioning each one so as to gain an advantage, or pull off a cunning ploy against your opponent. If I plonked a flying model behind your unit in 40k, you'd just turn and shoot/assault it, but in Fantasy, if I did the same, there'd be very little you could do about it. Unless you were clever and had a plan in place. The Magic Phase is also one of the most tactical phases in either game - you've got to figure out what spells would be most beneficial to you and often try and manipulate your opponent to allow you to do so. There's a lot more things to consider in WHFB. Tactically, it's much more demanding.

8th Edition does have flaws, namely the fact that Infantry and Magic is stronger than it should be. But the two things counter each other well and though a lot of people will make this out as a rock/paper/scissors between infantry, magic and everything else, there's so much variety in place that this is very rarely the case. As I mentioned before, 40k has a lot more rock paper scissors to it. And, finally, as a note on variety, take a look at the available armies for 40k and the ones available for Fantasy. There are 15 for 40k, and 7 - that's almost half - are Space Marines ones. I guess you could say Sisters aren't, but still. That's a lot of similarity. In Fantasy, there's the same number of armies available, but each is vastly different - with perhaps on the Elven armies and the human armies not being so. And the Elven ones don't really count because there's two of them in 40k as well.

Don't get me wrong, 40k's great and I really enjoy 40k (it's main advantage being its ability to be played properly with small, cheaply-bought armies), but Fantasy is just better

OgreChubbs wrote:
I think 8th ruined fantasy.... but it is still a far better game then 40k. 40k is like everyone said you pick your gear you put guys down and roll for 45 minutes.... gets boring quick.

Fantasy 8th edition has a few big problems, like the idea that some lords are useable. Most aren't every army needs a level 4 wizard as the lord and since their is a restriction on the total % of points a lord can be this means he is your only lord. So guys like krokgar any ogre lords except a slaughtermaster will just get you killed. Magic is disgustingly over important it is basically a small mans world or harry potter. Your casters cast spells your other men die and if you cast more spells you win 80%+ of your games. It is all about magic, magic and more magic, charging is random for some reason because people never know how far they can run sometimes your men will just stand their looking at you while your enemy takes another shot.

Unless you play one of the big 5 armies you will NEVER get an update. A few armies got to much love and books while others get none, warriors of chaos got 2 updates lizardmen got 2, orc and goblin got 2, skaven got 1, highelves got 1, daemons got 2. So unless you want one of them I might hold off.

So if your a fan of harry potter or are a really little guy trying to make a difference do what the rest of us do hold out for the 9th edition and see if it gets better.

anyone who argues with me ask them how the puplre sun treats them or testicles or what ever his name is from high elves.

While you did bring up issues, your post went from legitimate complaints to crying in a heartbeat.

Fantasy overall is great. While there are issues, such as a level four being almost a compulsion to win tournaments (you can win without it, but not the majority of games, or the dominince the magic phase plays, it's not quite the disaster your complaining about. Some armies have issues (dwarves, Bret's, and wood elves) however for the most part you can win with any faction. The game is more about skill and planning IMO.

As for teclis, he's not bad in the new book. Really only 3 special characters need to be banned (fate weaver, Thorek, and the new nugle demon hero with the counter. If you agree to this everything is balanced.

Purple sun people don't like because it definitely is a game changer. You have to be aware it could come and your fine. Even if you do make a mistake, most of the time you can still pull out a win. It only happens in 1 out of 100 games that magic really changes the outcome of the game, not even that. In the one game I had a devistating purple sun hit me (it killed my arch lector, 21 halberdiers, 2 archers, and 2 knights), I went from a solid victory turn 2, to losing in turn 3, to a tie turn 4. We had to call it there but if I got one more plaguebearer killed it would have been victory for me.

Essentially while magic can be quite devistating, playing right can still garner you a victory if you play it correctly.

 The Shadow wrote:
WHFB is certainly a lot more balanced than 40k. 40k has been seeing a power creep recently, whereas the new 8th Edition Books have started bringing all the Fantasy armies in line, so they're all pretty much on-par with each other. In WHFB, every army, and almost every list, can win against every other. In 40k, if you have Daemons and your opponent has GK, that's a loss for you, or if you have Nids and your opponent has DE, that's a loss for you. At the very least, you're fighting a massive uphill battle. In WHFB, a Bretonnian army can quite easily beat a Skaven army, they will just require more skill to do so. What I like about WHFB that I hate about 40k is that there's no - or very little - spam. In 40k you can take a good unit (i.e. a Night/Doom Scythe) and spam it and win. You can't in WHFB. Let's say I spent 75% of my points on Skavenslaves. Skavenslaves are a fantastic and competitive unit, just like the Necron Fliers, but my list would be pretty awful if I did. In Fantasy, each unit has to support each other, right from your General to your basic Core Troops. That's how you win.

The WHFB ruleset is also far, far stronger in my opinion. It suffers from flaws, I admit, but they are very few. I like 6th edition 40k too, but a lot of the rules they've brought in just make for a boring game. The 40k rules make sitting behind an Aegis all game a viable tactic. With Fantasy, you have to manoeuvre your units, carefully positioning each one so as to gain an advantage, or pull off a cunning ploy against your opponent. If I plonked a flying model behind your unit in 40k, you'd just turn and shoot/assault it, but in Fantasy, if I did the same, there'd be very little you could do about it. Unless you were clever and had a plan in place. The Magic Phase is also one of the most tactical phases in either game - you've got to figure out what spells would be most beneficial to you and often try and manipulate your opponent to allow you to do so. There's a lot more things to consider in WHFB. Tactically, it's much more demanding.

8th Edition does have flaws, namely the fact that Infantry and Magic is stronger than it should be. But the two things counter each other well and though a lot of people will make this out as a rock/paper/scissors between infantry, magic and everything else, there's so much variety in place that this is very rarely the case. As I mentioned before, 40k has a lot more rock paper scissors to it. And, finally, as a note on variety, take a look at the available armies for 40k and the ones available for Fantasy. There are 15 for 40k, and 7 - that's almost half - are Space Marines ones. I guess you could say Sisters aren't, but still. That's a lot of similarity. In Fantasy, there's the same number of armies available, but each is vastly different - with perhaps on the Elven armies and the human armies not being so. And the Elven ones don't really count because there's two of them in 40k as well.

Don't get me wrong, 40k's great and I really enjoy 40k (it's main advantage being its ability to be played properly with small, cheaply-bought armies), but Fantasy is just better

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

dlight wrote:

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

Well aren't you just special. Ignorance must be bliss. But I have to break some news to you. While the GK v Daemons argue ment is invalid since 6th edition, it remains a key factor in most people's memories essentially balance in 40k has been terrible for quite some time and theres little signs of that changing. While in fantasy, high elves are far far far from an autowin vs daemons, even with the banner. And if they spend so many points into the banner that daemons can't win... That army can't win a tourney. (Hint: harpies are awesome for dealing with the banner).

Movement in 40k is no where near as important. This argue ment is so invalid I can't even argue against it. The lack of facing just makes movement in 40k almost a joke. I've never watched 1/8th of an inch turn or wheel like I have to in fantasy. While magic can be a bit overwhelming, a good strategy will beat out someone who relies on IF Purple sun 9 times out of 10. It's a bit too powerful, I agree, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as you imply.

#5 is not an argument. I can and do say the opposite. 5th edition was terrible (and because of it 6th edition has not been given a chance), and I see no reason to play it when fantasy is available. See?

Your sixth reason is anecdotal evidence. Here in south jersey, fantasy is far more popular than 40k or warmachine. Our tournaments regularly get 20+ attendees and 40k died with 6th edition. While 40k is growing once again back past 10 attendees, its not going faster. I would venture to say the fantasy players are there in your city. They're just not at your store/club

I love my Night Lords. But I actually really hate 6th ed 40k.

8th Ed on the other hand. A few things bother me about it. But it isn't nearly as fething bad as new Tau or Eldar. And I loathe to think what the Loyalists will be like when that new book hits.

Stoupe wrote:

dlight wrote:

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

Well aren't you just special. Ignorance must be bliss. But I have to break some news to you. While the GK v Daemons argue ment is invalid since 6th edition, it remains a key factor in most people's memories essentially balance in 40k has been terrible for quite some time and theres little signs of that changing. While in fantasy, high elves are far far far from an autowin vs daemons, even with the banner. And if they spend so many points into the banner that daemons can't win... That army can't win a tourney. (Hint: harpies are awesome for dealing with the banner).

Movement in 40k is no where near as important. This argue ment is so invalid I can't even argue against it. The lack of facing just makes movement in 40k almost a joke. I've never watched 1/8th of an inch turn or wheel like I have to in fantasy. While magic can be a bit overwhelming, a good strategy will beat out someone who relies on IF Purple sun 9 times out of 10. It's a bit too powerful, I agree, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as you imply.

#5 is not an argument. I can and do say the opposite. 5th edition was terrible (and because of it 6th edition has not been given a chance), and I see no reason to play it when fantasy is available. See?

Your sixth reason is anecdotal evidence. Here in south jersey, fantasy is far more popular than 40k or warmachine. Our tournaments regularly get 20+ attendees and 40k died with 6th edition. While 40k is growing once again back past 10 attendees, its not going faster. I would venture to say the fantasy players are there in your city. They're just not at your store/club

I am special. Very special.

And I hate to break it to you, I was tabling GK in 5th with daemons as well. Including 20 Paladin GK builds at 2K points. Matter of fact, it was a bit of a joke unless the GK player completely tailored to fight my army.

I still think fantasy is poop. If my local area was filled with fantasy players, I may change my tune. But it is not going to happen.

I do agree that 40K is 60% list-building, 30% alpha strike and then 10% tactics

It really is list-building. I don't know the breakdown, but if you say it isn't, you haven't looked through the books recently. You really can look at two armies on paper and decide with Vegas odds accuracy who will win. I like list-building. It's fun. But it's like you could both print out lists, submit them to random number generator program, and get the winner.

#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.

This is really disingenuous. Fantasy has movement trays. 40K moves in giant handfuls. But moreover, I believe Fantasy has ABOUT 20 pages of rules for movement if you include special rules and such. 40K has ABOUT 6 I think. Someone can do an exact count, but it's a huge difference. And while more != better, it's certainly more complex.


However, these threads usually get pretty trollful. If you like 40K, rock out 40K. If you like Fantasy, stick with it. If you like dressing up as a giant monkey and balancing a cat on your head, I am not one to tell you that is a wrong thing to do--if the cat is comfortable.

I play and enjoy both.

40k is about list building and target selection. I play DE without allies and I can hang with most other armies in our group, but no one else really uses allies. I run the Baron, so I usually go first. I seem to win a lot more when I go first compared to when going second. That is a problem a lot of 40k armies have, but especially DE. That's why I take Baron... it's part of list building. I like how in 40k you can be getting pounded, but still have a chance to win by objectives. I regularly play Tau and have a close to 50/50 win/loss ratio with them. I haven't played Eldar yet, because I've been focused on fantasy lately...

I wanted to like 8th edition, but it killed our fantasy group for 3 years. Too much of a focus on big spells and big units, huge decrease in the importance of flanking. We recently started using the ETC rules and have had a lot of fun. ETC has brought fantasy back to life for me. I won't get into the debate of what "competitive" warhammer is or its merits, but I will say that ETC has really balanced the power between army books. The TK and Beastmen players in our group are much happier now. I play Skaven, Dark Elves, and Chaos Dwarfs and I think ETC is nothing but a positive thing for the game.

So in my mind, 40k>>Fantasy. But 40k<ETC Fantasy.

Stangely, we haven't tried ETC for 40k. I just don't feel like there is as big of a need for it.

>

dlight wrote:

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.

Like Stoupe says, I mainly refer to when GK first came out. Even now though, it's at the very best an uphill battle. Tell me, do you "routinely table" Daemon players who are of an equal skill level and have an equally competitive list, bearing in mind neither side has one-sided luck? The fact that GK aren't as good now just emphasises another thing that's bad about 40k - power creep.

As for #2, it does depend on the list, and where BotWD is used. If it's on Dragon Princes, Daemons can quite easily still win, if the Daemon player is clever about it. Even if it's on White Lions, there's still the possibility of being able to avoid the Lionstar, and focus on killing the HE player's Core choices he has to take, and any other units he's taken. Even if you can't avoid it, some Daemon builds will stop it from doing any serious damage.

dlight wrote:

#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.

I'm going to have to pull out the "just no" here. Like Stoupe says, the lack of facing makes 40k movement woefully simplistic from a tactical point of view. In 40k you don't have to worry about angles. If something's close, you can assault or shoot it. In Fantasy, I can move an Eagle right next to your cannon, behind all your other units and there'll be nothing you can do about it. Tough luck, my Eagle is going to shred your cannon crew, you should have had a plan in mind to protect your cannon, if it's important to your strategy.

dlight wrote:

#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.

It's one of the flaws, I admit, but hardly terrible. The way Magic works is, in general, fine. It's a bit random, but otherwise it's fine. It's only the lores that are the problem, in particular the "sixth spells". But that Level 4 caster your opponent has is a lot less scary if you take a Lvl 4 Wizard of your own and while spells like Final Transmutation may remove a third of your unit, the spell is a lot less scary if a third of your unit is five, and not twenty. So, in short, Magic is a bit too powerful, but it can be countered and, frankly, Magic should be powerful - Wizards are held in regard as being extremely powerful in most pop culture fantasy.

dlight wrote:

#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.

40k is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when Fantasy is available.

The point I'm making is that what you've said here is very vague and isn't backed up at all. Would you care to explain what you mean by it?

dlight wrote:

#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

Then I'm afraid you're just unlucky. If I lived somewhere where Fantasy was never played, I'd probably just stick to 40k too. But fortunately, in my area, there are plenty of Fantasy players available.

dlight wrote:

Stoupe wrote:

dlight wrote:

I just don't know where to start with this. No, just no.

#1 - I routinely table Grey Knights with Daemons.
#2 - Daemons Vs. High Elves with BOWD is auto lose, worse than any 40k situation.
#3 - Movement is 40K is just as important, and in some situations more so than in fantasy. It is absolutely critical.
#4 - 8th Edition magic rules are terrible.
#5 - Fantasy is just a bad rule set. I see no reason to play it when 40K is available.
#6 - Finding players is an effort in futility. There may be 5ish that play regularly in the pop 300K city I live in.

It's a waste of time.

Well aren't you just special. Ignorance must be bliss. But I have to break some news to you. While the GK v Daemons argue ment is invalid since 6th edition, it remains a key factor in most people's memories essentially balance in 40k has been terrible for quite some time and theres little signs of that changing. While in fantasy, high elves are far far far from an autowin vs daemons, even with the banner. And if they spend so many points into the banner that daemons can't win... That army can't win a tourney. (Hint: harpies are awesome for dealing with the banner).

Movement in 40k is no where near as important. This argue ment is so invalid I can't even argue against it. The lack of facing just makes movement in 40k almost a joke. I've never watched 1/8th of an inch turn or wheel like I have to in fantasy. While magic can be a bit overwhelming, a good strategy will beat out someone who relies on IF Purple sun 9 times out of 10. It's a bit too powerful, I agree, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as you imply.

#5 is not an argument. I can and do say the opposite. 5th edition was terrible (and because of it 6th edition has not been given a chance), and I see no reason to play it when fantasy is available. See?

Your sixth reason is anecdotal evidence. Here in south jersey, fantasy is far more popular than 40k or warmachine. Our tournaments regularly get 20+ attendees and 40k died with 6th edition. While 40k is growing once again back past 10 attendees, its not going faster. I would venture to say the fantasy players are there in your city. They're just not at your store/club

I am special. Very special.

And I hate to break it to you, I was tabling GK in 5th with daemons as well. Including 20 Paladin GK builds at 2K points. Matter of fact, it was a bit of a joke unless the GK player completely tailored to fight my army.

I still think fantasy is poop. If my local area was filled with fantasy players, I may change my tune. But it is not going to happen.

Honestly this is the heart of the matter. Whether or not you like one game over the other, and what does your local area play. Fantasy has been gaining momentum in my area, but 40k is still king amongst the 2 systems (however more people play WarmaHordes then both games combined).

I personally love fantasy, but 40k I'm not a fan of. I play Orks, so having a weak codex goes a long way in helping/hurting your enjoyment level. Maybe when my army gets a new codex I'll try it again. Fantasy really has made a balanced game system less focused on absolutes, and more on playing the odds. Fantasy still gives you opportunities for epically unlikely outcomes because there are no Hard counters.

For example I've never killed a Landraider with Ork shooting because there's nothing reliable in the codex to accomplish this. There are several tools you can use, but if you don't bring them, (and you aren't extremely lucky) destroying a landraider with orky shooting isn't happening.. However I've had a lot of situations in fantasy were the odds were favorable/unfavorable for me and the best/worst case scenario happened.

Just my view.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

In the most recent major UK tourney, DoC won it, and dominated the top 2 spots on the podium. Check #Clash13 on twitter. The book is actually quite good if you take off your whinging glasses and read it.

And the Top books are Ogres, WoC, DE, and Skaven. Empire are top mid, and vampires can be at a stretch.

New Lizzies look to be good, but time will tell. I still maintain my vendetta against saurus though.

I never said that DoC can't compete/are UP, just that the internal balance of the book is outright the worst of 8th and it shows, badly...
Daemons, especially competitive lists, tend to suffer from the 7th ed syndrome of 'One List to Rule Them All'. It's basically 'go Nurgle or go home', or if you like a challenge then to bring out a Slaanesh Caco-bomb and make people really hate you!

But try taking Tzeentch or Khorne and you'll only shed tears beyond the common staples of;
Lv2 Tzherald to buff Pinkies
10 man Horror units that 6-dice Gateway/Firestorm/Pink Fire
Burning Chariot
LoC w/Wand of Win if you *really* like Tzeentch a lot... (both Big Papa & Kipper are far superior choices however as they bring much better Lores to the table)
Khorne Puppies
Khannon x2 (likely the game's most undercosted unit right now)

Everything else for those God is barely average to complete trash when compared to the other options in the book... Then add to that how laughable the General/BSB rules are and Reign of Comedy.


It's simply a horribly executed book as what works is plainly obvious and leaves little room for much leeway since the other options are just 'bad'.

Compare how different competitive Daemons lists look to say WoC, HE's, Empire & VC's who all tend to have at least 2-3 solid builds. (and more room for minor tinkering between those general builds)
That's why I hate this book. The army list choices are effectively made for me, unless I want to go and play the game on lunatic mode in order to play the army I want to play. (ie: think of the position VC's were in before their 8th ed book, when every single list was basically 'Dickenhof deathstar + friends', that's what Daemons feel like if you like Khorne or Tzeentch and to an extent, Slaanesh)

I've played TWO editions of WHFB. 3rd and 8th - whereas I've played all editions of 40k (two games of 6th ed were enough to make me not like it - but I played every other edition for several years, if not all of their edition brackets).

If you don't like doing arithmetic (40k dumped modifiers for shooting and saves back when 3rd ed came out in the late 90s), you'll hate it.

WHFB is more about the tactical movement and pre-positioning of your troop blocks to get off devastating charges.
Magic plays a bigger part than psyker powers (40k did at one stage have a psychic power phase, too).

I've found I prefer 8th ed WHFB to 6th ed 40k.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 kazian wrote:

TanKoL wrote:
To be honest, 40K 6th Ed is decent but meta is absolute crap, completely ruining the game
While 8th Ed WHFB is crap (compared to previous Eds, so might is quite fine for newcomers) with quite a decent meta
Also, the game is much more dependant on player skill compared to list building + Alpha Strike, which makes overall WHFB a more enjoyable game (IMO)

One of the things I was wondering in particular was how it stood in terms of 'balance' as nebulous a term as that is. From my impressions so far, 40k can fall into rock/paper/scissors issues where every list essentially has a hard counter that is going to be very hard to deal with.

40k is only just starting to do away with the constant 'one-upmanship' of 5th edition, where every new codex beginning with IG turned into a massive arms race of who could spam the most OTT crap... up to the point that GK's came out and suddenly most everyone cried! (Daemons & Tyranids especially)


Fantasy on the other hand has about 50% of the books updated to 8th edition AND having all been written to be roughly 'on the level' with eachother.

The only real hiccup, (okay, massive still-gagging-to-death brainfart of the century), is the 8th ed Daemons book... It's just plain horrible from an internal balance aspect and full of badly implemented gimmicks. And of course High Elves and their Banner of the World Dragon gaff defecating all over an already bad book really doesn't help matters...

In terms of overall balance, VC's & Empire are pretty much tied for top spot, while O&G's & HE's aren't far behind. Ogres & WoC can be made to be outright mean. It's a little early to tell yet how the Lizzies are faring since their book is barely a month old, and those poor, poor TK's can be quite difficult to really learn how to make the most of them.
Now while DoC can be made broken as feth, (including having the game's single most abusive gimmick), honestly the book is boring & frustrating as sin to play with due to the complete & utter lack of internal balancing it suffers from.

The rest of the armies, Skaven, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Bretonnians, Wood Elves & Beastmen are all still waiting for their 8th ed updates.

In the most recent major UK tourney, DoC won it, and dominated the top 2 spots on the podium. Check #Clash13 on twitter. The book is actually quite good if you take off your whinging glasses and read it.

And the Top books are Ogres, WoC, DE, and Skaven. Empire are top mid, and vampires can be at a stretch.

New Lizzies look to be good, but time will tell. I still maintain my vendetta against saurus though.

I never said that DoC can't compete/are UP, just that the internal balance of the book is outright the worst of 8th and it shows, badly...
Daemons, especially competitive lists, tend to suffer from the 7th ed syndrome of 'One List to Rule Them All'. It's basically 'go Nurgle or go home', or if you like a challenge then to bring out a Slaanesh Caco-bomb and make people really hate you!

But try taking Tzeentch or Khorne and you'll only shed tears beyond the common staples of;
Lv2 Tzherald to buff Pinkies
10 man Horror units that 6-dice Gateway/Firestorm/Pink Fire
Burning Chariot
LoC w/Wand of Win if you *really* like Tzeentch a lot... (both Big Papa & Kipper are far superior choices however as they bring much better Lores to the table)
Khorne Puppies
Khannon x2 (likely the game's most undercosted unit right now)

Everything else for those God is barely average to complete trash when compared to the other options in the book... Then add to that how laughable the General/BSB rules are and Reign of Comedy.


It's simply a horribly executed book as what works is plainly obvious and leaves little room for much leeway since the other options are just 'bad'.

Compare how different competitive Daemons lists look to say WoC, HE's, Empire & VC's who all tend to have at least 2-3 solid builds. (and more room for minor tinkering between those general builds)
That's why I hate this book. The army list choices are effectively made for me, unless I want to go and play the game on lunatic mode in order to play the army I want to play. (ie: think of the position VC's were in before their 8th ed book, when every single list was basically 'Dickenhof deathstar + friends', that's what Daemons feel like if you like Khorne or Tzeentch and to an extent, Slaanesh)

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

WFB is much more fidely and reliant on a few untis in your army (or spellcaster) doing all the work - there is even a term for the stuff that s not there to actually fight I believe - Chaff.

I personally don't like all the charge angles stuff / movement - "Oh you can't charge or do anything to all those enemy troops next to you as they are 1mm outside your vison arc - just ignore them......

WFB games I have played in / observed seem to be often resolved by one spell or a single combat between a couple of units. No 6 spells are horrendous - sepecially when (as often seems to happen) they are cast with Irristable Force - I really hope we never get anything like them in 40K. Even small units in 40k tend to do stuff in combat.

40K has a big advantage in its objective based scenarios are far far superior that those offered in WFB which tend to be line and kill each other.

The problem that we've run into at my FLGS is the obvious "hero hammer".which, while it does admittedly occur in both games, seems to rear it's ugly head more in WHFB.

Mr Morden wrote:WFB is much more fidely and reliant on a few untis in your army (or spellcaster) doing all the work - there is even a term for the stuff that s not there to actually fight I believe - Chaff.

I wouldn't quite say a few units. I can easily avoid people with one or two units by multicharging or just misdirecting them with chaff. While chaff doesn't have to fight, they can. They're most often throw away units that you use to lure the enemy out of position or prevent enemy movement. They cost under 100 points and sometimes will be able to fire shots at the enemy or be able to take out a warmachine. They are actually some of the most important peices in the game as they can really be detrimental to your opponent.

I personally don't like all the charge angles stuff / movement - "Oh you can't charge or do anything to all those enemy troops next to you as they are 1mm outside your vison arc - just ignore them...

While that's understandable, you have to remember the people in the front tended to be the veterans or the leaders of a unit, which the rest of the unit relied on for orders. If the leaders couldn't command them, then they weren't going to do it. This is how battles were fought for centuries before the 1850s. It's only once the huge previlance of modern reloading guns that people started looking and taking cover, which messed with this method of fighting.

40K has a big advantage in its objective based scenarios are far far superior that those offered in WFB which tend to be line and kill each other.

Honestly the book scenarios kinda suck for both systems (coming from a FOW player). A lot of tourneys mix it up, but I'd definitely like to see better scenarios in both games.

TechMarine1 wrote:The problem that we've run into at my FLGS is the obvious "hero hammer".which, while it does admittedly occur in both games, seems to rear it's ugly head more in WHFB.

Anyone playing hero hammer (taking a large majority of your force with over the top heros), tends to have difficulty winning games. Sure you can spend 50% of your force on heros. But that does not make it a good idea. Besides defensive items for ward saves or armor saves, nothing else typically gets taken.

TechMarine1 wrote:
The problem that we've run into at my FLGS is the obvious "hero hammer".which, while it does admittedly occur in both games, seems to rear it's ugly head more in WHFB.

Herohammer is actually not that effective - I actually quite like playing against it, as it's a change for me (and not that difficult to win against ), and using it, as it's also a change and I find it pretty cool to have lots of Lords and Heroes.

But yeah, it's not that competitive. There's another DE player at my FLGS who runs a Lvl 4, a Lvl 2, A Dreadlord on foot (nope, not a PegLord), a Master BSB and another generic Master. I win a lot more games than he does. Maybe I should, in true Dark Elf style, just stab him...

 thedarkavenger wrote:

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

For both armies, would that be a LoC w/Wand+Tome, Lv2 Tzheralds + min-sized Pinkies, Burning Chariot and maybe some MoT Furies or Screamers? (if they brought Flamers, then it's more likely their opponent's were too busy dying from fits of laughter at seeing them in a competitive setting! )

TanKoL wrote:
8th Ed WHFB is crap

Ah. Someone wants to pick THIS fight again.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

For both armies, would that be a LoC w/Wand+Tome, Lv2 Tzheralds + min-sized Pinkies, Burning Chariot and maybe some MoT Furies or Screamers? (if they brought Flamers, then it's more likely their opponent's were too busy dying from fits of laughter at seeing them in a competitive setting! )

2 Lords of change with exalted+ lesser gifts, one tzeentch herald, 7 min units of horrors, 2 units off mot furies, and 3 units of screamers. Over both armies

I personally don't like all the charge angles stuff / movement - "Oh you can't charge or do anything to all those enemy troops next to you as they are 1mm outside your vison arc - just ignore them...

While that's understandable, you have to remember the people in the front tended to be the veterans or the leaders of a unit, which the rest of the unit relied on for orders. If the leaders couldn't command them, then they weren't going to do it. This is how battles were fought for centuries before the 1850s. It's only once the huge previlance of modern reloading guns that people started looking and taking cover, which messed with this method of fighting.

I would tend to agree if we were playing historical game of ancients or medievil etc but the fantasy element does I feel change things I feel given the inhuman nature of most of the forces on the table - especially given that some of these warriors may have decades or even hundreds of years experience of the battlefield (Elves, Dwarves, Chaos etc) - A big mob of Orcs is hardly going to ignore a load of enemies wandering past them and stopping next to them - they are gonna krump them. Magic adds another element of command and control simply not open to ancient commanders.

I just prefer 40K movement as it allows you to think about where and why you are moving units to catpure objectives, get into cover or other reaons rather than measureing out excact angles and similar.................

I actually prefer the Movement system in Fantasy.

I play Eldar, so I think about movement alot in 40K, but even then, all I am really thinking about is how far away is my opponents guns are, whether there is any Line of Sight Blocking terrain I can take advantage of, and are my troops able to get to objectives by the end of the game. It doesn't matter which way my units are facing (unless its a tank but even then only the rear is typically vulnerable), and there is no strategy in positioning aside from making use of 2 inch coherancy and putting important models behind a wall or something.

In fantasy... Movement and positioning are a lot more indepth and there are a lot more considerations. Do you Move 4 and shoot, or March to get into a better position? Do you reform into Horde or Bus formation? Do you need to angle your unit to dodge an overcharge or avoid a flank charge? Chaff and redirector games are also intense, and many times the battle is won and lost based on who has better control of the Chaff.

The other day, my friend was showing me this thread on the Empire forums, detailing the Griffin Formation http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php?topic=42921.0

Nothing in 40K even approaches this level of tactical depth. Even Eldar and Dark Eldar are simple point and click armies in comparison.

I think we just enjoy very differrent styles of play

To me the extra tactical play you describe is just manipulating angles and measurements rather than the correct use of terrain and capturing the objective. To me thats what the ames about - I lked a number of elements of 8th Ed - pre measuring etc but the high level spells and "chaff" element / high powered spells put me off.

I love the fact that in 40K even very small "Chaff" units can be deadily - lost a Ravager to a lone remaining fire warrior with a speculative shot.............

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

For both armies, would that be a LoC w/Wand+Tome, Lv2 Tzheralds + min-sized Pinkies, Burning Chariot and maybe some MoT Furies or Screamers? (if they brought Flamers, then it's more likely their opponent's were too busy dying from fits of laughter at seeing them in a competitive setting! )

2 Lords of change with exalted+ lesser gifts, one tzeentch herald, 7 min units of horrors, 2 units off mot furies, and 3 units of screamers. Over both armies

So pretty much the Tzeentch staples and used in exactly the same way as you always see them in competitive play...

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

For both armies, would that be a LoC w/Wand+Tome, Lv2 Tzheralds + min-sized Pinkies, Burning Chariot and maybe some MoT Furies or Screamers? (if they brought Flamers, then it's more likely their opponent's were too busy dying from fits of laughter at seeing them in a competitive setting! )

2 Lords of change with exalted+ lesser gifts, one tzeentch herald, 7 min units of horrors, 2 units off mot furies, and 3 units of screamers. Over both armies

So pretty much the Tzeentch staples and used in exactly the same way as you always see them in competitive play...

Competitive play was generally the nurgle wall, from what I've seen.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

The list that placed first in Clash of Swords 13, featured a tonne of Tzeentch stuff. The only Nurgle Stuff was a unit of plaguebearers, a herald BSB, and 2 units of drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was Tzeentch.

The list that placed third had a unit of 6 beasts, a single beast, a unit of 3 drones, and a unit of 4 drones. OTher than the cannon, the rest was also tzeentch

For both armies, would that be a LoC w/Wand+Tome, Lv2 Tzheralds + min-sized Pinkies, Burning Chariot and maybe some MoT Furies or Screamers? (if they brought Flamers, then it's more likely their opponent's were too busy dying from fits of laughter at seeing them in a competitive setting! )

2 Lords of change with exalted+ lesser gifts, one tzeentch herald, 7 min units of horrors, 2 units off mot furies, and 3 units of screamers. Over both armies

So pretty much the Tzeentch staples and used in exactly the same way as you always see them in competitive play...

Competitive play was generally the nurgle wall, from what I've seen.

Competitive Daemons are basically limited to the following;

Lords = LoC w/Wand+Tome, or GUO, or Kipper (if running a caco-bomb of 'no-fun-for-you!')

Heroes = Nurgle BSB w/Regen Locus, Lv2 Tzherald(s) w/Exalted Locus, Slaanesh Herald w/Auto-pass characteristic tests or ASF Locus + Lv1

Core = 25-35 Plaguebearer brick, potentially an 18-20 or so secondary brick, 10 man Horror units for Gateway/Firestorm, big Daemonette brick (only if you're running mono-Slaanesh)

Special = 2x Solo Beasts + 2-3x 5 man Furies w/MoN or MoT for chaffing. 4-6 strong Beast brick for killy. Occasionally 3 man Screamer units if aiming for the Tzeentch Lore attribute. Might still see the occasional Ambushing Doggie unit, but their role is pretty much taken by Drones now.

Rare = 2x Khannons, 1-2x 3 or 4 strong Drone units (Burny Banner is ace here!), occasionally a Grinder or Burny Chariot.



Unlike most of the other 8th ed books, Daemons really do tend to run a set basic build with only some minor variance. (simply because our internal balance is so shockingly bad!)

Sure very few stubborn hold-outs might try to run Khorne or Tzeentch-heavy armies, or else include a pair of DP's, etc... because they want to/try it for the sheer challenge, but overall it's just not that viable in any kind of competitive setting...
Compare how similar almost all Daemon lists look, (besides the Slaanesh Caco-bomb which is a one-trick glass cannon pony), to books like VC's or Empire or HE's who can run at least 3-4 'main' builds.

You'll almost never see at least half the Daemon book turn up to a tournament... Things like non-Nurgle DP's, 'Thirsters, HoK, 'Letters, 'Crushers, Flamers, all 3 Slaany chariots, Seekers, etc... just get outdone by the other staple units.

Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

DukeRustfield wrote:
Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

Exaulted.

Can I just say that the bitching is useless. DoC is still midrange army. Look at all the choices you just said you had. The crying is really getting rediculous.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I think we just enjoy very differrent styles of play

To me the extra tactical play you describe is just manipulating angles and measurements rather than the correct use of terrain and capturing the objective. To me thats what the ames about - I lked a number of elements of 8th Ed - pre measuring etc but the high level spells and "chaff" element / high powered spells put me off.

I love the fact that in 40K even very small "Chaff" units can be deadily - lost a Ravager to a lone remaining fire warrior with a speculative shot.............

Chaff is what wins games in WHFB. That big 50 strong unit of pure death will never see combat against a good player with chaff and its your own chaff that allows you to get said unit into a good postion. In fact I would say in WHFB there is almost no wasted units unlike 40k where you take 4-5 troops choices to just hold objectives and little else.

Also chaff gives you more "drops" in deployment allowing you to place your units in such away that takes your opponents scariest stuff out of the fight.

Warhammer just has a much stepper learning curve then 40k and it may takes a while to really get your head around the rules and tactics but watching two good players going at it in warhammer is a thing of beauty, I think that a unit can win you the game without killing a single thing and just blocking a charge at the right time speaks volumes about the depth of the game compared to 40k (not hating on 40k 6th wasnt for me but you can bet your ass I will be checking out 7th)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

I personally don't like all the charge angles stuff / movement - "Oh you can't charge or do anything to all those enemy troops next to you as they are 1mm outside your vison arc - just ignore them...

While that's understandable, you have to remember the people in the front tended to be the veterans or the leaders of a unit, which the rest of the unit relied on for orders. If the leaders couldn't command them, then they weren't going to do it. This is how battles were fought for centuries before the 1850s. It's only once the huge previlance of modern reloading guns that people started looking and taking cover, which messed with this method of fighting.

I would tend to agree if we were playing historical game of ancients or medievil etc but the fantasy element does I feel change things I feel given the inhuman nature of most of the forces on the table - especially given that some of these warriors may have decades or even hundreds of years experience of the battlefield (Elves, Dwarves, Chaos etc) - A big mob of Orcs is hardly going to ignore a load of enemies wandering past them and stopping next to them - they are gonna krump them. Magic adds another element of command and control simply not open to ancient commanders.

I just prefer 40K movement as it allows you to think about where and why you are moving units to catpure objectives, get into cover or other reaons rather than measureing out excact angles and similar.................

Big blocks of ranked infantry are not the most maneuverable things not to mention the fact that for anyone that is not in the front rank your SA is almost nill. I don't think it matters if you have green skin,pointy ears or giant fangs.

I understand how a newer player could be put off by the "exact measuring" but once you have the concept firmly down you tend to just be able to eyeball it fairly well and funnily enough one of things I find limiting about 40k is movement is very simple. Need the unit to survive dump them in cover, need a unit to hold an objective just work out how many turns you need to get there and if you have time to take the "safe" way using LoS etc.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

Oh man, this.

On chaff being 'useless'... they're not for killing things. Killing things is a bonus if they can manage it. But this is kind of the difference between 40k and fantasy right here, I think. In 40k, usefulness is generally raw stats. In fantasy, usefulness can be other things too. Chaff will win you games. They may not cause a single wound, but they will save your units and give you crucial positioning to help your main units win combats. The movement phase dance with chaff is part of the reason I love fantasy and am lukewarm about 40k. There's just a lot more going on.

If you prefer going for killy shooty bloodbaths, 40k certainly delivers and there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't knock chaff for uselessness when you don't understand what it's really for.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

Because he probably ran the 90 bloodletter list and is now butthurt that he has to play tactically now.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:
Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

Because he probably ran the 90 bloodletter list and is now butthurt that he has to play tactically now.

Actually, I ran a list that was basically;

Tzeentch Daemon Prince w/Lv2 & Fire(8th) or Beast magic(7th)

Chariot Tzherald BSB w/make Light magic not-so-hurty banner

Tzerhald w/Heavens magic + 36 Pinkies

Occasionally a Disc Tzherald w/Tzeentch magic

18 Pinkies

18 Pinkies

5 Flamers

4 Flamers

Hardly cheese mongering, and it included 2 of the weakest options in the book while also using some of the supposedly 'weakest' magic lores between both editions.

The Daemon Prince who was considered "crap/underpowered" in the previous book somehow got even weaker! (and is a complete joke when compared to the WoC version...)
Hell, it's even shooting myself in the foot to run my Pinkies in their 'sacred number' sizes now, and Flamers are now simply unplayable they're so bad.

And yet, you compare the DoC book to the 40k Daemons codex and the difference in quality and internal balance is shocking... Better rewards - which are also organised meaning it's quite easy to give your characters protective gifts, Warpstorm can be controlled to at least not zap yourself through Instrument, most units are viable... (though the Burning Chariot is crying for an FAQ, while Nurglings are redundant & the Slaany Chariots need some help)

I can play my Daemons with the units I want in 40k and I don't feel constrained or hamstrung in my units & character selections.
That's simply not possible with the Fantasy book, where for example;
- I *must* take the LoC over the Prince because I need the added stats since I can't give adequate protection & supportive gifts to the Prince. (who's also laughably, the only Lord character in the game who doesn't get 100pts to spend on magic items/gifts!)
- I *need* to bring my Horrors in minimum 10 man units because Lore of Tzeentch only has a couple of useful spells that work well with them, AND I no longer have access to supportive BRB lores like Beasts or Light or Fire to buff their combat potential.
- I *cannot* use Flamers because they're simply the worst unit in the game... No focused role, hard-capped at only 6 meaning they melt instantly in combat due to DI, crap shooting that suffers from Warpflame... and all for this for 240pts for a max unit!

Yes I've bought stuff to make-up for this, (6 chariot kits to convert Tzeentchy 'counts as' Drones & Beasts + 1 Burning Chariot), but even then it's simply frustrating as hell because even those units tend to have specific set-ups! (Solo Beasts for chaffing, never more than 4 Drones or you lose effectiveness/can't manouver properly, etc...)
The only part of my army that actually gained in power/dropped pts were my LoC & Screamers! Everything else took it to the face with the nerf bat... (and Flamers somehow got nerfed even further from their WD update beating!)

You just did it again. I want to ask why you play Daemons but I don't think it's a good idea.

I feel at this point if someone makes a thread that says, I have to go to the doctor's later, he will jump on it and say DOC sux and here's the wall of text why.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Why do you have to ass up every thread that every mentions DoC about how you hate DoC yet still play it?

Exactly I know tzeentch is now not upper tier but really, Khorne, and Slaanesh still work and Nurgle is downright Filth. Tzeentch still has the most powerful casters in the demons book.

dlight wrote:
Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, and just Warhammer Fantasy in general, is a terrible rule set. Pretty models, but awful, awful rules.
In most areas, fantasy has largely died off. People just don't want to play it.

I wouldn't mess with it. 40K is way more fun and it is far easier to find people to play with in most areas.

Warhammer 40K 6th has a lot of tactics and skill that come into play in competitive play. There are so many different builds you can face now with the ally system, and the codex's are getting
updated constantly. You will rarely see the same army build win different tournaments, there is a lot of diversity and depth.

There has never been a better time to be a 40K fan.

This is not true I understand this is your opinion but I've seen the EXACT opposite results, 8th edition is great

8th edition is the best WFB I have played - but I don't feel it offers any of the enjoyment or depth of 40k

but then I think the two games appeal to different mindsets - so what I like - others won;t and vice versa

I keep meaning to work out some rules for WFB troops in 40k - should be good for my forthcoming King Kong versus the Orks game at the local club

I've played 40k since late 3rd edition, fantasy since early 8th. I can't speak for the earlier additions of fantasy, but in the simplest terms, i would say the games break down thusly:

40k is a game of List Building, alpha strike, target priority, and shooting ie:

You MUST have a good list, and most of your killing will be by shooting at range since assault hasn't worked right since 4th edition (please no flame-spray, some armies can do it /coughORKScough, but alot of them just cant anymore). So since the game is mostly shooting, it becomes a game of target priority. If someone doubts this, then ask yourself...if two 40k players deployed their armies on the table and then told you which of them had first turn, could you, with some accuracy, determine WHO is likely to win just based on their list and deployments? Most 40k players could say "yes" to this...hence, list building and target priority. You usually can't do that in fantasy.

Fantasy is more balanced in that sense. In 40k, the shooting phase dominates the game, in fantasy, YOU pick which phase you want to dominate (yes, magic is strong, but it's not required to win, only recommended)

In fantasy, the Movement phase is WAAAAY more complex and important and requires that you think ahead to the next turn to be effective. But truly, there are 4 phases to the game, movement, magic, shooting, and assault. One of the best players i know (been playing since 3rd Fantasy) says all the time, build an army to dominate 2 phases of the game, and break even on a third. Then go play. Movement and shooting CAN beat magic and assault, it may be hard, but they can. Movement and assault can beat Shooting and magic, it all depends on how you play. There are some definite OTT things in fantasy but most people wont or dont play with them since they are recognized to be somewhat un-fun to play with or against. The game requires much more thought then simply "Build a bad-azz list and blast your opponent turn 1" since game-changing events can occur in any turn or phase of the game, and an army that's loosing the entire game can turn it around and win in turn 6.

In 40k, once a book becomes understood (meaning played for a while), nearly everyone has very similar armies with only minor differences, because that's the army that works. As opposed, I play vampire counts and off the top of my head i could make 3 completely different armies that share almost nothing in common and all 3 would be viable, competetive armies. Better balance.

The biggest downsides i would say to fantasy compared to 40k is this:
1. Terrain rules are strange and cumbersome, most people just end up ignoring them.
2. 40k objective based scenarios are MUCH more in-depth and interesting then fantasy, whereas in fantasy you usually just line up, say yer "howdies", and start killin. But then again, the game is so in-depth that is usually enough.

1) To me, the worst part about 40K is space marines. Everything is space marines. There's space marines, then dark angels space marines, then black templar space marines. Blood Angels space marines. Space Wolves space marines. Grey Knight space marines. Chaos space marines. Necrons are just different-looking space marines. I played in a 40k tournie last year and didn't play a single army that wasn't space marines.

2) WHFB's biggest strength is its tactical depth. 40k is a game of listbuilding and target priority. Movement is important for supporting your game of target priority, but little else.

WHFB still has an emphasis about listbuilding and bringing the right tools, but your use of tools on the table is considerably more nuanced. Using chaff to block and redirect. Setting up flank and combo-charges. A well-executed WHFB battle strategy is truly a thing of beauty.

3) WHFB is a significantly more balanced game. 40k's focus on listbuilding can mean outcomes can often be determined before a single die has rolled. In fantasy a strong player can often win with bottom-tier armies by out-maneuvering and out-smarting their opponents.

4) Magic may be powerful, but it's also risky. Lean too heavily on magic and see your army falter when you get 3 dice on your winds roll, or your kajillion-point party slann or demon prince miscasts on that 6-diced purple sun and jumps into the warp.

Magic is an important part of the game, but amongst skilled players it is a much more nuanced fight than many here are suggesting.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

4) Magic may be powerful, but it's also risky. Lean too heavily on magic and see your army falter when you get 3 dice on your winds roll, or your kajillion-point party slann or demon prince miscasts on that 6-diced purple sun and jumps into the warp.

Magic is an important part of the game, but amongst skilled players it is a much more nuanced fight than many here are suggesting.

I still have nightmares about one of the last 7th ed games with my VC's...
I'd weathered the beating from WoC and was ready to raise back my anvil of Skellies as I was sitting on 11PD... Despite throwing out my bounds first & then D6'ing my Invocations to overpower my opponent's 6DD, I managed to raise all of 1 skeleton. (and my opponent never attempted to stop a single casting, simply because I'd failed the first 10. )

I love magic-heavy armies, but unfortunately what should be my army's strength tends to more often than not blow-up spectacularly in my face... Sucking a 540'ish pts LoC back into the Warp isn't much fun. (at least that'll teach me to think 2D6 casting is somehow "safer")

I personally play all three GW games, while all games revolve around rolling dice, 40k is still Mostly about what your list consists of and 99% of the time, the better list will win. (There are always exceptions.) You place your models on the table, move them a little here or there, and shot without any thought of something bad happening. LOTR requires you to be competing in all aspects of the game. But I will stay away from this for this thread.
Fantasy, The best list in the world can let you down just as easily as the weakest. A Gun line’s war machines explode turn one. Your Big Bad Wizard miss casts and is removed from play. Your Tough as nails 500 monster charges in whiffs his attacks and is destroyed by a 50 point unit of the weakest of models in the game. These things do not happen in 40k.

How would you feel if you Land raider (Or the like) had a 1-6 chance of that las gun blowing up, then a 1-3 chance of that gun taking out the entire tank, before the enemy even had a chance to shoot at it. Or how about you’re General fails his psyche test, and instead of taking a wound, he gets removed from play and every model in his unit takes a S10 AP1 hit. 40k does not have to deal with such issues.
With 40k you make a plan, deploy your army, and see if that plan was good enough to win. Fantasy requires you to make a plan, then toss than plan out the window, and think on your feet every turn.
40k look my unit can easily wound you on a 2+, but wait even though I am so strong to hurt you this easily, you still get to make that 2+/3+ save that is all over the place. This does not happen in fantasy that often because superior saves are far less prevalent. And armor does not stand up as well against stronger attacks. If my unit can easily wound you, odds are that most of your unit is going to die. How many times have a 40k player cause 30-40 wounds only to see 1 - 3 warriors die, I see it far more often than I see the unit be wiped out. In fantasy if I can wound you on 2+ odds are that 60%-75%+ of those wounds are going to kill models.

Personally, I prefer to play Fantasy over 40k. 6th ed is a major step in the right direction as far at bring the game into more of a table top strategy, but it is still holding strong to its list build table top roots. Fantasy while having its flaws, Is far superior in the strategy aspect. But both have their good and bad points.

People really need to get off the pedestal about how bad the DoC book is. Does it have some internal BS, Sure, but you are basically looking at 4 books in one. The gods do not want to work with each other deal with it. And the OP HE BOTWD only protects one unit, It is not like DoC can only attack that one Unit. Sure that unit might eat a ton of points. But If you planned your army correctly, DOC have plenty of ways of combating it, and still winning the game with ease, while still being able to compete against every other Army. As new books come out you have to be able to adjust, Adapt, and go on playing.

Another thing that gets on my nerves for both games is how everyone complains that some armies have all this entire different list, and some only have 1-2. I say that is complete crap. Every army has 1-2 list that are the strongest list for that book. But no book is cookie cut into taking that list. I have played my share of games against far more different list than most people would think. There have been games where I have said (to myself mostly) there is no way that can work, only to be proven wrong. Each player is different, and If you build a list around a concept, and not what your opponent has shown up with, you will win more of your games than you lose.

cawizkid wrote:

40k look my unit can easily wound you on a 2+, but wait even though I am so strong to hurt you this easily, you still get to make that 2+/3+ save that is all over the place. This does not happen in fantasy that often because superior saves are far less prevalent. And armor does not stand up as well against stronger attacks. If my unit can easily wound you, odds are that most of your unit is going to die. How many times have a 40k player cause 30-40 wounds only to see 1 - 3 warriors die, I see it far more often than I see the unit be wiped out. In fantasy if I can wound you on 2+ odds are that 60%-75%+ of those wounds are going to kill models.

Well, when MY marines take those wounds, I can 100% promise you the unit will not be there anymore...

Last time I brought some allied CSM's with my Daemons, the 5 man unit took a total of 6 wounds before they all died. The final casualty being the plasma gunner who rolled snake-eyes after rapid firing and then managed to pass one of his saves... (at least my buddy's Dark Angels purged those Fallen)
The lone Oblit on the other hand who kept eating ap2 shots all game never once failed his 4++ save though! (now if only he'd managed to actually hit something or even at least glance a vehicle at some point...)

Hence why I don't believe in armour saves, because dice don't like me.


And Fantasy is no different... Waaaaaay back when I still played Brets, S3 arrows were the ultimate weapon against my army of 2+ saves.

Experiment 626 wrote:

cawizkid wrote:

40k look my unit can easily wound you on a 2+, but wait even though I am so strong to hurt you this easily, you still get to make that 2+/3+ save that is all over the place. This does not happen in fantasy that often because superior saves are far less prevalent. And armor does not stand up as well against stronger attacks. If my unit can easily wound you, odds are that most of your unit is going to die. How many times have a 40k player cause 30-40 wounds only to see 1 - 3 warriors die, I see it far more often than I see the unit be wiped out. In fantasy if I can wound you on 2+ odds are that 60%-75%+ of those wounds are going to kill models.

Well, when MY marines take those wounds, I can 100% promise you the unit will not be there anymore...

Last time I brought some allied CSM's with my Daemons, the 5 man unit took a total of 6 wounds before they all died. The final casualty being the plasma gunner who rolled snake-eyes after rapid firing and then managed to pass one of his saves... (at least my buddy's Dark Angels purged those Fallen)
The lone Oblit on the other hand who kept eating ap2 shots all game never once failed his 4++ save though! (now if only he'd managed to actually hit something or even at least glance a vehicle at some point...)

Hence why I don't believe in armour saves, because dice don't like me.


And Fantasy is no different... Waaaaaay back when I still played Brets, S3 arrows were the ultimate weapon against my army of 2+ saves.

This actually the truth that makes no sense. Somehow Brettonian archers always destroy a unit they have no business killing.

I started with both 6th ed 40K, and now 8th edition Fantasy (because my group largely plays Fantasy). Huge fan of 6th ed 40k. I've been having lots of fun with the game so far. I play Tyranids.

I have very mixed emotions about Fantasy. I've had a lot of fun (I play High Elves - especially now that my book got a power boost), but in just about every game i've played I end up upset about some quirky rule. This has never happened to me in 40k, even when I get stomped by some hard-counter list. My biggest gripe comes down to how you actually win the game. Frankly, I think victory points is an awful system. If the game comes down to pts-for-pts calculations the better army book will always win. I much prefer to play 40k scenarios.

I do enjoy Fantasy though, i'm just keeping my fingers crossed that 9th edition makes the playing experience more pleasurable.

rollawaythestone wrote:
If the game comes down to pts-for-pts calculations the better army book will always win.

That's so not true.

Ogres are mostly likely better than TK but you can't begin to say every ogre general will beat every TK general and army. I find that exact thing does happen in 40K, however. That's what list building is. If your army isn't capable of fielding a good list, you're going to lose to one that is. Assuming you don't just pick garbage units.

ComTrav wrote:
Fun is subjective, there are lots of great games out there worth trying.

What a great quote HAVE AN EXALT!

Anyway I find Fantasy to be far more fun and far more interesting personally than many games that are out currently. The game seems a little daunting to get into but it really doesn't work that way. if you want a cheap (monetarily) and powerful army it is available (Ogres, Chaos Warriors.) If you want to spend the time and resources you can do Horde armies. If you want a mix there are a handful of those.

Fantasy can be very enjoyable and no book is unplayable. (Beastmen, Wood Elves and, Tomb Kings are considered to be Hard but they are functional and possible to use.) Also it should be said some Fantasy Fluff armies don't work.

40k on the other hand feels bland and boring kit all comes down to throwing dice at one another.

Or at least that is my opinion.

DukeRustfield wrote:

rollawaythestone wrote:
If the game comes down to pts-for-pts calculations the better army book will always win.

That's so not true.

Ogres are mostly likely better than TK but you can't begin to say every ogre general will beat every TK general and army. I find that exact thing does happen in 40K, however. That's what list building is. If your army isn't capable of fielding a good list, you're going to lose to one that is. Assuming you don't just pick garbage units.

In a way, I get what rollawaythestone is saying (or at least how I interpret his words) and it is a very good point actually. In 40k, I've often felt that "oh crap, I'm going to lose this", but have ended up narrowly scraping a victory or a draw through means of a last-ditch objective grab, or linebreaker, or slay the warlord. I remember one game against a Daemon Flying Circus with my Orks, I felt sure by Turn 2 that I was going to lose. In the end, I did, but he only had 5 Plaguebearers left on the board, that were sat on a 4pt objective (it was The Scouring). I remember I had one Battlewagon that just sat there because "there was no point moving it", whereas I probably could have one the game with it. Similarly, if I'd pushed for first blood, I would have won. I was quite annoyed with myself, if I remember rightly.

In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

 The Shadow wrote:

In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

For a counter-anecdote, in a low points game I ended up with about 5 chaos warriors and 3 marauders against two goblin chariots left on the board. I ended up positioning the marauders as a sacrificial lamb and put the warriors at an angle to try and catch the chariot afterwards. Managed to get the hail mary roll of 11 on the charge to reach after the chariots plowed through the marauders and won the game.

As you said, comebacks are not impossible. But yes, I see where you're coming from on that. I think the neat thing is that people that are more familiar with the system are going to see ways to come back. People that don't play 40k will say that one list always beats another. People that don't play fantasy will say the underpowered army will always lose, etc.

 The Shadow wrote:
In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

Yeah but, this doesn't happen on turn one. It's like saying, you usually know who won the war as the war draws to a close. WHFB doesn't have the same, sit one unit on the object > killing a zillion dudes objectives.

DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

Yeah but, this doesn't happen on turn one. It's like saying, you usually know who won the war as the war draws to a close. WHFB doesn't have the same, sit one unit on the object > killing a zillion dudes objectives.

I've seen this frequently happen by Turn 3, which is only halfway through the game. Units start hitting combat by Turn 2, so 3 turns is plenty of time for carnage to ensue.

DukeRustfield wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

Yeah but, this doesn't happen on turn one. It's like saying, you usually know who won the war as the war draws to a close. WHFB doesn't have the same, sit one unit on the object > killing a zillion dudes objectives.

Yeah, tell that to my Vamp Lord who's favourite "tactic" is to miscast and explode spectacularly half the time in her first magic phase...
At least it's not auto-lose anymore provided you bring more than a single Lore of Vamps caster.

But there's always those games though where stupid gak happens turn 1 and effectively ends the game then and there, and it's always existed in Fantasy much more so than 40k...
- My Tzeentch Daemons have gotten snake-eyes a couple times turn 1 and lost most of my chaff and even my Lv4 to Instability tests. (stupid Reign of Comedy!)

- VC's or TK's losing their general/hierophant to a miscast/cannon/war machine snipe and crumbling.

- Purple Sun being IF'ed down the flank of your majority I2 army. (I've been on the receiving end of this & seen it happen numerous times)

- Skaven Warp-Lightning Cannon (or another 'wonder weapon) misfiring and causing the entire army minus the Grey Seer's unit to leg it off the board. (as happened at the 2003 Toronto GT, earning that poor fellow the Murphy's Luck award)
Although, I do believe the proper term used was that the entire army, 'charged forwards in the opposite direction'.

- A special mention to the entire Night Goblin army, (minus the warlord's unit), that ran off the table in panic turn 1 because "it got dark". (scenario special rule)
Comically enough, this was at the 2001 Toronto GT vs a Daemon army... It was decided that the Night Goblins were able to see exactly what they were up against and decided to say "feth this!" and legged it back to the relative safety of their caves!


The only games like that in 40k I've seen/heard of where typically from 'back in the day' in 2nd edition such as the infamous 'Pulsa Rokkit into a building full of Ultramarines' at the very first Canadian GT in Toronto, (this event is obviously cursed!), or else from player stupidity such as in 3rd ed when ordinance pens could kill passengers if their tank was destroyed on a 6... (dude deployed a pair of Land Raiders side-by-side in front of an enemy Vindicator & one of those 'Raiders had a squad of tooled-up Termies + Captain inside... not so much Murphy's Luck as it was 'Darwin Award' type of play though - and yes, again this was at the Toronto GT...)

Or else you lose first turn to a gunline...

 The Shadow wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

rollawaythestone wrote:
If the game comes down to pts-for-pts calculations the better army book will always win.

That's so not true.

Ogres are mostly likely better than TK but you can't begin to say every ogre general will beat every TK general and army. I find that exact thing does happen in 40K, however. That's what list building is. If your army isn't capable of fielding a good list, you're going to lose to one that is. Assuming you don't just pick garbage units.

In a way, I get what rollawaythestone is saying (or at least how I interpret his words) and it is a very good point actually. In 40k, I've often felt that "oh crap, I'm going to lose this", but have ended up narrowly scraping a victory or a draw through means of a last-ditch objective grab, or linebreaker, or slay the warlord. I remember one game against a Daemon Flying Circus with my Orks, I felt sure by Turn 2 that I was going to lose. In the end, I did, but he only had 5 Plaguebearers left on the board, that were sat on a 4pt objective (it was The Scouring). I remember I had one Battlewagon that just sat there because "there was no point moving it", whereas I probably could have one the game with it. Similarly, if I'd pushed for first blood, I would have won. I was quite annoyed with myself, if I remember rightly.

In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

Yeah, this is exactly what I was trying to suggest. In my experience, a game of 40k isn't over until you roll the dice to see if it ends. You could spend the entire game shooting me to hell, but if you don't get those objectives, I still have a chance. Not so in Fantasy, where one miscast, bad combat round, or d6 wound cannon shot to your monster, can lose you the entire game.

From what I've seen, fantasy players are a much more relaxed bunch who enjoy life. Far too many 40k players get all hyper and stressed out while playing the game.

It is also true that fantasy games between two decent players are often far more close than than the one sided matches that often unfold in 40k.

Two of my recent 40k matches are pretty good examples. My list isn't overly competitive, it is a 1500-1750 pt farsight enclave consisting of many XV8s, 1 broadside team, 1 sniper drone team, 1 FW team, many drones, a commander, and farsight.

Opponent 1 brought a jump pack blood angels list. The game pretty went as follows: he spent a turn or 2 maneuvering out of LoS or in cover and then jumped out to charge. He lost about 30% of each squad in my shooting phase and then lost another 2 guys per squad from overwatch (plasma/fusion blasters were just brutal). Then we were locked into CC... and my crisis suits destroyed (str 5 punches hurt) his few marines that did survive the shooting.

Opponent 2 brought a dark eldar venom/ravager spam list. He pretty much kited me all game since his dark lances were 36 inches and my longest range was missile pods (also 36 inches), but night shields reduced me to 30". I had to concede because I had no viable options, sit in cover and slowly get picked apart or jump out and get instantly shredded.

My point is, lists in these 40k matches dictated the winner and in my experience, fantasy (while lists do matter) suffers much less from the scenarios above.

I'm personally waiting for 9th to drop and I'll try to decide between VC and hopefully WE if they receive an update in the next year or so.

Edit: I should mention that I'm definitely going to stick with 40k in the future - I'll just probably keep it as more of a fluff/modelling/painting experience while fantasy is used to have some relaxing game time.

rollawaythestone wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

DukeRustfield wrote:

rollawaythestone wrote:
If the game comes down to pts-for-pts calculations the better army book will always win.

That's so not true.

Ogres are mostly likely better than TK but you can't begin to say every ogre general will beat every TK general and army. I find that exact thing does happen in 40K, however. That's what list building is. If your army isn't capable of fielding a good list, you're going to lose to one that is. Assuming you don't just pick garbage units.

In a way, I get what rollawaythestone is saying (or at least how I interpret his words) and it is a very good point actually. In 40k, I've often felt that "oh crap, I'm going to lose this", but have ended up narrowly scraping a victory or a draw through means of a last-ditch objective grab, or linebreaker, or slay the warlord. I remember one game against a Daemon Flying Circus with my Orks, I felt sure by Turn 2 that I was going to lose. In the end, I did, but he only had 5 Plaguebearers left on the board, that were sat on a 4pt objective (it was The Scouring). I remember I had one Battlewagon that just sat there because "there was no point moving it", whereas I probably could have one the game with it. Similarly, if I'd pushed for first blood, I would have won. I was quite annoyed with myself, if I remember rightly.

In Fantasy though, you can normally tell that, if you've lost a lot of points, you are going to lose. I'm not saying a comeback is impossible - it certainly isn't - it's just that 40k tends to have more close-run finishes

Yeah, this is exactly what I was trying to suggest. In my experience, a game of 40k isn't over until you roll the dice to see if it ends. You could spend the entire game shooting me to hell, but if you don't get those objectives, I still have a chance. Not so in Fantasy, where one miscast, bad combat round, or d6 wound cannon shot to your monster, can lose you the entire game.

Agreed thats what I have found - one close combat and eh games over, one spell and the games over as opposed to 40K where even small units can actaully do something rather than run arounnd and try and divert people. On a more positive note - maybe its a good thing they are so different as different strokes and all that!?

Hi, so, 40k player here. I was told I should take a look at fantasy in a PM. So far, all I really know about fantasy is what the models look like and what the names of the armies are, so a pretty blank slate.

On the other hand, I've played quite a bit of 40k since 4th edition, and am actually getting rather annoyed with it at the moment.

The thing that I find most shocking about this thread is that, without me telling you what's bothering me about 40k, everyone here has basically been going over my list of things that are bugging me about 40k, and saying that WHFB fixes those problems.

While there are a lot of things I could refer to, this one was the most poignant:

akaean wrote:For me at least, 40K is at its best somewhere between close combat and 24 inches. In close range fire fights where considerations such as rapid firing but putting yourself at risk of a charge, and other issues come into play. But this is watered down by 40Ks (understandably) much higher focus on powerful long ranged weaponry, and entire factions like Tau or IG specialized in shooting from across the board, with high strength low ap and often cover ignoring weapons. It really moves the game away from 2 players dancing in all phases to one player playing his shooting phase, while the other player desperately tries to make the other two phases (movement and close combat) relevant to the game, and frustratingly oftentimes the gunline will win.

The idea that there are armies in 40k that don't really use the movement phase at all, and basically don't use the assault phase (so, don't do anything more than put down miniatures and roll dice), is unfortunate, but tolerable to me. The fact that these kinds of armies have gotten to the point where they can shut down YOUR ability to use anything but the movement phase, and can make it so that YOU are stuck trying to make whole swaths of the game relevant, well... that's another matter. It's obviously far from an unbroken trend, but for the past half decade, 40k has slowly been moving towards the one (happenstantially least skilled, and most boring) type of army, and the competition over the years has been who can do this one play style best. Everyone else is just sort of screwing around and losing badly while they don't get to play their army in the way they intended to because everything just gets killed off too quickly.

Of course, I can't really say anything about fantasy, but I do like the idea of what you do in the movement phase actually matters. In 40k, the only thing movement does is get guns into range, and if your guns are already in range, you just don't use the movement phase. I also like the idea that if you can do well in any one of four phases, that you can theoretically undo what your opponent did in any other phase. Compared to 40k, where the idea that assault is a counter to shooting is a total joke.

I don't know if that's how the game is, but it's spooky-cultlike that everybody seems to say the same things in almost the same words to that effect.

One thing I do find curious is the idea that 40k objectives are better. 40k missions really, really aren't that great. 3 of the 6 missions don't really use objectives. 2 of the 3 that do, whoever gets to place objectives first (with an odd number of objectives) tends to just win, because they can hide them over in a corner and castle up on them. Plus, 40k has secondary objectives now, which means a person can deliberately play for a draw (which is a lot easier than playing for a win), and then whoever drew first blood wins. It's so common at my FLGS that we're starting to call 6th ed "first blood: the game". I don't know if I've ever seen someone who didn't get first blood win a Relic or Will game in 40k. You might as well just line up your two gunlines and see who was luckiest enough with their opening salvo and then just pack up. In comparison, I'd much rather have the old 40k 4th ed's table quarters or victory points.

Otherwise, the only thing I can speak to is soft stuff. 40k's fluff is awesome, and, admittedly with no knowledge whatsoever of fantasy, the idea of saving an entire planet from alien devastation in an entire galaxy of war does seem a lot cooler than "oh, look, those elves and dwarves are punching each other next to that mountain again". Plus, 40k models are really, excellently awesome. Meanwhile, because you have to pack fantasy minis into little squares, they always look so cluttered that it's tough for me to see the detail on them.

That's pretty shallow criticism, though. I'm sure there are interesting things about fantasy fluff, and the fact that 40k has the vast, unwashed tide of "competitive" players means that nobody really paints their 40k army before selling it off when the next codex drops, so...

Anyways, a bit of a ramble. It's interesting to see what fantasy players think of their own game.

The one thing I am a little bit confused about, though, is why people seem to hate the current rules edition so much. Obviously, knowing nothing about the current nor previous editions, I couldn't say myself. Is it just that things changed and so now are different? I mean, if that's the case, then you'd really hate 40k. 6th ed single-handedly made 3 of the 5 ways to play orks completely unplayable, and that's just orks. Guard likewise lost half their playstyles, etc. I know there's a separate thread on this right now, so I probably shouldn't inquire here, but it seems strange to see such violent anger by a minority of the players.

The one thing I am a little bit confused about, though, is why people seem to hate the current rules edition so much. Obviously, knowing nothing about the current nor previous editions, I couldn't say myself. Is it just that things changed and so now are different? I mean, if that's the case, then you'd really hate 40k. 6th ed single-handedly made 3 of the 5 ways to play orks completely unplayable, and that's just orks. Guard likewise lost half their playstyles, etc. I know there's a separate thread on this right now, so I probably shouldn't inquire here, but it seems strange to see such violent anger by a minority of the players.

I'm in the same boat as Ailaros, and was about to make a thread asking this exact question

I don't think people hate 8th. Just the people that post in the "why you hate 8th threads." So add all them up and then add up all the people posting in all the other threads.

 Dakkamite wrote:

The one thing I am a little bit confused about, though, is why people seem to hate the current rules edition so much. Obviously, knowing nothing about the current nor previous editions, I couldn't say myself. Is it just that things changed and so now are different? I mean, if that's the case, then you'd really hate 40k. 6th ed single-handedly made 3 of the 5 ways to play orks completely unplayable, and that's just orks. Guard likewise lost half their playstyles, etc. I know there's a separate thread on this right now, so I probably shouldn't inquire here, but it seems strange to see such violent anger by a minority of the players.

I'm in the same boat as Ailaros, and was about to make a thread asking this exact question

Deathstars & ungodly powerful magic that can auto-wipe entire units (including characters) are pretty awful things... 40k for example doesn't have many Deathstars, and has never really had to deal with entire armies capable of putting the majority of their army into one nearly impossible to crack pts-vault. (outside of Pallystar & the new Screamerstar)
The fact that currently in Fantasy, you only score VP's for entirely wiping out an enemy unit helps to encourage Deathstaring. And since typically you only ever bludgeon a Deathstar unit to death with a harder Deathstar unit, (which are 100% match-up dependant at this point), means that the so-called "uber spells" become the instant counter which leads to games of "who can 6 dice their FTW spell first?"

Imagine for example, a unit of Ogres (think Ogryns but typically hitting at S6) accompanied by their General, Lv4 wizard and the Battle Standard Bearer who's hoisting a banner that on a 2+ let's the unit ignore most damage spells AND any Hexes you can aim at them...
How do you fight such a monstrosity? Well truthfully, you simply don't! You feed it chaff and either re-direct it or give it crap movement avenues so it goes nowhere all game and maybe only eats 300-400 or so pts of your stuff while you then go and kill the 700-800 or so pts you need to secure the victory. (this type of 'avoidancehammer' is about as much fun as lining up 2 40k gunlines and seeing who gets first turn!)
Or else you bring an equally hard Deathstar of your own, (ie: Vampire 'Blender' Lord + friends), and Augment the piss out of them with magic lores like Light or Beasts. Problem is, you have to charge into the enemy before magic comes into play, meaning your opponent (if they're not a complete and utter moron) will know what you're up to and aim all their dispelling efforts into stopping your Augments.
Or else you take the 'easy button' solution and just 6 dice Purple Sun, hoping for that Irresistible Force to make your spell unstoppable, and then watch as the giant round template of doom sucks most of the Ogres to their doom due to them all being forced to try and pass Initiative tests on I2 or auto-die!

And most armies can build these kinds of 'all eggs in one basket' type of pts-denial units... Though some armies obviously do it better than others, the other factor is that some armies are more at risk to the 'uber spells than others as well.
Ogres, Lizzies, Nurgle Daemons & Undead for example can get hosed by all 4 of the rulebook mega spells due to their low Initiative. On the other hand, Chaos Warriors & Elves just laugh at both Purple Sun & Pit of Shades because they have naturally high initiative. (leaving just Dwellers Below & Final Transmutation to deal with them)



It's very easy for Fantasy to devolve into a game of 'who can 6 dice first?' when your meta goes deathstar-happy...

Hopefully 9th edition brings back the old rule that you get half VP's for bringing a unit below 50% of it's starting strength and/or reducing characters to less than half wounds. At least that puts a decent chink in the Deathstars' currently nearly impregnable armour.

And also reigning in those 'uber spells to not auto-kill everything, or else at least make them more dangerous to use.

There are deathstars that you have to take strong stuff against or tarpit?

Oh, no...

Also, some of the changes they made in 8th they also made in 6th ed 40k (like random charge ranges), and there's no way that a single uber spell, with a random chance to get, a random chance to cast, and a random chance to deny, along with more dice to see if it does damage can be anywhere near a tau-tau "nice to see you deployed you minis, let's start the game by having you put half of them back in your army case. See you turn 2" nonsense.

Either WHFB was a perfect game in 7th, or some of its players have pickier standards.

I do agree that the no-half-VP rule sounds strange. Why don't people just fix that in house ruling?

 Ailaros wrote:
There are deathstars that you have to take strong stuff against or tarpit?

Oh, no...

Also, some of the changes they made in 8th they also made in 6th ed 40k (like random charge ranges), and there's no way that a single uber spell, with a random chance to get, a random chance to cast, and a random chance to deny, along with more dice to see if it does damage can be anywhere near a tau-tau "nice to see you deployed you minis, let's start the game by having you put half of them back in your army case. See you turn 2" nonsense.

Either WHFB was a perfect game in 7th, or some of its players have pickier standards.

Deathstars are simply boring to play against, just like gunlines in 40k.
There's just something inherently bland/wrong when looking down at a pair of 2400pts armies and seeing maybe 800-1000pts of dead stuff between both armies after 5 turns of game play! Cat-and-mouse games are fun every once and a while, but they're downright frustrating & unappealing when they become the norm.
On the other hand, if you have the perfect counter to that Deathstar, the game is likely over within 2-3 turns since you pretty much auto-win by crushing the star. ie: hit a Gutstar w/P.Sun and you've likely killed around 50% of the total pts in the Ogre army... Or run a Cacophonic Choir bomb into the middle of then enemy army, cast 12" version, win movement phase for the rest of the game while likely annihilating most/all of the enemy chaff...

And magic isn't quite as random as you might think... It's actually a very simple matter to ensure a specific wizard gets a certain spell due to how spell generation works. (ie: you can't have duplicates outside of a Loremaster 'insert lore' ability, and if you generate a duplicate spell, you simply pick the one you want) Since most armies tend to run a Lv4 wizard + Lv2 at the very minimum, it's almost a guarantee you can get the 'uber spell of your choice AND on the wizard of your choice. (hence the popularity of Shadow/Death/Life magic)
With the average dice roll of 7, plus channeling, it's not too hard to get 5-6 Power Dice/phase. Just throw 'em all and hope for double 6's - IF'ed spells can't be stopped. And when you're talking true Deathstars, losing 33% or more of it is typically a solid handful of minis going back into their case.

The 'pass an initiative test or die' spells, (Purple Sun especially), are especially brutal since so many armies have rock bottom initiative. Dwellers is also an instant 50% unit vs. S3 units.
Before the Power Scroll nerf, you would routinely see a Death wizard on horse/peggy zip-up a flank turn 1 and unleash P.Sun down an army's flank. Vs. the likes of Dwarfs, TK's, VC's, Lizzies, Ogres it was pretty much an auto-win. Vs. predominately I3 armies is was still pretty stupid.


Fantasy isn't any different to 40k in that respect, it's simply that while 40k tends to have only a couple 'bad apples' who can play gunline FTW!, Fantasy gives most armies the ability to counter deathstar with deathstar, meaning games either become a "who can 6-dice first?" or "who's deathstar can roll better?" (or else play 'avoid the nasty uber unit for 5 turns' game)

Maybe I'm alone in thinking that games where both armies beat eachother to a bloody pulp with only a few rag-tag survivors is exciting?

40K has deathstars. They are called vehicles. And every army in every game no matter what has AV or they will lose. And a significant chunk of AV. Because as tough as fantasy deathstars are, anything can kill them. Literally anything. A solo blind gnoblar with no teeth can walk up to a 234 man Irongut deathstar with regeneration and kill every last one of them. If you do not have AV and your enemy has a lot of high-end vehicles, you cannot harm them. You could have four hundred trillion planet's worth of angry arm-breaking, marrow-sucking Orks beat on a Land Raider, literally stuffing themselves into its exhaust pipes, and they will never even scratch the paint.

40k has deathstars, and they are called deathstars

I play/played deathstars in fantasy, and let me say they can be beaten. By movement, redirecting, deployment, combo charges, piece trading, 6 spells..... And of course by another deathstar. My gaming group made a demand that I stop runnning deathstars, and I did. A friend requested I play a deathstar and he beat me anyway, mainly because he out played me in every phase (no gimmicks needed). Deathstars are an easy button, but a good general can find a way, which is something I can't say about in 40k.

Vehicles can be tough but with the amount of high strength ranged weapons, AP 2 now adding +1 to the vehicle damage chart roll, and glancing damage... Vehicles aren't as good as in the previous edition. Almost every army can reliably penetrate AV 14 at range (except Orks).

 Ailaros wrote:
There are deathstars that you have to take strong stuff against or tarpit?

Oh, no...

Also, some of the changes they made in 8th they also made in 6th ed 40k (like random charge ranges), and there's no way that a single uber spell, with a random chance to get, a random chance to cast, and a random chance to deny, along with more dice to see if it does damage can be anywhere near a tau-tau "nice to see you deployed you minis, let's start the game by having you put half of them back in your army case. See you turn 2" nonsense.

Either WHFB was a perfect game in 7th, or some of its players have pickier standards.

I do agree that the no-half-VP rule sounds strange. Why don't people just fix that in house ruling?

Why hello. I started Fantasy about a year and a half ago, looking for variety from my 40k Orks. I now basically never play 40k, as I find it just too distressing to lose all my models before I can make assault. Maybe the upcoming codex will let me swarm into the enemy deployment zone as before, but I have a bad feeling about it.

So, Fantasy! Fantasy!

You will see some common complaints about 8th edition Fantasy. I will try to outline them from a 40k perspective.

1) VP conditions; apart from some (commonly houseruled) scenarios, you tend to win games on a pure VP basis. But the BRB system specifies a "dead or fled" system; only units that are entirely wiped out, or fled off the table, count. Killing 39 out of 40 goblins - not good enough, 0VP; having a massive block of guys fleeing at the end of the game is also not good enough, as they need to be actually off the table. I don't think that anybody really likes this, but it is just one of those things. I don't think that I have played any games where this mattered that much - outside of points-denial lists, you can pretty much tell who won at the end of the game.

2) Magic. Now, magic is almost infinitely more interesting than Psychic powers, as you have a give-and-take system where your opponent gets to try to dispel your stuff, but has less resources and so has to think hard about it. So that is good; it avoids the 40k issue of watching the GK player roll dice for awesome abilities, and having no ability to interfere. However, there are a few things in the system that people tend not to like:
a] It is very random. Results ranging from winning the game on one spell, to destroying your 400pt wizard and half his unit, are not unknown. There isn't really many ways to neuter this randomness. Not every game goes this way, but enough do to earn the game a reputation for it.
b] It is powerful; arguably more powerful for almost every Fantasy race than psychic powers are for the Eldar in 40k. Ignoring the spells that just kill stuff, you have buffs and debuffs that can win combats by themselves (Mindrazor being the best example; use LD value as strength). Again, this doesn't happen all the time - but it does happen. Check my latest battle report, specifically the third game, to see what can happen when a critical spell goes off.
c] There are big spells that can obliterate units - typically killing 1/4 or more in a single go. That wouldn't be a big deal in 40k, but in Fantasy it is common to have single units of 40+ models, which represent your main unit and which your success hinges on. People go sad panda when their megaunit gets nuked. I certainly do.

3) Horde/Steadfast/Points Denial - I am putting this all together. As already noted, Fantasy is full of huge units (say, 80 Skeleton Warriors, or 100 Night Goblins with poison banner, or 50 Empire Greatswords). These units rather abuse a game mechanic that was designed to be abused - a bit like Nob wound allocation in 5th. Basically, you are Stubborn if you have more guys than the opposing side - meaning re-rollable leadership of 9 or 10 in most cases. And in conjunction with the "dead or fled" thing, this promotes a strategy of shoving all your characters into one unit and making it impossible for the enemy to get any points out of you. I don't see this all that often (although perhaps I do it a lot, thanks to the synergy approach of the TK book), but it is definitely A Thing. High Elves are currently reigning champions at this, thanks to a broken magic banner, but otherwise every race is known to throw mega-units around, stuffed with characters and whatnot, in the hopes of battering the enemy and not giving up VPs. The plus side is having huge units, that look great and act a bit like how you'd expect 100 guys fighting together to; the downside is units that you simply cannot beat, and must just avoid all game.

4) Lotsa models - you need a lot of dudes to play this game. I use less models for 2,400pts of Tomb Kings than for 1,500pts of Orks though, so swings and roundabouts.

5) Cannons, monsters, cavalry - there are a lot of gripes about how these three classes of units are felt to be badly balanced at the moment (cannons too good, monsters too weak, cavalry too redundant) but this depends heavily on the army you play.

I hope that this monstrous deluge of words helps a bit.

Well, thanks for that.

Firstly, does the game just not work at low points levels? People fall all over themselves to play at 1850 points in 40k, which is where you start maxing out your FOC (or, at least, using most of it), and basically cramming the board so full of models that the game becomes line-up-and-shoot. The thing for 40k, though, is that it scales down very, very well. We had a 250 point league for awhile with just a couple of little rule tweaks (provided in the rulebook, actually) for that points level and it was brilliant. It actually felt a lot more tactical. Actually, it felt a lot like airsoft or paintball. You and a dozen guys against them and a dozen guys in a huge area.

Even though most people play huge battles, the game works well (read: better) in small ones. Is that just not so for fantasy?

The magic thing also strikes me as strange. Let's say that I wanted to build an army that didn't really rely at all on magic. So what I do is take a single high-level wizard, and then turn all of his ability into dispelling. Thus I'm not casting spells (because I'm saving the power for dispelling), and neither is my opponent (because their stuff is getting dispelled). It seems like this is an easy problem to solve. Of course, I don't know how the actual rules work.

Meanwhile, steadfast sounds like 40k's stubborn. In 40k, at least, that's hardly a game breaker. I used to play power blobs in 5th ed 40k, which meant I'd have units of 30 guardsmen (big for 40k), that would have a rerollable Ld9 that could never suffer negative modifiers. It was cool, but it was hardly game-breaking because it was still very possible to just kill 30 guardsmen. Dead units don't get to use Ld buffs. Why is that not the case in fantasy?

Also, I REALLY don't get the deathstar thing. 40k has vehicles. 40k now has riptides and wraithknights (and old tyranid monstrous creatures). 40k has actual deathstars like nob bikers, etc. etc. In 40k, we've had single superpower units for a long time, and you just work around them. You tarpit them, or you bring them down with weight of fire, or you bring counters, or you just bring better weapons, or you outmaneuver them.

I almost feel like deathstars are coming across as a shock in fantasy because you haven't seen them before. Why are deathstars in WHFB worse than the plethora of them in 40k?

And for the VP thing, it seems dumb, but it's also so easy to fix. Just two little changes to make them like 4th ed 40k VP (units at half strength count half, units fleeing at the end of the game count as dead). Plus, given restricted movement, this seems a bit odd. In 40k, if you have a single model left in a unit you can always move and then run him behind a ruin in a board packed with terrain, and once he's out of line of sight, he's practically impossible to kill. I was under the impression that in fantasy things moved more slowly, and more awkwardly, and there was less terrain, so a single mini couldn't just disappear in the same way.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, thanks for that.

Firstly, does the game just not work at low points levels? People fall all over themselves to play at 1850 points in 40k, which is where you start maxing out your FOC (or, at least, using most of it), and basically cramming the board so full of models that the game becomes line-up-and-shoot. The thing for 40k, though, is that it scales down very, very well. We had a 250 point league for awhile with just a couple of little rule tweaks (provided in the rulebook, actually) for that points level and it was brilliant. It actually felt a lot more tactical. Actually, it felt a lot like airsoft or paintball. You and a dozen guys against them and a dozen guys in a huge area.

Even though most people play huge battles, the game works well (read: better) in small ones. Is that just not so for fantasy?

It's the opposite for Fantasy, really. The problem at low point levels tends to be magic. You get nearly the same amount of power dice at 500 points as you would at 5000 points, so things get crazy swingy. This is easily remedied with a house rule of some sort, but it's definitely an issue if you're playing with the base rules.

Fantasy actually gets more interesting and tactical at higher point values. The movement phase becomes more important, unlike what you're describing in 40k with the line-up-and-shoot. Chaff becomes more important, charges and flanks and fleeing and all that become vital. Magic still has an impact, but much less so, and becomes more about the augments/hexes rather than raw damage output.

The magic thing also strikes me as strange. Let's say that I wanted to build an army that didn't really rely at all on magic. So what I do is take a single high-level wizard, and then turn all of his ability into dispelling. Thus I'm not casting spells (because I'm saving the power for dispelling), and neither is my opponent (because their stuff is getting dispelled). It seems like this is an easy problem to solve. Of course, I don't know how the actual rules work.

If you go for a single high level wizard (level 4), you'd get +4 to dispel. The thing is, you're also getting +4 to cast, and you still have more power dice than your opponent has dispel dice. The only army that you can really pull this off with is Dwarfs, who don't get any offensive casting at all (aside from Anvil of Doom shenanigans). They get lots of dispel bonuses and ways to steal dice. For all other armies, if you're going to invest in magic for dispelling, you're going to have to rely on magic yourself to some extent. Not ideal, but honestly it generally works out. There are some items that you can invest in to help go towards dispelling instead of casting, especially in certain army books, but even then you generally can't do anything against a 6 dice spell that's cast irresistably (2+ sixes).

Really, the best counter to magic is to have some of your own (which you'll be casting) and be aware of its effects. Purple Sun is less scary when you don't have one big deathstar unit and keep your flanks protected.

Meanwhile, steadfast sounds like 40k's stubborn. In 40k, at least, that's hardly a game breaker. I used to play power blobs in 5th ed 40k, which meant I'd have units of 30 guardsmen (big for 40k), that would have a rerollable Ld9 that could never suffer negative modifiers. It was cool, but it was hardly game-breaking because it was still very possible to just kill 30 guardsmen. Dead units don't get to use Ld buffs. Why is that not the case in fantasy?

Imagine not 30, but 50-60 models. In 40k, you can change targets. In Fantasy, once you're in close combat, you've committed. You're stuck there while your opponent can maneuver around to get a flank/rear charge with a stronger unit, or they can just leave you there to fight until the end of the game and not gain any VPs.

Personally I don't have an issue with Steadfast. Like magic, it's something you need to be aware of. It's also soft countered by having magic of your own that can affect entire units. Oh, you have 60 skaven slaves? Dwellers Below, there goes 40 of them.

Also, I REALLY don't get the deathstar thing. 40k has vehicles. 40k now has riptides and wraithknights (and old tyranid monstrous creatures). 40k has actual deathstars like nob bikers, etc. etc. In 40k, we've had single superpower units for a long time, and you just work around them. You tarpit them, or you bring them down with weight of fire, or you bring counters, or you just bring better weapons, or you outmaneuver them.

I almost feel like deathstars are coming across as a shock in fantasy because you haven't seen them before. Why are deathstars in WHFB worse than the plethora of them in 40k?

And for the VP thing, it seems dumb, but it's also so easy to fix. Just two little changes to make them like 4th ed 40k VP (units at half strength count half, units fleeing at the end of the game count as dead). Plus, given restricted movement, this seems a bit odd. In 40k, if you have a single model left in a unit you can always move and then run him behind a ruin in a board packed with terrain, and once he's out of line of sight, he's practically impossible to kill. I was under the impression that in fantasy things moved more slowly, and more awkwardly, and there was less terrain, so a single mini couldn't just disappear in the same way.

I would like the half point rule myself. Not a difficult fix. To be honest, though, when I play with friends most of the time we don't even bother adding up numbers. We've usually got a pretty good idea of who won by the end of it.

Fantasy also works much better with more terrain to influence the movement phase and create interesting tactical decisions. It's less impassable than 40k, I think, but more things like forests and fences and things that can make cavalry think twice about charging through at certain angles. It's definitely slower and more awkward than 40k in terms of movement, in the sense that you need to plan your moves ahead, though, yes.

Charles Rampant wrote: Check my latest battle report

Okay, let me get something cleared up. Is your list typical of what you might find in fantasy? 67 models and 7 med-large size pieces?

That doesn't really seem that big to me. At 1850 points I could easily field 90 guardsmen and 5 tanks with my guard army. The last 1850 point game I played with chaos was 52 models and 3 more obliterators, and that's a relatively low model count army (there were 10 tooled-up terminators in there, for instance). Fantasy doesn't seem to be incomparable with 40k, number-of-models-wise.

I suppose perhaps the difference is that it isn't possible to field an 1850 point list with only 16 models like it is in 40k (like with a draigowing), but those armies tend to... stink, anyways.

But maybe I'm letting my subjective eye wander here, as I'm used to playing foot guard. If you're not bringing triple digits of minis, you're not doing it right...

Evertras wrote:You get nearly the same amount of power dice at 500 points as you would at 5000 points, so things get crazy swingy.

So, I guess my concern is how much of a problem the centrality of magic is. I've certainly seen my fair share of "no, gunlines aren't overpowered, just use a bit more terrain and you'll be fine" as a way of papering over fundamental flaws in the game.

Is the problem that magic is too strong at lower points, or that games are too randomly determined (because their spell blows up your army or blows up their own)?

Also, I'm a little curious about how the balancing works with counterspelling. Is it that if you bring some anti-magic then their magic works worse, or is it unless you bring more anti-magic than them, then they're just going to do their thing?

Evertras wrote:Fantasy actually gets more interesting and tactical at higher point values. The movement phase becomes more important, unlike what you're describing in 40k with the line-up-and-shoot.

Wouldn't you just have less room to maneuver in higher points games? Why doesn't it become sort of a cluttered line-guys-up-and-charge sort of game?

Evertras wrote:if you're going to invest in magic for dispelling, you're going to have to rely on magic yourself to some extent.

So, in older times in 40k, taking transports was a sort of either-way option. In the imperial guard, you could spend 50 points on guys and 50 points on the transport, or you could just spend 100 points on a big pile of guys. The idea was that transports would cut down your casualites, but if you brought more guys, properly played, you could show up in the same place at the same time with the same number of guys.

Does that same thing work in fantasy? As in, he took some dudes and a wizard, and I took some dudes and then some more dudes. He kills more with his magic early on, but I have more dudes to absorb more casualties. Or is is that magic is just superpowered for how much you have to spend on it and you either focus on magic, or you just have a tough time of it?

Evertras wrote: Personally I don't have an issue with Steadfast. Like magic, it's something you need to be aware of. It's also soft countered by having magic of your own that can affect entire units. Oh, you have 60 skaven slaves? Dwellers Below, there goes 40 of them.

Or could you just tie them up with chaff?

In 40k we have "speedbumps" where you attack the big bad unit, and then the big bad unit is forced to waste time murdering a cheap, flimsy unit, and then you attack them again the turn after. In that way, you can grind down units like this with attrition. Alternately, you could just take something beefy in close combat. If khorne berzerkers charge your guard blob, then congratulations, you passed your morale test thanks to stubborn, but that one round of combat killed 25 of your 30 guardsmen, so all you did with a passed leadership roll was to live long enough to get horribly murdered next turn.

I assume various tricks like this work in fantasy?

Evertras wrote:Fantasy also works much better with more terrain to influence the movement phase and create interesting tactical decisions. It's less impassable than 40k, I think, but more things like forests and fences and things that can make cavalry think twice about charging through at certain angles.

Well, 40k terrain is weird. It gives anyone hiding in it a big bonus to durability but it way slows down mobility. Especially with big units, you could spend half the game taking difficult terrain tests, and getting nowhere. Also, charging over or into terrain is now hopeless.

What this means is that armies that sit and shoot from cover get a boost, and armies that try and maneuver get nowhere. Unless you're playing one of the armies that basically gets to ignore terrain in the movement phase.

Terrain feels like night fighting in 40k. It's one of those things that really hurts some armies, and really helps others.

 Ailaros wrote:

Charles Rampant wrote: Check my latest battle report

Okay, let me get something cleared up. Is your list typical of what you might find in fantasy? 67 models and 7 med-large size pieces?

That doesn't really seem that big to me. At 1850 points I could easily field 90 guardsmen and 5 tanks with my guard army. The last 1850 point game I played with chaos was 52 models and 3 more obliterators, and that's a relatively low model count army (there were 10 tooled-up terminators in there, for instance). Fantasy doesn't seem to be incomparable with 40k, number-of-models-wise.

He's bulked out his army with chariots, which are rather expensive for Core models.

An example of a 2000pt list with a ridiculous number of models - my Vampire Counts have 80 models of Core alone, 50 Skeletons and 30 Ghouls. The Ghouls are actually quite expensive as far as Core goes, being 10 points each. 20 Grave Guard makes up the 'killy' unit, plus 4 heroes and a monster - a Varghulf.

Something else you need to consider is how the two games are balanced. 40k is balanced towards 1500pts, so 1850 is slightly larger than normal. Fantasy is balanced towards 2500-3000pts, so for a comparable 'bigger than normal' list you're looking at 3000-3500pts. For that, my Core alone would jump to 150 models - another block of 50 Skeletons and filling the Ghouls out to 50, but probably in 2 units of 25. My Grave Guard would fill to 50. That makes 150 models before I start on the non-Core part of my army.

-Loki wrote:An example of a 2000pt list with a ridiculous number of models - my Vampire Counts have 80 models of Core alone, 50 Skeletons and 30 Ghouls. The Ghouls are actually quite expensive as far as Core goes, being 10 points each. 20 Grave Guard makes up the 'killy' unit, plus 4 heroes and a monster - a Varghulf.

Well, that's still just 104 models and a monster. Back in my power blob days, I'd run 80 models in a 750 point game. Of course, that's about as silly-high-model-count as you can get.

Anyways, it doesn't seem over the top crazy. Unless you were playing GK, I suppose.

-Loki wrote:Something else you need to consider is how the two games are balanced. 40k is balanced towards 1500pts, so 1850 is slightly larger than normal. Fantasy is balanced towards 2500-3000pts, so for a comparable 'bigger than normal' list you're looking at 3000-3500pts.

Ah.

If you take into consideration the two different sizes the games are balanced towards, that 104 model 2000pt list would be being compared to a 1000pt 40k list (each is 1.3 smaller than the intended game size).

Thank about the serious choices you make at 1000pts in 40k between killy units and scoring units, and that's what you're considering at 2000pts and less in Fantasy.

-Loki- wrote:If you take into consideration the two different sizes the games are balanced towards, that 104 model 2000pt list would be being compared to a 1000pt 40k list (each is 1.3 smaller than the intended game size).

That's an interesting way of putting it.

Anyways, I'm still curious about the bigger = more tactical thing. In 40k, the more points you play at, the less tactical it becomes, as it becomes less of who made the right meaningful sacrifices in list building, and it eventually becomes much more of "I've filled all my slots, and so have you, let's see whose codex is better". Also, even at only 100-models-per-side 40k already starts feeling unwieldy and cramped on a 4x6 foot table. I mean, you look at apocalypse, as the extreme example, and it's just a matter of cramming your deployment zone full and throwing all tactics out the window as you charge forward and roll dice to see who dies.

It strikes me that fantasy would have this problem much worse, as things like wheeling and mobility would matter a whole lot more. In 40k, at least, you can have units intersperced between themselves, and you can move nebulously. I suppose that WHFB minis ARE on smaller bases, technically, and you do, of course, have to pack them in tighter, so you'd naturally have more non-unit empty space, but it still feels like things must get crowded really fast once you get above 2,000 points.

 Ailaros wrote:
Anyways, I'm still curious about the bigger = more tactical thing. In 40k, the more points you play at, the less tactical it becomes, as it becomes less of who made the right meaningful sacrifices in list building, and it eventually becomes much more of "I've filled all my slots, and so have you, let's see whose codex is better". Also, even at only 100-models-per-side 40k already starts feeling unwieldy and cramped on a 4x6 foot table. I mean, you look at apocalypse, as the extreme example, and it's just a matter of cramming your deployment zone full and throwing all tactics out the window as you charge forward and roll dice to see who dies.

It strikes me that fantasy would have this problem much worse, as things like wheeling and mobility would matter a whole lot more. In 40k, at least, you can have units intersperced between themselves, and you can move nebulously. I suppose that WHFB minis ARE on smaller bases, technically, and you do, of course, have to pack them in tighter, so you'd naturally have more non-unit empty space, but it still feels like things must get crowded really fast once you get above 2,000 points.

Remember in Fantasy you're talking about blocks of troops, rather than 40k's spaced out skirmish formations. As I've heard you say often - infantry can spread out to 2" coherency to mitigate template weapons. Not so in Fantasy. 50 models in horde or schoolbus formation is taking up about the same space as a well spaced 15-20 man unit in 40k. Add to this Fantasy generally doesn't use as much terrain as 40k, and the terrain used is different - mostly it's there to funnel movement or completely block LoS, not area terrain for units to sit in claiming cover saves.

So when you have 2-3 50 man blocks backed up by smaller blocks, remember that at their biggest, they're taking up slightly more space than 4-5 well spaced Guard or Tactical squads in total, on a board with less terrain.

Fantasy boards can get cramped - 4000-5000pt games look completely ridiculous. But at 2500-3000pts, even the hordiest army has room to move around.

 Ailaros wrote:

Evertras wrote:You get nearly the same amount of power dice at 500 points as you would at 5000 points, so things get crazy swingy.

So, I guess my concern is how much of a problem the centrality of magic is. I've certainly seen my fair share of "no, gunlines aren't overpowered, just use a bit more terrain and you'll be fine" as a way of papering over fundamental flaws in the game.

Is the problem that magic is too strong at lower points, or that games are too randomly determined (because their spell blows up your army or blows up their own)?

The number of dice you get tends to correlate to the amount of magic you can cast. More casters doesn't give you more magic, aside from occasionally an extra die or two if you're lucky. Higher level (4 vs 2, lord vs hero) will give you a better chance to successfully cast, which is worth about a third of a die each time as well, but the majority of your dice are coming from the initial pool that you get anyway. So at a low point level, there's proportionally more magic going on than at a high point level.

Let me try to explain it another way. Let's say 7 dice can kill 250 points of models per turn. At 500 points, you get an average of 7 dice for your magic phase. At 4000 points, you get an average of 7 dice for your magic phase. At 500 points, you lose half your army. At 4000 points, you lose a small detachment.

Also, I'm a little curious about how the balancing works with counterspelling. Is it that if you bring some anti-magic then their magic works worse, or is it unless you bring more anti-magic than them, then they're just going to do their thing?

To cast a spell, you select up to six dice to roll. You roll them, add up the result, add the wizard's caster level, and see if you meet or beat the target value. If you get two or more sixes, you cast with irresistable force (can't dispel) and also miscast (nasty things happen), so the more dice you throw, the riskier things get, but at least the spell will go off, which is sometimes worth it.

If the spell wasn't cast with irresistable force, the dispelling player can choose any amount of dice in their pool and roll them. They nominate a wizard to dispel, add that wizard's casting level to the dispel roll, and if that roll meets or beats the casting player's roll, the spell fizzles and nothing happens. If it fails to meet that amount, that wizard can no longer dispel spells for that phase (but can try again in the next).

Every magic phase you roll 2d6. Whoever has that turn gets the full amount in dice for their pool, and the person dispelling gets the higher of the two. So if you roll a five and a one, you get 6 dice while the opposing player gets 5 dice to try and dispel you whether they have any casters in their army or not. If you roll two threes, you get 6 while the opposing player gets 3. Generally, the casting player is going to get at least a spell off. The dispelling player needs to choose their battles and dispel what would most impact them.

You can get around this with a few things. First, you get to add your highest caster's level to the roll. So if you have a level 4 caster, you add +4 to every roll to dispel (until you fail for that phase... but let's ignore the details for now and keep things simple). So the first step to being able to dispel well is having a high level caster of your own, which means you'll have magic of your own.

If you want to go further than that and pack an extra dispel punch, there are items you can take to help. The ubiquitous Dispel Scroll will automatically dispel any attempt that isn't cast with irresistable force. This will even leave you with extra dice to help shut down a crucial magic phase. There are other variants of that, and some armies have nifty little tricks. Wood Elves, despite being generally terrible, have a nice item that allows you to reroll any dispel attempt. They have another that allows you to add a free die to any dispel attempt where your opponent used three or more. There are other scrolls that will turn the caster into a toad, etc. So if you really want to go heavy on dispels, there are options.

Evertras wrote:Fantasy actually gets more interesting and tactical at higher point values. The movement phase becomes more important, unlike what you're describing in 40k with the line-up-and-shoot.

Wouldn't you just have less room to maneuver in higher points games? Why doesn't it become sort of a cluttered line-guys-up-and-charge sort of game?

You have to be more careful with your positioning. If you let your battle line become cluttered and everyone's stepping over themselves, then your opponent can pick you apart. It's actually a good idea to try and get your opponent to split off like that. There are various ways to redirect units and break up a clean line, and you have more tools at your disposal to punish someone who isn't moving optimally by charging into flanks, setting up traps, counter charges, etc. At small point values it tends to be head on charges vs head on charges, or just sit there and shoot, because there's not much else you CAN do if you don't have the units.

If we want to go to the old chess analogy, low point levels is like using half the pieces.

Evertras wrote:if you're going to invest in magic for dispelling, you're going to have to rely on magic yourself to some extent.

So, in older times in 40k, taking transports was a sort of either-way option. In the imperial guard, you could spend 50 points on guys and 50 points on the transport, or you could just spend 100 points on a big pile of guys. The idea was that transports would cut down your casualites, but if you brought more guys, properly played, you could show up in the same place at the same time with the same number of guys.

Does that same thing work in fantasy? As in, he took some dudes and a wizard, and I took some dudes and then some more dudes. He kills more with his magic early on, but I have more dudes to absorb more casualties. Or is is that magic is just superpowered for how much you have to spend on it and you either focus on magic, or you just have a tough time of it?

It somewhat depends on the army, I think. You absolutely cannot ignore magic, and for most armies I can think of it's generally more cost efficient to invest in magic to some extent than to try to have more of a buffer and power through it. You don't have to go crazy on spending tons of points and go magic heavy, but expect to at least put some points into it or you'll feel a little helpless. Taking along a hero level wizard (level 2 preferably) with a dispel scroll should be enough to stop a lot, and you won't have to focus much points to get that.

Evertras wrote: Personally I don't have an issue with Steadfast. Like magic, it's something you need to be aware of. It's also soft countered by having magic of your own that can affect entire units. Oh, you have 60 skaven slaves? Dwellers Below, there goes 40 of them.

Or could you just tie them up with chaff?

In 40k we have "speedbumps" where you attack the big bad unit, and then the big bad unit is forced to waste time murdering a cheap, flimsy unit, and then you attack them again the turn after. In that way, you can grind down units like this with attrition. Alternately, you could just take something beefy in close combat. If khorne berzerkers charge your guard blob, then congratulations, you passed your morale test thanks to stubborn, but that one round of combat killed 25 of your 30 guardsmen, so all you did with a passed leadership roll was to live long enough to get horribly murdered next turn.

I assume various tricks like this work in fantasy?

Absolutely, to all of that. You can tie them up, run them around because they're big and bulky, focus heavily on it so that you grind it down far enough anyway, etc. There are multiple options.

Evertras wrote:Fantasy also works much better with more terrain to influence the movement phase and create interesting tactical decisions. It's less impassable than 40k, I think, but more things like forests and fences and things that can make cavalry think twice about charging through at certain angles.

Well, 40k terrain is weird. It gives anyone hiding in it a big bonus to durability but it way slows down mobility. Especially with big units, you could spend half the game taking difficult terrain tests, and getting nowhere. Also, charging over or into terrain is now hopeless.

What this means is that armies that sit and shoot from cover get a boost, and armies that try and maneuver get nowhere. Unless you're playing one of the armies that basically gets to ignore terrain in the movement phase.

Terrain feels like night fighting in 40k. It's one of those things that really hurts some armies, and really helps others.

Terrain in Fantasy gets a little wonky, and it does hurt some armies while helping others. For example, a chariot heavy army doesn't want any terrain on the field, while Wood Elves want the field flooded with forests.

The basic pieces of terrain generally hinder mobile units. Cavalry and chariots have to take dangerous terrain tests in just about anything that isn't open ground, which has the potential of nixing a model or two or even blowing up a chariot entirely. This helps create funnels and chokes against armies that rely on mobility, while the mobile army is trying to deploy/maneuver to fight in places that are more favorable so they can charge and even march without hindrance. Simple impassable terrain of cliffs, rocks, buildings, whatever also provide ways to create chokes and defensible positions, which can definitely change your plans. Then there's extra effects that can be randomly generated, which include anything from a forest that deals d6 hits on any unit inside of it to an altar that randomly casts either a beneficial spell or a terrible hex on the nearest unit.

That being said, it doesn't kill mobile armies. It just makes things a little trickier and more interesting. A dangerous terrain test means you roll a d6 for each model that charges, flees, or marches through that terrain. On a 1 they take a wound with no armor save allowed. Chariots take 1d6 wounds instead. They can still move their normal speed, they just can't march (double speed in movement phase). Infantry is much less affected, though forests do favor smaller units and skirmishers.

Different armies have a totally different # of units. Ogres, you can make their core cost like 45 per model. So if you have 20 that's 900pts. Then a super lord for around 350pts. And a couple heroes for 300. That's like 1550pts and only 22 models!

Or you make a mass goblin army and have literally 500 of them and 5 heroes and 2 Lords for maybe 1100pts.

Steadfast is a big deal because fantasy is primarily a close combat game. Yeah, you can make gunlines, but every ranged troop is inferior to its equivalent CC troop and/or costs more. And you generally just don't obliterate the enemy during the shooting phase. They are more a strategic element complimenting the main army. Kinda like long bow archers in medieval+ times. You weren't going to have an army just with archers. The enemy would just run/ride up and slaughter them. Which is kind of what happens here.

Magic is indeed very important. And yeah, it gets powerful at low levels BUT most armies can't get high level casters at low points because of their costs. Some cheapo armies can. But magic is one of those universal counters. It is a big bag of tricks that makes a lot of cheesy tactics not be used because if the enemy has the right spell (and gets it off) you basically lose the game. So it's a checks and balances. Like if you put 500 goblins in one unit, nothing is going to break that unit or kill that many models by the end of the game that you get any points for it, but there's some spells that in one shot can cause it to lose half of their number each cast. Which, among many other reasons, is why you'll never see 500 goblins in a unit. Unless someone is just crazy weird.

Thanks for that, Evertras. I guess my concern was that magic would suffer from the same fates as certain parts of 40k, where you sort of have a spiraling arms race that ends in a zero sum game. It's nice to know that if you don't want to focus on magic, you don't have to, but can relatively cheaply curb a big enough hunk of its effectiveness to tone it down to reasonable levels.

The way that some people seem to be talking about magic implies that it's just how you win games, and that everybody needs to take a bunch of wizards of the highest level they can.

Not that magic is a bad thing, but I'm from 40k, remember? A world of everything is useless except a few things. It would be tiresome to find myself in that situation again, just with different game concepts.

On an unrelated note, I finished reading those battle reports from Charles Rampant, and it was interesting to see that his army had more models than pretty much everything. In some cases, by quite a few. It's interesting to note that empire army with only 44 dudes, a couple of artillery pieces and a tank. That's small even for a 40k army at 2000 points.

That's interesting to think about magic as being some buffs or some damage unless you brought something cheezy, in which case there's a counterspell for it. I guess that would jive with the idea that people who don't like 8th are powergamers (who would be the kind of people to complain most vocally about changes as well).

 Charles Rampant wrote:

Why hello. I started Fantasy about a year and a half ago, looking for variety from my 40k Orks. I now basically never play 40k, as I find it just too distressing to lose all my models before I can make assault. Maybe the upcoming codex will let me swarm into the enemy deployment zone as before, but I have a bad feeling about it.

So, Fantasy! Fantasy!

This bodes well, because I'm looking to ditch 40k for the exact same reason. Stupid shooty lists blow my boys apart before I can bash heads together, and the only way to survive against them is to use lame stuff that if I'd wanted to use in the first place, I wouldn't have taken Orks to do so

I see from your batrep link you run Tomb Kings. What drew you to them? I'm just interested to see how someone in my exact situation responded and what they picked for what reason. I've been looking at Greenskins for obvious reasons but not sure if they're as 'fun' as the ones in 40k. Alternatively, Khorne daemons but they seem to only have one thing going for them (a cannon of all things, screw that)

We also use heavy comp around here, so alot of those problems you mentioned are not really an issue. I'm starting to get excited here =P

Firstly, does the game just not work at low points levels? People fall all over themselves to play at 1850 points in 40k, which is where you start maxing out your FOC (or, at least, using most of it), and basically cramming the board so full of models that the game becomes line-up-and-shoot. The thing for 40k, though, is that it scales down very, very well. We had a 250 point league for awhile with just a couple of little rule tweaks (provided in the rulebook, actually) for that points level and it was brilliant. It actually felt a lot more tactical. Actually, it felt a lot like airsoft or paintball. You and a dozen guys against them and a dozen guys in a huge area.

Seriously man its like your reading my mind. I've been approached by the club pres to possibly run a tournament next year and I might implement this

 Dakkamite wrote:

Firstly, does the game just not work at low points levels? People fall all over themselves to play at 1850 points in 40k, which is where you start maxing out your FOC (or, at least, using most of it), and basically cramming the board so full of models that the game becomes line-up-and-shoot. The thing for 40k, though, is that it scales down very, very well. We had a 250 point league for awhile with just a couple of little rule tweaks (provided in the rulebook, actually) for that points level and it was brilliant. It actually felt a lot more tactical. Actually, it felt a lot like airsoft or paintball. You and a dozen guys against them and a dozen guys in a huge area.

Seriously man its like your reading my mind. I've been approached by the club pres to possibly run a tournament next year and I might implement this

I'd give small games a shot - they can be fun. But you run into the problem that 40k has - some armies scale down far better than others, just like some scale up far better than others. Just like I absolutely recommend sticking to 1500pts for 40k, I absolutely recommend 2500-3000 for Fantasy. It's that sweet spot where you have a good set of scoring units (or Core in Fantasys case), some points to kit out a nice lord and some heroes, and include a few killy units. Going lower you start making it hard for armies who have less reliable Core (like Undead). Stick to around 2500pts if you want to go for 'smaller' games, as at that point you're mostly cutting a deathstar but keeping a tactically decent army on the table.

 Ailaros wrote:
Thanks for that, Evertras. I guess my concern was that magic would suffer from the same fates as certain parts of 40k, where you sort of have a spiraling arms race that ends in a zero sum game. It's nice to know that if you don't want to focus on magic, you don't have to, but can relatively cheaply curb a big enough hunk of its effectiveness to tone it down to reasonable levels.

The way that some people seem to be talking about magic implies that it's just how you win games, and that everybody needs to take a bunch of wizards of the highest level they can.

Not that magic is a bad thing, but I'm from 40k, remember? A world of everything is useless except a few things. It would be tiresome to find myself in that situation again, just with different game concepts.

On an unrelated note, I finished reading those battle reports from Charles Rampant, and it was interesting to see that his army had more models than pretty much everything. In some cases, by quite a few. It's interesting to note that empire army with only 44 dudes, a couple of artillery pieces and a tank. That's small even for a 40k army at 2000 points.

That's interesting to think about magic as being some buffs or some damage unless you brought something cheezy, in which case there's a counterspell for it. I guess that would jive with the idea that people who don't like 8th are powergamers (who would be the kind of people to complain most vocally about changes as well).

I don't think it will be a rosy as you think sadly - fine tuning armies is as prevelant in Fantasy as in 40K and I think that WFB is less forgiving - let someone cast the "right spell" (or more often watch it be cast with irristable force) and your games over. Also fluffy armies tend to get hammered just as easily in WFB as much as they can do in 40K. Casting spells with IF tends to mean you can't do anything except take off models.................and all those counters you bought specfically to deal with don;t work.

Watch out for those buffing spells - the Mindrazor spell is pure filfth at the right time.............

I haven't played 40k as long as you have, Ailaros, but WHFB feels more tactical to me. The addition of a movement phase just changes things.

I know people have already answered a lot of your questions, but I thought I would throw in my short answers, too.

@Magic - my biggest problem with magic is that it is potentially the most powerful aspect of the game while, at the same time, also the most random. I've heard people say that this "balances" it, but I disagree. And because you never know how the randomness is going to play out, you never know if your other tactical (and less random) choices will be rendered moot. And, for me, the game is less enjoyable for that.

@model count and Steadfast - You're right that 30 guardsmen that can't be broken aren't game-breaking, because you can just kill them all. But in WHFB, where the game is more CC focused, you don't tend to get VPs by killing every model in a unit. Instead, you typically get those VPs by breaking the unit and running them down. Steadfast is the most powerful game mechanic in this regard, because it prevents a unit from being broken.

At the same time, Steadfast is dependent upon model count (you need more models in a given combat than your opponent to be considered Steadfast). And so, I think a LOT of people are raw about the addition of this rule to the game because it's such an obvious money grab by GW (buy more of the EXACT SAME models and win the game!). So, people are going to hate on it for THAT reason regardless of how it changes the play of the game itself.

 Ailaros wrote:

-Loki- wrote:If you take into consideration the two different sizes the games are balanced towards, that 104 model 2000pt list would be being compared to a 1000pt 40k list (each is 1.3 smaller than the intended game size).

That's an interesting way of putting it.

Anyways, I'm still curious about the bigger = more tactical thing. In 40k, the more points you play at, the less tactical it becomes, as it becomes less of who made the right meaningful sacrifices in list building, and it eventually becomes much more of "I've filled all my slots, and so have you, let's see whose codex is better". Also, even at only 100-models-per-side 40k already starts feeling unwieldy and cramped on a 4x6 foot table. I mean, you look at apocalypse, as the extreme example, and it's just a matter of cramming your deployment zone full and throwing all tactics out the window as you charge forward and roll dice to see who dies.

It strikes me that fantasy would have this problem much worse, as things like wheeling and mobility would matter a whole lot more. In 40k, at least, you can have units intersperced between themselves, and you can move nebulously. I suppose that WHFB minis ARE on smaller bases, technically, and you do, of course, have to pack them in tighter, so you'd naturally have more non-unit empty space, but it still feels like things must get crowded really fast once you get above 2,000 points.

Not having all those silly giant flyer bases and tanks filling in real estate helps that problem alot =) anything much above the 4k game size will most likely need a larger board but thats true of all GWs systems. On a side note I think I have a fairly good idea of what type of gamer you are from my days in 5th reading your bat reps and I think WHFB would be a really good match for you. You simply have the right mindset to do well with and enjoy WHFB and I hope to hear news of your first WHFB games/armies.

Iv played both but found 40k to honestly just be really boring. Fantasy just challenges your decision making a bit more and can be pretty unforgiving at times depending on the army you play.
In regards to the Magic phase I tend to feel as though 8th edition has toned down it didn't somewhat. Obviously there are several spells that are extremely powerful, but reworking the way power dice were generated was a fantastic decision... Although I'm sure undead players would not agree. On top of this combat is now far more effective than it used to be.

I don't subscribe to the notion that 8th Ed has ruined the game. It is my favourite by some margin and I have been playing since 5th when I was about 10.

Ailaros wrote:The way that some people seem to be talking about magic implies that it's just how you win games, and that everybody needs to take a bunch of wizards of the highest level they can.

Not that magic is a bad thing, but I'm from 40k, remember? A world of everything is useless except a few things. It would be tiresome to find myself in that situation again, just with different game concepts.

Magic alone won't win you games, but it's undeniably a powerful force and is pretty much an auto-take. The issue lies in the fact that almost everyone (in a competitive environment - and usually out of one too) will be taking a Level 4 Wizard. If you don't, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage to cast and dispel. If your opponent has a Level 4 and you have no wizards, that's when Magic becomes horrendously powerful.

alex87 wrote: Iv played both but found 40k to honestly just be really boring. Fantasy just challenges your decision making a bit more and can be pretty unforgiving at times depending on the army you play.
In regards to the Magic phase I tend to feel as though 8th edition has toned down it didn't somewhat. Obviously there are several spells that are extremely powerful, but reworking the way power dice were generated was a fantastic decision... Although I'm sure undead players would not agree. On top of this combat is now far more effective than it used to be.

8th edition has the strongest magic I've ever seen, though that is admittedly down to the spells. I don't actually agree with the Winds of Magic thing though. Common sense says that the more Wizards you have, the more magic you have. It's also annoying how one phase you may have 2 Power Dice to work with and the next you may have 12.

Mr Morden wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Thanks for that, Evertras. I guess my concern was that magic would suffer from the same fates as certain parts of 40k, where you sort of have a spiraling arms race that ends in a zero sum game. It's nice to know that if you don't want to focus on magic, you don't have to, but can relatively cheaply curb a big enough hunk of its effectiveness to tone it down to reasonable levels.

The way that some people seem to be talking about magic implies that it's just how you win games, and that everybody needs to take a bunch of wizards of the highest level they can.

Not that magic is a bad thing, but I'm from 40k, remember? A world of everything is useless except a few things. It would be tiresome to find myself in that situation again, just with different game concepts.

On an unrelated note, I finished reading those battle reports from Charles Rampant, and it was interesting to see that his army had more models than pretty much everything. In some cases, by quite a few. It's interesting to note that empire army with only 44 dudes, a couple of artillery pieces and a tank. That's small even for a 40k army at 2000 points.

That's interesting to think about magic as being some buffs or some damage unless you brought something cheezy, in which case there's a counterspell for it. I guess that would jive with the idea that people who don't like 8th are powergamers (who would be the kind of people to complain most vocally about changes as well).

I don't think it will be a rosy as you think sadly - fine tuning armies is as prevelant in Fantasy as in 40K and I think that WFB is less forgiving - let someone cast the "right spell" (or more often watch it be cast with irristable force) and your games over. Also fluffy armies tend to get hammered just as easily in WFB as much as they can do in 40K. Casting spells with IF tends to mean you can't do anything except take off models.................and all those counters you bought specfically to deal with don;t work.

Watch out for those buffing spells - the Mindrazor spell is pure filfth at the right time.............

One spell will only ever auto-lose you the game if you let it. If you take a huge deathstar and you lose half of it with one spell, it's your own fault for using such an obvious tactic and/or not making a good enough attempt to neutralise the enemy wizard quickly enough. And even then, your opponent's Level 4 Wizard may blow his head off, paving the way for your own Level 4 to start wrecking stuff.

 Ailaros wrote:
Thanks for that, Evertras. I guess my concern was that magic would suffer from the same fates as certain parts of 40k, where you sort of have a spiraling arms race that ends in a zero sum game. It's nice to know that if you don't want to focus on magic, you don't have to, but can relatively cheaply curb a big enough hunk of its effectiveness to tone it down to reasonable levels.

Whilst some areas will certainly have an arms race of wizards it is important to note that some armies fair better than others without wizards, for example, Vampire Counts, being your very typical undead trope fantasy army must have at least one wizard and often cannot cope without multiple wizards, this is due to their army being about 50% units that are terrible but can be resurrected very quickly by wizards (otherwise they get destroyed quickly and give up VPs) and these units support the other 50% of your army which is incredibly powerful but is very hard to raise back up, so once its gone, its gone. Compare this with Empire which are your typical human army trope, they have the whole jack of all trades, master of none idea behind them, being able to make a decent show in all phases, but not dominate in one, they can for example make an army that is entirely heavy cavalry (mounted troops with high damage and durability) with a decent amount of shooting support in warmachines, due to the range and power of their warmachines and the speed at which they cover ground (about twice as fast as foot troops) they will be exposed to less magic phases where the enemy can target them with spells and thus are much more able to do without a wizard than the Vampire Counts are.

The way that some people seem to be talking about magic implies that it's just how you win games, and that everybody needs to take a bunch of wizards of the highest level they can.

Not that magic is a bad thing, but I'm from 40k, remember? A world of everything is useless except a few things. It would be tiresome to find myself in that situation again, just with different game concepts.

Magic in Fantasy is similar to psychic powers in 40k in that with one or two exceptions (JotWW in 40k and the No.6 spells in Fantasy) buffs are king, unlike in 40k, where you can only DtW against stuff cast at you, you can still attempt to block an enemy's attempt to buff himself in Fantasy by dispelling his spells.

On an unrelated note, I finished reading those battle reports from Charles Rampant, and it was interesting to see that his army had more models than pretty much everything. In some cases, by quite a few. It's interesting to note that empire army with only 44 dudes, a couple of artillery pieces and a tank. That's small even for a 40k army at 2000 points.

Due to the overall better balance than 40k, Fantasy players, can for the most part, take whatever they want (the most common examples are the older books) and get away with it, provided they keep to the basic restrictions, going back to Vampire Counts from early, where about 25% to 50% of the Army is garbagy units and the rest are the best you can take as well as requiring the presence of wizards, once you take your wizards, you can take whatever garbagy units you want to fulfil that role and whatever killy units you want to fulfil that part of your army. This leads to a pretty wide variation in lists, for example for my wizards I run a couple of Vampires, which double as some killy characters, I take some skeletons and ghouls as my garbagy units, some spirit hosts to support and a deathstar of Blood Knights that I sink about 1/2 my total points into as my killy stuff. But one could just as easily take necromancers as your wizards, zombies as your gabagy units, fell bats to support and a unit of Grave Guard and some Varghulfs as your killy units and be just as effective. In short, Fantasy is less about your component parts and more about tactical execution.

That's interesting to think about magic as being some buffs or some damage unless you brought something cheezy, in which case there's a counterspell for it. I guess that would jive with the idea that people who don't like 8th are powergamers (who would be the kind of people to complain most vocally about changes as well).

In my experience the people who dislike 8th, disliked the randomness, due to not being able to do things like "based off how far apart we started my unit should be just out of your charge range and so you can't charge me this turn" now I don't think there is anything wrong with randomness, or the consistency to be able make comments like the later, in fact I prefer the latter way myself, since it rewards careful movement (but to each their own ofc), my issue is that GW uses randomness as an excuse to not balance their games as good as they could, but that is a whole thread of its own entirely.

What I liked about WHFB is that it is more of a tactical game due to positioning, I play VC and I really like Hero's as well and I like the customisation of your characters.

What I disliked about WHFB is that whilst certain points that people can argue, majority of time usually everyone will agree on this point: Cannons. they are far too good for what they do I still have a VC on an undead dragon, but I have never once put him on the table, why? because he will get one-shotted of the board, one other point I don't like about WHFB is that whilst I play VC I feel like im pressured to take a lvl 4 Necromancer, and I chose VC because one main aspect I like in fantasy is that I like... well... vampires, I want a VC lord challenging my opponents general and taking their head (I have used a VC lord like this and I enjoy it very much) however if I were to play competitively I would feel very pressurised to take that Necromancer I had mentioned earlier on, also I see competitively that WHFB does also suffer from the Netlist problem, but not to the degree that 40k does.

All in all I much prefer WHFB to 40k, I really like the army I play and their gothic atmosphere and I like resurrecting my troops

 Dakkamite wrote:

This bodes well, because I'm looking to ditch 40k for the exact same reason. Stupid shooty lists blow my boys apart before I can bash heads together, and the only way to survive against them is to use lame stuff that if I'd wanted to use in the first place, I wouldn't have taken Orks to do so

I see from your batrep link you run Tomb Kings. What drew you to them? I'm just interested to see how someone in my exact situation responded and what they picked for what reason. I've been looking at Greenskins for obvious reasons but not sure if they're as 'fun' as the ones in 40k. Alternatively, Khorne daemons but they seem to only have one thing going for them (a cannon of all things, screw that)

We also use heavy comp around here, so alot of those problems you mentioned are not really an issue. I'm starting to get excited here =P

I went for Tomb Kings because I'm a classicist, and they have this great bronze age theme; the hordes of nobodies, the (surprisingly tough) heroes leading them into battle, the infantry and monster focus. I also love the models, though I'm not that good at painting them. Their rules are... not the best, and not even that good a match for my play style, but I'm invested in the army now. I don't know that much about the Orcs, but they do have the hilarious animosity rules and the ability to take squig herds, which are both things I'd happily have in 40k! I hear that they tend to run loads of artillery though, as they get cheap and good warmachines, and so don't go into combat as readily as you might expect.

In general, though you do get some gunlines in Fantasy, they are rare (only Dwarves really do them now). Though we all sit and gripe about magic, at the end of the day Fantasy is a game that is won by killing (and breaking) enemy units in melee. So almost every army can kick ass in the melee phase, they just tend to go about it differently. For a few examples:

- Vampire Counts have horrifically powerful Vampire characters, who can rip apart enemy units by themselves, as well as some fast and dangerous vampiric units (Blood Knights, among others). But the rest of the army is crap; it is about managing to get your good stuff into the right combats, while using your crap stuff to block enemy units that you don't want to fight yet. Those same crap units are very often a liability.

- Warriors of Chaos run forward, hit the enemy, crush the enemy, then drink their tears of lamentation. Very much a "point and click" approach, that works because of their superb stats.

- Bretonnians use units (called "lances") of knights, that are not all that great in melee, but which are hard to kill, have help with winning combats due to their special formation, and get powerful and cheap characters to go up front and tank the enemy. They tend to win combats by defeating the enemy units in detail, throwing most of their army into one enemy unit, crushing it utterly, and then speeding through the enemy battleline.

- High Elves die pretty fast, but have some special rules that let them attack first, and they have great stats so will usually hit. They focus on killing the enemy so fast that it is hard to respond.

And so on. That Khorne Daemon cannon is mostly good because it is cheap, and it lets your army kill stuff before it has a chance to give you trouble in melee (like enemy monsters) or enemy units that would pound your own melee stuff (like opposing cannons).

Regarding army sizes; I think that the tournament was unusual in terms of army sizes, probably because people were concerned about not finishing games. For starters, there was a noticeable prevalence of the more elite armies, and not that many horde armies. My own army wasn't that big; Tomb Kings are technically a horde army, but I don't run them as such. Sometimes, if I run my big statues and not the Tomb Guard, I can be down to about 50 models maximum. The Empire army was focused around the very expensive Demigryph Knights. I would say that at 2,400 (the equivalent of 1,500 in 40k), you would probably expect about a hundred models a side, give or take; Skaven and Goblins will have more, Dwarves will have less. A monster or character theme will reduce this. As I noted, my Orks probably use about as many models as my Tomb Kings on a day to day basis.

Finally, I've played some big games (4-5,000pts a side) and they actually work quite well. It gets a bit crowded, but Fantasy units fit together well - they are mostly rectangles, after all! Unlike 40k, which I found takes forever in a big game, Fantasy doesn't really take that much longer in my experience. It has to do with having fewer shooting units, so you don't need to engage in massive dice rolling from the first turn. You do need to be a bit of a wizard to work out the combat resolution in the big combats that result with two battlelines of over 24" length colliding though.

 happygolucky wrote:
What I liked about WHFB is that it is more of a tactical game due to positioning, I play VC and I really like Hero's as well and I like the customisation of your characters.

What I disliked about WHFB is that whilst certain points that people can argue, majority of time usually everyone will agree on this point: Cannons. they are far too good for what they do I still have a VC on an undead dragon, but I have never once put him on the table, why? because he will get one-shotted of the board, one other point I don't like about WHFB is that whilst I play VC I feel like im pressured to take a lvl 4 Necromancer, and I chose VC because one main aspect I like in fantasy is that I like... well... vampires, I want a VC lord challenging my opponents general and taking their head (I have used a VC lord like this and I enjoy it very much) however if I were to play competitively I would feel very pressurised to take that Necromancer I had mentioned earlier on, also I see competitively that WHFB does also suffer from the Netlist problem, but not to the degree that 40k does.

All in all I much prefer WHFB to 40k, I really like the army I play and their gothic atmosphere and I like resurrecting my troops

Well, most players still do take Vampires, they just put them on foot with some Grave Guard, or in a unit of cavalry. They don't put him on a Zombie Dragon, which is equivalent to putting him on a neon sign proclaiming in big letters "Shoot Me!".

I do see your point though, cannons are a little bit too powerful. In real life, I can understand that there is a small chance of your General being hit by a lucky cannon shot, but I really don't think that chance is 1/6 (i.e. the chance of failing a Look Out Sir! roll). And also, in real life, Generals are less important. Yes, they're still valuable, but if one dies, the rest of the army isn't going to crumble to little pieces.

As for netlisting, well, I guess that's true, but it's pretty unavoidable. You see people posting strong lists online, you're going to take some of that on board. I do think Fantasy's armies as a whole have more viable builds though.

Tangent wrote:At the same time, Steadfast is dependent upon model count (you need more models in a given combat than your opponent to be considered Steadfast). And so, I think a LOT of people are raw about the addition of this rule to the game because it's such an obvious money grab by GW (buy more of the EXACT SAME models and win the game!). So, people are going to hate on it for THAT reason regardless of how it changes the play of the game itself.

Not being a GW conspiracy theorist, I don't care much about that. I am interested, though, if there was some sort of problem with large infantry units that the addition of steadfast was designed to stop.

Krellnus wrote:Whilst some areas will certainly have an arms race of wizards it is important to note that some armies fair better than others without wizards

Well, that's sort of what I'm getting towards. Of course there are going to be some armies that really want to use lots and lots of magic. The question is more of if you're screwed if you use a reasonably minimal amount and move on towards other stuff. If it's one of he who has the most power dice and the most wizards wins, and he who didn't take more wizards should have taken more wizards.

Krellnus wrote:In my experience the people who dislike 8th, disliked the randomness, due to not being able to do things like "based off how far apart we started my unit should be just out of your charge range and so you can't charge me this turn" now I don't think there is anything wrong with randomness, or the consistency to be able make comments like the later, in fact I prefer the latter way myself, since it rewards careful movement (but to each their own ofc)

Right, and while I dislike some of this stuff (random charge range really screwed things up in 40k, for example), I also don't think it's necessarily a bad trend either. Yes, by removing the player skill of being able to estimate ranges well, the game does lose some of its skill. That said, not all inroads of player skill into a game are created equal. I'm sort of glad that I only played a tiny bit of 3rd ed 40k, because replacing the old guess range mechanic was a good idea (not only for the shenanigans (mentioned earlier in this thread), but also exactly because it would put off new players).

I don't think the randomness added in is, necessarily, a way of papering over bad design, as much as it is a deliberate choice of making the game different. For good or ill.

The Shadow wrote:As for netlisting, well, I guess that's true, but it's pretty unavoidable. You see people posting strong lists online, you're going to take some of that on board. I do think Fantasy's armies as a whole have more viable builds though.

Well, and it depends on what netlisting accomplishes. I spent the entire first year of 6th edition trying to play my guard army in a whole bunch of very different ways (see my sig, if you care). I managed to use like 2/3ds of the units in the codex in the process which, for a codex that has over 40 different units is rather a feat, if I say so myself. A lot of people in 40k think that there has to be A, THE, way to run an army, which I don't think is true in 40k.

The problem I'm having with 40k, though, is that there is a single playstyle that's coming to shut down everyone else. As such, it's the imperial guard version of that playstyle at the top, and then a huge, much-more-diverse-than-internet-lemmings-imply class of stuff that's all roughly equal below that.

If WHFB can avoid this problem, then I assume that netlisting, while popular, is not that much more structural than it is in 40k. Especially if the codices have better internal balance, as claimed.

Charles Rampant wrote: For a few examples:

Some interesting examples.

Charles Rampant wrote:Finally, I've played some big games (4-5,000pts a side) and they actually work quite well. It gets a bit crowded, but Fantasy units fit together well - they are mostly rectangles, after all! Unlike 40k, which I found takes forever in a big game, Fantasy doesn't really take that much longer in my experience. It has to do with having fewer shooting units, so you don't need to engage in massive dice rolling from the first turn.

An interesting observation. In 40k, apocalypse really rather feels more like work than fun...

Charles Rampant wrote:I went for Tomb Kings because I'm a classicist, and they have this great bronze age theme; the hordes of nobodies, the (surprisingly tough) heroes leading them into battle

Does it make me a bad person that I read the above as...

Charles Rampant wrote:I went for Tomb Kings because I'm a classist, and they have this great bronze age theme; the hordes of nobodies, the (surprisingly tough) heroes leading them into battle

... Anyways.

So, I spent the past couple of days reading through the fluff section through a "copy" of the rulebook. All the stuff after the rules starting at page 153, then looking at the pretty pictures in the miniatures showcase, and then sort of skimming the rest (not that interested in special battle missions at the moment).

There were several things I noticed, but there are two bad ones that seem to linger with me. To be a downer...

1.) The minis seem a bit... ... shabby? Or at least old. They kind of seem small and low on detail, especially compared to some of the knock-out-of-the-park awesome stuff that GW has done for 40k lately.

Yes, GW has come out with some nice fantasy stuff, like the VC coven throne, and the current lizardmen stegadon. That said, an awful lot of the minis seem like they're in need of a little loving. It's a bit tough to see 90's greenstuff put up next to the auto-CAD laser cuts of 40k.

I guess they are a bit cheaper, but still...

2.) Yes, I know I just read the rulebook fluff, which is always just an overview, and yes, I know that GW's fluff writers have been slowly getting worse over time...

... but come on.

The fluff in 40k is fantastic, and maybe, because of that, the WHFB stuff comes across as pretty awful. I mean, starting with one of the most eggregious examples...

Bad-guy elves in 40k:

The elves ruled a galaxy spanning empire and became so advanced that they were able to sate every whim. This lead to a galaxy wide hedonic slide into debauchery where they were unable to feel regular emotions anymore as their addiction to ever more extreme sensations spiraled out of control. Eventually, their emotions and the raw psychic energy of sensory overload became so great that it became sentient. The elf race was nearly completely wiped out as the souls of the elves merged with the raw power of their psyches to create a god. Those few who survived made a pact with their new deity - their continued survival so long as they caused more and more powerful emotional and sensory reactions. To this end, using techniques honed over millenia, they inflict the maximum amount of pain possible on everyone they come across, relying on torture as their only means of salvation.

Bad-guy elves in WHFB:

Once there were some elves. The chief elf wore a shiny hat. Another elf should have gotten to wear the shiny hat, but didn't. As a result, he invaded Canada and has been pouting ever since.

And then you look at chaos space marines, and then you look at WoC, which are literally just vikings. Boo. And then you have the Bretonnians who are a B-movie based on the scribblings of a nine-year-old who read the wikipedia entry for king arthur in an endless 4th-wall-breaking exercise in hackney fiction.

Not to say it's all bad, of course. The steampunk germans and the beardy old men shouting at teenagers are good examples, but from a surface look, it's seems... tragic.

Does the fluff in the codices redeem itself a bit, or is it sort of just something that you have to look past to play a more tactical game?

 Ailaros wrote:

Tangent wrote:At the same time, Steadfast is dependent upon model count (you need more models in a given combat than your opponent to be considered Steadfast). And so, I think a LOT of people are raw about the addition of this rule to the game because it's such an obvious money grab by GW (buy more of the EXACT SAME models and win the game!). So, people are going to hate on it for THAT reason regardless of how it changes the play of the game itself.

Not being a GW conspiracy theorist, I don't care much about that. I am interested, though, if there was some sort of problem with large infantry units that the addition of steadfast was designed to stop.

The problem was people weren't buying huge infantry units, they were buying small units. GW wants you to buy big units, so they added two bonuses for huge units - Horde formation (multiple ranks of 10 models) which lets extra models attack, and Steadfast (have more ranks than your opponent) which makes a unit a lot harder to break.

This in addition to the change to percentages instead of units (you now need 25% Core, instead of, IIRC, at least 2 units of any size of Core) was very clearly intended to boost model counts in games, thus sales. 2 units of 20 skeletons doesn't give you the Core for a 2000pt game like it used to, 2 units of 50 does. That's 10 boxes as opposed to 4.

 Ailaros wrote:

Not being a GW conspiracy theorist, I don't care much about that. I am interested, though, if there was some sort of problem with large infantry units that the addition of steadfast was designed to stop.

Well, steadfast is KING in WHFB. So if there was a problem, they probably could have found a more subtle way to stop it.

 Ailaros wrote:
Bad-guy elves in WHFB:

Once there were some elves. The chief elf wore a shiny hat. Another elf should have gotten to wear the shiny hat, but didn't. As a result, he invaded Canada and has been pouting ever since.

Lol, well when you put it like THAT...

First, I don't know much about Dark Elf lore, but I know there's a lot more to it than that, which means you probably get that lore in the army book. Second, the only army whose lore I really know is Vampire Counts (and Tomb Kings, to an extent), and I actually think it's pretty good.

 Ailaros wrote:

Krellnus wrote:Whilst some areas will certainly have an arms race of wizards it is important to note that some armies fair better than others without wizards

Well, that's sort of what I'm getting towards. Of course there are going to be some armies that really want to use lots and lots of magic. The question is more of if you're screwed if you use a reasonably minimal amount and move on towards other stuff. If it's one of he who has the most power dice and the most wizards wins, and he who didn't take more wizards should have taken more wizards.

Not really, especially since with the way PD generation works, you really struggle to be able to have them cast something each phase once you get over the 3-4 wizard mark, which generally means more room for support type and fighty type characters, especially at the 2000+ mark. Take 40k for example, I play DA and I would really like to be able to run a fighty Company Master to stomp some stuff flat, unfortunatley, if I do that I'm not taking my divination psykers which means I'm probably gonna have a hard time winning, whereas in Fantasy I can take a Level 4 wizard to be my general, a BSB to support Ld across my army and a fighty character or two to shore up a combat block and not be at any real disadvantage.

Krellnus wrote:In my experience the people who dislike 8th, disliked the randomness, due to not being able to do things like "based off how far apart we started my unit should be just out of your charge range and so you can't charge me this turn" now I don't think there is anything wrong with randomness, or the consistency to be able make comments like the later, in fact I prefer the latter way myself, since it rewards careful movement (but to each their own ofc)

Right, and while I dislike some of this stuff (random charge range really screwed things up in 40k, for example), I also don't think it's necessarily a bad trend either. Yes, by removing the player skill of being able to estimate ranges well, the game does lose some of its skill. That said, not all inroads of player skill into a game are created equal. I'm sort of glad that I only played a tiny bit of 3rd ed 40k, because replacing the old guess range mechanic was a good idea (not only for the shenanigans (mentioned earlier in this thread), but also exactly because it would put off new players).

I tend to agree with you on this, because pumping fresh blood into the game is what will keep it alive.

Not to say it's all bad, of course. The steampunk germans and the beardy old men shouting at teenagers are good examples, but from a surface look, it's seems... tragic.

Does the fluff in the codices redeem itself a bit, or is it sort of just something that you have to look past to play a more tactical game?

Oh yes, it most certainly does, believe me, the BL novels also help with this a lot, since unlike 40k ones they aren't all bolter porn devoted to one faction.

For example, Wood Elves are not only your typical forest dwelling elf trope, but every year they go on a world wide, god fuelled magical hunt across most of the surrounding area, purely for its own sake and the side effects of which include, but are not limited to, elves just falling by the wayside to die of exhaustion after taking who knows how many fatal injuries and being so consumed by the desire to hunt that they will kill and/or eat each other with not a care in the world.

They also might steal your children and make them their immortal, unaging servants because why not?

 Ailaros wrote:
[There were several things I noticed, but there are two bad ones that seem to linger with me. To be a downer...

1.) The minis seem a bit... ... shabby? Or at least old. They kind of seem small and low on detail, especially compared to some of the knock-out-of-the-park awesome stuff that GW has done for 40k lately.

Yes, GW has come out with some nice fantasy stuff, like the VC coven throne, and the current lizardmen stegadon. That said, an awful lot of the minis seem like they're in need of a little loving. It's a bit tough to see 90's greenstuff put up next to the auto-CAD laser cuts of 40k.

I guess they are a bit cheaper, but still...

2.) Yes, I know I just read the rulebook fluff, which is always just an overview, and yes, I know that GW's fluff writers have been slowly getting worse over time...

... but come on.

The fluff in 40k is fantastic, and maybe, because of that, the WHFB stuff comes across as pretty awful. I mean, starting with one of the most eggregious examples...

And then you look at chaos space marines, and then you look at WoC, which are literally just vikings. Boo. And then you have the Bretonnians who are a B-movie based on the scribblings of a nine-year-old who read the wikipedia entry for king arthur in an endless 4th-wall-breaking exercise in hackney fiction.

Not to say it's all bad, of course. The steampunk germans and the beardy old men shouting at teenagers are good examples, but from a surface look, it's seems... tragic.

Does the fluff in the codices redeem itself a bit, or is it sort of just something that you have to look past to play a more tactical game?

I think you are being a bit harsh. I mean, 40K has CSM, Catachan, and Eldar sculpts which are all starting to show their age. I would say that the aformentioned 40K sculpts aren't really any better than any of the plastic fantasy kits. GW has always been really hit or miss in all their model releases. They tend to both in 40K and Fantasy have a "good enough" mentality, where once something is in plastic they are loathe to improve it- since that investment would make less money than a big shiny Wraithknight or Coven Throne! Sure they resculpted Space Marines, but they are the flagship product, so are an exception to the general rule accross all their armies, especially since they seem to be moving away from whole army resculpts like Dark Eldar.

There are also some really nice Fantasy sculpts like the Questing Knights, Black Orcs and really everything in Island of Blood Overall from playing both games, the sculpts are about equal across the board in both 40K and fantasy. Hit or miss. At least Fantasy doesn't have much quite as aweful as the Obliterator or Centurian sculpts

As for fluff, there is really only so much you can do with it. Sci Fi is a more flexible medium than high fantasy, and there is a lot more room for creativity. The Skaven are pretty unique to the Warhammer world, and their backstory is pretty excellent as well. I think a lot of it is going to come down to preference. Warriors of Chaos in fantasy are what Space Wolves should have been. Ruthless Vikings raping churches and burning women, they have pretty decent sculpts and they have a unique identity. You pointed out that the fallen Hero makes for a better story, but on the other side of the coin, in many ways Chaos Space Marines are simply YAPAA (Yet Another Power Armoured Army) lovingly referred to as Spiky Marines. While WoC may not have quite as compelling a story as the Horus Herasy behind them, they have a unique identity in the setting in a way that CSM will never have, and this is displayed both in their fluff and unit choices.

As for Brets, YMMV. Its a fantasy setting and Bretonnians are the classic feudal era Knights and Peasants. Several Books make a point to focus on the darker side of Bretonnia- just how downtrodden the Peasantry really are, as well as hints that Bretonnian Society was constructed by the Wood Elves to serve as a buffer state. Not every armybook is for everybody, and the story is less original than 40K. But in large part that is due to the limitations of the High Fantasy setting more than anything.

 Ailaros wrote:


2.) Yes, I know I just read the rulebook fluff, which is always just an overview, and yes, I know that GW's fluff writers have been slowly getting worse over time...

... but come on.

The fluff in 40k is fantastic, and maybe, because of that, the WHFB stuff comes across as pretty awful. I mean, starting with one of the most eggregious examples...

Bad-guy elves in 40k:

The elves ruled a galaxy spanning empire and became so advanced that they were able to sate every whim. This lead to a galaxy wide hedonic slide into debauchery where they were unable to feel regular emotions anymore as their addiction to ever more extreme sensations spiraled out of control. Eventually, their emotions and the raw psychic energy of sensory overload became so great that it became sentient. The elf race was nearly completely wiped out as the souls of the elves merged with the raw power of their psyches to create a god. Those few who survived made a pact with their new deity - their continued survival so long as they caused more and more powerful emotional and sensory reactions. To this end, using techniques honed over millenia, they inflict the maximum amount of pain possible on everyone they come across, relying on torture as their only means of salvation.

Bad-guy elves in WHFB:

Once there were some elves. The chief elf wore a shiny hat. Another elf should have gotten to wear the shiny hat, but didn't. As a result, he invaded Canada and has been pouting ever since.

And then you look at chaos space marines, and then you look at WoC, which are literally just vikings. Boo. And then you have the Bretonnians who are a B-movie based on the scribblings of a nine-year-old who read the wikipedia entry for king arthur in an endless 4th-wall-breaking exercise in hackney fiction.

Not to say it's all bad, of course. The steampunk germans and the beardy old men shouting at teenagers are good examples, but from a surface look, it's seems... tragic.

Does the fluff in the codices redeem itself a bit, or is it sort of just something that you have to look past to play a more tactical game?

I could do the exact same thing, but the other way round. Providing detailed descriptions for Fantasy Fluff and short, sarcastic, taking-the-mick for 40k Fluff, and make the Fantasy background look far better. I can't really vouch much for the WoC or Bretonnian lore, but the Elven background has a lot more to it that "who wears the shiny hat". I take your "Canada" jibe though, surely it can't have hurt GW to put a little bit more imagination into the map of the Warhammer World.

I suppose the model thing might be a peculiarity. I don't know what they've done for WHFB, but I look at the last few years of 40k, and during that time they completely made an entire army, with an entire new range of models, from scratch (Grey Knights), and they made basically an entirely new army sans a couple of models, from scratch (Necron), and they did a complete and comprehensive reboot to an entire army and an entire miniatures line (Dark Eldar).

GW HAS been showing a lot of love to 40k over the last few years, so I guess it would make sense that they have the best, newest models created with the newest technology available.

The thing I find curious as well is the way they've shown miniatures in the WHFB rulebook. The 40k rulebook's miniatures showcase section shows a bunch of golden demon winners from the last few years. The WHFB rulebook shows some silver and bronze demon winners from over a decade ago. 40k's stuff is all look at all the cool stuff you can do with new minis with our new washes and stuff, and it sort of looks like they rummaged around through a cardboard box in the basement to drag out their old fantasy minis to take pictures of them for WHFB.

All of this combined makes me think that the problem here is that GW and its design team just sort of don't care about WHFB, at least, at the moment and for the last couple of years.

I suppose this is also shown by the codex every month 40k release schedule vs. fantasy, or are they also updating things more frequently for that side as well?

It's interesting that the BL books are better for fantasy, because I'd agree that they're pretty uniformly awful for 40k.

 Ailaros wrote:
I suppose the model thing might be a peculiarity. I don't know what they've done for WHFB, but I look at the last few years of 40k, and during that time they completely made an entire army, with an entire new range of models, from scratch (Grey Knights), and they made basically an entirely new army sans a couple of models, from scratch (Necron), and they did a complete and comprehensive reboot to an entire army and an entire miniatures line (Dark Eldar).

GW HAS been showing a lot of love to 40k over the last few years, so I guess it would make sense that they have the best, newest models created with the newest technology available.

The thing I find curious as well is the way they've shown miniatures in the WHFB rulebook. The 40k rulebook's miniatures showcase section shows a bunch of golden demon winners from the last few years. The WHFB rulebook shows some silver and bronze demon winners from over a decade ago. 40k's stuff is all look at all the cool stuff you can do with new minis with our new washes and stuff, and it sort of looks like they rummaged around through a cardboard box in the basement to drag out their old fantasy minis to take pictures of them for WHFB.

All of this combined makes me think that the problem here is that GW and its design team just sort of don't care about WHFB, at least, at the moment and for the last couple of years.

I suppose this is also shown by the codex every month 40k release schedule vs. fantasy, or are they also updating things more frequently for that side as well?

It's interesting that the BL books are better for fantasy, because I'd agree that they're pretty uniformly awful for 40k.

40k sells better. So GW put more resources into 40k. It's annoying, but it's what every good business would do.

And the WHFB rulebook is 4 years older, but even so, what you mention is pretty curious. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the big 9th Edition rulebook, though I'll be avoiding buying it if I can.

 Ailaros wrote:

Krellnus wrote:Whilst some areas will certainly have an arms race of wizards it is important to note that some armies fair better than others without wizards

Well, that's sort of what I'm getting towards. Of course there are going to be some armies that really want to use lots and lots of magic. The question is more of if you're screwed if you use a reasonably minimal amount and move on towards other stuff. If it's one of he who has the most power dice and the most wizards wins, and he who didn't take more wizards should have taken more wizards.

Unfortunately, there are few armies where it is actually worth it to take a "Combat" Lord over a Level 4 Wizard. Sometimes I can get away with a few Lower level wizards, but I tend to get dominated in the magic phase. While you can spend some points on a Dispell Scroll, that will only save you from one spell - often times you'll burn it in the first round of magic, and then have to weather spell after spell for the rest of the game.

rollawaythestone wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Krellnus wrote:Whilst some areas will certainly have an arms race of wizards it is important to note that some armies fair better than others without wizards

Well, that's sort of what I'm getting towards. Of course there are going to be some armies that really want to use lots and lots of magic. The question is more of if you're screwed if you use a reasonably minimal amount and move on towards other stuff. If it's one of he who has the most power dice and the most wizards wins, and he who didn't take more wizards should have taken more wizards.

Unfortunately, there are few armies where it is actually worth it to take a "Combat" Lord over a Level 4 Wizard. Sometimes I can get away with a few Lower level wizards, but I tend to get dominated in the magic phase. While you can spend some points on a Dispell Scroll, that will only save you from one spell - often times you'll burn it in the first round of magic, and then have to weather spell after spell for the rest of the game.

There armies that can quite easily afford to take both though, and Vampires can take one model that's both. Even some elite armies have builds which include a Combat Lord and a Level 4, like some DE builds, for example, that include an Unkillable PegLord and a Level 4 Supreme Sorceress.

The Shadow wrote:And the WHFB rulebook is 4 years older, but even so, what you mention is pretty curious. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the big 9th Edition rulebook, though I'll be avoiding buying it if I can.

Oh, that's interesting, so 8th ed is five years old now?

Any vague idea when 9th will be out? Perhaps that's why they've been working so hard on 40k. 40k just got a new rules edition, so need a bunch of work, and they're kind of trying to get it all out the door before starting the whole cycle again with WHFB a year or two from now.

 Ailaros wrote:

Any vague idea when 9th will be out? Perhaps that's why they've been working so hard on 40k. 40k just got a new rules edition, so need a bunch of work, and they're kind of trying to get it all out the door before starting the whole cycle again with WHFB a year or two from now.

I think the rumors are saying next year.

Oops, didn't mean to say older, just old. But yeah, the point still stands. And yeah, 9th is due out next summer, if GW keep to the normal edition release schedule

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:

Why hello. I started Fantasy about a year and a half ago, looking for variety from my 40k Orks. I now basically never play 40k, as I find it just too distressing to lose all my models before I can make assault. Maybe the upcoming codex will let me swarm into the enemy deployment zone as before, but I have a bad feeling about it.

So, Fantasy! Fantasy!

This bodes well, because I'm looking to ditch 40k for the exact same reason. Stupid shooty lists blow my boys apart before I can bash heads together, and the only way to survive against them is to use lame stuff that if I'd wanted to use in the first place, I wouldn't have taken Orks to do so

I see from your batrep link you run Tomb Kings. What drew you to them? I'm just interested to see how someone in my exact situation responded and what they picked for what reason. I've been looking at Greenskins for obvious reasons but not sure if they're as 'fun' as the ones in 40k. Alternatively, Khorne daemons but they seem to only have one thing going for them (a cannon of all things, screw that)

We also use heavy comp around here, so alot of those problems you mentioned are not really an issue. I'm starting to get excited here =P

Firstly, does the game just not work at low points levels? People fall all over themselves to play at 1850 points in 40k, which is where you start maxing out your FOC (or, at least, using most of it), and basically cramming the board so full of models that the game becomes line-up-and-shoot. The thing for 40k, though, is that it scales down very, very well. We had a 250 point league for awhile with just a couple of little rule tweaks (provided in the rulebook, actually) for that points level and it was brilliant. It actually felt a lot more tactical. Actually, it felt a lot like airsoft or paintball. You and a dozen guys against them and a dozen guys in a huge area.

Seriously man its like your reading my mind. I've been approached by the club pres to possibly run a tournament next year and I might implement this

So I too was an 40k Ork player that jumped into fantasy when Grey Nights codex came out. I jumped into Ogres and haven't looked back. Ogres BTW play very much like 40k Orks, walk forward and punch in the face. Funny thing is some of the Ogre units have some very similar Ork equivalents:

Leadbelchers = Lootaz
Ogre unit = Nobz
Ironguts = MegaNobz / PowerKlaw Nobz
Ironblasters = Boom Gun looted wagon
Gnoblars = gretchin
Mournfang Cavarly = deffrolla Battlewagon
Gorger/Maneaters = snikrott/kommandos
Tyrant = Warboss
Sabretusk = single scouting deffkopta

Ofcourse these units don't play exactly as their 40k counterpart, but there are similarities that I picked up on immediately.

Currently I'm playing my second army (High Elves), and will probably jump into a 3rd army soon.

 The Shadow wrote:

I could do the exact same thing, but the other way round. Providing detailed descriptions for Fantasy Fluff and short, sarcastic, taking-the-mick for 40k Fluff, and make the Fantasy background look far better. I can't really vouch much for the WoC or Bretonnian lore, but the Elven background has a lot more to it that "who wears the shiny hat". I take your "Canada" jibe though, surely it can't have hurt GW to put a little bit more imagination into the map of the Warhammer World.

 kazian wrote:
A discussion with a friend has me contemplating trying my hand at fantasy. I've always liked the fluff quite a bit, but my tabletop experience is pretty well exclusive to the current edition of 40k.

If there's anyone out there with experience with both, how do they compare in terms of rules, gameplay experience, etc?

Played both since the 90's. Fantasy is by far more complicated (in a good way), and challenging! I am kinda bored with 40k....