alextroy wrote: This isn't rocket science people. The core rules of Warhammer 40K consist of two documents: The Core Rules and the Rules Commentary. That's it. They cover the rules of the game outside of the various models and armies (Indexes & Codices) and the specific mission rules (Mission Packs).
But what does that have to do with the topic of edition churn? As I said, an edition of a game includes things like supplements and design philosophy. The core rules text is only a part of the total picture and there's no point in limiting the discussion to just the core rules text.
Part of the churn discussion is what part of churn is core rules change and what part is index/codex changes. It helps to be able to differentiate the two from each other. Codex Space Marines 8.5 was not a core rules change, yet it created massive churn due to the updates to Astartes. The codex design philosophy that started there played out all the way through 9th edition which could be argued were more important than the core rules changes of 9th Edition.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: But what does that have to do with the topic of edition churn? As I said, an edition of a game includes things like supplements and design philosophy. The core rules text is only a part of the total picture and there's no point in limiting the discussion to just the core rules text.
They're just moving goalposts. Again. Nothing more.
What are you going to call the 10 different sub editions of 8th and 9th with the pts updates that made the game into Yhatzee, then Battleships and then Dungeons and Dragons? I've never worked in product or software development and iterated on a product, but coudln't any change mess up the product even if it is seemingly minor supposedly strict improvement like switching the type of battery used in a phone? How about a software update to save battery life? 40k is very clearly trying to do the same thing in 9th and 10th edition, changes were made to make the product more fit for purpose, that's textbook iteration as far as I see it. They did not start from the ground up saying "we need a flagship game using 30-150 40k miniatures with mass appeal", they said "we have these problems with 9th edition and we think these changes will fix these problems". No amount of changing the wording to be more clear on how the new melee rules are to be used will unfeth them, it's a bad rule, it needs to be reverted, we need points costs for sponsons, not splitting datasheets into 6 to fit all the different weapon options. These things should be changed with errata.
vict0988 wrote: What are you going to call the 10 different sub editions of 8th and 9th with the pts updates that made the game into Yhatzee, then Battleships and then Dungeons and Dragons?
Red herrings? False equivalencies?
Take your pic.
vict0988 wrote: 40k is very clearly trying to do the same thing in 9th and 10th edition, changes were made to make the product more fit for purpose, that's textbook iteration as far as I see it.
Except it's very clearly not. They threw out everything and started from scratch. Again.
4th was an iteration of 3rd, and that carried through to 7th. 8th they threw everything out and started again - sure we still had "Weapon Skill" and "Toughness" and "Range", but it was a completely new base ruleset, incompatible with the previous one. 10th has done so again.
As has been mentioned, an iterative ruleset would be a slow progression that slowly polishes/improves/refines the game over time. There might be the odd dramatic shift or addition, but if you're building upon what came before, this wouldn't be strictly necessary unless something in a previous iteration was functionally broken.
10th doesn't do that. It doesn't try to improve the abysmal morale rules from 9th, it just wholesale removes them and replaces them with a completely different mechanic. I happen to think it's a far better mechanic, but improving an old system with a new one doesn't make the process of getting their iterative.
If 40k was truly iterative then everything would still work between edition changes. You wouldn't need a complete day one re-write of everything with Indices. Development would be more about refinement and adding new things, not complete and total changes to how basic elements of the core game function.
4th was an iteration of 3rd, and that carried through to 7th. 8th they threw everything out and started again - sure we still had "Weapon Skill" and "Toughness" and "Range", but it was a completely new base ruleset, incompatible with the previous one. 10th has done so again.
As has been mentioned, an iterative ruleset would be a slow progression that slowly polishes/improves/refines the game over time. There might be the odd dramatic shift or addition, but if you're building upon what came before, this wouldn't be strictly necessary unless something in a previous iteration was functionally broken.
10th doesn't do that. It doesn't try to improve the abysmal morale rules from 9th, it just wholesale removes them and replaces them with a completely different mechanic. I happen to think it's a far better mechanic, but improving an old system with a new one doesn't make the process of getting their iterative.
If 40k was truly iterative then everything would still work between edition changes. You wouldn't need a complete day one re-write of everything with Indices. Development would be more about refinement and adding new things, not complete and total changes to how basic elements of the core game function.
So in the window of 3rd-7th we had:
Fixed charges > random charges
wholesale changes to how some weapons function or move (heavy changing from move or fire to snapshots, defensive weapons coming into existence then not etc)
Introduction of D weapons
Introduction of superheavies
Introduction of fliers
Introduction of allies rules
More force organisation options added
Formations & super detachments
Reintroduction of the psychic phase in 7th, as a reminder it didn't exist 3rd-6th
Wound allocation changes repeatedly
Definition of cover changing wildly across editions (see some editions using size based area terrain, others not)
I'm sure there are others but that's off the top of my head and a very generalist wording of the changes. I think sometimes people forget that 40k, especially between 5th-7th, had as many if not more changes than 8th-10th.
As mentioned earlier, you could probably play 10th with a 9th codex and a small FAQ. The reason they sacked off the codex looks to be they wanted to alter the army rules and stratagems so heavily that they didn't want a half and half, alongside wanting to change the stats for vehicles/monsters so heavily. The one big caveat is the removal of psyker stuff, which is the only thing that really stands out to me as not being iterative but is still clearly based off community complaints to some degree.
Edit: overwatch as a charge reaction came back as well!
In core rules, as in, the frame of the game, dictating stats, mechanics, USR if there are some, terrain rules etc...
I'd say it has got a negative inpact as churn because when they decide to change gale tables, you have to change yours, that costed you money. Also because if you want to be up to date you'll have to buy a new book every 3 years rather than every 5 or 6.
But I don't think it's the worst as far as our wallets are concerned. Other mandatory books are however: codices mostly.
In 3rd to 7th era it was easy to use an outdated codex to play because the core game was more or lesse the same, primarily unit stats were in the same format. In the battle report section of this forum you have many examples of "4th ed 40k 6th guard Vs 3rd necrons".
Now, say core rules change every 3 years, then that means everythree year, you'll have to buy your codex again to actually be able to play anyway. And that hits the wallet harder.
Whereas supplements at list are not mandatory so you're free not to buy them. But codices...
4th was an iteration of 3rd, and that carried through to 7th.
Although even within that, for each of those edition changes, while the overall shape of the game stayed more or less the same, assorted individual parts of it changed so much that the end result in at least some of those was still effectively a restart rather than merely an iteration. Particularly the change from 5th to 6th... while there was enough there for someone familiar with 5th to pick up the 6th ed rules fairly quickly, it was a very different game once you actually got minis on the table.
vict0988 wrote: I've never worked in product or software development and iterated on a product, but coudln't any change mess up the product even if it is seemingly minor supposedly strict improvement like switching the type of battery used in a phone? How about a software update to save battery life?
I work on a product that consists of both hard- and software that iterates on both of its components and am a licensed expert for creating versioning strategies for software. In general you differentiate between minor and major increments. Minor iterations aim to remain compatible to all existing product, so for example a minor increase of a hardware part would be a new design, a new endpoints (for example bluetooth/physical slot for extension). In software a minor increase in almost all cases means adding new features or changing how existing features behave. It must not invalidate any hardware or content a customer has bought for that major iteration.
Major increment are when a new hardware component is released that is no longer compatible to the old stuff for one reason or the other. For example, if you are creating a new iteration of a vacuum robot and you want to increase the amount of dust it collects, there is no way to create a solution that would fit into the old iteration. This is then called a breaking change. Of course, there often are business(=greed)-fueled breaking changes, like when you buy the next iteration of your camera and suddenly none of your old lenses, filters or tripod fit into the new one anymore, despite the functionality of those things not changing at all. In software, major increment are usually major overhauls of certain parts of the software or complete rewrites. The difference between a major and a minor iteration is a lot smaller than it is for hardware, and is usually just used to indicate old features or interface are no longer compatible to previous iterations. Note that in software major increment also have become a marketing tool, and many things that are sold as if they were major increment really do not match the definition. My favorite example here would be Windows 11, which technically is exactly the same as the annual feature updates Microsoft has been doing for some years now and really is just a facelifted Windows 10. Major iterations are not done often since they are extremely expensive and thus a big risk. That is why they are usually surrounded by a great deal of advertisement and marketing to make sure the investment pays off. At least for my company, major iteration are a necessity to stay on top of technology and competitors, eventually hardware and software is outdated and can't keep up with the state of the art anymore. And sometimes you have just engineered/written yourself into a corner and the only way out of that corner is introducing breaking changes. And of course, we also have churn, despite that making limited sense for physical product. However, it's a well know fact that a good number of people tend to buy a newer thing over an older thing, no matter whether the newer thing is better. For example, roborock has much better sales on their newer robots despite them having less features and being worse at cleaning than older models. Therefore you simply have to throw out a new thing every few years to keep your spot in the market.
In general, iteration is about the size of a change, not about the impact of such change. A minor increment can easily have a much larger impact than a major one. In fact, many companies even strive for a low impact for major iterations.
Most of that should sound familiar. If you translate this to GW and 40k, new editions are major iterations, while the releases of data slates, codices and new units are minor iterations. New game modes and narrative books would be similar to the appliances of your camera, vacuum or gaming console, as they might or might not work with the next major iteration.
The reason why everyone is fighting in this thread is that 10th is a hybrid of multiple parts which have iterated to different degrees. The other reason is that people don't understand that a size of an increment is not connected to the impact 10th currentlyconsists of: The core rules - which most people define as the literal document called literally called "core rules" and the commentary that goes with it. You can't really argue this unless you are trying to be deliberately obtuse. Datacards and Detachment rules - either provided as free downloads or in overpriced hardbacks Points - freely available through the munitorium field manual
Core rules had some impactful, but IMHO none of them really completely changed how you play the game unless you play one of the psychic armies. You might argue that it was not a "true" major increment but a minor increment merely marketed as major, but there are a few actual breaking changes. For example, any rule which interacted with attrition would be defunct in 10th, as there is no such thing anymore. For Datacards and Detachments the indices absolutely were a major increment. It was a complete rewrite of what was found in 9th edition's codices, tons of things disappeared. Any codex that is released afterwards is a minor increment on the index increment. Points, no matter how much you cry about the sky falling because of free lascannon sponsons, merely received a minor increment. We had free guns and updates in 9th and we now just have more of them, even if that doesn't make any sense whatsoever for certain options. You could easily use the current munitorium and play 8th and 9th with it (probably even older editions), disproving that it is a major increment. It is also worth noting that points for upgrade might come back at any time if GW decides to do so, further cementing that this is, in fact, not a breaking change. The balance dataslate would be a minor increment on both core rules and the Datasheets/Detachments.
Kind reminder to the veterans of dakka: If you can't be bothered to read the whole thing, just don't respond, because then I don't care about your opinion either. Let's save each other's time.
TL;DR:
small changes can have big impacts on the game and arguing that there are only small changes does not mean that the game is still the same
PS: some here would argue that Windows 11 is still the very same as Windows XP because the icons still have the same colour and there are only minor changes what software is installed by default
kodos wrote: PS: some here would argue that Windows 11 is still the very same as Windows XP because the icons still have the same colour and there are only minor changes what software is installed by default
If read worse opinions than that by self-proclaimed game design experts in this very thread.
You also completely missed the point of my post, which isn't exactly a surprise. I suggest you go and try to understand it. You might learn something.
Jidmah wrote: You also completely missed the point of my post, which isn't exactly a surprise. I suggest you go and try to understand it. You might learn something.
"My writing is clear and lucid and you're dumb for not seeing it," is not the crushing debate-ending argument some people think.
I think you made some good points, but I also think kodos did as well.
Changes that could be regarded is small and peripheral can in fact have major impacts, beyond the intended scope, and people who do dig deep into the system can sincerely believe that the changes are minor because of superficial factors like appearance.
For 40k to be truly interative in its design, one would expect a high degree of continuity over the years. Again, we have examples of this, such as Battle Tech. Were GW to have pursued a similar approach, we would expect very little change in play styles, army composition, terrain density, etc.
What we would instead see is greater clarity in rules, flawless balance and stability in how units do what they do.
Monopoly is almost a century old and I don't think there is a single question or controversy about its rules. Yes, it's simple, but it is also old, and while people have come up with variants, it's core mechanics are rock solid.
Should Space Marines hug cover or stand out in the open to gain better fields of fire. How does one best deal with onrushing assault combatants? Is overwatch an option? Can units snap fire?
These mechanics move around - core rules, special rules, army rules, strategems, etc. That's the churn.
On a different thread, someone posted a link to a youtube battle report. It was 40k, the figures were somewhat familiar, but the game mechanic was utterly strange to me. It was a different game using some of the same models. That's not building on continuity, it's a full-on reboot, and GW has done it multiple times.
In boardgaming terms, it's like whether rivers block retreats. In some games they do, in some they don't. With GW, it would flip back and forth.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: On a different thread, someone posted a link to a youtube battle report. It was 40k, the figures were somewhat familiar, but the game mechanic was utterly strange to me. It was a different game using some of the same models. That's not building on continuity, it's a full-on reboot, and GW has done it multiple times.
Without wanting to pick on you specifically, isn't this a you thing? Given you've said elsewhere that you are getting back into the hobby after being away for 15 years?
If you had played a lot of 8th and 9th, I think 10th is overwhelmingly familiar. Even the loss of the psychic phase for "Psykers just have certain abilities now" isn't so hard to grasp.
If by contrast your only experience of 40k was 4th edition, then I feel 10th is going to be incomprehensible. Essentially nothing works how you'd expect.
2nd, 3rd and 8th were new games. 10th really isn't. GW could have essentially stuck to late 9th's core rules and released the indexes (because they'd screwed up buffing damage output too much through 8th and 9th) and we'd be in a very similar place.
kodos wrote: TL;DR:
small changes can have big impacts on the game and arguing that there are only small changes does not mean that the game is still the same
PS: some here would argue that Windows 11 is still the very same as Windows XP because the icons still have the same colour and there are only minor changes what software is installed by default
The problems is changes for changes sake and removing stuff while not giving anything in return. Miracle dice for eldar were already done and fixed in 9th. It was still a strong rule, yet GW decided to change that again. WE and Votan had a rule set that worked. It only had to be translated to 10th, only GW did it their usual way. Their whole rules writing for factions smells of pet projects, things that have to be done because they have to be done, but no one really wanting to do them, no idea what to do with some faction and puting away that "problem" till their codex release. All well and good when someone is A paid for "playing" the game B gets a cross over view of rules from multiple sources in the future C the cost of getting an army is practicaly non existant. To a GW designer there is little problem(would have to affect world wide sell of a GW game) with a faction being unfun or unfinished, because to them the natural way of dealing with it is just wait for the codex and play something else till it happens. It looks way different from the perspective of someone lets say playing just IG and waiting 3 years for their book.
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Tyel 811321 11589818 wrote:
If you had played a lot of 8th and 9th, I think 10th is overwhelmingly familiar. Even the loss of the psychic phase for "Psykers just have certain abilities now" isn't so hard to grasp.
If by contrast your only experience of 40k was 4th edition, then I feel 10th is going to be incomprehensible. Essentially nothing works how you'd expect.
I have seen a returning player try to finish a game vs 1ksons pre changes and then quit his return in the middle of game with eldar. A person used to regular games, even ones 8th ed style, was mind blown when a out of sight LoS eldar artilery blew up his single votan character, which then procted the Avatar to teleport in his midfield, and when he tried to engage him he ate a wrightlords overwatch and the Avatar phantomed outside of his berzerkers range. Dude quit the game, and he had a fresh bought and fresh painted army. And not some kid either, a 42year old veteran player.
I have seen a returning player try to finish a game vs 1ksons pre changes and then quit his return in the middle of game with eldar. A person used to regular games, even ones 8th ed style, was mind blown when a out of sight LoS eldar artilery blew up his single votan character, which then procted the Avatar to teleport in his midfield, and when he tried to engage him he ate a wrightlords overwatch and the Avatar phantomed outside of his berzerkers range. Dude quit the game, and he had a fresh bought and fresh painted army. And not some kid either, a 42year old veteran player.
Thats because
A: you shouldn't come with a top tier hyper toxic army list when you're playing against a new player thats unfamiliar with the edition
B: the new guy was pretty thin skinned if half a game is all it took to get him off the game.
Even with the scuffed balance of the editions, i've had plenty of fun playing against multiple armies, including the top tier ones, because my opponents and i weren't just playing to win, we were playing to have fun too.
PenitentJake wrote: Had I been playing the guy, I would have explained the Overwatch before he moved.
for sure yeah, this is an issue on the eldar player more than the returning player.
AND the fact that Karol plays in the most toxic cesspool of tryhard WAAC player ever. Seriously, who brings THE meta list for the 70% winrate army agaisnt someone getting back in the hobby?
I have seen a returning player try to finish a game vs 1ksons pre changes and then quit his return in the middle of game with eldar. A person used to regular games, even ones 8th ed style, was mind blown when a out of sight LoS eldar artilery blew up his single votan character, which then procted the Avatar to teleport in his midfield, and when he tried to engage him he ate a wrightlords overwatch and the Avatar phantomed outside of his berzerkers range. Dude quit the game, and he had a fresh bought and fresh painted army. And not some kid either, a 42year old veteran player.
That's a bit drastic. All he had to do was cross Eldar (or maybe just that particular Eldar player) off the list he's willing to play against.
Honestly playing a new game or a returned game I'd expect to lose multiple times before starting to win. You have to re-learn the game not just at the mechanical level but at the tactical level. Learning what units are good/bad what tactics can be employed and also learn the ins and outs of your own army.
Of course if your only opponents are WAAC nasties who are more in it for winning not teaching/helping or just having a good time then yeah that atmosphere/attitude can make a person give up; though honestly I'd hope they'd at least try more than one opponent
Of course sometimes the way a game plays just turns you off very quickly even if you accept all of the above. Still kinda drastic to buy into a whole army and then just chuck it.
Overread wrote: Honestly playing a new game or a returned game I'd expect to lose multiple times before starting to win. You have to re-learn the game not just at the mechanical level but at the tactical level. Learning what units are good/bad what tactics can be employed and also learn the ins and outs of your own army.
Of course if your only opponents are WAAC nasties who are more in it for winning not teaching/helping or just having a good time then yeah that atmosphere/attitude can make a person give up; though honestly I'd hope they'd at least try more than one opponent
Of course sometimes the way a game plays just turns you off very quickly even if you accept all of the above. Still kinda drastic to buy into a whole army and then just chuck it.
How easy did GW make the accusation of being WAAC though, now that any new player could simply stumble across the best loadout for any given unit by sheer accident given the no long have to do the accounting, nor have the individual point cost to indicate which weapon is better. The race to the bottom of forcing everyone into power levels makes the WAAC accusation ever more easy to throw around.
Overread wrote: Honestly playing a new game or a returned game I'd expect to lose multiple times before starting to win. You have to re-learn the game not just at the mechanical level but at the tactical level. Learning what units are good/bad what tactics can be employed and also learn the ins and outs of your own army.
Of course if your only opponents are WAAC nasties who are more in it for winning not teaching/helping or just having a good time then yeah that atmosphere/attitude can make a person give up; though honestly I'd hope they'd at least try more than one opponent
Of course sometimes the way a game plays just turns you off very quickly even if you accept all of the above. Still kinda drastic to buy into a whole army and then just chuck it.
How easy did GW make the accusation of being WAAC though, now that any new player could simply stumble across the best loadout for any given unit by sheer accident given the no long have to do the accounting, nor have the individual point cost to indicate which weapon is better.
It's always been that way. And anyone with internet access doesn't even need to do it for themselves.
Crablezworth wrote: How easy did GW make the accusation of being WAAC though, now that any new player could simply stumble across the best loadout for any given unit by sheer accident given the no long have to do the accounting, nor have the individual point cost to indicate which weapon is better. The race to the bottom of forcing everyone into power levels makes the WAAC accusation ever more easy to throw around.
I don't think GW gets any blame here. People who misuse the term WAAC out of the scrub mindset of "my opponent beat me they must be the worst ever" would find something to complain about no matter what GW does. And people who use it correctly, referring to people who resort to cheating, seal clubbing, etc, in pursuit of victory at all costs would still engage in all that unethical behavior even in a perfectly balanced game.
GW deserves every ounce of blame for deciding not to include a balancing mechanism for wargear and expecting players to just work it out amongst themselves. It's rife for WAAC vs CAAC disputes, well-meaning players accidentally coming across as tournament tryhards, and resentment between players who don't see eye-to-eye on their heuristic assessments of relative power.
'They'll always find something to complain about' is a poor excuse.
catbarf wrote: GW deserves every ounce of blame for deciding not to include a balancing mechanism for wargear and expecting players to just work it out amongst themselves. It's rife for WAAC vs CAAC disputes, well-meaning players accidentally coming across as tournament tryhards, and resentment between players who don't see eye-to-eye on their heuristic assessments of relative power.
'They'll always find something to complain about' is a poor excuse.
That has nothing to do with WAAC or CAAC. Those terms refer to attitudes that exist no matter how well balanced the game is and the issue is people misusing them to mean "anyone who doesn't play the game exactly the way I do".
Tyel wrote: Without wanting to pick on you specifically, isn't this a you thing? Given you've said elsewhere that you are getting back into the hobby after being away for 15 years?
Yeah, but I'm totally able to follow Battle Tech after an even longer absence.
It's like one game has maintained design consistency and the other hasn't.
Tyel wrote: Without wanting to pick on you specifically, isn't this a you thing? Given you've said elsewhere that you are getting back into the hobby after being away for 15 years?
Yeah, but I'm totally able to follow Battle Tech after an even longer absence.
It's like one game has maintained design consistency and the other hasn't.
Weird.
Exactly. After 15 years GW should have refined 40k into its final form, the best version of the game Commissar von Toussaint was playing 15 years ago. Make some minor iterative changes, clean up the last bits, all with a goal of achieving the vision of what 40k was supposed to be back then. But instead we have edition after edition of change for the sake of change, no convergence on anything resembling a coherent finished product, and no end in sight to all the change. The name of the product remains the same and that's about it.
Overread wrote: Honestly playing a new game or a returned game I'd expect to lose multiple times before starting to win. You have to re-learn the game not just at the mechanical level but at the tactical level. Learning what units are good/bad what tactics can be employed and also learn the ins and outs of your own army.
Of course if your only opponents are WAAC nasties who are more in it for winning not teaching/helping or just having a good time then yeah that atmosphere/attitude can make a person give up; though honestly I'd hope they'd at least try more than one opponent
Of course sometimes the way a game plays just turns you off very quickly even if you accept all of the above. Still kinda drastic to buy into a whole army and then just chuck it.
How easy did GW make the accusation of being WAAC though, now that any new player could simply stumble across the best loadout for any given unit by sheer accident given the no long have to do the accounting, nor have the individual point cost to indicate which weapon is better. The race to the bottom of forcing everyone into power levels makes the WAAC accusation ever more easy to throw around.
Option A, B and C cost 100 pts. They are worth 80, 100 and 120 pts.
Option X, Y and C cost 80, 100 and 120 pts. They are worth 60, 100 and 140 pts.
What makes it more likely to stumple upon the strongest option in the A, B, C situation?
Crablezworth wrote: How easy did GW make the accusation of being WAAC though, now that any new player could simply stumble across the best loadout for any given unit by sheer accident given the no long have to do the accounting, nor have the individual point cost to indicate which weapon is better. The race to the bottom of forcing everyone into power levels makes the WAAC accusation ever more easy to throw around.
I don't think GW gets any blame here. People who misuse the term WAAC out of the scrub mindset of "my opponent beat me they must be the worst ever" would find something to complain about no matter what GW does. And people who use it correctly, referring to people who resort to cheating, seal clubbing, etc, in pursuit of victory at all costs would still engage in all that unethical behavior even in a perfectly balanced game.
Not warning your opponent who just got back into the hobby that you've brought THE list is seal clubbing. There are new and returning players who are up for the challenge, but in my experience they are rare. Maybe if my preference was to always play my strongest list I'd have more experience with it.
Tyel wrote: Without wanting to pick on you specifically, isn't this a you thing? Given you've said elsewhere that you are getting back into the hobby after being away for 15 years?
Yeah, but I'm totally able to follow Battle Tech after an even longer absence.
It's like one game has maintained design consistency and the other hasn't.
Weird.
Exactly. After 15 years GW should have refined 40k into its final form, the best version of the game Commissar von Toussaint was playing 15 years ago. Make some minor iterative changes, clean up the last bits, all with a goal of achieving the vision of what 40k was supposed to be back then. But instead we have edition after edition of change for the sake of change, no convergence on anything resembling a coherent finished product, and no end in sight to all the change. The name of the product remains the same and that's about it.
Polishing a turd for 15 years would be the definition of a waste of time. I've never seen anybody try to design such a project either, there are always larger changes implemented when people rewrite the core rules or a codex. How would you have iterated on the 9th edition morale rules? The problems were that it barely did anything and the things it did just caused more damage.
vict0988 wrote: Not warning your opponent who just got back into the hobby that you've brought THE list is seal clubbing. There are new and returning players who are up for the challenge, but in my experience they are rare. Maybe if my preference was to always play my strongest list I'd have more experience with it.
No it isn't. Seal clubbing is specifically seeking out newer or weaker players because they're easier to beat, not just playing your standard list against someone who happens to have not played in a while. That's why it's win at ALL costs behavior, because you deliberately seek and prefer games that are not really fun in any other way because they give you the best odds of winning, you're willing to sacrifice everything else about the game as long as it makes you more likely to win.
Polishing a turd for 15 years would be the definition of a waste of time.
Then you avoid that 13 years ago with a single major reboot of the game to learn from your mistakes. The fact that GW is still at the stage of needing to make major changes to avoid sinking further development time into a dead-end concept is proof of their spectacular incompetence at game design. And the fact that, after all these changes, they still haven't figured out that IGOUGO is an obsolete mechanic and cause of a lot of their problems only makes it more hilarious.
I have seen a returning player try to finish a game vs 1ksons pre changes and then quit his return in the middle of game with eldar. A person used to regular games, even ones 8th ed style, was mind blown when a out of sight LoS eldar artilery blew up his single votan character, which then procted the Avatar to teleport in his midfield, and when he tried to engage him he ate a wrightlords overwatch and the Avatar phantomed outside of his berzerkers range. Dude quit the game, and he had a fresh bought and fresh painted army. And not some kid either, a 42year old veteran player.
That's a bit drastic. All he had to do was cross Eldar (or maybe just that particular Eldar player) off the list he's willing to play against.
You think that if he saw a congo line of respawning GSC or knights blowing him up from behind cover he would feel much better? Even some of mid armies like orks or tyranids, would be a problem. I see people go second vs necron and realise turn 2 that their army doesn't have the fire and melee power to shift them from objectives. And yes one can say that then they could go full GK mode, not engage the opponent , play secondaries and just try to draw or have a minor lose, because of primaris. But it is a horrible way to expiriance the game, it is mind numbing and boring. Especialy when other armies don't have to suffer through it.
A: you shouldn't come with a top tier hyper toxic army list when you're playing against a new player thats unfamiliar with the edition
B: the new guy was pretty thin skinned if half a game is all it took to get him off the game.
Even with the scuffed balance of the editions, i've had plenty of fun playing against multiple armies, including the top tier ones, because my opponents and i weren't just playing to win, we were playing to have fun too.
I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic. Especialy when the lower win rate armie can not play anything else. Try playing a bad army and not play their "toxic compatitive" list, then stuff like turn 1 lost game happen. Also it is not a question of thin skin. He did the math vs his opponent lists, decided he didn't like the way w40k is played . He wasn't hidding it during a game, which is not the norm here as people don't talk much during games here.
Plus it it is not like the only match ups he would have, practicaly every mid to high tier army lists would do the same thing to him.
The win vs fun thing is something I will never understand. It goes beyond me how it could be true. I have never seen someone dominate a ranking or cathegory and be sad about it, or the fact that they are winning and everyone else is losing. And it can't just be sponsorships, scholarships or contracts in the future. Becuase people feel the same when they were not doing ranked matches or even during training. Even comparing to other table top games, w40k is the only one where fun is somehow split from playing and winning the game. Everything is fun in w40k. Painting, having friends, lore, but winning is bad. Or you have to do the condesending with "I beat him and his tournament list with my lore accurate friendly eldar list, which didn't have a WK (but spamed the living hell out of WSetc) ". Even in AoS there is no as much focus put on winning being anti fun, and it is a GW game. I mean what is next put the requierment that in order to play, both the people write both the lists? Have the "starting kit" for w40k be a car, five to six 5-6k armies and a flat or house to play the games in? And better yet what is next, forced painting session pre game to socilise the players ?
The win vs fun thing is something I will never understand.
theyre not two separate concepts. I don't play to lose, and i'm not sad if i win. It's just not my main attraction to the game, at least not to the point where i'd only play the strongest possible lists. I have much more fun bringing a list that has models that i like and figuring out the optimal way to play that list rather than do the same with an objectively strong list.
I see 40k a bit like i see a game of Commander in MTG, i'm there to create weird boardstates and interactions and have a fun conversation with a friend
I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic.
It depends on what they are matched against.
Remember, just because something is 'legal', it doesn't make it morally or ethically correct on an absolute scale. Plenty awful things in life are 'legal'.
I Especialy when the lower win rate armie can not play anything else. Try playing a bad army and not play their "toxic compatitive" list, then stuff like turn 1 lost game happen.
Depends on what you play it into, surely. Not an exact comparison, but we've found games of 'low-power necromunda' are a blast to play, with just las/auto pistols and a handful of las/autguns and shotguns. 'The most powerful lists' isn't the ultimate expression of any wargame.
The win vs fun thing is something I will never understand. It goes beyond me how it could be true.
There's winning by whatever means; and there's winning 'honourably'. How you win matters.
Enjoyment and 'fun' doesnt stem solely from winning, it stems in large part from the participation and engagement. You don't have to win to have fun. And its entirely possible to lose a game/sporting activity and still have an enjoyable time.
But you can also win at the expense of fun, both yours and your opponent. Imo that empties the win of a lot of its value.
I have never seen someone dominate a ranking or cathegory and be sad about it, or the fact that they are winning and everyone else is losing. And it can't just be sponsorships, scholarships or contracts in the future. Becuase people feel the same when they were not doing ranked matches or even during training. Even comparing to other table top games, w40k is the only one where fun is somehow split from playing and winning the game. Everything is fun in w40k. Painting, having friends, lore, but winning is bad. Or you have to do the condesending with "I beat him and his tournament list with my lore accurate friendly eldar list, which didn't have a WK (but spamed the living hell out of WSetc) ".
Not everything is about rankings. Plenty folks really do not care about any of that - it's just bluster at the end of the day. Winning is not 'the point' for a lot of people all of the time, 'taking part' is.
Rwmember, there's winning at everyone else's expense or in ways that are less than 'fair', - thats whats frowned on, not necessarily 'winning' as a concept. You can have fun/enjoyment in playing, and fyi every game I've played has had a strong consensus in the community to focus on fun than ruthless competition.
I mean what is next put the requierment that in order to play, both the people write both the lists? Have the "starting kit" for w40k be a car, five to six 5-6k armies and a flat or house to play the games in? And better yet what is next, forced painting session pre game to socilise the players ?
I wouldn't list them as 'requirements' but all of those things (car, house) are things that you will need to consider in life anyway especially if yoy stay in the hobby (multiple games/armies). And group painting sessions can be enormously fun and a very practical way of getting through the lead mountain (looks at 200 lotr figures done in this manner). They're definitely things that help facilitate a better experience.
I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic.
its not the legal army being toxic, its bringing the best army against someone unfamiliar with the game that is.
Remember, kids, not only do you need to need to buy enough models so that you can make a good army when GW inevitably flips the table; you also need to have enough models to ensure that you can build a sufficiently bad army when GW makes some of your stuff OP.
Bear in mind that you are not obliged to like any of the models bought for this purpose. So long as it achieves balance, you should expect to use plenty of models that you don't like and have no interest in, rather than the ones you want to be use but that are currently not sufficiently balanced.
Under no circumstances should GW be blamed for this. The failure lies always and only with you, the player. Buy more or feel rightly ashamed.
I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic.
its not the legal army being toxic, its bringing the best army against someone unfamiliar with the game that is.
Remember, kids, not only do you need to need to buy enough models so that you can make a good army when GW inevitably flips the table; you also need to have enough models to ensure that you can build a sufficiently bad army when GW makes some of your stuff OP.
Bear in mind that you are not obliged to like any of the models bought for this purpose. So long as it achieves balance, you should expect to use plenty of models that you don't like and have no interest in, rather than the ones you want to be use but that are currently not sufficiently balanced.
Under no circumstances should GW be blamed for this. The failure lies always and only with you, the player. Buy more or feel rightly ashamed.
A new player is going to lose to an experienced one regardless if they're playing honestly. If you're not strictly teaching and don't want a dick stomping, don't buy worse units, take fewer good ones. Buy more and feed GW aren't the only responses.
Remember, kids, not only do you need to need to buy enough models so that you can make a good army when GW inevitably flips the table; you also need to have enough models to ensure that you can build a sufficiently bad army when GW makes some of your stuff OP.
Bear in mind that you are not obliged to like any of the models bought for this purpose. So long as it achieves balance, you should expect to use plenty of models that you don't like and have no interest in, rather than the ones you want to be use but that are currently not sufficiently balanced.
Under no circumstances should GW be blamed for this. The failure lies always and only with you, the player. Buy more or feel rightly ashamed.
Can you knock it off with that dumbass argument? This applies to litterally any fething game ever. Do you think someone like Magnus Carlsen goes 100% all-in when he introduced someone to chess? Or that Messi starts destroying kids if he plays with them? Its the same thing for wargaming (including 40k). And if you happen to own ONLY the ultra meta list for an army, then you can make a judgment call and realise that the new player might have more fun if you tone it down by bringing the "bad" wargear options, or not using Overwatch when it would be devastating to do it.
I have seen a returning player try to finish a game vs 1ksons pre changes and then quit his return in the middle of game with eldar. A person used to regular games, even ones 8th ed style, was mind blown when a out of sight LoS eldar artilery blew up his single votan character, which then procted the Avatar to teleport in his midfield, and when he tried to engage him he ate a wrightlords overwatch and the Avatar phantomed outside of his berzerkers range. Dude quit the game, and he had a fresh bought and fresh painted army. And not some kid either, a 42year old veteran player.
That's a bit drastic. All he had to do was cross Eldar (or maybe just that particular Eldar player) off the list he's willing to play against.
You think that if he saw a congo line of respawning GSC or knights blowing him up from behind cover he would feel much better? Even some of mid armies like orks or tyranids, would be a problem. I see people go second vs necron and realise turn 2 that their army doesn't have the fire and melee power to shift them from objectives. And yes one can say that then they could go full GK mode, not engage the opponent , play secondaries and just try to draw or have a minor lose, because of primaris. But it is a horrible way to expiriance the game, it is mind numbing and boring. Especialy when other armies don't have to suffer through it.
There's what, 29 factions (counting Blood Angels & other SMs, & mono-god demons) in this game? And numerous ways to build forces within most of those.
But you're telling me that there's NO other match ups for this guy? No one else owns/plays something less than top tier tourney lists? What would happen if he'd played someone like....you?
Karol wrote: I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic. Especialy when the lower win rate armie can not play anything else. Try playing a bad army and not play their "toxic compatitive" list, then stuff like turn 1 lost game happen. Also it is not a question of thin skin. He did the math vs his opponent lists, decided he didn't like the way w40k is played . He wasn't hidding it during a game, which is not the norm here as people don't talk much during games here.
Plus it it is not like the only match ups he would have, practicaly every mid to high tier army lists would do the same thing to him.
So you're telling us he made the classic noob error of simply building a bad list.
Karol wrote: The win vs fun thing is something I will never understand. It goes beyond me how it could be true. I have never seen someone dominate a ranking or cathegory and be sad about it, or the fact that they are winning and everyone else is losing. And it can't just be sponsorships, scholarships or contracts in the future. Becuase people feel the same when they were not doing ranked matches or even during training. Even comparing to other table top games, w40k is the only one where fun is somehow split from playing and winning the game. Everything is fun in w40k. Painting, having friends, lore, but winning is bad. Or you have to do the condesending with "I beat him and his tournament list with my lore accurate friendly eldar list, which didn't have a WK (but spamed the living hell out of WSetc) ". Even in AoS there is no as much focus put on winning being anti fun, and it is a GW game. I mean what is next put the requierment that in order to play, both the people write both the lists? Have the "starting kit" for w40k be a car, five to six 5-6k armies and a flat or house to play the games in? And better yet what is next, forced painting session pre game to socilise the players ?
Well, given what you've told us about the scene where you play, that people rarely talk during games, and your own views? Socializing the players wouldn't hurt....
...which is not the norm here as people don't talk much during games here.
This might be the most telling part of how miserable your entire 40k experience sounds, and what is wrong with a lot of local 40k gaming environments. If I show up to play with my toy soldiers that I've spent a great deal of time being inspired by the fiction behind and working out a strong theme for an aspect of them that interests me, I want to play against someone else who's approaching the hobby from a similar angle and shares in that enjoyment. A bunch of e-sports try-hards beating the snot out of each other without any social interaction and treating it as a purely competitive activity is the worst trend in the hobby. GW catering to those people is why we're in this mess.
I like how legal armies are somehow hypere compatitive or toxic.
its not the legal army being toxic, its bringing the best army against someone unfamiliar with the game that is.
Remember, kids, not only do you need to need to buy enough models so that you can make a good army when GW inevitably flips the table; you also need to have enough models to ensure that you can build a sufficiently bad army when GW makes some of your stuff OP.
Bear in mind that you are not obliged to like any of the models bought for this purpose. So long as it achieves balance, you should expect to use plenty of models that you don't like and have no interest in, rather than the ones you want to be use but that are currently not sufficiently balanced.
Under no circumstances should GW be blamed for this. The failure lies always and only with you, the player. Buy more or feel rightly ashamed.
As a related aside, I'd LOVE rule of 2 instead of 3.
...which is not the norm here as people don't talk much during games here.
This might be the most telling part of how miserable your entire 40k experience sounds, and what is wrong with a lot of local 40k gaming environments. If I show up to play with my toy soldiers that I've spent a great deal of time being inspired by the fiction behind and working out a strong theme for an aspect of them that interests me, I want to play against someone else who's approaching the hobby from a similar angle and shares in that enjoyment. A bunch of e-sports try-hards beating the snot out of each other without any social interaction and treating it as a purely competitive activity is the worst trend in the hobby. GW catering to those people is why we're in this mess.
"Woops, I just happen to have brought a Wraithknight, an Yncarne, some LOS-ignoring artillery, maybe a unit of Wraithguard... What's that? It looks rather similar to the best performing tournament list for the last 2~ months? And there's been wall to wall condemnation of the faction since the first demo game of 10th? Nah, it just coincidently happens to be all I own..."
Tyel wrote: "Woops, I just happen to have brought a Wraithknight, an Yncarne, some LOS-ignoring artillery, maybe a unit of Wraithguard... What's that? It looks rather similar to the best performing tournament list for the last 2~ months? And there's been wall to wall condemnation of the faction since the first demo game of 10th? Nah, it just coincidently happens to be all I own..."
I just don't believe the scenario.
I been playing Iyanden since 3rd edition you described most of my army for them.
It’s really sad that can’t even play the army I am most passionate about without it being declared unfun, and WAAC and other things.
I didn’t even know the artillery was also top tournament, if it’s stuff I buy in 3rd edition someone should have given me a heads up about it.
Or we could just tell GW there game sucks, and would be nice if they put out a product that’s sucked less.
Becoming a WAAC player because you play the same army for a long time a d did not buy enough models to make a weak list is the natural progression of the rules people are talking about
Also the natural progression of rules make it that taking longer pauses like 4 years makes you a noob again even if you played 20 years prior
Remember, kids, not only do you need to need to buy enough models so that you can make a good army when GW inevitably flips the table; you also need to have enough models to ensure that you can build a sufficiently bad army when GW makes some of your stuff OP.
Bear in mind that you are not obliged to like any of the models bought for this purpose. So long as it achieves balance, you should expect to use plenty of models that you don't like and have no interest in, rather than the ones you want to be use but that are currently not sufficiently balanced.
Under no circumstances should GW be blamed for this. The failure lies always and only with you, the player. Buy more or feel rightly ashamed.
Can you knock it off with that dumbass argument? This applies to litterally any fething game ever. Do you think someone like Magnus Carlsen goes 100% all-in when he introduced someone to chess? Or that Messi starts destroying kids if he plays with them? Its the same thing for wargaming (including 40k). And if you happen to own ONLY the ultra meta list for an army, then you can make a judgment call and realise that the new player might have more fun if you tone it down by bringing the "bad" wargear options, or not using Overwatch when it would be devastating to do it.
I'm sorry, Vlad, that's absolutely not what I'm personally getting from Vipoid's argument. I'm getting a complaint that gw can't balance the options in their game sufficiently so that someone can simply choose to run the models that they like without the fear that they will be either OP or UP, thus hindering the enjoyment of the game. This is obviously a problem of gw repeatedly "flipping the table" with resets and the like. They absolutely can balance the game, as evidenced by pre-Loyalist Scum 2.0 era 8th edition. Having the correct costs for various wargear is obviously a component of this, instead of the godawful system adopted in 10th edition.
I been playing Iyanden since 3rd edition you described most of my army for them.
It’s really sad that can’t even play the army I am most passionate about without it being declared unfun, and WAAC and other things.
I didn’t even know the artillery was also top tournament, if it’s stuff I buy in 3rd edition someone should have given me a heads up about it.
Or we could just tell GW there game sucks, and would be nice if they put out a product that’s sucked less.
Play the knight with sword&board
Play Wraithblades, wraithguards with the d-scythe
Bring some guardians
etc.
And if you've been playing since 3rd, people you play with will probably know that in your case, it really is just a passion for the army and not metachasing that made you play them. It's a non-issue.
Or we could just tell GW there game sucks, and would be nice if they put out a product that’s sucked less.
we have, GW just doesn't care because people keep buying gak from them. For every person on here that feels strongly about the problems of the game, GW recruits 5 new players that will buy a full army and quit in a year.
I'm sorry, Vlad, that's absolutely not what I'm personally getting from Vipoid's argument. I'm getting a complaint that gw can't balance the options in their game sufficiently so that someone can simply choose to run the models that they like without the fear that they will be either OP or UP, thus hindering the enjoyment of the game. This is obviously a problem of gw repeatedly "flipping the table" with resets and the like. They absolutely can balance the game, as evidenced by pre-Loyalist Scum 2.0 era 8th edition. Having the correct costs for various wargear is obviously a component of this, instead of the godawful system adopted in 10th edition.
What exactly are you raging about?
i read it as a roundabout way of saying "You're white knighting for GW".
WAAC is an attitude of player behaviour and play that denotes a selection of non specific negative elements. For example taking a good list against known new players specifically to get easy wins; being obnoxious when winning (and losing); cheating; attempting to game the system etc...
Just taking a good list doesn't make you a WAAC in anyway shape nor form. Honestly building a good list that works is PART of the game. That's why people harp on about having good balance so that hte game doesn't have lists that just "auto win" and the like so that people CAN spend time building a good list and using good tactical choices of models on the table and not just win every fight because that's what they chose.
Wargames should always be a duality of good list building and gameplay with the latter being the greater component; assuming that the former is done to a decent level of competency
Overread wrote: Being WAAC does NOT mean taking a good list.
Exactly.
I'll get asspounded by a meta eldar list played by a chill dude : fun game
I'll beat a terrible list played by a person with a gakky attitude : unfun game
It's all about the interaction between the humans outside of the game IMO
Overread wrote: Being WAAC does NOT mean taking a good list.
Exactly.
A few moments earlier . . .
VladimirHerzog wrote: its not the legal army being toxic, its bringing the best army against someone unfamiliar with the game that is.
Exactly proves my point. Taking a good Eldar list doesn't make you a WAAC. It was taking that list against someone brand new to the game and then stomping them into the ground in a fashion that wound up with the person just quitting the whole game after 2 turns - THAT was the issue.
Again taking good lists isn't a bad thing; its not something we should be discouraging. Heck most chatter about games that isn't griping about the balance or debating how a rule works; is "how do I build a good list/army". We help each other lal the time build better lists and understand how to put together an army. It's part of the game.
Again taking good stuff isn't bad, its the context of when you take it; how you use it; how you conduct yourself; who your opponent is etc....
I'm sorry, Vlad, that's absolutely not what I'm personally getting from Vipoid's argument. I'm getting a complaint that gw can't balance the options in their game sufficiently so that someone can simply choose to run the models that they like without the fear that they will be either OP or UP, thus hindering the enjoyment of the game. This is obviously a problem of gw repeatedly "flipping the table" with resets and the like. They absolutely can balance the game, as evidenced by pre-Loyalist Scum 2.0 era 8th edition. Having the correct costs for various wargear is obviously a component of this, instead of the godawful system adopted in 10th edition.
What exactly are you raging about?
i read it as a roundabout way of saying "You're white knighting for GW".
Mmmm. I read as more of an attack on the premise that players should "self govern", in order to make up for gw's poor balance, instead of just being able to "play with the models that they like". In short, it's less a problem of "white knighting", and more a problem of having a defeatist attitude and just telling people to "do the balance themselves", instead of expecting gw to achieve the balance by adjusting it over time (as they did during 8th, prior to the Loyalist Scum 2.0 books).
Gw has shown that they can achieve acceptable balance, they just refuse to do so in favor of churn. That is the issue, IMHO.
Prometheum5 wrote: A bunch of e-sports try-hards beating the snot out of each other without any social interaction and treating it as a purely competitive activity is the worst trend in the hobby. GW catering to those people is why we're in this mess.
Ah yes, the classic "PEOPLE ARE HAVING FUN WITH SOMETHING I DONT ENJOY SOMEONE MAKE THEM STOP" argument. Why is ok to constantly post condescending and insulting comments about competitive play on a forum where rule #1 is "be polite"?
LunarSol wrote: As a related aside, I'd LOVE rule of 2 instead of 3.
So sacrificing narrative elements for a perceived balance improvement in competitive play? I guess that's a trade that can be made but it seems kind of at odds with the idea of "use whatever models you like".
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kodos wrote: Becoming a WAAC player because you play the same army for a long time a d did not buy enough models to make a weak list is the natural progression of the rules people are talking about
Also the natural progression of rules make it that taking longer pauses like 4 years makes you a noob again even if you played 20 years prior
That is not what WAAC means. You do not become a WAAC player just because GW made your army more powerful and people really need to stop using WAAC to mean "anyone who brings a list that is stronger than mine" instead of what it actually means: an attitude that winning is all that matters and any unethical behavior is acceptable as long as it helps you win. Having your army jump 20% in win rate overnight doesn't mean you start cheating, rules lawyering, deliberately only playing your games against newbies and avoiding anyone who could expect to win against you, etc.
Prometheum5 wrote: A bunch of e-sports try-hards beating the snot out of each other without any social interaction and treating it as a purely competitive activity is the worst trend in the hobby. GW catering to those people is why we're in this mess.
Ah yes, the classic "PEOPLE ARE HAVING FUN WITH SOMETHING I DONT ENJOY SOMEONE MAKE THEM STOP" argument. Why is ok to constantly post condescending and insulting comments about competitive play on a forum where rule #1 is "be polite"?
Oh, let me be a clear as possible I despise the concept of competitive Warhammer playing and what it has done to the hobby. One only has to go look at, uh, most other wargames and wargaming communities or read a non-GW wargaming website or magazine to see what fun could be had, working together on a collaborative storytelling experience or a way to have an engaging time with your fellow hobbyists. The Waterloo guys aren't stuck having this argument over and over again, they just all agree on a big, cool game they want to play and they get their mates together to make it happen. Nobody's having to toss out their models because someone nerfed arquebuses after an abusive meta season. Instead, Warhammer players are stuck with environments like Karol's.
Prometheum5 wrote: A bunch of e-sports try-hards beating the snot out of each other without any social interaction and treating it as a purely competitive activity is the worst trend in the hobby. GW catering to those people is why we're in this mess.
Ah yes, the classic "PEOPLE ARE HAVING FUN WITH SOMETHING I DONT ENJOY SOMEONE MAKE THEM STOP" argument. Why is ok to constantly post condescending and insulting comments about competitive play on a forum where rule #1 is "be polite"?
Oh, let me be a clear as possible I despise the concept of competitive Warhammer playing and what it has done to the hobby. One only has to go look at, uh, most other wargames and wargaming communities or read a non-GW wargaming website or magazine to see what fun could be had, working together on a collaborative storytelling experience or a way to have an engaging time with your fellow hobbyists. The Waterloo guys aren't stuck having this argument over and over again, they just all agree on a big, cool game they want to play and they get their mates together to make it happen. Nobody's having to toss out their models because someone nerfed arquebuses after an abusive meta season. Instead, Warhammer players are stuck with environments like Karol's.
Here's the thing though
If GW actually catered properly to the competitive crowed and built a balanced game system that competitive people could use well, then it would 100% benefit the narrative crowd as well.
A sensible wargame competitive rules set that isn't based on whoever goes first or whoever gets the first strike and which aims to have even balance both between armies and within armies (ergo not just one option per army) its a great thing for ALL players.
thing is GW doesn't actually cater to any real crowd. They "kind of" cater or at least focus on competitive because its a lot easier to do so; but even then the balance isn't anywhere near where it should be for a 30 year old game. Things like minimum board size weren't based on competitive nor narrative players it was based purely on the size that fit into GW's existing boxes.
The focus on using competitive stats for balancing makes perfect sense because its easily harvested data and at least should have most people playing the game right. You can't really harvest independent player data the same way because its highly unreliable.
The focus on using competitive stats for balancing makes perfect sense because its easily harvested data and at least should have most people playing the game right. You can't really harvest independent player data the same way because its highly unreliable.
Fundamentally I totally agree with you. The problem I see is that tournament players are playing a totally different game from narrative/casual players and GW is trying to balance around and cater to an utterly skewed and warped form of the game. The narrative and casual players aren't digging through the rules to find abusive edge cases and meta combos, but those are the data that GW is modifying the core rules of the game around.
Prometheum5 wrote: Oh, let me be a clear as possible I despise the concept of competitive Warhammer playing and what it has done to the hobby. One only has to go look at, uh, most other wargames and wargaming communities or read a non-GW wargaming website or magazine to see what fun could be had, working together on a collaborative storytelling experience or a way to have an engaging time with your fellow hobbyists. The Waterloo guys aren't stuck having this argument over and over again, they just all agree on a big, cool game they want to play and they get their mates together to make it happen. Nobody's having to toss out their models because someone nerfed arquebuses after an abusive meta season. Instead, Warhammer players are stuck with environments like Karol's.
Gotcha. So your response is to double down on "stop having fun the wrong way" and arrogantly assume that anyone who enjoys competitive play needs to be brought to enlightenment on Real Wargaming Fun. Believe it or not the people who enjoy competitive play aren't poor lost souls who need your help, they just enjoy something you don't like and have no interest in the things you enjoy.
Prometheum5 wrote: Oh, let me be a clear as possible I despise the concept of competitive Warhammer playing and what it has done to the hobby. One only has to go look at, uh, most other wargames and wargaming communities or read a non-GW wargaming website or magazine to see what fun could be had, working together on a collaborative storytelling experience or a way to have an engaging time with your fellow hobbyists. The Waterloo guys aren't stuck having this argument over and over again, they just all agree on a big, cool game they want to play and they get their mates together to make it happen. Nobody's having to toss out their models because someone nerfed arquebuses after an abusive meta season. Instead, Warhammer players are stuck with environments like Karol's.
Gotcha. So your response is to double down on "stop having fun the wrong way" and arrogantly assume that anyone who enjoys competitive play needs to be brought to enlightenment on Real Wargaming Fun. Believe it or not the people who enjoy competitive play aren't poor lost souls who need your help, they just enjoy something you don't like and have no interest in the things you enjoy.
That's fine. I've seen those players and that attitude decimate our local player communities and reduce it to a shell of what it was, so I'm not interested in encouraging that type of play.
Market wise, do you think a reason why GW could potentially have got a certain bias towards more competitive mindset be that those palyers are more likely.to buy more?
What I mean is that keeping up with the meta may probably require you to buy a lot more armies and units. In 7th, some people buyed a lot in that fashion to get formations for example. Their, of say you play competitively and Eldar motojets are to meta unit ATM, but you haven't got any in your current army, you may be tempted to buy a few boxes to make up for it.
Whereas, hypothetically, less competitive players, less concerned with the current meta, might be more likely to buy less over the same period of time and maybe even consider second hand market a bit more if they're not in a hurry to find that or this unit they need?
Thinking out loud, any thoughts from you guys in this?
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Market wise, do you think a reason why GW could potentially have got a certain bias towards more competitive mindset be that those palyers are more likely.to buy more?
I don't agree with the premise here. I don't think GW is biased towards competitive play. They do at least a minimum to support competitive play but I don't think that support is disproportionate to the percentage of their market that is competitive players. I don't think their support of competitive play represents bias any more than, say, publishing a new Crusade book is a bias towards a narrative mindset.
Also, while a few meta-chasing whales do buy a lot of stuff that value is significantly undermined by the secondary market. The whale spends a bunch of money on a new tournament army but sells the old one on the secondary market, meaning people who otherwise might have bought a new kit from GW buy the whale's old stuff instead. The most profitable whales are the obsessive collectors, the people who buy an entire chapter of marines just because it's cool to have one even though it's way beyond the scope of anything they'd ever use in a game.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Market wise, do you think a reason why GW could potentially have got a certain bias towards more competitive mindset be that those palyers are more likely.to buy more?
What I mean is that keeping up with the meta may probably require you to buy a lot more armies and units. In 7th, some people buyed a lot in that fashion to get formations for example. Their, of say you play competitively and Eldar motojets are to meta unit ATM, but you haven't got any in your current army, you may be tempted to buy a few boxes to make up for it.
Whereas, hypothetically, less competitive players, less concerned with the current meta, might be more likely to buy less over the same period of time and maybe even consider second hand market a bit more if they're not in a hurry to find that or this unit they need?
Thinking out loud, any thoughts from you guys in this?
not just the people who play competitive, but that drives sales in general
and yes GW advertises like that, when the new Meta Watch Article shows that Eldar are the top army, having a banner at the same page saying buy Eldar if you want to win will also have an effect on casual players who don't want to lose every single game because they bought the wrong army
and because they won't have painted and played with their new army before it is neverd they are going to buy another one
and than 11th happen and they leave but are replaced with someone new who gets into the same trap
and GW likes this sales models because it works well without the need to ever get better, care about the rules or invest more into the game than the minimum
it also helps to prevent the wargaming community in general from growing, because GW is in the sweetspot of selling everything they produce and to support more people they would need to grow faster than they could handle which would reduce profits
I don't agree with the premise here. I don't think GW is biased towards competitive play. They do at least a minimum to support competitive play but I don't think that support is disproportionate to the percentage of their market that is competitive players. I don't think their support of competitive play represents bias any more than, say, publishing a new Crusade book is a bias towards a narrative mindset.
I mean their main public facing event is a grand tournament, where tickets are giving to those wining competitive events to enter a winners only competitive event. They also have a metawatch articles based on analysis of competitive play for game balance, no such equivalent is used or exists for crusade. Back in 9th PL was rarely updated, but points were on a regular cadence.
It's pretty clear they listen to their market and in turn they actually invest far more heavily into the competitive scene. Their partnership with ITC and other bodies, primarily competitive, show this again.
Dudeface wrote: I mean their main public facing event is a grand tournament, where tickets are giving to those wining competitive events to enter a winners only competitive event. They also have a metawatch articles based on analysis of competitive play for game balance, no such equivalent is used or exists for crusade. Back in 9th PL was rarely updated, but points were on a regular cadence.
It's pretty clear they listen to their market and in turn they actually invest far more heavily into the competitive scene. Their partnership with ITC and other bodies, primarily competitive, show this again.
That's support, not bias. And yes, they have a championship tournament but the same event is also hosting a major narrative campaign using the Crusade rules, giving no awards for win/loss records, etc.
And here I thought Vipoid was being sarcastic...
Just you all wait until my list of Shadowsun, Ghostkeels and stealthsuits becomes OP! Then it is I who will have the last laugh! Except it will be a laugh shrouded in stealth, like a smirk or perhaps a snicker.
I just really wish GW was delaying their codex releases until after several rounds of balancing using indexes, cards, etc.
At this point I can only hope 3rd party 3D printing will knock some sense into them and adopt a better business model.
I almost feel bad for local GW store manager as I haven't bought anything retail in quite some time.
As for the store manager, only core boxes count for their statistic anyway, so don't feel bad as the stuff you might have bought does not matter at all of the store is rated successful
The tournament scene is fascinating to me. GW has the weirdest notion of a tournaments I've ever encountered.
I get the whole "free style" thing, where army/card deck composition is part of the challenge.
But has GW ever had a "fixed army/fixed deck" tournament designed to measure just skill?
I've not perused a current White Dwarf in a long, long time, but back in the day it was axiomatic that you could predict the outcome of any battle report by simply seeing who had the newest stuff. That always won because that was how you sold new product.
Someone mentioned the "Waterloo guys" and that's a great comparison. Historical game designers face considerable challenges because they have to be able to repeat history, but if that's all they do, the game is a failure. People also want to be able to plausibly change it. Thus they have to model actual people and events, and make them work.
GW, by contrast, has a completely free hand. They get to decide what is awesome and what sucks in the fluff, and then all they have to do is translate that onto the tabletop.
And yet, they keep struggling to do this. I'm pretty sure that every one of the 10 (or 11, depending how you count) editions of 40k has had the killer combo, the hack to the army lists that crushes all comers. It moves around, but it's always there.
An iterative design built on continuity would have eliminated this problem after the 2nd or 3rd edition at the latest. After that, it's just minor tweaks and expansion modules.
Yet the evergreen thread that sustains a thousand gaming forums is "OMG, this unit is total cheese!"
Dudeface wrote: I mean their main public facing event is a grand tournament, where tickets are giving to those wining competitive events to enter a winners only competitive event. They also have a metawatch articles based on analysis of competitive play for game balance, no such equivalent is used or exists for crusade. Back in 9th PL was rarely updated, but points were on a regular cadence.
It's pretty clear they listen to their market and in turn they actually invest far more heavily into the competitive scene. Their partnership with ITC and other bodies, primarily competitive, show this again.
That's support, not bias. And yes, they have a championship tournament but the same event is also hosting a major narrative campaign using the Crusade rules, giving no awards for win/loss records, etc.
If you market and support one more than the other, that's bias.
If GW actually catered properly to the competitive crowed and built a balanced game system that competitive people could use well, then it would 100% benefit the narrative crowd as well.
Dunno about that. Its not just in-game mechanics here either. For a good conpetitive franework, You're talking about things like set lists, defined terrain/maps, limited rosters and limited/zero options to facilitate sonething like this.
I know a lot of folks who would feel straight jacketed by this approach.
Overread wrote:
thing is GW doesn't actually cater to any real crowd. They "kind of" cater or at least focus on competitive because its a lot easier to do so; but even then the balance isn't anywhere near where it should be for a 30 year old game. Things like minimum board size weren't based on competitive nor narrative players it was based purely on the size that fit into GW's existing boxes.
Agreed that they dont cater to any specific crowd. Theirs is a 'big tent' kind of thing. I'd qualify they are catering to 'conpetitive' because its 'easier' - id argue its more 'pick-ip game culture' you are referring to than 'competitive' (but there is overlap) - its the pick-up-game that is the lowest common denominator. But i would also argue their hesrts arebt entirely in ot either -their personal preferences would be rooted in 'older' styles of games, not pugs.
Overread wrote:
The focus on using competitive stats for balancing makes perfect sense because its easily harvested data and at least should have most people playing the game right. You can't really harvest independent player data the same way because its highly unreliable.
It gives a useful snapshot but the data is qualified. It's basically drawn from a subset of the game. It can tell you what factions are played and the win/loss ratio but not why, for example.id add 'It's not powerful enough' isn't the only metric. I remember tourney analysis was all the rage back when I played wmh but it was really difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from it, even with sone really km pressure atatistical analysis by the posters.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:Market wise, do you think a reason why GW could potentially have got a certain bias towards more competitive mindset be that those palyers are more likely.to buy more?
In thr short term, sure. In the long term they burn out quicker (after an edition or two) and need to be replaced whereas the basement players tend to buy less, but consistently over 30 years.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Someone mentioned the "Waterloo guys" and that's a great comparison. Historical game designers face considerable challenges because they have to be able to repeat history, but if that's all they do, the game is a failure. People also want to be able to plausibly change it. Thus they have to model actual people and events, and make them work.
I'm not sure. Can you elaborate? Maybe I'm picking you up.wrong here.
Hipefully you agree - Historicals aren't about 'recreating' or 'replaying' known and already fought battles like Waterloo and 'changing it' any more than 40k is about replaying the 'battle of orks drift'. Historicals are about reflecting the era and the played battles are typically 'something like this could have happened'.
I'd argue historicals and 40k narrative has a lot of common ground.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
An iterative design built on continuity would have eliminated this problem after the 2nd or 3rd edition at the latest. After that, it's just minor tweaks and expansion modules.
Disagree, but funnily, you're not wrong!
You could iterate and refine for 10 editions but you would necessarily have a slick machine - remember, stuff has been added constantly for those ten years by loads of different people wiyh different ideas. It's not the same game.
The problem I see is that at best you have the slickest take on a game built in the 80s. Great. But Its the 2020s. Games are different now. Movies/tv/music/games/books/comedy etc have changed dramatically in that time. What worked then might not work now. Ttgs are no different. Compare infinity to early avalon hill. Refining an old idea can only go so far. Sonetimes you need to burn it all to the ground and reboot to account for how tastes change. Whilst it's at its core a 90s gsme, privateer press' warmachine is a really good example of a game that indicated one of the 'shifts' in game design with its inclusion of resource mechanics (focus/fury) and a more 'hybrid' approach by drawing in ccg elements. You can see those some of those shifts in gw's previous editions (3rd to 5th, 6th to 7th, 8th to 10th). All share the core name of 40k but I'd argue they're all based on different engines and ideas of their time. Games evolve. Tastes change. Iterative has its place but its not the only driver.
It's the difference between 'drifts' and 'shifts'.
Dudeface wrote: If you market and support one more than the other, that's bias.
But I don't see that happening. Narrative play gets new narrative books regularly with new content, tournament play gets to buy a new copy of the same book with a few balance tweaks. Tournament play gets a greater share of the US events, narrative play gets a greater share of the WHW events. And TBH the one US narrative event gets more effort than the bland and unambitious tournament events combined. I will grant that tournament play gets more articles by word count, but mostly in the form of half-assed "metawatch" articles that are routinely mocked for being overly-simplified self-congratulatory fluff pieces where few people pay attention to them outside of hoping GW will hint at upcoming changes. But OTOHGW's in-store material is 100% focused on narrative/casual play, when it even bothers to mention playing the game at all. There's no equivalent of the organized play kits other companies send out to local stores to build competitive communities.
And besides that a more useful standard for bias is how much support is being given relative to needs. Competitive play needs significant support because standardization and organized events are essential for it to function. A tournament by definition needs to get a bunch of people in one place to play games under a standardized rule set, narrative play is far more often about small local groups doing highly customized things where "what is official" is a meaningless question. By that standard there definitely isn't a bias towards competitive play as GW still falls well short of what would be considered full support, while the biggest issues with narrative play seem to be finding people who are interested in doing it.
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Deadnight wrote: You could iterate and refine for 10 editions but you would necessarily have a slick machine
If that's true then either you don't understand game design or your "iteration and refinement" process is badly broken. The whole point of iterating and refining is that at each step you get closer to having a polished final product. If you understand game design and have a clear vision of what you want your game to be then you should be improving the product at every step and bringing it closer to your goal.
remember, stuff has been added constantly for those ten years by loads of different people wiyh different ideas. It's not the same game.
That would be an example of a broken process. Having a single unified design goal is a basic concept of good game design.
Games are different now.
But 40k isn't, and that baggage is why it continues to fail. GW is stuck on the obsolete IGOUGO system, the original 1980s fantasy game stat line (complete with things like marines always needing a 3+ save), a D6 system where half the values are never used, and incredibly shallow core mechanics. If GW genuinely rebooted 40k into a modern game set in the same universe we'd be in a better place. But instead we get the worst of both words: all the baggage of obsolete mechanics and legacy code but also the aimless fumbling around trying the whim of the moment to see if maybe this time it works. And so we never get a well-designed modern game but we also don't even get the perfect 80s wargame for people who love that concept.
kodos wrote: IGoUGo is not the problem people are making it
It absolutely is a problem. It's a poor fit for the fluid and reactive modern combat 40k is based on, it creates major problems with the inactive player being disengaged from the game and having no meaningful choices to make, and it makes the game extremely prone to alpha strike problems. Removing IGOUGO wouldn't solve literally every problem GW has ever had but it's an essential start and as long as 40k clings to the obsolete mechanic it will continue to be a badly functioning game.
I don't know if IGoUGo IS the problem but I believe 40k would only benefit from using a more dynamic and fluid system, as BA dice activation, or project z phases where A moves B moves A shoots B shoots... If anything, for the imple fact that you would no longr happen to have turn that drag on endlessly will you do nothing but roll saves.
I don't know what to tell you in that case, it certainly is and irrespective of how its justified or handwaved away, there's a reason 9th was dubbed "warhammer 40,000: tournament edition" on here, despite introduction of crusade etc.
Dudeface wrote: I don't know what to tell you in that case, it certainly is and irrespective of how its justified or handwaved away, there's a reason 9th was dubbed "warhammer 40,000: tournament edition" on here, despite introduction of crusade etc.
It was dubbed that because some people confuse "X is not strictly essential for narrative/casual play" with "X is bad for narrative/casual play" and think things like unambiguous rules or improved balance are tournament-only things that come at the expense of everyone else. The only thing GW did with 9th that was dedicated to tournament play was officially support it at all, and that was only in the tournament mission packs and event partnerships. The core game didn't have any meaningful focus on tournament play.
OTOH even outside of the narrative supplements 9th did introduce or continue some elements that were very bad for tournament play. The rules bloat involved with sub-factions was horrible for competitive play and pretty obviously driven by narrative concerns, while the increasing move to pseudo-PL created major balance issues for competitive play but had relatively little effect on the popular concept of narrative/casual play where people build models without any care for what is most powerful and use a random mix of weapon choices. And GW spent the entire edition struggling to tone down codices that were horrifically unbalanced for competitive play because the authors wrote rules that seemed cool regardless of how powerful they ended up being.
kodos wrote: IGoUGo is not the problem people are making it
It absolutely is a problem. It's a poor fit for the fluid and reactive modern combat 40k is based on, it creates major problems with the inactive player being disengaged from the game and having no meaningful choices to make, and it makes the game extremely prone to alpha strike problems. Removing IGOUGO wouldn't solve literally every problem GW has ever had but it's an essential start and as long as 40k clings to the obsolete mechanic it will continue to be a badly functioning game.
how does replacing bad rules writing solves the problem of bad rules writing?
and how does adding something like a AoS style double turn solve the problems of 40k?
what you want is not removing IGoUGo, you want the alternating turn based removed by something more dynamic, which would need more skill writing rules in the first place otherwise you end up with a worse gameplay situation
PS: people asked for IGoUGo being removed, GW did that for AoS by adding the double turn mechanic, simply because IGoUGo is not the opposite of Alternating Activation but just means that one player does something, than the other player is doing it. If this is 1 activation, 1 phase or 1 full turn does not change IGoUGo, but if it is random who activates (Bolt Action), whos phase is first (Lord of the Rings) or whos turn it is (AoS) than it is not IGoUGo any more
so be careful what you ask for as what you mean and what you GW understands by those phrases is something very different
and "IGoUGo is whatever 40k is currently using" is not an argument, this caused the addition of double turn in AoS which is officially by GW not IGoUGo any more despite still having alternating player turns
PPS: add random activation on a unit by unit bases and than GW adding the possibility for Space Marines to activate 3 units in one go because of the "fluff", or IG can use orders to activate platoons. Never underestimate the the ways you can screw up a system
alternating turns is the most simple version that works best with a large amount of units to handle, if a company is not able to make that thing work, don't count that a much harder to balance system will work better if done by the same people
that other games work better with using those mechanics is simply because those designers care about the game and how it plays and not because of the basic design choices
Warmachine/Hordes uses IGoUGo with alternating turns, and it works fine despite being the same Fantasy/SciFi mass-Skrimish as 40k Bolt Action uses random activation and the game is limited to 1000/1250 points because as soon as you add another FOC/Platoon or allow a free FOC for larger games it does not work that well any more
Mantic FireFight works with alternate activation and IGoUGo, and even they had big balance problems with the first 2 versions and needed a 2.5 to solve that
if GW would to something like that, needing 3 Editions to get the basic mechanics right is nothing you can expect there because after 2 it would already see a change in the core rules that makes any previous adjustments useless
kodos wrote: how does replacing bad rules writing solves the problem of bad rules writing?
It doesn't, but who cares? If I point out that your car has a flat tire the sensible response is to fix the flat tire, not to protest that there's no point in fixing the problem because some people can't afford cars at all. Complaining that GW sucks at game design and will screw up everything they touch no matter what rules they use may be emotionally satisfying but it doesn't offer anything useful to this discussion.
On the topic of alternate activation a la bolt action i'd like to underline the good point you make, after having made a big test game, that it works poorly for larger battles with lots of units. The BA rulebook suggests making 1 dice to allow a group of units instead of a single squad to move but that becomes quite clunky. No repraoche to BA though, as it is clearly not intended to work a that scale.
GW would undoubtably need to come up with a variant specifically designed to encompassed the potential large scale their game offers.
However, I'd be less afraid about skill demanded. I can think of no particular issue or rule interaction that would prove hard to solve with anther activation system that would be more dynamic.
kodos wrote: how does replacing bad rules writing solves the problem of bad rules writing?
It doesn't, but who cares? If I point out that your car has a flat tire the sensible response is to fix the flat tire, not to protest that there's no point in fixing the problem because some people can't afford cars at all. Complaining that GW sucks at game design and will screw up everything they touch no matter what rules they use may be emotionally satisfying but it doesn't offer anything useful to this discussion.
if the dealership sold you 10 times a BMW with a broken engine, saying "this could be solved if the dealership is selling Porsche in future" is not solving the problem of the broken engine at all, you need to go to a different dealership if you want a working car and not asking the same dealership for a different brand in hope that the problem was the brand of car and not the company selling them
On the topic of alternate activation a la bolt action i'd like to underline the good point you make, after having made a big test game, that it works poorly for larger battles with lots of units. The BA rulebook suggests making 1 dice to allow a group of units instead of a single squad to move but that becomes quite clunky. No repraoche to BA though, as it is clearly not intended to work a that scale.
GW would undoubtably need to come up with a variant specifically designed to encompassed the potential large scale their game offers.
However, I'd be less afraid about skill demanded. I can think of no particular issue or rule interaction that would prove hard to solve with anther activation system that would be more dynamic.
well, BA is not alternate activation (IGoUGo) but random activation and which naturally has a problem with too many units simply because of the randomness of the system
but for GW, I could also not think of alternating turns being a big problem because if you write the rules to fit that basic design, it is not broken as many other games show
yet GW is unable to write their army rules to fit the basic design of the core rules and this does not change by changing the core
activation based system can be broken in different ways, and for example Alpha Strike can be a problem as well, simply by having either 1 unit being strong enough to kill multiple units or by adding multi-activations allowing to kill several units
while alpha strike is not a natural problem of turn based systems either, it is a problem if threat range and killing power of units does not fit the table size, is this does not change by having a different activation system
give Bolt Action Artillery the strength and killing power of some 40k artillery units and you get the same problems despite you only activate 1 unit (make it a german one allowing 2 units to activate and you successfully added an alpha strike problem to Bolt Action)
Prometheum5 wrote: That's fine. I've seen those players and that attitude decimate our local player communities and reduce it to a shell of what it was, so I'm not interested in encouraging that type of play.
This has been my experience as well.
Competitive 40k is like grown men walking into a school playground and thinking that swinging higher and harder than the kids means they're "dominating" in some meaningful capacity
I'd just add to the comparison of BA system of, as you more correctly said, random activation, that even when you play multiple units at once at the begining the mechanics makes it a choice to make. If you play a lot of units at once, you statistically reduce your chances of playing several dice in a raw afterwards.
While it's about chances and by no means hard facts, it has to be taken into account especially when your army has already got less dice
Long story short: what is good about the system is that even when benifiting from alpha strike advantage, it's not a full no brainer.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The idea that removing IGOUGO will be some miracle panacea for all of 40k's problems is a myth.
Turn structure isn't 40k's biggest failing, or its biggest problem.
With GW's style of often dealing with many problems by increasing lethality; taking away whole turns and going for unit by unit alternating activation would at least mean that you remove the current insane power of alpha strike turns. Right now its possible to destroy insane amounts of your opponent's army in one single good turn. Be it through shooting or close combat or both. The result of which is the game state makes a dramatic change within a single turn.
GW already has alternating close combat in AoS and that makes a huge difference in terms of how powerful close combat rounds are. Having fully alternating unit structure would work better with their heavy hitting approach to models and the game flow.
Overread wrote: With GW's style of often dealing with many problems by increasing lethality; taking away whole turns and going for unit by unit alternating activation would at least mean that you remove the current insane power of alpha strike turns.
how?
because the ever increasing lethality, combining with split fire and some random stratagem to activate twice just means that a single activation will deal the same damage in 11th as did a whole army in 3rd
Alpha Strike is the directly caused by increased lethality, increased ranges, less options to deploy and decreased table size
it has nothing to do with alternating activation vs alternating turns, as to solve it you need to change the things above first otherwise the problem will still be there
activation does not decrease lethality of single units
Overread wrote: With GW's style of often dealing with many problems by increasing lethality; taking away whole turns and going for unit by unit alternating activation would at least mean that you remove the current insane power of alpha strike turns.
how?
because the ever increasing lethality, combining with split fire and some random stratagem to activate twice just means that a single activation will deal the same damage in 11th as did a whole army in 3rd
Alpha Strike is the directly caused by increased lethality, increased ranges, less options to deploy and decreased table size
it has nothing to do with alternating activation vs alternating turns, as to solve it you need to change the things above first otherwise the problem will still be there
activation does not decrease lethality of single units
It doesn't reduce the lethality of single units no - but what it does do is mean that instead of your 10-15 units attacking all in one go; you get to attack once; then your opponent does; then you then your opponent etc... It spreads out that lethality and allows the other player a chance to be lethal back before their entire force is reduced.
Now granted it still won't solve when a ranged player faces a close combat one on a table with too little terrain and too little space so the ranged player can fire with impunity; however it does at least mean that the alpha strike damage is fragmented. Ergo both players are alpha striking together instead of just one.
Of course reducing lethality; increasing defence; making min-boardsize larger; increasing terrain quality and line of sight rules etc... These would all help AS WELL. However I still maintain that having alternate unit activations would work better with GW's style of balancing and approach to rules in general.
Plus it allows for much more pro and reactive gaming for both players
H.B.M.C. wrote: The idea that removing IGOUGO will be some miracle panacea for all of 40k's problems is a myth.
Turn structure isn't 40k's biggest failing, or its biggest problem.
This is correct. If GW did alternating activations they would screw it up because that's what they do. Making IGOUGO work is simple, and the problems blamed on it would be magnified. As others noted, GW would immediately offer bonus rules for extra activations,(and reactivations!) because they love to tinker and screw things up.
Not only that, but the way 40k is built would be difficult for alternating activations given the asymmetry of maneuver elements within the various factions. Anyone remember MSUs? Well, they'd be back because more of them give more activations, or more units per activation and now there's be a whole new frontier for metagaming.
It's a cultural problem, which is why competent game designers refused to work there.
GW had at least two (maybe three) opportunities to refine 40k. The first was near the end of 2nd. ed. when they had been using the same core design for 10 years and were pretty close to perfecting it. Instead, they created 3rd, and while it had problems, 4th tried to fix them and perhaps if GW had stayed with it, they would have gotten somewhere. But that's not their focus, selling models is, and that's where the design staff is focused.
"How can we improve game play?" is not a question asked much (if at all).
"How can we create and sell more models at higher prices?" gets asked a lot.
Overread wrote: With GW's style of often dealing with many problems by increasing lethality; taking away whole turns and going for unit by unit alternating activation would at least mean that you remove the current insane power of alpha strike turns.
how?
because the ever increasing lethality, combining with split fire and some random stratagem to activate twice just means that a single activation will deal the same damage in 11th as did a whole army in 3rd
Alpha Strike is the directly caused by increased lethality, increased ranges, less options to deploy and decreased table size
it has nothing to do with alternating activation vs alternating turns, as to solve it you need to change the things above first otherwise the problem will still be there
activation does not decrease lethality of single units
It doesn't reduce the lethality of single units no - but what it does do is mean that instead of your 10-15 units attacking all in one go; you get to attack once; then your opponent does; then you then your opponent etc... It spreads out that lethality and allows the other player a chance to be lethal back before their entire force is reduced.
Now granted it still won't solve when a ranged player faces a close combat one on a table with too little terrain and too little space so the ranged player can fire with impunity; however it does at least mean that the alpha strike damage is fragmented. Ergo both players are alpha striking together instead of just one.
Of course reducing lethality; increasing defence; making min-boardsize larger; increasing terrain quality and line of sight rules etc... These would all help AS WELL. However I still maintain that having alternate unit activations would work better with GW's style of balancing and approach to rules in general.
Plus it allows for much more pro and reactive gaming for both players
looking at current 40k, is the problem the combined lethality of 15 units, or is the problem the combined lethality of 1-3 units?
does it matter that 7 units of Eldar Guardians are shooting in addition to 3 Wraithknights?
how do formations fit into it, some armies have the possibilities to combine their forces into one unit meaning activating a single tank on one side and the other activates 3.
than again, multi-activation is a thing and something GW would use for sure to add the "command & control" elements, be it via stratagems or other rules (activate 2 units instead of 1 is a no brainer stratagem GW would add for sure)
so ending up that you activate 1 unit, I activate 2 Wraithknights
the problem does not really go away, one may does a little damage before his army wrecked, but it does not change the outcome
just as an example, Mantic is doing a SciFi Skirmish game, called Firefight and it is roughly equal in size to 1000-1500 points 40k. Uses Alternate Activation and an Order System.
one would say Mantic knows how to write rules and know what they are doing, but even they run into an Alpha Strike problem, but not with shooting but with melee, simply because they assumed Alpha Strike is not possible with AA and yet going 2nd and wrecking the opponent with melee units was a thing (that they needed to change)
if someone that actually tests the rules in house and plays the games runs into problems because it is not that simple and easy as it might look like, how you would assume that GW who struggles with a much more simpler system can avoid tuning it into a complete mess
Simpler and shorter turns each with less lethality and then just play more turns would also work.
When all the damage for an entire game needs to be done in 5-6 turns (but more like 2-4 in reality) each model needs to be quite lethal. In a 10 turn game you could turn down the damage a lot more and then it doesn't matter as much who goes first or if they get to activate their entire army at the same time or not. Add in lower ranges, better LoS rules and slower movement so it is less likely for all units to shoot at full power each turn IGOUGO in itself is not going to lead to the massive snowballing we have now. Better cover/terrain/flanking mechanics might make up for losing 5-20% of your army in an alpha strike but if you can kill 50% or more like now something like that doesn't matter.
You can also have more interesting morale or pinning mechanics. If it were to be too easy to pin a unit or do something else that negatively affects a units performance in a 5 turn game it might easily be too strong since taking a unit out for 1-2 turns might as well be the entire game due to how short and decisive it currently is. But if we had 10 turns then you could easily have a lot of abilities that locks down units for 1-2 turns and create interesting game decisions rather than just focus on killing.
Changing the turn structure is just one way to solve the problems with 40k but not the only one.
Klickor wrote: Add in lower ranges, better LoS rules and slower movement so it is less likely for all units to shoot at full power each turn IGOUGO in itself is not going to lead to the massive snowballing we have now. Better cover/terrain/flanking mechanics might make up for losing 5-20% of your army in an alpha strike but if you can kill 50% or more like now something like that doesn't matter.
You can also have more interesting morale or pinning mechanics. If it were to be too easy to pin a unit or do something else that negatively affects a units performance in a 5 turn game it might easily be too strong since taking a unit out for 1-2 turns might as well be the entire game due to how short and decisive it currently is. But if we had 10 turns then you could easily have a lot of abilities that locks down units for 1-2 turns and create interesting game decisions rather than just focus on killing.
Changing the turn structure is just one way to solve the problems with 40k but not the only one.
The point is that there is nothing compelling GW to make the game they have now. They could improve LOS, cover, tone down lethality, force more use of tactics, but they don't. And they won't, no matter what turn method they use, which is why this is a dead-end argument.
People seem to forget that they had some solid game designers working for them, who knew about all of this. They quit.
Ultimately 40k is the way it is because that's what GW wants. It's long past the time where we can say "if the Higher Ups only knew!"
H.B.M.C. wrote: The idea that removing IGOUGO will be some miracle panacea for all of 40k's problems is a myth.
Turn structure isn't 40k's biggest failing, or its biggest problem.
After playing a few games of 3rd edition that months after starting at the 9th ed debut, I thing I agree. 3rd edition obviously uses alternating turns, but it goes quick because: Only 3-4 phases depending on who you ask (Move, shoot, charge/fight), and for basically every unit, the more you move, the less you can shoot meaning the less you have to do later in the turn. This greatly speeds up gameplay.
It's not that alternating turns is bad, it's that GW has slowly added onto or removed restrictions that kept the game flowing.
The problem with 40k is how GW treats it and has really nothing to do with if its IGOUGO or any other kind of activation system. A change might lessen some of the problems with the current version of the game but nothing guarantees that they won't mess it up in another way that is just as bad in the future but due to not being IGOUGO it will just look vastly different from now.
The problem with 40k is how GW treats it and has really nothing to do with if its IGOUGO or any other kind of activation system. A change might lessen some of the problems with the current version of the game but nothing guarantees that they won't mess it up in another way that is just as bad in the future but due to not being IGOUGO it will just look vastly different from now.
If GW did switch turn order and modify units, that would be yet another break in continuity, and it would also open up additional opportunities for churn because after a six years, GW could always go back again. Gotta keep that product cycle moving!
In the end, if we (quite reasonably) assume the churn drives sells and is what GW precisely tries to achieve, nothing will ever get better because the will to set the table upside down every 3 years will annihilate any improvments on purpose... In that case, as you said, it's a dead end argument.
Hopefully we're mostly here to have a tchat and not hoping to have got any meaningful impact
Of course, no putting htis in question, that's what we hope they'd do, as many said in this thread earlier: slowly build up you functionning core rules over the years.
But they need the competence and will to carry this out.
A page back, there was some talk about whether GW caters to the tourney crowd or tries to cater to everyone.
From my perspective, I think GW is still TRYING to cater to both, and they are having some success at doing that, but personally I feel 9th did a better job of it.
10th is still in its early days so a lot remains to be seen, but so far, there's been no Crusade content in White Dwarf; the ultra-frequent balance updates now apply to both game modes, and many options have been removed.
Having said all of that, there are some things about the new Crusade core mechanics I really like- making Battle Scars matter more, capping non-character experience at Blooded without burning RP- these were great innovations that make it easier to pace a campaign. I also really like the idea of only one campaign book per season rather than two hardbacks that include both Crusade and Matched content on top of two mission packs that are Crusade specific. I hope they stick to that format beyond the Tyrannic War.
Usually I'm all for alternative activation as well but I think stratagems are actually already a step away from IGOUGO and becauseof that I wouldn't want to miss them. I'd focus them more on that.
Rapid Ingress, Heroic intervention, overwatch and the interruption stratagem (forgot the name) are actually really nice to break the rigid turn structure and I'd go so far as to make these the only stratagems (some other reactions are okay as well). Smoke and grenades should be unit abilities, insane bravery and every "kill better"-strat shouldn't exist.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I don't know if IGoUGo IS the problem but I believe 40k would only benefit from using a more dynamic and fluid system, as BA dice activation, or project z phases where A moves B moves A shoots B shoots... If anything, for the imple fact that you would no longr happen to have turn that drag on endlessly will you do nothing but roll saves.
Not so much that it is a problem, as in, the flaw that kills it all, but that also playing BA activation and project Z's alternate phases/decks of trap cards are fun and very functional.
So, not that I don't like igougo as a defective turn structure, but as as one that can get boring or frustrating as you can't really react "in time".
Automatically Appended Next Post: To that extent Cortez's point about how strategem could be used as a way to make the turn somewhat more reactive sounds good to me.
What's more, modifying it -for example by saying A moves B moves A shoots B shoots etc- is that you would suffer from the alpha strike issue less, since you'd have time to reposition. Because let's be fair, a game that start with say a third of your army getting wiped out while you watch helplessly is not really fun.
Automatically Appended Next Post: (sorry that's a lot of next appended posts right there)
I'd add that the issue with the alpha strike influence in that game is how it can snowball out of control really quickly.
Obviously, it's not happening every game, and hopefully so, because it would otherwise be literally unplayable.
But if you take 25% casualties going second, then you are literally playing at disadvantage almost before you made any actual move besides deployment and from point on recovering is more than tricky. When you return fire, you're already at minus 25% and so are likely to make way less damages than what you took, say 10% of his list. Now you're turn 2 and 75 Vs 90 percent of your lists and the 90 get a second go at your remaining dudes, widening the gap... Then the same repeats every turn. Possibly simply because you rolled worse.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Not so much that it is a problem, as in, the flaw that kills it all, but that also playing BA activation and project Z's alternate phases/decks of trap cards are fun and very functional.
So, not that I don't like igougo as a defective turn structure, but as as one that can get boring or frustrating as you can't really react "in time".
Automatically Appended Next Post: To that extent Cortez's point about how strategem could be used as a way to make the turn somewhat more reactive sounds good to me.
What's more, modifying it -for example by saying A moves B moves A shoots B shoots etc- is that you would suffer from the alpha strike issue less, since you'd have time to reposition. Because let's be fair, a game that start with say a third of your army getting wiped out while you watch helplessly is not really fun.
And once again you've just said that IGoUGo is a problem.
Look, everything you listed is literally what everyone else claims is the IGoUGo problem.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: What's more, modifying it -for example by saying A moves B moves A shoots B shoots etc- is that you would suffer from the alpha strike issue less, since you'd have time to reposition. Because let's be fair, a game that start with say a third of your army getting wiped out while you watch helplessly is not really fun.
or for alternating turns, simple add that the one who deploys first is also the one with the first turn
the other player can respond by placing his units accordingly
PS: and A move B move, than A shoot, B shoot, is still IGoUGo
It is, but from my experience playing project z which uses this method, it actually is enjoyable because you can immediately react to the movements of your competitor. Plus as the game has you roll for.initiative each turn, you need to carefully think about placements and targets as you're not guaranteed to go first next turn.
Granted it is a way smaller game, but I doubt it would not be possible to implement it in 40k.after all. This is still igougo, yes, but better implemented in my view.
It was clear in my mind since I am comparing 40k's turn's sequence to.others I.know that I was specifically talking about how igougo is made in 40k proper. Maybe I should have stressed it to avoid confusion.
First player deploys first is also a sound thing to have, but a few turns down in the it won't totally be impervious to the "watch helplessly" situation.
So, the problem I see with 40k's igougo amounts to saying that 40k drives an old Lada when it could have a brand.new Peugeot. Sure, the Lada will carry you from point a to point B, but you could have a brand new car doing it with more confort.and performance.
Prometheum5 wrote: That's fine. I've seen those players and that attitude decimate our local player communities and reduce it to a shell of what it was, so I'm not interested in encouraging that type of play.
This has been my experience as well.
Competitive 40k is like grown men walking into a school playground and thinking that swinging higher and harder than the kids means they're "dominating" in some meaningful capacity
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The point is that there is nothing compelling GW to make the game they have now. They could improve LOS, cover, tone down lethality, force more use of tactics, but they don't. And they won't, no matter what turn method they use, which is why this is a dead-end argument.
People seem to forget that they had some solid game designers working for them, who knew about all of this. They quit.
Ultimately 40k is the way it is because that's what GW wants. It's long past the time where we can say "if the Higher Ups only knew!"
Worth noting that after rewriting the entirety of 40K to create 3rd Ed, Andy Chambers wanted to iterate further for 4th, and was rebuked by management who had cold feet about radically changing their cash cow again so soon. He left not long after.
His subsequent 28mm projects, chiefly Starship Troopers and Dust Warfare, are still IGOUGO games- but with greatly streamlined combat resolution and reaction systems as a core mechanic, so they not only play faster than 40K, they also completely avoid the 'your turn, I'm going to go make a sandwich' cadence of 40K.
GW's had a host of competent designers who have gone on to design better systems after leaving. When it comes to 40K, GW is afraid of drastic change and not particularly interested in innovation, so it takes really bad financials to provoke any sort of paradigm shift. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it's the specialist games on the margins that tend to be more modern in design, but even then the company has a tendency to cargo cult older GW titles rather than learn from current industry trends.
Worth noting that after rewriting the entirety of 40K to create 3rd Ed, Andy Chambers wanted to iterate further for 4th, and was rebuked by management who had cold feet about radically changing their cash cow again so soon. He left not long after.
His subsequent 28mm projects, chiefly Starship Troopers and Dust Warfare, are still IGOUGO games- but with greatly streamlined combat resolution and reaction systems as a core mechanic, so they not only play faster than 40K, they also completely avoid the 'your turn, I'm going to go make a sandwich' cadence of 40K.
I really liked Dust Warfare. When it came to turn order, I liked how every unit on the table generated a die that on a success (33% chance) the player could basically make a half action in a Command Phase. At least I think there was a die roll involved there. It's been a long, long while. But the player that had the fewer successes was the initiative/active player in the turn proper. This not only benefitted elite army lists, but also the player that suffered the worst losses, since they would generally have less remaining units. But at the same time, it wasn't automatic either, so a player with fewer units didn't know they had initiative next turn.
And splitting a units action in these phases could be risky. Because even if it allowed a unit to attack twice, they did it with a weaker chance of success (compared to taking a full action to attack) while also giving up half the action before the main phase. Which would reduced their options, especially factoring in suppression mechanics, and both player knew it.
This led to a game of several calculated risks and assessments of the situation to do well playing it. All the while making it difficult for games to be a blow out one way or the other.
But aren't all those games played with like max 40 models? Skirmish system can function, with a reaction or rotation system. For battle systems what happens is that at best RNG takes the reigns and uninteractive ways of playing start to dominate or at worse it becomes even worse then with a regular turn system. To anyone who thinks a rotation system would help to make w40k better, try playing against necron or orcs going first a few times, or against something like eldar, who can trade up like no other army and have ways to break up turns of other armies.
So, the problem I see with 40k's igougo amounts to saying that 40k drives an old Lada when it could have a brand.new Peugeot. Sure, the Lada will carry you from point a to point B, but you could have a brand new car doing it with more confort.and performance.
This sounds so bizzar in my part of the world with climate and roads here. A Lada is a tank. A french or italian car, stops to function as soon as winter comes, gets bogged down in mud, can't use it to drive offroad or in a forest. A small bump and the cars fall apart, while I have seen Ladas roof, be turned over by a few lads and drove back home.
Competitive 40k is like grown men walking into a school playground and thinking that swinging higher and harder than the kids means they're "dominating" in some meaningful capacity
If over an edition of playing you generate enough store credit to either get multiple armies for non GW games or one army for a GW game how is that not meaningful. With an army costing around 800-1000$ that is like getting between one or two monthly salaries. Now I know different countries have huge differences in income. But I can asure you that getting 2 saleries for "playing" can very much be considered meanigul
Starship Troopers is similar sized as 40k and works much better simply because the units have limited options and therefore are "touched" less often
one problem exclusive to 40k is that units act in each phase, you move, you shoot, you fight.
compare that to 3rd were the option often were to either move and fight, move and shoot or shoot at long range
the less often you touch 1 unit, the faster the game is.
keep alternating turns but remove phases and activate units with 2 actions max (move, shoot, fight) and any combination even the same twice and you speed up gameplay by a lot simply because you handle each unit only once per turn
I don't know how starship trooper is played. I have never seen the game. I also don't know how 3ed worked, aside for stories from people about how certain builds looked like.
I think people have this odd hope that, if AA was a thing, GW wouldn't add faction rules to some armies to break then thing.
Again just imagine pre or post change phantasm in an AA setting. Or the teleporting avatar. Eldar player drops in kills something with his spiders or FW lance dudes, and now you have to counter, but if you do they will teleport in the avatar and tag or destroy your next unit. Necron player could camp objectives with their unkillable, to many armies, warrior stack and while your units would be coming one by one, he would be trading up and then regenerating. An AA system would require a full edition rewrite, like from zero. GW can't even get a transition from 8th to 9th or 9th to 10th right.
kodos wrote: Starship Troopers is similar sized as 40k and works much better simply because the units have limited options and therefore are "touched" less often
one problem exclusive to 40k is that units act in each phase, you move, you shoot, you fight.
compare that to 3rd were the option often were to either move and fight, move and shoot or shoot at long range
the less often you touch 1 unit, the faster the game is.
keep alternating turns but remove phases and activate units with 2 actions max (move, shoot, fight) and any combination even the same twice and you speed up gameplay by a lot simply because you handle each unit only once per turn
Agreed. Again, I'm not fundamentally against I go you go but I'm not fund of how it's made in 40k. But without removing it wholesales and starting anew, there are already a couple changes to it that could make the experience way better.
Karol, allow me to rectify your mistake! I drove through tank tracks half the car size in Peugeot P4 in lettonian half mud half sand soil, bumpy but managed no problem. Berlier and Renault iteration Grand Berlier Cargo are unsinkable, in fact the only time in 5 years I saw one broke it litteraly took a pontoon falling apart under it, and it still went like 3 kilometers with broken chassis. Peugeot 205 were used in rally and in my part of France in grapesvignes hills getting chewed at by rocks and still going. My brother took a ride through the fields with a Citroen C15 and trying to drift in said field with no other issue than getting soil all over the car. We have very sturdy stuff.
PS: I have got absolutely no grudges against ladas and actually like them a lot too. But when I draw this analogy, I'm talking about a toy soldiers game where what I want is a fun and comfortable experience, not all terrain capabilities
point is, alternating activations are much easier to break than alternating turns
a rule like split fire is much stronger with alternating activation than it is with alternating turns
something that has not a big impact now would break the balance in such a system, hence why it is no real solution
not just because a full re-write is necessary but because it needs much more work to balance the individual units within the armies
something more simple like going back to 3rd weapon rules, or 5th deployment (without stealing first turn) would help much more.
kodos wrote: a rule like split fire is much stronger with alternating activation than it is with alternating turns
Nope. It's exactly the opposite. Split fire is strong in IGOUGO because if you do partial damage to multiple units you can just finish them off with other units before any of the enemy units get to act. In an alternating activation system split fire is of very low value outside of things like an anti-infantry squad with a single anti-tank weapon (which is rarely a good unit) because you're heavily incentivized to kill an enemy unit before it can act and that means focused fire to maximize your chances. If you split your fire and do partial damage you've very likely done nothing of immediate value with your activation, leaving the targets free to activate and get their shots off before you can finish the job.
And the same is true of the system in general. IGOUGO has very little room for error because getting to act without interruption means you can script out your perfect combo and execute it without any worry about failure, you know exactly what your opponent's board state is and there's very little they can do to change it unexpectedly. It's very easy to create overpowered combos and very easy for alpha strike armies to end games before they really begin. An alternating activation system, OTOH, has some built-in forgiveness for design and balance mistakes because your opponent always gets a chance to react to each step of your plan before you can do the next piece. You may have the combo in your list but can you coordinate getting all of its pieces in place and activated in the right sequence without your opponent making a counter-move that disrupts it? And you certainly can't just list off a bunch of buff stacking and tell your opponent to remove half their army on turn one. Even if the system rewards offense over defense you can only trade units, making it far more likely that both players have roughly equivalent surviving forces for multiple turns.
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Karol wrote: Eldar player drops in kills something with his spiders or FW lance dudes, and now you have to counter, but if you do they will teleport in the avatar and tag or destroy your next unit.
In an alternating activation game stratagems like this would have no need to exist and would be removed. Out-of-turn actions only exist to give some level of interactivity to IGOUGO, if you already have a more engaging system you don't need them. In this case the Eldar player would have to wait until their unit's next activation to react to your threat.
(And TBH stratagems should be removed entirely anyway. They're a bad mechanic that exists to cover up the lack of depth in the core rules and their removal is long overdue.)
Mostly agree, only note I'd stress is that there are steps between 40k's igougo (of which your analysis sounds on point to me) and alternate activation.
Tweaks like having people move one after the other, allow strategem/cards/whatever to be used in reaction, making it so that you can't be sure you'll be the one going first next turn... all can help on giving the opposing player this room for action and reaction that makes the game, I think, more tactical, and less frustrating etc. While technically still being igougo.
In 40k's case, this would allow for better experience without starting a whole new set of rules.
No system will be ever perfect but there are really some that are better than others. Would he up to GW's team to make it happen.
Nope. It's exactly the opposite. Split fire is strong in IGOUGO because if you do partial damage to multiple units you can just finish them off with other units before any of the enemy units get to act. In an alternating activation system split fire is of very low value outside of things like an anti-infantry squad with a single anti-tank weapon (which is rarely a good unit) because you're heavily incentivized to kill an enemy unit before it can act and that means focused fire to maximize your chances. If you split your fire and do partial damage you've very likely done nothing of immediate value with your activation, leaving the targets free to activate and get their shots off before you can finish the job.
first of all, if the activation is random or alternating has nothing to do with, although random activation the chance of multiple activations in a row is there, and withit split fire is less important
2nd, your first sentence is true in a alternating turn environment as well as in an alternating activation system
being able that a single unit activates and damage/finish off multiple enemy units before the opponent can do anything about it is the very core of alpha strike
activating the whole army in one turn reduces the value of split fire because you are shooting with multiple units anyway before the opponent can react
yet if there is a unit by unit based system were a single unit is activated at once, being able to shoot more than 1 target is much stronger and on a level of double activation
Karol wrote: Eldar player drops in kills something with his spiders or FW lance dudes, and now you have to counter, but if you do they will teleport in the avatar and tag or destroy your next unit.
In an alternating activation game stratagems like this would have no need to exist and would be removed. Out-of-turn actions only exist to give some level of interactivity to IGOUGO, if you already have a more engaging system you don't need them. In this case the Eldar player would have to wait until their unit's next activation to react to your threat.
(And TBH stratagems should be removed entirely anyway. They're a bad mechanic that exists to cover up the lack of depth in the core rules and their removal is long overdue.)
alternate activation is still IGoUGo, so why should GW remove the options to break that?
because people like you always ask for IGoUGo to be removed, so such stratagems are the first thing GW would add to the game to break IGoUGo up, as they do now
A few things. It is not the case, if there are no factions that split fire to kill two things or have a huge over kill in the damage they do. As soon as there is one , there will be a huge problem of trading up. Epecialy if the faction ends up aggresivly undercosted for what it can do.
Buff stacking would be a problem for factions that require multiple activiations. Turn a character on, buff a unit, do X with the unit. Those armies would not work. On the other hand an army where buffs are just a pasive thing handed out by the army rules, or being within X" of another unit, would gain a huge buff because in their case the units of such an army would be getting 1.5 or more turns in one go. Then there would be the problem of any interupt rules, shoting through other units, shoting outside of LoS, moving shoting then moving or shoting then moving. Against such armies, an army with a regular turn sequance would be at a huge disadventage. And as for X rule existing only in IGUG, there is again is a thing of what maybe should be and what is, and how GW writes their rules. For 3 editions GW writes their top armies as breaking core rules and stuff that is normal for other armies. You would have to replace the whole design team , and then their higher ups, to change their rules writing. Which means we are starting to talk about very hypothetical things and not the reality of GW rules writing.
As the stratagems goes. You may not want them. I may not like them. But GW can sell cards for them, so for at least the next 2-3 editions they will stay.
As the stratagems goes. You may not want them. I may not like them. But GW can sell cards for them, so for at least the next 2-3 editions they will stay.
Wise words.
But strategems as a concept are by no means bad in and of themselves. I mean, commissar von Toussaint May make a better testimony about it, but I'm not sure they were breaking 2nd edition. Yet there were strategem cards.
8th edition take on them on the other hand is dull and bland.
Stratagem used as actual tactical options plus one or two boosts here and there lost in the crowd are even valuable in providing a fun and thoughtful experience. Things that make you manoeuvre, prepare traps and or deceive the opponent.
The strategems used in 4th ed apocalypse are a blast on my mind and they provide just that, at least turned out great each time we included them.
Lord Damocles wrote: Survivors of the Virus Bomb strategem might remember their implementation in 2nd ed. differently
Wasn’t that banned basically everywhere where it wasn’t a friend group playing, I am sure it was still banned at the club I went to even all though 3rd edition for 2nd edition games.
kodos wrote: activating the whole army in one turn reduces the value of split fire because you are shooting with multiple units anyway before the opponent can react
yet if there is a unit by unit based system were a single unit is activated at once, being able to shoot more than 1 target is much stronger and on a level of double activation
Nope, you have that completely backwards. The typical scenario where split fire is relevant (outside of badly designed units) is that you have a unit of lascannons and a priority target tank that has some damage on it.
In IGOUGO split fire is valuable and risk-free. You split your lascannons between the primary target and a secondary target to ensure that you don't overkill the primary, and if you didn't use enough on the primary target you still have the rest of your army to finish the job. Overkill is minimized except at the very end of your turn, as you are activating your lowest-priority units and have few/no backup options left.
In an alternating activation system split fire has significant risks. If you split your lascannons you risk letting the primary target survive and activate so the best play is usually to focus fire and maximize your chances of a kill. Split fire becomes a highly situational tool that you're only going to use when you have multiple severely damaged targets to finish off and also a high-threat unit that can reliably clean up all of them with minimal chance of failure.
From a balance point of view this makes the risk of split fire mechanics far worse in IGOUGO. There's no mitigating factor that would prevent you from splitting fire at every opportunity and maximizing your offensive efficiency so any split fire mechanic that is a little too good will be abused constantly. But in an alternating activation system there's inherent counter-play to split fire mechanics built into the system and even if one pushes the power level boundaries too much it can't be exploited without limits.
alternate activation is still IGoUGo, so why should GW remove the options to break that?
Um, no? IGOUGO is activating your entire army at once. Alternating activation is by definition not IGOUGO.
so such stratagems are the first thing GW would add to the game to break IGoUGo up, as they do now
Can you please stop trying to derail this conversation with "GW will always do something profoundly stupid so every idea is bad"? If GW is always going to screw up every conceivable rule they could publish then why are you here?
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Karol wrote: A few things. It is not the case, if there are no factions that split fire to kill two things or have a huge over kill in the damage they do. As soon as there is one , there will be a huge problem of trading up. Epecialy if the faction ends up aggresivly undercosted for what it can do.
"GW will always screw everything up" isn't a constructive argument here. And even in the case of balance issues IGOUGO makes all of these problems worse. An undercosted high-offense unit is even more effective in an IGOUGO game where you can spam multiple of them and activate them all at once, without any return fire threatening to destroy them before they fire or any risks of failing to finish off a target if you split fire to maximize their efficiency.
Buff stacking would be a problem for factions that require multiple activiations.
Buff stacking should be removed from the game so this is a feature not a bug.
As the stratagems goes. You may not want them. I may not like them. But GW can sell cards for them, so for at least the next 2-3 editions they will stay.
"GW will do the stupid thing instead of fixing the problem" may be true but it doesn't mean that stratagems should continue existing. They're a problem and they need to be removed even if GW insists on milking the cash cow of stratagem cards.
And TBH it's not about the stratagem cards, which I doubt make enough money to really matter. It's about covering up the poor depth of the core mechanics by attaching a pseudo-CCG element of figuring out the best way to play your buff cards. It lets 14 year olds feel like a tactical genius for figuring out that you should play all your buff cards on your best unit and kill a bunch of stuff but doesn't require any real strategy that might make people give up on trying to understand how to plan more than one move in advance.
kodos wrote: or for alternating turns, simple add that the one who deploys first is also the one with the first turn
the other player can respond by placing his units accordingly
kodos wrote: point is, alternating activations are much easier to break than alternating turns
I strongly disagree. If I had to name the single most impactful rule change to a better game experience overall for my homebrew Custom40k, it would be "player A activates a single unit, player B activates a single unit". It solves lethality problems and makes the game much more engaging. Simply sitting around for 30min not doing anything but removing your own models being a thing of the past is invaluable. I honestly have yet to meet an unwanted rules interaction ("exploit") because of this turn order.
As a side note, the player who finishes first deploying all units gets a bonus to the first initiative roll for the first round. There are multiple ways to deploy units, characters and transports together, alone, in reserve or infiltrating. So even if one side got more units in total, it is not certain who will get the initiative.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: It is, but from my experience playing project z which uses this method, it actually is enjoyable because you can immediately react to the movements of your competitor. Plus as the game has you roll for.initiative each turn, you need to carefully think about placements and targets as you're not guaranteed to go first next turn.
Granted it is a way smaller game, but I doubt it would not be possible to implement it in 40k.after all. This is still igougo, yes, but better implemented in my view.
It totally can work within the 40k frameset. If you want to give it a try, may I guide you to the thread in my signature. It is kinda like a natural progression of 5th with alternate activation and better overall balance.
Buy a copy of Conqueror: Fields of Victory and find out!
Shameless self-promotion aside, IGOUGO works fine when it is done properly. The problem is that GW doesn't use it properly and that is why people saying alternating activation would solve the problem are deluding themselves. GW would absolutely screw that up, and people have already explained how - giving bonus activations, repeat activations, and so forth.
It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.
The strength of IGOUGO is that it is intuitive and you don't have to fuss around waiting for players to decide which unit to activate first. Nor do you have to rebalance when the numbers of units shift dramatically. It also avoids gamesmanship over maneuver elements. If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.
And people will do that. The same manipulation of army lists that happens now will happen with activations, and GW will hand out cards that let people break the rules for fun and profit.
The trick to using IGOUGO is to scale it to whatever you are trying to do. If you're playing Axis and Allies, or some board game at the operational/strategic level, reaction moves aren't really needed. On a more tactical level, you can either integrate them into the turn sequence, or create reaction mechanisms.
Panzerblitz/Panzerleader do this, and 2nd ed. 40k did as well.
It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.
Weapon ranges would also factor into this, which is also beyond the scope of IGOUGO.
Finally, as has been noted, not all units will be equal. I'm thinking a superheavy probably has more killing potential than an grot mob, and that using rules manipulation or simple sequencing to allow to superheavies to dump ordnance in consecutive activations would be just as devastating as it is now.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.
Well... no not really. The problem with IGOUGO is that - if employed like 40k, you get very few "turns". This means there is limited scope for interaction.
Infinity for instance is IGOUGO - but the reaction mechanic and simultaneous resolutions makes it feel like it isn't. The game breaks down into lots of smaller turns. The problem with this system is that the skill gap between experienced and new players is vast. Knowing you should lose - and lose hard - for the first 10 games is off-putting. (And this isn't "Eldar vs Votann" imbalance, its "I can just outplay you, so I kill your guys and you don't scratch mine.")
Lethality has gone up through 8th, 9th and 10th, as the various constraints have been done away with. I.E. Heavy = move and can't shoot. Move and only hit on 6s. Move and its -1 to hit. Then its -1 to hit but only on infantry. Then its Stand still and its +1 to hit (although with reduced basic BS its kind of a wash). You were allowed to split fire - being able to shoot and charge with regular weapons etc etc.
But - and I think its an important but - I don't think this fundamentally alters the issue. In older editions of 40k, you often had a turn (or two) of moving around, maybe throw out a few lascannons to pop some rhinos. But at a certain point (often turn 3) you rapidly hit the same level of lethality. Drop melta in the rear of vehicles. Drop flamer templates to delete infantry. Sweeping advance units off the table. Pour so much fire into terminators they invariably roll a few 1s and die etc etc. People would never have got tabled otherwise.
Now maybe you can say this slow build up is better for the game, than say the outset of 8th - where turn one shooting deepstrike meant not clearing about 40% of your opponent's army turn 1 (if they hadn't effectively null deployed) was a failure. Better than about a year into 9th where Ad Mech flyers and Ork vehicle spam were shooting people off the table turn 1.
But the problem is the same. You have limited scope to interact. Having to spend an hour+ moving minis around the table for a turn or two before the lethality kicks in doesn't really change that issue. I think "high skill level 9th" was a reasonable game of trading units into each other - and effectively making bets on how the dice will fall. But the turn system means you only get a few goes of this - and then the game is over (and frankly, everything one one or both sides is usually dead.)
Clearly if you just went "pick a unit, play out a whole 40k turn with that unit, then have your opponent pick a unit and do the same" there would be imbalances between super heavies and 50 point units. But that's a seperate issue. The core issue is changing the game from one of say 30 turns (or whatever it would be, given units invariably die over the course of the game) - rather than 5 (or, if everything dies, just 3 or 4).
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.
The strength of IGOUGO is that it is intuitive and you don't have to fuss around waiting for players to decide which unit to activate first. Nor do you have to rebalance when the numbers of units shift dramatically. It also avoids gamesmanship over maneuver elements. If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.
This sounds like arguments from someone who has not experienced both systems with the same game. While the other guy is moving their complete army, I might as well go play a round of ARAM in League of Legends. There is nothing of interest to do for me most of the time. I'm just sitting there and have to wait. It gets worse with bigger game sizes. Waiting a moment for the other player to decide which unit to activate, before I get to activate one unit, is orders of magnitude better in feel of the game. Every edition of 40k, with whatever rules or balance problems it had, would instantly be more fun with alternate activation. Even if you would not change anything else. Imho.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Finally, as has been noted, not all units will be equal. I'm thinking a superheavy probably has more killing potential than an grot mob, and that using rules manipulation or simple sequencing to allow to superheavies to dump ordnance in consecutive activations would be just as devastating as it is now.
The difference is that the other player gets to react to your unit. Let me give you an example from Custom40k:
- Your heavy hitter starts on the board, but you want to activate it last to get two consecutive activations with it for whatever reason.
- I can use my own anti-tank weaponry first to damage it, if it is within LoS.
- I can use my own artillery first to damage it, if it is outside.
- I can use deepstrike melta to damage it in both cases.
- Your heavy hitter starts off the board as reserve.
- Depending on both army sizes, I could stall my anti-tank stuff from above until your unit enters the field. Cheap grots say hi!
- It is not guaranteed that your reserves enter the battle at all until 3rd turn. In the 1st round you have a 50% chance of it happening.
- You simply don't win initiative in the following round so can't activate it two times without a reaction possibility from the other player.
And it completely leaves out the fact, that failing all of the above, you get 2 consecutive activations with a single unit as the worst possible outcome for the opposing player. But they are no sitting duck and get to do bad things to you as well. Compared to now, where the whole army unloads their magazines, before you are even allowed to do something else apart from rolling armor saves.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.
Well... no not really. The problem with IGOUGO is that - if employed like 40k, you get very few "turns". This means there is limited scope for interaction.
Infinity for instance is IGOUGO - but the reaction mechanic and simultaneous resolutions makes it feel like it isn't. The game breaks down into lots of smaller turns. The problem with this system is that the skill gap between experienced and new players is vast. Knowing you should lose - and lose hard - for the first 10 games is off-putting. (And this isn't "Eldar vs Votann" imbalance, its "I can just outplay you, so I kill your guys and you don't scratch mine.")
Lethality has gone up through 8th, 9th and 10th, as the various constraints have been done away with. I.E. Heavy = move and can't shoot. Move and only hit on 6s. Move and its -1 to hit. Then its -1 to hit but only on infantry. Then its Stand still and its +1 to hit (although with reduced basic BS its kind of a wash). You were allowed to split fire - being able to shoot and charge with regular weapons etc etc.
But - and I think its an important but - I don't think this fundamentally alters the issue. In older editions of 40k, you often had a turn (or two) of moving around, maybe throw out a few lascannons to pop some rhinos. But at a certain point (often turn 3) you rapidly hit the same level of lethality. Drop melta in the rear of vehicles. Drop flamer templates to delete infantry. Sweeping advance units off the table. Pour so much fire into terminators they invariably roll a few 1s and die etc etc. People would never have got tabled otherwise.
Now maybe you can say this slow build up is better for the game, than say the outset of 8th - where turn one shooting deepstrike meant not clearing about 40% of your opponent's army turn 1 (if they hadn't effectively null deployed) was a failure. Better than about a year into 9th where Ad Mech flyers and Ork vehicle spam were shooting people off the table turn 1.
But the problem is the same. You have limited scope to interact. Having to spend an hour+ moving minis around the table for a turn or two before the lethality kicks in doesn't really change that issue. I think "high skill level 9th" was a reasonable game of trading units into each other - and effectively making bets on how the dice will fall. But the turn system means you only get a few goes of this - and then the game is over (and frankly, everything one one or both sides is usually dead.)
Clearly if you just went "pick a unit, play out a whole 40k turn with that unit, then have your opponent pick a unit and do the same" there would be imbalances between super heavies and 50 point units. But that's a seperate issue. The core issue is changing the game from one of say 30 turns (or whatever it would be, given units invariably die over the course of the game) - rather than 5 (or, if everything dies, just 3 or 4).
Good post. You saw some of it with the introduction of overwatch in 6th already.
So after that Tau army shot you for half an hour, you now want to attack them and they shoot again for half an hour, but this time hitting on 6s (or sometimes 5s).
That being said, I like the current overwatch. It was a problem of pre 8th that you could walk away from the table for half an hour or more, with stratagems and the changed CC rules it doesn't really work anymore and 40K became much more interactive.
Lethality stays a problem. Things dieing turn 1 has always been a problem, in 6th/7th it was usually vehicles to bite the dust turn 1 because they were made of paper, it has not been that bad since then. But now every unit can shoot all the time and then still charge and do even more damage. Which has the upside of making hybrid units useful, though.
Um, no? IGOUGO is activating your entire army at once. Alternating activation is by definition not IGOUGO.
Which definition? The 40k player one? 40k is IGoUGo so this must mean the whole system including phased and turns?
IGoUGo simply mean one player "goes" and than the other player "goes", the opposite of IGoUGo is "random go", 40k is IGoUGo, AoS is not
Mantic Firefight or OPR is IGoUGo, Bolt Action is not, both unit activation instead of phases and turns
how many units you activate with one go, or if there are turns does not change that, it is simply about that I do something while you do nothing, and than you do something and I do nothing
if you want 40k to change to unit activation instead of player turns, simply mean you changed who units are handled and not of the system is IGoUGo
but ok, if Alternate Activation is by definition not IGoUGo but everything turn are, what is the double turn or double phase mechanic in AoS?
it cannot be IGoUGo because with a double turn/phase it would be IGoIGo, so it must be random player turns instead, so the definition if IGoUGo is "whatever the current 40k rules are" and everything else is something different.
and that makes no sense
but I guess GW will listen and remove IGoUGo from 40k, by simply adding double turns like in AoS. Easiest way to solve that problem and everyone is happy /s
IGOUGO is one player can move any or all units whilst the other waits (or only reacts within some predefined and narrow architecture) (40k)
Alternating Activation is one player does one unit, the other does one unit, etc. (Chess).
Alternating Phases is where one player does everything first in a phase, then the other player in the same phase, before moving to the next phase (MESBG)
Impulse models allow for some multiple units (but usually not all of them) to activate at once for one player, usually including some element of C2 to coordinate them (Chain of Command)
Digital wargames can have a bit more:
WE GO systems are both players input plans into a static gamestate and then adjudication processes the plans in competition until someone's plan is so broken they need to go in and fix it by pausing the sim (Command)
RTS is a WE GO system with running adjudication that encourages the players to work in battle management...
8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.
-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.
But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.
Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.
I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.
Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported. Para Bellum's Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings is very similar in many regards to 8th edition Apocalypse, if anyone is interested in a game system that has similar tenets but isn't killed by GW.
I would be okey with w40k being super lethal, if all armies could do it. Unit X comes from deep strike blows up something big, in reaction to this some unit counter charges and kills them, in reaction to that the player who just lost his deep strikers blows up the melee killers with an artilery unit, in reaction to that the some flyer blows the artilery. It would at least be fast, bloody and fun. And not the everyone has a turn, and their opponents have a turn, unless you are eldar and then it is always your turn.
Karol wrote: I would be okey with w40k being super lethal, if all armies could do it. Unit X comes from deep strike blows up something big, in reaction to this some unit counter charges and kills them, in reaction to that the player who just lost his deep strikers blows up the melee killers with an artilery unit, in reaction to that the some flyer blows the artilery. It would at least be fast, bloody and fun. And not the everyone has a turn, and their opponents have a turn, unless you are eldar and then it is always your turn.
You've basically just described alternate unit activation.
At least in that situation each player got to blow stuff up and be part of the game.
Personally though I'd argue that whilst high lethality can build faster games, it also produces a game that isn't as fun when someone spends ages building and painting models to see them wiped out so swiftly from the table. For me the games that are the most fun and engaging aren't the ones where its a landslide of super destruction; but where every fight is a knife-edge. Where the win/loss is potentially possible for both sides for as many turns as possible. Where your tarpit unit does tarpit; where your heavy hitter hits hard but isn't winning the whole game; where you are fighting it out and position; focus on objectives; battle plan etc... are all more important than the fact that you can blast your opponent to obliteration with one round of dice rolling.
Because close games mean that you are in the game and invested into it for longer; they mean even more dice rolling; they mean each roll is epic in a different way
Tittliewinks22 wrote: 8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.
-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.
But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.
Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.
I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.
Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported. Para Bellum's Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings is very similar in many regards to 8th edition Apocalypse, if anyone is interested in a game system that has similar tenets but isn't killed by GW.
The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon. The Stratagem system was stupid as well as far as I remember and of course it was as poorly balanced as any other new 40k product. The game would crack because of the stupid D12 gimmick replacing the deep impact of AP from any kind of pressure applied to the system (just playing a few games ought to do it but a spreadsheet would ruin the game). It might be useful for hyper-casual games and absolutely amazing for large narrative battles where you're not just looking for a short fair game on a Thursday. You can't convince me it's the best 40k has ever been, only that it is your favourite or the best for certain types of play that the current game isn't as great at.
Saying that GW should make 40k some type of alternating activation game is like asking GW to make a soufflé when they can barely boil an egg.
And that doesn't even matter because 40K just need to be like a pretty decent cheeseburger really. Something that isn't too complicated, and everyone can enjoy.
But Darr, everyone knows that people only go to GW for the happy meal toys!
Sure, that may be, but they could at least do better than slapping a handful of uncooked ground beef on a bun.
Doing that would actively hurt my enjoyment of the game because I only like GW burgers when I take the meat home and cook it myself
Um, you know in that case it's more practical for you to just go get some ground beef from the super....
COMPETATIVE PLAYERS ARE TYRING TO RUIN THE GAME FOR ME!
Tittliewinks22 wrote: 8th edition Apocalypse was the best ruleset for 40k in the past 15 years.
-It had bluffing / mind games with the orders system
-It had pseudo alternate activations (though it was detachments)
-It solved lethality problem with casualties removed at end
-It reduced the bloat
-It paired the game down to 4 simple phases
-It used D12 and D6 for better granularity
-It better portrayed abstract value from units instead of every model having X attacks.
But most importantly:
-It had scalability. The Rule-Set worked with these large armies and 40k has been having scale creep for so long. The armies get larger, points get cheaper, yet we were keeping the list building (1pt upgrades etc) for so long in spite of the creep.
Look at armies of 4th edition it was a few units and maybe a vehicle... Some of the armies in 8th/9th/10th look more like 4th edition Apocalypse forces.
I'm not saying the 8th edition Apocalypse rules were flawless, but for a games workshop ruleset for a massive battle system, it was surprisingly fun, engaging, and fast.
Shame it died because it was a side-game and not supported.
I totally agree with your points about Apocalypse. I have played several games using that ruleset, all about the 100-150 point range each side (about 2000-2500 points in 40k terms), and they were a blast. I was hoping 9th-10th editions would take some aspects from the Apocalypse ruleset but that turned out to be a pipedream unfortunately.
Detachments allowed for the activation of multiple units, representing the C2 of those units being at a more tactically coordinated level, and how you constructed your force affected how your Force's command and control worked in a meaningful way.
Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly
also "alternating activations" comes in many flavours, the way Chain of Command does it works nicely, you will activate a few of your units but likely only a few, then the enemy does something
or battle tech where the larger force is parcelled into lumps so the player with the initiative always moves something last and always fires something first - regardless of force sizes as a larger force will have to activate multiple units in each "slot" - so no more in effect making sure you get the drop by having some chaff units and out numbering
leopard wrote: Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly
It's tricky to plan your turn when each action your opponent takes can change that plan, sometimes quite drastically.
It can also be disheartening for many in a high lethality game to see a LOT of their most effective models removed from the game before being able to do anything save perhaps move up on the board.
So not only can it be a negative experience, but it can also be one where you don't really have much effective planning time; because you can't really make an effective plan until your opponent has done the majority of their turn's sequence.
There is also some hyperbole in it - of course you can plan; and some actions do let you interrupt your opponent and rolling saves and allocating wounds IS part of the game and you are involved with that. However this is all very one-sided where the opponent has almost impunity with regard to agency in terms of influencing the game state.
Again its not an unsurmountable element of the game; its popularity shows that. However it is something that many of us feel could be improved upon to provide a more enjoyable overall game experience that allows for a greater level of consistent interaction and involvement in the whole game.
leopard wrote: Q: what is this mysterious "when my enemy is having their turn I have nothing to do?" stuff, when your enemy is moving stuff is when you plan your turn so when the time comes you move and move quickly
Replace the save roll with a mathematically equivalent roll to defeat armor that the attacking player makes and outside of the fight phase there are very few, if any, things for the inactive player to do. No actions to take, no (non-trivial) decision points, you just passively watch your opponent roll dice and remove your units. And there's very little planning you can do because until their turn ends you won't know what you have available during your own turn.
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vict0988 wrote: The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon.
Um, what? The whole point of the D12 system was that you had separate anti-tank and anti-infantry values, making it easy to create weapons that were good at one but hopelessly bad at the other. And two attacks with boltguns represented an entire unit of 10 marines along with the unit's special weapon. So even if your comparison of D12 values is correct it's representing 9 boltguns + 1 plasma/melta gun = 1 lascannon.
And it's not like 40k is a deep game that can't be solved with a spreadsheet so at best your argument means that Apocalypse was no worse than 40k but had the virtue of being a far less bloated game.
In a wargaming context IGOUGO means one player acts with their entire force, followed by the other player acting with their entire force. The design question is "how much is activated at once", not "how is activation order determined".
what is the double turn or double phase mechanic in AoS?
IGOUGO. One player acts with their entire army, the other player acts with their entire army, and then you move on to the next turn. The fact that order of acting is determined randomly at the start of each turn does not make it something other than IGOUGO.
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The problem is that GW doesn't use it properly and that is why people saying alternating activation would solve the problem are deluding themselves. GW would absolutely screw that up, and people have already explained how - giving bonus activations, repeat activations, and so forth.
Again: "every conceivable mechanic or solution is bad because GW will do it badly" is not a constructive argument.
It also has known exploits - such as holding a unit back to activate last, and then activating it first in the next turn, effectively rocketing it across the map.
That's not an exploit and it's hardly as easy as you say. You have to make sure you have enough units in your army to avoid running out of activations even once you start to lose units, putting a limit on how big your double-action threat can be. You have to know you're getting the first activation during the next turn, meaning no random roll for priority each turn. Finally you have to have a safe place to let that unit sit for a turn and not just get worn down before it can act, and that safe place needs to not be so far back from the fight that your conservative deployment negates the value of double actions and forces you to spend an action just to get back to where you could have been with a normal plan.
If one player is locked into ten and the other gets only three, well someone's got a firepower advantage.
Unit count is a double-edged sword. The player with fewer units gets more firepower per activation to capitalize on fleeting opportunities and deliver alpha strikes, the player with more units has more flexibility in reacting to their opponent's moves and can force the death star player to waste activations on overkilling cannon fodder before closing the trap. Both ends of the scale are viable options and the typical army will usually have a balance of MSU and big units.
It seems to me that the problems being blamed on IGOUGO are more related to LOS rules, so units are never really hidden and/or cover, so that it doesn't do much good if they have it anyway. This is combined with massive weapon lethality to make a turn one knockout possible.
Not really. Abundant cover and LOS blocking prevents the turn 1 alpha strike but it just moves it to a later turn. You still have to come out from behind your cover to do anything (unless you make static artillery gunlines overpowered, which creates a miserable experience for everyone), at which point the alpha strike happens. The real problem with lethality is that you get to act with your entire army at once, giving a massive advantage to the player who takes the first shot. In a modern system that dumps IGOUGO this isn't nearly as much of a problem since the first shot advantage only applies to one unit instead of the whole army. You may still have a lethal opening turn but at least it's going to be a mutual slaughter, not a game-ending alpha strike.
Lord Damocles wrote: Survivors of the Virus Bomb strategem might remember their implementation in 2nd ed. differently
Wasn’t that banned basically everywhere where it wasn’t a friend group playing, I am sure it was still banned at the club I went to even all though 3rd edition for 2nd edition games.
GW told everyone in an FAQ to remove the Virus Outbreak card from the deck and destroy it.
Worth noting that after rewriting the entirety of 40K to create 3rd Ed, Andy Chambers wanted to iterate further for 4th, and was rebuked by management who had cold feet about radically changing their cash cow again so soon. He left not long after..
I'm not sure that's accurate. The word when Starship Troopers was released was that it was the game Andy Chambers wanted 3rd edition to be, but management thought it was too big a deviation from 2nd.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Again: "every conceivable mechanic or solution is bad because GW will do it badly" is not a constructive argument.
You are correct. It is not an argument, it is an indisputable fact.
I like IGOUGO. I do not like GWIGOUGO. I'm pretty sure I would detest GW alternating activations, however they do it.
I think a lot of other people will as well.
Thing is GW have certain elements to their style of rules writing. They aren't just "flat out bad" there are style elements in there. Many of us feel that alternating activation would work better with some of the balance and game structure styles that GW tends to lean into.
Having hyper lethality can work better with alternating activation - heck we already see it working better with close combat in games like Age of Sigmar where it happens in a limited form during each turn for close combat resolution. Again the alternating unit by unit activation at least means that, even in a hyper lethal environment, one player isn't getting to utterly dominate the other through an entire army activation.
Yes there are sure to be ways GW could muck it up; esp since they might muck it up by making some kind of hybrid setup that's "kind of alternate unit activation but kind of not" or something. But at the very least it might help resolve some of the big long standing problems that after 10 editions; its clear GW are unlikely to fix without a massive management and rules team shakeup
Overread wrote: Thing is GW have certain elements to their style of rules writing. They aren't just "flat out bad" there are style elements in there. Many of us feel that alternating activation would work better with some of the balance and game structure styles that GW tends to lean into.
But why do you feel that? What has GW done with 40k that would in any way fill you with confidence that they would not kludge it up with special rules and exploits so that one army gets unlimited activations while the other sits there?
Because I'm certain that's what would happen. Activations give GW one more toy to play with, and play with it they will.
At least with IGOUGO you know you are actually getting a turn. Half your army will be dead, but you will get a turn.
Imagine what GW would do with activations! I guarantee that some units would get to activate twice in the same turn. You know it will happen. Oh the sales boost that will produce!
And then the strategems, and the army special rules, and unit formation rules allowing mass activation.
GW has always kludged up whatever design space is available to them. They will do that here as well.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Imagine what GW would do with activations! I guarantee that some units would get to activate twice in the same turn. You know it will happen. Oh the sales boost that will produce!
And then the strategems, and the army special rules, and unit formation rules allowing mass activation.
So the worst-case scenario for GW trying alternate activation is they turn it into IGOUGO, the broken system we already have? Seems like a pretty compelling argument for dumping IGOUGO and at least trying something better.
Then what is your point in being here? If the current game is bad and every conceivable alternative is assumed to result in the worst possible outcome then why are you engaging in a discussion of possible improvements? Do you get some kind of emotional satisfaction from venting about how much GW sucks and how pointless it is to discuss anything else?
His point is that in regard to the actual topic if this discussion - GW tendency to rule churn - you can't expect the company to produce a core mechanic that would be allowed to remain untouched and unmessed with for long.
GW could totally produce a good enough or decent system. But judging by how they handle the game, it could well be short lived as the next supplement or rules editon kicks it upside down with a random uncalled for fix, or some special rule/strategem...
This point is a bit removed from the boardgame mechanic breakdown and tied to the original topic.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One thing I like with random activation is how you can make the number of units an important factor. Take multiple cheaper units (the Soviets are extremely good at that) and you can greatly increase you chances of going first and play a few units in a row.
However in BA going large with your army necessarily means either lowering troop quality (and losing them quickly, losing said doces and VP), or going light on core infantry (and making a handicap for yourself in cappin points), or on useful support (artillery strikes and the like). So this is always a deliberate trade you make.
Not sure I'd work the same in 40k gameplay wise. We didn't particularly tried to check that aspect of things when we tested random activation for 40k, but since you have armies meant to be big and others meant to be small...
I guess it's a question of take on it: either you regard this just as much as an army defining trait, or as a frudtrating gameplay disadvantage you can't do anything about. But somehow, that would not disheart me, since there where army initiative value that would let you play first no matter what in 2nd (iirc, I read the full rules but as I can't play them won't remember perfectly). And apparently it was a fun edition.
vict0988 wrote: The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon.
Um, what? The whole point of the D12 system was that you had separate anti-tank and anti-infantry values, making it easy to create weapons that were good at one but hopelessly bad at the other. And two attacks with boltguns represented an entire unit of 10 marines along with the unit's special weapon. So even if your comparison of D12 values is correct it's representing 9 boltguns + 1 plasma/melta gun = 1 lascannon.
And it's not like 40k is a deep game that can't be solved with a spreadsheet so at best your argument means that Apocalypse was no worse than 40k but had the virtue of being a far less bloated game.
If you do a spreadsheet for Apocalypse you find out unit X is best against everything.
If you do a spreadsheet for 10th edition you find out unit X is best against unit A, Y is best against unit B and Z is best against unit C.
The problem is that there is no separation between D12s and D6s, they're the same system, because 2D6s automatically turn into a D12. Boltguns are almost equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants, that's simply awfully simple. Lascannons are equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants. No amount of other changes will make up for this total brainfart of a system. It'd be like making every unit have the same Movement and Range characteristic and then people start clapping because you can use GW's new 6" measuring stick for all your units instead of having to bother with short-ranged flamers and long-ranged lascannons. No, flamers having a long range and being anti-horde is important, lascannons being long range anti-tank is important.
vict0988 wrote: The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon.
Um, what? The whole point of the D12 system was that you had separate anti-tank and anti-infantry values, making it easy to create weapons that were good at one but hopelessly bad at the other. And two attacks with boltguns represented an entire unit of 10 marines along with the unit's special weapon. So even if your comparison of D12 values is correct it's representing 9 boltguns + 1 plasma/melta gun = 1 lascannon.
And it's not like 40k is a deep game that can't be solved with a spreadsheet so at best your argument means that Apocalypse was no worse than 40k but had the virtue of being a far less bloated game.
If you do a spreadsheet for Apocalypse you find out unit X is best against everything.
If you do a spreadsheet for 10th edition you find out unit X is best against unit A, Y is best against unit B and Z is best against unit C.
The problem is that there is no separation between D12s and D6s, they're the same system, because 2D6s automatically turn into a D12. Boltguns are almost equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants, that's simply awfully simple. Lascannons are equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants. No amount of other changes will make up for this total brainfart of a system. It'd be like making every unit have the same Movement and Range characteristic and then people start clapping because you can use GW's new 6" measuring stick for all your units instead of having to bother with short-ranged flamers and long-ranged lascannons. No, flamers having a long range and being anti-horde is important, lascannons being long range anti-tank is important.
Mostly, 2d6 only has 11 results over a distribution bell curve where as a d12 should be linear over 12 values in a world where dice are perfect.
No, I'm saying in Apocalypse 2D6 get replaced with 1D12. Two S4 weapons in 40k do not get replaced with 1S8 shot, that'd be awful game design, which is what Apocalypse has.
The main advantage of a d12 over 2d6 is that you can roll multiple d12 easily while rolling multiple 2d6 is a pain unless you have fancy 2d6 dice (which is just a weirdly numbered d36).
vict0988 wrote: Lascannons are equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants.
Um, what? Lascannons are AT 5+ and AP 10+, meaning against a termagant squad you need a 10+ on a D12 to wound and against a carnifex you need a 5+ on the D12. How exactly do you think lascannons are "equally good" against both targets?
vict0988 wrote: Lascannons are equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants.
Um, what? Lascannons are AT 5+ and AP 10+, meaning against a termagant squad you need a 10+ on a D12 to wound and against a carnifex you need a 5+ on the D12. How exactly do you think lascannons are "equally good" against both targets?
I believe Vict is conflating the damage markers (d6 vs d12) and the hit rolls.
If not, then I have no idea what he is talking about, since each weapon in 8th Apoc is clearly labeled for Anti tank or Anti personnel.
vict0988 wrote: The D12 system is far worse than AP and Damage. Boltguns were anti-titan and lascannons were anti-MEQ, because somehow 2 boltguns = 1 lascannon.
Um, what? The whole point of the D12 system was that you had separate anti-tank and anti-infantry values, making it easy to create weapons that were good at one but hopelessly bad at the other. And two attacks with boltguns represented an entire unit of 10 marines along with the unit's special weapon. So even if your comparison of D12 values is correct it's representing 9 boltguns + 1 plasma/melta gun = 1 lascannon.
And it's not like 40k is a deep game that can't be solved with a spreadsheet so at best your argument means that Apocalypse was no worse than 40k but had the virtue of being a far less bloated game.
If you do a spreadsheet for Apocalypse you find out unit X is best against everything.
If you do a spreadsheet for 10th edition you find out unit X is best against unit A, Y is best against unit B and Z is best against unit C.
The problem is that there is no separation between D12s and D6s, they're the same system, because 2D6s automatically turn into a D12. Boltguns are almost equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants, that's simply awfully simple. Lascannons are equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants. No amount of other changes will make up for this total brainfart of a system. It'd be like making every unit have the same Movement and Range characteristic and then people start clapping because you can use GW's new 6" measuring stick for all your units instead of having to bother with short-ranged flamers and long-ranged lascannons. No, flamers having a long range and being anti-horde is important, lascannons being long range anti-tank is important.
Have you even played the 2019 version of Apocalypse (released during 40k 8th edition)? As other posters have mentioned, there is a distinct difference in how most weapons compare against infantry (AP) and tanks/monsters (AT); AP and AT values can be quite different. Ex. A Multi-melta is designed to be an anti-tank weapon with 10+ AP, 4+ AT; it performs poorly against infantry squads, but very well against a tank/monster. A missile launcher, equipped with frag and krak missiles, can be a versatile "jack of all trades" with 7+ AP, 7+ AT; decent, but not particularly great versus either target.
A lascannon is definitely not "equally good against Carnifexes and Termagants" with AP 10+ and AT 5+. Even boltguns are not "almost equally good" when targeting between infantry or tanks/monsters: 7+ AP vs. 9+ AT can be a significant difference in a D12 linear distribution. 2D6s do not "automatically turn into a D12." Bell curve (2d6) versus linear distribution (1d12). Apocalypse uses both D6s and D12s for its game mechanics quite well.
Give the latest Apocalypse a couple games. You will likely find it is a much better wargame system than modern 40k, even when not using the cards mechanic (and even with normal, non-"Apocalypse"-sized battles).
At least with IGOUGO you know you are actually getting a turn. Half your army will be dead, but you will get a turn.
Unless its AoS then your opponent gets another turn and you're left with 1/8th of your army
unironically skill issue if you can't deal with the double turn. Prepping for it and mitigating its impact is part of the skill of the game
I've yet to see any argument regarding skill for the doubleturn that isn't either
1) Normal wargame tactics that you'd use regardless of the doubleturn being a thing or not
2) Just not advancing into the gameplay area so that your opponent has to waste a turn moving into range. Which in a game that often maxes out at 6 turns and often relies on mid-table objectives - is just not a tactic that is going to work.
Things like screening your good units with chaff isn't inherent to the doubleturn; its a purely normal tactic people use all the time. The doubleturn just makes it even more essential for armies which can do it.
I've yet to see any argument regarding skill for the doubleturn that isn't either
1) Normal wargame tactics that you'd use regardless of the doubleturn being a thing or not
2) Just not advancing into the gameplay area so that your opponent has to waste a turn moving into range. Which in a game that often maxes out at 6 turns and often relies on mid-table objectives - is just not a tactic that is going to work.
Things like screening your good units with chaff isn't inherent to the doubleturn; its a purely normal tactic people use all the time. The doubleturn just makes it even more essential for armies which can do it.
Double turn being a thing means you can't overcommit because your opponent gets a possible comeback mechanic. Often new players will jump on the double turn because they think its a winning play when really its gonna lose them the game, because their opponent played smart and only let them kill their less important units. Its a mechanic that lowers the severity of alpha strikes and overall lethality.
And units take a lot more space on the board in AoS too (3" engagement range) so screening is actually easier to do in that game. Sure its a part of every wargame but you can be moderately successful in 40k without ever screening since you can just shoot down stuff, while in AoS, shooting is much more limited.
And i didnt say screening was inherent to AoS, i was implying that its a much more important skill in AoS because of the possibility of the double turn.
VladimirHerzog wrote: . Its a mechanic that lowers the severity of alpha strikes and overall lethality.
I really cannot wrap my head around how an alternate turn game lowers lethality by giving one player chance to run their whole army twice in a row. Having two rounds to activate, move, magic, shoot and all doubles that players potential lethality. Yes the alternating nature of close combat can mitigate that a bit, but only if the army getting the doubleturn relies heavily on close combat. If they are ranged or magic heavy they can operate with far more impunity. Furthermore they can at least define close combat engagements for two turns, which is very powerful in being able to avoid combat they don't want to get int.
Again unless both players didn't move into the board for a turn. Which is mostly only a viable tactic on the very first turn, since we are limited on turns.
Considering high lethality is a huge issue in GW games in general, its just not something I can get my head around when someone argues that double turns reduces lethality and reduces alphastrikes.
I really cannot wrap my head around how an alternate turn game lowers lethality by giving one player chance to run their whole army twice in a row.
because its a *chance* to go twice in a row AND because most of the game is melee based AND because combat is always alternating (charges don't grant the unit "fight first").
It's the combination of those facts that lowers the lethality because a double turn you're not prepared for can be crippling, and the big damage dealers are usually units you don't wanna get countercharged if you don't get the double. OR if your double turn fails to deal enough damage, your opponent then has more chances of hitting you with HIS double.
Honestly, most of the games i've seen and played, when faced with the opportunity to double turn, players opt to not do it. I'd say about 75% of the time.
Unfortunately, the AOS double-turn mechanic provides a significant (potential) advantage to factions that rely heavily on magic or shooting (ex. Kharadron Overlords).
I am not a fan of the double-turn mechanic and would prefer doing away with it entirely until a better solution is created (reactions? not sure).
I do like the LOTR/MESBG alternating system a lot more (rolling for initiative each turn to determine which side gets to activate first in each phase), but as that game normally includes many more than 3-5 turns, it balances out more fairly.
Gnarlly wrote: Unfortunately, the AOS double-turn mechanic provides a significant (potential) advantage to factions that rely heavily on magic or shooting (ex. Kharadron Overlords).
agreed on that point, luckily shooty factions are pretty rare.
i would never want to see that kind of mechanic in 40k to be clear
I don't play AoS significantly, so I could be totally wrong about this - but I think the double turn is a major balancing factor because its so swingy.
I.E. you look at 40k and go "this faction is overpowered and winning all the tournaments because its offense and defense is just mathematically better compared to everyone else".
But if chuck in a certain chance of a double turn, that should disappear. I don't know about last-version's Eldar vs Death Guard etc - but I think Death Guard with a double turn could have done a reasonable amount of damage and scoring versus Eldar.
I guess the evidence of this would be whether the same usual suspects win all the AoS tournaments or whether its much more random. I don't follow, so don't know.
Tyel wrote: I don't play AoS significantly, so I could be totally wrong about this - but I think the double turn is a major balancing factor because its so swingy.
I.E. you look at 40k and go "this faction is overpowered and winning all the tournaments because its offense and defense is just mathematically better compared to everyone else".
But if chuck in a certain chance of a double turn, that should disappear. I don't know about last-version's Eldar vs Death Guard etc - but I think Death Guard with a double turn could have done a reasonable amount of damage and scoring versus Eldar.
I guess the evidence of this would be whether the same usual suspects win all the AoS tournaments or whether its much more random. I don't follow, so don't know.
The odds are the same of getting a double turn if your army is OP, UP, or well-balanced.
Yep, any other system of turns won't just resolve the issues with balances as established earlier, but at least if the turn sequences allow you to try something before the op army has technically out you out if the frame is at least some solace. You at least were allowed to fight back. Random allocation can also be strange at time with one player playing almost all of its army but that's really rare though in my limited experience. I'll try one day to homebrew BoltHammer or War Action in depth, so far I only scratched the surface of this silly house ruling .
JNAProductions wrote: The odds are the same of getting a double turn if your army is OP, UP, or well-balanced.
The odds are the same but the effect is not. Consider pre-nerf Eldar vs. DG. If the Eldar player gets a double turn they're going to win but they were going to win anyway, at most the double turn makes it a 100-10 win instead of a 95-30 win. If the DG player gets a double turn at the right moment they might manage to pull off a 65-60 win, something they'd never be able to do in a normal game. The existence of the double turn only benefits the weaker army in this case.
Of course there is definitely a difference in enjoyment between systems, with the double turn having a lot of potential to turn a loss into an even more miserable and hopeless experience for the player on the wrong side of it, but that part of it isn't relevant to win rate statistics. A loss is a loss for statistical purposes whether it's a fun closely matched game decided on the final turn or a 100-0 game that ends on turn 1.
Statistically a loss is a loss, but if I lose in a close cut game that's one thing. But if my opponent gets to go twice in a row and makes the situation even worse then, whilst the statistical "win loss" rate might be identical; the game experience is vastly different.
Thing is everyone who tries to justify that the doubleturn helps underdogs or just speeds up an "auto win" seems to be purely overlooking all those cases where it takes a 50-50 situation and tips it for one player.
All because of one single dice roll at the start of the turn.
It's a very swingy mechanic and even when it might not change the game-state on the statistics front (win/lose) it can drastically alter the perception of the game for those involved. Heck even a win can feel empty when you win because you are playing a ranged/magic heavy army and just blew your opponent off the table through those two turns.
There's a reason no other game on the market has a doubleturn mechanic like that.
Overread wrote: There's a reason no other game on the market has a doubleturn mechanic like that.
Oh, I agree, it's a terrible mechanic because of those game experience factors. But technically it does favor the underdog if you screw up balancing badly enough elsewhere.
Unit1126PLL wrote: If it's all the same people, often, then there's likely skill involved. If it's a bunch of randoms every time, then there's likely overwhelming RNG.
I don't think that's necessarily true. The competitive community for AoS is small and so you're going to see repeat winners simply because of how few people are willing to pay to attend multiple large events, buy new armies to keep up with the meta, etc. It adds up quickly when each attempt at a GT win costs $500 for travel, $500-1000 for the hotel, a couple days worth of PTO to get out of work, and managing partner/family expectations that you also use some of those resources on normal vacations. And you pay those costs just to get in the door even if you don't buy a single additional model. Add even more cost to buy and paint new models and new armies regularly if you want to have a real chance at winning the event. Do we really end up with a large enough pool of potential multi-event winners that we can say whether it was skill vs. random luck picking one of the 5-10 eligible people each time?
The skill test works a lot better in a game like MTG where there's an immense player base and the cash prizes for winning events make pro tour slots highly desirable and a target of thousands of players making their best effort to win them. But I don't think 40k rises to that level and if 40k doesn't AoS definitely doesn't.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Then what is your point in being here? If the current game is bad and every conceivable alternative is assumed to result in the worst possible outcome then why are you engaging in a discussion of possible improvements? Do you get some kind of emotional satisfaction from venting about how much GW sucks and how pointless it is to discuss anything else?
I am here to inject a cool breeze of realism on what it is possible to expect of GW game design.
Claiming that activations will somehow improve things is unsupportable based on available evidence, because GW has taken mechanics that work well in other systems and utterly botched them in the 40k environment.
At one point I owned more than a hundred wargames and rule systems, so I'm pretty well grounded in how they work. I've also watched what GW does to its products and I wouldn't call it iterative improvement.
Activations would solve some problems and create new ones. We've already talked about how GW creates super-units that inflict disproportionate amounts of damage. You seem to think that with activations, these units would be hamstrung. They wouldn't.
Savvy players would activate them first, and then play the "go again" strategem, and then use the "second wind' army special rule and when the dust settled, you'd have another alpha strike.
But one that could be answered by only a single unit, not the remnant of the enemy army.
To put it another way, you can fix the alpha strike problem with better terrain rules, LOS rules, setup options, scenarios and shooting combat systems. It is not inherent to IGOUGO, it is only inherent to GW.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Savvy players would activate them first, and then play the "go again" strategem, and then use the "second wind' army special rule and when the dust settled, you'd have another alpha strike.
So alternating activation wouldn't be an improvement because you've invented a deliberately bad version of it and assumed that one would be implemented?
To put it another way, you can fix the alpha strike problem with better terrain rules, LOS rules, setup options, scenarios and shooting combat systems.
Terrain can't fix anything because you'll play the "ignore terrain" stratagem and use the "delete that building" special rule.
LOS can't fix anything because you'll play the "I have LOS to anything" stratagem and use the "all my guns have indirect fire" army rule.
Setup options can't fix anything because you'll play the "ignore setup rules" stratagem and use the "redraw the deployment zones" army rule.
Scenarios can't fix anything because you'll play the "choose a new scenario" stratagem and use the "score VP for killing" army rule.
Shooting combat systems can't fix anything because you'll play the "shoot twice" stratagem and use the "all my guns always hit" army rule.
Your argument against alternating activation as a solution applies to literally any conceivable rule you can propose, leaving the only conclusion that 40k is impossible to fix and there's no point in discussing improvements.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: So alternating activation wouldn't be an improvement because you've invented a deliberately bad version of it and assumed that one would be implemented?
Not at all. I'm sure GW will find an entirely unique way to botch it, something I never even imagined was possible.
But it will be botched. I'm not a gambling man, but I would put money on it.
And I would go further and wager that they would fix the one big problem, but create a new one, because that's how GW rolls.
That's the churn. I don't know why anyone would believe that yet another change of game mechanics would stop it.
GW has had multiple opportunities to stop it. Indeed, if rumors are correct, the designers left because of it. They went on to make stable systems.
I don't know how the anti-tank mechanic from Apocalypse slipped my mind. If I recall correctly there is no difference between light and heavy infantry or light and heavy vehicles so a boltgun or a meltagun would be equally strong vs Space Marines/Kabalite Warrior. The former is tougher, but Space Marines were not differently tough, they were essentially just multiples of Drukhari Kabalite Warrior taped together by math, the same applied to Land Raiders vs Drukhari Venoms.
The anti-tank mechanic does help a tonne, but that's still a lot less deep and thematic than having so many Toughness, Save, S and AP values available. The D12 mechanic still adds nothing to the game, because you can't have multiple single wounds inflicted (D6s) or multiple of the double (D12s) inflicted, so the odd extra D6 might be more effective against some units than others but it didn't represent anything because there was no reason why the first, the third and the fifth wound would be different than the second, fourth or sixth.
It always blows my mind how 40K players aren't the slightest bit bothered that target size has zero impact on to-hit (Warhound Titan or Grot? Same odds!), and range doesn't make any difference either (Six inches? Two miles? Who cares!), or how aircraft are just flying tanks since the system can't handle any more than a -1 to-hit penalty without imploding, but when you propose a simplified larger-scale wargame that doesn't use three different stats to model the minute nuances of differing durability between Beef Strongman and Strong Beefman, they complain about lack of depth. Maybe the issue is more about what things you put focus on and what things you abstract out.
Apocalypse is a fine game. It's basically Epic-lite, and I've gotten an awful lot more tactical depth out of Epic's effects-driven focus on C&C, maneuver, morale and combined arms- concepts atavistic at best in 40K- than I have from the obsession with inconsistent pointless bs chrome in 40K.
Also, the D12 mechanic certainly does add something. Two things, even. It increases the granularity of the AP and AT stats, and it neatly cuts the overall lethality in half by facilitating essentially 'half-wounds' (since a save taken on D12 is half as likely to fail as one taken on D6, and every two D12 saves consolidate into a D6). It's the sort of not exactly groundbreaking but at least reasonably elegant design that 40K could stand to have more of.
vict0988 wrote: If I recall correctly there is no difference between light and heavy infantry or light and heavy vehicles so a boltgun or a meltagun would be equally strong vs Space Marines/Kabalite Warrior.
Nope. Units had different save values. It wouldn't be represented in the wound roll but it was still represented and a marine unit was still tougher than light infantry.
The anti-tank mechanic does help a tonne, but that's still a lot less deep and thematic than having so many Toughness, Save, S and AP values available.
But you don't need that many values, not in a game at the scale of 40k. A game of whole armies and everything from grots to titans doesn't need to obsess over a 5% difference in kill probability. It's just rules bloat that has no real effect on strategy.
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catbarf wrote: It always blows my mind how 40K players aren't the slightest bit bothered that target size has zero impact on to-hit (Warhound Titan or Grot? Same odds!), and range doesn't make any difference either (Six inches? Two miles? Who cares!), or how aircraft are just flying tanks since the system can't handle any more than a -1 to-hit penalty without imploding, but when you propose a simplified larger-scale wargame that doesn't use three different stats to model the minute nuances of differing durability between Beef Strongman and Strong Beefman, they complain about lack of depth. Maybe the issue is more about what things you put focus on and what things you abstract out.
Exactly. When you actually look at the relevant mechanics and the set of possible mechanics the conclusion is very obvious: people are attached to how 40k does certain things because it's the game they're familiar with and they don't like change, not because those mechanics are the best design choices.
There's a difference between adding, changing and removing things. I think GW should try to add range and size impacts to shooting for 2-3 editions and see if it works, start by implementing it as an errata after 10th has been out for 1 year as part of experimenting with what to change for 11th. Only RF and Melta effectiveness being affected by range is a little light, but might end up being right for 40k because of the thing it's going for even if it's a bit silly. 8th edition would definitely have been the right time to add it in to lessen gun lines which were relatively effective back then, I don't know if gun lines work in 10th, if not then it might be very controversial to add further damage to the scene by making them worse at the end of their range or you could double the max range of some long-range weapons to give them a better band with their max effectiveness range. You have experience with all sorts of other wargames right catbarf? I bet you could write some great rules for range and size impacting shooting, my only experience with shooting impact by such things are WHFB and Mordheim with large targets and long range adding +1 and -1 to hit rolls for shooting respectively, that worked from my memory but it doesn't feel interesting to think about and I have no expertise on the subject so I won't do a thread suggesting it. I can see the issue you presented and thought about it, even if I never posted a thread with a suggested fix.
I'd be okay with getting rid of Toughness, it's modifiable saves that I don't want to let go of. I think Age of Sigmar works despite not having Toughness, the only thing that hurts it (other than double turns and some stuff on the execution side as usual) is wounds rolling over like MW, perhaps there just needs to be more liberal application of weapons that get bonuses vs large things and single wound little critters.
vict0988 wrote: If I recall correctly there is no difference between light and heavy infantry or light and heavy vehicles so a boltgun or a meltagun would be equally strong vs Space Marines/Kabalite Warrior.
Nope. Units had different save values. It wouldn't be represented in the wound roll but it was still represented and a marine unit was still tougher than light infantry.
They're FNPs not armour, you don't modify them. Then there's the nonsensical interaction with D12s/D6s, it's an expensive gimmick that adds and represents nothing. You can't say that having a billion different Sv/Toughness combinations doesn't matter but having more modifier options does. I can say that on the scale of 40k you don't need 8% modifiers as easily as you can say there's no difference between a Kabalite and a Marine because they're both infantry and if they have different amounts of effective wounds (FNP*Wounds) then all is good. 6 Sv values is all that is needed, but they need to be modifiable.
vict0988 wrote: it's modifiable saves that I don't want to let go of.
Why? Because it's the comfortable familiar thing in 10th edition 40k?
On a fundamental principles level the purpose of the hit/wound/save mechanic is to generate a probability that an attack results in a model/unit taking damage. GW uses that particular sequence of D6 rolls but there's no reason they have to work in that specific way. Saves could be replaced by a mathematically equivalent roll to defeat armor. AP modifying the save roll could easily be replaced by AP modifying the wound roll in a mathematically equivalent way. Etc.
And generalizing a bit an attack resolution needs to account for three things: the accuracy of the attacker, the power of the attack, and the durability of the target. Apocalypse covers all of those things: a hit roll for accuracy, a wound roll for attack power, and a save roll for durability. The fact that an increase in weapon power is represented by an increase in the wound roll rather than a decrease in the save roll doesn't make it any worse than the way 40k does it.
Then there's the nonsensical interaction with D12s/D6s, it's an expensive gimmick that adds and represents nothing.
It isn't nonsense. As has been explained to you it does two things: it allows some RNG flattening without increasing lethality and it allows various special rules to be consolidated into a single D12 value since the D12 has more increments than a D6.
I can say that on the scale of 40k you don't need 8% modifiers as easily as you can say there's no difference between a Kabalite and a Marine because they're both infantry and if they have different amounts of effective wounds (FNP*Wounds) then all is good.
Well yes, I can say that because it's true. It's also how 40k resolves things. Different units have different effective wounds (save x wounds) to represent their different levels of durability.
Also, you can't really say 40k doesn't need 8% modifiers because 40k clearly uses 8% (or similar level) modifiers. It's why you have all the various "-1 AP on a 6 to wound", "re-roll 1s", etc, abilities: to generate effectively a middle step between zero and a full D6 increment. Moving to a D12 lets you eliminate all that stuff and just use a +/-1 increment.
Finally, save modifiers didn't exist in earlier editions and are not inherently part of the concept of a save. Calling it "FNP" instead of "save" doesn't change how the rule functions.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: And generalizing a bit an attack resolution needs to account for three things: the accuracy of the attacker, the power of the attack, and the durability of the target. Apocalypse covers all of those things: a hit roll for accuracy, a wound roll for attack power, and a save roll for durability. The fact that an increase in weapon power is represented by an increase in the wound roll rather than a decrease in the save roll doesn't make it any worse than the way 40k does it.
Generalising further you don't need any of those 3 things. You could simply say "to kill a grot, you need to roll a 3+", "to do a wound on a knight, you need to roll a 6 and another 6". In this case the fact you "hit" a grot and a Knight on the same dice roll really doesn't mean anything in isolation. Since its just part of determining the odds of doing damage. (I realise this sort of AoS approach might not be liked, as you may want say grots to do less damage to grots than say knights to grots, but this can be determined by number of attacks etc).
To my mind the rules for processing an attack are really there for two functions. Giving some range of probabilities so some decisions should be better than others - and then resolving those decisions once they've been made. They don't really represent anything.
The complaint on 40k is usually how the system applies to the second. Roll a bucket of dice looking for 3s. Then reroll the 1s. Then roll (most of said) bucket again looking for say 4s. Now your opponent picks up and rolls looking for 5s. Oh and they've got a FNP or something, so more rolling.
I mean in this possibly contrived example, lets say you start with 30 dice. Then reroll 5 1s to end up with 24 hits. Now you roll 24 dice looking for 4s to wound. 12 go through. Your oppponent saves 4. Then saves 3. So you've done 5 wounds. But you've collectively rolled 79 dice. Now on to the next unit. Did all this rolling really add much to the game?
If the game just simplified all the above down to "your unit has 10 attacks, a 4+ does a wound" the outcome would be much the same - and far quicker to resolve.
Basically this is the complete opposite of vict0988's point. But still. I feel the issue with 40k is more people get attached to the dice meaning something. So unit X "should hit" more - because its accurate. But the unit Y "should wound easily" because it strong. Its all kind of a bait and switch. The core essense is just having a system so you should shoot your anti-tank guns at tanks and your anti-infantry guns at infantry, to however many degrees you want. Preferably without slowing everything down to a crawl, because a computer could resolve this instantly, but humans have to keep track of everything.
Exactly. When you actually look at the relevant mechanics and the set of possible mechanics the conclusion is very obvious: people are attached to how 40k does certain things because it's the game they're familiar with and they don't like change, not because those mechanics are the best design choices.
I would go a step further and say some are attached to those things because they've made the GW brand the foundation of their personal identity. They'd be perfectly fine with mechanics changing if GW changed it (but anyone else suggesting a change is an attack on GW and therefore a personal attack on them) and the new version would instantly become the new Only Logical Way of doing it.
Exactly. When you actually look at the relevant mechanics and the set of possible mechanics the conclusion is very obvious: people are attached to how 40k does certain things because it's the game they're familiar with and they don't like change, not because those mechanics are the best design choices.
I would go a step further and say some are attached to those things because they've made the GW brand the foundation of their personal identity. They'd be perfectly fine with mechanics changing if GW changed it (but anyone else suggesting a change is an attack on GW and therefore a personal attack on them) and the new version would instantly become the new Only Logical Way of doing it.
I actually agree with Catbarf and ThePaintingOwl on the general premises that people don't like change and they're comfy in their safe zone a lot of the time. For some people it'll come down to a lack of time or investment as well, it's harder to get buy in or feel invested in multiple rulesets or games when you have limited gaming opportunities or limited monetary means. GW then making changes to what they can access and are familiar with is easier to swallow and easier to adjust to because it's less to learn generally.
Edition churn is the topic but general rules churn inside of the edition, with the frequency of changes and fixes applied often mentioned as a detractor for new players and people in general. The constant change and departure from what they've committed to learning is taxing enough for some of the player base, even with it just being points change and some rules errata, so I can understand reluctance to throw it away and start again ground up as it'll feel a bigger mountain to climb.
But that's not the same thing as weird angle you keep pushing where people have some personal attachment issue? It's really starting to come across as a projection at this point. People can like something and dislike the suggestion to change the thing they like, without having a parasitic relationship with a corporate identity that supplants their independent thought.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: And generalizing a bit an attack resolution needs to account for three things: the accuracy of the attacker, the power of the attack, and the durability of the target. Apocalypse covers all of those things: a hit roll for accuracy, a wound roll for attack power, and a save roll for durability. The fact that an increase in weapon power is represented by an increase in the wound roll rather than a decrease in the save roll doesn't make it any worse than the way 40k does it.
To my mind the rules for processing an attack are really there for two functions. Giving some range of probabilities so some decisions should be better than others - and then resolving those decisions once they've been made. They don't really represent anything.
If the game just simplified all the above down to "your unit has 10 attacks, a 4+ does a wound" the outcome would be much the same - and far quicker to resolve.
Basically this is the complete opposite of vict0988's point. But still. I feel the issue with 40k is more people get attached to the dice meaning something. So unit X "should hit" more - because its accurate. But the unit Y "should wound easily" because it strong. Its all kind of a bait and switch. The core essense is just having a system so you should shoot your anti-tank guns at tanks and your anti-infantry guns at infantry, to however many degrees you want. Preferably without slowing everything down to a crawl, because a computer could resolve this instantly, but humans have to keep track of everything.
I've always found 2-roll systems to be preferable than 3-or more-rolls in determining 'attack resolution'. Less is more.
Goes without saying there are variations too. Andy Chambers starship troopers (flawed but brilliant if limited game, ten years ahead of its time in some ways) had a 'firepower' roll in place snd essentially it represented a combined hit-and-wound roll. I like kill team 21s (or similar systems) 'roll-off' ie attack-dice versus-defence dice and whatever gets through is converted into ^some kind of^ damage/status/effect rather than hit/wound/save. Even lotr sbg had a 'fight' roll-off and whoever won rolled damage - still love that game all these years later.
Tyel wrote: I mean in this possibly contrived example, lets say you start with 30 dice. Then reroll 5 1s to end up with 24 hits. Now you roll 24 dice looking for 4s to wound. 12 go through. Your oppponent saves 4. Then saves 3. So you've done 5 wounds. But you've collectively rolled 79 dice. Now on to the next unit. Did all this rolling really add much to the game?
It's a good point of discussion. In some ways I think it does. It reflects, for example, the process of a terminator being shot by a chain cannon in more detail. A tonne of shots, many of which hit, then tough armour deflecting or withstanding them. From a game result perspective you can achieve a similar probability with less dice of course, but it perhaps doesn't tell such a good story. There's also a lot more tuning you can do in terms of BS, S, T, AP, and Sv to represent the different combinations of attacker, weapon, and defender.
Edition churn is a serious annoyance. It annoyed me enough to make a video about it.
I returned to the hobby in 7th ed for 40k. I rather loved the 7th ed books, nice high quality full colour hardbacks. It was rather shocking to see them go obsolete so fast. I did some research and realised this has been a thing since 5th ed and it is still a thing. Even worse literally every game GW makes seems to be on this brutally short 3 year cycle.
Tyel wrote: I mean in this possibly contrived example, lets say you start with 30 dice. Then reroll 5 1s to end up with 24 hits. Now you roll 24 dice looking for 4s to wound. 12 go through. Your oppponent saves 4. Then saves 3. So you've done 5 wounds. But you've collectively rolled 79 dice. Now on to the next unit. Did all this rolling really add much to the game?
It's a good point of discussion. In some ways I think it does. It reflects, for example, the process of a terminator being shot by a chain cannon in more detail. A tonne of shots, many of which hit, then tough armour deflecting or withstanding them. From a game result perspective you can achieve a similar probability with less dice of course, but it perhaps doesn't tell such a good story. There's also a lot more tuning you can do in terms of BS, S, T, AP, and Sv to represent the different combinations of attacker, weapon, and defender.
And that is a great story to tell, when you are playing with 20 models. We don't need to tell that much of a story when playing with 50-100+ models. We need to get from one attack to the next without rolling 80 dice to resolve one units attacks.
That is one thing I really like about the current Kill Team. Very fast resolution with enough USRs to keep things interesting.
alextroy wrote: And that is a great story to tell, when you are playing with 20 models. We don't need to tell that much of a story when playing with 50-100+ models. We need to get from one attack to the next without rolling 80 dice to resolve one units attacks.
That is one thing I really like about the current Kill Team. Very fast resolution with enough USRs to keep things interesting.
It's a fair point, although I started in 1st edition (!) where every model was treated individually. Later on in that edition, we were rolling on a transparent template over an internal schematic to see exactly where we hit a vehicle too
Tyel wrote: Generalising further you don't need any of those 3 things.
Yes and no. In isolation any RNG roll will work, but once you have a more complicated game having separate factors is very useful for making the game intuitive. If you have an accuracy stat you can have a "bolter" always have the same stats regardless of user, making it much faster to learn what all your weapon stats are. If you combine it into the base stat line like GW did with melee weapons in 10th you now have a dozen different "bolters" to memorize, which in practice means a lot more time looking up rules you forgot. Same thing with attack strength and durability.
That said, they don't need to be separate rolls. For example, you could combine attack strength and durability into a single roll of strength + 1D6 >= defense to inflict damage. Both are still accounted for even if they don't have individual die rolls.
(I realise this sort of AoS approach might not be liked, as you may want say grots to do less damage to grots than say knights to grots, but this can be determined by number of attacks etc).
This model doesn't work very well. If the only way to make a weapon better at killing knights is to give it more attacks then that weapon also becomes better at killing grots. You lose the ability to have something like a machine gun, a weapon that has a high volume of fire that is great at mowing down hordes of weak enemies but plinks uselessly off the armor of a tank. And because weapons don't have preferred targets you're far more likely to end up with balance problems. Count up the number of attacks, divide by the point cost of the unit, spam whatever thing has the most attacks per point. Your best anti-infantry is also your best anti-tank and a one-dimensional spam list works perfectly.
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dreadblade wrote: It's a good point of discussion. In some ways I think it does. It reflects, for example, the process of a terminator being shot by a chain cannon in more detail. A tonne of shots, many of which hit, then tough armour deflecting or withstanding them. From a game result perspective you can achieve a similar probability with less dice of course, but it perhaps doesn't tell such a good story. There's also a lot more tuning you can do in terms of BS, S, T, AP, and Sv to represent the different combinations of attacker, weapon, and defender.
How often are you really imagining that whole story? And, more importantly, how often do you remember that story? A turn later do you remember whether the terminator survived because of poor luck on the wound dice or good luck on the save dice? You almost certainly don't remember a week later. Unless some exceptional outlier RNG luck happens on a particular roll you're moving through the process as quickly as possible so you can finish the game within five hours. Even in a typical RPG with no more than 5-10 characters on the table most people don't pay all that much attention to where in the resolution sequence an attack failed, outside of trying to figure out what the target number was so they can make a better decision next round. Whether a swing of the sword glanced off armor or missed entirely is rarely something anyone cares about a minute later.
vict0988 wrote: it's modifiable saves that I don't want to let go of.
Why? Because it's the comfortable familiar thing in 10th edition 40k?
You were quick to mention that it's very important that actually Carnifexes aren't just a bag of wounds like Genestealers like I misremembered because weapons are better against one or the other, why isn't it important for Space Marines vs Kabalites to be qualitatively different and not just one having a bigger bag of wounds than the other?
vict0988 wrote: You were quick to mention that it's very important that actually Carnifexes aren't just a bag of wounds like Genestealers like I misremembered because weapons are better against one or the other, why isn't it important for Space Marines vs Kabalites to be qualitatively different and not just one having a bigger bag of wounds than the other?
You're still claiming something that isn't true. In Apocalypse marines had a better save value than the kabalites, just like they do in 40k. And if you want to argue "that's just a bag of wounds" then the same is true in 40k, all the 40k stats can be reduced to an effective wound total where the marines have a better number than the kabalites.
dreadblade wrote: It's a good point of discussion. In some ways I think it does. It reflects, for example, the process of a terminator being shot by a chain cannon in more detail. A tonne of shots, many of which hit, then tough armour deflecting or withstanding them. From a game result perspective you can achieve a similar probability with less dice of course, but it perhaps doesn't tell such a good story. There's also a lot more tuning you can do in terms of BS, S, T, AP, and Sv to represent the different combinations of attacker, weapon, and defender.
How often are you really imagining that whole story? And, more importantly, how often do you remember that story? A turn later do you remember whether the terminator survived because of poor luck on the wound dice or good luck on the save dice? You almost certainly don't remember a week later. Unless some exceptional outlier RNG luck happens on a particular roll you're moving through the process as quickly as possible so you can finish the game within five hours. Even in a typical RPG with no more than 5-10 characters on the table most people don't pay all that much attention to where in the resolution sequence an attack failed, outside of trying to figure out what the target number was so they can make a better decision next round. Whether a swing of the sword glanced off armor or missed entirely is rarely something anyone cares about a minute later.
Agreed. Although it is quite fun in the moment.
I don't disagree that the game could do with further simplification, but for me that would be ditching stratagems alltogether, not changing the dice mechanics.
I've had some great experiences come from Grimdark Future, Starship Troopers, Dust Warfare, or any of the other wargames I've played that do 40K-scale gameplay with about a fifth as much rolling. The stories are just things that actually happened on the tabletop, not the minutiae of a tedious attack resolution process.
When I played SST I never lamented that to-hit and to-wound had been consolidated into a single roll. It was awesome that I could have moments like having a squad of Cap Troopers pass all their saves, immediately perform a reaction to return fire and drive the bugs back through the flinch mechanic, clearing enough space to employ a mini-nuke.
It beats the hell out of remembering that time I rolled a bunch of 1s to hit in 40K but then I got to re-roll them and then they hit, but then it didn't matter anyways because we still had to roll to wound and for saves- a basic process that in total takes about as long to resolve as that entire above sequence in SST did.
A good game has you spend more time making decisions than resolving them. Some tension in that resolution is fine, but play time is a finite resource and we're here to command armies, not play Yahtzee. Rolling dice is a means to an end, not the end itself.
dreadblade wrote: I don't disagree that the game could do with further simplification, but for me that would be ditching stratagems alltogether, not changing the dice mechanics.
Cut the rules bloat in the dice mechanics and also get rid of stratagems and enhancements.
I never looked into Apocalypse because I mistakenly thought you had to use Epic-scale minis. I might give it a chance since I also think that alternating activations or at least a simultaneous/delayed casualty phase would make 40k a better game.
I also also think the wound and save rolls should be consolidated. Do we really need that third level of granularity just to be able to say "it was only a flesh wound"?
I like that this thread evolved from "is edition churn good or bad or real at all" to "if GW would just churn it one more time..." Curse you 10th ed for getting my hopes up. I won't complain about free rules and indexes though.
vict0988 wrote: it's modifiable saves that I don't want to let go of.
Why? Because it's the comfortable familiar thing in 10th edition 40k?
You were quick to mention that it's very important that actually Carnifexes aren't just a bag of wounds like Genestealers like I misremembered because weapons are better against one or the other, why isn't it important for Space Marines vs Kabalites to be qualitatively different and not just one having a bigger bag of wounds than the other?
For the record should this manage to come around again, in the latest edition of Apocaplyse:
Tactical Squad (5 Models): Wounds 1, Save 6+
Kabalite Warriors (5 Models): Wounds 1, Save 10+
Damage is inflicted in Blast markers (Save on d12) or Large Blast markers (Save on d6). So a Blast marker has a 41.6% chance of killing the Tactical Squad and a 75% chance of killing the Kabalite Warriors. The Large Blast marker had a 87.5% chance of killing the Tactical and a 100% chance of killing the Kabalite Warriors. This becomes more important when you get larger squads with multiple wounds or tougher units with better Saves (Terminators have Save 4+).
It's hard to keep track of who is on what team, but OP already had the controversial opinion that churn is good, I think it's an important discussion for the community to have once in a while and I think that does happen, mostly because things were too fast in 9th.
vict0988 wrote: You were quick to mention that it's very important that actually Carnifexes aren't just a bag of wounds like Genestealers like I misremembered because weapons are better against one or the other, why isn't it important for Space Marines vs Kabalites to be qualitatively different and not just one having a bigger bag of wounds than the other?
You're still claiming something that isn't true. In Apocalypse marines had a better save value than the kabalites, just like they do in 40k. And if you want to argue "that's just a bag of wounds" then the same is true in 40k, all the 40k stats can be reduced to an effective wound total where the marines have a better number than the kabalites.
It's not a save, it's a FNP that multiplies the size of their bag of wounds. Whether a unit has 2 wounds with one save 4 wounds with half the save changes how it interacts with the D6 vs D12 save but D6s and D12s don't represent anything, you just get more of the latter with more focussed fire. Stray plasma goes into Kabalites and inflicts a small blast, focussed bolter fire goes into Marines and inflicts a large blast, garbage design. Sv and AP makes more sense.
The D12 mechanics in Apocalypse is pure churny bloat.
vict0988 wrote: It's not a save, it's a FNP that multiplies the size of their bag of wounds.
That's nitpicking over arbitrary word use. "FNP" is only not a save because of the "can't use two saves on the same wound" rule, it functions as a save otherwise. A 4++ gives you a 50% chance to negate a wound and increases your bag of wounds, a 4+++ gives you a 50% chance to negate a wound and increases your bag of wounds.
Whether a unit has 2 wounds with one save 4 wounds with half the save changes how it interacts with the D6 vs D12 save but D6s and D12s don't represent anything, you just get more of the latter with more focussed fire.
As has already been mentioned the kabalites and marines have the same number of wounds. It is not W2 and Sv 3+ vs. W4 and Sv 5+ it's W1 SV 6+ vs. W1 Sv 10+. They are not two ways of representing the same effective wound total, the marines are simply more durable than the kabalites. And that is the goal of the system: to represent the relative durability of each unit, not to precisely mirror the quirks of a particular edition of 40k.
Sv and AP makes more sense.
Which version? AP as an all-or-nothing check as in 3rd through 7th, or AP as a modifier as in 8th through 10th?
The D12 mechanics in Apocalypse is pure churny bloat.
It is neither. It is not churn as it is a completely new game not a new edition every 3 years with change for the sake of change. And it is not bloat because its purpose is to remove bloat by replacing a bunch of special rules with a simple base stat line for the weapon. Using a D12 allows you to throw out all the various "extra AP on 6s to hit" and such that exists just to give a step size smaller than a whole +/-1 on the D6. You just incorporate all that into the base stat line of the weapon and move on.
ThePaintingOwl wrote: Using a D12 allows you to throw out all the various "extra AP on 6s to hit" and such that exists just to give a step size smaller than a whole +/-1 on the D6. You just incorporate all that into the base stat line of the weapon and move on.
Do they use the full value of it, though? GW uses a D6 but then uses them in such a way that the range of results exists between 40 and 60 percent. Way back in the day when building out Conqueror, I noticed that all of GW's re-rolls, save, modifers, etc. really gave you extreme granularity in a narrow range.
Going out to d12 only makes sense if it's being fully used. I think d12s are generally a poor choice for dice. They are larger, more expensive, more prone to rolling under something and easier to be cocked and require re-rolling.
Since I don't play the game, I don't know, so these are honest questions.
If desired, GW could do all the fires on a table, aggregating the weapons of squads on a matrix. Roll a die, apply the result.
Yep. I'm pretty sure there were wound values everywhere from 2+ to 12+, and definitely at least 3+ to 11+. IIRC saves used less of the range because they needed to work with the D6/D12 mechanic and a 2+ save would probably be too strong.
Yep. I'm pretty sure there were wound values everywhere from 2+ to 12+, and definitely at least 3+ to 11+. IIRC saves used less of the range because they needed to work with the D6/D12 mechanic and a 2+ save would probably be too strong.
Ghazghkull Thraka has a 3+ Save while Grots have an 11+ Save. Attack Strengths run all the way from 2+ to 12+.
vict0988 wrote: it's modifiable saves that I don't want to let go of.
Why? Because it's the comfortable familiar thing in 10th edition 40k?
You were quick to mention that it's very important that actually Carnifexes aren't just a bag of wounds like Genestealers like I misremembered because weapons are better against one or the other, why isn't it important for Space Marines vs Kabalites to be qualitatively different and not just one having a bigger bag of wounds than the other?
Your running commentary on apocalypse in this thread makes it seem like you've never read the rules. You're basically getting the rules replied back at you to counter your incorrect perspective.
How about you actually read and comprehend them first so we can bypass this farcical conversation.
The apocalypse rules are very streamlined and effective. None of your issues actually exist in the rules so I'm not sure what your points are.
Racerguy180 wrote: Apoc is one of the most fun and balanced GW games in a while. Games were "quick"(given 49k pts values) and well paced.
Too bad many were quick to dismiss out of hand since stuff isn't instantly deleted without the ability respond.
That isn't the problem with new Apocalypse, the problem is that when you're trying to play what is essentially Epic rules but with 40k-scale models the setup/teardown takes longer than playing the game does.
I'll eagerly believe that in a game of such variety as 40k, having D12 for granularity sounds good to me. Too bad I didn't heard about these rules before!
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I'll eagerly believe that in a game of such variety as 40k, having D12 for granularity sounds good to me. Too bad I didn't heard about these rules before!
Was it good for more standard point size too?
It was based off detachment activations, so if you're 2k army could be split into multiple detachments you're fine, might be a bit weird if not.
Better than normal 40k if you make some tweaks to the rules, primarily to the detachment size so that each army has multiple detachments. I'd probably also consider doubling the attacks and wounds of everything so you even out the RNG spikes a bit, with only a standard army on each side a couple bad rolls can too easily decide a game. Double both attacks and wounds and you keep all the offense to defense ratios the same but have a few more dice involved to give a better bell curve. And I'd probably give some thought to how well the stratagem system scales or if you want to include it at all. But overall it's at least a good foundation for a game and it's unfortunate that GW dumped it as soon as they released it.
Better than normal 40k if you make some tweaks to the rules, primarily to the detachment size so that each army has multiple detachments. I'd probably also consider doubling the attacks and wounds of everything so you even out the RNG spikes a bit, with only a standard army on each side a couple bad rolls can too easily decide a game. Double both attacks and wounds and you keep all the offense to defense ratios the same but have a few more dice involved to give a better bell curve. And I'd probably give some thought to how well the stratagem system scales or if you want to include it at all. But overall it's at least a good foundation for a game and it's unfortunate that GW dumped it as soon as they released it.
I guess GW didn't want to cannibalize their 40K sales so they marketed the whole thing for players with huge collections and/ or huge models. Iirc the rulebook says the standard game is supposed to be 250 PL (5000points!) on a 4x8 table...
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:Do they use the full value of it, though? GW uses a D6 but then uses them in such a way that the range of results exists between 40 and 60 percent. Way back in the day when building out Conqueror, I noticed that all of GW's re-rolls, save, modifers, etc. really gave you extreme granularity in a narrow range.
Going out to d12 only makes sense if it's being fully used. I think d12s are generally a poor choice for dice. They are larger, more expensive, more prone to rolling under something and easier to be cocked and require re-rolling.
Since I don't play the game, I don't know, so these are honest questions.
Yes, actually- and not only does the game use the full range of the D12, it also rolls to hit on D6s and keeps numbers of shots to a reasonable level, so you're rarely ever having to roll more than 3-4 D12s at a time. When you take armor saves, the mechanic by which 2 D12 rolls consolidate into a single D6 roll means you're never rolling more than one D12 for saves at a time.
It's the sort of elegant design that shows that the designers actually played it and made concessions for playability, rather than something that works on paper but is hard to actually play in real life. Looking at you, ka'tah flowchart.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:If desired, GW could do all the fires on a table, aggregating the weapons of squads on a matrix. Roll a die, apply the result.
On that note, are you familiar with Battlefleet Gothic? It uses a gunnery table that while daunting at first glance, is able to take a starting firepower value and adjust for target size, target bearing, range, intervening obstacles, and really any other modifier. You figure out the total and then roll the dice once against the target's armor value (no roll to hit), re-rolling fails if you're on Lock-On special orders, and that's it. It's an elegant system that avoids buckets of dice or needing successive rolls to resolve a basic attack.
In a similar vein, Dust Warfare gives each unit a target class (type + number- Infantry 2, Vehicle 4, etc), and then each weapon has a firepower rating for each different target type. So a unit that might get 6 dice shooting up unarmored infantry only gets one die against a tank, and if that shot hits (on a 5+, because everything in the game succeeds on a 5+) then the target still gets an armor save. Quick, elegant, and maybe more importantly makes it very easy for the designers to tweak performance against specific target types without unanticipated consequences.
The 40K system of successive rolls to simulate every step of shooting may be more modern than Avalon Hill style CRTs, but not by much, and there are more elegant ways to do it.
Dudeface wrote:
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I'll eagerly believe that in a game of such variety as 40k, having D12 for granularity sounds good to me. Too bad I didn't heard about these rules before!
Was it good for more standard point size too?
It was based off detachment activations, so if you're 2k army could be split into multiple detachments you're fine, might be a bit weird if not.
IIRC the Apocalypse detachments are the same as 8th Ed detachments, but with the crucial tweak of one fewer HQ requirement. So it is much easier to make smaller detachments to comprise an army, and having 3-4 at what would be a 2000pt 40K game is quite doable.
catbarf wrote: On that note, are you familiar with Battlefleet Gothic? It uses a gunnery table that while daunting at first glance, is able to take a starting firepower value and adjust for target size, target bearing, range, intervening obstacles, and really any other modifier. You figure out the total and then roll the dice once against the target's armor value (no roll to hit), re-rolling fails if you're on Lock-On special orders, and that's it. It's an elegant system that avoids buckets of dice or needing successive rolls to resolve a basic attack.
Yes, still have the books but sold the minis due to lack of opponents. That was sort of what I was thinking of, actually.
The 40K system of successive rolls to simulate every step of shooting may be more modern than Avalon Hill style CRTs, but not by much, and there are more elegant ways to do it.
Agreed.
They Poxyclipse rules didn't interest me because when they came out, I was only marginally following GW and the notion of filling a board with models struck me as a very tedious thing to do - akin to moving fantasy armies without movement trays.
When I was a young bachelor I did crazy stuff like that, mega-battles over the course of a weekend, but now I prefer more less time commitment.
It assume the Higher Ups allowed this rival system to exist because the insane model count required caused them to swoon with visions of people buying "starter armies" that would clean out a store.
catbarf wrote: ...On that note, are you familiar with Battlefleet Gothic? It uses a gunnery table that while daunting at first glance, is able to take a starting firepower value and adjust for target size, target bearing, range, intervening obstacles, and really any other modifier. You figure out the total and then roll the dice once against the target's armor value (no roll to hit), re-rolling fails if you're on Lock-On special orders, and that's it. It's an elegant system that avoids buckets of dice or needing successive rolls to resolve a basic attack...
Some friends and I reverse-engineered it once. It's a lookup table for how many hits you'd expect on X d6s hitting on (y+), and left/right column shifts are +1/-1 to hit.
AnomanderRake wrote: Some friends and I reverse-engineered it once. It's a lookup table for how many hits you'd expect on X d6s hitting on (y+), and left/right column shifts are +1/-1 to hit.
GW is particularly opaque in allowing you to calculate the odds. The old Avalon Hill boardgames and the like were at least up front with what the odds were: if you get to 3:1, no risk of Attacker Eliminated. At 2:1, 1 in 6 chance.
As part of designing Conqueror, I broke down the Fantasy system by percentages and then figured out a way to do it with less dice that also had larger range of outcomes. A lot of the old special rules were attempts to paper over their relatively inconsequential differences in core stats (the numbers looked big, but the percentage shifts were small).
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:They Poxyclipse rules didn't interest me because when they came out, I was only marginally following GW and the notion of filling a board with models struck me as a very tedious thing to do - akin to moving fantasy armies without movement trays.
When I was a young bachelor I did crazy stuff like that, mega-battles over the course of a weekend, but now I prefer more less time commitment.
I hear that. Apocalypse is expressly designed to be played with five-model or ten-model movement trays, and it does sensible things to facilitate it, like not making the individual positioning of your dudes matter. I find it really cuts down on the tedium of movement, and with the alternating activation system there's a lot less downtime than 40K proper.
Really, it's a lot like playing Epic with 28mm models- not at all like the earlier incarnations of Apocalypse, which were geared towards those weekend-long games.
But I'll admit I haven't played much Apocalypse in the last two years, because I really like NetEA (Epic:Armageddon plus fan-maintained content) for the big games, while Grimdark Future scratches that 'simpler 40K' itch.
catbarf wrote: But I'll admit I haven't played much Apocalypse in the last two years, because I really like NetEA (Epic:Armageddon plus fan-maintained content) for the big games, while Grimdark Future scratches that 'simpler 40K' itch.
An unanticipated side effect of churn is that it has created editions that various discrete groups of players prefer and want to stick with.
I like 2nd because I feel it was close to being finished, has a low model count, and was very closely aligned with the fluff at the time. There is no reason for me to "get current," especially when it's a given that the rules will change in less than 3 years.
Playing an out of print edition also frees one from the in-edition changes and upgrades. In a weird way, it's easier to recruit new players because the rules won't be updated - they know what they are getting into.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Otherwise, a big set of flat probabilities is very swingy and unpredictable (which may be your design goal!).
It can be - but there are ways around it which 40k also employs.
I mean, if you are hitting or wounding on 2s rerolling 1s, you don't need a bucket of dice to be fairly confident on the number of hits you are going to get.
I feel the bucket of dice problem is more GW accounting backwards.
So you have unit X costing 100 points. Against its preferred target it hits on 3s and wounds on 3s.
Then in another faction you have unit Y in a different faction. Also 100 points. Against its preferred target, its hitting on 5s and wounding on 5s. Because this is very fluffy.
But to balance, we now need to give unit Y around 4 times as many shots as unit X. (9*2/3*2/3=4. 36*1/3*1/3=4). If unit X had 10 shots, unit Y needs to be rolling 40.
Its the same as "we've buffed Marines to make them tough because that fits our vision". "Okay but now basic troops of other factions with low S no AP guns are functionally useless into marines." "Okay give them rules so they aren't useless. Buff their S, AP, attack count, give lots of rerolls or whatever it takes." "But then Marines aren't tough any more?"
See also "10th has buffed vehicle durability because they were too easy to kill last edition, odds are they don't die as quickly now" and "melta sucks now, it needs to be buffed so it's as statistically likely to kill vehicles as last edition."
Its this tension between "the game as a simulation" vs "the game as a game". Its not obvious it can ever be resolved - and is another stimulus to churn.
See also "10th has buffed vehicle durability because they were too easy to kill last edition, odds are they don't die as quickly now" and "melta sucks now, it needs to be buffed so it's as statistically likely to kill vehicles as last edition."
Thing is melta has always been a dedicated anti-tank weapon with a big downside, it wounding heavy tanks on 5+ is ridiculous.
See also "10th has buffed vehicle durability because they were too easy to kill last edition, odds are they don't die as quickly now" and "melta sucks now, it needs to be buffed so it's as statistically likely to kill vehicles as last edition."
Thing is melta has always been a dedicated anti-tank weapon with a big downside, it wounding heavy tanks on 5+ is ridiculous.
They're fairly damn close to getting it right, if Melta was simply anti vehicle/monster 4+ or even +2S, it'd be dong much better than it is now. The problem being that it's not that hard to spam melta and get close, admittedly it's harder to get into that melta range, which is why I think it's fine as is apart from the half range rule not adding enough reward.
Tyel wrote: Its this tension between "the game as a simulation" vs "the game as a game". Its not obvious it can ever be resolved - and is another stimulus to churn.
I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
They're fairly damn close to getting it right, if Melta was simply anti vehicle/monster 4+ or even +2S, it'd be dong much better than it is now. The problem being that it's not that hard to spam melta and get close, admittedly it's harder to get into that melta range, which is why I think it's fine as is apart from the half range rule not adding enough reward.
yeah but right now its a weird anti-elite gun, and for some reason grav is the new anti-tank one.
Melta X should add X STRENGHT and damage when in half range
I think dudeface idea to be anti X +4 at half range would be enough. It would also be a nice differential between melta and lascanons. Lascanons have the range, the strenght, but melta will +4 wound even something with t16 or t8, you just have to get within 3-6-12".
But who knows which one of that math equasions GW would find harder for their players to deal with +X to strenght or always wound on +4.
catbarf wrote: I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
Indeed, and that vision would include an idea of how the fluff is supposed to work. That's also somewhat fluid. Is 40k combat modeled on future-modern so shooting is very important and only dedicated units (like assault marines) can cross the beaten ground to achieve melee combat?
Or is the heart of the game a melee scrum punctuated by long-range fire? Do vehicles advance at a walking pace, or thunder across the tabletop in a single turn?
Historical games don't have these problems because the players will sniff out problems. If a Sherman is capable of hitting 60 MPH at scale, people will point it out. If you can take down a Panther simply by firing enough Grease Guns into it, people will have a problem.
Obviously, 40k is fictional, but other systems are far more consistent on capabilities, even as the IP moves around between publishers (see Star Wars, LotR, etc.).
And on top of it all, you have constantly-expanding product lines, so the pressure is there to create not just new factions, but new units and vehicles within existing factions, and all of these need design space to differentiate themselves. If they can't, the design has to be altered so that they can.
Well, at least that's how GW sees it. Battle Tech is remarkably stable and while it has some issues, I'm confident I could sit down to a game after 20 years away and be up to speed in no time, especially if I'm using the old mechs of my youth.
The problem with GW's churn is that I have no idea what tactical marines even do now.
Great news! GW will be removing them soon so you won't have to worry about this question and can focus on what really matters: buying new primaris marines.
catbarf wrote: I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
Indeed, and that vision would include an idea of how the fluff is supposed to work. That's also somewhat fluid. Is 40k combat modeled on future-modern so shooting is very important and only dedicated units (like assault marines) can cross the beaten ground to achieve melee combat?
Or is the heart of the game a melee scrum punctuated by long-range fire? Do vehicles advance at a walking pace, or thunder across the tabletop in a single turn?
Historical games don't have these problems because the players will sniff out problems. If a Sherman is capable of hitting 60 MPH at scale, people will point it out. If you can take down a Panther simply by firing enough Grease Guns into it, people will have a problem.
Obviously, 40k is fictional, but other systems are far more consistent on capabilities, even as the IP moves around between publishers (see Star Wars, LotR, etc.).
And on top of it all, you have constantly-expanding product lines, so the pressure is there to create not just new factions, but new units and vehicles within existing factions, and all of these need design space to differentiate themselves. If they can't, the design has to be altered so that they can.
Well, at least that's how GW sees it. Battle Tech is remarkably stable and while it has some issues, I'm confident I could sit down to a game after 20 years away and be up to speed in no time, especially if I'm using the old mechs of my youth.
The problem with GW's churn is that I have no idea what tactical marines even do now.
Fully agree. The variety of medias and frequent changes to the rules of the game blurs it all. Inconsistencies in BL books are not helping in that regard either I suppose.
What is silly is not that we can't figure it as players though, but that GW itself seems to have entirely lost track of what they intended their IP and lore to be. Even if established earlier this probably is a strategy to market their products, it definitely looks like random ork biker stunts and not like a carefully devised marketing plan.
Ambiguous world-building is pretty neat IMO, there are plenty of sci-fi settings where everything is made available and clear. But 40k does not have any authoritative sources like Startrek has its federation, that's part of the grimdark appeal.
There's a lot of give when it comes to game design, which should make things easier as there are a lot of right answers in terms of lore, so you can move things around to fit gameplay. Do Assault Marines need hammer of wrath? No. Does it make no sense for them to have hammer of wrath? No. Should they have hammer of wrath? Maybe, that comes down to which is more fun hammer of wrath or no hammer of wrath.
I also like the fact that not everything is outright stated and that you have got more than enough rooms to make your custom stories and armies, that's the primary interest of 40k to me.
But when it translates to how the rules are handled, and over a couple of years, that brings baffling effects as you wonder what the heck they where thinking about this time.
catbarf wrote: I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
Indeed, and that vision would include an idea of how the fluff is supposed to work. That's also somewhat fluid. Is 40k combat modeled on future-modern so shooting is very important and only dedicated units (like assault marines) can cross the beaten ground to achieve melee combat?
Or is the heart of the game a melee scrum punctuated by long-range fire? Do vehicles advance at a walking pace, or thunder across the tabletop in a single turn?
Historical games don't have these problems because the players will sniff out problems. If a Sherman is capable of hitting 60 MPH at scale, people will point it out. If you can take down a Panther simply by firing enough Grease Guns into it, people will have a problem.
Obviously, 40k is fictional, but other systems are far more consistent on capabilities, even as the IP moves around between publishers (see Star Wars, LotR, etc.).
And on top of it all, you have constantly-expanding product lines, so the pressure is there to create not just new factions, but new units and vehicles within existing factions, and all of these need design space to differentiate themselves. If they can't, the design has to be altered so that they can.
Well, at least that's how GW sees it. Battle Tech is remarkably stable and while it has some issues, I'm confident I could sit down to a game after 20 years away and be up to speed in no time, especially if I'm using the old mechs of my youth.
The problem with GW's churn is that I have no idea what tactical marines even do now.
Fully agree. The variety of medias and frequent changes to the rules of the game blurs it all. Inconsistencies in BL books are not helping in that regard either I suppose.
What is silly is not that we can't figure it as players though, but that GW itself seems to have entirely lost track of what they intended their IP and lore to be. Even if established earlier this probably is a strategy to market their products, it definitely looks like random ork biker stunts and not like a carefully devised marketing plan.
It doesn't help the entire tone and approach to the setting post-gathering storm is so overwhelmingly different, that it makes it so you can't even look at previous methods and use that as direct evidence. Do we need rhinos to be a 10-man transport? In a world of primaris marines and hovering pickup-trucks? Especially after the eventual death of the last firstborn marines? What about the razorback? The predator in a world of gladiators?
So much has changed since Gathering Storm the calculus of these things has changed a lot.
vict0988 wrote: Ambiguous world-building is pretty neat IMO, there are plenty of sci-fi settings where everything is made available and clear. But 40k does not have any authoritative sources like Startrek has its federation, that's part of the grimdark appeal.
There's a lot of give when it comes to game design, which should make things easier as there are a lot of right answers in terms of lore, so you can move things around to fit gameplay. Do Assault Marines need hammer of wrath? No. Does it make no sense for them to have hammer of wrath? No. Should they have hammer of wrath? Maybe, that comes down to which is more fun hammer of wrath or no hammer of wrath.
Assault marines with 1 melee weapon, no range special weapons very much need hammer of wrath style damage buff. If they don't have it, then they are not worth playing. Not a problem if someone doesn't like them, but if you like jump pack units or they are the core unit in your army it is not very fun. It is like termintors, do they need +4inv , do they need an inv at all , why not just tell people to L2p better with a multi wound +2sv model?
vict0988 wrote: Ambiguous world-building is pretty neat IMO, there are plenty of sci-fi settings where everything is made available and clear. But 40k does not have any authoritative sources like Startrek has its federation, that's part of the grimdark appeal.
There's a lot of give when it comes to game design, which should make things easier as there are a lot of right answers in terms of lore, so you can move things around to fit gameplay. Do Assault Marines need hammer of wrath? No. Does it make no sense for them to have hammer of wrath? No. Should they have hammer of wrath? Maybe, that comes down to which is more fun hammer of wrath or no hammer of wrath.
Assault marines with 1 melee weapon, no range special weapons very much need hammer of wrath style damage buff. If they don't have it, then they are not worth playing. Not a problem if someone doesn't like them, but if you like jump pack units or they are the core unit in your army it is not very fun. It is like termintors, do they need +4inv , do they need an inv at all , why not just tell people to L2p better with a multi wound +2sv model?
What would it take for you to change your mind? You show me a model with a 2+Sv datasheet from 10th that wouldn't be OP at 1 point per model and I will agree with you.
catbarf wrote: I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
Indeed, and that vision would include an idea of how the fluff is supposed to work. That's also somewhat fluid. Is 40k combat modeled on future-modern so shooting is very important and only dedicated units (like assault marines) can cross the beaten ground to achieve melee combat?
Or is the heart of the game a melee scrum punctuated by long-range fire? Do vehicles advance at a walking pace, or thunder across the tabletop in a single turn?
Historical games don't have these problems because the players will sniff out problems. If a Sherman is capable of hitting 60 MPH at scale, people will point it out. If you can take down a Panther simply by firing enough Grease Guns into it, people will have a problem.
Obviously, 40k is fictional, but other systems are far more consistent on capabilities, even as the IP moves around between publishers (see Star Wars, LotR, etc.).
And on top of it all, you have constantly-expanding product lines, so the pressure is there to create not just new factions, but new units and vehicles within existing factions, and all of these need design space to differentiate themselves. If they can't, the design has to be altered so that they can.
Well, at least that's how GW sees it. Battle Tech is remarkably stable and while it has some issues, I'm confident I could sit down to a game after 20 years away and be up to speed in no time, especially if I'm using the old mechs of my youth.
The problem with GW's churn is that I have no idea what tactical marines even do now.
Fully agree. The variety of medias and frequent changes to the rules of the game blurs it all. Inconsistencies in BL books are not helping in that regard either I suppose.
What is silly is not that we can't figure it as players though, but that GW itself seems to have entirely lost track of what they intended their IP and lore to be. Even if established earlier this probably is a strategy to market their products, it definitely looks like random ork biker stunts and not like a carefully devised marketing plan.
It doesn't help the entire tone and approach to the setting post-gathering storm is so overwhelmingly different, that it makes it so you can't even look at previous methods and use that as direct evidence. Do we need rhinos to be a 10-man transport? In a world of primaris marines and hovering pickup-trucks? Especially after the eventual death of the last firstborn marines? What about the razorback? The predator in a world of gladiators?
So much has changed since Gathering Storm the calculus of these things has changed a lot.
To be fair, yes, one more instance of GW not knowgin where exactly it is steering its boat.
Don't know how the change from 2nd to 3rd went as far as tone change, but clearly the gathering storm one didn't go that clean and smooth I think.
catbarf wrote: I don't think GW's inability to strike good balance compromises arises from the tension between verisimilitude and gameplay. Rather it's their inability to execute to a coherent design vision, unwillingness to extensively playtest before release, and use of a system with so many moving parts that making tweaks is like playing Jenga with blocks made of Jello.
Players and GW getting overly invested in the fantasy of certain factions doesn't help, though.
Indeed, and that vision would include an idea of how the fluff is supposed to work. That's also somewhat fluid. Is 40k combat modeled on future-modern so shooting is very important and only dedicated units (like assault marines) can cross the beaten ground to achieve melee combat?
Or is the heart of the game a melee scrum punctuated by long-range fire? Do vehicles advance at a walking pace, or thunder across the tabletop in a single turn?
Historical games don't have these problems because the players will sniff out problems. If a Sherman is capable of hitting 60 MPH at scale, people will point it out. If you can take down a Panther simply by firing enough Grease Guns into it, people will have a problem.
Obviously, 40k is fictional, but other systems are far more consistent on capabilities, even as the IP moves around between publishers (see Star Wars, LotR, etc.).
And on top of it all, you have constantly-expanding product lines, so the pressure is there to create not just new factions, but new units and vehicles within existing factions, and all of these need design space to differentiate themselves. If they can't, the design has to be altered so that they can.
Well, at least that's how GW sees it. Battle Tech is remarkably stable and while it has some issues, I'm confident I could sit down to a game after 20 years away and be up to speed in no time, especially if I'm using the old mechs of my youth.
The problem with GW's churn is that I have no idea what tactical marines even do now.
Fully agree. The variety of medias and frequent changes to the rules of the game blurs it all. Inconsistencies in BL books are not helping in that regard either I suppose.
What is silly is not that we can't figure it as players though, but that GW itself seems to have entirely lost track of what they intended their IP and lore to be. Even if established earlier this probably is a strategy to market their products, it definitely looks like random ork biker stunts and not like a carefully devised marketing plan.
It doesn't help the entire tone and approach to the setting post-gathering storm is so overwhelmingly different, that it makes it so you can't even look at previous methods and use that as direct evidence. Do we need rhinos to be a 10-man transport? In a world of primaris marines and hovering pickup-trucks? Especially after the eventual death of the last firstborn marines? What about the razorback? The predator in a world of gladiators?
So much has changed since Gathering Storm the calculus of these things has changed a lot.
To be fair, yes, one more instance of GW not knowgin where exactly it is steering its boat.
Don't know how the change from 2nd to 3rd went as far as tone change, but clearly the gathering storm one didn't go that clean and smooth I think.
I definitely of the opinion that the Gathering storm was an aborted 40k end times. Due to how poorly the other one went they pulled back from a full reset of the game but the lore damage had been done and the game overhaul still happened. you can argue for better or worse but it's very obvious they were ready to hit the reset button but never quite finished.
At least with IGOUGO you know you are actually getting a turn. Half your army will be dead, but you will get a turn.
Unless its AoS then your opponent gets another turn and you're left with 1/8th of your army
unironically skill issue if you can't deal with the double turn. Prepping for it and mitigating its impact is part of the skill of the game
Who cares? Having to do a push-up contest to see who gets to go first at the start of each game would also be a contest of skill, that doesn't make it good game design or enjoyable to some people (but it would mean that I win every game). "but it adds to the depth" is never a good argument in favor of a game mechanic.
the double turn thing is ok in AoS, would be more of a problem in 40k where ranged combat is a much larger part of the game.
to make it work would need an activation mechanic like Chain of Command where you are not using your whole army each turn anyway for the most part - and when your command dice do give you the double turn you will be activating even fewer units now and leaving it to the dice gods how many you activate the turn after
heck triple and more turns are possible there.
however I cannot see GW ever swapping how the turn activation goes away from IGOYGO, it becomes a totally different game then and just can't see it
Don't know how the change from 2nd to 3rd went as far as tone change, but clearly the gathering storm one didn't go that clean and smooth I think.
Meh, the tone change was partly aesthetic, partly turning the Eldar from a tragic dying race into one that has a substantial (hmmm, ponders site rules) pain-infliction-positive community.
The core game design issue was melee vs shooting and whether space marines were multi-capable elite warriors or just cheap dudes in power armor who were willing to die in order to score plasma hits.
Battle Tech knows what it is. It's got factions, they change, the storyline moves here and there, but the core notion is that Mechs are big, dominating but entrepreneurs who can manage to scavenge a few might actually make a difference. It's basically the old D&D concept of a party collecting enough loot to buy a castle merged with the free companies of old. As a storytelling device, that's pretty cool, and I get why it still resonates.
GW has an increasingly tenuous connection with its past, and it feels like they compelled the founders to leave their notebooks under pain of lawsuits and have been combing through them looking for ideas ever since.
vict0988 wrote:Ambiguous world-building is pretty neat IMO, there are plenty of sci-fi settings where everything is made available and clear. But 40k does not have any authoritative sources like Startrek has its federation, that's part of the grimdark appeal.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:I also like the fact that not everything is outright stated and that you have got more than enough rooms to make your custom stories and armies, that's the primary interest of 40k to me.
That has changed a lot over time, though. Once upon a time the game's narrative was poised on 999.M41 at the climax of a bunch of unfolding events, with players having the scope to set their games anywhere across millennia of future history, and you could bring named characters (some of whom were long dead by 999.M41) but only with your opponent's permission because this is a game about Your Dudes. Now there's an evolving story revolving around a cast of named characters, people who are dead don't get rules anymore, and bringing an actual primarch is just business as usual.
See also: The Horus Heresy, and how hints of shreds of myths of legends were turned into an agonizingly comprehensively explained novel series where the universe bends and shifts at the beck and call of a handful of WWE personalities and their daddy issues. The writers even play a literary game of Twister to avoid explaining why two legions are missing, originally nothing more than a throwaway line intended as a historical reference to the Roman lost legions.
It's a pretty stark difference in tone, and ties back to what Toussaint is saying about the increasingly tenuous connection with its past. Old GW was a bunch of nerds applying the satirical counterculture tropes of their era to the traditionally conservative pastime of historical wargaming along with a healthy dash of make-your-own-story roleplay. Modern GW is more interested in character-focused ongoing narratives, and so out of touch with their own roots that they gave the authoritarian ubermensch a literal halo on the front of their rulebook and then wondered why they have to remind people that fascism is bad.
What you describe is overall how I feel, but please keep the "fascism in 40k" thing at bay lest it kills another thread !
My brother just had a game of 10th and kind of change his mind because it is more simple and straightforward. To be fair his whole explaination sounded like the emptiness of space because the Battlereport was more or less everybody charges T2 because everyone is at range of everything and the climax of strategy was to drop strike drop a unit of beasts of nurgle on top of someone.
I also read the rules myself, I can't believe how plain it looks. Maybe I'm just a masochist who likes good fat rules bringing a lot of potential actions and manœuvres though. (By the way yes I am intend on trying 2'd ed someday )
However the change to strategems makes them a lot less cancerous apparently, but again, from his recounting of the game, it was pretty much a brain dead brawl with trap cards flying across the room.
Then I read a french site's review of it comparing 10th to the debut of AoS, as in, ork-medicine level experiments to steer the game back from competitive to casual by even simpler rules.
Just sharing my septicism mostly when he then told me that 4ty apocalypse games we play were the same as 10th with just mindless shooting a 2 strategems both sides, which might explain why he lost them
That has changed a lot over time, though. Once upon a time the game's narrative was poised on 999.M41 at the climax of a bunch of unfolding events, with players having the scope to set their games anywhere across millennia of future history, and you could bring named characters (some of whom were long dead by 999.M41) but only with your opponent's permission because this is a game about Your Dudes. Now there's an evolving story revolving around a cast of named characters, people who are dead don't get rules anymore, and bringing an actual primarch is just business as usual.
.
The game has changed. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Staying the same isnt necessarily better either. Not changing also leads to stagnation.
I mean, I remember literal decades of people complaining about the game clock being permanently stuck at a minute to midnight m41.999 and the story never moving or changing. I remember being amazed at warmachine/hordes continuously-moving-forward story. Things changed. Nations fell. characters changed and evolved. Some (a rare few, mind!) died, and some of those didn't even come back.
It's a pretty stark difference in tone, and ties back to what Toussaint is saying about the increasingly tenuous connection with its past. Old GW was a bunch of nerds applying the satirical counterculture tropes of their era to the traditionally conservative pastime of historical wargaming along with a healthy dash of make-your-own-story roleplay. Modern GW is more interested in character-focused ongoing narratives, and so out of touch with their own roots that they gave the authoritarian ubermensch a literal halo on the front of their rulebook and then wondered why they have to remind people that fascism is bad.
Im not sure where i stand on 'the increasingly tenuous connection with its past'. To me its more a case of 'times change and Tastes change'. What worked in the 80s won't necessarily work now. Not moving forward trends to stagnation and decay. Just as bad, in my opinion.
The 'character focused narratives' for example have been a thing for 15 or 20 years. Its almost been there longer than not at this point. And its not a gw-led thing at all. It's what people want. Comics have been doing it since the 30s and the marvel superheroes that surround us now are just one expression if it. I remember meting jervis at an Irish con years ago where he talked about it. They did the 3rd Ed 'your doods, your universe' approach because they thought that what people wanted.what people actually wanted for the most part was more stories/lore focused around 'names'. Named characters, names chapters etc. Not 'your doods'. Gw simply catered. Warmachine gained ground in part because of the character-centric nature of the game and the characters intertwined stories (vlad, sorscha and the butcher, Caine, Magnus and vinters secret son etc). Malifaux is name-driven. Gw isn't an outlier here, by a long shot.
I don't think they are 'out of touch' with their roots. The satire is still there. If anything, rountree era gw is keaning into it harder than kirby era gw -The regimental standard stuff (one example) on warhammer community had plenty witty and outright funny goings-on. Personally I like that the satire is just not spoon-fed to you and highlighted in bright neon lighting TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE OBVIOUS- i find that kind of 'hand-holding' to be rather insulting and nore than a little patronising. The stuff that made the game fun is still there for self-discovery and exploring the game and finding out for and by yourself.
I find ongoing narrative interesting- as a storyteller/ GM/ Campaign player, it's another tool that I can use; though it can pose challenges. Having Morvenn Vahl and Junith Eurita means that I'm not ascending any of my girls to Abbess or Canoness Superior of the Order of Our Martyred Lady. There are five other orders without a Canoness Superior though.
In 8th, I set a campaign in Pacificus- rimward of Hydraphur on the fringe of known space; I did that to facilitate cameo appearances by BSF characters en route to or from Precipice.
I haven't run my 50 Shades of Eldar campaign yet, but Yvraine and the Ynnari working with each of the factions to recruit soldiers to her cause is a great story hook. What's interesting is that none of the Ynnari Triumvirate are ideal for Crusade play since named characters are frozen in time and can't earn Battle Honours. So Yvraine's "job" is to recruit and train generic Warlords that can take over the mantle... And then we create convenient story excuses for her to be away.
As for satire, I think it's better when we bring our own. British satire was great in the 80' and even 90's when the game was mostly a British game... But on my side of the pond, a white haired, un-helmed, saxophone playing noise marine named Kill Binton might have been a better satire than Gazkull Mag Uruk Thrakka, cuz the Thatcher satire was kinda lost on me. And Kill Binton would also be a generic Chaos Lord, so he grows via Crusade.
I didn't buy the Hasslefree Miniatures chaos Trump model... But I came very, very close.
As for the game being disconnected from its roots, my Ambull and Zoat are looking to party with some squats for the first time since '92. And don't get me wrong- mechanically we have moved away from the game's origins. 40k is less of a wargame than it has been...
Strats are magic cards, CP is mana, and I get why wargame die-hards hate that. Crusade turns 40k into an RPG, which 40k hasn't been since Rogue Trader, and I get why die-hard wargamers don't that either. This won't make me any friends on Dakka, but with the exception of 40k, I find even mediocre CCGs and RPGs far more interesting than the vast majority of wargames. I'm sure Command and Conquer and Dust are great games, and if my friends bought them, and if they had spare armies, Id play... But I,m never going to invest in it, because I,m not a Wargamer.
Deadnight wrote: -The regimental standard stuff (one example) on warhammer community had plenty witty and outright funny goings-on. Personally I like that the satire is just not spoon-fed to you and highlighted in bright neon lighting TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE OBVIOUS- i find that kind of 'hand-holding' to be rather insulting and nore than a little patronising. .
I honestly can't reconcile that stance with liking Regimental Standard. Its painfully and exactly obvious on-the-nose handholding for the 'joke,' with bright lights and everything.
Rogue Trader may have originated as a satire (i.e. throw out anything, presumably at least partially for laughs) - but I feel from 2nd (much clearer definitions of what is in and what is out) through to 5th we are on world building. (5th being I think when various existing factions got significant re-writes to their lore/character.)
Then we move more into more character-based narratives.
I mean if 3rd edition was meant to be a satire then it seemed to pass everyone by (although admittedly, we were teenagers). I think its much more reasonable to say it was trying to define "Grim Dark" in a more concrete way, given the major lore developments of 2nd edition codexes and other material. I mean what was satirical about the 2nd edition Eldar Codex? Or say the Tyranid Codex? "Its a send up of Alien/Starship troopers." "...but how do lots of descriptions of Guardsmen getting mulched send them up?"
I guess you can say Gathering Storm broke new ground for finally going past 999.M41 (initially in a big way - only for it to then be retconned back, and now... idk its basically as you were but there are Primaris and Primarchs). But I don't think this was dramatically different to say Magnus coming back or say the Damocles Campaign and various other things they were trying.
I guess for a perhaps stretched analogy - Judge Dredd was originally a satire. I get that. Once however you have people nerding out over the technicalities of what ammunition Judge guns can use - or people writing stories in the universe that have no obvious critical target, then its not really satire any more. Its just a universe. I feel 40k hit that point decades ago.
Tyel wrote: I mean if 3rd edition was meant to be a satire then it seemed to pass everyone by (although admittedly, we were teenagers). I think its much more reasonable to say it was trying to define "Grim Dark" in a more concrete way, given the major lore developments of 2nd edition codexes and other material. I mean what was satirical about the 2nd edition Eldar Codex? Or say the Tyranid Codex? "Its a send up of Alien/Starship troopers." "...but how do lots of descriptions of Guardsmen getting mulched send them up?"
The entertainment of the 90's is basically defined by missing the satire in late 80's British fiction.
I often feel any good satire in 40K has been thoroughly beaten out of the setting.
References to it sure, but I think it’s thin and stretched now.
And trying to stand its own as a serious setting, feels shallow since they don’t really want to step it up and deal with some of the setting themes.
I do like some of the in universe jokes and humour that they have put in some recent stuff.
For the more narrative, I think the super elite Space marines have hurt them more narrative within the game.
There isn’t much space for them to be super elite, when half the game is even more elite and so many guns exist that treat a space marine like a grot when it hits.
I for one wish they'd be more proud of their "pick your flavor of bad guy; the only good guys are the dirt-farming peasants." Instead they're whitewashing the Astartes into super heroes, and the only bad guys are the ecclesiarchy. Lame.
I also don't know why they can't support "your dudes" right alongside "the dudes." I love plenty of the lore with Cain and Farsight but I still created my own armies to play the game. Would love to see a return of the "here's the tools to make your own chapter" stuff return.
Edit: I haven't gotten the chance to play Crusade yet but I love TTRPG's so I appreciate GW for continuing to support it.
It's perfectly acceptable for some of the satire to fade, and for some of the in-jokes to lose their bite, especially as some of the humor might rub people the wrong way in the present day.
That being said, I feel that the rules/fluff interface is badly broken. Third edition was the first instance of this, where things written in the fluff could no longer happen due to the rules mechanics. The excuse given was that one had to regard the rules as an abstraction, but the whole form of combat was altered.
And it continues to do that with each new edition.
It's not just that the rules shift, it's that their representation of reality also shifts. Consider the Rhino. It's basically an M113 APC - a simple design modified endlessly to do all sorts of things. But look at how its performance and effectiveness has changed over time! No modern combat system could survive that level of fluctuation - people wouldn't put up with some of the weird things GW has asked Rhinos to do.
It's not just that the rules shift, it's that their representation of reality also shifts. Consider the Rhino. It's basically an M113 APC - a simple design modified endlessly to do all sorts of things. But look at how its performance and effectiveness has changed over time! No modern combat system could survive that level of fluctuation - people wouldn't put up with some of the weird things GW has asked Rhinos to do.
Such as? Serve as the base chassis for a great # of vehicles? Ferry squads about the battlefield? Or do you take exception that in some editions it's had a self-repair function? Or is there something else?
Because this isn't real life. Nor is it a game trying to simulate real life. So long as the game is fun enough? It doesn't matter what fantastical abilities GW ascribes to a Rhino that a real world M113 could never do.
PenitentJake wrote: This won't make me any friends on Dakka, but with the exception of 40k, I find even mediocre CCGs and RPGs far more interesting than the vast majority of wargames. I'm sure Command and Conquer and Dust are great games, and if my friends bought them, and if they had spare armies, Id play... But I,m never going to invest in it, because I,m not a Wargamer.
Then why not play one of the RPGs in the 40k setting, games that will do far better with the kind of character-focused story you want to tell? It seems like you're putting a ton of work into trying to bend a wargame, and specifically the matched play army-scale format for that wargame, into something it isn't and the much easier option would be to play a game that is designed to be the thing you want.
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Deadnight wrote: what people actually wanted for the most part was more stories/lore focused around 'names'. Named characters, names chapters etc. Not 'your doods'. Gw simply catered.
What some people wanted. This is a textbook example of theme park vs. sandbox design. 40k was originally a sandbox game where the official material provided a background for your games and your stories but you were expected to do your own cool things within that world. You were expected to make your own characters, convert models to customize your army, build your own terrain, etc. Modern 40kOTOH has swung hard in a theme park direction where GW hands you a carefully scripted package to follow. Choose your characters and units from the list of official options, build and paint your models exactly according to the instructions, and play standard games on standard GW terrain. There's less work to do to get started but it comes at a high price in loss of creativity.
Was this the right move by GW? Maybe. Given their continued targeting of high-turnover kids and starter box sales there's certainly a business argument to be made for dumbing down the setting and being able to sell a new customer a neat little package where all they have to do is follow the script and have a good time, that most of those 14 year olds would dump the game and go back to playing video games if they have to spend a few minutes coming up with their own ideas. But it's hardly the only right move as the immense popularity of sandbox games in other contexts demonstrates. Lots of people love having a background for creating their own stories free from the constraints of official characters and events, it's just not the same market GW is targeting.
Warmachine gained ground in part because of the character-centric nature of the game and the characters intertwined stories (vlad, sorscha and the butcher, Caine, Magnus and vinters secret son etc). Malifaux is name-driven. Gw isn't an outlier here, by a long shot.
This is just plain wrong though. Maybe you enjoyed the story aspects of Warmachine but you were in the minority here. Warmachine succeeded because it was a tournament game that had the good fortune to release at a point where GW was busy running their core product lines into the ground. 7th edition 40k was a degenerate mess of broken mechanics on top of broken mechanics, WHFB was a dead game being killed off to extract the final bits of profit, and AoS was literally unplayable without making up a bunch of house rules to finish the stuff GW didn't bother to write. The majority of Warmachine players were tournament-focused GW veterans who bailed on GW and grabbed the best tournament alternative. Few bothered to paint their models or make terrain and hardly any of them knew anything about the story beyond a sentence or two on the unit cards.
The proof here is what happened to WM/H. GW got their act together and produced something resembling a functioning game, PP started screwing up the rules, and suddenly despite all of those characters and all of that lore still being around exactly as it was WM/H faded out to the point that PP had to resort to selling 3d printed stuff to launch a new edition. If people genuinely cared about the characters of WM/H we would have seen a much larger community remain despite the rule changes by both companies.
Personally I like that the satire is just not spoon-fed to you and highlighted in bright neon lighting TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE OBVIOUS- i find that kind of 'hand-holding' to be rather insulting and nore than a little patronising.
The problem is that a lot of people don't read deeply enough to see the subtle stuff. If the superficial impression is all they get then having the superficial impression be 100% playing it straight with the fascists as heroic defenders of humanity then it gets into problematic territory really fast.
Such as? Serve as the base chassis for a great # of vehicles? Ferry squads about the battlefield? Or do you take exception that in some editions it's had a self-repair function? Or is there something else?
The rhino's effectiveness as an actual transport has certainly varied over the years. In some editions, they worked fine as transports, although with their role switching between dedicated transports or free-for-all taxis. In other editions they were just used predominantly for mobile cover. In 2nd, rhinos were mostly just used to deploy blind grenades and ram enemy tanks.
Then why not play one of the RPGs in the 40k setting, games that will do far better with the kind of character-focused story you want to tell? It seems like you're putting a ton of work into trying to bend a wargame, and specifically the matched play army-scale format for that wargame, into something it isn't and the much easier option would be to play a game that is designed to be the thing you want.
I have- I loved Dark Heresy.
But 9th ed Crusade was just as much fun, and most of the work was done for me. The amount of work I brought to the game was no more or less than the work I bring to any RPG, including Dark Heresy.
ccs wrote: Because this isn't real life. Nor is it a game trying to simulate real life. So long as the game is fun enough? It doesn't matter what fantastical abilities GW ascribes to a Rhino that a real world M113 could never do.
Obviously, it is a 'secondary world,' but as such there are still certain expectations regarding consistency.
If a Rhino is described as a battle taxi, but best functions as a battering ram, that's a problem. If it then shifts to mobile cover, that's also an issue.
The same is true of weapons and troop types. They're all over the place. A tactic that will dominate in one edition is suicide in the next. Call it GW over-correcting, but it undermines the integrity of the product. No one would tolerate an X-wing being portrayed as a nimble fighter in one set of rules and then re-released as static artillery in space.
That's the real issue with the churn - it's not just the changing mechanics, it's the massive shifts in how the secondary world operates through them. Are Dreadnoughts dominating battlefield weapons or merely up-armored Sentinels? Is shooting the focus of the game or assault combat?
I confess that I don't know. Not only do I not know what it is now, I have no idea what it will be in three years. So why "get current?"
PenitentJake wrote: But 9th ed Crusade was just as much fun, and most of the work was done for me.
Maybe, but only because you're working with some weird self-imposed limits that don't make any sense outside of the matched play world. Like, you mentioned that named characters don't get XP and Crusade upgrades but why does that have to be the case? Why do you need to play by the official rules here instead of letting named characters advance like any other character? It's not like you're playing in tournaments where everyone needs to use the standard rules but you seem to consider yourself bound by that tournament mindset. If you dumped the tournament mindset and started customizing the game to fit your needs you'd probably find yourself investing a lot more work in it.
Maybe, but only because you're working with some weird self-imposed limits that don't make any sense outside of the matched play world.
1. Using words like "weird" to describe my preferences in a game, and saying "they don't make sense" are examples of antagonistic troll-speak; my preferences don't need to make sense to you, because they are MINE. I respect your preferences, and your right to play the game the way YOU want to, so some reciprocity would be appreciated.
2. They limits aren't self imposed; they are the printed rules, and leaving as many of them alone as I can eliminates some of that "work" you think I have to do to play.
3. I understand your argument when you refer to Crusade as a Matched Play system (though for the record, I disagree). However, within the context of Crusade play vs. not-Crusade play, the misuse of the term creates confusion, and is an unusual hill to die on.
Like, you mentioned that named characters don't get XP and Crusade upgrades but why does that have to be the case? Why do you need to play by the official rules here instead of letting named characters advance like any other character?
Well, because the upgrades built into a named character represent the same types of upgrades "my dudes" earn. Named characters have a backstory already- Calgar didn't begin his career as a Marine with the gauntlets of Ultramar- they are what I see as the equivalent of a Legendary Crusade Relic. His stat buffs above and beyond a generic character of his type represent other advances. The basic principle behind the design is that in Crusade, generic characters represent relatively green units; leaders obviously have experience- a captain does have experience as a regular solder, as a sergeant, as lieutenant... But he's relatively new to his role as a Captain. By the time the unit hits Legendary, it is the EQUIVALENT of a named character.
An ACTUAL named character, on the other hand, is already legendary (or at least heroic) when they are added to your roster.
And again, you're free to disagree... And of course you will, you're Owl.
But I think that my thoughts on this particular issue probably are probably consistent with thoughts of most people who like and play Crusade; further, I think they're really obvious to most of us, and many of us are probably surprised that you can't see that it makes sense from both a fluff perspective and a mechanical perspective. The other thing a more cynical person might assume is that you DO see it, but just enjoy being contrary.
I'm not going to speculate about which of those two scenarios is true; you're entitled to your opinion... Just don't expect it to change mine
It's not like you're playing in tournaments where everyone needs to use the standard rules but you seem to consider yourself bound by that tournament mindset. If you dumped the tournament mindset and started customizing the game to fit your needs you'd probably find yourself investing a lot more work in it.
As explained above, I adhere to the rule because makes sense from both a lore and a mechanics perspective... And you're right, it would be a lot more work if I didn't adhere to the rule, which is another (albeit minor) reason that I do. The rule makes sense and feels right to me and the people I play with, so we use it.
And to be clear, the traits that I ascribe to "the tournament mindset" are a) stand-alone pick-up games, and b) making decisions about army composition with at least some thought toward optimization in order to be competitive. The former is not the way I choose to play and the later is not how I choose to build my lists. You'd have a very hard time thinking my GSC starting roster was built for competitive purposes:
Patriarch
5 x Purestrains (x3)
Platoon Command Squad
10 x Death Korps of Krieg
Supply Limit is 500, but Army weighs in at 465, so I've got room to add enhancements once the story determines which are appropriate (probably take one when the Patriarch reaches Blooded and another once the Platoon Command reaches Blooded). I won't be playing with the specific intention of racing those units to Blooded just to get the perks either- rather, I play the Mission and the Agenda, and let the upgrades come when they come. Blooded does come fast, and of course there's a chance that I can hit Blooded with both units after a single game... but that won't really affect the tactics I employ.
PenitentJake wrote: 1. Using words like "weird" to describe my preferences in a game, and saying "they don't make sense" are examples of antagonistic troll-speak; my preferences don't need to make sense to you, because they are MINE. I respect your preferences, and your right to play the game the way YOU want to, so some reciprocity would be appreciated.
I'm sorry for the choice of word there, I'm just baffled by the way you do things. You say you're 100% dedicated to your stories but then you routinely talk about limitations and obstacles that only exist in a matched play context where the story must be sacrificed to fit the constraints of a balanced pickup game against a random opponent at your local store/club. And you hype up Crusade despite all the places where it shamelessly sacrifices lore accuracy and narrative play for the sake of matched play needs. I just don't get it. I'd assumed you had no experience with narrative gaming outside of modern 40k and so even a feeble attempt at a narrative format like Crusade is better than nothing but IIRC that isn't true, you've played lots of games outside of modern 40k?
2. They limits aren't self imposed; they are the printed rules
"Use the printed rules" is a self-imposed limit in this context. In a matched play or tournament context it's an essential part of the game, whether you like it or not you play by the official rules because standardization is essential to having the system function. You can't have one game in a tournament use the standard rules while in the game next to them the players decide that the Towering nerf was overkill so they're going to ignore that part of the balance dataslate. But in an RPG (or a wargame played as an RPG) changing the rules is standard practice and it's taken for granted that every group is going to change stuff. The fact that something is in the printed rules is meaningless, any and all rules can be changed on a whim if someone feels an alternative would be better.
This is why I say you're using a matched play/tournament mindset. This isn't the first time you've brought up a case of the printed rules creating a constraint on your game but felt compelled to play by those printed rules. Remember the points vs. PL thread and your DE force where you had to go through a bunch of list revisions to make everything fit instead of just playing a 525 point army in a 500 point game? That's a textbook example of the matched play mindset, to the point that you'd rather use a point system with clear errors as long as it tells you that your 525 point army is really 500 points so you can play at the standard 500 point total the rules expect.
The basic principle behind the design is that in Crusade, generic characters represent relatively green units; leaders obviously have experience- a captain does have experience as a regular solder, as a sergeant, as lieutenant... But he's relatively new to his role as a Captain. By the time the unit hits Legendary, it is the EQUIVALENT of a named character.
So a named Imperial Guard sergeant is a legendary equivalent while a space marine chapter master with literal centuries of experience is a "relatively green unit" suitable for only basic rank until he fights a couple skirmishes? It's appropriate that only the sergeant can have artifact-level gear despite the clear fluff precedent that even the most junior chapter master has full access to the chapter's armory and routinely goes into battle with the best artifact equipment the Imperium can provide? The chapter master needs to demonstrate his value in a couple minor skirmishes before he can trade his generic power sword for the chapter's sacred relic, even though as a highly experienced captain he would have been entitled to have the relic sword?
and many of us are probably surprised that you can't see that it makes sense from both a fluff perspective and a mechanical perspective
It makes sense from a mechanical perspective in a matched play context where balance is essential and stacking up Crusade upgrades onto a unit that already has multiple special rules has a high chance of creating something overpowered. It doesn't make much sense from a mechanical perspective in a narrative context where a unit being overpowered is not an issue if that outcome fits the story. And it certainly doesn't make any sense from a fluff point of view since it presents the absurd suggestion that a highly experienced squad of grots (which has died so many times that none of the original members remain) is somehow higher ranked than a space marine chapter master with zero Crusade XP.
And, more importantly to my immediate point, it creates constraints on your story. You mentioned how the inability to advance in Crusade ranks forces the named characters to be transient participants in your story. Want them to have a bigger role? Too bad, the system doesn't want you to do that because it would be bad for matched play balance.
And to be clear, the traits that I ascribe to "the tournament mindset" are a) stand-alone pick-up games, and b) making decisions about army composition with at least some thought toward optimization in order to be competitive
c) Emphasis on standardization and what is "official". You may not be making decisions based on competitive optimization but you absolutely demonstrate the rigid adherence to the official rules and treat them as laws that must not be broken, not merely guidelines and suggestions as they are in a narrative game.
ccs wrote: Because this isn't real life. Nor is it a game trying to simulate real life. So long as the game is fun enough? It doesn't matter what fantastical abilities GW ascribes to a Rhino that a real world M113 could never do.
Obviously, it is a 'secondary world,' but as such there are still certain expectations regarding consistency.
If a Rhino is described as a battle taxi, but best functions as a battering ram, that's a problem. If it then shifts to mobile cover, that's also an issue.
You realize that you're complaining about a state of affairs from 25 years ago. Minimum. Right? Unless you're one of those who still plays 2e - then it could've been yesterday.... But for most? It was over a generation ago. And it still worked just fine as a battle taxi to boot.
There's also the fact that just because it could be used as a ram, you didn't HAVE to use it that way.
As for it being a source of mobile cover? That's not an issue. It's an issue when it stops being cover for.... reasons (ex: here in 10e). Because alive or dead, it's still a 3d object on the table that can (or should) definitely be affecting LoS.
Owl,
Not really, that's actually adhering to the "going by the book" methodology.
Deviation from that is the variable.
Both in isolation and direct comparison.
You can both adhere to "book" whilst simultaneously going by "feel"
I would prefer NOT to require a conversation as to which "variation/interpretation" of the rules is valid for the current game. I dont(due to only playing 40k with like-minded players) have to in my chosen mode of play. Unfortunately, current 40k has made me less and less interested in playing "pickup" matches. Unfortunately, I've come to the realization that I'm most assuredly not the "current" target market for 10th(or 9th for that matter). Which is OK!
Luckily 30k does what i need it to WITHOUT the need for a lengthy discussion beforehand as to what type of game we are playing.
Racerguy180 wrote: I would prefer NOT to require a conversation as to which "variation/interpretation" of the rules is valid for the current game.
That's a valid opinion but not really relevant to the person that post is about. PenitentJake exclusively plays games with a small group of people as part of Crusade campaigns, there is no pre-game conversation each time like there would be for games against random strangers at a store or club. Think of it less like matched play and more like your D&D group playing the same game for years at a time.
ccs wrote: Because this isn't real life. Nor is it a game trying to simulate real life. So long as the game is fun enough? It doesn't matter what fantastical abilities GW ascribes to a Rhino that a real world M113 could never do.
Obviously, it is a 'secondary world,' but as such there are still certain expectations regarding consistency.
If a Rhino is described as a battle taxi, but best functions as a battering ram, that's a problem. If it then shifts to mobile cover, that's also an issue.
You realize that you're complaining about a state of affairs from 25 years ago. Minimum. Right?
No I don't think so. The Rhino held significant value as a battering ram in 8th edition, when I would routinely use it to slam into Telemon and Leviathan dreadnoughts forcing them to not fire during the next turn.
And the specifics aren't really crucial to the point anyways. The overall point, I believe, is that you want the rules to support the expected behavior of a unit. Rhinos slamming into "heavy" dreadnoughts and stopping them from firing is an unexpected behavior. Anti-infantry weapons suddenly becoming comparatively more effective at shooting vehicles (something I found with my termagaunts vs. Custodes armies in 8th) is another example.
Churn (especially careless churn) often makes for unexpected behaviors.
A fictional universe doesn't need real world logic. But it needs in universe logic and coherency to be believable and immersive. I think that's what Toussaint actually said.
Of course if you're in for the competitive game and don't care it'll do nothing to you, but 40k is (was?) hopefully not just a tabletop game but an IP with the associated lore and universe. Rushing the rules may affect what the unit actually looks like as compared to the lore and its not always satisfactory.
GW churn is probably not just a problem of rules, but of minis and lore as the well to some extent. Which can be as frustrating.
leopard wrote: the double turn thing is ok in AoS, would be more of a problem in 40k where ranged combat is a much larger part of the game.
to make it work would need an activation mechanic like Chain of Command where you are not using your whole army each turn anyway for the most part - and when your command dice do give you the double turn you will be activating even fewer units now and leaving it to the dice gods how many you activate the turn after
heck triple and more turns are possible there.
however I cannot see GW ever swapping how the turn activation goes away from IGOYGO, it becomes a totally different game then and just can't see it
Double turns still skews some armies, aka one that can, in to heavy magic or heavy range builds. My LL in prior edition were brutal example of that. Stuff like cruel boyz etc lives and breaths range combat. A pure melee army has to be hyper point efficient in order to be good in AoS. Which is also while those armies do not that well most of the time.
ccs wrote: Because this isn't real life. Nor is it a game trying to simulate real life. So long as the game is fun enough? It doesn't matter what fantastical abilities GW ascribes to a Rhino that a real world M113 could never do.
Obviously, it is a 'secondary world,' but as such there are still certain expectations regarding consistency.
If a Rhino is described as a battle taxi, but best functions as a battering ram, that's a problem. If it then shifts to mobile cover, that's also an issue.
You realize that you're complaining about a state of affairs from 25 years ago. Minimum. Right?
No I don't think so. The Rhino held significant value as a battering ram in 8th edition, when I would routinely use it to slam into Telemon and Leviathan dreadnoughts forcing them to not fire during the next turn...
IIRC there was some talk that a Rhino could instagib a Stormsurge via Tank Shock in 7e (depending on how one read the rules), so it's not like weird-rules-interactions-makes-Rhino-a-battering-ram is even specific to 8e.
I don’t even think a rhino driving full force into a dreadneught or similar to distract it for a few moments why other marines get into position and then getting out of the wreck after.
How long it should lasts is debatable, but as a potentially useful tactic it should be available.
But I just think it’s GW not really having any real idea what they even are working towards for a narrative of the game.
Apple fox wrote: I don’t even think a rhino driving full force into a dreadneught or similar to distract it for a few moments why other marines get into position and then getting out of the wreck after.
How long it should lasts is debatable, but as a potentially useful tactic it should be available.
But I just think it’s GW not really having any real idea what they even are working towards for a narrative of the game.
I agree the Rhino one isn't too eggregious, although it still felt like a hack. ("Nice Telemon you got there, to bad you won't be using it next turn *Bonk*!") But the issue is when these odd cases suddenly become a units primary use case, which occasionally happens.
But really, worse yet, is when units suddenly can't perform their intended roles.
Here's a great example: Sorta halfway through 7th GW FAQd it so that units could only use a single grenade in CC with a vehicle, despite a long history of every model in base-to-base being able to do so. (The entire history of the game, I believe). All of a sudden units like Ork Tankbustas and and Eldar Fite Dragons, despite all being armed with melta bombs (or Ork equivalent, iirc), have a major portion of their entire purpose stripped from them.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: A fictional universe doesn't need real world logic. But it needs in universe logic and coherency to be believable and immersive. I think that's what Toussaint actually said.
This is correct. The Rhino was just one example of many. In the real world, vehicle crews take two or three times as long to train as infantry. Not only is there nothing remotely close to this, it's hard to imagine a geneseed-limited people like Marines decided to embrace the kamikaze vehicle lifestyle just to win a game of tabletop position.
Question: What's the best anti-armor weapon in the game?
Answer: Depends on the edition.
QED. There should be some baseline consistency to the fluff and therefore the system.
Heck, a fighter in D&D is still a fighter. The hit dice may have changed since the boxed sets of the 70s, but if you've taken a 40-year break, it's still recognizable. With 40k, I have no idea what the heck is going on. Partly that's GW's fanatical IP weirdness to protect their ludicrously overpriced models, but it's also because the same weapons, troops and vehicles function in wildly different ways.
It's like in 3rd when Hellhounds became fast attack.
What nonsense was this??? Flamethrowers are static weapons - you certainly can't expect them to project forward when you're driving at full speed. And of course we all know that flamethrowers are also the premiere anti-aircraft weapon out there.
Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.
Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.
catbarf wrote: Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.
Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.
^Unfortunately it appears that this is by design. Churn for the churn god, and all.
I'm sorry for the choice of word there, I'm just baffled by the way you do things. You say you're 100% dedicated to your stories but then you routinely talk about limitations and obstacles that only exist in a matched play context where the story must be sacrificed to fit the constraints of a balanced pickup game against a random opponent at your local store/club.
Working within those limitation is part of the fun for us, because it's an an external force that contributes to the shape the story takes. It's like writing a sonnet with all its imposed stucture in both rhyme and meter, rather than writing everything in free verse. It is part of the art form.
And you hype up Crusade despite all the places where it shamelessly sacrifices lore accuracy and narrative play for the sake of matched play needs. I just don't get it. I'd assumed you had no experience with narrative gaming outside of modern 40k and so even a feeble attempt at a narrative format like Crusade is better than nothing but IIRC that isn't true, you've played lots of games outside of modern 40k?
But you ignore all the place where Crusade contributes to lore accuracy- like the structure it provides for shadow wars in Commorragh, or the growth of a Cult, or the rites of Penance and Sainthood. Compared to that enhancement, any lore violations of lore that you might see feel relatively minor to our play group- and those that do exist (limited load outs) are products of the datacard, which is not an exclusively Crusade issue- it's one that exists in all three ways to play. So for us, Crusade is a way to bring the game CLOSER to the lore, not further from it.
But in an RPG (or a wargame played as an RPG) changing the rules is standard practice and it's taken for granted that every group is going to change stuff. The fact that something is in the printed rules is meaningless, any and all rules can be changed on a whim if someone feels an alternative would be better.
It's a given that the rules CAN be changed if needed, but I wouldn't call it standard practice. In most cases, the rules will be fine as is. Some games, especially DnD, provide multiple sets of rules to give players a selection to choose from. As an example, several editions have allowed for both random stat generation via dice or a point-based stat generation system.
This is why I say you're using a matched play/tournament mindset. This isn't the first time you've brought up a case of the printed rules creating a constraint on your game but felt compelled to play by those printed rules. Remember the points vs. PL thread and your DE force where you had to go through a bunch of list revisions to make everything fit instead of just playing a 525 point army in a 500 point game? That's a textbook example of the matched play mindset, to the point that you'd rather use a point system with clear errors as long as it tells you that your 525 point army is really 500 points so you can play at the standard 500 point total the rules expect.
I remember the thread well. It was the one where you kept saying "Give me a reason why you do this" and I'd give you a reason or two, and you'd say "But none of those are reasons" and then I'd explain why they were reasons, which you would mostly selectively ignore, and say "But you still haven't given me a reason." So I'd give you more reasons, and the whole process would repeat. I'm not going to revisit those arguments, because you didn't listen to them then and you won't now either. And the rest of us have moved on.
So a named Imperial Guard sergeant is a legendary equivalent while a space marine chapter master with literal centuries of experience is a "relatively green unit" suitable for only basic rank until he fights a couple skirmishes? It's appropriate that only the sergeant can have artifact-level gear despite the clear fluff precedent that even the most junior chapter master has full access to the chapter's armory and routinely goes into battle with the best artifact equipment the Imperium can provide? The chapter master needs to demonstrate his value in a couple minor skirmishes before he can trade his generic power sword for the chapter's sacred relic, even though as a highly experienced captain he would have been entitled to have the relic sword?
The Chapter Master isn't a green Marine; he's a green CHAPTER MASTER. In the fist battle you fight with him, he has very little experience with the responsibilities that only a Chapter Master has- he's never been the guy who decides which companies fight where for example. He's never been the guy that other Imperial forces talk to when they want the chapter to support their war effort. And if you want to reflect him learning about how to do those things, then yes, you leave room for him to grow.
Your other option (still perfectly rules legal) is to grow him from Captain, and take the Chapter Master upgrade once he hits legendary, in which case there is no room to grow once he gets the title, but you understand the growth it took to get there. It allows him to fight with the relic sword in his very first fight as a Chapter Master.
A third option is to give him the upgrade at Heroic, so that you get some growth on both sides of the title. This would actually be my preferred solution- it's the thing that feels fluffiest. This way he does get to take the Relic with him on his very first fight as a Chapter Master, but he also gets to learn one Battle Honour as a Chapter Master.
It makes sense from a mechanical perspective in a matched play context where balance is essential and stacking up Crusade upgrades onto a unit that already has multiple special rules has a high chance of creating something overpowered. It doesn't make much sense from a mechanical perspective in a narrative context where a unit being overpowered is not an issue if that outcome fits the story.
Overpowered units have an impact on the story as well as balance. When one unit is the best tool for any job, it does limit the narrative potential for other units to out-perform expectations, because your tempted from both a mechanical AND a narrative perspective to just send the hero. When that unit is more reasonably powered, it creates a narrative case for letting other units help to carry the load.
And it certainly doesn't make any sense from a fluff point of view since it presents the absurd suggestion that a highly experienced squad of grots (which has died so many times that none of the original members remain) is somehow higher ranked than a space marine chapter master with zero Crusade XP.
It's been clearly explained in multiple rules sources that being removed from the table does not mean the model is dead, only that is no longer combat effective. Now if I was an Ork player, any time a unit of Grots was wiped out, I would actually remove them from my roster and replace them with an identical green unit to represent the fact that yes, they did indeed die. And this is also a perfectly legal way to tell the story the way you think it should be told without any extra effort or house rules.
As for the other piece comparing Grots to Chapter Master, don't confuse rank with experience. As explained above, it's rules legal to earn titles at multiple points in the experience spectrum, and that empowers the player to tell the story they want to tell. In addition, 10th actually created a cool innovation, in that non-character units cap out at battle-hardened until you choose to spend RP if you want the unit to reach Heroic or Legendary... And again, if I was an Ork player, I'd choose to never spend that RP because it feels fluffier to me personally to cap grots at Battle-hardened.
And, more importantly to my immediate point, it creates constraints on your story. You mentioned how the inability to advance in Crusade ranks forces the named characters to be transient participants in your story. Want them to have a bigger role? Too bad, the system doesn't want you to do that because it would be bad for matched play balance.
And again, many narrative gamers don't see these things as limitations; we see them as a part of the artform that is narrative gaming. If we didn't want limitations to help shape our stories, we wouldn't be gaming- we'd just sit down at a word processor and bang out a short story, a novel, a play, an epic poem, a screen play or whatever.
c) Emphasis on standardization and what is "official".
Well, I can't deny that this absolutely is a part of the tournament mindset, it's not RESTRICTED to the tournament play mindset, which is why I didn't include it.
You may not be making decisions based on competitive optimization but you absolutely demonstrate the rigid adherence to the official rules and treat them as laws that must not be broken, not merely guidelines and suggestions as they are in a narrative game.
I break rules when I need to, I just try to avoid it because it's usually an unnecessary hassle, just like I can sometimes get away with using a pair of pliers to a wrench's job if I have to, but I'll always use the wrench if I've got one handy. A good example is that some factions have promotion mechanics and others don't; it's easy enough to just duplicate the promotion mechanic from one faction for a faction that doesn't have one; we do this all the time.
catbarf wrote: Individual examples aside, it's also problematic for a miniatures-based wargame when units significantly change their capabilities.
Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.
"Sorry, your dedicated anti-armor units are now anti-personnel. Your anti-personnel units are now ineffective. Happily, we have new units who can remedy these deliberate holes we blasted in your miniatures collection."
I had some hope that 4th edition would try to rectify the problems of 3rd, but I didn't care to stick around. When I decided to get back into 2nd, 5th came out, and I knew I had gotten off the carousel at the right time.
I mean, who here can't wait for XI Edition in 2026? Can we pre-order the new models yet?
I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.
It's pretty obvious that well balanced game rules are achievable - see every other non gw game..., and GW has the resources and size to do that if they wish.
edition churn is a feature. It's part of their advertising and hype strategy. It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.
But by then the corporate excitement train has swept up more bright eyed people so the churn continues.
I don't really see the point in arguing over it, GW will deliberately do it for as long as it pays.
catbarf wrote: Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.
That is incredibly unfair to GW. You've completely left out an important kind of change: when your units/models are invalidated because they no longer exist at all in the rules. How could you omit GW's generosity in giving you new opportunities to buy more GW products to replace them?
Hellebore wrote: It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.
Good use of the word calcify
I'd be interested to know how many people do this.
Since I came back to the hobby I've played 8th, 9th and 10th. I sold all my 8th edition rulebooks, but for some reason kept my 9th edition books, despite now having the 10th edition BRB and Index Cards for all my armies. I suspect I will sell them once I have codexes, but if I do ever 'calcify' it'll be on whatever the latest edition is at that time.
Do people hold on to the rules for previous editions?
I still have my 2nd Ed books. I like having the books.
Cyel wrote: Well, as long as people scream "No!" on the forums but vote "Yes!" with their wallets it means it's a successful, appropriate business model.
That's not what that means at all, as that line of argument assumes that they are achieving the best possible result with the current model, and that no other model is capable of yielding better results.
H.B.M.C. wrote: But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.
Sure can. GW though doesn't do any advertising so the full immersion ecosystem they sell uses big changes as focal engagement amongst customers.
They have become pretty good at being their own propaganda machine, moving deck chairs and using excitement itself to generate excitement.
It's quite amazing how effective their methods are given what little they are working with. But once people get into the GW hypetrain it becomes self fulfilling.
Hellebore wrote: I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.
It's pretty obvious that well balanced game rules are achievable - see every other non gw game..., and GW has the resources and size to do that if they wish.
edition churn is a feature. It's part of their advertising and hype strategy. It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.
But by then the corporate excitement train has swept up more bright eyed people so the churn continues.
I don't really see the point in arguing over it, GW will deliberately do it for as long as it pays.
This is the most obvious example I have ever seen of why this forum needs a visible like button function.
Rules churn breaking your army is an enormous problem I think and it's true we have less stated it outright.
Because re-buying a new army or be made to leave units aside or play an ineffective list because balance has changed is unfulfilling.
And I don't want to have to sell the minis I carefully painted and assembled because unfortunately they aren't part of the game any more...
Big reason why I instantly calcified on the edition I started with, even though I am well aware that it is by far not the best the game ever had. Still, I think of changing edition at one point by jumping backward onto prior to 6th edition. With all books being more or less compatible anyway.
H.B.M.C. wrote: But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.
How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.
Again, if you want to expand - give out an optional expansions for people to go crazy with. Warlord games has been doing it for something like 6 or 7 years, with a setting that is a lot less wide, in BA. And they're not nearly dying as far as I know - they even released new french plastic minis that I had to fight hard to refrain from hype buying
H.B.M.C. wrote: But you can do new editions that invigorate the brand without the need for wide sweeping changes to the core rules.
Sure can. GW though doesn't do any advertising so the full immersion ecosystem they sell uses big changes as focal engagement amongst customers.
They have become pretty good at being their own propaganda machine, moving deck chairs and using excitement itself to generate excitement.
It's quite amazing how effective their methods are given what little they are working with. But once people get into the GW hypetrain it becomes self fulfilling.
Hellebore wrote: It creates a perpetual excitement train for its audience, until they burn out and calcify on their favourite version.
Good use of the word calcify
I'd be interested to know how many people do this.
Since I came back to the hobby I've played 8th, 9th and 10th. I sold all my 8th edition rulebooks, but for some reason kept my 9th edition books, despite now having the 10th edition BRB and Index Cards for all my armies. I suspect I will sell them once I have codexes, but if I do ever 'calcify' it'll be on whatever the latest edition is at that time.
Do people hold on to the rules for previous editions?
More than you would imagine. both myself and mezmorki have huge topics on dakka about playing older editions- his is centered around 7th, mine around 5th. our group has been at it since 8th ed turned us off the GW hype train and we have only added more new players. the good thing for both of us is that 3rd through 7th ed rules and codexes are very cross compatible with only a few minor tweaks to keep it all sane. i know there is also large communities for WHFB 6th or 8th ed, BFG, 2nd ed, and epic.
vict0988 wrote: How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.
A new edition is exactly the place to include the errata from the last 3 years and fix anything that was legitimately broken. It would be better to 'invigorate' the system with new content than to take the game people are currently enjoying and replace it with a different one.
If GW had released the 10th edition starter set with the same miniatures but a rulebook that was just a clean up of the previous version, it would have still sold and they would have kept those customers who enjoyed the last edition and aren't interested in learning to play another one. Every time they make sweeping changes to the game, they risk alienating a portion of their customer base.
The fact that they do it anyway, and it keeps working for them, is insane... but they do it because it's what they think will make the most money, not because it's best for the players.
vict0988 wrote: How so? It's not very invigorating to print a new edition that includes errata from the last 3 years, super conservative changes to the three most hated things and nothing else.
A new edition is exactly the place to include the errata from the last 3 years and fix anything that was legitimately broken. It would be better to 'invigorate' the system with new content than to take the game people are currently enjoying and replace it with a different one.
If GW had released the 10th edition starter set with the same miniatures but a rulebook that was just a clean up of the previous version, it would have still sold and they would have kept those customers who enjoyed the last edition and aren't interested in learning to play another one. Every time they make sweeping changes to the game, they risk alienating a portion of their customer base.
The fact that they do it anyway, and it keeps working for them, is insane... but they do it because it's what they think will make the most money, not because it's best for the players.
I'd argue that by the end of 8th and 9th I aren't sure there was a consensus it was enjoyed. The noise on here and Reddit etc. certainly suggested the opposite.
catbarf wrote: Suddenly your army of cohesive, mutually-supporting units is an incoherent mess of irrelevant abilities, and your options are to either rework it to fit what the units actually do now, or soldier on with an army that doesn't make sense anymore.
That is incredibly unfair to GW. You've completely left out an important kind of change: when your units/models are invalidated because they no longer exist at all in the rules. How could you omit GW's generosity in giving you new opportunities to buy more GW products to replace them?
The ammount of NaCl i could spare you would make the fast food industry blush.
people get what they ask for, but they forget that they already asked for those things and don't understand that for a different outcome they need to ask for different things
Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"
Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.
Hellebore wrote: I think people have the wrong idea about edition churn.
edition churn is a feature.
This can't be overstated enough. Even if GW is very attuned to feedback, if it's all going to get tossed into a rules grab bag every few years, then how effective is feedback at all?
Fugazi wrote: This can't be overstated enough. Even if GW is very attuned to feedback, if it's all going to get tossed into a rules grab bag every few years, then how effective is feedback at all?
If the evolution was completely random then sure. But I think most editions have shown a clear attempt by GW to "solve" perceived issues of the existing editions.
11th will likely "solve" issues GW perceive in the game over the course of next year. Even if that's initially a mess, because some of those issues have been solved by FAQs, supplements etc.
Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"
Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.
So one of my hobbies is writing. I wouldn’t credit myself as being very good, but I do have several traditionally published stories (meaning someone paid me to have publishing rights).
This is relevant because the biggest part of writing is revision and the most useful tool for that is learning how to interpret feedback. Without getting too into the weeds, there’s a fairly catch-all way to view feedback;
When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn’t working, they’re wrong.
Now this is a gross simplification but, as stated, not getting too into the weeds. And while wargame design isn’t writing, the analysis process is similar. The 10th edition damage shift is a great example; lethality was ABSOLUTELY too high for 8th and 9th. But everyone had different thoughts on what it was that made the damage to high, be it increasing shots / making so effect everything / lack of meaningful terrain / lack of effective abilities to mitigate damage, so on and so forth. And in turn GW reduced damage by tweaking EVERY SINGLE LEVER which effected it. Their listening to what people said was broken was good, their attempt to fix every single issue anyone brought up for why it was broken was bad. And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.
And this is absolutely a curated issue. Because GW has the resources to identify and fix these problems effective. They just do not want to.
When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn't working, they're wrong.
^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.
That and I'll reinforce the earlier statement about the difficulties of interpreting feedback . . . especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game, but also by basically everybody who is victim to their own confirmation biasis bubbles. It's a hefty minefield to navigate.
morganfreeman wrote: . And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.
To be fair, that's not a 10th issue. Just a perennial issue that keeps slipping through GW's design process. For whatever reason, everyone having a full toolkit just doesn't occur to them.
Orks and tyranids had long stretches of no good AT. Ork especially were capped at S8 or else punching with power fists/klaws for several editions.
morganfreeman wrote: . And as such has thrown the game into a bizarre state where many armies struggle to participate and some lack any tools to tackle more than heavy infantry. Creating a problem just as bad because of a lack of accountable analysts.
To be fair, that's not a 10th issue. Just a perennial issue that keeps slipping through GW's design process. For whatever reason, everyone having a full toolkit just doesn't occur to them.
Orks and tyranids had long stretches of no good AT. Ork especially were capped at S8 or else punching with power fists/klaws for several editions.
I will never get over the 6e Tyrannofex and his Rupture Cannon. Fluffed as popping holes in Baneblades. A mighty S10... and AP4. Rage-inducing.
morganfreeman wrote:When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn’t working, they’re wrong.
Insectum7 wrote:^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.
Absolutely spot-on for any form of product design. It's a fundamental principle of UX that you don't do what the user tells you; you listen to their problems, you ascertain what their desired end state is, and then you do the design work to figure out how to best get them to that end state.
Designers should not be looking for suggestions from the peanut gallery and then directly implementing them. They should be collecting feedback to figure out where the perceived problems are, and then designing a holistic solution to address them.
Insectum7 wrote:especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game
I'd also add on that having upper management that doesn't trust your designers makes handling this situation very difficult, because there is enormous pressure to give the users exactly what they are asking for. Ideally you perform A/B testing to assess the user-proposed changes against your own concepts, and draw both qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate that your change is better even if it's not what the user requested, rather than having to essentially say 'trust me bro'.
In an austere development environment, you may not have the time and manpower to do that, and if you don't have a background in user research, you might have the methodology either.
But whatever the problem is with GW's process, it's not that the players are asking for the wrong things.
Feedback is hard. Receiving and implementing feedback is harder. Implementing feedback that is not particularly specific is hardest. I'm not in a position to know what kind of rules feedback GW receives and how it processes it. I do wonder if it is often too general, and then, when GW changes something, we say, "No! Not like that!"
Certainly some feedback on forums like Dakka is very finely tuned (or at least very specific with detailed alternatives). Some of you have even gone so far as to pen your own new or modified rule sets. But don't forget how rare you are. You are not the typical customer. You live and breathe this stuff. If GW is receiving a lot of feedback, and your well tuned feedback is a needle in a haystack of "this sucks; please change," then it may not be getting through.
It isn't hard. GW just doesn't care what people outside of the studio may want or how they play the game. How many editions back to back does GW have to find out that LoS ingoring shoting in a game about shoting is a BAD idea? How many time does GW have to learn that in a game where they have dice rolling as a supposed balancing/luck factor, having rules that circumvent that, breaks the game? How many time do they have to let people do pet projects, when other armies have rules done to "get by". Those aren't new things. People have been telling GW what about those things is bad, for at least 3 editions, and probably much longer. The speed at which GW functions is mind blowing slow, and I am taking in to account the want to make money over everything else etc. It took took them the whole 9th ed, to "find out" that some secondaries let armie double dip. And that maybe this was a bad thing. They had miracle dice for eldar in 9th, they were broken, they nerfed/fixed them and then for 10th the dude who writes the eldar rules, wrote them back in the way they break every mechanic of the game. Entire armies have their DevW weapons and units nerfed, because people/person writing the eldar rules couldn't be forced to do "6 from miracles don't count for leathel. DevW etc. In 8th it took marine player over 2 years to "explain" to GW that the way they wrote the marine rules is not just not fun to play, but also makes them buy fewer models. GW fixed the problem, and then reverted it for 9th. And the way the sm codex looks like it stays reverted for 10th too.
How many turns did/does one have to play, in 10th, vs pre nerf knights or an eldar WK with old overwatch to know what people mean by it being unfun? I think you know it after one turn one. Does GW think that people surely wouldn't use unfun mechanics GW wrote against their opponents? Armies that don't work, 9th knights that couldn't core in an edition about scoring, slow armies with no movment tricks in a world of core rules that asks for armies to be fast, how much testing is needed to find out those things? Make an edition about use of vehicles, make vehicles tougher and the release factions that can't deal with vehicles? Within a rule set that GW is writing? I get that GW wants people to play more then one army, or buy new things. But no other game is so bad, that you can practicaly throw out your army between one edition and another, bar maybe having an eldar army..
And the typical GW customer, yeah he doesn't hang around forums, reddit etc He joins, maybe get a few months of fun, and then he quits. He sees no churn, GW doesn't have to care about his problems with transition from one edition to the other, because the typical w40k player is gone. And that is the lucky guy, because there are also dudes who spend 700-1000$ on an army, it is never fun and then they get to quit. Bonus points he probably can't even properly resell the army.
When a reader tells you something isn’t working, they’re right. When a reader tells you why something isn't working, they're wrong.
^Haha. That's definitely a quote that rings true from my game developer experience.
That and I'll reinforce the earlier statement about the difficulties of interpreting feedback . . . especially by upper management types that aren't really invested in playing the game, but also by basically everybody who is victim to their own confirmation biasis bubbles. It's a hefty minefield to navigate.
But how much feed back do they need. Each time an eldar codex comes out, it tables or cripples half, or so, of existing armies turn 1. That is like a program crashing on every machine bar the newest Apple. And GW fixes are even worse. They know what the problems are, not the DevWounds core mechanics, not the overwatch mechanic, not even something like the WK rules. The problem is with the eldar miracle dice rule. But they won't change that, for some reason. Which would maybe not be okey, but something to get use to, if all armies were treated the same way. But no, somehow, GW can't fix the eldar rules, practicaly every edition I have seen, but removing an army rule from Custodes, was no problem. Nerfing the living hell out of DW, as if they were a 70% win rate army? Easy peasy. GK players ask for their hammers back, something EVERY other marine army has, something that is in EVERY GK box GW produces, nope can't give new weapon load outs even if the models exist. But when the eldar autarch had weapon load outs not covered, that had existing models, GW did add them to the game. There was no problem with that or the need to way 1-2 years for a fix.
Dudeface wrote: I'd argue that by the end of 8th and 9th I aren't sure there was a consensus it was enjoyed. The noise on here and Reddit etc. certainly suggested the opposite.
Well, yes, but ideally 8th and 9th would have been very different games to begin with, since every edition after 3rd would have been a refinement rather than making sweeping changes.
ever" would find something to complain about no matter what 
I drove through tank tracks half the car size in Peugeot P4 in lettonian half mud half sand soil, bumpy but managed no problem. Berlier and Renault iteration Grand Berlier Cargo are unsinkable, in fact the only time in 5 years I saw one broke it litteraly took a pontoon falling apart under it, and it still went like 3 kilometers with broken chassis. Peugeot 205 were used in rally and in my part of France in grapesvignes hills getting chewed at by rocks and still going. My brother took a ride through the fields with a Citroen C15 and trying to drift in said field with no other issue than getting soil all over the car. We have very sturdy stuff. 
