Ok some time has passed, and I was wondering how people felt about 7th, as compared to 6th. Was it worth the update? Has anyone's armies benefitted? Been hurt? The only thing I know much about is the Bound/Unbound thing, and was wondering how thats been working out too.

7th is the houserule edition. Most players leave out part of the rules like unbound, multiple focs etc. and you can see this reflected in tourneys

otherwise it's basically 6th with an improved challenge system, sturdier vehicles, sillier snipers and dangerous multi-storied ruins

So have you been enjoying it? Or think it was kind of a waste of an edition?

Well, 7th hasn't been good for GW.

For my friend and I 7th killed the game for us. Psykers force you to either go all in or all out at list making. The allies matrix is even worse now since it's basically "Imperium can run whatever they want" while basically nobody else can enjoy battle brother status. Except Eldar of course.

The Maelstrom missions are absolutely terrible. We played 4 games with them and every single one was decided on luck of the draw.
It really takes all the fun out of the game when it could basically just say "Play for 2 hours then after roll a die. Who ever rolled higher wins."
What's the point of playing at that point?

There are some good things about it, but after it came out we gave it a go and dropped the game almost entirely. The 40k community in my area pretty much did the same. They had 3-4 tournaments set up for 500-1000 point games to try out the rules. All tournaments were canceled because nobody showed up.

Regardless of how much someone can argue that the rules are better or more balanced than 6th, I can safely say that 7th killed our interest in my area.

yeah thats why our group calls it the houserule edition. We also avoid maelstrom of war like the plague. But on the other hand because it is so draw and luck based, it encourages non-competetive play. Too often people spend endless hours trying to wring every last drop of powergaming out of their armylists and spend lots of time tailoring it. When maelstrom of war throws all that out of the window, you might just give up and start fielding what you like instead of what is top tier, once again. It also gives low tier codexes like tyranids, dark angels and chaos a fighting chance against top tier armies like tau or space marines. As for eldar - well sadly they also take the cake here as speed and maneuverability helps a lot in maelstrom of war. Thats why eldar is the only real glaring OPed dex in 7th

KTG17 wrote:
So have you been enjoying it? Or think it was kind of a waste of an edition?

"was"? 7th isnt even 5 months old, mate. It's going to be around for a long time. My bet is at least till 2016 or something serious is going to happen to GW

 Sir Arun wrote:
yeah thats why our group calls it the houserule edition. We also avoid maelstrom of war like the plague. But on the other hand because it is so draw and luck based, it encourages non-competetive play. Too often people spend endless hours trying to wring every last drop of powergaming out of their armylists and spend lots of time tailoring it. When maelstrom of war throws all that out of the window, you might just give up and start fielding what you like instead of what is top tier, once again. It also gives low tier codexes like tyranids, dark angels and chaos a fighting chance against top tier armies like tau or space marines. As for eldar - well sadly they also take the cake here as speed and maneuverability helps a lot in maelstrom of war. Thats why eldar is the only real glaring OPed dex in 7th

Oh no, Eldar is OP in 7th? Yeah, they were in 6th, so no big surprise there.

And I've come to dislike Maelstrom of War, but I have to disagree with your statement. I have an easier time defeating/tabling my opponent using Tyranids while NOT playing Maelstrom. Tyranids lack most of the mobility necessary to win, unless you bring everything in your list to be fast. But who does that?

All-in-all though, Eldar and Tau got nerfed. My Necrons got buffed, a lot. My Tyranids got a little bit of both. I'm enjoying the edition for the most part. I will just never do a tournament even if my life depended on it. And I'm not looking forward to the rest of the 7th Ed. Codexes, if the trend continues.

 Sir Arun wrote:
7th is the houserule edition. Most players leave out part of the rules like unbound, multiple focs etc. and you can see this reflected in tourneys

otherwise it's basically 6th with an improved challenge system, sturdier vehicles, sillier snipers and dangerous multi-storied ruins

40k has been the Houserule edition for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't claim 7th is special in that regard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
For my friend and I 7th killed the game for us. Psykers force you to either go all in or all out at list making. The allies matrix is even worse now since it's basically "Imperium can run whatever they want" while basically nobody else can enjoy battle brother status. Except Eldar of course.

Except (barring specific codex related exceptions like Marines and Inquisition), the Imperium doesn't ally it takes new CADs because it's all the same faction and can't ally with itself. Sure the CADs act as Battle Brothers, but that's no different than any other army running multiple CADs of the same faction.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
7th is the houserule edition. Most players leave out part of the rules like unbound, multiple focs etc. and you can see this reflected in tourneys

otherwise it's basically 6th with an improved challenge system, sturdier vehicles, sillier snipers and dangerous multi-storied ruins

40k has been the Houserule edition for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't claim 7th is special in that regard.

Well, one could argue that it feels more-so like that, since there are a lot of unclear rules or things left out from 6th edition. But you are right, 40k has been, and probably will remain, a game of house rules.

 Sir Arun wrote:
yeah thats why our group calls it the houserule edition. We also avoid maelstrom of war like the plague. But on the other hand because it is so draw and luck based, it encourages non-competetive play. Too often people spend endless hours trying to wring every last drop of powergaming out of their armylists and spend lots of time tailoring it. When maelstrom of war throws all that out of the window, you might just give up and start fielding what you like instead of what is top tier, once again. It also gives low tier codexes like tyranids, dark angels and chaos a fighting chance against top tier armies like tau or space marines. As for eldar - well sadly they also take the cake here as speed and maneuverability helps a lot in maelstrom of war. Thats why eldar is the only real glaring OPed dex in 7th

Interestingly that's why I think Maelstrom should be played more: it gives armies that don't stand up well a better footing in the game. It's probably the best thing for balance GW's done in some time.

I really enjoy 7th edition.
It took the stuff from 6th that worked and made some fixes to improve the game.
Not everything is fixed, but hey, that would be expecting too much.

7th has some good ideas; maelstrom is a good idea, but the execution is slightly lacking and requires houserules to really become good, a more restrictive allied matrix is good, but unbound is a lazy fix to the problem of some armies being burded by really gakky troops (Tactical marines, I'm looking at you), and too much remains unfixed from 6th and earlier.

It was also $100 for a handful of tweaks and horribad brokenly, stupid irritating psykers. GW keeps incorporating the weakest elements of the fantasy ruleset into 40k, but none of the things that make fantasy better; cover being a modifier, not a save, snipers preventing Look out sir, specific weapons having multi-wound rules rather than the 2-dimensional instant death system, getting to take armour and invuln, armour saves being modified by certain weapons, rather than always working/not working at all, etc.

Instead we get psykers which dominate the game if you play heavily with them, random random randomness, armysize creep, and so on.

40k's ruleset is objectively bad, and needs an overhaul; its mechanics are obsolete compared to so many of its competitors, and unenjoyable compared to Fantasy, made by the same bloody company! I wanted, (but wasn't foolish enough to hope) that 7th would be the overhaul the game needed, butt he company's laziness, malice and incompetence remain quite concrete.

Right now, I'm in the process of trying to convince people to play 4th; it certainly isn't a paragon of balance, and still suffers from a lot of the archaic and nonsensical rules, but at least it's fun and has codexes which are heads and shoulders above present offerings, actually offering you the ability to make fluffy armies which work (mostly).

 MajorStoffer wrote:

It was also $100 for a handful of tweaks and horribad brokenly, stupid irritating psykers. GW keeps incorporating the weakest elements of the fantasy ruleset into 40k, but none of the things that make fantasy better; cover being a modifier, not a save, snipers preventing Look out sir, specific weapons having multi-wound rules rather than the 2-dimensional instant death system, getting to take armour and invuln, armour saves being modified by certain weapons, rather than always working/not working at all, etc.

Sir, you are now my favorite person, ever. <3

Thinking of Fantasy I want the movement system from there, as well as the charge rules (though without the whole "declare charges before moving" thing).

7th sucks.

7th with a lot of houserules is ok.

But the biggest problem with 7th is that half my gaming group has quit since it came out.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Thinking of Fantasy I want the movement system from there, as well as the charge rules (though without the whole "declare charges before moving" thing).

I'm still a fan of the Cover system as well as the armor reduction rules from Fantasy...

 krodarklorr wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Thinking of Fantasy I want the movement system from there, as well as the charge rules (though without the whole "declare charges before moving" thing).

I'm still a fan of the Cover system as well as the armor reduction rules from Fantasy...

Oh I'm not against those, I was just saying that something else I think that should carry over.

I've been having fun with it, but it's mostly just 6th with more stuff lumped onto it. While I love 40k and enjoy the game very much, the speed of the rules releases has kept me from buying a 7th ed rulebook yet. When the mini rulebooks drop in price I'll grab one, but til then I'll just be playing with my friends' copies.

The sheer number of books and cards and dataslates you might have at any given time kind of brings things back to 2nd edition in a way, and not exactly in a good way. There's just a lot to think about and I think a simplification/streamlining of the game is due.

What MajorStoffer said.

 Sir Arun wrote:

KTG17 wrote:
So have you been enjoying it? Or think it was kind of a waste of an edition?

"was"? 7th isnt even 5 months old, mate. It's going to be around for a long time. My bet is at least till 2016 or something serious is going to happen to GW

I meant the decision to do 7th. Based on what many are saying, it seems kind of like its '6th Edition with a few bandaids". Even its release felt the same, since they just recycled the existing DV starter set (and didn't even change the scenerios). Since I already have 6th, I wasnt going to bother with a new starter set, but had they released a new one, I would have. It just felt half-assed.

I just feel that if you are going to do a new edition, it should come wth more of a splash, and this one felt like business as usual.

But then, I didnt gauge how everyone thought of 3rd to 4th, or 4th to 5th, or 6th to 7th.

I really dont like the new psychic phase or Deamonology. I feel like both of those are a mistake. It leaves certain armies at a major disadvantage (Necrons and Tau) and makes the game even longer then it already was. I know for apocalypse matches when we had 45,000 points per side we houseruled psycher powers back to 6th edition and removed daemonology all together.

I don't have a particular preference but thats because I find it easy to ignore 7ths issues.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
yeah thats why our group calls it the houserule edition. We also avoid maelstrom of war like the plague. But on the other hand because it is so draw and luck based, it encourages non-competetive play. Too often people spend endless hours trying to wring every last drop of powergaming out of their armylists and spend lots of time tailoring it. When maelstrom of war throws all that out of the window, you might just give up and start fielding what you like instead of what is top tier, once again. It also gives low tier codexes like tyranids, dark angels and chaos a fighting chance against top tier armies like tau or space marines. As for eldar - well sadly they also take the cake here as speed and maneuverability helps a lot in maelstrom of war. Thats why eldar is the only real glaring OPed dex in 7th

Interestingly that's why I think Maelstrom should be played more: it gives armies that don't stand up well a better footing in the game. It's probably the best thing for balance GW's done in some time.

This is why they exist. It's an easy form of balancing armies by pinning victory conditions to something other than the strengths of most net-lists.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Thinking of Fantasy I want the movement system from there, as well as the charge rules (though without the whole "declare charges before moving" thing).

I'm still a fan of the Cover system as well as the armor reduction rules from Fantasy...

Oh I'm not against those, I was just saying that something else I think that should carry over.

I know, as am I. I feel 40k doesn't work realistically in a lot of areas, like Fantasy does.

Personally I feel both editions are attempts by GW to reposition the game into a sandbox, but without really any clear idea of what that means, or how to achieve it. GW's aim, aside from "Sell MOAR!", isn't really clear at all as to how they expect the game to be played, as they've left it so open that a generic "pick up" game is now a very messy affair.

6th was an edition that didn't really quite work. 5th had *major* issues and was by no means a perfect edition (Kill Points, vehicle shooting rules, wound allocation, etc), but could be made to work well enough to play, particularly with someone you never met before. 6th started to get much messier, expanding the scope of the game both downward (challenges and such) and upward (inclusion of flyers, first attempts at including superheavies in normal games, etc), while 7th took most of 6th and just started dumping anything and everything GW came out with into "normal" play. There's all the options in the world now, but there's so little focus that arranging a pickup game can take 20 mins just to decide the ground rules, and balance is worse than it has been in a decade probably.

This is to say nothing of the vastly increased cost of the game compared to just a few years ago, particularly in startup costs and the sheer amount of stuff one needs, on top of dataslates, mission cards, etc.

I think in hindsight, after more years have passed, people will remember 6th and particularly 7th as something that is "seemed cooler than it really was".

 Vaktathi wrote:
Personally I feel both editions are attempts by GW to reposition the game into a sandbox, but without really any clear idea of what that means, or how to achieve it. GW's aim, aside from "Sell MOAR!", isn't really clear at all as to how they expect the game to be played, as they've left it so open that a generic "pick up" game is now a very messy affair.

6th was an edition that didn't really quite work. 5th had *major* issues and was by no means a perfect edition (Kill Points, vehicle shooting rules, wound allocation, etc), but could be made to work well enough to play, particularly with someone you never met before. 6th started to get much messier, expanding the scope of the game both downward (challenges and such) and upward (inclusion of flyers, first attempts at including superheavies in normal games, etc), while 7th took most of 6th and just started dumping anything and everything GW came out with into "normal" play. There's all the options in the world now, but there's so little focus that arranging a pickup game can take 20 mins just to decide the ground rules, and balance is worse than it has been in a decade probably.

This is to say nothing of the vastly increased cost of the game compared to just a few years ago, particularly in startup costs and the sheer amount of stuff one needs, on top of dataslates, mission cards, etc.

I think in hindsight, after more years have passed, people will remember 6th and particularly 7th as something that is "seemed cooler than it really was".

Like 2nd edition!

 Thud wrote:
7th sucks.

7th with a lot of houserules is ok.

But the biggest problem with 7th is that half my gaming group has quit since it came out.

No offense, but you gaming group is a bunch of idiots.

Even if they disagree that 7th is an improvment over 6th (and it is, it REALLY is.) they could have just kept playing 6th as if 7th didn't happen.



7th compared to 6th is basically some rebalance of how skimmers and FMC works so they are no longet quite as absurdly overpowering, some USR cleaning, new psyker works, alternate game mode (malstorm, yes its ALTERNATE, you still got the same 6 missions from 6th too, how on earth people manage to complain about extra game modes ruining the game when the old remain the same baffles me.) and some other touches. (like the unbound/battle forge army building setups)
And the "all or nothing" psyker line of thought is a mistake, the best is a SINGLE psyker. gains the most from the random warp dice, but didnt cost much if you got out-psyked.
The only houserule I feel 7th need, is to nerf "master of ambush" trait to be just d3 infantry, rather then 3 non-vehicles, like the CSM trait. other than that everything is smooth as long you are playing with actual human beings that give a damn about having a nice game.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Thud wrote:
7th sucks.

7th with a lot of houserules is ok.

But the biggest problem with 7th is that half my gaming group has quit since it came out.

No offense, but you gaming group is a bunch of idiots.

Even if they disagree that 7th is an improvment over 6th (and it is, it REALLY is.) they could have just kept playing 6th as if 7th didn't happen.

Or, they could have just concluded that "this gak has gone too far, screw it, I'm starting Warmachine." Which they did. And they are enjoying it. If that makes them idiots in your book, then, well, mate...

Apparently now they don't have to have debates on what should and should not be allowed, alter their lists based on what's fair to take or not, or spend ludicrous amounts on, quite frankly, appallingly poorly written rules. It's like they have a hobby where they don't have to make massive amounts of effort to actually enjoy it.

Unfortunately for me, Warmachine is the only other game that has gotten serious traction around here (it's way more popular than 40k) but it doesn't appeal to me at all. Had it, I would have gone there as well. For now, I'll keep lobbying for Firestorm Armada and hope for a cool-looking 28mm game to come out.

Non-eldlar psykers actually work in 7th that's a huge plus. really 7th brough most of my areas gamers back in to start playing again.

 Thud wrote:

Apparently now they don't have to have debates on what should and should not be allowed.

Yaknow, I keep hearing this claim, but never, even for pickup games, have I needed more than 20 seconds of debates on what is "kosher", and even these 20 seconds are only because I always bring up the "master of ambush" nerf.

Are people really claiming that Maelstrom of War missions helps weaker tiered armies ITT?

The lion's share of the strongest armies in 6th edition had "mobility" as one of their defining strengths (Eldar, biker SM, FMC-Daemons, Taudar, Deldar etc).

The lion's share of the weakest armies in 6th had weak mobility as their defining strengths.

Maelstrom of War puts what attribute on a pedestal? Mobility.

I dunno how the Maelstrom missions are supposed to help Imperial Guard and every other army that doesn't have a plethora of 12+" movement options available to them.

- - - -

In any case, I think I prefer 6th edition- 7th edition is just 6th edition with a <redacted - language! --Janthkin>psychic system for me, though the fixes to Monstrous Creature deathstars was welcome.

That's not saying much though. 5th edition > 6th and 7th by a mile.

5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

I did like my old tau codex, though...

 BoomWolf wrote:


Yaknow, I keep hearing this claim, but never, even for pickup games, have I needed more than 20 seconds of debates on what is "kosher", and even these 20 seconds are only because I always bring up the "master of ambush" nerf.

Well clearly it happens somewhere. If you keep hearing it, maybe there's a reason.

Plus, it could still have been a 20 second debate that ended in both people not playing eachother because they were looking for something different. Which doesn't speak anything positive about the game either.

Also, I'd avoid calling people idiots for leaving the game. Doesn't reflect well on you if you go immediately to insults when someone says they or someone else has left the game for reasons you're not aware of.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

6th edition replaced parking lots with flyers, 2++ saves galore, broken allies shenanigans, super-heavies all over the place and overpowered xenos.

While also completely fething assault over for everyone and adding "moar random!!! forge that narrative!" to nearly everything in the game.

Never said 5th was perfect, far from it, but it beats out 6th edition.

 BlaxicanX wrote:


6th edition replaced parking lots with flyers, 2++ saves galore, super-heavies all over the place and overpowered xenos.

While also completely fething assault over for everyone and adding "moar random!!! forge that narrative!" to nearly everything in the game.

Never said 5th was perfect, far from it, but it beats out 6th edition.

Couldn't agree more.

Even just the basic concept of unit by unit resolution was so, so much better. None of this cover by model, or shooting at random models, or having to randomly determine casualties. Just remove them as you see fit and carry on.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

6th edition replaced parking lots with flyers, 2++ saves galore, broken allies shenanigans, super-heavies all over the place and overpowered xenos.

While also completely fething assault over for everyone and adding "moar random!!! forge that narrative!" to nearly everything in the game.

Never said 5th was perfect, far from it, but it beats out 6th edition.

I think it did some things better, sure, but I don't think it beats 6th universally. When compared against each other in the end I feel that they come out about even in the end and preference being individual on which they like best.

Honestly I want to see 8th just reboot 40k immediately following the Heresy and building from there, reworking the universe to include all the current armies. Building from 30k to 40k they could do so much more than just building from M40.98 to M40.99 like they keep doing. Go with a full shake up from the ground up and do a massive rework of the game like they did from 2nd to 3rd (or RT to 2nd). They have a lot of ideas that are getting better, but honestly it needs more work still and I feel the current system is just holding the game back more than it's contributing.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

5th had it's problems (so much so that I'm surprised I'm defending it...), but it was far more playable than the current game, and vehicles were at least universally useful as opposed to the very clear Skimmer/Non-Skimmer gap that has once again re-opened (as one will notice the armies that do well with lots of vehicles are the Skimmer armies or Knights, while stuff like mechanized IG is seen as thoroughly mediocre). MSU spam still exists, and, if anything, is pushed even harder with the current game (particularly in Maelstrom missions where lots of small, fast units can snag lots of board objectives). Meanwhile, the Deathstars of 7th are even better than the deathstars of 5th (barring Nob bikers).

For me its been like this:

Since coming back into the hobby shortly after 5th was released we have clocked up a lot of games.

We easily played 5th edition the most and our games were pretty close using this edition.

6th edition came along and although we had a lot of games they were all very one sided, if one of us won it would be by miles.

Got 7th edition the day it came out, so far have only had 1 game. Felt just like 6th edition.

Now playing lots more Fantasy and FoW plus just got into X-wing. I love the 40k universe but by christ their rule system needs to just be redone from scratch.

I havent played 7th.but I do know that ffg and battlefront LOVE it.

But on the other hand, havent 7th edition's codexes been pretty balanced?

I mean I dont hear players saying "ugh. the orks codex is so much worse than the space wolves codex" or "dang, why do the dark eldar get so much OP'ed stuff compared to us Grey Knights?"

 Sir Arun wrote:
But on the other hand, havent 7th edition's codexes been pretty balanced?

I mean I dont hear players saying "ugh. the orks codex is so much worse than the space wolves codex" or "dang, why do the dark eldar get so much OP'ed stuff compared to us Grey Knights?"

Grey Knights have a small internal balance issue with PAGK, and PAWG are in a weird place, but generally, yes the books are seens as more internally balanced and on a more even keel to each other from what I've see. Tau and Eldar will need some serious beatings with the NERF bat to get them into balance with the other books, but otherwise the game is coming off as more balanced if this continues, even if it will feel a bit more bland.

Narlix wrote:
Non-eldlar psykers actually work in 7th that's a huge plus. really 7th brough most of my areas gamers back in to start playing again.

how does that make sense? It's hard for secondary psykers to cast anything now.

In 6th edition and earlier, each psyker was his own guy. It was irrelevant how many you had in your army.

In 7th, having lots of psykers means one of your psykers is guaranteed to kick ass. But the others are worse because rolling 1 die for a ML1 psyker is only a 50% change of passing it - actually even less since the enemy can deny it.

In 6th, an LD8 psyker (like a sanctioned psyker or eldar warlock) had a 66.66% chance of passing his test.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

5th may have made Transports very effective, but remember that Glancing hits could still destroy them with a good roll, and Melta Guns were destroying vehicles on a 4+.


Real warfare is a mess of parking lots and MSU spam. As for Deathstars, I don't really remember that being a serious problem in 5th. 6th was far worse when it came to Deathstars.




If you look at what worked very well in 5th edition, it was pretty much:

Purifiers in Psybacks backed up by Psyrifledreads.

Mech Vets in Chimeras with Melta or Plasma Guns backed up by Manticores and Vendettas.

Plague Marines in Rhinos backed up by Obliterators and supported by Lash Sorcerers.

Deathwing (everybody gets a TH/SS)

Blood Angels Las-Plas Razorback spam

Dark Eldar Venoms & possibly Beast Pack

Drop Marines with Melta Guns and Flamers backed up by Vulkan.

Orks running the Kan Wall or Battlewagon Rush.


Every army had its own flavor. Even Sisters were in there kicking ass with 3x Exorcists. 6th edition was this horrendous amalgamation of overpowered undercosted air power (Necrons), Deathstars (O'Vesa star should never have been a thing, 2++ rerollables should never have been a thing, etc.), and Serpent Spam.


7th kind of fixed it, but not back to what made 5th edition great. It fixed it by simply fudging what made some of the former Deathstars of 6th edition work. I've been having fun with 7th, but 5th was a MUCH better game in terms of tactics required, each army having its own unique flavor, and there being a good balance between shooting and assault.

Instead of 7th, how about playing Epic with WH40k scale models (and ranges and movement scaled obviously).

-As a Tau player the worst thing about 7th is the psychic phase. Its basically a free opportunity for my opponent to kill or debuff my own guys and buff his own guys in crazy ways and which I can do barely anything about.

-2nd worst thing is the allies chart. The Tau, who are famed for wanting to be friends with everyone, can't move with 6" of anyone apart from Eldar and Necrons without the chance of freezing up.

Super Heavies being immune to standard armour pen results is stupid as well imo. Why can't I immobilise a knight?

As for what's better? I can't really think of much sadly

That's because the Tau know the Orks will never be a part of the Greater Good, and because the Imperium doesn't trust Xenos, even those who have allied with them. It's still an uneasy alliance for worlds that have betrayed the Imperium.

Daemons see them as hard-to-reach food. CSM see them as pawns or soon-to-be sacrifices. Dark Eldar see them as flesh-puppets, new things from which to learn the ways to make them whimper.

Tyranids have no allies.

Super Heavies being immune to standard armour pen results is stupid as well imo. Why can't I immobilise a knight?

Because it's a super-heavy. You need bigger guns.

The Super Heavy rules come from the Apoc relaunch during 6th, not 7th.

Psychic phase is not unlike the Magic Phase in WFB. The problem is the game doesn't have the system balanced out or enough anti-psyker stuff in the game, yet. I kind of expect to see stuff fixed more as armies get updated in the future.

For me, the only thing that 7th edition has 'fixed' from 6th is LOS, finally doing away with the 'model's eyes' requirement.

But that's offset by the fact that building an army is confusing and broken, wound allocation is broken, casualty removal is painful in mixed units, the psychic phase rules are a complete and utter shambles, walkers still suck, the terrain rules are a mess, and percentage-based, model-by-model cover is ridiculous in a squad-level game.

So no, the investment in 7th edition 2 years after 6th was not worth it. They should have waited taken another 2 years to actually finish 7th edition before releasing it.

I like the new codexes so for for 7th hate the Brb.

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


Yaknow, I keep hearing this claim, but never, even for pickup games, have I needed more than 20 seconds of debates on what is "kosher", and even these 20 seconds are only because I always bring up the "master of ambush" nerf.

Well clearly it happens somewhere. If you keep hearing it, maybe there's a reason.

Plus, it could still have been a 20 second debate that ended in both people not playing eachother because they were looking for something different. Which doesn't speak anything positive about the game either.

Also, I'd avoid calling people idiots for leaving the game. Doesn't reflect well on you if you go immediately to insults when someone says they or someone else has left the game for reasons you're not aware of.

Except I hear it as a reason for why people -stopped- playing, meaning the people that bring it up are apparently the people who do not actually play, and therefor not having these "debats" to begin with.

Also, while I might have overstepped there, and should have written it better. the REASON (given) for quitting was silly and irrational, if there was something else outside of it its a different story, but as it was written these people decided to quit "because 7th sucks" (only relation given was that 7th got released and they quit)
And given that I know for a fact that some people have quit because their "new codex sucks", before even seeing it, let alone playing it once, I have having an easy time assuming people lately tend to go on a "hate for hate's sake" calls, rather than being rational or reasonable.

7-th is way better than 6-th. Less stupid challenges. No broken focussed fire and precision shots on everyone. Sturdier vehicles, maelstorm missions and everything scoring provided much more opportunities for listbuilding allowing units that have never seen the board before, to show their heads above the ground - heck, the game was all about lurking in the backfield and than flat-outing on a point in the last turn in 6 ed. Now THAT was stupid.

Psy phase is a mixed bag. On one hand, it makes a single psycher more vulnerable to getting countered by 30 dtw dice, but on the other hand, you now don't get reliable power casts with no drawbacks - and that's great. This system is plain better and more interesting than just ld checks and an unstoppable buff-machine.

I have an oldschool greentide list pulling wins vs tau and eldar from time to time and basically winning an objective game vs imperial knights. And that's telling something.

Besides, new codexes are much-much better than middle 6-th ed ones. And i like the formation system.

I've found 7th to be extremely fun, minus the damn dataslates for everything. It made some interesting tweaks and made for a more enjoyable game. It ain't perfect, but feth it

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:


Yaknow, I keep hearing this claim, but never, even for pickup games, have I needed more than 20 seconds of debates on what is "kosher", and even these 20 seconds are only because I always bring up the "master of ambush" nerf.

Well clearly it happens somewhere. If you keep hearing it, maybe there's a reason.

Plus, it could still have been a 20 second debate that ended in both people not playing eachother because they were looking for something different. Which doesn't speak anything positive about the game either.

Also, I'd avoid calling people idiots for leaving the game. Doesn't reflect well on you if you go immediately to insults when someone says they or someone else has left the game for reasons you're not aware of.

Except I hear it as a reason for why people -stopped- playing, meaning the people that bring it up are apparently the people who do not actually play, and therefor not having these "debats" to begin with.

Also, while I might have overstepped there, and should have written it better. the REASON (given) for quitting was silly and irrational, if there was something else outside of it its a different story, but as it was written these people decided to quit "because 7th sucks" (only relation given was that 7th got released and they quit)
And given that I know for a fact that some people have quit because their "new codex sucks", before even seeing it, let alone playing it once, I have having an easy time assuming people lately tend to go on a "hate for hate's sake" calls, rather than being rational or reasonable.

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

 BoomWolf wrote:
the REASON (given) for quitting was silly and irrational

these people decided to quit "because 7th sucks"

I don't know about you, but quitting something because it sucks is pretty rational and not silly.

Maybe you should stop looking for reasons to be angry at people for leaving 40k for any number of reasons. Face it, 7th isn't that good of an edition, in a game going through its 7th incarnation, with increasingly expensive rules and models, in a world filled with cheaper and better alternatives.

Go read Thud's posts again. The reasons given are to vague for you to jump on them for being idiotic, silly, or irrational. You have no idea given those posts the specific reasons, just that they disliked 7th.

At least you're not calling people's posts idiotic anymore, but silly and irrational are still a pretty big stretch.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

You know it is entirely possible to look at a rulebook and decide you don't like the game in the same way you can look at a menu and know you wont like a meal without trying it based on the ingredients listed. You're presenting legitimate arguments in a deliberately absurd way.

I've played a single game of 6th when it came out and found the wound resolution and removal from the front mechanics tedious. I know 7th hasn't changed in any way I would consider meaningful way so I know I will dislike that.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

Because there are several ways you can view the rulebook (some more legal than others) without actually buying it?

You can make an educated guess for having played this game for god knows how long and you can objectively see the rules are a half-arsed pile of crap compared to everything else that is out there right now.

Edit: And Jono makes the same point at the same time.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

So true.

But the bright side is that i'm the guy who bought that ork army.

 koooaei wrote:
Besides, new codexes are much-much better than middle 6-th ed ones. And i like the formation system.

care to elaborate?

jonolikespie 616944 7240773 a99529f9d9fdef06eca5f2ea8a980887. wrote:

You know it is entirely possible to look at a rulebook and decide you don't like the game in the same way you can look at a menu and know you wont like a meal without trying it based on the ingredients listed. You're presenting legitimate arguments in a deliberately absurd way.

I've played a single game of 6th when it came out and found the wound resolution and removal from the front mechanics tedious. I know 7th hasn't changed in any way I would consider meaningful way so I know I will dislike that.

You know, I've heard these "it doesn't take a chef to say that a meal is bad"-type of arguments before, but they tend to fall flat on so many opinions based on ignorance.
There are so many people who assume Lords of Wars are broken OP, but most of them only ever refer to Please don't use this term on Dakka like this. Reds8n C'Tan, refer to what people on the web says and assumes all LoW are broken.
I could go on and on with countless examples but the fact is that many of them don't have a single clue about what they're talking about or provides examples that are ludicrous:

"My truck blew up so that's 10S 4 hits on my Orks!"
Okaaay, so your enemy dedicated AP2/1 to kill a truck with 10 useless Boyz? What about the rest of your army? He doesn't have better things to shoot at? Then you're either badly losing or greatly winning, if that's your opponent priority, and don't give me the excuse that they are open-topped so they can be blown by AC's and the like, the odds are still small and priorities is still wrong.
"I hate the new Mob Rule! It kills so much, this one time, my Nob was the only one standing!"
So an average of D6 (3,5) S4 hits that brings you down to what, 1-2 wounds? This is not counting saves and FNP. So an average tax of 0-2 models to become essentially fearless is a massive nerf that cripples your entire army?

There was a lot of people who looked at the Tau and Eldar books and called them out to be bad dexes, it was almost universally agreed upon that the Wraith Knight was a gakky unit that would almost never see any table action, so yeah, while I agree upon the sentiment that one is able to judge a book by reading the rules, I'll still judge the vast majority of the player base to be incapable of doing so.

Its not hard to prove your own opinion right when you're using examples that entirely back your point.

What about everyone who read the rules, and looked at the changes like how cover was treated, or the changes to army list construction and made an informed opinion to not play because of that?

But yeah, it really doesn't take a chef to know you're eating dog gak. By the same token, you don't need to be a game designer to know 40k 7th is poorly designed, nor do you need to play 12, 120, or 1200 games to understand the difference form the last edition and decide its not worth the $100 price tag.

I think 7th is what 6th aspired to be. That said, I don't really think there are many too glaring issues with the rules per se (still not sold on Flyers; they're just a stupid scheme to sell plastic to everyone), but it's the balance or rather the lack of it that irks me.

My mate plays straight up Eldar with nothing too special in his list (3 WS, no wraithknights etc) yet fighting him always feels like an uphill battle. The power level of the codex without even going OTT with spamming is just ridiculous compared to any other codex. I'd very much like to enjoy a game against him but it always feels like a chore and in the end I usually lose badly. Unfortunately that has somewhat killed some of the fun for me.

But anyway, that's not so much of a 7th vs 6th issue but a "what's wrong with 40k currently" sort of issue.

I also have to mention that I quite like the Maelstrom of War missions. For me they bring a whole new tactical layer in list building and actual playing, however random the cards might be.

Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

The 6th edition books are intended for 7th edition, if the theme and cover style suggest. 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th all had their own scheme for book format. 7th books seem to be following this fairly closely.

 Blacksails wrote:
Its not hard to prove your own opinion right when you're using examples that entirely back your point.

What about everyone who read the rules, and looked at the changes like how cover was treated, or the changes to army list construction and made an informed opinion to not play because of that?

But yeah, it really doesn't take a chef to know you're eating dog gak. By the same token, you don't need to be a game designer to know 40k 7th is poorly designed, nor do you need to play 12, 120, or 1200 games to understand the difference form the last edition and decide its not worth the $100 price tag.

Why should I provide examples which didn't prove my point? Wouldn't you call me out for contradicting myself then?
How is it that dakka is so willing to accept any of those nonsense stories about Mob Rule that wipes out entire armies, but when ever someone complain about how dakka is negatively biased on their critique and the vast majority of negative statements are hyperbole, then you're either flagged as a GW apologist, an arrogant douche who "crafts" examples or what ever.

I will go on the record saying that if you don't like 7th because you don't find it fun, then fine, that's 100% legit and you won't ever hear me say that you should keep pouring money into an expensive hobby when you don't like it.
However, where I'll start getting jumped is when people compare 7th to any edition from 3rd and up, and say 7th is poorly made in comparison to those, when the former edition where much, MUCH, more inferior from balance and rule perspective. 3rd and 4th (especially 4th for me) had some fun and simple rules, but they came at the cost of major balance issues. The balance in both editions where horrible and you'd be a fool to think otherwise and don't even get started on 4th edition's "cover category" discussions, you fool yourself into believing that you actually spend 20+ minutes talking to an opponent before the game in 7th? How a bout spending 10-50+ minutes ON AVERAGE on each friggin' game EVERYTIME you had a new opponent to a pick up game in 4th, because you needed to be absolute sure that you both where 100% solid about what was defined as what, in order to avoid mid game discussions.
Since the atrocious rollercoaster rides of no balance we finally see GW tone down the absurd amount of special rules and streamlining the armies. Now we hear complaints about lack of flavour and what not, and you know what, fine if you had more fun in what ever edition you perceive more flavourful then have fun with that edition or quit because you don't like the new one, but don't for a second think that they ever had more balance or a better system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

The 6th edition books are intended for 7th edition, if the theme and cover style suggest. 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th all had their own scheme for book format. 7th books seem to be following this fairly closely.

I sincerely hope you're wrong on this matter. Their Ghosthelm doesn't seem like it's intended for 7th edition (it's too strong) and bringing Eldar down to 7th edition powerlevel like the rest of the other codices would really make 7th for a better game. Right now it's like, most armies can compete fairly well and there isn't really any army that roflstomps every single other army in the game with little to no difficulty... What's that? Eldar? Oh, yeah.. umh.. ignore those from the equation.

Weither or not a book was designed for 7th is irrelevant if now, in 7th ed, it is still the most current and therefore only legal codex to be used for that army. If it wasn't designed for 7th, or 7th not designed to work with it, then there should have been an update when 7th landed.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

The 6th edition books are intended for 7th edition, if the theme and cover style suggest. 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th all had their own scheme for book format. 7th books seem to be following this fairly closely.

Codex: Eldar was released in June of 2013, which puts its development as likely starting before 7th (if GW is still running a 15 month cycle on codexes that is). And just because the cover design is similar the internal layout of 6th and 7th edition books are drastically different. So no, Eldar was not likely "designed for 7th".

 Zewrath wrote:


Why should I provide examples which didn't prove my point? Wouldn't you call me out for contradicting myself then?
How is it that dakka is so willing to accept any of those nonsense stories about Mob Rule that wipes out entire armies, but when ever someone complain about how dakka is negatively biased on their critique and the vast majority of negative statements are hyperbole, then you're either flagged as a GW apologist, an arrogant douche who "crafts" examples or what ever.

No, but coming up entirely with examples that back your point completely ignores that your original point was built entirely on your own experiences and doesn't reflect anything more than that, while you seem to think its more representative of the entire gaming population.

Some people make uninformed decisions, some people make informed ones. Avoid blanket statements or hyperbolic ones like 'An absurd number of people do 'X'. In my experience, everyone I know has left the game after making an informed decision.

So no, I wouldn't accuse you of being contradictory. I'm accusing you of starting off with a completely false premise, or at the very least, a hyperbolic one with no real backing outside of your own experience.

Just because you read things on the internet that are poorly written doesn't mean you should start doing the same.

I will go on the record saying that if you don't like 7th because you don't find it fun, then fine, that's 100% legit and you won't ever hear me say that you should keep pouring money into an expensive hobby when you don't like it.

Well on this we can agree.

However, where I'll start getting jumped is when people compare 7th to any edition from 3rd and up, and say 7th is poorly made in comparison to those, when the former edition where much, MUCH, more inferior from balance and rule perspective. 3rd and 4th (especially 4th for me) had some fun and simple rules, but they came at the cost of major balance issues. The balance in both editions where horrible and you'd be a fool to think otherwise and don't even get started on 4th edition's "cover category" discussions, you fool yourself into believing that you actually spend 20+ minutes talking to an opponent before the game in 7th? How a bout spending 10-50+ minutes ON AVERAGE on each friggin' game EVERYTIME you had a new opponent to a pick up game in 4th, because you needed to be absolute sure that you both where 100% solid about what was defined as what, in order to avoid mid game discussions.
Since the atrocious rollercoaster rides of no balance we finally see GW tone down the absurd amount of special rules and streamlining the armies. Now we hear complaints about lack of flavour and what not, and you know what, fine if you had more fun in what ever edition you perceive more flavourful then have fun with that edition or quit because you don't like the new one, but don't for a second think that they ever had more balance or a better system.

Here's the thing; comparing editions is natural, as ideally, each one becomes an improvement over the last in some capacity. Considering that the core mechanics of the game have hardly changed since 3rd (or so I'm told, I'm a 5th entry), its entirely acceptable to demand a noticeable increase in the quality of the rules. Instead, each edition is largely flawed in some serious ways, but different in where those flaws are in each edition.

7th made some steps forward with some areas over 6th. It also made several steps back. The end result is an edition that feels very similar with some ideas from fantasy ported over and an abomination of army list construction. As an edition, 7th is no more balanced than 6th; the basic idea of a psychic phase puts a few armies on their back foot and means they can't participate. That's a pretty poor design idea if you ask me. As a player from 5th, I can assure you the core rules of 5th were cleaner, simpler, and faster. This led to better gameplay overall, marred by vehicles that were too strong.

Each edition GW has put out has had issues. No one is saying 3rd, or 4th, or 5th was perfect. Far from it. But the move to 6th and reverting to a skirmish based ruleset designed around company level engagements, and the inclusion of LoW in 7th is a pretty bad design move. Its slow, clunky, actually hinders 'narrative forging' and promotes gimmicky gameplay rather than tactical gameplay.

As for my own personal opinion, I felt 5th was a solid edition. The two big balance issues were vehicles and assault. Both of those issues only needed minor changes in order to be brought in line. Codex balance issues aside, the most important aspect for a game is the actual gameplay, and 5th was leaps and bounds better than 6th or 7th. All of this model by model nonsense and randomly determining casualties or removing them from the front is tedious, slow, and does nothing to enhance tactical gameplay.

In a game as large as 40k is intended, you simply can't use a skirmish based ruleset. You need to use a proper company level ruleset and add in the few skirmish elements as needed. That's what 5th did right that 6th and 7th didn't.

Oh, and army construction. What a joke 7th is in that regards.

I really don't get your insistence that army list construction is a joke in 7th Blacksails. I get that you don't like it, but since it's mostly the same as the past with the differences being "no limit on the number of FOCs you can use as long as you meet the requirements", "taking different FOCs for an army nets different bonuses" and "codexes have special FOCs that allow the army to be differently organized", I'm failing to see what makes you call it an "abortion".

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

Straw man argument, red herrings, take your pick. It's a wonderful sauce.

What "countless people on the internet" says about why, how, when they quit is completely and utterly irrelevant here. Not only are your claims unfalsifiable, but you have also purposefully phrased them to make your straw men appear stupider.

Argue arguments, not invented patsies that are conveniently stupid with arguments full of holes.

40k isn't national service, it's a hobby. The guys in my group who quit couldn't be bothered with it anymore. They didn't like what 40k has become, so they switched over to a game they do like. I still like 40k enough to keep playing, so I do. That's it. There's nothing stupid, irrational, or unreasonable about it.

Still sucks for me, though. As, in a metaphysical sense, the implosion of my gaming group leaves me with fewer opponents, making it harder to arrange games, giving me less enjoyment from 40k.

 Thud wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

Straw man argument, red herrings, take your pick. It's a wonderful sauce.

What "countless people on the internet" says about why, how, when they quit is completely and utterly irrelevant here. Not only are your claims unfalsifiable, but you have also purposefully phrased them to make your straw men appear stupider.

Argue arguments, not invented patsies that are conveniently stupid with arguments full of holes.

40k isn't national service, it's a hobby. The guys in my group who quit couldn't be bothered with it anymore. They didn't like what 40k has become, so they switched over to a game they do like. I still like 40k enough to keep playing, so I do. That's it. There's nothing stupid, irrational, or unreasonable about it.

Still sucks for me, though. As, in a metaphysical sense, the implosion of my gaming group leaves me with fewer opponents, making it harder to arrange games, giving me less enjoyment from 40k.

 Orock wrote:
Fast attack became all but impossible. Lets take a common scenario. Your truck blows up, who knew that 6+ ramshackle wouldn't save you huh? So you take 10 str 4 hits. 5 wounds. Now you take pinning. Fail because the nob is LD 7. So heap some more onto that. Then you fail morale. Have some more dead orks. I have had 3 times where the only member left was the nob.

Not quite invented patsies, the forum is full of people like this. Also, this forum seems to think that arguements is something you can only bring in some form of scientifical indisputable evidence and dismiss any arguements based on frequent observations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blacksails wrote:

Each edition GW has put out has had issues. No one is saying 3rd, or 4th, or 5th was perfect. Far from it. But the move to 6th and reverting to a skirmish based ruleset designed around company level engagements, and the inclusion of LoW in 7th is a pretty bad design move. Its slow, clunky, actually hinders 'narrative forging' and promotes gimmicky gameplay rather than tactical gameplay.

As for my own personal opinion, I felt 5th was a solid edition. The two big balance issues were vehicles and assault. Both of those issues only needed minor changes in order to be brought in line. Codex balance issues aside, the most important aspect for a game is the actual gameplay, and 5th was leaps and bounds better than 6th or 7th. All of this model by model nonsense and randomly determining casualties or removing them from the front is tedious, slow, and does nothing to enhance tactical gameplay.

In a game as large as 40k is intended, you simply can't use a skirmish based ruleset. You need to use a proper company level ruleset and add in the few skirmish elements as needed. That's what 5th did right that 6th and 7th didn't.

Oh, and army construction. What a joke 7th is in that regards.

Right, so we can agree to disagree on this matter then.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I really don't get your insistence that army list construction is a joke in 7th Blacksails. I get that you don't like it, but since it's mostly the same as the past with the differences being "no limit on the number of FOCs you can use as long as you meet the requirements", "taking different FOCs for an army nets different bonuses" and "codexes have special FOCs that allow the army to be differently organized", I'm failing to see what makes you call it an "abortion".

Well Unbound is a joke because its the absence of army list construction rules. That alone leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Multiple CADs is a lesser version of Unbound, being that you have to fill your troop and HQ slots before adding another, but it still leaves you questioning why there's even a FoC in the first place if the whole purpose was to challenge players to make an army that fit within the confines of a chart. It just defeats the purpose of even imposing a limitation in the first place. Why bother having elites, fast attack and heavy support, when you given enough troops and HQs (which in strong armies aren't a tax) you have effectively unlimited options for strong FA, elites, or HS units.

The entirely different FoC we're seeing now are what should have been implemented a long time ago. The difference being that the game would also do away with multiple CADs and force you to pick one chart or another. Its like how 30k armies are constructed. There are multiple FoC to choose from, and each comes with benefits and/or drawbacks. That's a good way of doing army construction.

As I've said multiple times across many threads, GW has a lot of good ideas, its the execution that kills it. With the different charts we have now, it falls flat with being able to take multiple of them, or that they're only found in expensive supplements. That and not every army has them...yet, I suppose.

Basically, there was nothing wrong with 5th's way of building armies. It had two limits; the chart and points. Now, the only limit is points, essentially. It doesn't help balance the game, and the better way to give players more options is to offer different types of FoC to choose from and stick with one.

That's why I see it is as a joke.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zewrath wrote:

Right, so we can agree to disagree on this matter then.

Sure.

 Zewrath wrote:

 Thud wrote:

If you want the highground with regards to rationality or being reasonable, you need to dial it down with the logical fallacies.

And what about the fact that there are an absurd amount of people who judge 7th based on rumors and what they read on the web. I've seen countless of people saying that,
- they "quit some editions ago but 7th looks stupid"
-"Haven't played it yet, it looks like 6th so it's half assed and I won't bother."
-"Unbound is stupid, I quit when I heard that"
-"It's impossible to play pick up games because it clearly takes 20+ minutes to discuss with my oponent before we start a game"
-"Flyers looks dumb, and so does Super Heavies, I am going to assume that they can 1 shot half my army and they are totally OP"
-"I played 2 games of 7th edition, with the same lists I used from 6th, the same missions from 6th, it felt like 6th edition, I am totally shocked and appalled, and immidieatly quit playing 7th"
-"Daemonolgy is OP, I don't care that it takes 3 WC and any doubles causes perils, everyone will use them and I think it sounds broken. I also saw this wierd video on youtube where some random dudes plays with the wrong rules of 7th, summons 2k points. I don't care if that list still lost and had 0 offensive potential and still lost to a dude who made the worst SM list ever concieved"
-"In my shop my Ork/GK/what ever list that just got released player used the same list as before and now it doesn't work anymore, that's clearly a nerf and GW sucks. He sold his army"

If only there was a thread specifically for people listing the exact reasons for leaving 40k. Perhaps something like that could be educational.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/603134.page

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
5th was a mess of parking lots, death stars and MSU spam. Not to mention people constantly jumping from whatever was the Best Marine book of the month to the next one to gain an advantage in the game.

5th may have made Transports very effective, but remember that Glancing hits could still destroy them with a good roll, and Melta Guns were destroying vehicles on a 4+.


Real warfare is a mess of parking lots and MSU spam. As for Deathstars, I don't really remember that being a serious problem in 5th. 6th was far worse when it came to Deathstars.




If you look at what worked very well in 5th edition, it was pretty much:

Purifiers in Psybacks backed up by Psyrifledreads.

Mech Vets in Chimeras with Melta or Plasma Guns backed up by Manticores and Vendettas.

Plague Marines in Rhinos backed up by Obliterators and supported by Lash Sorcerers.

Deathwing (everybody gets a TH/SS)

Blood Angels Las-Plas Razorback spam

Dark Eldar Venoms & possibly Beast Pack

Drop Marines with Melta Guns and Flamers backed up by Vulkan.

Orks running the Kan Wall or Battlewagon Rush.

Not Dark Angels, they were stuck with 4th edition TH/SS for quite sometime and Terminators were always a niche army, there's a reason why they were the worst of Space marines for the longest time since they couldn't get razorback spam with dakkadreads. Not to mention Tyranids were just boned by DE and transporthammer, Tau were pretty meh, Eldar was pretty meh (though both were meant to take advantage of 4th's skimmer rules which made them horribly OP then..)

Typically it was either "Have good mech or go home"

Is 7th better than 6th?

Simple answer, Yes.

Why? A majority of the rules, even though small tweeks from 6th are better.
Charging into/through cover is better
FMC grounding tests are better (markerlight hit grounding you was stupid)
Challenges are better with the overspill.
Vehicles are better as it's harder for them to blow up.

Psychic powers are better, and here is why.
Yes, they are better, as they are NOT as powerfull!
You can not cast all the powers you have each turn.
You can attempt to stop all powers, not just the ones targeted at you. True it may not have much of a chance, but you have some chance.
Thought.... it requires more thought for what to do. In 6th the Eldar player with four psychers could cast all their powers, given their two units all the re-rolls they wanted. Now if they roll a 1 on the d6 they may only be able to get two of the four powers they want that turn off, and even on a 6 may not get them all.
To all the Tau and Necron players, yes you cannot compete in the phase, but they have spent points on people with these powers, which may not work, you spent the points on people with guns, which may not hit, so you have both spent points on things which give you a chance to win.

Now there are some problems with codex's and the Eldar being the main one. Yes it seems overpowered, and WHY does a shiled fire further than most guns, LETS GET THE ERRATA OUT WHICH SAY THERE WAS A TYPO AND THE SHEILD IS 6" NOT 60"

I have a player at my club who wont buy the new Ork codex, as he hates the 'mob rule' and can't play with his all bike army anymore. I think he's an idiot ONLY FOR NOT TRYING IT.
I've played with the orks, and the Mob Rule did not bother me, neither does the change in how your army of composed. As I can look at the book and see what goes with what and how I can make a list from that.
Maybe I have the benifit of not playing orks since 2nd ed (When I came back in 6th I would not play them until a new codex came out, not due to not liking it, but it was so old and made for two editions previous, I thought I would just wait for the new book, and play CSM & Daemons till then. when it did come out, I got it and played with it) so I could not compare it to the previous editions, so could not hate it. I think it's fun, and has multiple play styles in it, with loads of possabilities.

Why do the posts that are positive of 7th edition always refer to people who don't as "idiots"?

 Accolade wrote:
Why do the posts that are positive of 7th edition always refer to people who don't as "idiots"?

Because when ad hominem is all ya got ad hominem is all you'll use.

 Zewrath wrote:
Not quite invented patsies, the forum is full of people like this. Also, this forum seems to think that arguements is something you can only bring in some form of scientifical indisputable evidence and dismiss any arguements based on frequent observations.

Is that the best you can do?

When I called you on straw man arguments, you up the ante and create a straw man Thud?

Try harder.

 Blacksails wrote:
Well Unbound is a joke because its the absence of army list construction rules. That alone leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I guess it's different perspectives but I see Unbound as a great narrative tool, and a great way for new players to get into the game with just the stuff they think is cool. I get that it can be abused, but I haven't seen anyone actually do it.

 Blacksails wrote:
Multiple CADs is a lesser version of Unbound, being that you have to fill your troop and HQ slots before adding another, but it still leaves you questioning why there's even a FoC in the first place if the whole purpose was to challenge players to make an army that fit within the confines of a chart. It just defeats the purpose of even imposing a limitation in the first place. Why bother having elites, fast attack and heavy support, when you given enough troops and HQs (which in strong armies aren't a tax) you have effectively unlimited options for strong FA, elites, or HS units.

About the only army I can see right now that benefits from the proposed idea of multiple CADs is the Eldar army. And even with a single CAD they're a monster just because of how broken the Wave Serpent is right now. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see the multiple CAD thing being a benefit for anyone else to that same degree. And we've had ways to take multiple FOCs a long time now, they've just taken it and gave it clear cut rules on how it works and how it all interacts now.

 Blacksails wrote:
The entirely different FoC we're seeing now are what should have been implemented a long time ago. The difference being that the game would also do away with multiple CADs and force you to pick one chart or another. Its like how 30k armies are constructed. There are multiple FoC to choose from, and each comes with benefits and/or drawbacks. That's a good way of doing army construction.

Actually 30k has a single FOC, but can take Rites of War with specific models that give bonuses for certain things (like Deep Strike on Terminators) but pair it with restrictions.

 Blacksails wrote:
As I've said multiple times across many threads, GW has a lot of good ideas, its the execution that kills it. With the different charts we have now, it falls flat with being able to take multiple of them, or that they're only found in expensive supplements. That and not every army has them...yet, I suppose.

I agree the execution isn't perfect, but I still wouldn't call it an "abortion". It's good, it's just not perfect.

 Blacksails wrote:
Basically, there was nothing wrong with 5th's way of building armies. It had two limits; the chart and points. Now, the only limit is points, essentially. It doesn't help balance the game, and the better way to give players more options is to offer different types of FoC to choose from and stick with one.

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

 Blacksails wrote:
That's why I see it is as a joke.

I guess I'm just not seeing it as being so dark.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Accolade wrote:
Why do the posts that are positive of 7th edition always refer to people who don't as "idiots"?

I'm fairly fond of 7th and don't call people idiots.

My biggest gripe about 7th (beyond them maybe needing a little more time to more tightly tune how things were written) is that I wish it came with a list of changes for what is different from 6th so I'm not hunting for things that were removed completely.

 MWHistorian wrote:

If only there was a thread specifically for people listing the exact reasons for leaving 40k. Perhaps something like that could be educational.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/603134.page

While it was an interesting read, the subject wasn't about people leaving GW, it's about how people make wrongful claims about 7th edition with opinions based on hyperbole and ignorance.

@Clockworkzion: you're pretty nice and I've never seen you be attacking towards posters, I should probably not have said "always." I've just seen "idiots" popping up multiple times from some of defenders of 7th and I'm wondering why it's necessary for people to be arguing like that.

 Accolade wrote:
@Clockworkzion: you're pretty nice and I've never seen you be attacking towards posters, I should probably not have said "always." I've just seen "idiots" popping up multiple times from some of defenders of 7th and I'm wondering why it's necessary for people to be arguing like that.

I appreciate that you noticed. I try very hard to attack points, and not people, as well as try to make sure I don't post while wearing my bum as a hat. Honestly, I figured you weren't meaning "everyone" who likes 7th, but I felt that offering a less aggressive post was still in order.

Honestly I feel the biggest issue with 40k lies not as heavily in the core rules but in the codexes. If they stick to the toned down, more balanced books like these others have been I feel the game will come out feeling a lot better, even with the issues the core rules do have.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I guess it's different perspectives but I see Unbound as a great narrative tool, and a great way for new players to get into the game with just the stuff they think is cool. I get that it can be abused, but I haven't seen anyone actually do it.

I don't agree with either of those points any deeper than as bandaids for the current state of the game/GW. Unbound is nice for new players, but the real solution would be to make the game for accessible in terms of prices, starter boxes, and starter rules/scenarios.

As for the narrative aspect, I also don't buy it. The game is naturally narrative, and the FoC is a very logical, narrative-centric way to build an army. The solution to certain builds not being capable in traditional charts was to include more force org swapping/trading or offering different charts altogether. There's not a whole lot Unbound actually does that you couldn't do before it was codified. You always had the option to just play with whatever you want if your opponent was cool with it.

And really, Unbound as a rule is about as lazy as it gets. It'd be like reading the rules for Monopoly about how to travel around the board, and then have a paragraph right after telling you you have the option to ignore it and just pick your favourite properties. Its the absense of rules writing. Its just...lazy.

About the only army I can see right now that benefits from the proposed idea of multiple CADs is the Eldar army. And even with a single CAD they're a monster just because of how broken the Wave Serpent is right now. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I don't see the multiple CAD thing being a benefit for anyone else to that same degree. And we've had ways to take multiple FOCs a long time now, they've just taken it and gave it clear cut rules on how it works and how it all interacts now.

Its not so much it being a balance issue as it is a game design issue. It begs the question why you have a chart in the first place if your only constraint is taking more troops and HQ. Any army can benefit given they have strong troops/HQ, which is a number. IG can easily fill their mandatory slots with cheap and effective units and just spam whatever other slot they feel like.

It just feels like its killing diversity in being forced to explore a full Codex to bring an army at the 2000pts, where you quickly max out on your slots, forcing you to find solutions elsewhere. Then again, the balance of the game doesn't help in either situation, so its a bit of a moot point until the game balances itself out.

Actually 30k has a single FOC, but can take Rites of War with specific models that give bonuses for certain things (like Deep Strike on Terminators) but pair it with restrictions.

I thought the new books added different charts entirely, some with multiple LoW, or more fortifications? I could be mistaken, but I swore my HH book 2 has different charts.

Either way, its a great idea and should have been implemented a long time ago.

I agree the execution isn't perfect, but I still wouldn't call it an "abortion". It's good, it's just not perfect.

Did I actually say abortion? If I did, that was a little strong, but I'll stick with joke. And I'll add lazy.

Again, the new modified charts are cool and a good idea. They'd be awesome if multiple CADs went away, Unbound dissappeared from the annals of history, and allies took a beating from the nerf bat and changed in some significant way.

Then you'd have multiple ways to build an army (picture a core of 'common' charts with minor variations and bonuses and then each codex would have one or two special ones) without breaking anything and giving the player a challenge to make everything work.

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

I can't remember such a thing myself. I think it was in 6th that double force org above 2k was introduced. Wasn't a fan, but at least it was restricted both in the number of charts and the points level.

I guess I'm just not seeing it as being so dark.

Its just really, super lazy. Poor game design, and feels like they're reaching for something new and exciting to move product when the old system worked perfectly and other areas needed greater attention than the perfectly functional 5th ed FoC.

 Zewrath wrote:
How is it that dakka is so willing to accept any of those nonsense stories about Mob Rule that wipes out entire armies, but when ever someone complain about how dakka is negatively biased on their critique and the vast majority of negative statements are hyperbole, then you're either flagged as a GW apologist, an arrogant douche who "crafts" examples or what ever.

'Dakka' is not a single, compound entity with a single opinion on anything. The fact that there are people in this very thread with differing opinions on 7th edition should be ample illustration of that fact.

..., but don't for a second think that they ever had more balance or a better system.

A 'better' system is entirely subjective.

For me, 5th edition was a 'better' system, because it had finally started moving towards being a squad-level game, with more rules interacting at a unit level instead of mucking about with individual models. 6th and 7th edition have been a massive step backwards from that. Mixed armour forcing armour saves to be taken one at a time, cover being calculated for individual models, individual movement rates within units... it's messy, and slows things down.

That combined with the fact that 7th was clearly rushed out unfinished, and the apparent disinterest on GW's part in providing any sort of errata or FAQ support, does leave me rather nostalgic for 5th edition. YMMV.

 Thud wrote:

 Zewrath wrote:
Not quite invented patsies, the forum is full of people like this. Also, this forum seems to think that arguements is something you can only bring in some form of scientifical indisputable evidence and dismiss any arguements based on frequent observations.

Is that the best you can do?

When I called you on straw man arguments, you up the ante and create a straw man Thud?

Try harder.

Zzz. Not really, you also missed the point, but what ever floats your boat.

 Blacksails wrote:

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

I can't remember such a thing myself. I think it was in 6th that double force org above 2k was introduced.

Nope. It was in there from 3rd edition (when the FOC was first introduced)

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

The 6th edition books are intended for 7th edition, if the theme and cover style suggest. 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th all had their own scheme for book format. 7th books seem to be following this fairly closely.

Codex: Eldar was released in June of 2013, which puts its development as likely starting before 7th (if GW is still running a 15 month cycle on codexes that is). And just because the cover design is similar the internal layout of 6th and 7th edition books are drastically different. So no, Eldar was not likely "designed for 7th".

I disagree. This is not a valid argument to say Eldar werent designed for 7th.

Yes, the internal layout is very different. But mostly it's visual stuff like miniature pics instead of artwork, armory after photo section instead of before it, removal of armylist section etc.

If you look at the FAQ/Errata for most armies, there's very little updating from 6th to 7th. Just one liners got added for psykers "may choose daemonology discipline", and some keywords changed to faction instead of army etc.

Only real new thing 7th ed codexes bring to the game is formations and tactical objectives for maelstrom of war.

Eldar also arent in any actual need of updating except being the only codex GW released to date in their 25 year history where a version from a previous edition is too powerful in the new one and actually has to be toned down

 Sir Arun wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Eldar haven't been updated yet though. They are a 6th ed book, iirc.

The 6th edition books are intended for 7th edition, if the theme and cover style suggest. 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th all had their own scheme for book format. 7th books seem to be following this fairly closely.

Codex: Eldar was released in June of 2013, which puts its development as likely starting before 7th (if GW is still running a 15 month cycle on codexes that is). And just because the cover design is similar the internal layout of 6th and 7th edition books are drastically different. So no, Eldar was not likely "designed for 7th".

I disagree. This is not a valid argument to say Eldar werent designed for 7th.

Yes, the internal layout is very different. But mostly it's visual stuff like miniature pics instead of artwork, armory after photo section instead of before it, removal of armylist section etc.

If you look at the FAQ/Errata for most armies, there's very little updating from 6th to 7th. Just one liners got added for psykers "may choose daemonology discipline", and some keywords changed to faction instead of army etc.

Only real new thing 7th ed codexes bring to the game is formations and tactical objectives for maelstrom of war.

Eldar also arent in any actual need of updating except being the only codex GW released to date in their 25 year history where a version from a previous edition is too powerful in the new one and actually has to be toned down

What about chaos 3.5?

3.5 armies didn't seem to be better then eldar 4th ed build or nid spaming cheap carnifexs and infiltrating stealers.
Also the 3.5 codex was never played in 5th. chaos and DA were the last two codex in 4th ed, just before I started to play.

I never played 6th, but I definitely liked 4th/5th better than 7th.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great improvements in the game. I love Hull Points and only being able to one-shot vehicles with high-AP weapons. There are several thing like this that are vast improvements.

But wound allocation is so backwards that it's actually painful. I loved 3rd/4th edition's wound allocation. Defender picks his dead, majority cover. So fast, so easy. Now wound allocation requires a ridiculous amount of measuring, re-measuring, rolling individual saves, rolling look out-sirs, randomizing. It's a mess.

Fix that, and you have a pretty solid edition though.

 docdoom77 wrote:
I never played 6th, but I definitely liked 4th/5th better than 7th.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great improvements in the game. I love Hull Points and only being able to one-shot vehicles with high-AP weapons. There are several thing like this that are vast improvements.

But wound allocation is so backwards that it's actually painful. I loved 3rd/4th edition's wound allocation. Defender picks his dead, majority cover. So fast, so easy. Now wound allocation requires a ridiculous amount of measuring, re-measuring, rolling individual saves, rolling look out-sirs, randomizing. It's a mess.

Fix that, and you have a pretty solid edition though.

On the other hand there was no pre-measuring in 4th. I'm pretty sure there was no pre-measuring in 5th either.

So a lot of times you'd end up making stupid moves or firing at stuff out of range, and all those target priority tests in 4th edition made life hell. Not to mention unkillable holofield vehicles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
My biggest gripe about 7th (beyond them maybe needing a little more time to more tightly tune how things were written) is that I wish it came with a list of changes for what is different from 6th so I'm not hunting for things that were removed completely.

Check out my article in my sig for that list

It wasn't that hard to premeasure range in 5th. You just have to learn how to do it without breaking any rules.

 Sir Arun wrote:


On the other hand there was no pre-measuring in 4th. I'm pretty sure there was no pre-measuring in 5th either.

So a lot of times you'd end up making stupid moves or firing at stuff out of range, and all those target priority tests in 4th edition made life hell. Not to mention unkillable holofield vehicles.

Pre-measuring is one of the things I like. Giving combat weapons a regular stat-line was great. The ONLY thing I have real problem with is wound allocation. It's like it was designed to slow down the game and complicate a simple process for no real advantage.

It won't stop me from playing, but it does strip some enjoyment from the game and I hope they consider moving back to something simpler when 8th rolls around.

 Blacksails wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I guess it's different perspectives but I see Unbound as a great narrative tool, and a great way for new players to get into the game with just the stuff they think is cool. I get that it can be abused, but I haven't seen anyone actually do it.

I don't agree with either of those points any deeper than as bandaids for the current state of the game/GW. Unbound is nice for new players, but the real solution would be to make the game for accessible in terms of prices, starter boxes, and starter rules/scenarios.

As for the narrative aspect, I also don't buy it. The game is naturally narrative, and the FoC is a very logical, narrative-centric way to build an army. The solution to certain builds not being capable in traditional charts was to include more force org swapping/trading or offering different charts altogether. There's not a whole lot Unbound actually does that you couldn't do before it was codified. You always had the option to just play with whatever you want if your opponent was cool with it.

The FOC doesn't let me play an all Assault Marine army unless I'm running BA. And it's not just Marines either, if I want to run an army of Priests, Repentia and Penitent Engines the only way I can play it as an army is Unbound. I'm sure people have plenty of armies they've wanted to do that they couldn't before but can with unbound that don't break the game for an easy win.

And I agree that those things for new players would be better, but they take time and development. In the mean time a bandaid for new players that doesn't require extra money to play (like Kill Team does) is good.

 Blacksails wrote:
Its not so much it being a balance issue as it is a game design issue. It begs the question why you have a chart in the first place if your only constraint is taking more troops and HQ. Any army can benefit given they have strong troops/HQ, which is a number. IG can easily fill their mandatory slots with cheap and effective units and just spam whatever other slot they feel like.

Again, Eldar are the only ones who seem to come out head and shoulders on this. I don't see many other armies that benefit from it that much. Kind of like how I see the unbound Riptide army being the only one that actually benefits from abusing the Unbound system. Sure there are probably others who can try, but they don't come close to the levels that those two armies can abuse those systems right now.

 Blacksails wrote:
It just feels like its killing diversity in being forced to explore a full Codex to bring an army at the 2000pts, where you quickly max out on your slots, forcing you to find solutions elsewhere. Then again, the balance of the game doesn't help in either situation, so its a bit of a moot point until the game balances itself out.

Or it's not forcing players to take units they don't like just to make their army effective. I get what you're saying, but that really is something that should be restricted to competitive play, not all play in general.

 Blacksails wrote:

Actually 30k has a single FOC, but can take Rites of War with specific models that give bonuses for certain things (like Deep Strike on Terminators) but pair it with restrictions.

I thought the new books added different charts entirely, some with multiple LoW, or more fortifications? I could be mistaken, but I swore my HH book 2 has different charts.

Either way, its a great idea and should have been implemented a long time ago.

I haven't seen the new books, so maybe they did, but I do know that every Legion thus far has Legion specific Rites of War.

And I agree, new and optional FOCs are something we needed two editions ago, but I'll take improvements where I can get them.

 Blacksails wrote:

I agree the execution isn't perfect, but I still wouldn't call it an "abortion". It's good, it's just not perfect.

Did I actually say abortion? If I did, that was a little strong, but I'll stick with joke. And I'll add lazy.

You did use it at one point, yes.

 Blacksails wrote:
Again, the new modified charts are cool and a good idea. They'd be awesome if multiple CADs went away, Unbound dissappeared from the annals of history, and allies took a beating from the nerf bat and changed in some significant way.

Then you'd have multiple ways to build an army (picture a core of 'common' charts with minor variations and bonuses and then each codex would have one or two special ones) without breaking anything and giving the player a challenge to make everything work.

I agree with everything but the "challenge" part as I've never seen it really be a challenge to fit things into an army, or fill an army out. And even without the FOC most armies aren't effective just spamming a bunch of the same thing over and over.

 Blacksails wrote:

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

I can't remember such a thing myself. I think it was in 6th that double force org above 2k was introduced. Wasn't a fan, but at least it was restricted both in the number of charts and the points level.

I'll have to take a look at a codex in a few hours when I get home and can look at the FOC stuff again, but I want to say there was a way to take more than one FOC in the rules.

 Blacksails wrote:

I guess I'm just not seeing it as being so dark.

Its just really, super lazy. Poor game design, and feels like they're reaching for something new and exciting to move product when the old system worked perfectly and other areas needed greater attention than the perfectly functional 5th ed FoC.

I don't think it's lazy as much as it feels like development got cut short. Maybe there really is a push to scrub Matt Ward's name off things since he left, or maybe the higher ups got nervous and rushed it out the door. I can't really say, but it doesn't feel lazy, just unfinished.


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 insaniak wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

I can't remember such a thing myself. I think it was in 6th that double force org above 2k was introduced.

Nope. It was in there from 3rd edition (when the FOC was first introduced)

Guess I don't have to look it up. I think it's just one of those rules that people generally ignored or glossed over.


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 Sir Arun wrote:
*snip*

You've done little to prove that Eldar were written for 7th honestly. Really it's more likely that because 7th is so heavily built on 6th that little updating needed to be done, not that a codex that was released over a year before the new edition was had that edition in mind when the edition looks like it hasn't even cooked long enough to stop bleeding.

Don't worry ladies and gents in one more year we will be complaining about 8th edition 40k.

I have a few gripes with 7th, though I'm hard pressed to pin a lot of my complaints on the core rules.

I just think 7th coincides with other trends that bother me a lot more. (Mostly prices, but also a multi-source "gotta catch 'em all" approach to rules, the turn away from hobby center stores, etc.) When I say "I haven't played much since 7th edition," it's more a convenient signifier of time, rather then anything to do with the rules itself.

7th is much more flexible than 6th. But some glaring lack of consistent rules (psychic unit/model, terrain) are still a problem GW seems to not identify.
Overall, I rather the newer edition.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

It only mentions such for games above 2500pts+, far beyond what most people play, and if you're up at that points level, most people just play Apoc. Running multiple FoC's is a very recent thing for 40k.

 docdoom77 wrote:
I never played 6th, but I definitely liked 4th/5th better than 7th.

Don't get me wrong, there are some great improvements in the game. I love Hull Points and only being able to one-shot vehicles with high-AP weapons. There are several thing like this that are vast improvements.

Personally, this is really my least favorite thing. The current setup does make heavy tanks very hard to kill, but if it's not at least frontal AV13, or can't sit in the open with a 3+ jink save, vehicles are simply way too easy to plink to death with multishot heavy anti-infantry weapons, while the *actual* AT guns are less effective than they were before, and are often not significantly better than much lighter weapons relative to their cost (e.g it takes an average of 9 S7 hits to kill an AV12 vehicle, but it takes an average of 6 S10 AP1 hits to explode it or 4.5 to glance it to death, but the S10 AP1 gun is likely far more expensive and limited)

Just got off work and I'm not in the mood to do a line by line, so I'll just sum up my feelings and response to your post, Clockwork.

While Unbound allows for certain, specific and fluffy armies to be played that previously weren't, its otherwise a very poorly written addition to the game. Maybe I'm just picky, but I don't believe in half-assed jobs, and Unbound feels very much like the easiest route in giving players more options. The solution is to create more flexible codices with more troop choices or swapping not tied to special characters, and/or the widespread use of varied FoC.

The issue I have is that GW has had decades to figure out how to make the codex system work and develop constantly better editions. Instead, we get random changes and additions, coupled with codices that change for no rhyme or reason. Much of the problems with the FoC (or lack there of) are exacerbated by poor external codex balance, and to a lesser extent, internal codex balance. Your Eldar example is good for this; Eldar do benefit the most, but they'd benefit the most from just about any change at the moment. With a such a strong basic transport and good troops, coupled with excellent units in various slots means they're very flexible.

On the plus side, we definitely agree on some of the positives, or at least the direction they should be going in (partly, anyways). I'll never slag someone for liking something, but I truly believe Unbound is an awful addition, game design/mechanically speaking. Multiple CADs aren't as bad, but I'd much prefer something like single detachment plus an improved/balanced allies system.

But hey, I'm just the grumpy guy that still dislikes flyers. Oh, and my IG codex removed all the cool arty options. Totally not bitter.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I'm at least 85% sure you could still take a second FOC in 5th. I'd have to dig out a 5th ed codex to check, but I'm positive there was a bit in there about using more than one FOC.

It only mentions such for games above 2500pts+, far beyond what most people play, and if you're up at that points level, most people just play Apoc. Running multiple FoC's is a very recent thing for 40k.

It's not that it's a more recent thing, but a more common thing since the points restriction is gone.


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 Blacksails wrote:
Just got off work and I'm not in the mood to do a line by line, so I'll just sum up my feelings and response to your post, Clockwork.

That's fair.

 Blacksails wrote:
While Unbound allows for certain, specific and fluffy armies to be played that previously weren't, its otherwise a very poorly written addition to the game. Maybe I'm just picky, but I don't believe in half-assed jobs, and Unbound feels very much like the easiest route in giving players more options. The solution is to create more flexible codices with more troop choices or swapping not tied to special characters, and/or the widespread use of varied FoC.

With the loss of swapping in codexes we reach a problem in that regard. And it feels like they're trying a lot of different options to try and open the game up for players. Maybe when we have more FOCs to play with Unbound will disappear, but for now I can't fault it for being a short term fix.

 Blacksails wrote:
The issue I have is that GW has had decades to figure out how to make the codex system work and develop constantly better editions. Instead, we get random changes and additions, coupled with codices that change for no rhyme or reason. Much of the problems with the FoC (or lack there of) are exacerbated by poor external codex balance, and to a lesser extent, internal codex balance. Your Eldar example is good for this; Eldar do benefit the most, but they'd benefit the most from just about any change at the moment. With a such a strong basic transport and good troops, coupled with excellent units in various slots means they're very flexible.

Just to play devil's advocate, the only developer who has been there long enough to really fit the criteria of what you've said is Jervis Johnson. And he's not exactly a great rules writer on his own. If it was the same team this entire time I'd agree, but it's not. And it isn't helped that they seem to be reluctant to chuck the system out and redo it post 3rd. I feel a lot of the problems we have are because they're so unwilling to just get rid of it and build a better system from scratch.

 Blacksails wrote:
On the plus side, we definitely agree on some of the positives, or at least the direction they should be going in (partly, anyways). I'll never slag someone for liking something, but I truly believe Unbound is an awful addition, game design/mechanically speaking. Multiple CADs aren't as bad, but I'd much prefer something like single detachment plus an improved/balanced allies system.

I think it's a fine addition, and the problem is more in the codexes than the concept. Especially since FOCs get bonuses that Unbound doesn't. On a side note, I actually wouldn't be surprised if after every army has a FOC if Battle Forged and Unbound were scrapped from the game.

 Blacksails wrote:
But hey, I'm just the grumpy guy that still dislikes flyers. Oh, and my IG codex removed all the cool arty options. Totally not bitter.

I have 2.5k of Sisters sitting on a shelf right now because in my local meta they are so far down tier wise that they've fallen off the ladder. Something should be said for my move to Tyranids being an improvement. So I feel you on the "totally not bitter" thing.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

It's not that it's a more recent thing, but a more common thing since the points restriction is gone.

I would say, for any practical purposes, it's a recent thing. I don't know of anybody that played a multi-FoC game prior to the last couple years. If they played a big point game, they just played Apoc, if they didn't, they stuck to one FoC. The only exception I recall was during 4th edition when we tried playing a Baneblade with the original FW rules before Apocalypse came out (SH's needed their own 2nd FoC so your opponent got to use one too), and that felt very awkward at the time.

 Blacksails wrote:

But hey, I'm just the grumpy guy that still dislikes flyers. Oh, and my IG codex removed all the cool arty options. Totally not bitter.

Not gonna lie, between the dropping of several arty tanks (meaning I can only use them if people don't throw a shitstorm over FW), the nerfing of the Chimera and Hydra, and otherwise copy-paste nature of the 6E IG codex, it pretty much killed my enthusiasm for playing Codex IG armies and I've been sticking with FW lists and people who are OK with them almost exclusively.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would say, for any practical purposes, it's a recent thing. I don't know of anybody that played a multi-FoC game prior to the last couple years. If they played a big point game, they just played Apoc, if they didn't, they stuck to one FoC.

There were plenty of people playing big games before Apocalypse was released.

 insaniak wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would say, for any practical purposes, it's a recent thing. I don't know of anybody that played a multi-FoC game prior to the last couple years. If they played a big point game, they just played Apoc, if they didn't, they stuck to one FoC.

There were plenty of people playing big games before Apocalypse was released.

I didn't say they weren't, bit if we're talking 5E then Apoc had already been out for a while, having been released in 4th edition. Prior to 2006/7, I simply never participated in game big enough to warrant multiple FoC's or Apocalypse rules so can't say what other people may have used.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Personally, this is really my least favorite thing. The current setup does make heavy tanks very hard to kill, but if it's not at least frontal AV13, or can't sit in the open with a 3+ jink save, vehicles are simply way too easy to plink to death with multishot heavy anti-infantry weapons, while the *actual* AT guns are less effective than they were before, and are often not significantly better than much lighter weapons relative to their cost (e.g it takes an average of 9 S7 hits to kill an AV12 vehicle, but it takes an average of 6 S10 AP1 hits to explode it or 4.5 to glance it to death, but the S10 AP1 gun is likely far more expensive and limited)

I can see that, but for me, I like the more predictable nature of vehicle death in this addition. Without Hull Points, vehicles could blow up on the first shot or last through a dozen penetrating hits. With hull points, you don't have to rely on the damage chart for a kill. I like that. It's definitely a matter of taste though.

I dislike both editions.

6th brought far too much stuff that I despise:
- Fliers
- Allies
- Terrible wound-allocation system (whoot, I didn't think my games were lasting long enough - now I have all the joy of micromanaging the exact position of every single model in a unit. Also, why can a single character absorb every wound from a flamer or blast?)
- Overwatch
- Snapshots
- Melee weapons, already overpriced in 5th, now made even worse with AP3.
- Challenge mechanic added, because they couldn't let it just ruin just one game system.
- Random Psychic Powers
- Random Charge Distance
- Random, Random RANDOM!!!

I'm sure I can think of think of some more, but those will do for now.

Thing is, 7th did nothing to address... well any of my problems with 6th. And, charging full price for what amounted to a glorified errata, certainly didn't help matters.

In terms of my problems with 7th:
- Psychic powers still random, and many are even more ludicrous.
- Entire psychic phase, but without any attempt to balance the rest of the game around it.
- Everyone scores! Because, 5th actually provided a reason for people to take more than minimum troops... so let's scrap that.
- Unbound. Sod off and die.
- Maelstrom is an interesting concept, but horribly executed to the point where starting cards can easily determine the outcome of a match. Also, more random, because there wasn't quite enough in the game already.
- Random wound allocation when a vehicle explodes. Ok, whichever idiot wrote this deserves to have his head slammed in a car door.
- So many pointless special rules. Why does Fear still exist? And, who decided it would be a good idea to have a special rule that does literally nothing except provide 2 other special rules?
- The only positive I can think of are that charging through cover is now (slightly) less random, and Move Through Cover actually works properly.

I think it's fair to say I wasn't enamoured with 6th. And, as far as I'm concerned, 7th was 3 steps forward then one step off a cliff.

Kangodo wrote:
I really enjoy 7th edition.
It took the stuff from 6th that worked and made some fixes to improve the game.
Not everything is fixed, but hey, that would be expecting too much.

I'm loving it.

I prefer the new psychic power mechanic instead of leadership checks.
I don't miss area terrain.
Vehicles are more durable.
I enjoy the unified rules for pyschic powers, instead of every army having a different set of powers to draw from.
I enjoy the new missions, including Maelstrom.
Winning the average game can be more about objectives than killing everything.
The BRB isn't nearly as heavy, and I don't have to flip through tons of fluff to find rules.
The MiniBRB is an exact copy of the BRB so finding stuff is easier if you move between the two.

 adamsouza wrote:

The MiniBRB is an exact copy of the BRB so finding stuff is easier if you move between the two.

That's been the case since they started doing the mini rulebooks back in 4th edition.

Well, to me, 7th tries to go back to heart of the game as it was made at the very beginning; allow the players to play what they want and have fun together.

Rules were never important for GW game designers. In 7th, they made quite a clear answer; just talk with your "opponent" so that you make a game suitable to both. Tourneys aren't dead, but now organizers must make things crystal clear for their players.

Yes, Maelstrom of War is quite random. That's because randomness is an important part for GW game designers. After all, rolling plenty of die is fun, that's what they say. They also wrote a lot about the importance of the D6 in their games, and I think it's why they kept it all the way. Besides, not knowing what you will have as your primary objectives forces you to play differently - untill now when I play that kind of game, I find I'm acting very differently from another when objectives are all determined since the very beginning and not drawed "blind" from the deck of cards.

So no, to me, 7th is not "bs". In fact, a lot of things make some sense when I think about it. I believe there is something "written" between the lines, something not intended by Kirby. That's the feeling of Apocalypse games; players who know that kind of games very well understand exactly what is the true purpose behind Unbound games. They know that true freedom can come only whe you take care not trampling on the other's.

That's what it truly means to play together.

Sure, it sucks for the competition. But then...was it truly meant for this in any way? Take a look at Warmachine/Horde. The way Privateer Press handle this is very different...because it was meant that way from the very beginning.

Better to accept what 40k is (and, to me, always was) and roll with it...or without it, once and for all.

That Games Workshop might have intended or consciously wanted 40K to be broken and terribly written doesn't mean that the game isn't.

I honestly think "broken" is an overstatement when at worst it's about the same quality as before or better. As for "terribly written" that is subjective as all get out.

It's about the same as 6th, which was in turn garbage compared to 5th. Everything is subjective, yes. Doesn't mean every argument is logically consistent though.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Everything is subjective.

I wouldn't say "everything", but almost everything is, yes. As such I find many present their subjective opinions as objective facts.

Randomness and 'forging the narrative' might be the 'heart' of GW game philosophy, in fact I'm sure it is, but the majority of gamers seem to not be looking for that in a game and GW need to realize that.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
It's about the same as 6th, which was in turn garbage compared to 5th. Everything is subjective, yes. Doesn't mean every argument is logically consistent though.

Personally I felt that 5th was a bland uninspired mess that promoted boring, static play styles. I feel 6th helped shift us away from that a fair bit, and 7th fixed where 6th went too far with the vehicle nerf.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Personally I felt that 5th was a bland uninspired mess that promoted boring, static play styles.

Indeed, because 6th edition certainly did not promote boring, static play styles like entire armies completely ignoring the movement phase or flyer spam, and it certainly did not invalidate massive swaths of the game's playstyle (assault) in favor of one particular playstyle (shooting) or make death-stars even more prominent than they were in 5th by throwing 2++'s around like candy via allies shenanigans.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Everything is subjective.

I wouldn't say "everything", but almost everything is, yes. As such I find many present their subjective opinions as objective facts.

So basically you're just playing semantics?

Not really. I just don't like it when people post things as if they are facts and not opinions.

So essentially, if it werent for the near unkillable skimmers, 4th edition was the BASED 40k edition. EVER.

 Sarouan wrote:
Well, to me, 7th tries to go back to heart of the game as it was made at the very beginning; allow the players to play what they want and have fun together.

Rules were never important for GW game designers. In 7th, they made quite a clear answer; just talk with your "opponent" so that you make a game suitable to both. Tourneys aren't dead, but now organizers must make things crystal clear for their players.

So, why bother with rules at all?

If your "rules" are going to be badly-written, convoluted drivel filled with pointless randomness, atrocious balance and basically amount to 'do what you like', then what's the point?

They might as well just give you the models and let you forge the narrative by moving them around a table making 'pew pew' noises.

 Sarouan wrote:

Yes, Maelstrom of War is quite random. That's because randomness is an important part for GW game designers.

I agree - it saves them the bother of actually balancing anything.

 Sarouan wrote:
After all, rolling plenty of die is fun, that's what they say.

They also say 'forge the narrative' a lot.

Here's the thing - rolling dice can be fun when it makes players more involved in the game. Hence why rolling to hit and to wound is a good idea. However, rolling dice can also take players out of the game and, God forbid, make it harder for them to 'forge the narrative'. This happens when dice are used to determine things that have no business being random, or end up just punishing them. e.g. Random Warlord Traits make little sense - especially if a player is trying to use the same character over multiple games. Similarly, random charge distance just punishes players for rolling badly. And, random victory points in a maelstrom missions is just a horrible idea - since it means players frequently receive unequal rewards for completing the same mission objectives. This is just bad game design. It doesn't make players feel more involved, it makes them feel cheated.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Everything is subjective.

I wouldn't say "everything", but almost everything is, yes. As such I find many present their subjective opinions as objective facts.

So basically you're just playing semantics?

Not really. I just don't like it when people post things as if they are facts and not opinions.

It might as well be a fact until someone challenges it with a decent counter-argument. Neither I nor anyone else is obligated to add "imo" to the end of every post they make. It should be an obvious given that ultimately these are all opinions and observations.

 Sir Arun wrote:
So essentially, if it werent for the near unkillable skimmers, 4th edition was the BASED 40k edition. EVER.

Rolling from assault to assault proves that wrong.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Rolling from assault to assault proves that wrong.

Indeed. I'm glad we now have a logical system whereby a decisive victory in an assault is a bad thing for the attacker.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Rolling from assault to assault proves that wrong.

Indeed. I'm glad we now have a logical system whereby a decisive victory in an assault is a bad thing for the attacker.

Sarcasm noted, but the fact is that being exposed after butchering people and being vulnerable to being shot to death is pretty accurate, and makes sense. Should there be some kind of bonus for the winner of the assault to balance things better so shooting isn't so powerful? Sure. But let's not pretend that being able to steam roll an entire army with a unit of Nobs was fair or made sense.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Rolling from assault to assault proves that wrong.

Indeed. I'm glad we now have a logical system whereby a decisive victory in an assault is a bad thing for the attacker.

... as long as it is your turn. Because winning during your opponent turn is not like consolidating into another fight, not at all....

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Rolling from assault to assault proves that wrong.

Indeed. I'm glad we now have a logical system whereby a decisive victory in an assault is a bad thing for the attacker.

Sarcasm noted, but the fact is that being exposed after butchering people and being vulnerable to being shot to death is pretty accurate, and makes sense. Should there be some kind of bonus for the winner of the assault to balance things better so shooting isn't so powerful? Sure. But let's not pretend that being able to steam roll an entire army with a unit of Nobs was fair or made sense.

And being able to alpha strike and murder an entire army before they barely get to move isn't better.

I'd rather have the assault to assault back, at the very least because it made sense because why would people fighting suddenly stop and stand still to be shot?

It gimps elite melee units and only benefits horde units who can indeed survive the shooting, it also meant you needed to take something to deter assault elements.

At the very least considering you can't even assault out of base transports anymore it might be a benefit at least, my CSM units based for melee combat are absolutely useless.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Sarcasm noted, but the fact is that being exposed after butchering people and being vulnerable to being shot to death is pretty accurate, and makes sense. Should there be some kind of bonus for the winner of the assault to balance things better so shooting isn't so powerful? Sure. But let's not pretend that being able to steam roll an entire army with a unit of Nobs was fair or made sense.

I know what you mean, but I just don't think the current version of assault is any better - where winning combat in your turn is bad, but an ineffectual combat that goes on for a second turn guarantees your safety from shooting.

Thing is, with the addition of Overwatch, casualties removed from the front etc., I find myself wondering if consolidating into combat would still be unbalanced.

But then, I'd still prefer an overhaul of all the assault mechanics. As it stands, there are just too many illogical things:

- Why does a unit that stops to fight move further than one which just runs?
- Why, when a unit fails its charge, does it not move at all? Did it foresee the outcome of the charge and decide it wasn't worth bothering?
- A Daemon Prince has assaulted a guardsman squad... wait, why are my guardsmen running towards it to try and hit it with their rifle-butts?
- Why can my men not fire their weapons in combat? Especially when several of them aren't even near an enemy at the time.
- Why can my other units not fire into the combat? In the aforementioned guardsmen vs Daemon Prince approach, wouldn't it be more logical to shoot at the daemon prince? Even if they do hit some of their comrades, it seems like it would still be a more merciful death than whatever the daemon prince has in store for them. Hell, my commissars have no qualms about shooting their own men at point-blank range, why are they now refusing to fire into a doomed melee?
- Are we sure there's even a risk of hitting my own men? I mean, we have nids the size of two-story buildings - surely I could shoot that without hitting people at ground level?

In 5th you had to be somewhat careful about how you engaged in H2H. Model placement was HUGE and could determine the difference between wiping your opponent's unit in your turn or his.

I don't really long for 4th edition-style combat-to-combat consolidation, but I do miss 5th edition where tactics actually mattered. The Battle Reports and Tacticas you would read were far more complex than what people can do with the current abortion. Every 7th edition Batrep I watch goes something like, "Oh great, I win because I just so happened to draw the right objective cards while my opponent drew cards that he had a snowball's chance in hell of ever achieving."

5th was far more balanced and symmetrical. Armies weren't nearly as static as they were in 6th, and it also didn't outrageously benefit armies with Skimmers as 7th. The game was more balanced between shooting and assault, and in pretty much every other way, than current editions.

1) You had to take troops, because nothing else scored.
2) You had to have mobility because most of the missions involved objectives.
3) You had to find a balance between MSU and Death Star builds because some missions involved Kill Points.
4) Skimmers weren't the best at EVERYTHING. They were appropriately costed for their high mobility. Wave Serpents are currently under-costed by about 50 points.
5) Some armies were heavily geared toward Assault and others toward Shooting. But, in almost every army, there were reasonably good Melee units, or at least units that would like to charge other units in *certain* situations.
6) The FOC actually MEANT something. Orks had a reason to take a Warboss and Nobz. Marines had a reason to take a Biker Captain.

Basically, 6th sucked and 7th sucks harder. Is it still fun? Sure, because it's 40k and I like rolling dice, but it's not nearly as interesting a game as 5th edition.

I'm 200% glad consolidations into new assaults is gone.

Particularly now. With the increased speed of units, it's not at all uncommon to see assault armies heavily engaged by turn 2, sometimes turn 1 (if they went 2nd), whereas with consolidation into combat it was usually more turn 3.

That is to say nothing of the fact that also units are generally much tougher and much cheaper than in editions where consolidation was allowed. For instance in 4E, a Space Marine bike was 32pts and T(4)5, now they're true T5, can Jink, and are 20pts with a greatly increased assault range. Or Necron Wraiths, which now get Rending, 2 Wounds, Fearless, are 6pts per model cheaper, and have an assortment of upgrade options.

That said, yeah, being able to assault out of stationary transports should come back, that just removes way too much utility.


EDIT: it's interesting to note that 5th keeps coming up. That edition had a huge number of critical problems, but I'm continually surprised at how I keep looking back at that edition as probably the most functional edition of 40k we've ever had, despite how badly it mucked certain things (wound allocation, KP's, vehicle movement+shooting, etc).

You know, not being able to assault out of transport has somewhat been mitigated by the combination of being able to disembark 6" away from the access hatches, and flat outing your transport to block LoS to the unit

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm 200% glad consolidations into new assaults is gone.

Particularly now. With the increased speed of units, it's not at all uncommon to see assault armies heavily engaged by turn 2, sometimes turn 1 (if they went 2nd), whereas with consolidation into combat it was usually more turn 3.

That is to say nothing of the fact that also units are generally much tougher and much cheaper than in editions where consolidation was allowed. For instance in 4E, a Space Marine bike was 32pts and T(4)5, now they're true T5, can Jink, and are 20pts with a greatly increased assault range. Or Necron Wraiths, which now get Rending, 2 Wounds, Fearless, are 6pts per model cheaper, and have an assortment of upgrade options.

That said, yeah, being able to assault out of stationary transports should come back, that just removes way too much utility.


EDIT: it's interesting to note that 5th keeps coming up. That edition had a huge number of critical problems, but I'm continually surprised at how I keep looking back at that edition as probably the most functional edition of 40k we've ever had, despite how badly it mucked certain things (wound allocation, KP's, vehicle movement+shooting, etc).

Totally agreed with the bold. 5th edition had its problems but it was easily the most streamlined and straight forward 40K has been in my time playing it. It was just so much easier to play the damn thing, and I honestly miss that simplicity. 5th edition was a great foundation to build on, but instead of building on it we instead had to watch the design studio throw it all away and take several steps back with 6th edition. This was especially painful for me as I personally feel most of the problems with 5th edition were less with the core rules and more with the design decisions going on at the time with each codex update. I think it would be remembered more fondly if we had seen the more subdued power level of new codices that we're seeing now instead of the blatant power creep that characterized 5th edition codex design.

I was very hopeful that 7th edition was going to be a return to form with a much more streamlined version of the game closer to 5th, but instead the design studio decided to double down on everything they did with 6th edition and now we have even more bloat. Ah well... there's always 8th I guess.

I will definitely agree that 5th was likely the most streamlined edition and was the most tournament ready edition thus far. I won't say it was great, but it had simple language with little ambiguity which is a strong reason why it was so popular.

It's actually the kind of writing I'd like GW to do with their rules in the future because it'd smooth out the rough spots we have now a lot better just by tightening up the wording and working on clearing up the fuzzy language used at times in the books.

Well its not Verdun 40k like 6th was with 2 gunlines.duking it out. Maelstrom missions may be hit or miss (cards) but hugely equalizes the different power tiers. The psychic phase was shoddily implemented so its either a huge advantage of an epic PITA.

It equalizes it by making everything random. That's not good rules there.

 MWHistorian wrote:
It equalizes it by making everything random. That's not good rules there.

Agreed. I certainly wouldn't say good rules, but the desparity in power between dexes in 6th was so bad I welcomed the maelstrom misdions with open arms. It made the games more dynamic and fluid. Not just about building an uber list and tabling your opponents from behind your fortifications (in my meta anyway). I certainly don't like random in many aspects of 40k,chief among them are random charge distances and randomly selected psychic powers. The psychic phase would be so much better if you could choose your own powers and the assault phase would be much better if there was at least a partially finite charge distance (6"+d6" for example). However in my experience the maelstrom missions, while far from perfect did much more good than harm.

I honestly don't think the new missions were created with the intent to balance anything, but rather try and keep players more involved as they decide which objectives to try and complete, and which to pitch to chance a better draw as well as discourage static gunline armies.

The fact that it rather drastically shifts the way the game is balanced so that more armies have a better chance of winning and that army comp can be more diverse I think is just happy coincidence more than anything. Given enough time I'm sure players will find optimum builds and armies to use to win Maelstrom games more consistently and often, but for now not enough people are playing them enough times to find the cracks in the armor to suss out a strategy that wins more often. Because players aren't dumb, and optimization is something they do well and often. As such it's only a matter of time before it's found (and it appears it'll be different than the lists we think of normally for more traditional games).

 BlaxicanX wrote:
It's about the same as 6th, which was in turn garbage compared to 5th.

Sometimes we all get caught in the "It was better" thing. I started plaing in 5. Than the 6 came with it's ultimate buffs to shooting but the victory conditions didn't require to controle the field which in turn favored boring static gunline armies and annoying last-turn flatouts to win games. 7-th ruleset is much like 6-th with a few reasonable nerfs to shooting and a complete overhaul of victory conditions - maelstorm missions. Now you need board controle and not once have i seen static gunlines loosing games just cause they're sitting in one place. If you ask me, it's making games much more tactical and enjoyable.

I started playing the bulk of my matches in 6th edition, not 5th- I never got more than a dozen or so games in during 5th edition, so frankly if any edition was going to be my rose-tinted glasses/nostalgia preference, it would be 6th.

My comparisons between 5th edition and 6th edition are based off of objective metrics. Which edition piled on a series of nerfs on one out of the two major playstyles? 6th edition- sorry assault . Which edition added numerous rules to empower gunlines and deathstars? 6th edition- thanks allies, thanks overwatch, fortifications and removing models from the front. Which edition added a slew of additional randomness and unreliability into the game? 6th edition. Which edition made it par the course to remove slews of units from codices and tack on overpriced DLC to every release, making bookkeeping between strangers in a pick-up game a total pain in the ass? 6th edition- and I remember when Forgeworld was the main concern for that sort of thing. Which edition had more USR's, many of which are redundant and/or just reference other USR's? 6th edition.

If you'll notice, none of the observations listed above are subjective, or a matter of interpretation. They're all mathematical truths that you can discover just by using addition.

What cardinal sins did 5th edition have that wasn't present in or exasperated by 6th edition? Parking lots? Definitely. Bawx-Hammer 40K was extremely dull and tedious, not just to watch but even to play.

What else? Eh, I wasn't a huge fan of all the KP focused mission types, personally. I prefer the objective-based Eternal War missions that are in 6th and 7th- as they leave tabling your opponent as an option for victory but also made maneuvering a viable tactic (for the armies fast enough to do so).

Beyond that, can't really think of anything- though maybe other people can.

Again, nothing listed above is a judgement or opinion, they're all just objective observations about the differences between the editions. What is relative is how those observations influence your opinion on the editions. If you think that: more randomess, less reliability, less assault, more gunlines, more death stars, less vehicles that aren't flyers, more re-rollable 2+ saves, more DLC, less crunch content per codex, more choices for army lists via allies and more flexibility for how to win a watch are good things than yeah, I could see why 6th edition appeals to you more than 5th edition.

Personally, none of the above with the exception of mission flexibility and to a far lesser extent, the extra flavor brought by allies appeals to me at all.

edit- "Maelstrom missions require map-control to win at, and I've never seen an army lose for spending the whole match in one part of the board" is a paradoxical statement. That aside, tournament results are a very clear indicator of how classically immobile armies like Imperial Guard fare in Maelstrom missions. Not well. I don't think it needs to be said that the army in which half of its units can move across three-quarters of the board in a single turn while enjoying a 2+/3+ cover save is going to be the one that best excels in an environment that encourages map-control.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I honestly don't think the new missions were created with the intent to balance anything, but rather try and keep players more involved as they decide which objectives to try and complete, and which to pitch to chance a better draw as well as discourage static gunline armies.

I think the real goal was just to add more randomness to the game. Randomness is EXCITING, every turn you get to have something new and awesome happen. And who cares if you suck at strategy, just see what the cards tell you to do and roll some dice! It's absolutely idiotic design that substitutes blind luck for developing an interesting scoring mechanic that is fair for all army archetypes. You know, kind of like everything else about 7th edition.

to BlaxicanX
We're comparing 7 to 6 - not to 5. And if you think that 5 was so gloriously awesome and totally not broken, you might be a bit mistaken. Wound allocation was stupid and exploitable. Draigo pallies with all the different gear on every one of them, eh? And parking lots - it was not just "Parking lots". It was "4 out of 5 armies are parking lots".

My mistake then, I thought your point about nostalgia was referring to my claim that 5th edition is superior to 6th and 7th.

In what ways did wound allocation actively hurt the mechanics of the game? Yeah, taking models off from the back is stupid from a "realism" or abstraction perspective, but I don't recall it actively unbalancing the game in any way. "wo0o0o, my PK nob actually survived long enough to make it into combat and use his weapon" isn't a broken mechanic. Certainly not anymore than your 2+/3++ chapter master bouncing 80 shots off his armored chest like superman, then handing off the few shots that do get through to his bros like they're candy.

As far as parking lots, my commentary on that was: "Bawx-Hammer 40K was extremely dull and tedious, not just to watch but even to play." Not sure what else you're expecting me to say on that note.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Yeah, taking models off from the back is stupid from a "realism" or abstraction perspective,...

Being able to choose which models to remove is no less 'realistic' (and arguably more so) than always removing the closest model.

It hurt the game by having 10 2 wounds models each having SLIGHTLY different setups requiring 11 wounds to actually stick before a single one is killed because you spread them around equally, for example.

Kills from front at least gives you a reliable and knowlageable count of who is getting hit, and not shuffling wounds around, or worse-having completely useless cultists tank out any plasma shot from your superbuffed chaos lord, but the lord eating all the small bullets.
Sure, it hurts assault oriented armies-but at least its consistent, can be planned to worked with and around, and opens up counterplay (you tank up front, I flank you to get around your tank)

5 and 6-7 have really strong mechanical differences affecting the entire process of the game. The aforementioned wound allocation - it was not 'broken' most of the time but it was feeling somewhat less dynamic and logical rather than the current system. Yep, i'm not very happy with 1 guy tanking everything either, but i think that it's plain better than the previous incarnation of 'useful guyz alwayz die last'. Personally, i find death of the closest a really great thing even though it has made my footslogging horde much less viable. And cover system is much better as it's now. Some may argue the loss of area terrain, but i clearly remember countless situations when MC had a toe in the ruin and claimed cover save for that.

There definitely are problems left. Like the unneeded removal of multi-level building rules. But i find the whole directions of current changes positively affecting the gameplay.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Yeah, taking models off from the back is stupid from a "realism" or abstraction perspective

I don't think so, to be honest. I have no problem imagining that squads are a bit more dynamic - rather than standing stock still in their exact formation whilst the enemy shoots them.

 BoomWolf wrote:
It hurt the game by having 10 2 wounds models each having SLIGHTLY different setups requiring 11 wounds to actually stick before a single one is killed because you spread them around equally, for example.

No more so than having a single character with a 2+ save tank every wound from a blast or flamer.

In any case, whilst I preferred 5th wound allocation to 6th or 7th (it wasn't perfect,but the instances where it could be abused seemed far rarer), my favourite would be 4th.

 BoomWolf wrote:
It hurt the game by having 10 2 wounds models each having SLIGHTLY different setups requiring 11 wounds to actually stick before a single one is killed because you spread them around equally, for example.

Yup, wound allocation specifically with units of multi-wound models was a legitimate issue with 5th edition... which could have been easily fixed by reintroducing the rule from 4th edition that forced you to apply wounds to already-wounded models first.

...or worse-having completely useless cultists tank out any plasma shot from your superbuffed chaos lord, but the lord eating all the small bullets.

Another problem that was fixed in previous editions with the 'torrent of fire' mechanic allowing the attacker to allocate a shot to a specific model if the unit suffered more hits than it had models.

Sure, it hurts assault oriented armies-but at least its consistent, can be planned to worked with and around, and opens up counterplay (you tank up front, I flank you to get around your tank)

It also makes template weapons in units next to useless, forces characters to hide in the depths of the unit rather than leading from the front in a narrative fashion unless you want to find yourself having to roll 37 Look Out Sir rolls and armour saves one at a time... and the nerf to assault from the combination of random assaults leaving you with a potential 2" charge range and having to remove casualties from the front is not to be underestimated here...

Can I just add in here that I hate Look out Sir.

It feels like a mechanic that's been shoehorned in as a patch job for another poor mechanic.

I might find it less offensive if it wasn't optional (and, God forbid, automatic for ICs) - as opposed to a character tanking a ton of fire, then having a random squad member jump in the way of the one AP2 round. Wait, how is it that squads are dynamic enough to be constantly jumping in front of the leader, yet static enough that only models at the front can be hit?

It's a mechanismto ensure your character has a bit durability. Not everyone wears fancy 3+ armor and characters are very important. To drop 'Look out, sir' you have to completely overhaul the existing codexes to either make characters sturdier, allow currently character-only weapons to be taken by regular guyz and/or making squads less depenent on characters.

Another solution would be completely random wound allocation on the models within true line of sight of the firing squad. But it's not for games of 500+ pts - that's for sure. And even more people will be unhappy with "So much random!" ©

 koooaei wrote:
It's a mechanismto ensure your character has a bit durability.

Which is only necessary because the wound allocation system is crap.

 koooaei wrote:
Not everyone wears fancy 3+ armor and characters are very important.

So, why is it optional?

 koooaei wrote:
To drop 'Look out, sir' you have to completely overhaul the existing codexes to either make characters sturdier, allow currently character-only weapons to be taken by regular guyz and/or making squads less depenent on characters.

Or... just go back to the wound allocation system from 4th or 5th, neither of which required LoS - even on fragile characters.

 koooaei wrote:
To drop 'Look out, sir' you have to completely overhaul the existing codexes to either make characters sturdier, allow currently character-only weapons to be taken by regular guyz and/or making squads less depenent on characters.

Or just go back to the previous system that allowed the owning player to select the casualties...

Another solution would be completely random wound allocation on the models within true line of sight of the firing squad. But it's not for games of 500+ pts - that's for sure. And even more people will be unhappy with "So much random!" ©

Indeed. That would be worse than the current system by whole orders of magnitude.

 insaniak wrote:

Or just go back to the previous system that allowed the owning player to select the casualties...

Which would be awful once again.

I think the solution might lie within the combination of systems. Something like:

When the squad suffers X wounds, count 1/4 of the squad's total number rounded up. Select this number of models closest to the firer and the controling player can allocate wounds freely among them but the number of wounds per model must be as close to equal as possible. All the unsaved wounds procede to be placed on the models from this pool until they're killed or there are no more wounds to save. If all the models are dead and there are still wounds left, select the second group of closest models.

However, this is gona take longer than any of theese systems. So, i guess we have to stick either to an awful "closest die" system or awful "choose who dies yourself" system.

 koooaei wrote:
Which would be awful once again.

Why?

It's ultimately the simplest system. Add in torrent of fire for character control, and the requirement to allocate wounds to already-wounded models to remove wound-spreading shenanigans, and it's far simpler than any other suggestion so far.

Actually, the "choose casualties yourself" rule won't be that bad anymore, due to the precision shots rule.
The problem with wound allocation in 4th ed is that the special weapon bearers / sergeant just wouldn't die, as snipers back then did not act like snipers.

Now that we have proper snipers, the 4th ed method of wound allocation won't be as frustrating.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The problem with wound allocation in 4th ed is that the special weapon bearers / sergeant just wouldn't die, as snipers back then did not act like snipers.

Special weapon troopers not dying isn't a problem. The idea that some other guy in the squad can't pick the meltagun up off the ground after the guy carrying it kicks out is ridiculous.

 insaniak wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Which would be awful once again.

Why?

It's ultimately the simplest system. Add in torrent of fire for character control, and the requirement to allocate wounds to already-wounded models to remove wound-spreading shenanigans, and it's far simpler than any other suggestion so far.

It's a static method which is more simplistic but far from ideal. Death of the closest is at least much more tactical and dynamic. Previously it didn't matter if you shoot from the front, flank or rear. Which made maneuring unimportant. Now you have to think and pick the best angle. Sometimes even forcing you to move.

I just fail to see how tactix and dynamism is worse than a bit more simplicity. If i wanted simplicity, i'd play some square-based game.

Because removing the nearest model isn't any more tactical or dynamic. Its just more tedious. It promotes micro management rather than legitimate maneuvering.

If you want tactical gameplay, or for movement to have a larger impact on the game, you need to make the board bigger in comparison to the number of models on the game board, introduce more LOS blocking terrain (think hills instead of buildings) and introduce a proper objective based system/asymmetric missions, and overhaul shooting mechanics and ranges.

The reason movement and flanking and other similar ideas don't mean much in 40k is that most weapons bigger than a lasgun are reaching across the table on turn 1, and even the basic infantry weapon is doing half that.

Removing casualties from the front is hardly a hallmark of any sort of tactical or dynamic gameplay. Especially for a game that should be operating at the squad level for its size, rather than the model level. Abstraction is key in games this large.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

The problem with wound allocation in 4th ed is that the special weapon bearers / sergeant just wouldn't die, as snipers back then did not act like snipers.

I don't see why that's a problem.

Why is it so awful if the sergeant is hard to assassinate, or if another trooper picks up the special weapon?

 Blacksails wrote:
Because removing the nearest model isn't any more tactical or dynamic. Its just more tedious. It promotes micro management rather than legitimate maneuvering.

If you want tactical gameplay, or for movement to have a larger impact on the game, you need to make the board bigger in comparison to the number of models on the game board, introduce more LOS blocking terrain (think hills instead of buildings) and introduce a proper objective based system/asymmetric missions, and overhaul shooting mechanics and ranges.

The reason movement and flanking and other similar ideas don't mean much in 40k is that most weapons bigger than a lasgun are reaching across the table on turn 1, and even the basic infantry weapon is doing half that.

Removing casualties from the front is hardly a hallmark of any sort of tactical or dynamic gameplay. Especially for a game that should be operating at the squad level for its size, rather than the model level. Abstraction is key in games this large.

Agreed.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I honestly don't think the new missions were created with the intent to balance anything, but rather try and keep players more involved as they decide which objectives to try and complete, and which to pitch to chance a better draw as well as discourage static gunline armies.

I think this is probably pretty accurate. The Maelstrom missions are not played much in my area, but the ones i have played are far more dynamic and feel a lot more fun to play. One guy at the shop where I play comes every week with his AM army proceeds to plop down as many tanks as possible and just start rolling dice and hopes he destroys everything you have before game end. He never moves, never takes infantry out of the tanks, nothing. Most boring ever. To the point I don't think I would bother to play him if he asked. I realize AM armies are kind of supposed to play like that but with this guy it is just SOOOOO static it bores me to tears. If he played a Maelstrom he would be forced to move a little bit.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The fact that it rather drastically shifts the way the game is balanced so that more armies have a better chance of winning and that army comp can be more diverse I think is just happy coincidence more than anything. Given enough time I'm sure players will find optimum builds and armies to use to win Maelstrom games more consistently and often, but for now not enough people are playing them enough times to find the cracks in the armor to suss out a strategy that wins more often. Because players aren't dumb, and optimization is something they do well and often. As such it's only a matter of time before it's found (and it appears it'll be different than the lists we think of normally for more traditional games).

I think this is right on too. It gives many more armies a chance. Another person who i regularly play with basically want to play "purge the alien" every game, which lets face it, the eternal war missions could all really be played this way, so he brings a min/max type list that puts out massive amounts of damage every turn and the games with him are really an arms race of sorts. Of course he is now introducing 3 kinghts to his standard lists. Tough to play against that every time and for sure limits what I can take if I want a chance at not getting blown off the table by turn 3. If he was willing to play a Maelstrom mission every once and awhile his lists might take on a different character. I would like to play where before the mission type was rolled there was one more roll to decide if the mission type was going to come from eternal war missions or Maelstrom missions. If that idea was embraced I think you would probably see a lot more diversity in the armies being selected. Anything to encourage that is a good thing in my mind.

The overall problem between the editions is the fact that GW is consistently inconsistent in how it writes its rules. Its become a symbol for whats wrong with the rules when they seem to be more like a debate that you would find in a court of Law rather than a game.

I'll agree with those who say 5th was "better" to an extent, the parking lots might have been annoying for some but that edition was where 40k was ever so close to modern mechanized warfare in all but name. Games actually went very fast, almost the speed of a warmahordes game in a way.

However even if the current codex run are better balanced, what is frustrating is how inconsistent it is. IG/AM didn't change very much at at apart from points costs, but then the nerf bat was taken to the orks in a few areas that was frankly baffling.

All of this does not hide the fact that the game has become a bit of a chore to play. And when you can simply pick up and go with warmahordes you can see why people are doing so. Personally, even if the warmahordes rules feel "gamey" they work dam well, 40K could be like this if somebody actually sat down and made things crystal clear with no grey areas and other such "loopholes".


But that isn't going to happen...

Loborocket wrote:
One guy at the shop where I play comes every week with his AM army proceeds to plop down as many tanks as possible and just start rolling dice and hopes he destroys everything you have before game end. He never moves, never takes infantry out of the tanks, nothing. Most boring ever. To the point I don't think I would bother to play him if he asked. I realize AM armies are kind of supposed to play like that but with this guy it is just SOOOOO static it bores me to tears. If he played a Maelstrom he would be forced to move a little bit.

Actually, this is something that irritates me about the new IG book. I mean, I always thought the point of IG was lots of infantry, backed up by tanks. However, the new book seems to be about having as many tanks as possible, and if you'd like to have maybe a couple of minimum infantry squads too, that would be nice. No pressure though. Hell, they even have an option now of having a tank as your warlord - who brings up to 2 squad mates along. That really grates on me.

 Art_of_war wrote:
The overall problem between the editions is the fact that GW is consistently inconsistent in how it writes its rules. Its become a symbol for whats wrong with the rules when they seem to be more like a debate that you would find in a court of Law rather than a game.

Sad but true.

 Art_of_war wrote:

I'll agree with those who say 5th was "better" to an extent, the parking lots might have been annoying for some but that edition was where 40k was ever so close to modern mechanized warfare in all but name. Games actually went very fast, almost the speed of a warmahordes game in a way.

I think the other aspect is that 5th's rules felt more streamlined and more tactical - rather than being bloated with randomness and unnecessary additions.

 Art_of_war wrote:

However even if the current codex run are better balanced, what is frustrating is how inconsistent it is. IG/AM didn't change very much at at apart from points costs, but then the nerf bat was taken to the orks in a few areas that was frankly baffling.

Not sure about IG not changing much - they had a lot of units and characters stripped, many poor units either remained unchanged or got even worse, and they didn't really get much to bring them into the current edition. In many ways, they feel like a 7th edition book, though not in a good way.

 Art_of_war wrote:

All of this does not hide the fact that the game has become a bit of a chore to play. And when you can simply pick up and go with warmahordes you can see why people are doing so. Personally, even if the warmahordes rules feel "gamey" they work dam well, 40K could be like this if somebody actually sat down and made things crystal clear with no grey areas and other such "loopholes".

I agree.

But, I think one problem is that GW don't change the core rules. They only patch them. I believe the core rules were originally designed for a historical game, rather than a modern/futuristic one. And, I don't believe they've aged very well. One of the worst parts is that you have movement done in all 3 phases of the game. Why? Why can't all movement be done in the movement phase? Surely that's the entire point of having a movement phase in the first place? But, then you have other things - like adding fliers and a psychic phase, without changing the rest of the rules around them.

 vipoid wrote:

Loborocket wrote:
One guy at the shop where I play comes every week with his AM army proceeds to plop down as many tanks as possible and just start rolling dice and hopes he destroys everything you have before game end. He never moves, never takes infantry out of the tanks, nothing. Most boring ever. To the point I don't think I would bother to play him if he asked. I realize AM armies are kind of supposed to play like that but with this guy it is just SOOOOO static it bores me to tears. If he played a Maelstrom he would be forced to move a little bit.

Actually, this is something that irritates me about the new IG book. I mean, I always thought the point of IG was lots of infantry, backed up by tanks. However, the new book seems to be about having as many tanks as possible, and if you'd like to have maybe a couple of minimum infantry squads too, that would be nice. No pressure though. Hell, they even have an option now of having a tank as your warlord - who brings up to 2 squad mates along. That really grates on me.

Yeah I played against the army with the warlord tank and 2 others as part of the squad last week. That guy even had 2 turret type things that could not move if he wanted them to. Of course he had 2 squads of 5 or 10 infantry dudes too. In that game the sit and never move did not work though. We happened to roll "the relic" as the mission, so i ran my orks up and grabbed the relic and ran. Mostly just hid behind a big rock in the middle of the table and tried to get in as much of a line as possible to avoid hits from his 10 large blast plasma shots he was getting each turn. It was basically a roll off between his damage and my FNP rolls to see if he could kill all of my orks before game end. Lucky I had a lot of bodies and he had basically nothing that could pick up the relic on its own.

Without reading the rest of the answers, I've had less fun playing 7th than any other edition of the game (and that's saying something, because I could say the same about 6th at the time).

The imbalance between codexes and even different choices within each codex has gotten so bad that the only solution GW seems to come up with is to throw more random tables into the game, so that the 'bad' armies still have some chance of winning a game once in a while.

Meanwhile, the Maelstrom missions are about as far from what a wargame should be as possible, and lead to the sole strategy being to bring more mobile stuff to the table.

 vipoid wrote:


I don't see why that's a problem.

Why is it so awful if the sergeant is hard to assassinate, or if another trooper picks up the special weapon?

You're confusing common sense: picking up a weapon, for GW ham fistedly fixing a problem: people gaming the wound allocation system.

I've said many times that there simply isn't enough variance between stats with a d6, a switch to at least a d10 if not a d100 would be far better.

At 28mm there will always be compromises between ranges and movement of things, even your average pistol should be able to cover far more of the table IRL than it does in game.

I don't like the wound pool, my brother and I still do it that wounds created from an individual weapon can only be allocated within that weapon's range.

 Looky Likey wrote:
You're confusing common sense: picking up a weapon, for GW ham fistedly fixing a problem: people gaming the wound allocation system.

Honestly, it seems far less ham-fisted them LoS, but I get what you mean.

In any case though, I still don't see what's so bad about sergeants and/or special weapons usually being the last to die. It just doesn't seem like a big problem to me.

 Looky Likey wrote:

I've said many times that there simply isn't enough variance between stats with a d6, a switch to at least a d10 if not a d100 would be far better.

Not sure about a d100, but I agree that a d6 just doesn't provide enough variance. Hell, it's why we have stats that can go from 1-10, yet virtually everything hangs around the 3-5 range. If you could actually use all 10 without making things horribly unbalanced, then you could have some more interesting variations.

 vipoid wrote:

 Looky Likey wrote:
You're confusing common sense: picking up a weapon, for GW ham fistedly fixing a problem: people gaming the wound allocation system.

Honestly, it seems far less ham-fisted them LoS, but I get what you mean.

In any case though, I still don't see what's so bad about sergeants and/or special weapons usually being the last to die. It just doesn't seem like a big problem to me.

 Looky Likey wrote:

I've said many times that there simply isn't enough variance between stats with a d6, a switch to at least a d10 if not a d100 would be far better.

Not sure about a d100, but I agree that a d6 just doesn't provide enough variance. Hell, it's why we have stats that can go from 1-10, yet virtually everything hangs around the 3-5 range. If you could actually use all 10 without making things horribly unbalanced, then you could have some more interesting variations.

I think people didn't like having to wipe the entire squad off the table to remove the danger, more of an issue for huge guard blobs, but as somebody has already mentioned that precision shots has fixed that.

Does a BS higher than 5 actually do anything now? Or have I missed that in the rule book? Just depressing to me that my assassins don't get a reroll for shooting.

 vipoid wrote:


But, I think one problem is that GW don't change the core rules. They only patch them. I believe the core rules were originally designed for a historical game, rather than a modern/futuristic one. And, I don't believe they've aged very well. One of the worst parts is that you have movement done in all 3 phases of the game. Why? Why can't all movement be done in the movement phase? Surely that's the entire point of having a movement phase in the first place? But, then you have other things - like adding fliers and a psychic phase, without changing the rest of the rules around them.

I wanted to address this one point - in 2nd edition you actually didn't have an Assault Phase but rather a Close Combat phase where blows were struck. Charges were made before Movement was done, and were calculated as your Movement x 2. You didn't "Run" in the Shooting Phase but rather you just doubled your movement if you wanted to forego your shooting.

It sounds like what you'd prefer is 2nd Edition phase order (Charge, Movement, Shooting, Close Combat) with psychics in there somewhere (I think after Movement?). That actually sounds fairly intuitive to me. We use a similar system in Necromunda and it doesn't cause any problems.

Note: The above may be incorrect as I haven't played 2nd in probably two decades, but that's how I remember it working...

 Looky Likey wrote:
I think people didn't like having to wipe the entire squad off the table to remove the danger, more of an issue for huge guard blobs, but as somebody has already mentioned that precision shots has fixed that.

But, by the same token, why should it be easy to remove the danger from a unit?

 Looky Likey wrote:
Does a BS higher than 5 actually do anything now? Or have I missed that in the rule book? Just depressing to me that my assassins don't get a reroll for shooting.

BS6+ gives you a worse version of twin-linked. If you miss, then you can reroll the dice, hitting on a specific value:

BS6 - hit on a reroll of 6+
BS7 5+
BS8 4+

etc.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

I wanted to address this one point - in 2nd edition you actually didn't have an Assault Phase but rather a Close Combat phase where blows were struck. Charges were made before Movement was done, and were calculated as your Movement x 2. You didn't "Run" in the Shooting Phase but rather you just doubled your movement if you wanted to forego your shooting.

It sounds like what you'd prefer is 2nd Edition phase order (Charge, Movement, Shooting, Close Combat) with psychics in there somewhere (I think after Movement?). That actually sounds fairly intuitive to me. We use a similar system in Necromunda and it doesn't cause any problems.

That does sound better.

Thing is, I'd also want to give units a movement value, and remove some of the unit types. As it stands, having a ton of different unit types - many just slight variations on others - feels unintuitive and is frequently a pain to remember.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 vipoid wrote:


But, I think one problem is that GW don't change the core rules. They only patch them. I believe the core rules were originally designed for a historical game, rather than a modern/futuristic one. And, I don't believe they've aged very well. One of the worst parts is that you have movement done in all 3 phases of the game. Why? Why can't all movement be done in the movement phase? Surely that's the entire point of having a movement phase in the first place? But, then you have other things - like adding fliers and a psychic phase, without changing the rest of the rules around them.

I wanted to address this one point - in 2nd edition you actually didn't have an Assault Phase but rather a Close Combat phase where blows were struck. Charges were made before Movement was done, and were calculated as your Movement x 2. You didn't "Run" in the Shooting Phase but rather you just doubled your movement if you wanted to forego your shooting.

It sounds like what you'd prefer is 2nd Edition phase order (Charge, Movement, Shooting, Close Combat) with psychics in there somewhere (I think after Movement?). That actually sounds fairly intuitive to me. We use a similar system in Necromunda and it doesn't cause any problems.

Note: The above may be incorrect as I haven't played 2nd in probably two decades, but that's how I remember it working...

By sheer irony warmahordes works pretty much the same way, but on a per unit/model basis: movement/charge: shooting/close combat (note you cannot do both unless you have a "special rule" that allows you to do both). There are other bits i haven't added in but that is the general order of play (meanwhile you must try to not to make a mess of your activations otherwise things will go a bit wonky )

That being said 40K might not survive a major mechanics change as it would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater (currently very ditrty). However random charge distances and overwatch are a bugbear, the old charge range of 6" was far better, it allowed a modicum of relaibility in threat ranges, even with premeasuring allowed CC would happen more often. Overwatch was an "interesting" addition however it wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was actually a reward for winning an assault I.e the old barmy consolidation rule. All that needs is a tweak to say that it can occur once after the initial assault and perhaps a rule to state that the consolidation can only happen into one unit not multipe units (however that might be going too far jamming up a gunline is rather handy...)


Overall a big clean up would make thing better, the mechanics wouldn't need to change, if all the rules were cosnistent and precise there would not be the YMDC threads on "how does this intercat with that". But then that does not solve the problem of each codex having its quirks, you can have claer and good base ruels but if the faction balance is out of whack we know what happens.

I suppose its what makes PP games increasingly popular, the factions do have their own flavour but they all work within the ruleset, and some do ignore certian things but its balanced by other weaknesses that are there to be exploited. To a newcomer it might not feel that way during the learning curve though...

 vipoid wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

I wanted to address this one point - in 2nd edition you actually didn't have an Assault Phase but rather a Close Combat phase where blows were struck. Charges were made before Movement was done, and were calculated as your Movement x 2. You didn't "Run" in the Shooting Phase but rather you just doubled your movement if you wanted to forego your shooting.

It sounds like what you'd prefer is 2nd Edition phase order (Charge, Movement, Shooting, Close Combat) with psychics in there somewhere (I think after Movement?). That actually sounds fairly intuitive to me. We use a similar system in Necromunda and it doesn't cause any problems.

That does sound better.

Thing is, I'd also want to give units a movement value, and remove some of the unit types. As it stands, having a ton of different unit types - many just slight variations on others - feels unintuitive and is frequently a pain to remember.

Just like WHFB...or Rogue Trader

 vipoid wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

The problem with wound allocation in 4th ed is that the special weapon bearers / sergeant just wouldn't die, as snipers back then did not act like snipers.

I don't see why that's a problem.

Why is it so awful if the sergeant is hard to assassinate, or if another trooper picks up the special weapon?

 Blacksails wrote:
Because removing the nearest model isn't any more tactical or dynamic. Its just more tedious. It promotes micro management rather than legitimate maneuvering.

If you want tactical gameplay, or for movement to have a larger impact on the game, you need to make the board bigger in comparison to the number of models on the game board, introduce more LOS blocking terrain (think hills instead of buildings) and introduce a proper objective based system/asymmetric missions, and overhaul shooting mechanics and ranges.

The reason movement and flanking and other similar ideas don't mean much in 40k is that most weapons bigger than a lasgun are reaching across the table on turn 1, and even the basic infantry weapon is doing half that.

Removing casualties from the front is hardly a hallmark of any sort of tactical or dynamic gameplay. Especially for a game that should be operating at the squad level for its size, rather than the model level. Abstraction is key in games this large.

Agreed.

I think its fine to just let the player who owns the unit to choose the casualties, unless the unit is being fired upon by someone with a Sniper skill, which would mean the shooter could pick the casualty. And yes, that means if a guy with a missile launcher gets pegged, then the missile launcher is gone. I think that helps speed up some game play, yet still gives a unit with a sniper a nice degree of tactical fun.

KTG17 wrote:

I think its fine to just let the player who owns the unit to choose the casualties, unless the unit is being fired upon by someone with a Sniper skill, which would mean the shooter could pick the casualty. And yes, that means if a guy with a missile launcher gets pegged, then the missile launcher is gone. I think that helps speed up some game play, yet still gives a unit with a sniper a nice degree of tactical fun.

I don't mind that, so long as precision shots from Sniper weapons are on 6s.

Otherwise it seems a bit harsh for races who don't have the luxury of tough, survivable characters. Snipers picking off specialist weapons and sergeants is fine but, IMO, snipers picking off Company Commanders is less enjoyable.

 vipoid wrote:

KTG17 wrote:

I think its fine to just let the player who owns the unit to choose the casualties, unless the unit is being fired upon by someone with a Sniper skill, which would mean the shooter could pick the casualty. And yes, that means if a guy with a missile launcher gets pegged, then the missile launcher is gone. I think that helps speed up some game play, yet still gives a unit with a sniper a nice degree of tactical fun.

I don't mind that, so long as precision shots from Sniper weapons are on 6s.

Otherwise it seems a bit harsh for races who don't have the luxury of tough, survivable characters. Snipers picking off specialist weapons and sergeants is fine but, IMO, snipers picking off Company Commanders is less enjoyable.

That problem might be overblown though. You've still got 3 wounds, LoS, and a 5++. Also, Sniper Rifles wound a T3 model just as easily as they wound a T10 model - on a 4+. I don't really want to calculate how many Sniper Rifles it takes to down a Company Commander with all of that built in, but it's a lot of fething Sniper Rifles.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
That problem might be overblown though. You've still got 3 wounds, LoS, and a 5++. Also, Sniper Rifles wound a T3 model just as easily as they wound a T10 model - on a 4+. I don't really want to calculate how many Sniper Rifles it takes to down a Company Commander with all of that built in, but it's a lot of fething Sniper Rifles.

Bear in mind, changing wound allocation back to 4th would also include the removal of LoS.

Also, with regard to needing a lot of snipers, have you by any chance heard of Deathmarks?

 vipoid wrote:

KTG17 wrote:

I think its fine to just let the player who owns the unit to choose the casualties, unless the unit is being fired upon by someone with a Sniper skill, which would mean the shooter could pick the casualty. And yes, that means if a guy with a missile launcher gets pegged, then the missile launcher is gone. I think that helps speed up some game play, yet still gives a unit with a sniper a nice degree of tactical fun.

I don't mind that, so long as precision shots from Sniper weapons are on 6s.

Otherwise it seems a bit harsh for races who don't have the luxury of tough, survivable characters. Snipers picking off specialist weapons and sergeants is fine but, IMO, snipers picking off Company Commanders is less enjoyable.

Yep. That is what I was thinking of, really.
You don't have to worry about important characters though; they tend to be pretty tough.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
That problem might be overblown though. You've still got 3 wounds, LoS, and a 5++. Also, Sniper Rifles wound a T3 model just as easily as they wound a T10 model - on a 4+. I don't really want to calculate how many Sniper Rifles it takes to down a Company Commander with all of that built in, but it's a lot of fething Sniper Rifles.

Bear in mind, changing wound allocation back to 4th would also include the removal of LoS.

Also, with regard to needing a lot of snipers, have you by any chance heard of Deathmarks?

Considering how close they have to be in order to bring their full power to bear, they better succeed their assassination mission.
Otherwise they will have a very angry Chapter Master to deal with.

 vipoid wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
That problem might be overblown though. You've still got 3 wounds, LoS, and a 5++. Also, Sniper Rifles wound a T3 model just as easily as they wound a T10 model - on a 4+. I don't really want to calculate how many Sniper Rifles it takes to down a Company Commander with all of that built in, but it's a lot of fething Sniper Rifles.

Bear in mind, changing wound allocation back to 4th would also include the removal of LoS.

No, I would leave Look Out Sir in, precisely to cover that situation. Although possibly key it to an Initiative or Leadership roll, rather than just an automatic number.

 insaniak wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
That problem might be overblown though. You've still got 3 wounds, LoS, and a 5++. Also, Sniper Rifles wound a T3 model just as easily as they wound a T10 model - on a 4+. I don't really want to calculate how many Sniper Rifles it takes to down a Company Commander with all of that built in, but it's a lot of fething Sniper Rifles.

Bear in mind, changing wound allocation back to 4th would also include the removal of LoS.

No, I would leave Look Out Sir in, precisely to cover that situation. Although possibly key it to an Initiative or Leadership roll, rather than just an automatic number.

Yes. Snipers to deal with hidden special weapons, LoS to deal with snipers. It all works out.

Honestly I love seventh.

Yes, there are lists that obliterate everything else. Sure. Whatever. It's 40k, competitive 40k players are the scum of the earth and always have been.

For anyone that's not a total jerk, 7th with a few quick fixes is perfect. I love that the things I despised in 7th (flier spam and ADL spam) are gone, and that static gunlines got a huge nerf with maelstrom of war, which rewards you for having a list with shooting and assault and mobility. Units now have a value BEYOND "what can they kill" and while maelstrom is a little random, 90% of the time the army who should win, does win by establishing objective control. At the same time though, even while losing you can contest and deny enemy objectives to still stand a fighting chance. Special reserves units have never felt more useful, and heavy tanks aren't just piniatas anymore popping like balloons at a stiff breeze.

I generally have enjoyed the game less and less since about mid 6th edition. Once GW started mass producing books, bringing super heavies into the standard game, and eliminating the FOC.

My feeling on things is that GW seems to have a few good ideas every edition, but then they overhaul too many things at once instead of small tweaks.

I like 4th ed terrain, TLOS makes things clunky and makes modeling for advantage a thing. Clearly defined abstract terrain is a great idea. I also like how wound allocation worked

In 5th, I thought the rules were well stream lined and functioned well, but that vehicles were a bit too powerful.

In 6th I liked the idea of Hull points but they did not get it quite right, and I though psychic powers were decent being in the main book.

In 7th I like the vehicle changes, and challange changes. But feel like the psychic phase is a bit wonky, and too many parts of the game drag on (some of which was also true in 6e.). I thnk a psychic phase is a good idea, but the rules are not quite what they should be (the fantasy system is better), things like LOS, Pile in, and tons of randomness are still bad and slow the game down too much. Also super heavy rules are still bad.

the_scotsman wrote:
competitive 40k players are the scum of the earth and always have been.

Nothing like insulting a significant portion of the player base to really solidify your opinion of an edition.

Damn those people who have fun differently than me! They must be terrible people, the whole lot of them!

 Blacksails wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
competitive 40k players are the scum of the earth and always have been.

Nothing like insulting a significant portion of the player base to really solidify your opinion of an edition.

Damn those people who have fun differently than me! They must be terrible people, the whole lot of them!

When ad hominem is all you've got, ad hominem is all you use.

Breng77 wrote:
In 6th I liked the idea of Hull points but they did not get it quite right, and I though psychic powers were decent being in the main book.

I feel that vehicles don't have enough hull points. As it stands, glancing hits seem a bit too strong and penetrating hits seem a bit too weak.

One idea I had was to increase the number of Hull Points on all vehicles, but make some/all penetrating hits strip multiple hull points. e.g. you could have Immobilised/Weapon Destroyed results also strip an additional hull point.

Out of interest, what do people think of AP3 or worse weapons not being able to explode closed-top vehicles?

I agree on the not enough HP thing. Personally I always like the idea of removing the damage table entirely and upping hull points on all vehicles. Then having HP dealt on a degree of penetration basis.

Glance = 1 HP
Pen = 2 HP
Severe Pen = 3 HP

with severe pen being exceeding HP by say 4 or more. WIth bonuses for AP 1(+2) and 2(+1) and open topped(+1).

So Say we double current HP on a Rhino to 6, It would take 6 glances to kill, or 3 pens or 2 Severe pens. So say a lascannon hits it you end up with it doing nothing 1/6th of the time, removing 1 HP 1/6th of the time, removing 2 HP 1/2 of the time, and removing 3 HP 1/3rd of the time.

Vs
Using and autocannon where you do nothing 1/2 of the time, remove 1 HP 1/6th of the time, and remove 2 1/3rd of the time.

What you end up with is if you had guardsman shooting both weapons, each has a 50% chance to remove at least one HP, but the lascannon has a 42% chance to remove more than 1 HPvs only a 33% for the autocannon, and a 16% chance to remove 3, vs no chance for the autocannon.

To me this makes dedicated anti-vehicle units better at their job, makes fluke vehicle deaths much less likely, and makes glancing things to death much harder.

The real issue is that HP are essentially just wounds, and vehicles don't get saves.

Give a Land Raider the same 2+ save as its contents and now it's fine. Give a rhino the same 3+ save as its contents, same thing (though probably underpriced). You could even do this based on what side you're shooting at, simply by basing a save on AV. If you're AV 14, you also get a 2+ save. If you're 11-13, you get a 3+ save, if you're AV10, you get a 4+ save.

Look at what vehicles get used - ones that have built-in saves of some some, whether that be an invul or a jink.

If you want vehicles to have hit points, then you need to give them saves or they die too easily to mass fire.

And, then, just to streamline everything further, introduce critical hits on monsters. There's no reason I should be able to one-shot a dreadnought but not a dreadknight. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to use a rocket to shoot the arm off a carnifex. There should be a penetrating-hit rule for MCs, where if you roll two over what you need to inflict a wound, you get a damage result roll akin to the vehicle pen table.

 Redbeard wrote:
The real issue is that HP are essentially just wounds, and vehicles don't get saves.

Give a Land Raider the same 2+ save as its contents and now it's fine. Give a rhino the same 3+ save as its contents, same thing (though probably underpriced). You could even do this based on what side you're shooting at, simply by basing a save on AV. If you're AV 14, you also get a 2+ save. If you're 11-13, you get a 3+ save, if you're AV10, you get a 4+ save.

Not sure about that. It seems like it's strengthening the wrong vehicles. Land Raiders will get little benefit from a 2+ save because virtually all the weapons strong enough to damage it are AP1-2. On the other hand, already cheap transports get 3+ saves against all the Autocannons, Tesla Destructors and similar weapons aimed at them.

 Redbeard wrote:
Look at what vehicles get used - ones that have built-in saves of some some, whether that be an invul or a jink.

Not always - there are a lot of vehicles without those saves that still get used.

 Redbeard wrote:

If you want vehicles to have hit points, then you need to give them saves or they die too easily to mass fire.

It seems like you could just give them more hull points.

 Redbeard wrote:

And, then, just to streamline everything further, introduce critical hits on monsters. There's no reason I should be able to one-shot a dreadnought but not a dreadknight. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to use a rocket to shoot the arm off a carnifex. There should be a penetrating-hit rule for MCs, where if you roll two over what you need to inflict a wound, you get a damage result roll akin to the vehicle pen table.

By the same token, should we introduce critical hits on characters? I mean, it seems a bit odd if a weapon can blow the arm of a dreadnaught or carnifex, but a SM captain can just shrug it off.

Regarding the vehicles having saves thing I've figured that they should get a save based on their AV. For AV10 they get none, AV11 6+, AV12 5+, AV13 4+, AV14 3+, AV15(+) 2+. That gets them an armor save that can be AP'd by anti-tank weapons, but provides some anti-glance protection.

The flip side of all of this is some armies (Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights) need some real and legitimate anti-heavy tank options to balance the game out better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the "more Hull Points" idea either, and think that ideally things would have both.

The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

Heavy anti-infantry weapons being able to hurt light tanks makes sense honestly though.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle 40k rules are a gigantic mess.

Fixed that for you.

 vipoid wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle 40k rules are a gigantic mess.

Fixed that for you.

Some of the 40k rules are a mess. There are decently written rules in there, they just get dragged down by the ones that aren't that good.

I don't think anyone claimed that every 40K rule is a mess, Clockwork.

In any case, if I had my way vehicles would have hull-points but only penetrating hits would be able to strip them. Glances would only be able to shake, stun, destroy weapons( 5) or immobilize (6).

Hull-points were introduced because it was functionally impossible to blow up vehicles without AP1 weapons, needing to first get through its AV and then needing to roll a 5+ with AP2 or a 6 without. So you could pen a vehicle over and over and not get any meaningful results.

But stripping hullpoints through pens would work.


If you want to destroy a vehicle, bring actual anti-tank.

This would also make lance weapons and strength 10 vital again. As most lance weapons are single-shot, they're currently far less efficient than merely glancing vehicles.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

What about giving invulns? Av14 gets a 5++?

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I don't think anyone claimed that every 40K rule is a mess, Clockwork.

In any case, if I had my way vehicles would have hull-points but only penetrating hits would be able to strip them. Glances would only be able to shake, stun, destroy weapons( 5) or immobilize (6).

Hull-points were introduced because it was functionally impossible to blow up vehicles without AP1 weapons, needing to first get through its AV and then needing to roll a 5+ with AP2 or a 6 without. So you could pen a vehicle over and over and not get any meaningful results.

You needed a 5+ unless you were AP1, AP2 didn't matter for squat in 5E. That said, we now have a completely superfluous damage table, the continued existence of which is largely punitive without serving much of a balance aspect anymore.

Honestly I didn't mind the vehicles in 5E. It meant there was a point to AT guns rather than just spamming plasma. Also, it wasn't most vehicles that people had problems with, people didn't complain about things like Predators, Hellhounds, Hammerheads, Leman Russ tanks, Ravagers, Dreads, Sentinels, Fire Prisms, Devilfish, Wave Serpents, Medusas, etc being too hard to kill really, it was stuff like having to stop half a dozen transports filled with scoring assault troops where they only cared about a minority of the damage chart since guns and shooting didn't matter. There were plenty of armies that could easily deal with 10+ vehicle hulls on the board routinely without a problem.

Effectively what the rules in 5E meant was that vehicles were T6-10 W1 models, where if you rolled the minimum required to wound them or they made a 3+ save (since a kill was a 5+) they were crippled or disabled in some way instead of being killed.

The old damage table was very focused on shutting down vehicle shooting, only one result would allow a vehicle to continue to fire (and being Immobilized often meant it may not have viable targets), while often on a pen many transports were fine 50% of the time and on a glance up to 5/6ths of the time.

 Robisagg wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

What about giving invulns? Av14 gets a 5++?

I mean they could work on invuls, there's something to that, though I'm not sure of the best way to implement that off the top of my head. It just felt weird imagining a Land Raider with a 2+ save it would never really get to use except against a very small list of weapons.

I always liked the way Flames of War dealt with vehicles, where every AT gun had an Anti-Tanks and a "firepower" rating, and you compared the AT of the weapon to the strength of the hull, where the "Firepower" was rolled after determining penetration to determine how powerful it was. So, for example, a Sherman with an AT of 10 and a FP of 3+ shooting at a Tiger's side armor of 8, the Tiger gets a defense roll, on a 1 the AT10 shot penetrates through (and on a 3+ it kills the Tiger, on a 1 or 2 the crew bails out, essentially crew stunned), on 2 it glances the armor (on a 3+ the crew bails out, on a 1 or 2 nothing happens) and on a 3+ the shot bounces off. Then the Tiger hits back with an AT 13 FP 3+ shot against the Sherman, the front armor is only 6, the Sherman can't roll high enough to save against it (6+(theoretical D6 max of 6) is still lower than 13), so it just went straight to the 3+ roll to see if the Sherman got killed or if it just got bailed out on a 1 or 2.

I've thought about that in 40k for a long time, and something like that could be cool. Unfortunately the best way to do that would be directly translating the AP stat, which would make too many guns way too effective (e.g. melta auto-killing instead of on a 4+, Lascannons killing rhinos on a 3+ to pen and 2+ AP, etc). Without some sort of other radical rules change I just can't think of a good way to translate that into 40k however.

I loved 5th in how concise it was, and how predictable armies were so you could actualy plan for a game. Now since 6th shat and puked over all that already, I like how there are countless combinations in 7th. Allies, FW, Superheavies, Unbound. All flyers wing meeting an Imperial Knights mechwarrior esque lance? Awesome! The actual matchup will be borked because GW but hey it sounds great. In fact in real word a TAC list doesnt exist either, example a mixed SS would be decimated by a mediocore soviet tanks if catched on a plain field. Anyway snce I accepted the fact that the core rules and balance are just abysmal, I see a lot of opportunieties for stupid fun.

But, tbh I only like the idea. The actual rules I find not tactical enough so Im writing my own for home use. Funnily enoug there will be more micro managment but only because I want it to actualy matter. So, heavy weapon does not have to shoot the same target as the rest of the squad because that makes no sense, the position of models will really matter etc. Really the problem wih scale in 40k is that its neither the company level ruleset nor skirmish taken big ruleset, its just a weird mixup of both and its most cardinal sin, it doesnt provid tactical possibilities from either of those.

Down to single rules, what I hated about 5th was 30 termagants hiding behind a building and you could shoot them all down because a single one was visible. Look out sir is equaly dumb though so that evens out I guess. Also you should be able to shoot into CC, some reactive fire mechanics too and maybe overrun so you can attack another unit if you killed everyone from the first one in CC (only once though). Fliers are bad suspension of disbelief wise but provide much needed mobility so not sure here.

I think flyers should be renamed to Super-Fast Skimmers.

A proper flyer wouldn't even be on the table.
Drop Zone Commander has some proper flyer rules that represents air combat much better.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the vehicles having saves thing I've figured that they should get a save based on their AV. For AV10 they get none, AV11 6+, AV12 5+, AV13 4+, AV14 3+, AV15(+) 2+. That gets them an armor save that can be AP'd by anti-tank weapons, but provides some anti-glance protection.

The flip side of all of this is some armies (Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights) need some real and legitimate anti-heavy tank options to balance the game out better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the "more Hull Points" idea either, and think that ideally things would have both.

The whoe armour save system is not working. Ap 3+ is the thing, while everything belov that just makes the lighter armour even more worthless. It's also good divider because 4+ and worse cover is easily available, making the worse than 3+ armour (and worse than 3ap) just cost points without much use. Good example are the ap5 ccw:s that Gw are pushing. They make the models better against the stuff that they wouldn't have any problems anyways (and at the same time more expensive) while not helping at all against heavier stuff.

I would bring back the save modifiers. A simple rule change that could be tested as a house rule would be changing the ap so that ap5 would be -1 to save and every point above that would be a -1 more. So ap1 would be -5. At the same time I would change the marines (and equal) to have 2+ save and terminators (and equal) to have 2+ save on d8. That way marine would save on 3+ against bolters, 4+ against heavy bolters and the terminators would be very hard to kill with small arms, but against stuff like lascannons and meltaguns they would be about as resisitant as now. And it would matter to shoot them with missile instead of a lasgun.
At the same time cover could be just a bonus to armour save infinity-style. With almost all cover giving +1 to armour, and the heaviest fortifications +2, where the lighter terrain would be just a movement modifier and LoS element.

Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

i actually played the end of 6th edition mostly with hit modifiers instead of cover and snap shots. It worked fine, but had some issues (like making eldar even better ).

Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but how'd it make Eldar better?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Modifying BS doesn't nerf shooting as it instead buffs already durable units. Here is an example

Lets say you have a SM squad shooting bolters and they have a -2BS modifier (for shooting into cover or w/e) so went from hitting on 3+ to 5+. Thats a 50% cut in damage output so is basically a 4+ save.

If you shot at Guardsmen their normal 5+ armor is getting ignored by the Ap5 bolters. So the only damage reduction they get is the -2BS which is basically giving a 4+ save. This is identical to if they were just in a ruin and got a 4+ cover save in our current system. It is completely identical damage either way thus resulting in no nerfing to the shooting output against the fragile unit.

However if you shot at another SM they get their 3+ armor save still. But there still is the -2BS so the SMs basically get a 4+ save in addition to their 3+ armor save making them twice as durable as they were before.

As a result all switching to BS modifiers did was buff units already good at getting shot and do nothing for the fragile units that you'd want to nerf shooting for in the first place.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

The problems I see are that it makes more sense for shooting to be poorer in a Fantasy setting. it's a little weird if Space Marines with the latest technology and weapons still need 5s and 6s to hit.

The other aspect is that it seems like you'd need to rebalance a lot of units. e.g. Marines are now getting their 3+ save *and* cover against small arms fire, whereas units like Guardsmen, DE, nids etc. are gaining no extra benefit.

Similarly, you'd have to be careful in terms of the modifiers applied because it really doesn't take much to make a squad's shooting all but worthless - which matters even more if that squad is carrying Heavy/Special weapons. In fantasy, shooting tends to be more uniform. Aside from the occasional character weapon, squads are generally all carrying the same weapons. And, any weapon can hurt any toughness. in 40k, you have squads with single heavy weapons, which may be the only weapons that can hurt a tank or MC.

To put it another way, units can't compensate for poor shooting by just taking more bodies, as they can in fantasy.

It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it's something you'd really need to build both the system and the armies around. You couldn't just add it as a patch job (like GW does with every other rule).

@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem. Plus it'd make vehicles more durable, which was mainly the point.

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil). And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same. Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

And I agree it's not something that can be just slapped in but it's one of the core mechanics from Fantasy I really think could work in 40k with some proper tweaking and setup.

Yes, that's why I said that it didn't work too well. But I must say that part of the thinking behind the modifiers was indeed to make the durable units more durable. Remember that it was in 6th edition when basic marines were suffering from extinction. And marines hitting on fives guardsmen without cover saves is exactly the same as marines hitting on 3+ and the guardsmen getting 5+ cover save. Afterall against bolters the cover save is simulating the units in cover being harder to hit than actually the trees stopping the exploding rounds.

And it made eldar better because the modifeirs from jink, coupled with their already good survivability made them quite hard. And also the abundant re-rolls helped them quite a lot hitting stuff.

I must say that my "new save modifier mod" feels a lot better as it also includes the cover. Current cover system has always felt stupid as it is dependant on the armour save of the model shot.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Welcome to 2nd edition.

While we're at it, we might as well bring Save Modifiers back. After all, how is it that Power Armor offers the same protection against an Autocannon as it does against a Laspistol?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem.

Because marines aren't currently priced correctly for getting an additional 4+ save against small arms fire?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil).

Surely that depends on the technology?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same.

But exceptions aren't something you can just assume will be applied correctly.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Please no. Weapons in 40k already have stupidly long ranges. Let's not make them even longer.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

If you want to make things more tactical, try reducing weapon ranges so that manoeuvring becomes important.

Infinity does this well with the optimum range modifiers for the weapons. Something that we had also in 2nd edition. Although I'm not massively into too complicated rules in a game with 50+ models, but on the other hand, general 40k army has in general about as many units to do actions as in infinity. And 40k already has too complicated rules

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Welcome to 2nd edition.

While we're at it, we might as well bring Save Modifiers back. After all, how is it that Power Armor offers the same protection against an Autocannon as it does against a Laspistol?

I'm definitely not against that idea actually. Heck, you could even keep AP and use that to determine the save modifiers instead of strength just to not throw things completely out a window.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem.

Because marines aren't currently priced correctly for getting an additional 4+ save against small arms fire?

It's not an additional save if the mechanics make them harder to hit. And if we bring the save modifers in (as mentioned) what does hit, would still be reducing their saves so they'd die more often.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil).

Surely that depends on the technology?

When mounted on a vehicle, maybe. We are talking about physics here and while a lasgun may not (since it's a lightweight laser weapon) a bolter definitely would suffer that problem.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same.

But exceptions aren't something you can just assume will be applied correctly.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm just stating a thing I'd personally like to see.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Please no. Weapons in 40k already have stupidly long ranges. Let's not make them even longer.

They're also supposed to be as at least as accurate as the guns we use today, and if 1"=2m' then my M4 I had in the Army had a better range than a lasgun (24"=48m range, M4=500m point, 600m area or 250" and 300" ranges on the table respectively). Now I'm not saying that it should be easy to hit that far out (I mean 300m can be a right pain with just iron sights if conditions aren't in your favor) but surely balancing a lowered chance to hit with a longer range is not that game breaking.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

If you want to make things more tactical, try reducing weapon ranges so that manoeuvring becomes important.

As pointed out that actually hurts realism more. Shorter ranges don't make the game more tactical, they just push players to using faster platforms to engage with things more quickly. All you do is push a meta of armies with the fastest units to the top. So Eldar again.

Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

Allies, with proper grooming and control a la Warmahordes, could work, but as they stand, are so heavily skewed towards Imperium that it's entirely dumb and busted. You have armies that are just flat out bland, flat, or gutted with new releases; all of which encouraging the further proponent of allies and the purchasing of more rules.

It's hot steaming mess. If they had stayed on 5E mentality and just polished some of the issues there, we could have had a 6E/7E where an army was an army, some flavorful allies could be had, theme lists could be introduced that enhance fluff armies that are lacking in potency, flyers and titans would stay in Apoc due to scale, and the rules would get clearer and smaller. Not bigger and worse.

And the continued addition of pure random elements, including ones you have to pay for, is extremely poor game design.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

It's not an additional save if the mechanics make them harder to hit. And if we bring the save modifers in (as mentioned) what does hit, would still be reducing their saves so they'd die more often.

But more fragile infantry will also have their saves reduced - usually to nothing, whilst the marines will still get some save.

That said, I think armour modifiers would be a good replacement for AP.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

As pointed out that actually hurts realism more. Shorter ranges don't make the game more tactical, they just push players to using faster platforms to engage with things more quickly. All you do is push a meta of armies with the fastest units to the top. So Eldar again.

Shorter ranges do make the game more tactical because positioning becomes a lot more important. You can't just stick some broadsides in one corner of the table and still hit models in the opposite corner.

Again, this wouldn't be a quick fix - you'd need to change a lot of other stuff along with it. But, I do believe it would create a more tactical game.

 TheKbob wrote:
Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. The game needs formatting, it's wayyyy too bloated. This could be done as you suggest through various expansions/formats.

The easiest thing GW could have done is indexed certain things to point level.

1500pts normal ass 40k (skirmish ala 5th ed, no silly crap)

2000pts some silly crap

3000pts all the silly crap you want, for realz


That at least would facilitate some level of communication that doesn't leave both parties lobbying to play with the toys they want.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. The game needs formatting, it's wayyyy too bloated. This could be done as you suggest through various expansions/formats.

The easiest thing GW could have done is indexed certain things to point level.

1500pts normal ass 40k (skirmish ala 5th ed, no silly crap)

2000pts some silly crap

3000pts all the silly crap you want, for realz


That at least would facilitate some level of communication that doesn't leave both parties lobbying to play with the toys they want.

That would entail them actually caring. The common argument is that the players should make the game different scales, but that almost never works in the context of pickup games, because different people want different things. When you add all the superheavy crap from Epic the game becomes basically whoever shoots first wins, and there are so many special rules that are little different than others that they might as well not exist.