I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
Utter garbage. It's a bloated mess of poorly planned rules and special exceptions to the rules and special exceptions to the special exceptions, all of which involving rolling dice to see what table you roll a die on and then rolling for the details of the result. And of course balance is nonexistent, the overpowered stuff is stupidly overpowered and the garbage stuff is hopeless. And remember: don't complain about the poor state of the rules, Forge™ A™ Narrative™!
GW company policies
Still pretty bad. Some of the dumbest stuff seems to be in the past, but GW still isn't a sensibly run company. Finally dropping some of their ridiculous IP lawsuit abuse and issuing a mediocre FAQ doesn't change the fact that they don't give a about the quality of the products they're selling at ridiculous prices. People will talk about how GW is supposedly showing signs of improvement, but that's really just low expectations turning even the slightest reason for hope into proof of miracles. They're still failing pretty badly at all that stuff compared to virtually any other game company.
and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
Remember all that stupid stuff that used to be limited to Apocalypse? That's a standard 1000 point game now. Balance is much worse, the complexity of the game is much worse (without adding any depth to make up for it), badly designed random effects are much more common, and the idea of taking a single FOC from a single faction as your army identity is completely gone. Honestly, the game is just worse in almost every way. The only improvement I can think of is that you can now measure range at any time, so you no longer have to resort to all the stupid gray-area tricks (and blatant cheating) for figuring out ranges.
Hardly playable at a global scale, but still playable in a closed group.
We have organized (bi-)monthly tourneys until Feb. 2014. We still play apoc games at a regular basis. 30k is on the rise here. But WMH has taken over the lead. Lots of games per week.
The reasons for the decline of 40k are rather diverse. The rule set is complex and some armies are hardly playable any longer like CSM. Some want to go to tourneys. But they first check how many Tau and Eldar players have registered.
I think the game is fun but that fun is dependent on both players being on the same page as to what kind of experience they want on the table top. By that I mean if your trying to play no holds bared full force cheese or playing fluffy lists that focus on fielding less than optimum lists or avoiding using power combos to break the game. 40k now is a much more social contract game than before as GW has gotten a bit fast and loose with their rules writing while allies makes mixing and matching armies both fun and also vulnerable to being exploitive.
GW policy use to be pants on head levels of stupid but they are slowly turning the ship around with some attractive boxed sets and ways to get their products for cheaper. Time will tell which direction things go as GW continues down their production schedule.
Rules for the most part now favor psychic powers and shooting over close combat although through psychic powers and certain special rules its quite possible to create nearly unkillable "deathstars" that can absorb insane amounts of shooting while murdering anything in close combat. Vehicles have hull points (wounds) and generally vehicles are only good if they are flying (most units have to snap shoot at flyers) or are solely transports. Combat vehicles such the Leman Russ and Hammerhead plus nearly all standard walkers are not good as its extremely difficult to function as a shooting platform due to how easy it is to either strip hull points as glances take hull points (vehicles don't have saves outside of cover for the most part) while the vehicle damage table from penetrating hits makes it so combat vehicles are usually either snap shooting, immobilized, or just outright explode. Monstrous Creatures are basically everything combat vehicles want to be while usually being far more durable (easier for MCs to get cover saves and they generally have decent armor saves plus feel no pain) and can't be one shot unless hit by an instant kill attack which are generally far more rare, especially at range unless its doubling out the toughness of the MC.....most MCs are T6 so that's basically impossible.
All three of the armies you listed are doing well currently with some very powerful codexes (Eldar is generally considered the best codex in the game). A lot of variety and playstyles can be had with those armies that can both be fun and fluffy while not being completely terrible in terms of results. Big thing now are Formations and special detachments (Force Organization Charts) which have certain restrictions and requirements but give bonuses to the models that are a part of that special detachment/formation. It gives a lot of variety to how you can build an army and can be quite fluffy at times while also being extremely powerful in select cases.
Also 7th edition allows super heavies in the game (those Apoc units like a Stompa) but generally its best to discuss with your opponent how they want to go about allowing them. Bringing an Imperial Knight or Wraithknight (now a Gargantuan Creature) to a 1000 point game might be considered unfun for your opponent where as other opponents are bringing the type of stuff that can handle such things. Power units aside some people prefer the game to focus more on the smaller units and tanks and would prefer to avoid things like Strenght D and super heavies/GMC.
Despite all the doom, gloom, and piles of salt, 40k can still be a ton of fun to play and the variety in list building is potentially huge and can really fit different playstyles. Play with people looking for a similar 40k experience and it can be a blast. Good sportsmanship and a quick chat about expectations with your opponent goes a long way towards making the game fun for everything involved. Also Maelstrom missions are potentially a lot of fun as progressive scoring can make holding objectives during the actual battle important instead of becoming important during the last turn or two of the game. Its RNG as can be which is poor design by GW but maelstrom missions at its core is imo a good way to play the game (with a bit of house rules to fix some problematic issues).
I would approach it as if it's an entirely different game.
It still is a type of tactical combat simulation, though many aspects have either been dumbed down or made overly complex to calculate (or difficult to remember every applicable rule and exception for).
There is enjoyment to be had, but that depends on your expectations and view of what makes a fun game.
If you're after a balanced, fair tactical game that relies more on your skill with a bit of randomness to simulate the uncertainty of war - 40K fails to deliver significantly and will end up becoming a frustration.
If you're after a thematic game where you're content with (most likely) grossly uneven odds, more (or less depending on the army) randomness and a 'top trumps' style of rules and exceptions to those rules until one of you gives up or can't remember another one to use to counter the opponents play. - basically a game that isn't to be taken seriously. Then 40K appears to be just that beast.
Essentially - fair and balanced - look elsewhere unless you are playing with a good friend land you both make a serious effort to address the issues yourself. Beer and pretzels game for those who don't mind trawling the Old Testament of rules, spot on.
The game can work with a group of like minded individuals who have a solid grasp of balance in order to have fairly balanced armies in the group. At the tournament/competitive/random style gaming, the game falls apart rapidly. In 5th, the worst you'd run into was a GK Razor spam with riflemen dreadnoughts, or the IG parking lot, or Necrons. Those armies were at least manageable to all but the very worst and made sense from a fluff perspective. Now we have super friend lists of deathstars that make biker Nobz look like child's play. We're talking about units with a re-rollable 2++ Invuln save, FnP, and Invisibility, which makes them all but impervious to shooting, and pretty much invincible in CC.
All those things from the old Apoc rulebook are not 100% commonplace. If you like titans, you might like the new rules, but if you feel that the titan should stay at home except for your quarterly Apoc game or a scenario match, then you won't like the new changes. Destroyer weapons are increasingly common, and every new codex seems to try and one up the previous one in more dramatic ways.
The long and short is that the game has only gotten more complex with no gain in tactical depth, while the balance is increasingly worse. Its still fundamentally warhammer with cool models and can make for a good time rolling dice with friends, but it is fairly far from the game you remember in 5th.
Tl;dr: The game is gak, GW is gak, prices are higher than ever (and so is the GW design team), the fluff is getting worse, and there is no real hope of improvement.
Selym wrote: Tl;dr: The game is gak, GW is gak, prices are higher than ever (and so is the GW design team), the fluff is getting worse, and there is no real hope of improvement.
Indeed, no hope for an improved game (and lower prices). The starter kits are fine but if you want to play a ''full'' army, you will need more specialized units and this will become expensive.
Peregrine wrote: They're still failing pretty badly at all that stuff compared to virtually any other game company.
To be fair, GW is a big ship to start turning, and it will not make any quick turns despite the best will in the world. We've seen the first few months of a new person at the wheel and it has started turning. It could end at any time and leave us here, still mostly on course for what it always has been, but we're not wrong to be cautiously optimistic about the future.
Formation spam is a mess. Core rules are a mess. Game balance is non-existant. OP stuff is oozing out of every, possible orifice of current 40K. The only good thing is the support for the hobby, in the form of video games, comics and what not. It's nice that GW started thinking a little outside the box, for a change.
I never jumped onto 7th since from the very beginning i regard it as . I personally came too late (6th) but i very soon got who was GW: moneyful firm not giving a damn about what they're doing anymore, while making the best of people who don't already know how they are... And i'm not going to compain again obout how the poor orks and chaos are desperatly overhelmed while some eldars and SPESS MAREENS! are the rulers...
To cut it short the current state is ridiculosly bad. That's almost funny at this point.
I am having fun again right now. The trick is to accept that 40k has no working point system. I have found two ways for me to enjoy it. The first one is just to play against other players who like to match their army strength on yours. This gives rise to nice fun games with actual tactical decisions having to be made from time to time. . The other is to not take it serious and go all crazy, embrace that old apoc mind set. Bring the silliest stuff to the game and expect them to do the same, don't despair when stuff gets shoved off the board in buckets or when something has a 2++ rerollable save. Expect stuff to assault out off deep strike and rain D from the skies, enjoy it and match it with your own sillyness. Don't see tournaments as serious competition see them as a huge Appoc game that re spawns your army each 2-3 hours.
I think this is still something that's very important to balance all the negativity.
@OP; First of all, This forum and specifically this sub-forum is the most negative place you'll ever find. Don't imagine what everyone here is spewing is the general opinion. They're mainly right about the state of the game, but it doesn't stop it from being thuroughly enjoyable. I was just at a tournament this weekend and while I didn't participate, I sort of wished I did. It had a nice spread of armies with a lot of the bottom feeders that people on here call useless and pointless. We had two Tyranid armies, two CSM armies, an Ork and a bunch of other fun stuff. The single Tau player won, and sure there were a lot of space marine players, but generally it was a lot of fun, and everyone got to face something fun.
I personally am disappointed about the state of the game. I really, really like games that try to balance themselves. And for this, I looked elsewhere (X-wing).
I've taken a few breaks here and there throughout 7th edition. First it was because my 5th edition codex was bland and boring. Then it was because it was too powerful, but the stuff coming out was even more OP and less fun to play against. Then I'd get back into it, only to realize that GW is still giving toys to other armies besides mine.
As said above, the rules are bad, GW favors certain armies, the cost is extremely high, the time required to play is still high (and having a kid on the way, moving into a new apartment, and getting back into WoW right before Legion drops takes up a lot of time).
So, as of now, I enjoy the game in a closed group. Me and a few friends frequently try 2v2s and we try to balance them as well as we can, and just have fun on a Saturday night. I'm trying to limit myself to every other weekend, if that. And that seems to be working.
As many have said there is a massive rule bloat and every game we need to dig into the rules to see if there is a rule for that, two most notable examples of it. I got a tactical card that said slay a character in a challenge. My challenger did not kill the challengee, but the remaining wounds from the rest of the squad bled into the challenge and killed him, so we were not sure if it counted. Another was disembarking into ruin. The game is just full of rules like this.
Phyker phase is utterly disgusting right now. Which sucks because i love phykers but its really nasty with all the rules and crap.
Armys are super unbalanced at the moment, i still can not get over the fact that armies have access to D weapons in games that are not escalation or apoc size games.
As a recent returnee to 40K (played 1st-4th editions, came back shortly after 7th dropped) I'd say it's much the same as ever, i.e. it's not the tightest game in the word but basically fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt. That said, I'm not particularly interested in playing with armies of the sort of sizes better suited to Epic, which seems to be the direction GW have pushed it a bit.
Nazrak wrote: fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.
Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.
Alex Kolodotschko wrote: 5th was the last time I had fun playing.
Since then things have gone downhill imo.
Yep. Have hated 6th and barely played 7th, ridiculous overblown, overly complex piles of rules and clutter. Added to that the frankly awful codex my orks got... yeah, waiting it out until 8th.
Indeed, the tournament scene worked will in the 5th ed. During the last two incarnations, the scene went downhill. Today, its a big mess. But GW never promoted tournament play. Just the narrative variant. Drop a D2 and see how to resolve the rule mess.
When I want to play a good game of 40K, I play 4th, 5th or 2nd Edition. When I want to play at the local club, I go expecting a hideous annihilation as my poor old armies get slaughtered by ridiculous insanity.
It's not perfect but i'm having fun. In all fairness, there was no balance in 40k. Ever. The most broken part now are allies and psy powers. Even super heavies are not too bad in practice.
There are more ways of breaking the game simply because there are way more options now.
Gen.Steiner wrote: When I want to play a good game of 40K, I play 4th, 5th or 2nd Edition. When I want to play at the local club, I go expecting a hideous annihilation as my poor old armies get slaughtered by ridiculous insanity.
Hey what's wrong with 3rd ed.?! Played a few 3rd ed. games with friends at the local GW on Saturday and some of the staff had never even seen 3rd ed. books.
As others have noted, the game is a complete disaster.
If you're playing in a small, tight knit circle of pals that are all willing to play with significant self-imposed restrictions with similar mindsets, then the game can sort of work.
If you're primarily a pickup game player, or looking at events like tournaments or leagues or the like, then the game just does not work. Even for "narrative" play, the game is awful as GW's concept of "narrative" largely boils down to "roll repeatedly on random tables" and doesn't extend much farther than that, and the game is both far too expensive and far too messy and complicated for a "Beer and Pretzels" game.
The game will basically allow you to play any combination of models from any combination of forces and has pre-built "formations" that give you extra bonuses, often including hundreds of points of free units and wargear, to encourage this. There's very little coherence to army building at this point despite it being one of the more complicated parts of the rules.
Even without some of the crazier options the game offers, like allies and superheavies and multiple detachments and formations, GW has dialed the power level up to 11, with things like D-weapon equipped Wraithguard or Eldar Jetbike Troops where every bike gets a Scatterlaser and Space Marine Centurion squads with 30 AP2 Grav shots a turn and large numbers of other such sillyness.
The rules are a mess, the FAQ's GW is currently working through create as many problems as they solve, and the cost has skyrocketed. The game fundamentally doesn't know what it wants to be so it's trying to be everything and is suffering mightily. It has rules details suited to RPG's or skirmish games, but wants to play with units and forces more suited to Epic 6mm scale.
Vaktathi wrote: There's very little coherence to army building at this point despite it being one of the more complicated parts of the rules.
I'm still sort of in awe of that. The fact that GW could make throwing rules out the window somehow more complicated and laborious. 7th ed army construction, from hell's heart I stab at thee.
"To form an army, you must either take a Formation (sometimes referred to as a detachment) or make an Unbound list. All armies have access to the Combined Arms formation and the Allied formation.
Combined Arms consists of (FoC) and grants troops choices ObSec. Limitations are that you may not exceed the table.
Allied consists of (AFoC). Benefits are... Restrictions are that this must be taken in addition to at least one other formation, and no model fro this formation may be taken as the Warlord.
If you are making an Unbound list, you may take any selection of units from any codex, and place them in the same army. This has no benefits or restrictions."
And then just delete all that heresy about allies' matrix.
I think a large part of the problem extends from that fact that GW does not understand that new editions of rules are not meant to be, HEY LETS REWRITE EVERYTHING! and should be more of, hey lets fix what was not working in the last editions and accommodate for the new gak we made.
Case in point Vehicles. Tanks and such worked fine in 5th ed, the only thing with it needing a bit of a tweak would be the issue rhinos had where you could not kill them. But then here comes HP and the disaster that is.
Mini rant
IMOGW or at least the last CEO had his head up his gak hole, and utterly destroyed the rules, the new guy seems to be trying to bring it back. Hell i play with one of the old guys, been in the hobby since it launched and even he told me i have to remember some times this game is not what it was 5 years ago. Back when you HAD to follow the CAD. Back when the only time you saw a formation was in Apoc games.
The problem is now, GW tried to accomodate all those people who wanted to use the super cool toys, IE Super heavy walkers, or GMC or MC, in the game, but did not want to either A) play an apoc because they did not want to make the army, or B) Did not want to pay for it. As a result we have standard games (2000 pts below imo) that can field D weapons, massive amounts of AP 2, and other shananaganeries.
If GW wants to fix it they need to change a few things, and even i admit this would effect me:
-Trim core rules down, like AoS -Make formations cost extra points, like unit cost + 100 pts for the formation
-Get rid of the D on the field, or make it so its D-2.
-Pump the breaks on the amount of near infinite range AP 2 and 1 weapons.
Sorry mini rant over. I just get annoyed when GW tried to turn standard games into Apoc style games.
The game is fun at 1500 points or less, anything more I am finding to be way too much work.
AoS and 30k are actually more fun to play in my opinion....40k is just a hassle anymore, the rule creep is an issue just like it was at the end of 5th.
Some pros:
The armies are much more balanced then they ever were in 5th ed. You can pick from 3-4 really good armies, and like 6-7 decent armies and not go wrong. There are still "bad" armies, but that is not different then any other edition really.
To me it's the time/rule creep, when you cannot even finish 3 turns in a 2000 point game, something is very wrong with the game system.
Hrm, I would argue the scale of the gap between armies is even stronger than in previous editions. Eldar for example, while historically strong in almost every edition (except 5th where they didnt get a codex release), have not been as overwhelmingly powerful as they are now except maybe in 2E.
In 5E you could play the bottom rung armies much more capably. I was able to a least tread water with CSM's in 5E without Lash, but CSM's now without Daemon allies? Forget it
sfshilo wrote: The game is fun at 1500 points or less, anything more I am finding to be way too much work.
AoS and 30k are actually more fun to play in my opinion....40k is just a hassle anymore, the rule creep is an issue just like it was at the end of 5th.
Some pros:
The armies are much more balanced then they ever were in 5th ed. You can pick from 3-4 really good armies, and like 6-7 decent armies and not go wrong. There are still "bad" armies, but that is not different then any other edition really.
To me it's the time/rule creep, when you cannot even finish 3 turns in a 2000 point game, something is very wrong with the game system.
eehhhhhhhh IDK, CSM are pretty crappy right now haha.
AoS and 30k are actually more fun to play in my opinion....40k is just a hassle anymore, the rule creep is an issue just like it was at the end of 5th.
Indeed, we play an AoS league atm. I played two games so for with my Bloodbound vs. Sylvaneths and Sigmarines and was surprised about playability.
30k is much more playable than 40k. Marines vs. Marines is a much smoother game.
As someone who spent the time I wasn't playing 6th or 7th playing WM/H, the idea of a rule set in shambles kinda unsettles me but approaching it as a more casual game would be a nice change. I still see 40k news from time to time, how substantiated were those rumors of 8th edition coming soon?
LordTyphus wrote: As someone who spent the time I wasn't playing 6th or 7th playing WM/H, the idea of a rule set in shambles kinda unsettles me but approaching it as a more casual game would be a nice change. I still see 40k news from time to time, how substantiated were those rumors of 8th edition coming soon?
8th ed coming soon?
GW released a bunch of supplementary books (each with several formations in it) during the last two years but almost no codices. Seems to be a new business model. Not sure how long this will last.
8th edition will probably be second quarter of 2017. That's almost a year from now. I do believe the game will get better then, maybe even completely overhauled.
axisofentropy wrote: 8th edition will probably be second quarter of 2017. That's almost a year from now. I do believe the game will get better then, maybe even completely overhauled.
Until then, I recommend other games like X-Wing.
Another option is WMH since it has a tight and consistent rule set. MK3 has improved the rule set even further.
If I play a casual game, the game is fun and functions pretty well. If I play competitively, the game becomes a bit of a chore with the number of special rules and cases interacting with one another, as players angle bonus on top of bonus. (though, the game has always been a bit of a chore for competitive play)
Core rules work pretty well, IMO. The amount of special rules and un-disciplined codex authoring stacked on top of the core rules drags down what would otherwise be a pretty solid game.
I haven't been able to play for a few months, but I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
If you aren't stuck in 5th Ed it's pretty k. I like formations and think most armies are okay if your meta isn't all wraith knights messing with super friends.
Most people either complain about 1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies 2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and 3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
axisofentropy wrote: 8th edition will probably be second quarter of 2017. That's almost a year from now. I do believe the game will get better then, maybe even completely overhauled.
Until then, I recommend other games like X-Wing.
Another option is WMH since it has a tight and consistent rule set. MK3 has improved the rule set even further.
I will second WMH 3rd edition. The erratas released so far have been excellent, and the fact they are planning on rolling them out every 6 months or so helps quite a bit. The game is much more balanced across factions than 40k. Interfaction balance for casters needs work, but for troops is solid mostly. Most choices have a home with at least one caster.
Caster balance is faction dependent. Cygnar, for example, has 5 choices you should always make, but their others are good (outside Sturgis). Khador has excellent balance with Irusk 2 leading the pack, but not being mandatory. Circle is the biggest offender, followed quickly by trolls, but both of these and Sloan are likely to get nerfs.
Jaxler wrote: If you aren't stuck in 5th Ed it's pretty k. I like formations and think most armies are okay if your meta isn't all wraith knights messing with super friends.
Most people either complain about 1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies 2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and 3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
Russ parking lots were never indestructible nor were they what dominated 5E (medium AV spam was what worked great in 5E)
Formations really are that bad, and we have no idea or guarntee that everyone will eventually get them or that theyll be as capable. Less than two years ago it was "dont worry about Tau and Eldar, theyll get toned down like IG and GK's when they get their new books" and then...
Price is bad in that it has increased out of all proportion to inflation, and the number of models needed has grown.
I like the idea of Formations, but there's some definite abuse of the options they give.
Had Formations remained just bonuses to basic stats, or re-rolls, certain things like that are ok because they are easy to remember.
But there's a bunch of stuff that's more obnoxious to keep straight. The rightly disliked Skyhammer Annihilation, Relentless, Assault from DS, Suppression. Or the Stormlance getting out of Rhinos, firing, getting back in thing. Blech. I'd rather Formation bonuses be more straightforward.
1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies
Other hobbies don't matter. What matters is the other products within the hobby. Of course 40k is cheaper than luxury yachting or racing supercars, which doesn't mean GW's products aren't unreasonably priced. When you compare to other products that are actually logical to compare with, namely other wargames and similar games, like RPGs or CCGs, then you get a better idea for how expensive GW's books and models are. Hence the complaints. Quality also plays a part in perceived value, particularly with the rules, which are generally seen as one of the weaker rulesets available while also being the most expensive.
2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and
Army balance is as bad as people make it out to be, because its that bad.
3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
Formations are a problem and there is zero guarantee that formations will fix everything when everyone gets them. Case in point, people said that about 6th ed IG, but the Montka/Kauyon books proved that notion to be wrong when the formations were largely laughable.
It's less a 'once everyone gets them' problem for formations and more that some armies get staggeringly powerful ones and other armies get useless ones.
1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies
Other hobbies don't matter. What matters is the other products within the hobby. Of course 40k is cheaper than luxury yachting or racing supercars, which doesn't mean GW's products aren't unreasonably priced. When you compare to other products that are actually logical to compare with, namely other wargames and similar games, like RPGs or CCGs, then you get a better idea for how expensive GW's books and models are. Hence the complaints. Quality also plays a part in perceived value, particularly with the rules, which are generally seen as one of the weaker rulesets available while also being the most expensive.
2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and
Army balance is as bad as people make it out to be, because its that bad.
3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
Formations are a problem and there is zero guarantee that formations will fix everything when everyone gets them. Case in point, people said that about 6th ed IG, but the Montka/Kauyon books proved that notion to be wrong when the formations were largely laughable.
Do you've any evidence for the bulk of your claims. Given the price of making plastic molds they're not horribly priced and their formations aren't too bad in the IG if you don't run the blob. Army balence isn't too bad if you ignore outliers like DE and CSM
AnomanderRake wrote: It's less a 'once everyone gets them' problem for formations and more that some armies get staggeringly powerful ones and other armies get useless ones.
So it's like Codexes, really. Same old thing.
Exactly, which ties back into Jaxler's second point about bad balance.
But hey, just to entertain you, the first is supported by a simple google search or having played any game that isn't made by GW. The second is supported by anyone with even a smidgen of understanding of game design and balance and by looking at battle reports and the vast gulf between a tournament list and regular club list. The third is supported by some codices getting formations and still being gak.
AnomanderRake wrote: It's less a 'once everyone gets them' problem for formations and more that some armies get staggeringly powerful ones and other armies get useless ones.
So it's like Codexes, really. Same old thing.
Exactly, which ties back into Jaxler's second point about bad balance.
I mean you were kinda assaulting my opinion by saying "your wrong." I feel like in that case your father obligated to give some evidence else this devolve into both us yelling your wrong.
I mean you were kinda assaulting my opinion by saying "your wrong." I feel like in that case your father obligated to give some evidence else this devolve into both us yelling your wrong.
If you're insulted by someone raising a counter argument or opinion, then there's nothing I can do for you.
You made a claim with no evidence. I refuted it. Simple stuff.
*Edit* I edited my earlier response with evidence.
Your turn.
*Further edit* And let's drop the hyperbole about assaulting your opinion. Having a discussion and telling you you're wrong isn't an assault. I'm allowed to disagree and have every right to flatly tell you "I think you're wrong, and here's why". It is not assaulting your opinion.
1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies
Other hobbies don't matter. What matters is the other products within the hobby. Of course 40k is cheaper than luxury yachting or racing supercars, which doesn't mean GW's products aren't unreasonably priced. When you compare to other products that are actually logical to compare with, namely other wargames and similar games, like RPGs or CCGs, then you get a better idea for how expensive GW's books and models are. Hence the complaints. Quality also plays a part in perceived value, particularly with the rules, which are generally seen as one of the weaker rulesets available while also being the most expensive.
2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and
Army balance is as bad as people make it out to be, because its that bad.
3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
Formations are a problem and there is zero guarantee that formations will fix everythinge when everyone gets them. Case in point, people said that about 6th ed IG, but the Montka/Kauyon books proved that notion to be wrong when the formations were largely laughable.
Do you've any evidence?
Look at the recent ITC touranment results and you'll see the same armies placing in the top 5 consistently. $100 can barely buy you the core 2 troops and an HQ required to play. In other games you can get a full army for as much if not slightly more. This is not factoring in rulebooks and codices.
If you want I could build you a functional 1500 points Space Marine force and compare it to a 1000 point Bolt Action army. Both points costs are considered standard for their respective games.
None of the new formations place regularly in tournaments with IG. So yes, they did not address the faction's shortcomings.
1 price which isn't as bad as people make it out to be compared to other hobbies
Other hobbies don't matter. What matters is the other products within the hobby. Of course 40k is cheaper than luxury yachting or racing supercars, which doesn't mean GW's products aren't unreasonably priced. When you compare to other products that are actually logical to compare with, namely other wargames and similar games, like RPGs or CCGs, then you get a better idea for how expensive GW's books and models are. Hence the complaints. Quality also plays a part in perceived value, particularly with the rules, which are generally seen as one of the weaker rulesets available while also being the most expensive.
2 army balence which isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and
Army balance is as bad as people make it out to be, because its that bad.
3 the fact that it's not 5th Ed. Look, formation aren't that bad once everyone gets them and are super heavies and MCs really any better than indestructible leman Russ parking lots?
Formations are a problem and there is zero guarantee that formations will fix everything when everyone gets them. Case in point, people said that about 6th ed IG, but the Montka/Kauyon books proved that notion to be wrong when the formations were largely laughable.
Do you've any evidence for the bulk of your claims. Given the price of making plastic molds they're not horribly priced and their formations aren't too bad in the IG if you don't run the blob. Army balence isn't too bad if you ignore outliers like DE and CSM
How many "outliers" are we talking about here? IG, BA, and several other armies can be considered in roughly the same league as CSM's. IG for example certainly meaningfully arent doing much better against Eldar or Necrons than CSM's.
Yes, Plastic molds are expensive to make. They're also cheap to run for volume. GW are the ones insisting on doing everything in plastic, and many old kits have seen tremendous price increases. Look at the current basic Cadians. 10 dudes for $30. They exact same sprues used to be sold for $35 back in 2009...but were packaged to give you 20 dudes. If the priced was raised along with inflation, this would give use $39.26, not $60 for the same dudes. Likewise, thenold metal Kasrkin were $50 for 10 dudes, the plastic Scions that replaced them are $70 for ten.
Gen.Steiner wrote: When I want to play a good game of 40K, I play 4th, 5th or 2nd Edition. When I want to play at the local club, I go expecting a hideous annihilation as my poor old armies get slaughtered by ridiculous insanity.
Hey what's wrong with 3rd ed.?! Played a few 3rd ed. games with friends at the local GW on Saturday and some of the staff had never even seen 3rd ed. books.
I just don't have all the 3rd edition books! I have the rules, and a few of the Codexes, but I just ... prefer ... 4th. Mainly because of Guard Doctrines and Marine Traits. I wish they'd done more with those ideas.
As far as cost goes, 10 Cadian Shock troopers for £18.
OR...
38 Afrika Korps infantry for £20 from Warlord Games or Perry Miniatures.
So almost four times more figures, with more options in terms of kit and weapons, for £2 more in cost?
Even if you take into account the much larger overheads of GW compared to Warlord or Perry, I don't think that it would be crippling for them to give us 20 or even 30 figures in a box for £20 or so.
Other hobbies don't matter. What matters is the other products within the hobby. Of course 40k is cheaper than luxury yachting or racing supercars, which doesn't mean GW's products aren't unreasonably priced. When you compare to other products that are actually logical to compare with, namely other wargames and similar games, like RPGs or CCGs, then you get a better idea for how expensive GW's books and models are. Hence the complaints. Quality also plays a part in perceived value, particularly with the rules, which are generally seen as one of the weaker rulesets available while also being the most expensive.
How are we having to explain this again?!
I think it's time to have this post on a notepad on the desktop to be cut and pasted every time someone tries to make the same wobbly logic argument.
Insectum7 wrote: I like the idea of Formations, but there's some definite abuse of the options they give.
Had Formations remained just bonuses to basic stats, or re-rolls, certain things like that are ok because they are easy to remember.
But there's a bunch of stuff that's more obnoxious to keep straight. The rightly disliked Skyhammer Annihilation, Relentless, Assault from DS, Suppression. Or the Stormlance getting out of Rhinos, firing, getting back in thing. Blech. I'd rather Formation bonuses be more straightforward.
Indeed, formations are all over the place and some are very strong like Decurion and what not. If formations gave some bonuses, this would be fine. But it isnt.
Formations have become a money-making factor selling them in supplementary books. I guess this raises more money than the release of some new codices.
Nazrak wrote: fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.
Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.
Me too. People stopped giving a feth about fun games and just bring 2 Riptides, 3 Knights and a bunch of OP formations, every time it's possible. The game stopped being fun long time ago.
Our local club has 4 marine players (1 moved from orks), 2.5 csm (one has only played a handful of times, also >50% of their lists are daemons now...), eldar, harlequin/eldar, ig, admech (moved from ig), 1.5 tau (one new and hasn't completely decided if he wants to be tau or not), and an ork. People try to be relatively competitive but don't seem to abuse top stuff too much. Games are pretty good so far. Haven't been to local tourneys in a while though. Will try to attend this weekend. So, i'll probably see some abominable ravenwing superfriends and so on. Will try to endure them with my orkses.
They need to fix the whole mess, including the crappy codices(We all know, wich ones...).
Rewrite the books by someone, who cares about them, not "the Cruddacce". To tone down the Apocalypse-madness.
Stopping to just glue more stupid rules on this mess(containers, campaign-books, Dataslates,...).
And for the Omnissias sake, rewrite that crazy Eldar- and Tau-book. They are not fun, they are crazy on a level like the Joker in The dark Knight.
They just could use the stuff from previous editions that actually worked.
Do you've any evidence for the bulk of your claims. Given the price of making plastic molds they're not horribly priced and their formations aren't too bad in the IG if you don't run the blob. Army balence isn't too bad if you ignore outliers like DE and CSM
Funny how other companies can make plastic models for cheaper despite selling less. Ie THEY should be the ones costing more. Not GW. The more you sell the cheaper you can sell them. GW would be in prime position to really outprice mantic etc. Want high quality models for cheap? We sell them! That's what GW could do. Instead they leave that for competitors and add in GW tax for their models.
Do you've any evidence for the bulk of your claims. Given the price of making plastic molds they're not horribly priced and their formations aren't too bad in the IG if you don't run the blob. Army balence isn't too bad if you ignore outliers like DE and CSM
Funny how other companies can make plastic models for cheaper despite selling less. Ie THEY should be the ones costing more. Not GW. The more you sell the cheaper you can sell them. GW would be in prime position to really outprice mantic etc. Want high quality models for cheap? We sell them! That's what GW could do. Instead they leave that for competitors and add in GW tax for their models.
Mantic et al don't have a massive massive retail chain to subsidise.
Also re: formation and special rules. Despite the umpteen different variations and endless combos you can do they all boil down to the same handful of tried and (not) tested GW tricks. Re-roll ones, re-roll misses, add 1 to your reserves, blah blah blah.
In fact, when it comes down to it 40k doesn't really offer you any real option as a player. "Who do I shoot at/charge next?" is the only decision you have to make.
In short OP (if you're still reading), give the game a skip. It's a time and money sink whose charm wears thin very quickly.
I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.
Selym wrote: I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.
I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.
Selym wrote: I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.
I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.
A compact rule set would be key for the game.
Last time, we were discussing if a unit that destroyed a Dread could consolidate D6 inches. Its clear, but a Dread is a walker and walkers are tanks.
Try to find this rule of consolidation in the rule book... Somewhere it says that a Dread is considered as an infantry model...
Selym wrote: I'm currently editing down the rules. I can't remember what the original number of involved words are, but I was able to delete 6,000 words from just the psychic phase. It's horrendous.
I don't know why, but the idea of editing out 6,000 words from a single section of the rules and still leaving the rules functionally intact made me burst out laughing.
A compact rule set would be key for the game.
Last time, we were discussing if a unit that destroyed a Dread could consolidate D6 inches. Its clear, but a Dread is a walker and walkers are tanks.
Try to find this rule of consolidation in the rule book... Somewhere it says that a Dread is considered as an infantry model...
I remember when walkers and tanks were different types of vehicles altogether...
Gen.Steiner wrote: Clear, concise, compact. That's what a rules set needs to be. It's not impossible, but at this point I think 40K needs a 3rd Edition style rewrite.
This. Just the way GW presents their rules seems fundamentally broken. If I want to build a stupid Tac Squad I have to:
1. Look up the statistical section of the unit in the codex and decide what I want
2. Look up the fluff section of the unit in the codex to understand all the options and rules
3. Look up the wargear fluff section in the codex to decide what options I want
4. Look up the wargear stats section in the codex to determine the cost
5. Look up the wargear section in the BBB (or whatever color it is now) so I know what all the basic weapons do
6. Look up the USR section in the BBB so I know the squad's special rules
Since we're paying $40-60 for a codex, is it too much to ask that it includes a complete wargear list and USR glossary for the what the faction uses? Or that I don't have to flip back and forth constantly between multiple sections of the rules describing the same thing?
Most of the problem with the gameplay rules themselves is that they're written in the same byzantine way where you have to reference multiple sections of the book to understand a simple concept. A game based on a d6 roll with stats between 1-10 shouldn't require mile-long (kilometer-long for you non-Americans) FAQs to sort out regularly-occurring situations.
Gen.Steiner wrote: Clear, concise, compact. That's what a rules set needs to be. It's not impossible, but at this point I think 40K needs a 3rd Edition style rewrite.
This. Just the way GW presents their rules seems fundamentally broken. If I want to build a stupid Tac Squad I have to:
1. Look up the statistical section of the unit in the codex and decide what I want
2. Look up the fluff section of the unit in the codex to understand all the options and rules
3. Look up the wargear fluff section in the codex to decide what options I want
4. Look up the wargear stats section in the codex to determine the cost
5. Look up the wargear section in the BBB (or whatever color it is now) so I know what all the basic weapons do
6. Look up the USR section in the BBB so I know the squad's special rules
Since we're paying $40-60 for a codex, is it too much to ask that it includes a complete wargear list and USR glossary for the what the faction uses? Or that I don't have to flip back and forth constantly between multiple sections of the rules describing the same thing?
Most of the problem with the gameplay rules themselves is that they're written in the same byzantine way where you have to reference multiple sections of the book to understand a simple concept. A game based on a d6 roll with stats between 1-10 shouldn't require mile-long (kilometer-long for you non-Americans) FAQs to sort out regularly-occurring situations.
Yours doesn't?
The Sisters of Battle digital Codex has a section with all the faction's special rules listed with descriptions of how they work and a weapon table with stats.
I think a lot of people in 40K are in a holding pattern for 8th ed. I stopped playing club/shop pick-up games during 6th/7th, and recently games amongst my friends have dropped off too. Even in a small scale beer n' pretzels setting the game is no longer fun.
I'd love 8th ed to reset the game, but I can't see GW putting the lid back on Apocalypse.
We rewrote many rules during 5th edition and have been modifying them somewhat ever since. Some principles have been added but more have been taken away or never added since 7th Ed. The word doc is under 25 pages long and pretty inclusive although we never added flyers (still treated as skimmer types) nor super heavys.
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
Unless you want to use any weapon that lays down more than one barrage blast at a time.
Then, the game raises its middle finger at you and thrusts it dramatically for effect.
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
The biggest changes are that 40k now has flyers and allows superheavies. Moreover, you can even play an unbound army picking models and units at leisure. Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
LordTyphus wrote: I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
40K has never had this many options in any previous edition. This is a good time to play 40K.
Eldar, Tau, and Daemons are all strong armies in this edition.
What about the other armies?
He specifically asked about Eldar, Tau, and Daemons so that is what I commented about.
There is already a pissing contest going on in another thread abou who has it worst between Orks, Adepta Sororitas, and Chaos Space Marines .
There ever been an edition where Space Marines were not top tier.
The BIGGEST change is Force Organization, where there CAD is only one of many ways to build an army.
Combined Arms Detachment gives your troops Objective Secured, and lets your general re-roll Warlord traits.
Other formations/detachments give other benefits. Some are better, some are worse. People only care about the few perceived to be better.
Flyers and LoWs are part of regular army selection. The Psychic phase is either ignorable or game defining, depending on the army build.
Eldar - Jet bikes and Wraithknights are the strongest units this edition, spamming either will win you games and make people cry.
Tau - Markerlight Spam and the best shooting game, make people cry. Tau got a ton of upgrades from the last time you played.
Daemons - Mono Khorne has their own codex, that lets them summon, Nurgle is hard to kill, Tzeentch lets you summon more daemons.
Necrons lost their best shooty cheese, but are harder to kill
Space Marines got Grav weapons, which destory good armor, and a formation that lets them get transports for free.
Orks are terrible, outside of bikes, mega armored nobz, tankbustas, and lootas.
wuestenfux wrote: Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).
D-weapons, or at least their effects, were in 1st and 2nd edition in most of the same places they are now.
D-like weapons have existed in every edition as well, usually more powerful than they are now (I'm looking at you Jaws of the World Wolf).
wuestenfux wrote: Furthermore, D weapons entered the game. Some superheavies have them but also Wraithguard who have D flamers. Some armies like Eldar and Tau have devasting fire power which is hard to counter (Decurion or Gladius formations can help here).
D-weapons, or at least their effects, were in 1st and 2nd edition in most of the same places they are now.
D-like weapons have existed in every edition as well, usually more powerful than they are now (I'm looking at you Jaws of the World Wolf).
RT was an entirely different game that advocated a 3rd player GM set up battles, 2E games were also wayyy different and the game got so out of control they had to hard reboot it. Outside of RT and 2E such abilities have been rare and limited in scope (jotww couldnt affect vehicles for example), and usually highly bemoaned and generally seen as negatives.
LordTyphus wrote:I was thinking about getting back in to 40k. I haven't played since 5th ed. and thought that rule set was solid enough. Armies I'm considering are Eldar, Tau, or Demons. How's the current rule set/GW company policies and what are some of the bigger changes from 5th edition to now?
As previously stated, the big changes are Flyers are a thing now, superheavies are allowed in normal games, and there are alternate army builds to the FOC.
6th edition became the edition where you can't just pick up and play 40K straight out of the box, so to speak. You have to establish an understanding with your opponent prior to the game if everybody involved is going to have a good time. Even the major tournaments have found it necessary to have a considerable amount of house rules in order to make the game playable.
That said, I've been enjoying 40K more lately than I have 3rd-5th editions. I have a group I play with regularly, and we have a set of house rules that considerably tone down the worst excesses of the game.
Here they are, if you're interested.
Spoiler:
1: No Allies
2: 40% Troops minimum (applies to armies using alternate-to-FOC formations as well)
3: Psykers may only use their own power dice and those generated by the Harness the Warp roll at the beginning of the Psychic phase
Fairly simple. We also have a general agreement not to use Flyers/FMCs in games of 1500pts or less.
You'll find it relatively easy to do well with Eldar, Tau, or Daemons. Those three are the current power dexes, though Necrons are also up there, and SMs have a few builds that can run at the level of those dexes.
adamsouza wrote:
There ever been an edition where Space Marines were not top tier.
3rd Edition. When Chaos had the 3.5 dex and Eldar had all kinds of cheese, while Space Marines players were lumbered with a dex that was mediocre at best. That situation didn't resolve till SMs got their 4th ed dex.
I like this edition, there are a plethora of options when it come to playing the game and building an army. It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.
dkoz wrote: It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.
Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game. There is a middle ground between "bloated mess of rules that need a 100 page FAQ to even attempt to cover all of the problems" and "so dumbed down that those games on the back of cereal boxes look deep in comparison", and that's what people want.
dkoz wrote: It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.
Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game. There is a middle ground between "bloated mess of rules that need a 100 page FAQ to even attempt to cover all of the problems" and "so dumbed down that those games on the back of cereal boxes look deep in comparison", and that's what people want.
I would argue that AoS completely changed the type of game that Fantasy was. Many people liked the whole infantry square and being able to use movement trays and AoS turned it into a 40k style skirmish game. It also didn't help that AoS basically squatted a few armies in the process and threw the Ultra-Sigmarines and to a lesser extent Khorne up as the poster boy of AoS.
dkoz wrote: It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.
Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game.
Well, no, it is a functioning game, and has been ever since it was released: it's just it was so different and such a big change lots of people just reacted quite strongly.
Nazrak wrote: fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.
Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.
Me too. People stopped giving a feth about fun games and just bring 2 Riptides, 3 Knights and a bunch of OP formations, every time it's possible. The game stopped being fun long time ago.
I'm not going to deny these people exist, but why would you waste your time playing with them, if it's not the sort of game you want to play and you're not going to enjoy it? Just play with the few people you can find who want to play it on the same level as you. They do exist; I guess the tricky bit's finding them, but it can be done.
In my area, there are more LGS carrying 40K than there were during any previous edition. In my city alone, two shops in my city have opened and have active communities of 40K players, since 7th edition.
Personally, I find people who complain about army composition unfun to play with, and avoid doing so.
Not limited to 40K, but there is also a subset of players who insist that a previous edition of a game was better, often while playing the current edition. When asked why they are not playing the previous edition, the answer, almost always, ironically is they can't get anyone else to play the "better" edition with them. I find those people unfun, and avoid playing with them.
adamsouza wrote: In my area, there are more LGS carrying 40K than there were during any previous edition. In my city alone, two shops in my city have opened and have active communities of 40K players, since 7th edition.
Personally, I find people who complain about army composition unfun to play with, and avoid doing so.
Not limited to 40K, but there is also a subset of players who insist that a previous edition of a game was better, often while playing the current edition. When asked why they are not playing the previous edition, the answer, almost always, ironically is they can't get anyone else to play the "better" edition with them. I find those people unfun, and avoid playing with them.
theres a lot of reasons for that aside from the implication that the older edition is not better. Other players may not have the rules for older editions or run units/armies that didnt exist and that have mechanics that only function in the current edition. Some places will not allow anything but the newest edition to be played (particularly GW stores) there. If people want something other than the rare game against those willing to play the older edition, say they want to play in the weekly league games or find pickup games, thats going to have to be with the current edition. Getting people to play an older edition is an exercise in pulling teeth even when everyone agrees the ruleset is superior for a number of practical reasons.
Even when D&D moved to 4E and a huge chunk of the playerbase quit, people didnt go back to playing 3.5E with all their old books, by and large they went to Pathfinder which, while very similar, was an in-print and currently supported ruleset that was carried in stores, they didnt go back to the dead ruleset by and large.
My own store and playgroup has largely died out thanks to 7E. But trying to get 5E games organized is difficult, especially when half the playes never played 5E and most of the rest dont still have 5E rules laying around.
theres a lot of reasons for that aside from the implication that the older edition is not better. Other players may not have the rules for older editions or run units/armies that didnt exist and that have mechanics that only function in the current edition. Some places will not allow anything but the newest edition to be played (particularly GW stores) there. If people want something other than the rare game against those willing to play the older edition, say they want to play in the weekly league games or find pickup games, thats going to have to be with the current edition. Getting people to play an older edition is an exercise in pulling teeth even when everyone agrees the ruleset is superior for a number of practical reasons.
This is all very true. It becomes even more difficult when the thing that draws in a potential new player is some shiny new model that just got released and isn't available for an older edition.
Amusingly, my own LGS now has a thriving group of players who come in twice a week to play 2nd ed. since they don't like the current edition. I find no end to the irony of this when you consider that almost all of the complaints about 7th can also be leveled at 2nd ed ...
Getting people to play an older edition is an exercise in pulling teeth even when everyone agrees the ruleset is superior for a number of practical reasons.
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Also people went back to 3.5 in droves after 4E. Many of those same people did eventually jump ship to Pathfider, not because it was in print, but because is was simply considered and upgrade in many respects. Pathfinder made an effort to improve many of the percieved issues of 3.5 (dead levels, no incentive to hit level cap, grappling, broken feat combinations)
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Is it only an echo chamber if its an opinion someone dislikes?
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Is it only an echo chamber if its an opinion someone dislikes?
Google confirmation bias and why no one wins an argument on the interenet.
You literally know that not everyone agrees 5th edition is the best, but your first instinct was to attempt to discredit my statement.
Even though, logically you know my statement is factual, you couldn't help youself to attempt to discredit it.
It's a human failing, and most people are unaware they are doing it.
Getting people to play an older edition is an exercise in pulling teeth even when everyone agrees the ruleset is superior for a number of practical reasons.
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
I'm not, I get that people have different opinions on different rulesets, and I continually find myself surprised at my preference for 5E given how many gaping issues it had. However, trying to claim that everyone everywhere agrees that 5E was the best ruleset was not my intended point (though whenever the question arises it seems to be the most popular every time over the last couple years), my point was that even if you can get concensus on an older ruleset, there are practical barriers to playing it more than 4 years after its retirement, and they're even larger for older editions like 2nd or 4th.
Also people went back to 3.5 in droves after 4E. Many of those same people did eventually jump ship to Pathfider, not because it was in print, but because is was simply considered and upgrade in many respects. Pathfinder made an effort to improve many of the percieved issues of 3.5 (dead levels, no incentive to hit level cap, grappling, broken feat combinations)
right, Pathfinder was an actively supported and available ruleset which is why people switched to it, but until then much of the 3.5 crowd just quit playing in general, at least in my experience, the 3.5E ruleset was sustained by Pathfinder picking it up and running with it, not by people playing 3.5 forever.
While there are pratical barriers to playing an older rule set, they should be worthwile to overcome if the older ruleset is superior.
My gaming group has in the last couple of years run the way OOP Marvel RPG by TSR and Blood Bowl, using OOP components found on the secondary market and downloaded off the interenet.
5E books are easy and cheap to obtain on ebay. The points system has not radically changed, so importing new units is not a major issue. If the consensus is that 5E is superior to 7E, there should be very little in the way of stopping people from playing it, especially when many of the people making that assertion still likely have their 5E rules.
Nazrak wrote: fine as long as you're not trying to play it with someone who's a total melt.
Sadly, 40k seems to just attract (or possibly make) asshats. Personally, I have seen rather few players who weren't on the side of waac. And even fewer players who didn't just use marines all the time.
Me too. People stopped giving a feth about fun games and just bring 2 Riptides, 3 Knights and a bunch of OP formations, every time it's possible. The game stopped being fun long time ago.
I'm not going to deny these people exist, but why would you waste your time playing with them, if it's not the sort of game you want to play and you're not going to enjoy it? Just play with the few people you can find who want to play it on the same level as you. They do exist; I guess the tricky bit's finding them, but it can be done.
Doing so, for some people, usually means getting a handful of games per year at best. I am currently at 2 this year. Both Kill Team, and both lucky exceptions to the norm for gaming opportunities these last two and a half years.
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Is it only an echo chamber if its an opinion someone dislikes?
Google confirmation bias and why no one wins an argument on the interenet.
You literally know that not everyone agrees 5th edition is the best, but your first instinct was to attempt to discredit my statement.
Even though, logically you know my statement is factual, you couldn't help youself to attempt to discredit it.
It's a human failing, and most people are unaware they are doing it.
Of course not everyone believes that 5th was the better edition. There are those that do, and those that are wrong.
adamsouza wrote: While there are pratical barriers to playing an older rule set, they should be worthwile to overcome if the older ruleset is superior.
If we're talking just a couple close gaming pals playing in the garage, sure, but outside of that those practical issues quickly nix such attempts, especially when issues of play space or armies that didnt exist come up. People usually move on to other things, they rarely go back to older stuff, especially beyond the rare nostalgia bomb visit. Thats just a fundamental facet of our society. The practical difficulties are more than what people see as worth it for a leisure hobby in many cases.
My gaming group has in the last couple of years run the way OOP Marvel RPG by TSR and Blood Bowl, using OOP components found on the secondary market and downloaded off the interenet.
which works great for a tight knit gaming group thats not reliant on commercial space that dictates what can be played. If you dont have a tight gaming group (or want to play more than the same 2 people over and over), or are reliant on playspace where the owners dictate what can be played (such as a GW store), this breaks down. Getting *new* players to play an older ruleset is also very difficult for a myriad of reasons, most importantly they probably just invested in the current edition and jumping into an dead edition isnt going to be a high priority.
RPG's are also an order of magnitude easier to do this with than a tabletop wargame as all you really need to manage are books, you dont have to worry about armies and models that didnt exist in the older editions or armies that have radically changed character so much that to play them in an older edition might as well require building an entirely new army (Tau are a good example of this, my Tau built for 4E and 5E play have very little that would be included in a 7E Tau army beyond the Fire Warriors)
Of course not everyone believes that 5th was the better edition. There are those that do, and those that are wrong.
How,about 'no'.
If you ask me, the Best edition was late third ed with the trial assault rules. Fourth was pretty decent as well, especially in its early era. Fifth didn't really add anything if you ask me. A lot of 'what edition was best' boils down to when you started playing, and since most 40kers have a 40k 'career' thst lasts about 2 editions, it's only logical that most people here look to fifth as their initial edition, since the majority of the older players who cut their teeth on third, fourth or even second have since drifted away. The threads that tend to 'prove' the most popular edition are very weighted by the transient nature of the player base.
In other words az, No ones wrong for thinking an edition other than fifth is better than the others.
IMO, the internet fanbase tends to exaggerate army tiers a bit too much. Player skill and luck matter more than one's choice of army in my experience.
Just recently I ran a Marine Sternhammer list against Chaos Marines and Orks, both considered ''Bad'' armies in the game meta, yet I lost both times to them.
Gree wrote: IMO, the internet fanbase tends to exaggerate army tiers a bit too much. Player skill and luck matter more than one's choice of army in my experience.
Just recently I ran a Marine Sternhammer list against Chaos Marines and Orks, both considered ''Bad'' armies in the game meta, yet I lost both times to them.
I've got lots of data points with BA that say this is not the case. There is no luck involved when Eldar are rolling 100 BS 4 shots.
Of course not everyone believes that 5th was the better edition. There are those that do, and those that are wrong.
How,about 'no'.
If you ask me, the Best edition was late third ed with the trial assault rules. Fourth was pretty decent as well, especially in its early era. Fifth didn't really add anything if you ask me. A lot of 'what edition was best' boils down to when you started playing, and since most 40kers have a 40k 'career' thst lasts about 2 editions, it's only logical that most people here look to fifth as their initial edition, since the majority of the older players who cut their teeth on third, fourth or even second have since drifted away. The threads that tend to 'prove' the most popular edition are very weighted by the transient nature of the player base.
In other words az, No ones wrong for thinking an edition other than fifth is better than the others.
The persistent sense of humour failure that pervades Dakka these days makes me sad.
adamsouza wrote: While there are pratical barriers to playing an older rule set, they should be worthwile to overcome if the older ruleset is superior.
If we're talking just a couple close gaming pals playing in the garage, sure, but outside of that those practical issues quickly nix such attempts, especially when issues of play space or armies that didnt exist come up. People usually move on to other things, they rarely go back to older stuff, especially beyond the rare nostalgia bomb visit. Thats just a fundamental facet of our society. The practical difficulties are more than what people see as worth it for a leisure hobby in many cases.
40K players frequently invest thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours buying, building, and painting models to play 40K, but using the 5E BRB instead of the 7E rulebook is too much of a hassle ?
I'm sorry, but I don't buy that argument.
If 5th Edition is clearly superior to 7th, and this was believed by the majority of the player base, it shouldn't be difficult to find people willing to play it.
Spoiler:
Anecdotal, but relevant. After a disaster of a D&D 4E campaign, one of my friends was going on how D&D 2nd Edition was the best. I actually enjoyed 2nd edition quite a bit, so I told him if he Dungeon Mastered, I'd be all over it. He buys a bunch of 2nd Edition books on Ebay and rereads them. A couple weeks later I ask him about the campaign and he looks at me shaking his head. As much as he loved playing 2nd edition years ago, now that he played 3.5e and 4e, he didn't want to play 2E. The game had evolved, and he couldn't go back to 2e without changing it enough that we might as well be playing 3E.
FFG currently puts out a well received Star Wars RPG. My gaming group still plays the 20+ year old Star Wars RPG by WEG. We are not alone, there is a Google+ group with hundreds of members that not only still play the WEG version, but they actively produce new content for it. Professional looking stuff, that people have printed on LuLu and then use to game with groups.
Bloodbowl still gets played for years without GW support, with 4 teams that were never officially endorsed, or put in print, by GW.
Gree wrote: IMO, the internet fanbase tends to exaggerate army tiers a bit too much. Player skill and luck matter more than one's choice of army in my experience.
Just recently I ran a Marine Sternhammer list against Chaos Marines and Orks, both considered ''Bad'' armies in the game meta, yet I lost both times to them.
I've got lots of data points with BA that say this is not the case. There is no luck involved when Eldar are rolling 100 BS 4 shots.
As I said, in my experience. It's of course anecdotal, but I find it difficult to think otherwise when I've repeatedly lost against the ''bad'' armies while using the ''power armies".
Power lists is a more appropriate term than power army. It's really easy to build a god-awful list from the marine codex. For a new player, the marine power builds are bizarre and counterintuitive.
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Is it only an echo chamber if its an opinion someone dislikes?
Google confirmation bias and why no one wins an argument on the interenet.
You literally know that not everyone agrees 5th edition is the best, but your first instinct was to attempt to discredit my statement.
Even though, logically you know my statement is factual, you couldn't help youself to attempt to discredit it.
It's a human failing, and most people are unaware they are doing it.
Pump the brakes there big rig. Simply commenting on you using echo chamber to describe an opinion you happen to disagree with. A simple observation that I'd be curious if you'd call the same if it was a popular opinion you happened to agree with.
Please don't let the Echo chamber of threads of like minded individuals confuse you into believing every agrees with you, about 5th edition being superior.
Is it only an echo chamber if its an opinion someone dislikes?
Google confirmation bias and why no one wins an argument on the interenet.
You literally know that not everyone agrees 5th edition is the best, but your first instinct was to attempt to discredit my statement.
Even though, logically you know my statement is factual, you couldn't help youself to attempt to discredit it.
It's a human failing, and most people are unaware they are doing it.
Of course not everyone believes that 5th was the better edition. There are those that do, and those that are wrong.
Well, just last night I was playing a game of 7th Edition (500 points, homebrew campaign, all very weird and strange) and got talking to my opponent about 4th Edition and we have agreed to play a game of 4th - his Tau against my Imperial Guard.
My main and most regular opponent plays 5th Edition.
It's not necessarily hard to find people to play old editions or even unsupported games, but the difficulty definitely comes if you have no nearby clubs, or if you don't have a group of friends who play at each other's houses - then you're limited to the latest edition and PUG at GW stores and similar.
PS Hybrid 3rd/4th Edition is best of the post-2nd Edition variants of 40K.
dkoz wrote: It is funny though that so many of these people complaining about the state of 40K lost their minds when AoS simplified the fantasy rules.
Because GW simplified AoS to the point of no longer being a functioning game. There is a middle ground between "bloated mess of rules that need a 100 page FAQ to even attempt to cover all of the problems" and "so dumbed down that those games on the back of cereal boxes look deep in comparison", and that's what people want.
Well, AoS is a functioning game. We started playing an AoS league. The problem is not the small rule set. The problem are overpowered monsters/units/heros in the game. GW has adapted the warscrolls a bit like that for the Chaos Lord on foot. But its not enough atm.
Pistols at Dawn wrote: Mantic et al don't have a massive massive retail chain to subsidise.
They also sell less kits=individual kit is pricier.
GW prices are high because GW thinks they can get away with it. Not because they have to. Economics of scale is funny thing. The more you sell the cheaper you can sell. GW could own market for cheap high quality plastics. But they want to be the deluxe model collector company. Cheap models doesn't fit with that image.
tneva82 wrote: GW prices are high because GW thinks they can get away with it.
And they can get away with, and do.
They charge what the market will bear; it's a luxury good. They have hiked prices continually for years, and although they seem to be trying to make the initial buy-in cost cheaper nowadays I don't think they will bring the cost down to Mantic or Perry levels. They know that their target market - tweenagers and young teens with parents and families - can and do buy the kits, so the prices will stay fairly static or go up.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, AoS is a functioning game. We started playing an AoS league. The problem is not the small rule set. The problem are overpowered monsters/units/heros in the game. GW has adapted the warscrolls a bit like that for the Chaos Lord on foot. But its not enough atm.
AoS as it was first printed is not a functioning game. AoS only functions at all once you buy the extra "here's a point system and at least a token attempt to support pickup games" book, which is pretty clearly GW's concession that the default version of AoS is unplayable.
tneva82 wrote: GW prices are high because GW thinks they can get away with it.
And they can get away with, and do.
Their declining revenue and loss of market share would appear to show that may not be working terribly well however.
True, absolutely true, but the point is that although they may have reached the point where their prices are not borne by the market, that has only really recently happened. So it'll be a while before they react (I hope they do) and bring prices down.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, AoS is a functioning game. We started playing an AoS league. The problem is not the small rule set. The problem are overpowered monsters/units/heros in the game. GW has adapted the warscrolls a bit like that for the Chaos Lord on foot. But its not enough atm.
AoS as it was first printed is not a functioning game. AoS only functions at all once you buy the extra "here's a point system and at least a token attempt to support pickup games" book, which is pretty clearly GW's concession that the default version of AoS is unplayable.
I disagree with this, in the sense AoS as it was first printed was functional IF you talked. But for people who don't want to do that/feel you don't have to an want to just be like "X points, right then?" and start setting up, no it was not playable. But for anyone who had no plans to powergame or just field nothing but elites, or field everything they had against someone who had a fraction of that "because I can", or do nonsense like spam special characters or abuse summoning rules "because I can", it was perfectly playable and I think it's more a testament to the fact people want to have the rules spell out what they can and cannot do instead of apply even a modicum of common sense and logic and fairness to it nowadays than to "shoddy" rules.
How on earth someone like you would play a historical game is beyond me, you'd field a unrealistic army in a battle just because the rules didn't restrict you from not doing it.
Seriously, the issue here is that the 40k rules are loose and (arguably) flexible enough to do what you want at the cost of gross power imbalances that are easily abused because you have no reason not to abuse them, as the good bird here demonstrates. The other problem is that GW focuses on a small subset to give the lion's share of new things, while ignoring others to the point where they just can't compete on equal footing because they aren't treated equally. That's a design problem for sure.
I've got lots of data points with BA that say this is not the case. There is no luck involved when Eldar are rolling 100 BS 4 shots.
De jure, luck is still involved, but in practice when you are rolling that many dice you are all but gauranteed to get reasonably close to the average. So I agree.
Martel732 wrote: Power lists is a more appropriate term than power army. It's really easy to build a god-awful list from the marine codex. For a new player, the marine power builds are bizarre and counterintuitive.
Also agreed. The tournament winning lists are often built from multiple codices.
I had a long hiatus from 40k before I returned 3 years ago. I've never played 4th or 5th edition, but what we have now, I find to be better than back in 3rd. I've played Imperial Guard, and variants the entire time, and in 3rd edition, IG tended to be static and get murdered all the time, because moving somehow made my troops even more vulnerable.
Sure the rules now are bloated to the point of being nearly unreadable. And the rulebooks I need at hand to field my army, could fill a book case, and carrying them around often weighs more than my all resin army. I'm not a huge fan of unfluffy and exploitative allies either, and 40k is clearly in need of 30k style LoW restrictions to reign in abuse.
But as long as I avoid facing WAAC-types, I'm having more fun with 40k than I had 10-15 years ago.
How on earth someone like you would play a historical game is beyond me, you'd field a unrealistic army in a battle just because the rules didn't restrict you from not doing it.
Historical scenarios typically dictate what forces will be present, and prebuild armies for the players either entirely or in part in most cases. For historical based games like Flames of War, they absolutely have force composition rules and points costs.
There's a reason for that, and it's because common sense isnt as common as it's made out to be, and people have wildly varying ideas as to what "reasonable" means.
How? If my dude can see your dude, can he not shoot? If my dude can't see your dude, is the opposite true?
Speaking from experience, undergrowth, trees, and other scattered terrain is very good at rapidly making people disappear from view. However, on the tabletop, although I am stood behind a wood, because it has only four model trees in it, you can shoot all the way through the wood and kill me.
I preferred the way it used to be dealt with - if you were within 6" of the edge of area terrain, you could be seen. If you were on the other side of area terrain, LoS was blocked. It also prevents hilariously accurate sniper shots through four buildings and a park with a lascannon.
I generally dont mind TLoS so much in concept, but really it's just not appropriate for the scale at which 40k is played at. For a 750pt game with 50 models, TLoS can work fine and be cinematic and all that. At 2000pts trying to judge LoS and cover saves for 130 models , or when dealing with stuff like Baneblade's or Knights, it starts to break down.
Scale issues are a consistent problem with 40k in general.
Since 3rd Edition, 40K has been a Company Plus size game, where really even a 1500 point army represents something roughly the size of an Infantry Company (or equivalent in combat strength).
Trying to apply skirmish rules to that size of game is silly.
Things like TLoS are daft, because actually it's much better to get some abstraction in when dealing with area terrain, partly because people's terrain collections are so varied, and partly because it reflects reality much better!
It is often awfully awkward to determine LoS as well and we very often have to roll 50-50s when it is unclear if enough of the model can be seen or only antennae/weapons/banners etc. are visible.
True line of sight is always a risky proposition for a wargame, particularly if you have models inside buildings or a heavily built-up table. It is also the easiest point to start an argument between immature players.
There is a reason why area terrain is a better game concept. An area is just that, something delineated by the base it's mounted on etc. It's a far better method for most games.
Elbows wrote: True line of sight is always a risky proposition for a wargame, particularly if you have models inside buildings or a heavily built-up table. It is also the easiest point to start an argument between immature players.
There is a reason why area terrain is a better game concept. An area is just that, something delineated by the base it's mounted on etc. It's a far better method for most games.
It's also harder to define, constrains terrain-building creativity, and makes the 40k players point and snigger at the Warmachine games over 2d battlefields.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, but when you're playing something as loosely written as 40k it's not that risky a proposition.
Selym wrote: How? If my dude can see your dude, can he not shoot? If my dude can't see your dude, is the opposite true?
The problem is that TLOS makes no sense at all. It assumes that the models are static in their poses, so if one fingertip of a model is visible behind five different pieces of terrain you can shoot with only a 4+/5+ cover save even though in reality that outstretched finger wouldn't be a static target. Or a crouching model might not be able to shoot over a low wall, even though a real soldier could clearly just stand up when necessary. And it very easily leads to arguments about whether or not 0.01" of a model is visible, where changing your point of view even slightly gives you a different answer. Abstracted LOS, on the other hand, acknowledges that the static miniatures and terrain on the table are just a symbolic representation of the "real" battle and avoids these problems entirely.
What Peregrine wrote, basically. In 40k the models essentially only represent where the individuals are located, and how they're equipped.
With True Line of Sight, a character model on a scenic base is going to be more vulnerable, because the scenic base makes him more exposed. Or maybe he's waving a sword above his head. True Line of Sight presumes the character model not only dragged his scenic base around with him, but also kept his arm above his head the whole time.
Area terrain, and models defined as abstractions of the individuals they represent; are much cleaner and unambiguous game mechanics.
Furthermore, area terrain could easily work in three dimensions. When you're at a certain elevation; for example on board a Knight, or on the second floor of a building, nearby terrain features lower than your altitude, could simply be ignored and would not block LOS. Easy as that.
Elbows wrote: True line of sight is always a risky proposition for a wargame, particularly if you have models inside buildings or a heavily built-up table. It is also the easiest point to start an argument between immature players.
There is a reason why area terrain is a better game concept. An area is just that, something delineated by the base it's mounted on etc. It's a far better method for most games.
It's also harder to define, constrains terrain-building creativity, and makes the 40k players point and snigger at the Warmachine games over 2d battlefields.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, but when you're playing something as loosely written as 40k it's not that risky a proposition.
Elbows wrote: True line of sight is always a risky proposition for a wargame, particularly if you have models inside buildings or a heavily built-up table. It is also the easiest point to start an argument between immature players.
There is a reason why area terrain is a better game concept. An area is just that, something delineated by the base it's mounted on etc. It's a far better method for most games.
It's also harder to define, constrains terrain-building creativity, and makes the 40k players point and snigger at the Warmachine games over 2d battlefields.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, but when you're playing something as loosely written as 40k it's not that risky a proposition.
You're right...it's just a crappy proposition.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
It's almost like trying to represent grandiose fast-paced sci-fi warfare with fixed-pose models on a physical table requires some level of abstraction.
All I see in modern 40K forums is people gnashing their teeth constantly about meta, about power levels, codices, inconsistent rules etc. While GW doesn't claim to produce a tournament-friendly rule set, that seems to be the overwhelming crowd of people who are adamant about rules lawyering and ultra-precise rules.
If that's the audience, than area terrain is a far better idea. That's the much easier concept to install to minimize bickering and arguments.
The games I design and sell are based around both concepts but in the end, everything is left to the players. That of course is a simple benefit of producing a fun skirmish game vs. a giant competitive game consumed by thousands of players. In a perfect world you simply discuss anything with your opponent and come to amicable agreement.
Sadly I've never witnessed more immature arguments than in the 40K/Warmahordes crowd of gamers - and I don't mean that as a slight to the forum, it just attracts more teenage kids who think 40K is an excellent dick measuring device.
For the crowd I see online/in stores...area terrain would be my choice all day long.
40K has both currently. If you look at the terrain dataslates in th back of the BRB, they pertty much all give cover to anyone on the terrain, reguardless of LOS.
The problem often comes from not agreeing before a game what terrain offers that. Then the ineviatable arguments that result from the defending player wanting the save, and the attacking player not wanting to grant the save.
Forest terrain, in particular, needs the abstraction. If you model is densely enough to be appropriate, you can't move models through it. If you model forensts with enough open space to move models through it, it provides no real LOS blocking ability.
In my opinion, precise, unambiguous rules are always preferable. They remove uncertainty, make the game flow more smoothly, reduce unnecessary stress and conflict between the opponents, and they might rein in the sort of loophole abuse we're constantly seeing with the current edition of 40k.
I'm by no means a rules lawyer, but I'm also a board game veteran, and the 40k rulebooks compare rather unfavourably with the standards I've come to expect from the other games I collect and play.
Ambiguous rules are fine as long as everyone wants the same things, but 40k is a conflict simulator and you need an objective set of rules, not a system open for interpretation. "Forging the Narrative" as it was used in 6th edition, was awful and only served to highlight appallingly bad rules writing.
GW just don't want to spend any time/money on development and testing, which is pretty shoddy for a GAMES workshop...
As long as both players are on the same page, the game is pretty fun. I had a great time last sunday playing 1850pts Imperial Fists vs. Tyranids with my housemate. He wanted to try out the Endless Swarm formation, I had a CAD with some fun stuff like Assault Terminators in a Land Raider, Bikes, TFC, Stormtalons etc. and Devastators in a bunker. 8 hours give or take, with a lot of hilarious moments...
I lost because my bike captain warlord rode headfirst into a building and died >_<
Elbows wrote: True line of sight is always a risky proposition for a wargame, particularly if you have models inside buildings or a heavily built-up table. It is also the easiest point to start an argument between immature players.
There is a reason why area terrain is a better game concept. An area is just that, something delineated by the base it's mounted on etc. It's a far better method for most games.
GW has prepared for any outcome by giving sm ability to ignore both los and cover. For 1 warpcharge. Even if they go back to area terrain blocking los, sm can just easilly stand behind a 1-tree wood terrain and kill you without you "seeing" them. So, the game will be fine because 80% play marines. And the rest will just buy marines and the game will be fine as everyone will ignore los. No los, no problems.
As somebody who contemplates coming back to 40k after having left near the tail end of 5th edition. Threads like this make me so sad.
I want to love the game, the nostalgia factor is incredible. When I look at games other people say is just better/cheaper I just can't get them. I look at Warmachine models in stores and I know in my brain the game is more balanced, cheaper, and better designed ruleset.
But it's just not there, the spark that gets my imagination going. And now I'm too old for that to take hold.
Warhammer still does it for me, and I fething hate it. Anytime I try to come back to the game I love, I can't even make a fething army list in under two hours. Formations? Allies? What happened to the simple to understand TOC?
Why do I have to flip to four different pages to create a simple unit of space marines in an army list? Who the hell wrties these things? Do the people who decide how many points unit cost even play the damn game?
Also, why does everybody fething play Space Marines? Anytime I try to buy a second hand army I get about 500 Space Marine players and 6 dudes selling OOP Dark Eldar stuff.
Honestly, I feel that most of the people sad about 7th are people who still wish it was 5th.
Space Marines are the most Iconic, they are top tier, and they are actually probably one of the most affordable armies to play. They also come in literally every 40K starter set, so most 40K players have some.
Personally, I think 5th was probably the best core rule set we've had, but dont really wish to go back so much as I'd really just like to see a reboot. 5E had a lot of major problems and was far from perfect (Kill Points, Defensive Weapon rules, wound allocation, transports ignoring too many damage results, 4+ cover on everything, and gobs of codex balance issues, etc), it was just much easier and less time consuming to play, with wayyy fewer scale and balance issues.
But really, I'd much rather see a new rebooted ruleset than go back to 5th. 40K in it's 7E form is really trying to be 4 or 5 different games in one, and doing none of them even remotely well at all.
I want to love the game, the nostalgia factor is incredible. When I look at games other people say is just better/cheaper I just can't get them. I look at Warmachine models in stores and I know in my brain the game is more balanced, cheaper, and better designed ruleset.
But it's just not there, the spark that gets my imagination going. And now I'm too old for that to take hold.
Off topic:
Read the lore. If you need world building as a hook, then dive into the iron kingdoms rpg material, whether it's the new books, or if you can find (real, or on the interwebs) the old D20rpg material. When I got the wargaming bug again at the start of 40k fifth ed/ warmachine mk2, I still remember thinking how I knew straight away that 40k wasn't the game for me. Warmachine though? Well, if I wasgonna get into it, I'm gonna do it properly and dive into the lore. And holy heck, but the lore didn't disappoint. Genuinely brilliant hidden gem. They've been writing for fifteen years now - the setting is now mature, and loaded with plenty of grit, depth and character. It has plenty for your imagination. Take it from someone who walked down that same road.
On topic: more than ever before, 40k is 'what you make of it'. The era of wanting/expecting a gsming ecosystem comprising blind match ups and expecting them to be fair is over, if it's ever existed. More than ever before, 40k requires the 'negotiation phase' , and a bit of pre-planning, co-operation and organisation to act as a shock absorber. It can work, if you are willing to put the work in, and collaborate in terms of 'game building'. If that amounts to too much trouble, and/or is not worth the effort, then 40k is probably not the game you want to be playing.
You'll have to find a group of regular opponents who shares your mindset, if you prefer collecting and fielding proper, thematic armies. The pickup game scene where you live, is likely dominated by WAAC-type players, with their armies composed of unnatural allies, super friends, LoW, and all sorts of absurd, non-canon garbage.
The background and the atmosphere is still there, and the quality of the models tend to be higher than ever before. I don't think you'll have much difficulty finding opponents who share your sentiments.
Whenever I feel I have to explain my armies to non-gamers, I'll compare them to the sort of model railway my friend's dad had in his basement. I will tell them that my armies are essentially modelling projects, in that I spend a lot of time planning, building and painting my models, but every so often I will play games with them. And the rules are what animates my models, in the same way turning on the electricity will power a model railway.
I'm not an inferior player either, I reckon I win 60% of the games I play, and I play Imperial Guard, - but in it's current form, 40k is not a particularly good game. Yet, unlike most of my tactical boardgames (which are all better designed than 40k), 40k is so much more than a mere game. I still find that playing the game using my army is really enjoyable, even if the game mechanics are atrocious.
Play people who agree to match you with lists of equal power and talk about it beforehand. In tournaments, expect anything and go in understanding that.
Alternatively, bang your head against a ferrocrete wall and expect balanced pick up games without discussing anything beforehand and vent on the forums when you get wrecked.
Backspacehacker wrote: I think a large part of the problem extends from that fact that GW does not understand that new editions of rules are not meant to be, HEY LETS REWRITE EVERYTHING! and should be more of, hey lets fix what was not working in the last editions and accommodate for the new gak we made.
Case in point Vehicles. Tanks and such worked fine in 5th ed, the only thing with it needing a bit of a tweak would be the issue rhinos had where you could not kill them. But then here comes HP and the disaster that is.
Mini rant
IMOGW or at least the last CEO had his head up his gak hole, and utterly destroyed the rules, the new guy seems to be trying to bring it back. Hell i play with one of the old guys, been in the hobby since it launched and even he told me i have to remember some times this game is not what it was 5 years ago. Back when you HAD to follow the CAD. Back when the only time you saw a formation was in Apoc games.
The problem is now, GW tried to accomodate all those people who wanted to use the super cool toys, IE Super heavy walkers, or GMC or MC, in the game, but did not want to either A) play an apoc because they did not want to make the army, or B) Did not want to pay for it. As a result we have standard games (2000 pts below imo) that can field D weapons, massive amounts of AP 2, and other shananaganeries.
If GW wants to fix it they need to change a few things, and even i admit this would effect me:
-Trim core rules down, like AoS -Make formations cost extra points, like unit cost + 100 pts for the formation
-Get rid of the D on the field, or make it so its D-2.
-Pump the breaks on the amount of near infinite range AP 2 and 1 weapons.
Sorry mini rant over. I just get annoyed when GW tried to turn standard games into Apoc style games.
I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.
I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.
I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?
Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.
It can hardly become worse. We are already at a local minimum. Codices, supplements, formations, and whatnot. Its not possible to keep the complete overview as it was up to the fifth ed. It needs a restart. Roundtree needs to push the reboot button.
I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.
I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?
Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.
Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.
6th edition was honestly my favorite. And I like 7th edition in practice but obviously there are tons of issues with OP units and formations, allies, etc. From a competitive standpoint I don't have fun at all lol.
I've been playing 40k since 2nd edition came out, off and on. Have played a fair amount of 7th edition in the past 2 years as I've gotten more into tabletop wargaming in general thanks to a great local group I've found. That group has also given me a good deal of exposure to other systems, including WM/H, X-Wing, Star Wars: Armada, Infinity, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory (it's a very diverse group of pretty dedicated gamers).
So against that backdrop of a variety of "modern" rules systems, I'll say this about 40k: having experienced what games with good rules for competitive play are like (i.e. X-Wing, WM/H, Infinity), it's clear that 40k is not of the same caliber. If you're looking for a balanced game first and foremost, you'd be better served looking elsewhere.
With that said, because I play other games that scratch my competitive itch, I'm able to approach 40k with a very relaxed attitude. I treat it as a machinima engine for the tabletop, where we're basically just playing out a movie that we watch. Maybe one side wins, maybe the other does, but either way it's going to be fun to watch.
I play footslogging Orks and one of my best buddies in the group plays Imperial Guard, and these two armies are almost made for each other. It's great fun to see 100+ Ork models covering up a table edge and charging at a gunline of Guard tanks. Fistfulls of Orks are removed from the table each turn, but by turn 2-3, the tanks start blowing up as the Boyz glance them to death with dozens of Choppa blows. Often there are dramatic duels between a powerklaw wielding Ork Warboss and a brave-but-doomed IG Company Commander.
It's good fun, we don't take it seriously at all and are totally on the same page with one another in what we want from the game: a cool sci-fi movie played out for our enjoyment via our miniature collections. I feel like I finally understand where GW is coming from with their "forge a narrative" thing, and I've accepted it for what it is.
If you can find someone else with the maturity and larger perspective to approach the game this way, then I think 40k can be a good time. The fluff is fun and compelling. The miniatures look awesome and are very fun to build and paint. But as a competitive / tournament game? Unless there is a complete reboot, I don't see it becoming a viable alternative to the other options out there.
I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.
I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?
Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.
Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.
Vehicles were not hard to kill in 5E, 5E was just the first time non-skimmer vehicle heavy armies were actually viable and not just roadkill, but in general they died just fine (the real issue with vehicles was a handful of dirt cheap transports that could often ignore 5/6 glancing hit results and 3/6 penetrating hit results without issue and still perform their primary transport role). Necrons of the time were built to the spec of an older edition where glancing hits could kill vehicles (as opposed to simply suppressing them) and were insufficiently equipped with heavy AT guns and vehicles themselves, that's an issue with Necron book being built to a 3E standard and GW not updating them in a timely manner, like many other armies have suffered.
Tau were in something of a similar situation, being built very tightly around rules form 3E and 4E that changed with 5E, primarily being heavily reliant on 3E/4E skimmer freebies and LoS blocking area terrain that changed with 5E's much heavier reliance on TLoS. CSM's have very similar issues currently, still wanting to operate like it's 4E or 5E, and as much as I like heaping hate on 7E (because it deserves a lot of hate), most of the issues with CSM's are with GW not adapting the army to the new edition.
Both Tau and Necrons however have been absolutely top tier in every edition in which they've had a codex release, 5E was the only edition where they didn't get a codex release (except Necrons in the last year, where they shot right to the top once they did), along with Eldar. This contrasts with other armies like IG who were only ever top tier for a single edition and have largely been a punching-bag army outside of that.
Zodgrim Dakathug wrote: I've been playing 40k since 2nd edition came out, off and on. Have played a fair amount of 7th edition in the past 2 years as I've gotten more into tabletop wargaming in general thanks to a great local group I've found. That group has also given me a good deal of exposure to other systems, including WM/H, X-Wing, Star Wars: Armada, Infinity, Bolt Action, Flames of War, Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory (it's a very diverse group of pretty dedicated gamers).
So against that backdrop of a variety of "modern" rules systems, I'll say this about 40k: having experienced what games with good rules for competitive play are like (i.e. X-Wing, WM/H, Infinity), it's clear that 40k is not of the same caliber. If you're looking for a balanced game first and foremost, you'd be better served looking elsewhere.
With that said, because I play other games that scratch my competitive itch, I'm able to approach 40k with a very relaxed attitude. I treat it as a machinima engine for the tabletop, where we're basically just playing out a movie that we watch. Maybe one side wins, maybe the other does, but either way it's going to be fun to watch.
I play footslogging Orks and one of my best buddies in the group plays Imperial Guard, and these two armies are almost made for each other. It's great fun to see 100+ Ork models covering up a table edge and charging at a gunline of Guard tanks. Fistfulls of Orks are removed from the table each turn, but by turn 2-3, the tanks start blowing up as the Boyz glance them to death with dozens of Choppa blows. Often there are dramatic duels between a powerklaw wielding Ork Warboss and a brave-but-doomed IG Company Commander.
It's good fun, we don't take it seriously at all and are totally on the same page with one another in what we want from the game: a cool sci-fi movie played out for our enjoyment via our miniature collections. I feel like I finally understand where GW is coming from with their "forge a narrative" thing, and I've accepted it for what it is.
If you can find someone else with the maturity and larger perspective to approach the game this way, then I think 40k can be a good time. The fluff is fun and compelling. The miniatures look awesome and are very fun to build and paint. But as a competitive / tournament game? Unless there is a complete reboot, I don't see it becoming a viable alternative to the other options out there.
I agree with this. Theres more than one way to approach a game and to assume its all focussed on tournament play is to narrow down what the game is.
I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game
I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players
Snake Tortoise wrote: I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game
I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players
I agree, however I think comp scores should definitely be done before you play. Heck I think it would be ideal to have it done without knowing who your opponent is.
I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.
Snake Tortoise wrote: I think the game is at a great place in terms of realising a fluffy idea on the tabletop with fewer limitations on what you can take (not trying to shoehorn everything you want into a CAD) and formations and decurions giving buffs to sub optimal units. On the other hand it creates a gigantic gap in terms of effectiveness between those fluffy armies and tournament lists using multiple sources and strong formations to create a deadly list without a single consideration for background or character. Fair play to people who want to play that way but I'd rather just play a computer game if that's how I want to play a game
I fully agree with this and balance really took a hit to make things fluffy. That said I think the rules writers have some serious bias when it comes to which armies get the fluffy and powerful stuff and which armies get the copy + paste rush job, clunky rules/formations, or needless nerfs.
I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players
Simply put "No". While I want to like the concept of a composition score its just rife with punishing people because somebody didn't like an army list or they are salty from a bad game and thus vote the lowest possible to hurt their score. This happens a lot with sportsmanship scores where the loser will sometimes give the lowest score because they think it will help their own standing or to spite the person who beat them. Also it takes away the scoring from gameplay and instead puts some of the deciding factor into popularity or getting low votes for playing a very meta pick. Also people (who aren't being spiteful or salty) will judge things differently as some will look at how solid a list it is while others will look at things like how well painted it is for the theme of the army or if its fitting the fluff. Only way I would see a score like this working is if its entirely separate and used to decide a "coolest army" ranking for people using really creative armies or theme based lists. Might also work in narrative events as the point is to be fluffy and fun instead of bringing power lists.. (still doesn't stop scatterbike spam as anybody can claim is a Saim-Hann style army )
Edit:
I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.
This is a better way to do it but I do feel it would punish armies that people in general dislike such as Tau or Eldar.
I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players
Comp doesn't work.
All you are giving is another weapon to the kind of people who would wreck a game anyway. So you score the wraithlord/scatbike list poorly, even if he is an awesome guy to play against. It's just as easy for tfg to give a zero to the fluffy build guy 'because why should I give points to my opponents'?
I fully agree with this and balance really took a hit to make things fluffy. That said I think the rules writers have some serious bias when it comes to which armies get the fluffy and powerful stuff and which armies get the copy + paste rush job, clunky rules/formations, or needless nerfs.
Simply put "No". While I want to like the concept of a composition score its just rife with punishing people because somebody didn't like an army list or they are salty from a bad game and thus vote the lowest possible to hurt their score. This happens a lot with sportsmanship scores where the loser will sometimes give the lowest score because they think it will help their own standing or to spite the person who beat them. Also it takes away the scoring from gameplay and instead puts some of the deciding factor into popularity or getting low votes for playing a very meta pick. Also people (who aren't being spiteful or salty) will judge things differently as some will look at how solid a list it is while others will look at things like how well painted it is for the theme of the army or if its fitting the fluff. Only way I would see a score like this working is if its entirely separate and used to decide a "coolest army" ranking for people using really creative armies or theme based lists. Might also work in narrative events as the point is to be fluffy and fun instead of bringing power lists.. (still doesn't stop scatterbike spam as anybody can claim is a Saim-Hann style army )
Edit:
I see a survey sent out before the tournament with a random selection of like 10 lists that you grade for comp or something similar. Easily enough to do with qualtrics or other survey software.
This is a better way to do it but I do feel it would punish armies that people in general dislike such as Tau or Eldar.
Is there a better system than composition scores though? I quite like the Australian comp system I've read about. The counter argument where people say by limiting the top tier stuff all you're doing is making something else the top dog doesn't seem like a very good argument to me, because instead of having a few army builds that are 4x better than the middle of the pack you now get a few builds that are only 2x better, which seems like an objective improvement to me
Anyway, regarding comp, I can see that it does introduce subjective factors and new ways for players to be dicks, but I still think it's a better system than the alternatives. A couple of guys might try to game the system and some people won't get a fair shake when the comp scores come in, but you'd still be more likely to get fun games using fluffy armies. I don't think there's a perfect system at the moment but for me this one is still better than the others
The Saim Hann scat bike army... I see your point but I don't think it gets around the system. If somebody is loading up on MSU scatbike units their opponents will see that and give higher points to the ork horde or Thousand Sons lists they faced.
The idea of rating army lists before the event is interesting and I think it could work too, but lists alone don't tell you how enjoyable the opponent will be to play against or how they're planning to use their psykers. Still, I'd definitely sign up for that kind of event over a no holds barred event where double stormsurge and riptide wing lists are a thing, without question.
I think composition scores are the answer for tournaments. Basically what the Long War podcast guys advocate. Rank your opponents on their army compositions so the guy who turns up with a bunch of wraithknights and scatbikes may win every game easily but they'll get a very low comp score and won't win the overall event because of that. The guy who wins 4/6 games with a fluffy build but gets good composition scores can win the event even if they got curb stomped by eldar and tau but otherwise took narrow wins in games that were fun for both players
Comp doesn't work.
All you are giving is another weapon to the kind of people who would wreck a game anyway. So you score the wraithlord/scatbike list poorly, even if he is an awesome guy to play against. It's just as easy for tfg to give a zero to the fluffy build guy 'because why should I give points to my opponents'?
I think the idea is you have to give 6 points to one guy, 5 to another, 4 to another etc. all the way down to 1. The optimised eldar list guy might be a nice guy but if you go into that game knowing you've got pretty much no chance of winning why would he get a better comp score than another nice guy but who doesn't bring an overpowered beat stick list? That eldar player will still get good overall points because he won all of his games, but not enough to win best overall because his comp scores brought him down for going in with a big advantage. I don't think that's unfair, it's the whole points of the system. Next time he turns up he might tone down his list if he is trying to win the tournament, how isn't that a net benefit for everyone?
Ive never found comp scores in the traditional sense to work. The best ones ive found generally are those that reward good behavior, not punish for bad. Stuff like giving people favorite opponent tickets for raffles or factoring in how much a player was voted favorite opponent into "best overall" standing seem to be less prone to gimmicks and give people a sense of achievement and work much better at promoting friendly play than strict comp rules and opponent rating.
That said, I'm not really sure there's a good way to manage 7E without significant restrictions on army construction for events, as even many fluffy builds played by fun people can be horrifically broken and nigh autowin against many of their opponents 7
I'll admit that as a Tau and Necron player it is very hard for me to sympathize with all the people that say 5th edition was good, because that was certainly my most hated edition ever. Especially when I played Necrons where it was almost impossible to destroy a vehicle.
I'm assuming you mean before your book got updated and was in the top power bracket through the rest of the edition, right?
Unless I'm misreading this and you mean you hated it because people had a hard time destroying your vehicles. You should have had a relatively easy time destroying other vehicles.
Facing vehicles. They were nearly impossible to destroy. And yes, before the Necrons got their new codex when they were at a huge disadvantage. This was when the Tau and the Necrons were having a tough time. Vehicles honestly just made me hate playing the game in 5th edition. Even when I played my Tau I had a hard time destroying vehicles. It didn't help that there were several people who I played against that made the lawnmower style IG armies that were nearly impossible to beat.
Vehicles were not hard to kill in 5E, 5E was just the first time non-skimmer vehicle heavy armies were actually viable and not just roadkill, but in general they died just fine (the real issue with vehicles was a handful of dirt cheap transports that could often ignore 5/6 glancing hit results and 3/6 penetrating hit results without issue and still perform their primary transport role). Necrons of the time were built to the spec of an older edition where glancing hits could kill vehicles (as opposed to simply suppressing them) and were insufficiently equipped with heavy AT guns and vehicles themselves, that's an issue with Necron book being built to a 3E standard and GW not updating them in a timely manner, like many other armies have suffered.
Tau were in something of a similar situation, being built very tightly around rules form 3E and 4E that changed with 5E, primarily being heavily reliant on 3E/4E skimmer freebies and LoS blocking area terrain that changed with 5E's much heavier reliance on TLoS. CSM's have very similar issues currently, still wanting to operate like it's 4E or 5E, and as much as I like heaping hate on 7E (because it deserves a lot of hate), most of the issues with CSM's are with GW not adapting the army to the new edition.
Both Tau and Necrons however have been absolutely top tier in every edition in which they've had a codex release, 5E was the only edition where they didn't get a codex release (except Necrons in the last year, where they shot right to the top once they did), along with Eldar. This contrasts with other armies like IG who were only ever top tier for a single edition and have largely been a punching-bag army outside of that.
No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.
Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc. I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.
No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.
Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc. I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.
But Necrons had their 5e codex, eventually, and it was even too good.
And all of this, is still better of what we have now. Anti tank weapons are not the best anti-tank. This is a problem that goes beyond balance, is immersion killing. And the game is supposed to be mainly narrative?
If the vehicles were too difficult to kill, would have been enough to tweak the rules with what we have now with the bonus to the roll due to AP, and/or a different table. The same with assault. The problem with GW is that they tend to over-fix stuff.
I think the eat if system would be fine because it's not that people have problems with eldar and tau per say, it is certain things within those books.
Someone is gonna get a much higher rank if they bring a bunch of fire warriors, an ethereal and a rip tide or two.
Eldar player with avatar, guardians, and a wraithknight? That should get through the system just fine.
Bring a themed or cool army and people will want to play against it and should have a better time.
I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.
I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.
Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.
So in short the current state of 40k is
It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.
No, they were next to impossible to destroy with necrons. Necrons almost exclusively relied on glancing vehicles to death, but that was absurdly hard to do in fifth, on top of that, you needed lots of useless warriors of phase out. Necrons were by far the worst army in fifth before they got their new codex.
Right, and I explained what the issue was there, they were built around mechanics from an older edition. That wasn't an issue with 5E, it was an issue with Necrons playing 5E with a 3E codex. Once they got their 5E book, they had zero issues, and they've stayed at the top of the power rankings since then.
Even with Tau I had trouble destroying vehicles. They would just get immobilized, stunned, stunned, shaken, etc.
Tau shouldn't have had issues killing vehicles in 5th between S10 AP1 railguns (especially when Broadsides were still S10 and you could have nine 72" range Twin Linked S10 AP1 guns on the field, extremely potent at the time), gobs of deep striking melta, markerlights, and constant "always on" 4+ cover saves on their own vehicles thanks to disruption pods. Tau's issue more often was dealing with assaults as you could assault from stationary transports, out of Outflank, etc and they had no Overwatch. That was my biggest challenge with my Tau in 5th, not killing tanks.
I hated fiftth edition. And everyone had tons of vehicles in fifth edition. Absolutely hated it.
Well, ok, but again, you have to realize that both of these armies were built very tightly to core rules of older editions and faults with them weren't necessarily problems with the core rules but rather the fact that they simply were built to a different standard.
On the flip side, did you ever see a mechanized non-skimmer army in 4th or 6th do anything but get crippled and break in the first two turns? Probably not. 5E was the only edition where vehicles didn't have an absurd skimmer vs non-skimmer gap, and where, at least for armies with 5E codex books (as opposed to 3E or 4E books like Necrons and Tau), killing tanks wasn't really a problem.
white_wolf wrote: I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.
I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.
Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.
So in short the current state of 40k is
It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.
This is the response I was looking for. As someone just getting into the hobby(bought my first box of troops last night) this thread scared me. This thread seemed like a mix of people saying it's great and the other half super salty. This is what I wanted to find.
A good TL;DR is that if you have a good circle of like minded gaming pals that are willing to play with lots of self imposed restrictions (implicite or explicit) and typically lots of house rules, then you can make the game work and have fun (though at that point you can play *any* edition and have fun).
If you don't have a tight knit circle of like minded gaming pals, and are reliant on pickup games or arranged games with people with a different outlook on the game or store events like leagues or tournaments for play time, the game is an unholy mess that should probably be avoided in favor of a different game.
white_wolf wrote: I have skimmed through this thread to read a bit of what everyone seems to think and can basically see two sides
Oh its not that bad
and
Omg 40k is mess jump ship.
I have been playing since I was 13 and got started in early 4th late 3rd. The game was fairly simple but rigid when compared to the modern rules. The idea of allies was fairly unheard of so if your codex was underpowered in those days you could not boost it with another army you simply had to build a new army or spam what was best. the biggest units you could have where land raiders or monoliths. 5th was more or less the same as 4th some improvement here and there but nothing ground breaking. Back then if a army was op it was harder to counter it due to the lack of allies.
Then 6th comes out. You can ally some armies unless your nids. This opened more options which is always a good thing. in 7th formations became a thing somewere powerful but some were just meh Most armies seemed to start getting a way to get some type of super heavy lord of war wither from allies or in their on book. Overall 7th is great if you want freedom to build a army anyway you want. which can be good or bite you in the rear depending on what you do. The poor nids kinda got the short stick seeing as they cant ally and are falling behind more than likely they will not get a new book till 8th rolls out . The rules are very much on a whole new lvl when compared to 4th or 5th. You use to have 2 or 3 books at most that was your Core rule book and your codex maybe the odd or end supplement but those seemed to be much rarer back then. Now you can come to the table with a army that takes 3-5 books. You Have a great amount of options and this can get you in a pickle if you decide to take space marines with the angels of death supplement with a detachment of space wolves admech and IG. As far as the hobby side this is a great time to be in 40k. So Many new models are coming out and most of them look great. more new armies and codexes have come out in this edition than ever before but Some times the amount of rule interaction can be a bit overwhelming and make a mess.
So in short the current state of 40k is
It can be as bloated as you let it be. House rules are sometimes needed but this is nothing new. You dont need a super heavy but just have enough anti tank and anti Monstrous Creature to deal with them. depends on your local meta. if you dont know if you want to jump in head first look into the new kill team rule set. It might be something to break the ice with and test the waters before coming back in whole hog. also 8th ed rumored for in Q2 of 2017 it should clean up some things.
This is the response I was looking for. As someone just getting into the hobby(bought my first box of troops last night) this thread scared me. This thread seemed like a mix of people saying it's great and the other half super salty. This is what I wanted to find.
Welcome to the game, LumberJack! As another new player (I bought my first kit less than a year ago), I can tell you that the game is far from perfect, but as long as you have a good local meta and don't take the game too seriously, you will have fun.
I've never played in a tourny so maybe I don't have that perspective, but I've never had too much of a problem with the rules.
Small groups are best, we never bring super OP lists unless it's agreed upon beforehand. We bring fun lists with little used units and have a blast.
I'm just restating what a lot of people are saying here, but I've never understood where all the salt comes from. I get that it's not the most intuitive game, but the basics are fairly easy to learn, and the rest comes with time.
Everything is what you make of it. I've loved the game and the hobby since I was 13, and I've seen change after change, but they never bother me.
I say "oh well" and keep playing, because we make it fun. Don't even need that many house rules.
Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.
buddha wrote: Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.
*The best solution for people looking for that kind of gaming.
Frankly, I'd probably avoid a tournament like that, as the people who would attend it would have different ideas of what constitutes fun than myself. I enjoy competition, not at the expense of anything else, but a close match between two people giving a good show is really important to my enjoyment. With that comes my appreciation of people bringing strong lists, and my time spent tweaking and playing with different elements to find the best list for me.
Vaktathi wrote: That said, I'm not really sure there's a good way to manage 7E without significant restrictions on army construction for events, as even many fluffy builds played by fun people can be horrifically broken and nigh autowin against many of their opponents 7
Agree 100%
The factions/codex's will never be balanced but even just exhuming our old pal the foc from its eternal resting place and chloroforming and dismembering formations with a chainsaw with a subsequent bath in cement and a trip out to sea, I think game gets objectively better. A polished turd is better than nothing
Vaktathi wrote: A good TL;DR is that if you have a good circle of like minded gaming pals that are willing to play with lots of self imposed restrictions (implicite or explicit) and typically lots of house rules, then you can make the game work and have fun (though at that point you can play *any* edition and have fun).
If you don't have a tight knit circle of like minded gaming pals, and are reliant on pickup games or arranged games with people with a different outlook on the game or store events like leagues or tournaments for play time, the game is an unholy mess that should probably be avoided in favor of a different game.
I know the feeling man, I'm lucky to have some regular opponents who share my mindset for the game, without it a lot of pickup games feel like bad internet dating. Sadly the pool of like minded individuals really dropped post 5th. I feel like we used to pay for a game and now it's a sandbox lined with very expensive poop with an ever expanding horizon.
buddha wrote: Best solution to events I've seen at a FLGS is to completely eliminate the win/lose element. Instead players won on sportsmanship, painting, and other soft scores. Essentially no TFG player or lists can win or will likely show. Instead the event turns into a great day of getting 3 great games in and you win by having you and your opponent enjoying yourselves all game.
*The best solution for people looking for that kind of gaming.
Frankly, I'd probably avoid a tournament like that, as the people who would attend it would have different ideas of what constitutes fun than myself.
The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.
Now I can't speak for all the communities across the hobby but it depends on the person. Personally I play with formations where I feel like it would be fun but sometimes just go for a CAD, even then I'll try and keep it fluffy with full 10 man tactical units in rhinos and maybe the 1st company task force in support with small 5 man veteran teams and i will only field one formation at a time. That in itself isnt a problem as I'll play people with similar lists in great games. The point is the formations as i see them should be used for a narrative reason and not for the sheer OP'ness of them.
That's where I feel some people miss the point. For example my last 2 games.
1st game of the week, my marines versus orks. I took 2 full tactical squads in rhinos with scouts out front who'd been the advance element and a first company task force of 2 5 man terminator squads and a 5 man sternguard squad. So a small elite force trying to stand against a green tide of over 100 ork boys a unit of tank bustas and a mekboy ambushing my marines. The 1st compaby task force game me that little extra push to stem the tide of orks but nearly 2 thirds of my army had been chopped down by the time the game ended in a narrow marine victory.
Fast forward two days and the same force with a few small tweaks in weapons choices etc turned up to a different gaming night and faced serious issues. My opponent ran a CAD with 2 bare bones 5 man tactical teams with a chapter master with command squad all on bikes with numerous upgrades. That deployed with a librarius conclave on bikes and then a turn 1 skyhammer annihilation force with grav spam. I might have well been asked to pack up there and then. I either focused on the invisible, iron armed, jinking, feel no pain wielding bikestar or the first turn, relentless, pinning, drop pod assaulting skyhammer units... either way the other formation would hammer me.
The first game the formation gave the game a bit of extra excitement adding to the experience while in the second game it made it dull as a foregone conclusion for both side because one party has the much maligned waac mentality.
My point is that I've seen many people complain that formations and a few other things have broken the game but i dont believe this to be the case as what it really is is the issue of some players using those things that are powerful in and of themselves in layers to create something which gaks all over their opponents so they dont have to grow and learn the hard way how to lose with honour and go away and adapt tactically to better leverage their resources. Instead they want a reliable fire and forget weapon, something they dont really want to work hard with to make effective, rather a list they can just point at the enemy every game they play become a rinse and repeat.
Maybe its just me but it seems to be an attitude which pervades society as a whole. I just feel fortunate that this is something that i have only come across a couple of times since i bcame back to gaming 6 months ago and a number of people in my gaming group similarly to myself have an active interest in history from which we draw leasons utilising strategies from wars fought in antiquity through the ages to the 20th and 21st centuries.
The key is to try and get people you know involved and create yohr own if not find a like minded group of gamers, people who love the lore and appreciate the things about the universe that you do will most likely have the same approach to the tabletop you do and will help you grow much more than those who just see yoh as a statistic to add to their win-loss record.
Pr3Mu5 wrote: The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.
Just making formations an option made it the norm. Creating terrible incentives and a race to the bottom is a hell of a thing to put on the player base and not the inept company treating a rule set like a dying neglected parent in a convalescent home.
We're all in agreement the game functions best with like minded opponents, I would proffer the game worked EVEN BETTER pre 6th edition because one didn't need to find their soul mate just to enjoy a game. To me this reads as if the government mandated everyone not lock their homes, theft spikes massively as it's never been easier to break in and steal things and instead of the government reverting back to allowing lockable homes they go on some diatribe about human nature and just finding the right neighbourhood. The gamers didn't create this mess. GW did.
Pr3Mu5 wrote: The introduction of allies and formations have opened the door for some serious rules abuses. That, however, is the key point. It has just made extreme rules abuse an option, not the norm.
Just making formations an option made it the norm. Creating terrible incentives and a race to the bottom is a hell of a thing to put on the player base and not the inept company treating a rule set like a dying neglected parent in a convalescent home.
We're all in agreement the game functions best with like minded opponents, I would proffer the game worked EVEN BETTER pre 6th edition because one didn't need to find their soul mate just to enjoy a game. To me this reads as if the government mandated everyone not lock their homes, theft spikes massively as it's never been easier to break in and steal things and instead of the government reverting back to allowing lockable homes they go on some diatribe about human nature and just finding the right neighbourhood. The gamers didn't create this mess. GW did.
I'm sorry I've not made myself completely clear. Im not saying that its all down to the player base. Part of the issue is definitely that GW made a ruleset which was very easily exploited and has compounded the issue repeatedly through codices and suppliments.
The point I was trying to convey is that I would hold some sections of the tabletop community equally responsible. Not all of them and not all equally.
To use your analogy if the government banned the locking of doors the people who are prone to armed burglary will have a field day. Beyond that, there will be a proliferation of their kind but also a tendancy for those who feel threatened by the prospect of armed assault to fight fire with fire. A section of the population who would not normally dream of the use of firearms against another person will take up arms in defence of their life and property. Their position is defensible but it shouldn't have to be.
Basically formations and the likes can be used for a great game but some people abuse it. I wouldn't assume why GW introduced them but I would hope it'd be for the benefit of the game rather than to boost sales of certain models. I mean it's GW so who knows. I think we can all agree though that no matter how well intentioned it may have been it has definitely backfired and needs resolving. To say the community didn't create the problem is kind of disingenuous, as I've said I don't hold everyone equally responsible but the fact that some of us have resisted the pressure to play catch up with the power gamers shows that it doesn'thave to be that way. Yes the rules should be updated to remove the potential for exploitation but the community should be putting those that want to do the exploiting. There's already a couple of people I have decided I wont play going forward, especially if I field my sisters, and I'm not the only one. I just feel sorry for those who only have accessto a group where the waac mentality has taken root.
I think the purpose of your gaming group should be for the benefit of all involved and to help everyone there have fun. As I have said I use formations and dont mind others doing so until it starts to become obvious cheddar. If I wanted a hobby that ate away at my bank balance like this one does without having fun I'd have bought a season ticket at Old Trafford.
I've been playing 40K since 3rd edition, and in all that time the game has never been even remotely balanced. There have always been huge gaps between the top tier armies and the bottom tier armies. There have also always been huge gaps between what is thematic, fluffy, and flavorful for any particular faction, and what gives the most bang for the points on the tabletop.
6+ Edition has cranked the balance problem up to 11 with the additions of flyers, superheavies/GMCs, and the Allies rules. The first two make it nigh-unto-impossible to build a take all comers list anymore, and the Allies rules open up a huge avenue for abuse, allowing WAAC players to exploit unintended synergies between various armies.
What it all amounts to is you basically can't just go down to a LGS and go trolling for pickup games and expect to reliably get a good result. You're apt to either get smacked down by some tourney champ tryhard wannabe with their netlist of the month, or you're going to roll some poor kid whose army is built around the contents of the Battle for Vedros box set. Neither makes for a very satisfying experience.
In order to make 40K an enjoyable game, you need an environment where everyone is on the same page. You need to either establish what the ground rules for the game are going to be enough in advance for both/all players to bring appropriate models to the tabletop, or you need house rules to curb the excesses the current edition enables.
That said, I've been enjoying 40K more the last few years than I have since I started playing. I put that down to lucking into a group that accepts a common set of house rules. I'll list them below in case anyone wants to try something similar. I don't think the particulars of the house rules are as important as having a set everyone abides by, but these have worked very well for us.
1: No Allies
2: 40% Troops minimum*
3: Psykers can't use power dice from other psykers, only their own and those generated by the Harness the Warp roll at the beginning of the Psychic Phase.
*A note on the 40% Troops minimum: Someone always brings up Scatbikes. We do have Eldar players, but they don't meet their compulsory Troops requirement by spamming Scatbikes. If they did, I'd put an addendum to the rule stating that WIndrider Jetbikes and any units that can become Troops through FOC swapping (looking at you, Space Marine Bike Squadrons) can be taken as Troops, but cannot be compulsory Troops.
I don't necessarily think that banning allies is the right way forwards.
I do think that losing the Force Organisation Chart was a mistake, and that the last time the game was balanced was using the lists from the 3rd Edition rulebook.
As for the current madness, I totally agree. Small points games with a group of like-minded friends and the occasional no-holds-barred-let's-put-our-entire-collections-on-the-board Apocalypse game is probably the best way forwards.
The real point is here is that while you ARE allowed to play with any limitations you want to imposed on army construction, the game isn't broken because it doesn't meet your individual view of how the game should be.
The problem arrises is when people want everyone else to play how they want it
For 40K to allow the existance of Perfect Take All Comers lists would require severe restrictions on army building to limit variables encountered. It kills variety and only heightens the tendancy of successful lists to all start looking the same, which stagnates the meta.
40K has become a lot more like a CCG than Chess. Each new release shifts the meta. MTG does this, chess does not. MTG sells a hell of a lot more than Chess.
adamsouza wrote: The real point is here is that while you ARE allowed to play with any limitations you want to imposed on army construction, the game isn't broken because it doesn't meet your individual view of how the game should be.
The problem arrises is when people want everyone else to play how they want it
For 40K to allow the existance of Perfect Take All Comers lists would require severe restrictions on army building to limit variables encountered. It kills variety and only heightens the tendancy of successful lists to all start looking the same, which stagnates the meta.
40K has become a lot more like a CCG than Chess. Each new release shifts the meta. MTG does this, chess does not. MTG sells a hell of a lot more than Chess.
The issue is that MTG has a much lower cost of entry (even if the cost of maintaining high end top meta card collections is sky high), and is extremely portable. They have numerous predefined formats that you can pickup game with extremely easily almost anywhere, while 40k increasingly lacks that. You also don't have the issue with MTG of people lovingly converting and painting armies according to background themes and factions and investing tons of time and money outside of playing in that aspect, and even if the monetary cost of picking up top end cards is equal to or exceeds what 40k units might cost, people know that at some point they'll be obsolete for certain formats and aren't investing tons of time outside of playing doing conversions and painting and whatnot.
MTG also is pretty much assumed right out the gate to be competitive. WoTC actively manages the meta, it's a fundamental part of their offering and a constantly changing experience is inherent in their value proposition, whereas with 40k it largely just moves from once balance mistake to another, it's not really intended or managed, at least not in the way it is for MTG.
to allow the existance of Perfect Take All Comers lists would require severe restrictions on army building to limit variables encountered. It kills variety
No it wouldn't. It would just need all units and options to be appropriately effective for their points cost.
MTG also is pretty much assumed right out the gate to be competitive. WoTC actively manages the meta, it's a fundamental part of their offering and a constantly changing experience is inherent in their value proposition, whereas with 40k it largely just moves from once balance mistake to another, it's not really intended or managed, at least not in the way it is for MTG.
40k is not intended or managed for competitive play like MTG is, or Warmachine, for that matter. And GW has not been hiding that fact at all. They have clearly stated their disinterest in tournaments (hence their stopping their own successful Grand Tournaments years ago), and they have made their opinion on "balance" (which means different things to different people) known by the way they release models, rules, formations, etc. They are also pretty clearly not interested in dictating how to actually play the game. They leave that all up to the players and the TOs of tournaments.
Player: "This isn't clear. GW, how should we play the game?"
GW: "Here is how you play the game (i.e. what we intended)."
Player: "That's not how its supposed to be played. Tell us how to play the game."
Now, in my opinion, 40k is a better game played in a group of like minded individuals who agree on what types of games they'll play, how "competitive" they are, etc. That's the kind of group I play in, and I have no problem agreeing with my opponents about the type of experience I want in the game. I don't play in LGS, or in tournaments, but I can see how it can be harder to just show up at a pick up game, and get a satisfying game, what with all the negotiation that likely needs to go on.
I've played CSM since 2nd edition, and my list and units are pretty much unchanged since the introduction of Oblits. I still win games, I still lose games, and I never feel like I'm completely out of any game. Granted, I don't face Eldar or Necrons regularly either. But nothing that GW has done has made my army list, nor my lovingly built and painted models obsolete. People make their lovingly painted models obsolete by grabbing onto some gimmick list or some nebulous rule interpretation, and then feel put upon when a FAQ clarifies it, or some edition of codex change makes that unit less "effective". It all comes down to how one approaches the game.
to allow the existance of Perfect Take All Comers lists would require severe restrictions on army building to limit variables encountered. It kills variety
No it wouldn't. It would just need all units and options to be appropriately effective for their points cost.
Exactly. The only "variety" it might kill is the kind of extremely polarized lists that are toxic for the community anyway. Nothing of value is lost when TAC lists are standard and the game is balanced.
As for comparing sales of chess to MTG, that's simply absurd. The business models of the two games are completely different in ways that have nothing to do with the rules. You can not compare the two and get anything relevant out of it.
MTG also is pretty much assumed right out the gate to be competitive. WoTC actively manages the meta, it's a fundamental part of their offering and a constantly changing experience is inherent in their value proposition, whereas with 40k it largely just moves from once balance mistake to another, it's not really intended or managed, at least not in the way it is for MTG.
40k is not intended or managed for competitive play like MTG is, or Warmachine, for that matter. And GW has not been hiding that fact at all. They have clearly stated their disinterest in tournaments (hence their stopping their own successful Grand Tournaments years ago), and they have made their opinion on "balance" (which means different things to different people) known by the way they release models, rules, formations, etc. They are also pretty clearly not interested in dictating how to actually play the game. They leave that all up to the players and the TOs of tournaments.
Right, but the problem is that since the game has no comment on the way its meant to be played, it ends up doing nothing well and turns into a gigantic mess without people essentially re-writing the rules and imposing restricting on themselves to varying extents, which is an issue for many players
Now, in my opinion, 40k is a better game played in a group of like minded individuals who agree on what types of games they'll play, how "competitive" they are, etc. That's the kind of group I play in, and I have no problem agreeing with my opponents about the type of experience I want in the game. I don't play in LGS, or in tournaments, but I can see how it can be harder to just show up at a pick up game, and get a satisfying game, what with all the negotiation that likely needs to go on.
Right, and that's the big issue. For people without well managed playgroups where people play with lots of self restrictions, the game is unmanageable and quickly turns into a repeated series of obviously one-sided encounters.
Well I am definitely not going to read through 6 more pages of replies, so if the OP is still reading here is my 2 cents based on the current state of 40k.
I generally agree with the pessimistic view most other posters have, but also add the following.
Don't bother playing an eldar army! It doesn't matter how long you have been playing them, large your force is, how beautiful your painting is, how detail minded you are i.e. 100% magnetization /wysiwyg because the eldar has to be one of the longest running unfunny meme in 40k history by now.
I am serious, as soon as you mention you play eldar the non stop B****ing begins from every single person in the room. Mind you I completely understand being annoyed by win at all costs players taking advantage of the rules/codex/allies/formations but the way I see it the fault lies with the dbag player. However, a very nasty community mentality has taken over when it comes to eldar. I know its a really good codex but nowadays people choose to blame the codex for their loss rather then their own tactics, army comp, luck.
The eldar have a good codex, good allies (i.e. corsairs, DE), good formations, good forge world. However, no matter what your intention, whether trying to run a fluffy list or heck even trying to run a purposely bad army comp in your force almost every neck beard in the room is going to start the constant stream of mouth diarrhea and of course the ever popular over use of the amazingly cute and clever terms, overpowered and cheese. OH by the way heavens forbid you decide to use your wraith knight that you just spent $120 on and several days to paint and customize.
just don't play ELDAR you will save yourself headaches. if you interested in coming back to the hobby go buy 3 storm surges, a couple flying d princes and hive tyrants with a drop pod of grav centurions with a librarian don't paint them and go sit at the corner of a gaming table and start complaining that eldar are op and why chaos still sucks.
HiddenPower wrote: Well I am definitely not going to read through 6 more pages of replies, so if the OP is still reading here is my 2 cents based on the current state of 40k.
I generally agree with the pessimistic view most other posters have, but also add the following.
Don't bother playing an eldar army! It doesn't matter how long you have been playing them, large your force is, how beautiful your painting is, how detail minded you are i.e. 100% magnetization /wysiwyg because the eldar has to be one of the longest running unfunny meme in 40k history by now.
I am serious, as soon as you mention you play eldar the non stop B****ing begins from every single person in the room. Mind you I completely understand being annoyed by win at all costs players taking advantage of the rules/codex/allies/formations but the way I see it the fault lies with the dbag player. However, a very nasty community mentality has taken over when it comes to eldar. I know its a really good codex but nowadays people choose to blame the codex for their loss rather then their own tactics, army comp, luck.
The eldar have a good codex, good allies (i.e. corsairs, DE), good formations, good forge world. However, no matter what your intention, whether trying to run a fluffy list or heck even trying to run a purposely bad army comp in your force almost every neck beard in the room is going to start the constant stream of mouth diarrhea and of course the ever popular over use of the amazingly cute and clever terms, overpowered and cheese. OH by the way heavens forbid you decide to use your wraith knight that you just spent $120 on and several days to paint and customize.
just don't play ELDAR you will save yourself headaches. if you interested in coming back to the hobby go buy 3 storm surges, a couple flying d princes and hive tyrants with a drop pod of grav centurions with a librarian don't paint them and go sit at the corner of a gaming table and start complaining that eldar are op and why chaos still sucks.
HiddenPower wrote: Well I am definitely not going to read through 6 more pages of replies, so if the OP is still reading here is my 2 cents based on the current state of 40k.
I generally agree with the pessimistic view most other posters have, but also add the following.
Don't bother playing an eldar army! It doesn't matter how long you have been playing them, large your force is, how beautiful your painting is, how detail minded you are i.e. 100% magnetization /wysiwyg because the eldar has to be one of the longest running unfunny meme in 40k history by now.
I am serious, as soon as you mention you play eldar the non stop B****ing begins from every single person in the room. Mind you I completely understand being annoyed by win at all costs players taking advantage of the rules/codex/allies/formations but the way I see it the fault lies with the dbag player. However, a very nasty community mentality has taken over when it comes to eldar. I know its a really good codex but nowadays people choose to blame the codex for their loss rather then their own tactics, army comp, luck.
The eldar have a good codex, good allies (i.e. corsairs, DE), good formations, good forge world. However, no matter what your intention, whether trying to run a fluffy list or heck even trying to run a purposely bad army comp in your force almost every neck beard in the room is going to start the constant stream of mouth diarrhea and of course the ever popular over use of the amazingly cute and clever terms, overpowered and cheese. OH by the way heavens forbid you decide to use your wraith knight that you just spent $120 on and several days to paint and customize.
just don't play ELDAR you will save yourself headaches. if you interested in coming back to the hobby go buy 3 storm surges, a couple flying d princes and hive tyrants with a drop pod of grav centurions with a librarian don't paint them and go sit at the corner of a gaming table and start complaining that eldar are op and why chaos still sucks.
While I've never seen the vociferous whining described in this post, I can understand where some of it might come from. Eldae have consistently always had balance issues. They have, in pretty much every edition (save 5th where they didnt get a codex update) been top tier if not *the* top.
Other armies may have had one edition where they were amazing (e.g. CSM's, IG, Tyranids) but otherwise hover around "ok" to "bad" with the occasional "strong" build centered on a crutch unit (e.g. CSM 4E with Lash or 6E Hellturkey spam).
Eldar never really have this problem. To top it off, every time they are consistently improved its often done in spite of units already being very good (e.g. Fire Dragons getting an AP0 buff or Wraithguard going from S10 AP2 to D) and often for no good reason aside from "well...they're Space Elves...they're supposed to just be better!", and as one can imagine, that rubs people the wrong way a lot, and I say that as someone who owns a fair amount of Eldar.
And, sorry, while people understand that that Wraithknight wasnt cheap and you may have spent lots of time on it, dont expect them to be thrilled to see the sub 300pt GC that has no reasonable answer from most armies for anything near an equivalent investment. I have 3 Baneblades, all lovingly painted as a company, and have had them since 4E. I'm not mad that people arent enthused about seeing them however, and theyre far less of an issue than a Wraithknight is one for one.
Ugh, yes the Wraithknight. The ironic thing is that a single Wraithknight will most likely be able to stomp all three of your Baneblades with ease, whilst costing less than a single one.
Other armies are not much better, with units such as Tau Riptides and Stormsurges appearing regularly, and the ability to take an entire army of nothing but Knights as a bound army - something which would have seen you laughed out of the stores a few years back.
Other armies can just spam huge amounts of power weapons and effects, such as Invisigravturions, Librarian Conclaves, Scatbikes, Decurion, free transports (Heavy Bolters are bad until they come free and Twin Linked on a free AV 11/11/10 chassis), Frag cannon's (The Deathwatch codex gives me nightmares), and the average baseline stat has gone from 3 to 4 and is now poking at 5 in some areas.
Where does that leave armies that do not have access to these amazingly cheap power units, combo's and deathstars? Where does that leave armies who are baseline 3 and have little access to anything better?
how can one consider a lasgun usable in this meta?
Martel732 wrote:": 40% Troops minimum*"
Grey hunters, then. Or Necron warrior. You are just ensuring that the codices with the best troops win.
Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. The balance isn't perfect, but nothing is either wildly overpowered, nor wildly underpowered against the game's other Troops choices. In our 40% Troops meta, IG, Chaos, and SoBs hold their own against Eldar and Dark Angels. The first three are widely considered underpowered, and the last two are widely considered top-tier. Our winningest player is our SoB player, and she plays Chaos when she's not playing SoBs. So, at the very least, our house rules are working for us. Find a group willing to give them a try before you dismiss them.
Troops are supposed to be a faction's most numerous units. This is from the description of Troops from the main rules. "These represent the most commonly available soldiers in an army. (snip). Typically, these are the warriors that make up the bulk of an army."
However, with our current rules, it's not hard for a player to spend little more than 100pts on his two compulsory Troops choices and spread the cheese with the rest of his points - that's assuming he's even fielding a CAD. There's a disconnect between how the fluff describes how armies should look and how they actually look, because GW hasn't ever imposed a Troops requirement with actual bite. Therefore, to get people to play thematically appropriate armies, they have to bribe players with powerful formation and detachment bonuses, creating another balance problem in the process.
Having to spend a sizable chunk of points on Troops also obliges players to actually do something besides sit on objectives with them. This makes them much more interesting when they hit the table, as their upgrades and what the player does with them matter. This gives them more personality than minimal-investment objective holders could ever have.
Gen.Steiner wrote:I don't necessarily think that banning allies is the right way forwards.
It's not likely to happen, but the Allies rules are one of the biggest sources of rules abuse currently in the game, if not THE biggest. They encourage players to take combos of units that have little-to-no reason to be in the same fighting force, and shove them together into one list. They also tend to look terrible together, as you're combining units that do not share aesthetic themes. No one needed having allies be officially sanctioned by GW to play thematic one-offs. Having officially sanctioned allies inflicts uber-combos on tournament games and pickup play. I'd argue the Allies rules have brought no value to the game overall - certainly not enough to justify the liability they create.
"Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. "
Did you play 5th? Well, Grey Hunters haven't changed at all, and they are super OP under your conditions. Because those were the approximate conditions of 5th ed. As are Necron warriors. Stop perpetuating a myth that troops are somehow balanced.
Hrm, I would argue that with the changes made to assaulting out of vehicles and the cost increases over their 5E codex have mostly mitigated GH issues, Nectons would be the big issues. Decurion Warriors sporting Terminator resiliency at a third the price with an otherwise identical statline losing out only on the Powerfist are absurd, and theyre amongst the least egregious examples in that book to boot
Vaktathi wrote: Hrm, I would argue that with the changes made to assaulting out of vehicles and the cost increases over their 5E codex have mostly mitigated GH issues, Nectons would be the big issues. Decurion Warriors sporting Terminator resiliency at a third the price with an otherwise identical statline losing out only on the Powerfist are absurd, and theyre amongst the least egregious examples in that book to boot
Dropping GH in pods in the face of a 40% troop list will be catastrophic for the non GH list. Most troops don't have the firepower to handle them and GH are functionally immune to assault from other troops.
Mandatory troops requirements are bad. Requiring 40% of your army to be troops is essentially saying "we know these units are boring as hell and the only reason you're taking them is because we won't let you play the game otherwise, but you have to take them". Why would anyone think that it's a good idea to, in a game that is supposed to be fun, require everyone to waste half their army on things that aren't fun? If you want to see more troops on the table then make troops viable and interesting units that people want to take.
Martel732 wrote: "Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. "
Did you play 5th? Well, Grey Hunters haven't changed at all, and they are super OP under your conditions. Because those were the approximate conditions of 5th ed. As are Necron warriors. Stop perpetuating a myth that troops are somehow balanced.
I didn't realise a price increase of 30 points for a squad was no change.
Martel732 wrote: "Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. "
Did you play 5th? Well, Grey Hunters haven't changed at all, and they are super OP under your conditions. Because those were the approximate conditions of 5th ed. As are Necron warriors. Stop perpetuating a myth that troops are somehow balanced.
I didn't realise a price increase of 30 points for a squad was no change.
They've still got double special, CC weapons, and counter attack. In the described environment, 30 points is a trivial increase.
Martel732 wrote: "Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. "
Did you play 5th? Well, Grey Hunters haven't changed at all, and they are super OP under your conditions. Because those were the approximate conditions of 5th ed. As are Necron warriors. Stop perpetuating a myth that troops are somehow balanced.
I didn't realise a price increase of 30 points for a squad was no change.
They've still got double special, CC weapons, and counter attack. In the described environment, 30 points is a trivial increase.
So if I added 30 points to all your squads you wouldn't care?
Martel732 wrote: "Not so much. Take Scatbikes and SM BIke Squadrons out of the equation, and the various armies' Troops factions are decently balanced against each other. "
Did you play 5th? Well, Grey Hunters haven't changed at all, and they are super OP under your conditions. Because those were the approximate conditions of 5th ed. As are Necron warriors. Stop perpetuating a myth that troops are somehow balanced.
I didn't realise a price increase of 30 points for a squad was no change.
They've still got double special, CC weapons, and counter attack. In the described environment, 30 points is a trivial increase.
So if I added 30 points to all your squads you wouldn't care?
Not if they could do all that. It was broken in 5th, and would be broken again in a 40% troops game.
Peregrine wrote: Mandatory troops requirements are bad. Requiring 40% of your army to be troops is essentially saying "we know these units are boring as hell and the only reason you're taking them is because we won't let you play the game otherwise, but you have to take them". Why would anyone think that it's a good idea to, in a game that is supposed to be fun, require everyone to waste half their army on things that aren't fun? If you want to see more troops on the table then make troops viable and interesting units that people want to take.
Thing is, there's nothing you can do to make the Infantry Platoon interesting or worthwhile. Lasguns have always been a joke, and in the current environment, I wouldn't even bother rolling them at all most of the time. What can they bring to the table, really? BS3 plasma guns? a single lascannon per ten guys? 20-50 man blobs? Hardly.
MTG also is pretty much assumed right out the gate to be competitive. WoTC actively manages the meta, it's a fundamental part of their offering and a constantly changing experience is inherent in their value proposition, whereas with 40k it largely just moves from once balance mistake to another, it's not really intended or managed, at least not in the way it is for MTG.
40k is not intended or managed for competitive play like MTG is, or Warmachine, for that matter. And GW has not been hiding that fact at all. They have clearly stated their disinterest in tournaments (hence their stopping their own successful Grand Tournaments years ago), and they have made their opinion on "balance" (which means different things to different people) known by the way they release models, rules, formations, etc. They are also pretty clearly not interested in dictating how to actually play the game. They leave that all up to the players and the TOs of tournaments.
Right, but the problem is that since the game has no comment on the way its meant to be played, it ends up doing nothing well and turns into a gigantic mess without people essentially re-writing the rules and imposing restricting on themselves to varying extents, which is an issue for many players
Now, in my opinion, 40k is a better game played in a group of like minded individuals who agree on what types of games they'll play, how "competitive" they are, etc. That's the kind of group I play in, and I have no problem agreeing with my opponents about the type of experience I want in the game. I don't play in LGS, or in tournaments, but I can see how it can be harder to just show up at a pick up game, and get a satisfying game, what with all the negotiation that likely needs to go on.
Right, and that's the big issue. For people without well managed playgroups where people play with lots of self restrictions, the game is unmanageable and quickly turns into a repeated series of obviously one-sided encounters.
Thing is, the game DOES comment how it's meant to be played, just the rules don't reflect that because they're too open. GW has stated many many times over the years that there is a thing to them as the "spirit of the game" which is such a nebulous term that it literally changes meaning depending on when and where you ask it, but it used to be clear that it meant building a "fluffy" army that didn't take too much "goodies" and certainly never building an army around them without letting your opponent know and sometimes getting the okay to do so. I have read tons of articles by GW's designers over the years where they say that, and even show in their battle reports (almost always the armies are a mix of units, rarely if ever specializing, except in a few cases I can think of where it was "Let's do something different and take all X instead") how they feel the game should be played. Their armies are never over the top, there's always a solid core of troops and usually not that many extras (go look at Crusade of Fire for a good example of it).
Problem comes because that's how THEY may play, but the game touts itself as being able to cater to all playstyles, except it can't.
I can't speak for the current game (heck, I can't speak for anything beyond 2nd/3rd) but Wayne is correct. GW used to be quite vocal about the spirit of the game etc. All of that becomes useless when you begin tournaments of course (even then the organizers of GW tournaments made very arbitrary restrictions with a concerted effort to minimize beardy behavior).
You'll always have a gap between the players who want to have a close fought fun game, and those who want to curb stomp friends and strangers. There is nothing to fill that gap with - and a rule set to appeal to both is impossible.
I'm sorry to tell you this but spirit of the game is a nebulous, worthless phrase. I have an entire article written about it by none other than jervis johnson. The guy who tried to pretend matched play and pickup games represented a tiny minority and not the way both warhammer and 40k have been played for decades. Spirit of the game didn't save aos, point costs did.
The whole "spirit of the game" thing is so hopelessly vague that it tells you nothing about how the game is meant to be played. The only meaning anyone can agree on is "not like my opponent is doing it".
Peregrine wrote: The whole "spirit of the game" thing is so hopelessly vague that it tells you nothing about how the game is meant to be played. The only meaning anyone can agree on is "not like my opponent is doing it".
It might even be the case that the 'spirit of the game' isn't a universal constant and varies by who's playing.
Peregrine wrote: The whole "spirit of the game" thing is so hopelessly vague that it tells you nothing about how the game is meant to be played. The only meaning anyone can agree on is "not like my opponent is doing it".
It might even be the case that the 'spirit of the game' isn't a universal constant and varies by who's playing.
Perish the concept of different people approaching the same thing in a multitude of ways and getting what they want out of it. The game isn't meant to be played in any particular way.
Formations were and are a disaster. An obvious and egregious mistake that should be removed with 8th Edition, but won't be, because it's a great sales pitch.
Actually, that's probably the main issue.
They write rules to sell their figures and vehicles. They're not bothered about balance so long as the next release is going to sell like hot cakes.
What formations need is a cull. Cut down all the formations that are just three Riptides/Lords of Skulls/Ork Flyers, add points costs to run formations, and fix the bonuses for existing formation. Example for one that did it right, Tau Retaliation Cadre. One that did it wrong, Optimized Stealth Cadre. The first one's bonus makes sense, and isn't too intrusive or powerful. OSC is a game-breaker against mechanized armies, and the bonus makes no sense. How do stealth fields give you +1 BS, Ignores Cover, and hitting rear armor on vehicles?
I remember playing apocalypse, where you had to have the models and still pay points for the formation bonus!! That's all they need to do - add points to formations - to fix 40k. This will add balance and no one will get skyhammered/alpha struck to death.
Points = balance. Remember age of sigmar and the complaints about balance and points? Folks are so glad to have points now. 40k is the same. It's not fair to give free uber abilities for free, without the tax of the foc.
Verviedi wrote: What formations need is a cull. Cut down all the formations that are just three Riptides/Lords of Skulls/Ork Flyers, add points costs to run formations, and fix the bonuses for existing formation. Example for one that did it right, Tau Retaliation Cadre. One that did it wrong, Optimized Stealth Cadre. The first one's bonus makes sense, and isn't too intrusive or powerful. OSC is a game-breaker against mechanized armies, and the bonus makes no sense. How do stealth fields give you +1 BS, Ignores Cover, and hitting rear armor on vehicles?
I like my Dakkajet Skwadron
GW needs to focus on game balance and design more so you don't end up gak like Decurion being massive power creep that doesn't offer any real gameplay variety. As much as I love the way the Hunter Contingent, Hunter Cadre, and Ret Cadre play they are incredibly powerful and really kick the Tau army up a few notches when they already are a strong codex. Points cost would probably be a good thing for some formations so that they can get more powerful rules but at a cost that helps balance them. Something like Decurion having a ppm increase for all the units in it to get those special rules would make things more reasonable instead of it just being "have a bunch of free power". (I like picking on Decurion because its an easy example to make and Decurion has such a nice ring to it Its not that I think Necrons are OP).
Peregrine wrote: The whole "spirit of the game" thing is so hopelessly vague that it tells you nothing about how the game is meant to be played. The only meaning anyone can agree on is "not like my opponent is doing it".
Anyone talking about spirit of the game are likely just closet competitive individuals with too much cognitive dissonance to navigate and use the convenient social camouflage of being "casual", selling cultural relativism while also evangelizing the one true way to play, which is always the vague "within the spirit of game". As if whatever that is will give someone the emotional strength of a buddhist monk in the face of S10 AP2 pie plate removing a whole squad.
Gen.Steiner wrote: Formations were and are a disaster. An obvious and egregious mistake that should be removed with 8th Edition, but won't be, because it's a great sales pitch.
Actually, that's probably the main issue.
They write rules to sell their figures and vehicles. They're not bothered about balance so long as the next release is going to sell like hot cakes.
Exactly, it's dlc for real life and gw just uses it to push random collections of models with zero thought to what effect it has on the game.
Peregrine wrote: The whole "spirit of the game" thing is so hopelessly vague that it tells you nothing about how the game is meant to be played. The only meaning anyone can agree on is "not like my opponent is doing it".
Anyone talking about spirit of the game are likely just closet competitive individuals with too much cognitive dissonance to navigate and use the convenient social camouflage of being "casual", selling cultural relativism while also evangelizing the one true way to play, which is always the vague "within the spirit of game". As if whatever that is will give someone the emotional strength of a buddhist monk in the face of S10 AP2 pie plate removing a while squad.
What 40K needs is to remove super heavies and formations from the game. I understand some people like them though, so why not separate them off into another game ? Call it Apocalypse for example ?
Points = balance. Remember age of sigmar and the complaints about balance and points? Folks are so glad to have points now. 40k is the same. It's not fair to give free uber abilities for free, without the tax of the foc.
GW are glad to have the money from people paying for points.
Seriously, if people aren't able to eye up a game and "balance" it, then no wonder GW has to act as a nanny state for them.
Points = balance. Remember age of sigmar and the complaints about balance and points? Folks are so glad to have points now. 40k is the same. It's not fair to give free uber abilities for free, without the tax of the foc.
GW are glad to have the money from people paying for points.
Seriously, if people aren't able to eye up a game and "balance" it, then no wonder GW has to act as a nanny state for them.
If it is so easy, why isnt GW doing it ?
Eyeing up a game has a lot of issues and is why most games on the market actually think about design and what the rules are supposed to achieve.
Right now even if there was better balance, there would still be far to much general bad design.
Points = balance. Remember age of sigmar and the complaints about balance and points? Folks are so glad to have points now. 40k is the same. It's not fair to give free uber abilities for free, without the tax of the foc.
GW are glad to have the money from people paying for points.
Seriously, if people aren't able to eye up a game and "balance" it, then no wonder GW has to act as a nanny state for them.
How does a new player 'eye-up' any system that has no points system - it is impossible.
Unless a person is a veteran of a system for many years 'eye-up' is just uneducated guess work.
To 'eye-up' 40k a person would need to know the relative strengths of thousands of units and weapons and know how any special abilities or special rules effect that relative strength.
Most table-top games have their points system built into them from the very beginning. Without such systems even developers would find it hard to balance their scenarios or offer balanced matches.
Even the original 40k came with a detailed points system to help players balance games. And that game system came with GM support. Without GM support points are even more critical to balancing a game.
Not for a new player. A new player looking at no-points 40k is going to have no idea how to balance a game because they're still going to be struggling to understand how the rules work.
For a new player certainly not. Even veterans will have great difficulty eyeing-up any force they are unfamiliar with in any given system. The more sprawling the game the less chance anybody can eye-up a fair match with all available forces within that system.
Take a large system you know next to nothing about - Battletech, Bolt Action, GoA, FoW, Warmachine - and imagine starting them from scratch and trying to eye-ball balance between opposing forces. It's nothing but hard work for - at best - mediocre results because the developer decided to be either lazy or inept.
Not for a new player. A new player looking at no-points 40k is going to have no idea how to balance a game because they're still going to be struggling to understand how the rules work.
You've then got to get two players to agree what 'balance' is.
As had been said countless times in this thread, 40K is fine for casual games amongst close friends.
It's awful for pick-up games in club/shops and tournaments.
Not for a new player. A new player looking at no-points 40k is going to have no idea how to balance a game because they're still going to be struggling to understand how the rules work.
You've then got to get two players to agree what 'balance' is.
As had been said countless times in this thread, 40K is fine for casual games amongst close friends.
It's awful for pick-up games in club/shops and tournaments.
I'm not sure why this line is constantly trotted out. Why is a complete lack of balance fine for casual players?
I've never played in a tournament in any system. All my gaming is with friends or within a club setting. I've found points to be vital in designing balanced one-off games, fluffy scenarios and campaigns for multiple systems within those confines. In many ways lack of points or badly designed points leads to as many problems for casual gamers as pick-up or tournament gamers.
Good thing other companies have figured out the basics of game design and do things like 'playtest' and ask for 'feedback'. Revolutionary concepts, I'm sure.
And seconding the point about poor balance being good for casual players. Balanced, well written games are good for all types of players with no disadvantage to any play style. Poorly balanced, poorly written games don't benefit anyone, especially casual gamers.
Not for a new player. A new player looking at no-points 40k is going to have no idea how to balance a game because they're still going to be struggling to understand how the rules work.
You've then got to get two players to agree what 'balance' is.
As had been said countless times in this thread, 40K is fine for casual games amongst close friends.
It's awful for pick-up games in club/shops and tournaments.
I'm not sure why this line is constantly trotted out. Why is a complete lack of balance fine for casual players?
I've never played in a tournament in any system. All my gaming is with friends or within a club setting. I've found points to be vital in designing balanced one-off games, fluffy scenarios and campaigns for multiple systems within those confines. In many ways lack of points or badly designed points leads to as many problems for casual gamers as pick-up or tournament gamers.
Whoaa there, didn't say anything about doing away with points in casual games.
I find 40K fine in casual games between a few close friends. We've played together long enough that we know each other and our armies, and we haven't really changed that much since 5th. This is in spite of the balance issues, and I'm absolutely in favour of making the game balanced. I'm having fun despite the game system, not because of it.
Not for a new player. A new player looking at no-points 40k is going to have no idea how to balance a game because they're still going to be struggling to understand how the rules work.
You've then got to get two players to agree what 'balance' is.
As had been said countless times in this thread, 40K is fine for casual games amongst close friends.
It's awful for pick-up games in club/shops and tournaments.
I'm not sure why this line is constantly trotted out. Why is a complete lack of balance fine for casual players?
I've never played in a tournament in any system. All my gaming is with friends or within a club setting. I've found points to be vital in designing balanced one-off games, fluffy scenarios and campaigns for multiple systems within those confines. In many ways lack of points or badly designed points leads to as many problems for casual gamers as pick-up or tournament gamers.
Whoaa there, didn't say anything about doing away with points in casual games.
I find 40K fine in casual games between a few close friends. We've played together long enough that we know each other and our armies, and we haven't really changed that much since 5th. This is in spite of the balance issues, and I'm absolutely in favour of making the game balanced. I'm having fun despite the game system, not because of it.
Sorry mate in no way was I getting at you personally I just find the whole casual/tournament divide a bit of a red herring. Points make sense for all types of play. The better the points system the more useful it is to the whole player base.
As a player who was using a modified Mighty Empires rule-set to run WFB campaigns for years I found the lack of points in AoS to be disastrous for my groups casual campaign system. Luckily we shifted pretty quickly to Kings of War that does have a highly competent points system that integrated quite successfully with Mighty Empires. Many casual styles of play are simply impossible or made many times harder by lack of points.
niall78 wrote: ...I just find the whole casual/tournament divide a bit of a red herring. Points make sense for all types of play. The better the points system the more useful it is to the whole player base...
THANK you. Getting into arguments about who plays the game 'correctly' isn't particularly helpful when there are practical solutions that would help everyone.
I don't think anyone is stating that there shouldn't be mathematically applied "balanced" point costs. People are simply indicating that while the current game lacks any form of balance --- the easiest solution outside of a tournament is to simply not make cheesy/beardy lists. That would be the "spirit of the game" argument.
Player A plays Army A.
Player B plays Army B.
Both players are roughly of the same intellect and can play the game at a similar skill level. Let's assume they play 20 games and Player B's army wins 18/20 games --- playing perfectly balanced missions using the points system as it is.
This sucks. The easiest solution is to simply have Player B adjust his list and minimize the things which both players agree are too powerful or inexpensive for their capability etc. If the players feel compelled and can agree, sure, reduce or increase points costs, etc. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Same thing goes for new players. If a new player is slowly building up an army and is starting with basic troops - don't be a cockhead and crush the dude with your most powerful super armored heavy-heroes.
I fully understand the complaints about game balance, particularly in tournaments, pick-up games with strangers, etc. Amongst friends it can be negated and balanced out by simple choices made by the players.
Sorry mate in no way was I getting at you personally I just find the whole casual/tournament divide a bit of a red herring. Points make sense for all types of play. The better the points system the more useful it is to the whole player base.
Absolutely. Looking forward to a hopefully more balanced 8th ed 40K. If done right it may even tempt me back to pick-up and tournament play
Elbows wrote: I don't think anyone is stating that there shouldn't be mathematically applied "balanced" point costs. People are simply indicating that while the current game lacks any form of balance --- the easiest solution outside of a tournament is to simply not make cheesy/beardy lists. That would be the "spirit of the game" argument.
Player A plays Army A.
Player B plays Army B.
Both players are roughly of the same intellect and can play the game at a similar skill level. Let's assume they play 20 games and Player B's army wins 18/20 games --- playing perfectly balanced missions using the points system as it is.
This sucks. The easiest solution is to simply have Player B adjust his list and minimize the things which both players agree are too powerful or inexpensive for their capability etc. If the players feel compelled and can agree, sure, reduce or increase points costs, etc. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Same thing goes for new players. If a new player is slowly building up an army and is starting with basic troops - don't be a cockhead and crush the dude with your most powerful super armored heavy-heroes.
I fully understand the complaints about game balance, particularly in tournaments, pick-up games with strangers, etc. Amongst friends it can be negated and balanced out by simple choices made by the players.
"Spirit of the game" is as nebulous as "happiness". It means completely different things to different people even in a casual play. In no way do vague statements about the spirit of the game absolve GW from designing a game in which the forces can be balanced properly for all types of play. Dumping such work on the player base and then expecting everyone to agree with each others arbitrary thoughts about what the actual spirit of the game should be is a recipe for disaster.
On the most basic level your suggested solution is a complete nightmare for the player base. They'll buy hundreds of Euro worth of product for their army, more cash on books, will spend weeks painting it up and when they bring it to a game they'll potentially be a 'cockhead' depending on the local meta. In my opinion it's better to just have reasonably balanced rules that negate such nonsense and make all the very expensive plastic pieces usable in the games at the appropriate points cost.
Martel732 wrote:
Dropping GH in pods in the face of a 40% troop list will be catastrophic for the non GH list. Most troops don't have the firepower to handle them and GH are functionally immune to assault from other troops.
Well, I have about 3 years of experience playing in a 40% Troops environment. I think I can safely assume you have 0 years experience playing in a 40% Troops environment. I think I can safely say I'm more of an authority on how it plays than you, and it's been my experience that it has made for very tight games, with very few blowouts.
But, okay, let's test your assertion with a little theoryhammer. 40% of a 1500pt list is 600pts. So, let's look at 600pts of IG Troops vs 600pts of podding Grey Hunters.
Space Wolves
2xGrey Hunter Squad
Wolf Guard Pack Leader wt combi-melta, 9 GHs: meltagun, flamer, drop pod
Grey Hunter Squad
7 GHs, flamer, drop pod
I am going to make one non-Troops assumption here for the IG army - I'm giving them an ADL, because if you're playing foot IG, of course you'd take an ADL. In return, we can fill up the last GH squad, give it a Wolf Guard Pack Leader and a meltagun.
The Guard are deployed behind the ADL, using the Conscripts to bubble wrap the more valuable units. From experience, I know IG can bubble wrap their harder hitting units well enough to keep a podded unit from dropping in and destroying it on arrival.
2 GH squads pod in first turn. The flamers are only apt to be able to reach the Conscripts, so we'll say the SW player targets them for maximum casualties. The Conscripts go to ground, giving them a 2+ cover save behind the ADL. We'll say each template can hit 5 Conscripts. 10 hit total, resulting in 6-7 dead. We'll say 7. Then they fire with bolters. 32 shots, 22 hits, 14 wounds, with the aforementioned 2+ cover save 2.3 dead Conscripts. We'll say 3 to take into account the meltaguns - highballing a little even so.
IG turn. The combined platoon moves up on one GH squad, as does the special weapons squad. The Vet Squad moves up on the other, disembarking to bring their full firepower to bear. The PCS issues FRFSRF on the combined platoon. They fire with flamers. We'll say each flamer catches 4 GHs. That's 12 hit, 6 wounded, 2 dead. They open up with 27 lasguns - 81 shots, 40 hits, 13 wounds, 4 dead. The Special Weapons squad opens fire with their plasma guns - 6 shots, 3 hits, 2 dead. That squad is down to 2 members now.
Now, the Vets open up on the other squad. 6 plasma shots, 4 hits, 3 dead. 14 lasgun shots, 9 hits, 3 wounds, another 1 dead. For brevity, I'm simply going to tell you the combined shooting of the Chimera, the Company Command Squad, and snap shooting from the Conscripts kills another GH. The other squad is now down to 5.
So, so far the GHs have killed about 10 Conscripts, and in return have lost 13 of their number. Hardly the one-sided affair in favor of the GHs you're suggesting. I could go on, and the theoryhammer of the third pod coming in, who they shoot, who the other units shoot, who they assault, Overwatch, close combat attacks, etc would all be very interesting. I'm going to refrain, because I didn't start this exercise to prove one side superior to the other, or to see who's likely to come out on top in the end, just to show that it's a game and not an automatic rollover.
Peregrine wrote:Mandatory troops requirements are bad. Requiring 40% of your army to be troops is essentially saying "we know these units are boring as hell and the only reason you're taking them is because we won't let you play the game otherwise, but you have to take them". Why would anyone think that it's a good idea to, in a game that is supposed to be fun, require everyone to waste half their army on things that aren't fun? If you want to see more troops on the table then make troops viable and interesting units that people want to take.
I used to think Troops choices were boring. Then GW introduced Kill Team in 4th edition. After seeing the conversions staffers had done for IG, Ork, and Chaos kill teams, I decided I wanted a cool team for my Dark Angels. Choosing a Tac Squad, I did all kinds of interesting conversions to make the individual members more interesting than the standard pose. That made the squad much more interesting right out of the gate.
Also, I suspect a lot of the "Troops are boring" attitude stems from a global meta where Troops can't do much against uber units. While that's understandable, in an environment where everyone has to take a hefty chunk of Troops, there's always going to be something on the table even basic, non-upgraded Troops can affect. Add to that upgrades so they can pitch in against other units as needed, and using them on the tabletop isn't so boring at all.
Even if you're right, it's still a disaster for BA, as we have some of the worst troops in the game. Tacs with no grav cannon and scouts. SW will just continue to perma-own me. I think the troop thing just shifts the imbalances around.
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Gen.Steiner wrote: Formations were and are a disaster. An obvious and egregious mistake that should be removed with 8th Edition, but won't be, because it's a great sales pitch.
Actually, that's probably the main issue.
They write rules to sell their figures and vehicles. They're not bothered about balance so long as the next release is going to sell like hot cakes.
40k has always had massive issues with miscosted units, but, at least in my experience, nothing has done more harm to the game than Formations and their freebies and the synergies and spam potential they offer.
I laughed at the whole "spirit of the game" and "forge the narrative" arguments.
Do people really not realise that they are just GW's excuses for lazy and extremely bad rules writing, along side their complete failure to engage the community?
Elbows wrote: I don't think anyone is stating that there shouldn't be mathematically applied "balanced" point costs. People are simply indicating that while the current game lacks any form of balance --- the easiest solution outside of a tournament is to simply not make cheesy/beardy lists. That would be the "spirit of the game" argument.
Player A plays Army A.
Player B plays Army B.
Both players are roughly of the same intellect and can play the game at a similar skill level. Let's assume they play 20 games and Player B's army wins 18/20 games --- playing perfectly balanced missions using the points system as it is.
This sucks. The easiest solution is to simply have Player B adjust his list and minimize the things which both players agree are too powerful or inexpensive for their capability etc. If the players feel compelled and can agree, sure, reduce or increase points costs, etc. It's not a perfect solution, but it works. Same thing goes for new players. If a new player is slowly building up an army and is starting with basic troops - don't be a cockhead and crush the dude with your most powerful super armored heavy-heroes.
I fully understand the complaints about game balance, particularly in tournaments, pick-up games with strangers, etc. Amongst friends it can be negated and balanced out by simple choices made by the players.
"Spirit of the game" is as nebulous as "happiness". It means completely different things to different people even in a casual play. In no way do vague statements about the spirit of the game absolve GW from designing a game in which the forces can be balanced properly for all types of play. Dumping such work on the player base and then expecting everyone to agree with each others arbitrary thoughts about what the actual spirit of the game should be is a recipe for disaster.
On the most basic level your suggested solution is a complete nightmare for the player base. They'll buy hundreds of Euro worth of product for their army, more cash on books, will spend weeks painting it up and when they bring it to a game they'll potentially be a 'cockhead' depending on the local meta. In my opinion it's better to just have reasonably balanced rules that negate such nonsense and make all the very expensive plastic pieces usable in the games at the appropriate points cost.
Who, in this entire thread has stated that GW shouldn't design a tighter ruleset with more logical balance/points? Not a single person in this entire thread has argued against that. What do you think is more likely? GW is going to about-face and actually do all of the work necessary to balance the game? Not likely. Hence the only answer available is that players will have to nut up and do it themselves.
GW sucks at designing games. Big deal. So the option is to fix it yourselves or bail.
This whole "Balance vs. Forge the Narrative" argument sounds very much like the battle that was waged over 4E D&D.
4E was touted as a very balanced system, and a horde of folks hated it for being "bland" or "samey with different costumes" (including me).
When 5E D&D was trotted out, it kept many of the underlying balancing mechanics in it, but gave several nods back to older systems by balancing through diversity (balancing at-will abilities vs. per day abilities - like Fighter vs. Wizard). It is, to me, a very good mix of a well-built underlying system useful for organized play that adapts easily to narrativism and home games.
Now, I'd like 40K to be better balanced than it is now, but at the same time, balance isn't everything. Taken too far, you end up with a game that more resembles Chess or the miniatures version of Risk, where there's no individuality.
It's possible to balance asymetrically, or even make some armies more diffucult to be successful with than others. But that sort of stuff needs to be stated up front, and GW Randomness does not equate balance, EVER.
It also doesn't help that GW has been marketing this game as a competative game for several versions, and now is trying to imply they never intended for that to be the case, so they don't have to put effort into fixing their borked rules.
They need to sit down and rewrite the core game so it will work competitively, but also so that it can be used Narratively.
Stormonu wrote: This whole "Balance vs. Forge the Narrative" argument sounds very much like the battle that was waged over 4E D&D.
4E was touted as a very balanced system, and a horde of folks hated it for being "bland" or "samey with different costumes" (including me).
When 5E D&D was trotted out, it kept many of the underlying balancing mechanics in it, but gave several nods back to older systems by balancing through diversity (balancing at-will abilities vs. per day abilities - like Fighter vs. Wizard). It is, to me, a very good mix of a well-built underlying system useful for organized play that adapts easily to narrativism and home games.
Now, I'd like 40K to be better balanced than it is now, but at the same time, balance isn't everything. Taken too far, you end up with a game that more resembles Chess or the miniatures version of Risk, where there's no individuality.
It's possible to balance asymetrically, or even make some armies more diffucult to be successful with than others. But that sort of stuff needs to be stated up front, and GW Randomness does not equate balance, EVER.
It also doesn't help that GW has been marketing this game as a competative game for several versions, and now is trying to imply they never intended for that to be the case, so they don't have to put effort into fixing their borked rules.
They need to sit down and rewrite the core game so it will work competitively, but also so that it can be used Narratively.
Balance and blandness have nothing to do with each other. Individual units just need to be appropriately costed.
8th edition should revert back to just troops scoring. With everything scoring, the upside is more of the board is relevant late game, but at the same time, it doesn't do enough to incentivize taking troops. Lists just end up being all the good toys and a couple troops, and that's only if you have the common decency and self respect to play with a cad and not go all apoc. 30k doesn't have the same prob as 40k because in 30k scoring units are highly incentivized.
I think we have arrived at the visual representations of 7th edition phase of this discussion.
Crablezworth wrote: 8th edition should revert back to just troops scoring. With everything scoring, the upside is more of the board is relevant late game, but at the same time, it doesn't do enough to incentivize taking troops. Lists just end up being all the good toys and a couple troops, and that's only if you have the common decency and self respect to play with a cad and not go all apoc. 30k doesn't have the same prob as 40k because in 30k scoring units are highly incentivized.
The problem with only troops scoring, aside from making very little fluff sense, is that it make really punishes anyone who wants to do a themed army around something other than the basic troops. Like, say I want to do a first company terminator army. I either have token 5-man scout squads as a minimum tax outside of my theme and lose because I can't claim objectives, or I have to compromise my theme idea by taking a bunch of objective campers. That's a big problem in 30k, it doesn't matter how much you love those awesome elite units, you're going to be slogging through painting a bunch of tactical marines and paying a heavy tax in list building. Unless of course you get one of the RoW that lets you take something else as troops, usually locking you into a whole bunch of other theme-relevant restrictions.
The real solution to the troops problem is to make troops interesting on their own merits instead of being boring versions of better units. For example, IG troops are appealing no matter what FOC or scoring restrictions you have. If you want a typical "horde of bodies" army you're taking lots of troops. If you love melta/plasma spam elites you're taking lots of troops. Sure, you're also taking some tanks/aircraft/etc, but the troops are still a core element of your army. The problem exists when you have something like C:SM troops, where tactical marines are just a boring version of a sternguard squad. Maybe you can make an argument for the superior point efficiency of the tactical marines (especially with free transports) or their value in holding objectives, but theme-wise you have a comparison of "bland power armor marines with bolters" vs. "awesome power armor marines with bolters". And so anyone who enjoys the thematic idea of bolter marines is going to be drawn to the sternguard squad and only grudgingly accept that you have to bring some tactical marines. Forcing mandatory troops doesn't make the tactical marines any more enjoyable, the whole C:SM codex needs to change to give each unit its own distinct role and appealing theme.
Crablezworth wrote: 8th edition should revert back to just troops scoring. With everything scoring, the upside is more of the board is relevant late game, but at the same time, it doesn't do enough to incentivize taking troops. Lists just end up being all the good toys and a couple troops, and that's only if you have the common decency and self respect to play with a cad and not go all apoc. 30k doesn't have the same prob as 40k because in 30k scoring units are highly incentivized.
The problem with only troops scoring, aside from making very little fluff sense, is that it make really punishes anyone who wants to do a themed army around something other than the basic troops. Like, say I want to do a first company terminator army. I either have token 5-man scout squads as a minimum tax outside of my theme and lose because I can't claim objectives, or I have to compromise my theme idea by taking a bunch of objective campers. That's a big problem in 30k, it doesn't matter how much you love those awesome elite units, you're going to be slogging through painting a bunch of tactical marines and paying a heavy tax in list building. Unless of course you get one of the RoW that lets you take something else as troops, usually locking you into a whole bunch of other theme-relevant restrictions.
The real solution to the troops problem is to make troops interesting on their own merits instead of being boring versions of better units. For example, IG troops are appealing no matter what FOC or scoring restrictions you have. If you want a typical "horde of bodies" army you're taking lots of troops. If you love melta/plasma spam elites you're taking lots of troops. Sure, you're also taking some tanks/aircraft/etc, but the troops are still a core element of your army. The problem exists when you have something like C:SM troops, where tactical marines are just a boring version of a sternguard squad. Maybe you can make an argument for the superior point efficiency of the tactical marines (especially with free transports) or their value in holding objectives, but theme-wise you have a comparison of "bland power armor marines with bolters" vs. "awesome power armor marines with bolters". And so anyone who enjoys the thematic idea of bolter marines is going to be drawn to the sternguard squad and only grudgingly accept that you have to bring some tactical marines. Forcing mandatory troops doesn't make the tactical marines any more enjoyable, the whole C:SM codex needs to change to give each unit its own distinct role and appealing theme.
I should have said infantry
But ya, some elite units can still score provided they have implacable advance. I still think FW handles it better with rights of war, there's very few freebies and always downsides to the upsides.
I think that's kind of the same problem, especially if it goes back to the ridiculous situation where tanks can't score but MCs can. If a 500 point terminator death star can score an objective than why can't my LRBT? It makes scoring about the trivia of unit types rather than their actual role in the army, and punishes people who like the theme of a tank-heavy army.
I think that's kind of the same problem, especially if it goes back to the ridiculous situation where tanks can't score but MCs can. If a 500 point terminator death star can score an objective than why can't my LRBT? It makes scoring about the trivia of unit types rather than their actual role in the army, and punishes people who like the theme of a tank-heavy army.
I guess that's where we part ways old friend, because as much as someone may want to field an entire army of tanks or knights, I feel that goes completely against the idea of combined arms combat, I don't even like some of the tacky rights of war in 30k, but that's me. I will completely agree that what ultimately scores is arbitrary but should be done to create the right incentives for army construction. The current state of everything scoring certainly makes sense but does very little to incentivize "eating one's broccoli" so to speak when it comes to army construction. I like that in 30k right now, if I don't take enough scoring units in my list I better have a flawless battle plan and be ok with a very uphill battle. Not so in 40k, the incentives in 40k are bonkers and just pants on head silly.
The other option is to vary what scores by scenario, could help incentivize taking a good range of foc slots instead of all the sexy toys.
It makes scoring about the trivia of unit types rather than their actual role in the army, and punishes people who like the theme of a tank-heavy army.
The other upside of 30k's scoring is, everything contests. So if you tank shocked a unit on an objective with an LRBT, as long as you get within 3 inches, that unit has to destroy or shift the tank to score. If you got last turn you can at least have a chance at lowering the enemies score. Not as good as scoring but at least its something.
There's a lot GW could do with scoring to make things more interesting. Units that add bonus vp to objectives but can't hold them themselves (create some kind of synergy) maybe that could be where armour comes in. Units that don't give away first blood, units that give a bonus for linebreaker (again something to give to tanks).
One thing GW got right with 7th was placing objectives before rolling for deployment, that's what we need more of from gw, common sense decisions that ultimately result in both players being unable to game to do the cynical thing at every step. Players can still place objectives badly but they'll ultimately have no one else to blame but themselves.
Crablezworth wrote: I guess that's where we part ways old friend, because as much as someone may want to field an entire army of tanks or knights, I feel that goes completely against the idea of combined arms combat, I don't even like some of the tacky rights of war in 30k, but that's me.
But a troops-heavy army that spams tactical squads to score objective isn't really combined arms either. Nor is an army that takes lots of terminators/crisis suits/etc and gets to score objectives because they aren't technically vehicles, despite having a similar strategic role. I agree that having combined arms/TAC lists be more common is probably a good thing, but I don't think that restrictions on scoring is the right approach.
Also, even armies that are heavy on vehicles can still be combined arms. For example, my IG armored company might take some veteran squads in Chimeras as support. They aren't going to be (and shouldn't be) the core of the army, and I'm hopelessly screwed if they're my only scoring units, but they're still present and the army as a whole makes fluff sense.
Not so in 40k, the incentives in 40k are bonkers and just pants on head silly.
I think that has more to do with GW using blatant power creep and constantly releasing "just like your troops, but more awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!" units than what scores. IMO letting everything score was one of the few good changes of 7th edition. Fix the balance issues and I think scoring works out fine. Even minimum-troops armies will still be fair and fun to play against.
Reading theough all these is a bit depressing for someone who just got back into 40K. Does 30K function much better? Are there any other tabletop games that are truly well done and balanced??
Somewhat better. It still has a lot of the problems with bloated core rules, questionable balance, etc, but it does at least exclude some of the worst offenders of 7th edition. Formations don't exist at all, LoW are limited to 25% of your army, etc. 30k plays like a continuation of 5th edition 40k, which had its problems but was far better than the disaster of 7th edition 40k.
Are there any other tabletop games that are truly well done and balanced??
Thanks! 30k is tempting because you can, superficially at least, use a lot of the same units for 40k...I know I'd wind up getting annoyed if my army wasn't all coherent, so I'd realisticly wind up blowing money on a whole new army. As for other games, Warmachine/Hordes is all I've really heard about. If you were starting from scratch, which game would you go with?
Rakar wrote: Thanks! 30k is tempting because you can, superficially at least, use a lot of the same units for 40k...I know I'd wind up getting annoyed if my army wasn't all coherent, so I'd realisticly wind up blowing money on a whole new army. As for other games, Warmachine/Hordes is all I've really heard about. If you were starting from scratch, which game would you go with?
If you are interested in science fiction table-top war games you should have a look at Beyond the Gates of Antares by Warlord games designed by ex-40K designer Rick Priestly.
I've played it a few times and I've been very impressed. Hopefully I'll be committing to it more later this year.
I have limited experience with the game - half a dozen battles with the starter box - but I've found it to be well balanced, highly tactical and engaging to play. Hopefully I'll be committing to it more later this year. Some ex-40K guys are rocking it in our club so I'd have a decent group to grab a few games with whenever the mood takes me.
I'm also interested in Mantics Warpath but haven't sampled it yet. So many great games - so little free time ..........................
Martel732 wrote: Even if you're right, it's still a disaster for BA, as we have some of the worst troops in the game. Tacs with no grav cannon and scouts. SW will just continue to perma-own me. I think the troop thing just shifts the imbalances around.
I heard on The Long War podcast that Angels Blade updates Blood Angel units to Codex Space Marines standards. They specifically mentioned Dev Squads getting grav cannons. I'd imagine that means Tac get grav cannons too.
That said, I have exactly the same Troops as you with my Dark Angels. I'd love me some Tac Squads with heavy flamers. Grav is decent against some armies, but the cannon costs as much as the Rhino they drive around in, and is marginal against IG.
Bartali wrote: What are peoples expectations for 8th ed ? Do you think GW will be able to put Apoc back in the box and bring some semblance of balance to the game ?
I hope they do an AoS to the game. It really needs it. Have a neckbeard cull, send in the terminator, Matthew Hopkins or whatever, but give the damned game a freshening.
I heard on The Long War podcast that Angels Blade updates Blood Angel units to Codex Space Marines standards. They specifically mentioned Dev Squads getting grav cannons. I'd imagine that means Tac get grav cannons too.
That said, I have exactly the same Troops as you with my Dark Angels. I'd love me some Tac Squads with heavy flamers. Grav is decent against some armies, but the cannon costs as much as the Rhino they drive around in, and is marginal against IG.
Angels Blade and the revised 'Red Thirst' BA Codex is a bit of mess, regardless of what you think of the formations. Whilst Devs and Assault Marines are updated in-line with C:SM; Dreads, Terminators, Vanguards and Scouts still have their old BA codex entries.
It in no way (either unit wise or power level wise) updates them to C:SM standards.
Bartali wrote: What are peoples expectations for 8th ed ? Do you think GW will be able to put Apoc back in the box and bring some semblance of balance to the game ?
No the models are out, so Apoc stays a part of the game for 8th ed. 7th has two issues to my thinking, to many rules, and the balance is way off between armies. In an effort to fix the second issue, they are adding in formations, which is GWs way of strengthening a weak army without invalidating the original codex. This makes the first issue worse, but works fairly well at making bad armies better, Orks, Chaos, and BA have all been brought much closer to competitive through the use of formations. However the first issue, which we will call "rules diarrhea", is whats going to kill this edition. To effectively play at a tournament level you have to have near encyclopedic knowledge of the rules, which presents a huge bar to entry.
Bartali wrote: What are peoples expectations for 8th ed ? Do you think GW will be able to put Apoc back in the box and bring some semblance of balance to the game ?
Genie is out of the bottle, mostly by player demand. We got these cool, big models and we want something to do with them in a game that doesn't take a week to set up and play (true Apocalypse games). So, no, 8th will not be able to rectify the situation. In fact, it will only skew it further towards Adeptus Mechanicus-like play where you might as well put infantry units on movement trays for all their worth in a fight.
Im hoping they split the game into different scales with 8E, instead of trying to cram 3 or 4 differet scsles into one game. Alas, it will probably just take what 7E did even further or go a very AoS route.
Vaktathi wrote: Im hoping they split the game into different scales with 8E, instead of trying to cram 3 or 4 differet scsles into one game. Alas, it will probably just take what 7E did even further or go a very AoS route.
GW doesn't have the design talent to do much any more. Also saddled with massive legacy issues.
Vaktathi wrote: Im hoping they split the game into different scales with 8E, instead of trying to cram 3 or 4 differet scsles into one game. Alas, it will probably just take what 7E did even further or go a very AoS route.
I think while this would be the best route, it would also take the most work/effort/playtesting and run the most risk of pissing off the people who buy all the big stuff and splurge on ForgeWorld, so it's also the least likely approach that they'll do. I would like to see more specific guidelines/organization for smaller and larger scale battles though, but again it's super doubtful that we'll get something like "Apocalypse" style battles using a more abstract (but same core) set of rules to the regular game.
At the very least I'm hoping for something similar to AOS in the sense of free, streamlined rules and unit information (Dataslates?), with keywords in place so you can at least impose some limits on the big ridiculous things (e.g. nothing with the "SUPER-HEAVY" keyword allowed in this event) and like the whole "three styles of play" from AOS. However to be honest I question if they can do that this edition; they've put out so many codexes, supplements, campaign books with datasheets and other updates that they would invalidate a huge swathe of that stuff. Let's take Genestealer Cults as an example; if 8th came out and was very different from 7th, that book is all of a sudden worthless. While GW is known for doing this before, I think they'd be more cautious about just telling everyone all these expensive books you've bought are now invalid; even if the new rules were freely available online and/or via an app, I think there'd be riots.
Vaktathi wrote: Im hoping they split the game into different scales with 8E, instead of trying to cram 3 or 4 differet scsles into one game. Alas, it will probably just take what 7E did even further or go a very AoS route.
GW doesn't have the design talent to do much any more. Also saddled with massive legacy issues.
Which is why they need to do a full reboot a la 3rd ed.
Rakar wrote:Reading theough all these is a bit depressing for someone who just got back into 40K. Does 30K function much better? Are there any other tabletop games that are truly well done and balanced??
Tomorrow's War/Force on Force, Chain of Command, Bolt Action, Beyond the Gates of Antares, A Song of Blades and Heroes, Frostgrave, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, SAGA... the list goes on (and on).
Vaktathi wrote: Im hoping they split the game into different scales with 8E, instead of trying to cram 3 or 4 differet scsles into one game. Alas, it will probably just take what 7E did even further or go a very AoS route.
GW doesn't have the design talent to do much any more. Also saddled with massive legacy issues.
Which is why they need to do a full reboot a la 3rd ed.
I agree. A complete rewrite from the ground up. But it won't happen.
Ideally we'd have:
Kill Team/40K in 40 Minutes - 200-750pt armies with their own set of force selection restrictions.
Standard 40K - 750-3,000 point armies using some form of Force Org Chart and the return of 0-X unit restrictions.
Apocalypse - Formations, superheavies, etc, all that crazy madness.
That way you can have your cake and eat it... and if they do it right they get to sell three seperate sets of rules!
Tomorrow's War/Force on Force, Chain of Command, Bolt Action, Beyond the Gates of Antares, A Song of Blades and Heroes, Frostgrave, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, SAGA... the list goes on (and on).
I think I'll find it too difficult to quit 40k outright, but it's great to have options and people here have given me a ton--thanks to you all.
On the topic of revamping rules, I really like the suggested idea of splitting games into 3 or so size categories. I don't want things Sigmared to the point where there are 4 pages of rules with 12 dudes brawling, on the flip side, I don't want to face an army of super-heavies (unless my army is the same. Different scales of battle would be the best of all 3 world (skirmish, battle, apoc). On a side note, I'm positive this has been brought up (but I don't have time right now to re-read everything) formations should cost points. Some the bonuses are way outta wack for free.
The problem with splitting the game is that you go back to the old 5th edition way of doing things where there are lots of models that are a waste of money because you'll never get to use them. Spent $100 on a Baneblade? Too bad, maybe if you're lucky you'll get to use it once a year for an Apocalypse game (and because Apocalypse is not fun probably not even that often). If GW is going to sell something then it really needs to be allowed in the standard 1-2000 point games that most people play. At most there should be a 30k-style percentage cap on LoW costs so that people don't bring a titan to a 750 point game, but there should not be any single models (short of extreme outliers like the Warlord or Manta) that can't be taken in a normal game.
It needn't necessarily be so if the different scales are all treated as their own games rather than as optional once-in-a-while expansions. Re-write 40k to center the rules around entire units rather than having all the rules be model centric and it makes it much easier to integrate weeny infantry and superheavies into a single ruleset and still play with the big units, while more traditional sized games can retain their model centric detail without the scale running away on them.
Vaktathi wrote: It needn't necessarily be so if the different scales are all treated as their own games rather than as optional once-in-a-while expansions. Re-write 40k to center the rules around entire units rather than having all the rules be model centric and it makes it much easier to integrate weeny infantry and superheavies into a single ruleset and still play with the big units, while more traditional sized games can retain their model centric detail without the scale running away on them.
Making the games separate just makes the problem worse. At least with Apocalypse it was the same rules as normal 40k so the only barrier to entry was getting people to commit a whole day to playing a massive game. If playing with the big stuff (or the very small stuff) means learning a whole new game then it's even less likely that anyone is going to want to do it. The only way a rules split would work is if each of the different games develops its own independent community, and I don't think the current 40k community is big enough to support this. Splitting it in half (or into thirds, with a small-scale game) would likely result in three people standing around hoping for an opponent, shortly followed by nobody bothering to show up on 40k night anymore.
Really if they clean up a lot of there game design they shouldn't need to separate the game that massively.
They just need to think about how different army will play the game.
Something simple like, at 750 points you cannot have more than 25% of the army in a single unit. and 20% up to 1850 and 15% higher. And even that should not be needed if they clean up the rules.
Its really about if an army can realistically deal with what others can put on the field.
Cleaning up the rules and getting a reliable balance into the game, This includes Rules. Function of army and what they can bring, as well as cleaning up some of the fluff so we are.
Every army can be unique, but they should also be following a function of play that evens out each naturally.
Things like flyers should be in each army naturally, as well as there counters and should be within a reasonable reach. As with anything it takes a bit of work, but it should make the game better as a whole if they give it the time.
The goal should be that as the points rise the players have more choices in army, and should find they need to counter more things.
Right now i think only 40k fails at this :(
(at least from the games i play. )
And i think a lot of it has come from a failure at design, and the rules falling apart from under it.
Vaktathi wrote: It needn't necessarily be so if the different scales are all treated as their own games rather than as optional once-in-a-while expansions. Re-write 40k to center the rules around entire units rather than having all the rules be model centric and it makes it much easier to integrate weeny infantry and superheavies into a single ruleset and still play with the big units, while more traditional sized games can retain their model centric detail without the scale running away on them.
Making the games separate just makes the problem worse. At least with Apocalypse it was the same rules as normal 40k so the only barrier to entry was getting people to commit a whole day to playing a massive game. If playing with the big stuff (or the very small stuff) means learning a whole new game then it's even less likely that anyone is going to want to do it. The only way a rules split would work is if each of the different games develops its own independent community, and I don't think the current 40k community is big enough to support this. Splitting it in half (or into thirds, with a small-scale game) would likely result in three people standing around hoping for an opponent, shortly followed by nobody bothering to show up on 40k night anymore.
Oh yes, that horrible age of 5th where I could accurately communicate what kind of game I was interested in playing "did you wanna play apocalypse this weekend?" "No, I'd rather play 40k".... the horror .... the horror...
I have currently lost interest in all the new releases. The bloat is apocalyptic as it stands now.
I can only hope for a full reboot that makes all the crap they did recently get invalidated
They need to hire a mathematician that would balance everything based on probabilities. Make an engine for the developpers to build all the rules set in a concise and balanced pattern.
They need to get back to a simple and consistent rule set, with single codex armies. Thats it, nothing more. To hell with allies and formations and free special rules and what not.
Well, we will not see any balancing of armies anytime soon.
I think this problem is NP hard. That means it is possible to verify if a system is balanced in polynomial time, but the design of a balanced system is not computable in polynomial time. Here we would need a (mathematical) notion of balance and such a notion doesnt exist.
NP hardness in practice would mean that 40k can hardly balanced since the 40k system (rules+units) is too large.
Crablezworth wrote: Oh yes, that horrible age of 5th where I could accurately communicate what kind of game I was interested in playing "did you wanna play apocalypse this weekend?" "No, I'd rather play 40k".... the horror .... the horror...
Yes, 5th was simple to communicate, but the end result that there was exactly one game: 1-2000 point "normal" games. Want to play Apocalypse with your Baneblade? Forget it, maybe once a year if you're lucky. It only "worked" because the models that didn't fit into normal games weren't very common. It sucked if you were one of the dedicated collectors who bought a FW flyer and wanted to use it for anything but a display piece, but there weren't many of us. Now that GW has made those former-Apocalypse models common there's no going back. There are just too many people who want to use their toys, and Apocalypse (as in actual Apocalypse, not "witty" labels for normal 1-2000 point games in 7th) is still an exercise in masochism that nobody wants to do. Flyers/LoW/etc aren't going anywhere.
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paqman wrote: They need to hire a mathematician that would balance everything based on probabilities. Make an engine for the developpers to build all the rules set in a concise and balanced pattern.
No. This is a superficially appealing idea but in reality it sucks. Balance in a game like 40k is not done by calculating the perfect system, it's done by making rough guesses at rules (including point costs) and then refining them through iterative playtesting. By the time you come up with a theoretical model of your game that can account for all of the necessary factors you've spent vastly more time than it would take to get the same level of balance through the traditional approach. And if you try to get the model design time down to something even approaching reasonable levels you end up removing way too much detail and get answers that aren't any better than having an experienced player look at a new unit concept and say "X points looks about right". The only reason the mathematical system is appealing is the unreasonably high standard of "perfect balance", with indisputable math proofs to support the claim that the game is balanced. But in reality you don't need that. A game that is balanced 95% of the way to perfection is going to give essentially the same player experience as the mathematically perfect one, and that lower level of balance is achievable with the traditional approach.
The reason we don't have balance is that GW's attitude about playtesting is "we don't pay you to play with your toys, do that on your free time", while successful game companies like WOTC use paid playtesters and treat it as a full-time job. GW needs to hire playtesters and experienced game designers, not a mathematician.
I'm at nearly a complete loss what to do that would improve the current situation. At the moment 40K is like a 6mm scale game being played in with 28mm miniatures and skirmish rules. It's like trying to play Battletech in 28mm with a infantry squad based rule-set.
All I can think of is a hard reboot that redesigns the game from scratch adding more granularity to the system.
Other suggestions like removing all of the 6mm scale units from the game would lead to a massive player revolt in my opinion. That genie is out of the bottle.
I think GW have backed themselves into a nasty corner with modern 40K. A hard reboot would invalidate a huge and expensive collection of printed material. Scaling the game back is even worse - it invalidates potentially thousands of Euro worth of players miniatures and models.
One thing is for sure though. Something fairly extreme needs to happen with a new 8th edition to make a standard game playable in reasonable time, make it balanced and make every unit choice fairy worthwhile. A rehashed 7th where even more gak is added to a creaking, out-dated and awkward twenty year old skirmish system simply will not cut the mustard with many fans at this stage.
niall78 wrote: I'm at nearly a complete loss what to do that would improve the current situation. At the moment 40K is like a 6mm scale game being played in with 28mm miniatures and skirmish rules. It's like trying to play Battletech in 28mm with a infantry squad based rule-set.
All I can think of is a hard reboot that redesigns the game from scratch adding more granularity to the system.
Other suggestions like removing all of the 6mm scale units from the game would lead to a massive player revolt in my opinion. That genie is out of the bottle.
I think GW have backed themselves into a nasty corner with modern 40K. A hard reboot would invalidate a huge and expensive collection of printed material. Scaling the game back is even worse - it invalidates potentially thousands of Euro worth of players miniatures and models.
One thing is for sure though. Something fairly extreme needs to happen with a new 8th edition to make a standard game playable in reasonable time, make it balanced and make every unit choice fairy worthwhile. A rehashed 7th where even more gak is added to a creaking, out-dated and awkward twenty year old skirmish system simply will not cut the mustard with many fans at this stage.
A few sweeping changes that could be made would be
1. Limiting the number of ICs joining a unit outside of a special formation (that usally takes away IC status).
2. Sweeping change to how psychic powers work and what each power does. Certain blessings are way too strong *cough* Invisibility *cough* Vale of Time/Fortune *cough* *cough*. Also there is the issue of an army with 1 psyche being basically useless when the other player is playing Eldar, Daemons, or Grey Knights and have 4x the number of dice to deny with.
3. Rerollable saves need a cap on the reroll value so you don't get the mathematical nightmare that is 2+ rerollable saves. Also its probably a good idea to limit FNP to being at best a 4+ save at best.
4. Rework the vehicle damage table so combat vehicles aren't useless when shot at. Currently vehicles that work are Super Heavies or Transports who don't care if they are snap shooting because their only purpose is to go fast between point A and point B. Vehicle armor saves could be a huge help but it would require substantial testing to get it figured out.
5. Add in and rework some of the way armor saves work so there is more modifiers and less "all or nothing" saves. Maybe have certain weapons (power swords or maces) or Smash reduce armor saves instead of just being a flat AP values or sets a cap on how strong a save can be made (say 4+ armor being the best armor save possible against this weapon). Would probably need a more codex to codex rework of weapons to add in the fantasy style armor reduction (rending is what I think its called in WHF).
6. Charge Ignore Cover to reduce the value of the save or set a hard limit to what value save can be taken (lets say 5+ cover save being the max). Certain weapons will still prevent cover saves from being taken such as flame template weapons.
Some sweeping changes can go a long way to helping tone down some of the gak despite the fast and lose codex writing that GW has done in the past. Beyond that its going to require some codex level fixing but laying the foundation for a better game.
Part of the overall problem is that the big superheavy stuff doesn't belong in 40k (that's why there was Epic), but now that it's been let into the normal game, you can't just remove it or people will riot that their big expensive FW stuff can't be used now. They are kind of screwed no matter what, because for the good of the game the epic-level stuff needs to IMHO be removed but will cause no end of teeth gnashing from folks who spent money and want to use it, but NOT doing that is going to bleed the game out as things get more and more bloated and unbalanced. They waited too long to fix the core issues and their desire to push sales above everything else has basically made it so either way will kill them. They essentially have the choice between surgery that has a solid chance to kill them but would cure them if successful, or slowly dying from the disease at some point in the future.
However, GW also keeps adding more and more bloat, so who knows how they will fix it, if they even will. I mean, 8th can't exactly be a 3rd edition style reboot when they've just come out with Deathwatch and Genestealers and who knows what else on the horizon. As long as they keep adding more crap to the pile, it will be impossible to actually fix the game and solve the problems that make it a big mess.
I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
Accolade wrote: I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
I highly doubt it is ever worthwhile having super heavies or massive units in a 28mm game. Maybe as a narrative centrepiece or an objective.
To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
Titans and super heavies should have their own game with detailed damage charts and complex crew actions to bring out the flavour and power of such units. Shoe-horning them into modern 40K does them a great disservice and makes balance impossible. Of course like I said in a post above the genie is out of the bottle already so such a solution seems impossible at this stage without massive blow back from players that have spent hundreds if not thousands of Euro on such units.
Accolade wrote: I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
I highly doubt it is ever worthwhile having super heavies or massive units in a 28mm game. Maybe as a narrative centrepiece or an objective.
To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
Titans and super heavies should have their own game with detailed damage charts and complex crew actions to bring out the flavour and power of such units. Shoe-horning them into modern 40K does them a great disservice and makes balance impossible. Of course like I said in a post above the genie is out of the bottle already so such a solution seems impossible at this stage without massive blow back from players that have spent hundreds if not thousands of Euro on such units.
Exactly, and do you know what? There used to be a 6mm version of 40K specifically for those stupidly big super heavy units. It was called Epic. But GW in its infinite wisdom decided that Epic scale units belonged in regular 40K, as did Epic scale battles. And so did 40K end up in the mess it is in today.
I like battletech for reasons.
Accolade wrote: I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
I highly doubt it is ever worthwhile having super heavies or massive units in a 28mm game. Maybe as a narrative centrepiece or an objective.
To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
Titans and super heavies should have their own game with detailed damage charts and complex crew actions to bring out the flavour and power of such units. Shoe-horning them into modern 40K does them a great disservice and makes balance impossible. Of course like I said in a post above the genie is out of the bottle already so such a solution seems impossible at this stage without massive blow back from players that have spent hundreds if not thousands of Euro on such units.
Exactly, and do you know what? There used to be a 6mm version of 40K specifically for those stupidly big super heavy units. It was called Epic. But GW in its infinite wisdom decided that Epic scale units belonged in regular 40K, as did Epic scale battles. And so did 40K end up in the mess it is in today.
I like battletech for reasons.
I know I played Adeptus Titanicus - GW's answer at the time to the highly popular Battletech which I also played and still play - and Space Marine. I was then heavily invested in 2nd edition Epic with a group of cousins and friends - what a good game! Never had much time for 3rd edition. I think it is tragic that GW cancelled its great 6mm games and then tried to shoehorn their mega units into a 28mm skirmish game leading to the situation we now find ourselves in.
Accolade wrote: I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
I highly doubt it is ever worthwhile having super heavies or massive units in a 28mm game. Maybe as a narrative centrepiece or an objective.
To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
Titans and super heavies should have their own game with detailed damage charts and complex crew actions to bring out the flavour and power of such units. Shoe-horning them into modern 40K does them a great disservice and makes balance impossible. Of course like I said in a post above the genie is out of the bottle already so such a solution seems impossible at this stage without massive blow back from players that have spent hundreds if not thousands of Euro on such units.
Exactly, and do you know what? There used to be a 6mm version of 40K specifically for those stupidly big super heavy units. It was called Epic. But GW in its infinite wisdom decided that Epic scale units belonged in regular 40K, as did Epic scale battles. And so did 40K end up in the mess it is in today. I like battletech for reasons.
I know I played Adeptus Titanicus - GW's answer at the time to the highly popular Battletech which I also played and still play - and Space Marine. I was then heavily invested in 2nd edition Epic with a group of cousins and friends - what a good game! Never had much time for 3rd edition. I think it is tragic that GW cancelled its great 6mm games and then tried to shoehorn their mega units into a 28mm skirmish game leading to the situation we now find ourselves in.
What's worse is that nowadays they can't just get rid of that stuff, or you'll have people whining "But muh expensive Forgeworld gak! I can't use it anymore now!" because you know, the health of the game is less important than someone with more money than sense buying super expensive toys.
Wayniac wrote: What's worse is that nowadays they can't just get rid of that stuff, or you'll have people whining "But muh expensive Forgeworld gak! I can't use it anymore now!" because you know, the health of the game is less important than someone with more money than sense buying super expensive toys.
Yeah, how dare people actually want to use the stuff they bought. What horrible people we all are.
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niall78 wrote: To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
You can disagree with it for aesthetic reasons, but it can work fine from a rules/balance point of view. A Baneblade in a 2000 point game works just fine. A Malcador is usually worse than its points in LRBTs. The problem is with specific LoW (D-spam titans, Wraithknights, etc) that are way too cheap for what they do and specific armies (knights, formations) that give you the ability to take multiple LoW, or even an army of nothing but LoW. Balance those specific units and most of the LoW problem disappears.
The big issue is that most of the newer SH/GC units tend to be spammable and much more points efficient than the old Baneblade, and the bigger we get the more skewed stuff gets. A Baneblade isn't doing anything that a trio of Russ tanks isn't. But when we get into entire armies of Knights, multiple sub 300pt Wraithknights, Warhound Scout Titans, etc, they tend to dramatically skew the scale and function of the game such that most units become pointless trying to deal with them.
As some one who owns more than a few superheavies, I wouldn't be sad at all to see them removed to a different game ruleset or dramatically restricted in normal games, as the core rules really just do not handle these units particularly well at all.
That said, they're not the only units that have these issues. Multi-wound units with invul saves and wound allocation gimmicking ability such as Necron Wraiths and TWC's have much the same issues, being absurdly resilient against both quantity and quality of firepower and making basic infantry units largely pointless aside from simple board control.
Accolade wrote: I think different point ranges could work if the threshold at which access to superheavies/massive things was a bit lower than previously - starting at 1500 and representing 25-30% of the force. Games below that can have greater restrictions that keep the rock-paper-scissors elements out.
I highly doubt it is ever worthwhile having super heavies or massive units in a 28mm game. Maybe as a narrative centrepiece or an objective.
To take 6mm Battletech a 100 ton assault mech or tank in points costs more than 30 infantry platoons of 30 men each. That means in points cost those Battlemechs or tanks cost more than an infantry battalion with all it's associated troop transports and heavy weapons. One single mech or super heavy tank is valued higher than 800-900 infantry plus supporting assets. Titans and super heavies in 40K are much more powerful and better protected than even the heaviest Battletech mech or tank. How can they ever be represented in a 28mm skirmish system? The scale is off the wall. Even with proper points costings introducing such units to 28mm game is head on pants silly.
Titans and super heavies should have their own game with detailed damage charts and complex crew actions to bring out the flavour and power of such units. Shoe-horning them into modern 40K does them a great disservice and makes balance impossible. Of course like I said in a post above the genie is out of the bottle already so such a solution seems impossible at this stage without massive blow back from players that have spent hundreds if not thousands of Euro on such units.
Exactly, and do you know what? There used to be a 6mm version of 40K specifically for those stupidly big super heavy units. It was called Epic. But GW in its infinite wisdom decided that Epic scale units belonged in regular 40K, as did Epic scale battles. And so did 40K end up in the mess it is in today.
I like battletech for reasons.
I know I played Adeptus Titanicus - GW's answer at the time to the highly popular Battletech which I also played and still play - and Space Marine. I was then heavily invested in 2nd edition Epic with a group of cousins and friends - what a good game! Never had much time for 3rd edition. I think it is tragic that GW cancelled its great 6mm games and then tried to shoehorn their mega units into a 28mm skirmish game leading to the situation we now find ourselves in.
What's worse is that nowadays they can't just get rid of that stuff, or you'll have people whining "But muh expensive Forgeworld gak! I can't use it anymore now!" because you know, the health of the game is less important than someone with more money than sense buying super expensive toys.
Well, we could bring back Apocalypse.....
Peregrine wrote:
Wayniac wrote: What's worse is that nowadays they can't just get rid of that stuff, or you'll have people whining "But muh expensive Forgeworld gak! I can't use it anymore now!" because you know, the health of the game is less important than someone with more money than sense buying super expensive toys.
Yeah, how dare people actually want to use the stuff they bought. What horrible people we all are.
The problem is, oh mighty bird, that said big and expensive toys are heinously broken and incredibly unbalanced in many cases. Some of them are okayish, but for the most part they are just another symbol of the power creep that is slowly taking over 40K and making basic troops less and less relevant.
You can disagree with it for aesthetic reasons, but it can work fine from a rules/balance point of view. A Baneblade in a 2000 point game works just fine. A Malcador is usually worse than its points in LRBTs. The problem is with specific LoW (D-spam titans, Wraithknights, etc) that are way too cheap for what they do and specific armies (knights, formations) that give you the ability to take multiple LoW, or even an army of nothing but LoW. Balance those specific units and most of the LoW problem disappears.
Well, the problem here is the power creep. A 50 man blob of guard costs more than a Wraithknight and will be unable to hurt it, whereas the Wraithknight will walk all over it. The same with an Imperial Knight. These units are big and, with a few notable exceptions, really powerful. They can walk all over entire armies, and many have weapons that delete entire platoons in a single shot (looking at you Stormsword) without allowing any cover saves at all. They are extremely poweful and extremely tough and having even one can seriously shift the balance in your favour (taking said Stormsword against non DP/DS Marines for instance) whilst an ill-prepared opponent will struggle to deal with a Baneblade or Knight (hell, even a prepared one can struggle, I have seen Knights shrug off 'D' hits like they where nothing) and this can really ruin the balance of the game.
Furthermore, these large units are just another aspect of the stupid power bloat that has been toxifying 40K. Remember the days when a SH was limited to Apocalypse only, unless your opponent agreed to its use? Remember when even a single one was a massive threat, and seeing one caused the whole store to focus on the battle? When seeing two or more on the same side was the sole preserve of major Apoc games (IE, store organised day+ long ones)? Well, I do. What happened? When did bringing a SH unit become a commonplace thing? How did it happen?
Because it shouldnt have. It should never have happened and it should never have continued.
In something of an ironic twist, I've probably brought out my superheavies less since 7E came about than when they were Apoc only units, if for no other reason than nobody actually wants to play actual Apoc sized battles anymore (when they can just bring everything in normal games, also the 2013 Apoc book is...well...awful) and I don't like taking them in normal games as "normal" units.
Furthermore, these large units are just another aspect of the stupid power bloat that has been toxifying 40K. Remember the days when a SH was limited to Apocalypse only, unless your opponent agreed to its use? Remember when even a single one was a massive threat, and seeing one caused the whole store to focus on the battle? When seeing two or more on the same side was the sole preserve of major Apoc games (IE, store organised day+ long ones)? Well, I do. What happened? When did bringing a SH unit become a commonplace thing? How did it happen?
Because it shouldnt have. It should never have happened and it should never have continued.
It's not the fact it's in the game that bothers me too much. Personally I find it a bit silly to have such units in a 28mm game. I don't see how they can effectively scaled in a 28mm rule-set and as game pieces I'd find storing and transporting them a nightmare. What gets on my wick is that the rules have never evolved to even try and really support such units. Let GW bring the massive units if they want but at least write a rule-set that tries to shoehorn them into the game properly. How? I've not a clue. But they should have tried and not stuck with an outdated, cumbersome, tactically weak twenty year old D6 skirmish rule-set while bloating the game with 6-10mm scale units.
Here's an interesting factoid thanks to 4Chan :-
"In this system (Epic)the majority of models were 1/350 scale, while large vehicles were 1/700 scale to keep them affordable."
Anyone know if this is true? I find it deliciously ironic.
Hardly anyone played Apocalypse, and for good reasons.
The problem is, oh mighty bird, that said big and expensive toys are heinously broken and incredibly unbalanced in many cases. Some of them are okayish, but for the most part they are just another symbol of the power creep that is slowly taking over 40K and making basic troops less and less relevant.
Like I said, this is a problem with individual unit rules. The solution is to nerf Wraithknights, limit LoW to a 0-1 option (yes, including knights), etc, not to take those units out of the game entirely.
Well, the problem here is the power creep. A 50 man blob of guard costs more than a Wraithknight and will be unable to hurt it, whereas the Wraithknight will walk all over it. The same with an Imperial Knight.
So what? Why does the 50-man IG blob matter? An IG blob (without heavy/special weapons, since if it has those it can hurt LoW) is a tough scoring and meatshield unit with a primary role of taking up space on the table and a secondary role of killing infantry through volume of fire. Of course it's going to be disappointing when you treat it as an anti-tank unit and ask it to deal with tanks and MCs. If anything we'd have a significant balance problem if the 50-man blob could deal with those LoW effectively, as there would be little reason to take any other units.
These units are big and, with a few notable exceptions, really powerful. They can walk all over entire armies, and many have weapons that delete entire platoons in a single shot (looking at you Stormsword) without allowing any cover saves at all. They are extremely poweful and extremely tough and having even one can seriously shift the balance in your favour (taking said Stormsword against non DP/DS Marines for instance) whilst an ill-prepared opponent will struggle to deal with a Baneblade or Knight (hell, even a prepared one can struggle, I have seen Knights shrug off 'D' hits like they where nothing) and this can really ruin the balance of the game.
Sure, of course LoW are going to beat an unprepared opponent. But at this point you have to ask why people are not prepared for LoW. They're part of the game, so you should expect to be able to deal with a single Baneblade or knight.
And a Stormsword isn't going to be deleting a whole platoon with one shot unless you bunch your models up into perfect template formation. Proper use of 2" spacing can significantly reduce the number of hits you take. And yeah, marines are going to feel some pain, but that should be expected when you're talking about a 450+ point unit designed to kill elite infantry.
Furthermore, these large units are just another aspect of the stupid power bloat that has been toxifying 40K. Remember the days when a SH was limited to Apocalypse only, unless your opponent agreed to its use? Remember when even a single one was a massive threat, and seeing one caused the whole store to focus on the battle? When seeing two or more on the same side was the sole preserve of major Apoc games (IE, store organised day+ long ones)? Well, I do. What happened? When did bringing a SH unit become a commonplace thing? How did it happen?
Because it shouldnt have. It should never have happened and it should never have continued.
It happened because "Apocalypse only" sucked. Apocalypse sucks, it's barely a game and almost never fun. So you either put everything into the standard game, or you don't make those things at all. Now that GW has made superheavies/flyers/etc those things are part of the game and they're not going anywhere.
Hardly anyone played Apocalypse, and for good reasons.
Pretty much all of which apply now to the normal game, and we're seeing players dropping off as a result. At least I am.
So what? Why does the 50-man IG blob matter? An IG blob (without heavy/special weapons, since if it has those it can hurt LoW) is a tough scoring and meatshield unit with a primary role of taking up space on the table and a secondary role of killing infantry through volume of fire. Of course it's going to be disappointing when you treat it as an anti-tank unit and ask it to deal with tanks and MCs. If anything we'd have a significant balance problem if the 50-man blob could deal with those LoW effectively, as there would be little reason to take any other units.
The issue is that it actually does nothing particularly well except board presence because of the power bloat. There are superheavies that can clear such a unit off the table, even in cover, with relative ease, and such blobs really aren't that great at doing much of anything anymore, especially when the heavier units are more and more commonplace giving those blobs less and less to do.
More to the point, when we're talking about 50 man blobs and superheavies, and the fact that the superheavy and blob are only a fraction of either army generally, we're getting beyond what a 28mm game on a 6'x4' table with model centric rules is really capable of portraying with acceptable functionality, and things break down massively when we're not playing scenarios and tables designed specifically around such a thing (which GW doesn't do squat to provide).
Again, I own more than my fair share of superheavy units, flyers, and forgeworld models, but I think it's time to split back into separate realms of scale, even if it's just the rules. The issue then is on GW to support and market these adequately, not just one and leave the rest to rot as they've done in the past.
about the quality of the products they're selling at ridiculous prices. People will talk about how 
Played a few 3rd ed. games with friends at the local 
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