The Orks deployed only 80-100 Roks during the Third War For Armageddon.

How much is an IG regiment? A quick Google Search shows... No solid numbers.

 Verviedi wrote:
The Orks deployed only 80-100 Roks during the Third War For Armageddon.

And how many"nukes" capable of destroying roks did the imperials have?

Every nation on earth combined equals 15,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled.
Imperial worlds, presumably a fethload more than that, because nukes are easy to make with 40k's technology and too effective not to have.

 Verviedi wrote:

Graia is hardly a major world, as only a single squad of Marines was sent to reclaim it. If it were important, it would be hit with multiple companies or chapters, like Armageddon was.

It doesn't sit in a space as vital as Armageddon, but it certainly was a major Forge World. There were also more Marines backstage assisting in Graia's defence, both from the Ultramarines and the Blood Raven/Black Templar force sent to assist; we just only got to see Titus' squad.

Nuke it.

And lose the Manufactorum?

Yes, when your joke is funny. "Codex: Peregrine Owns Your Wallet" was something funny that was posted today. A Trump joke is very much not funny. It's like making a 9/11 joke in 2002.

I guess you can tell I don't usually do political jokes. It was the first thing that sprang to mind though; I guess I'm not currently in the right frame of mind to come up with something good with current happenings, so I apologise.

Third War For Armageddon, only about 249 Guard regiments deployed. That's 600,000 people give or take, assuming my math is right.

Considering those regiments could be anything from Light Infantry to Artillery, the number could vary immensely. Most full regiments would be a lot larger than a couple of thousand men each though.

Tyranids have a tendency to stage and form swarms in one location before attacking. Source: Battle of Tarsis Ultra.

I couldn't find the exact bit you're sourcing from (guess it's in the book Lexicanum sourced from) but I thought typically a Tyranid fleet will fire Mycetic Spores indiscriminately at a planet in order to maximise coverage. It's not like they ever have a shortage of troops to send down.

Even so, they would likely adapt to the situation after the first few times they get nuked upon hitting the surface.

The Imperium has more nukes than the Orks have Roks.

Possibly, until a Rok hits a Missile Silo, that is.

Yes, there are some cases where it is not viable. However, this doesn't excuse a near complete lack of using nukes in the background.

I guess not. Like Peregrine said before, I guess a lot of it is down to most factions wanting to fight honourably or out of bloodlust.

Well I concede now, don't think I have anything else to add that hasn't already been repeated.

G.A

Okay, 1d4chan says a Regiment is anywhere from hundreds to millions.

So 249 regiments could be as little as 25,000 men, or as many as 100,000,000.

Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
-OMITTED-

 Verviedi wrote:
Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.

No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.

No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.

Oh, really? Thank you for correcting me, I suppose considering 1d4chan a legitimate source is not a good thing to do. Consider my concession withdrawn until the face of Armageddon a legitimate source is provided.

40k has long had a very poor sense of scale.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Battle of Kursk had a total of 3,449,000 soldiers involved, plus tanks, infantry, ect.
I believe that my information on the scale of 40k battles is incorrect, and I'll concede that point.

No, don't concede, you're entirely correct. A DKoK siege regiment, a unit that embodies the principle of "throw lots of bodies at the problem", has "tens of thousands" of men. If regiments with millions of men exist at all they're exceptional cases, and there's no reason to believe that they're involved in a particular battle unless explicitly stated. A more reasonable estimate is that IG infantry regiments are around the 1-2000 man size of WWII infantry regiments. If we assume that any DKoK-size regiments are balanced out by armored regiments and similar smaller units then Armageddon was probably around 500k to 1 million men total. IOW, "smaller than real-world battles" is accurate.

Thought I'd add something I do have here, from Lexicanum - "Each regiment raised on Armageddon is composed of twelve companies, typically a mix of infantry, armour, artillery and mechanised infantry. Infantry and mechanised infantry companies consist of a command section, a fire support platoon with 10 heavy weapons teams, and three infantry platoons of 50 soldiers each, including 5 heavy weapons teams. At full strength a company would have 175 soldiers, though casualties suffered during battle will quickly reduce this."

However, factoring in the fact that the Second War for Armageddon involved many regiments outside of the Steel Legion, primarily from Cadia, alongside the probable need for Armageddon to draft more men from the remaining hives, there is the potential for many millions of Guardsmen to be involved.

It's more likely that the 3rd War has gone into the many millions, as it's a constant war of attrition to keep the Orks from claiming Armageddon as more and more of them flock in for a good fight.

This seems relevant:




Also, "You cannot take ground if the ground glows in the dark."

And, if the planet is shielded or protected somehow (such as the former Fortress Monastery of the Imperial Fists), that presents its own set of problems. For 40K, if we are to believe that futuristic "ICBM" nukes in 40K are represented by Death Strikes, even something like a Rhino has a 16% chance of surviving a point-blank hit... that's some tough armor - or something.

Though, while the IoM might be reluctant to nuke vital strategic points (preferring "throw more bodies at it, they're cheaper"), I can't see a faction like Chaos having the slightest qualms of doing so if they have access to that kind of firepower. We have, for instance, seen chaos nuke a solar system with Calth.

 Blacksails wrote:
40k has long had a very poor sense of scale.

I think this is largely due to troop choices largely becoming irrelevant on the tabletop. When everything becomes objective secured, there is little reason to field them in most armies. Hopefully that will change in 8th. I'd love to see more troops on the table again instead of all Riptides/Wraith Knights etc.

Another contributing factor which continues to be ignored is the army balance within the codices themselves. GW is trying to solve all of the game problems through the use of "formations" yet in the end, the underlying problem is that the point costs and the rules of the units within most codices are just flat out broken. We have units that serve nearly identical roles, in different armies that vary in point cost drastically. Other units have special rules and statlines that have been copy/pasted for a decade from edition to edition. If their rules weren't competitive 10 years ago, they certainly aren't viable now. At the end of the day, GW just needs to bite the bullet and establish a metric for how much a unit costs and go through every unit in the game.

I think 40k is fine, love the game (I play CSM and daemoms)

I can't say 40K is fine because of the glaring imbalance which can make the game barely playable, and the formations nonsense that is going on right now which I find poorly implemented. Strictly rulewise speaking, I think the game is pretty much in the right path (though adding Ugo Igo activation with several new reactions would really bring it to the next level) Sure it can be complicated to remember all the rules and yes there could be some refinement here and there (most notably for cover saves) but overall, I feel it works well in creating a large sci-fi war simulation with its many dimensions. I don't want the psychic phase to be a simple ld test nor do I want vehicles to be treated as MC. It would simply ruin the game's immersion

It's fine for me - someone who's played since 4th with SM,IG and various other imperial bits for flavor.

But this is because I, and most of my community, have recognised its limitations and work within them. If I was not as familiar with the power level problem, or we had a toxic WAAC community, it'd be a different issue - and we'd probably have died out by now.

I will also repeat that 40k is for 40k games. The game as its written works fine with 20k a side. That it's calibrated for that level is the foundation of the problem I think.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Change my view?

40k fails miserably at several different points of basic game design:

1) Balance is terrible. Power creep, internal balance, external balance, it's all a problem.

2) The rules are a bloated mess. GW's design policy is all about having every unit get tons of special snowflake rules, on top of a massive core rulebook. And yet 40k strategy is pretty shallow, with little more than basic execution of your army's strategy and limited opportunity for move vs. counter-move planning. So all of these extra rules make the game harder to learn and vastly increase the opportunity for rule arguments, but they don't make the game more interesting.

3) The rules have no overall design plan. Nobody at GW seems to know what kind of game 40k is supposed to be. Is it a skirmish-scale game focused on the heroes? An army-scale game full of titans and aircraft and orbital bombardments? These are completely incompatible design concepts, yet GW's apparent answer to the question is "all of the above". So we have rules for determining exactly what kind of power weapon a tactical marine sergeant is armed with in the same game as a Warlord titan that can annihilate the entire unit with a single shot. And, where good games improve with every edition because the designers have a goal in mind that they're working towards, 40k keeps getting new editions where the rules change for the sake of change but the game doesn't really improve.

4) Randomness replaces player decisions far too often. Random warlord traits, random mission objectives, etc. GW consistently takes control away from the players and replaces it with rolling on a random table to see what you get. This is fine if you're a small child playing one of those "roll a die to see how many spaces you move" games on the back of a cereal box, since you have the same 50/50 chance of winning as your parent. It's unacceptable in a game where adults pay hundreds to thousands of dollars and invest countless hours in modeling and painting.

5) The rules are unclear and frequently impossible to understand. GW believes, contrary to modern game design principles, that the rules are just a general guide and you shouldn't worry too much about following them precisely. This means they don't pay enough attention to writing clear and unambiguous rules, with the inevitable result of constant arguments about what the rules are supposed to be. Even after a massive FAQ, which directly contradicts the printed rules in multiple places, there are still arguments over how the game is supposed to work.

These are all solid points and a good summary of which areas 40K should improve on. Though I do think you overstate the effect of randomness as it add an element of risk management in the game which is something an acute mind can plan for. Yet, at the end of the day, I feel all of these points (except number 5 which GW should really work on in the next edition and 3) which would be solved easily by splitting the game in at least 2 tiers) are mainly related to what I stated : Imbalance (randomness is not necessarily a bad thing imo, but it is when a single roll is pretty much a game changer, such as getting the invisibility spell or rolling prophet of the waagh as you warlord trait in a Orkurion) and Formations (which add an overabundant layer of rules over the already heavy ruleset)

The Rogue Trader RPG declares that nukes are rare.

The Imperium has religious rituals, not technology in our sense. If there's no ritual for making a nuke, they can't make it. That we can make them is irrelevant.

The Ferrozoicans used nuclear weapons to destroy Vannick hive in Necropolis, and the majority of the soldiers on the ferry were aware of the existence of nuclear weapons. This argument holds no water, as if nuclear weapons are so rare and sacred, why is their existence common knowledge?
Also, the planet Krieg suffered an explicitly nuclear civil war. If nukes were truly that rare, that would be impossible.

The Imperium does have plenty of Ordnance Extremis; in fact, most of it is far more powerful than whatever nuclear weapons they have on hand, such as Vortex Warheads. Hell, even the basic Plasma Warhead for a Deathstrike Missile Launcher would give a tactical nuke a run for its money.

I think most of this kind of weaponry will be used in Ship on Ship combat (not sure exactly what Imperial Ships could mount it, but I'm sure any of them with Torpedo Tubes could use them). After going away and thinking about it, I'm sure the reason that it may not be used frequently to fight ground wars is simply because even the most incompetent Ork strategist would notice that all his Roks are being decimated on impact, and instead send them straight at wherever the missiles are coming from to cripple them, like they would when dealing with something more potent, like a Planetary Defence Laser.

There are several hundred (probably more) nuclear missile silos currently on Earth. I'll assume there's an equal amount on Armageddon. Even in the Third War For Armageddon (the largest battle against Orks in recent times), the Orks only deployed 80-100 Roks. Factoring in losses from the first wave being nuked, that simply isn't enough Roks to take out every nuclear missile launch site.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Change my view?

40k fails miserably at several different points of basic game design:

1) Balance is terrible. Power creep, internal balance, external balance, it's all a problem.

2) The rules are a bloated mess. GW's design policy is all about having every unit get tons of special snowflake rules, on top of a massive core rulebook. And yet 40k strategy is pretty shallow, with little more than basic execution of your army's strategy and limited opportunity for move vs. counter-move planning. So all of these extra rules make the game harder to learn and vastly increase the opportunity for rule arguments, but they don't make the game more interesting.

3) The rules have no overall design plan. Nobody at GW seems to know what kind of game 40k is supposed to be. Is it a skirmish-scale game focused on the heroes? An army-scale game full of titans and aircraft and orbital bombardments? These are completely incompatible design concepts, yet GW's apparent answer to the question is "all of the above". So we have rules for determining exactly what kind of power weapon a tactical marine sergeant is armed with in the same game as a Warlord titan that can annihilate the entire unit with a single shot. And, where good games improve with every edition because the designers have a goal in mind that they're working towards, 40k keeps getting new editions where the rules change for the sake of change but the game doesn't really improve.

4) Randomness replaces player decisions far too often. Random warlord traits, random mission objectives, etc. GW consistently takes control away from the players and replaces it with rolling on a random table to see what you get. This is fine if you're a small child playing one of those "roll a die to see how many spaces you move" games on the back of a cereal box, since you have the same 50/50 chance of winning as your parent. It's unacceptable in a game where adults pay hundreds to thousands of dollars and invest countless hours in modeling and painting.

5) The rules are unclear and frequently impossible to understand. GW believes, contrary to modern game design principles, that the rules are just a general guide and you shouldn't worry too much about following them precisely. This means they don't pay enough attention to writing clear and unambiguous rules, with the inevitable result of constant arguments about what the rules are supposed to be. Even after a massive FAQ, which directly contradicts the printed rules in multiple places, there are still arguments over how the game is supposed to work.

This is pretty much spot on.

Alcibiades wrote:
The Rogue Trader RPG declares that nukes are rare.

The Imperium has religious rituals, not technology in our sense. If there's no ritual for making a nuke, they can't make it. That we can make them is irrelevant.

They absolutely can make them, Krieg was devastated by them in the 40th Millenium.

There are also all the Ork ships in orbit or near orbit that could rain down their own ordnance on such facilities; the logical place to put nuclear weapons it seems is on board the Imperial vessels defending the world, so they can stop enemy ships from ranging in and destroying any planetary defence mechanisms from orbit.

And of course, if one Rok gets through, it will be underneath any shielding the planet or that facility may have, along with Tellyporting facilities to get more Orks down. All they'd need to do is capture the facility and they can turn the weapons in them against the defenders.

If it were me, I'd definitely put them with the Navy - out in space they'll work a treat against enemy ships with their Force Shields down, and they're unlikely to get captured by the enemy if everything doesn't go to plan.

Yes, that is true. I believe a mixed approach would be the most successful. Nuclear weapons on ships in orbit, and nuclear missiles on the surface, with the ability to detonate them in their silos if Orks enter the facility.
Perhaps some air-dropped nuclear bombs from ground-based aircraft based in the hives, for the purposes of a multi-pronged nuclear threat. If the Imperium has submarine tech (the Orks do, I'm not sure about humans), mount some nuclear missiles offshore as well. Yes, your pool of available nukes will be spread out, but you won't be losing the vast majority of your arsenal before it's deployed.
This is what people do in real life, and if 3rd millenium humans can figure it out, 41st millenium humans definitely can.

I've had more fun playing 6th-7th edition than any of the previous editions, but I had to come up with a bunch of house rules to mitigate the nonsense the current rules and imbalances between armies create. My group wound up narrowing those down to just a few, and they do a pretty good job keeping things balanced and resulting in close, fun games. No Allies, 40% Troops minimum, psykers can't use power dice from other psykers. Been working for us for years now.

It's also worth noting that ITC has a boatload of house rules in order to keep certain things from becoming overpowered.

So, in other words, to make 7E work, you cant actually play 7E, one must play one's own modified ruleset

Even with lots of house rules or ITC restrictions, 7E can be horrifically broken, you hust ending up curbing some armies but not others. Lots of highly abuseable lists still work great with no allies and 40% troops and whatnot. Many common Necron armies that will steamroll anything nor running a Gladius or War Convocation or whatnot will do so for example, as will many Eldar armies that few can stand against either way

Making 40k work through restrictions has limits, 7E can work if youre playing with close like minded gaming partners and essentially play your own made up ruleset that cuts out (implicitly or explicitly) large amounts of stuff, but falls apart if youre trying to do pickup games or league play or tournaments.

I love 7E, its a lot of fun.

It is broken as gak, and if you get a bad machup its not very much fun, however, it can be if you talk with your opponent and whatnot.

So no, OP, you are not alone

~Mikey

While I disagree that 40k is "fine", I certainly will agree that it's not as big a doomsday as people say it is.

40k needs fixing (what else is new?), and it needs it badly. But it's not any more unplayable than any other point in its history, and really, I still think it's better than 2nd edition.

 Verviedi wrote:
Yes, that is true. I believe a mixed approach would be the most successful. Nuclear weapons on ships in orbit, and nuclear missiles on the surface, with the ability to detonate them in their silos if Orks enter the facility.
Perhaps some air-dropped nuclear bombs from ground-based aircraft based in the hives, for the purposes of a multi-pronged nuclear threat. If the Imperium has submarine tech (the Orks do, I'm not sure about humans), mount some nuclear missiles offshore as well. Yes, your pool of available nukes will be spread out, but you won't be losing the vast majority of your arsenal before it's deployed.
This is what people do in real life, and if 3rd millenium humans can figure it out, 41st millenium humans definitely can.

I have no idea about Imperial Submarines, but if Orks can make them, surely the Imperium might have them too. It did always puzzle me how there's not a ground Navy as well as a Space Navy in 40k

Of course, planetary defence weapons range massively from world to world - where one planet has a arsenal of Capital grade weapons, another may have point defence lasers, or just a really really big gun, much like on Graia.

Whatever they do have, invaders can and will try to find a way around it. Nukes would work fairly well against Orks, Necrons and probably Chaos invasions too (Tyranids as well if there wasn't a Genestealer vanguard to shut down the planet's defences), but against an enemy like the Eldar or Dark Eldar, I doubt they'd be anywhere near as effective.

Still, I'm in agreement - Imperial lore could do with some extra fluff explaining what exactly the Imperium does with its Ordnance Extremis. In the end though, even what they have on hand may not be enough to avoid a ground war.

I love 40k, I think it's a blast. However, it has huge problems mentioned above: price (mitigated some by the new Start Collecting boxes), balance, superheavies, and formations.

Remedy these problems as much as possible, and I think it'd be back to being king of the tabletops.

Nah, its a pretty big freaking mess right now.

Bloated rules, syntax errors and lots of room for cheese, massive amount of imbalance is codexes, an awful ham fisted pyker phase, models power level based on price tag not actual points, see riptide.

Its a freaking mess right now.

Am I the only one who thinks 40K is fine?

Yes, pretty much, and you practically contradicted yourself.

You are in the minority of players. At least judging by my limited personal experience and that on DakkaDakka. I think 40k is a mediocre at best wargame with ancient design philosophies combined with a schizophrenic dev team who seems to switch tracks every 6 months. The result is an incoherent mess where a player has to remember dozens of special rules to resolve any action in the game. As a wargame 40k is complex but shallow that is won more often in the list building phase than not. It's why I think competitive 40k is an oxymoron.

But I love the models and the universe. If I could find a group that focuses on fully painted narrative play on well done terrain that would be gravy.

You're not in the minority of players; you're in a minority of people who spend a considerable amount of time discussing 40k on Internet message boards.

The problem with 40k is that the rules seem to be written with no relation to other rules. as if they have 10 writers, who never read another rule book, who don't communicate with one another, and who don't play the game or have a common director above them.

They're so scattered and there's no overall direction. "let's do formations those are cool and if we make it so you need one of every unit people will buy more, but let's have them not get objec sec to balance it against cad"
"ok i'm going to give space marines obj sec in theirs, that can't be a big deal right?"



that's just one example, but overall there's no cohesion. A book will be written and weeks later another book completely contradicts it. A release will come out that's totally bonkers compared to the other releases, codecies come out right before edition changes that are broken in the new edition as if the writers weren't privy to the new edition at all. books languish years old while others get updated what seems like every 3 months. They'll establish a precedent in one book, then completely disregard it in the next, as if everyone writes in a vacuum and no one knows what rules will be changing or what other rules are being concurrently written elsewhere.

They need a rules team that sets boundaries, codifies do-s and do-nots and reviews every book prior to release to assure they follow the same direction.

*as thecustomlime said, i also stick with 40k because it has hands down the best lore and universe of any IP. And from a more subjective standpoint at least for me the best models in the business. but their rules, god their rules are all over the place.

 Nazrak wrote:
You're not in the minority of players; you're in a minority of people who spend a considerable amount of time discussing 40k on Internet message boards.

Quite a bold claim. Do you have any evidence for this assertion or is it a case of one person's anecdotal evidence trumping anothers?

 Nazrak wrote:
You're not in the minority of players; you're in a minority of people who spend a considerable amount of time discussing 40k on Internet message boards.

Nearly every single person I've met in person has shared similar thoughts to the ones expressed here; a poorly balanced, poorly written game with great models and a great background that keeps chugging forward because its one common game you can almost guarantee a wargamer will play.

That's several stores worth of people from sea to shining sea.

There are degrees, of course, of dislike for the game, but I've rarely met a person who's looked me in the eye and told me 40k is amazing because its a well written, enjoyable game out of the box. Then again, most of the people I play with have experience with other games, and therefore have a real frame of reference to judge 40k against. If you've only ever played 40k, I'm sure it seems fine. But once you step outside that box, a whole new world awaits.

As stated, 40k seems alright if you only play 40k.

The rules are terribly bloated, there is seriously too much to keep track of (I play Tzeentch daemons though) and games take twice as long as they need to.

Why shouldn't orks survive a nuke? They kinda survive an asteroid crash. That's how they land on planets. Yep, more than 50% die but what's exactly preventing orks from building bunkers vs your nuclear weaponry that they know umiez are gona use. And, well, there are just too many of them to bomb everyone. And orks wouldn't care about radiation too much with their mushroom physique.

So, it's kinda more harmful to people than orks to nuke orks.
If you do nuke them, you can't roll there to completely anihilate the remains cause of radiation. And by the time you can, the area is full of orks that are larger, meaner and more resilient to radiation than before.

 koooaei wrote:
Why shouldn't orks survive a nuke? They kinda survive an asteroid crash. That's how they land on planets. Yep, more than 50% die but what's exactly preventing orks from building bunkers vs your nuclear weaponry that they know umiez are gona use. And, well, there are just too many of them to bomb everyone. And orks wouldn't care about radiation too much with their mushroom physique.

So, it's kinda more harmful to people than orks to nuke orks.
If you do nuke them, you can't roll there to completely anihilate the remains cause of radiation. And by the time you can, the area is full of orks that are larger, meaner and more resilient to radiation than before.

Orks aren't Tyranids.

And yet they do manage to survive on asteroids in open space. Nuked place ain't too bad after that. At least it's warmer.

 koooaei wrote:
And yet they do manage to survive on asteroids in open space. Nuked place ain't too bad after that. At least it's warmer.

They aren't crawling around on the surface. Roks are modified space hulks that have interior accommodations jury-rigged by the Orks themselves.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
And yet they do manage to survive on asteroids in open space. Nuked place ain't too bad after that. At least it's warmer.

They aren't crawling around on the surface. Roks are modified space hulks that have interior accommodations jury-rigged by the Orks themselves.

There's fluff about them surviving on the surface of asteroids drifting in open space.

 koooaei wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
And yet they do manage to survive on asteroids in open space. Nuked place ain't too bad after that. At least it's warmer.

They aren't crawling around on the surface. Roks are modified space hulks that have interior accommodations jury-rigged by the Orks themselves.

There's fluff about them surviving on the surface of asteroids drifting in open space.

Really now? Odd. But science fantasy writers can be forgiven for not understanding that open space is actually an extremely harmful place to be beyond the lack of atmosphere. Regardless, radioactive weapons can and do kill Orks in the fluff. But it's not the fallout that would kill the Orks but rather the massive explosive yield. An Ork army out in the open would be trivial to wipe out with something like the Tsar Bomba or even whatever the twisted minds of future humanity could cook up.

Nuclear weapons generate massive explosive forces and temperatures around 15,000,000° F. It is physically impossible for any living thing to survive that.

Roll in to annihilate remains? No need for that. Aircraft and massed artillery.

 Verviedi wrote:
Nuclear weapons generate massive explosive forces and temperatures around 15,000,000° F. It is physically impossible for any living thing to survive that.

Roll in to annihilate remains? No need for that. Aircraft and massed artillery.

Who actually cares? People want to play a game of armies fighting each other, not of one side placing models on the table and the other side saying "I nuke them".

 Verviedi wrote:
Nuclear weapons generate massive explosive forces and temperatures around 15,000,000° F. It is physically impossible for any living thing to survive that.

Roll in to annihilate remains? No need for that. Aircraft and massed artillery.

Yes, there is no way an Ork would survive that. They can survive in deep space though, and can tolerate high amounts of radiation.

Aircraft can be shot down with ground to air weaponry, and artillery can be knocked out by fast moving units. In order to win, you really need a combination of everything, or at least a combination of weapons that can theoretically deal with any threat you may face. It's one big game of rock paper scissors in essence.

Wait, are you saying the disoriented survivors of a nuclear blast would be able to set up anti-artillery and anti-aircraft weapons in time to avoid a bombardment that occurs immediately after a nuclear weapon explodes in the middle of them?

Here's my combination, in temporal order.
Nuke, significant artillery bombardment, saturation bombing, send in the Death Korps.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Who actually cares? People want to play a game of armies fighting each other, not of one side placing models on the table and the other side saying "I nuke them".

I'm poking holes in stupid fluff, not attacking the way people play the game.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Nuclear weapons generate massive explosive forces and temperatures around 15,000,000° F. It is physically impossible for any living thing to survive that.

Roll in to annihilate remains? No need for that. Aircraft and massed artillery.

Who actually cares? People want to play a game of armies fighting each other, not of one side placing models on the table and the other side saying "I nuke them".

That's basically the game Eldar and Tau are playing. "I nuke them with scatbikes".

 koooaei wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
The guys with the guns should always win. History proved that

ww2 had plenty bayonet charges trumping shooty defences.

Not nearly as many as you think. Unless your definition of "plenty" is "perhaps a dozen by Allied forces in Europe". The Japanese did the only true mass bayonet charge in WW2, and that was Saipan. Lost 4500 troops doing it while only inflicting 600 casualties against a force they outnumbered. Hand to hand combat in WW2 was nearly always a thing of necessity or desperation, not a designed strategy. The Chinese used it against the Japanese, for example, because pre-industrialized China always struggled to manufacture enough ammunition. They used massed charges because they had no better options.

WW1 taught Europeans the futility of massed charges in the era of machineguns.

And we're talking about a fictional universe with lots of things capable of withstanding a gunshot. Not just puny humans.

I think, like you overestimate the use of the bayonet in WW2, you're massively underestimating how many times you can be shot while running across open ground.

Sure, 40K has things that can withstand gunshots. 40K also has bigger guns, and enough shots from smaller guns will put the bigger things down. Melee charges would only be effective by armies that didn't care about losing lots of guys, and who also had lots of guys to lose. So, Tyranids. Maybe Orks, but they seem to be too easily routed to sustain those kinds of casualties.

I mean, we can discuss the "flavor" of 40K all we want. But my statement remains true. The gun made the sword obsolete. Making better swords won't change that, unless you can negate the distance advantage of the gun (which 40K does by increasing movement speeds and decreasing rate of fire, lol). Or absorb hideous casualties. The muzzle energy of your average rifle is around 1800-4000 joules. A heavy machinegun can be in the 15,000 joule range. A well-prepared axe swing (say, to split a log), might be 800 joules. Thus, under most circumstances, anything that withstands a gunshot will withstand an awe swing. You can not only hit harder with a gun, you can do it from further away and more rapidly. And without fear of retribution from the guy with a sword, lol.

Just make assault units cheaper, then.

 Verviedi wrote:
Wait, are you saying the disoriented survivors of a nuclear blast would be able to set up anti-artillery and anti-aircraft weapons in time to avoid a bombardment that occurs immediately after a nuclear weapon explodes in the middle of them?

I'm not - I thought you meant that everything else could be fought with aircraft and artillery. In the case of what you're saying, it could easily be a ship with its own capital weaponry that bombards the artillery unit or uses its regular guns on the approaching aircraft.

Here's my combination, in temporal order.
Nuke, significant artillery bombardment, saturation bombing, send in the Death Korps.

But I thought the point of this argument is that ground wars are unnecessary in 40k. Or am I missing the point?

I also think 40k is pretty good. I don't necessarily agree that there's too much rules 'bloat' but slightly decreasing the size of the rule book shouldn't do much harm. The problems I do have with the game are the clarity of the written rules and internal as well as external codex balance. It's getting a bit old playing a weak and unloved faction when (almost) everyone else has got answers to the 7th edition problems - that's not to say there aren't codexes in a worse situation.

I love 40k, been playing since 3rd edition. But me and my group have pretty much stopped playing altogether for several reasons.

Army balance is a big problem for some. My Orks and Dark Eldar really seem to the struggle vs. marines and Eldar (which is what the rest of my friends play).

But in my opinion the larger problem is the game is just bloated and lacks a comprehensive design vision. Games take way too long to play, and virtually all the mechanics are dated to 90's era games (look up tables, charts, oodles of special rules that rarely get used, etc.). Game design has changed a lot in the last 10 years, but 40k hasn't kept up. The game needs an AoS style overhaul and I'm really hoping it happens.

For the record, I took an immediate dislike to AoS when it came out - I was salty after what they did to my beloved Old World and Tomb Kings. But you know, since the General's Handbook came out I've played a few games and had an absolute blast. It's fun, fast, and still a challenging tactical game. It's given me great hope that GW is on the right track.

 General Annoyance wrote:
I'm not - I thought you meant that everything else could be fought with aircraft and artillery. In the case of what you're saying, it could easily be a ship with its own capital weaponry that bombards the artillery unit or uses its regular guns on the approaching aircraft.

Oh, everything? No, some infantry and armour will always be needed to make sure everything's dead. Yes, nuking an area will destroy the vast majority of targets, and so will aerial and artillery bombardment, but it will never kill everything (a nuke, obviously, does not care about this rule) (Source: The Somme)

But I thought the point of this argument is that ground wars are unnecessary in 40k. Or am I missing the point?

No, the point of my argument is that the Imperium is stupid for using massive infantry and armour forces in cases where nukes will be far more effective. Obviously, not every situation calls for nukes, but in a majority of situations, a nuking would make the Imperium's job a LOT easier.

Sources:
Necropolis (in which a mass chaos infantry and tank force with no explicity anti-nuke technology and no aircraft is fought by... camping inside a fortress and shooting at it.(Seriously Dan Abnett, I love you, but those guys were in the middle of uninhabited salt flats. Why not just nuke them when the planet was explicitly stated to have nukes, (and one was ACTUALLY USED, but not on the Chaos forces!?)))

Titanicus (In which a massed Chaos force was discovered in a nice, compact, UNINHABITED area... and they sent incredibly expensive Titans to take it out, instead of just nuking it (keep in mind this is a mined-out, useless, desolate area of forge world))

It wouldn't be too difficult to simply say that the game of 40k represents the times when mass bombardment isn't acceptable or available.

 Verviedi wrote:

But I thought the point of this argument is that ground wars are unnecessary in 40k. Or am I missing the point?

No, the point of my argument is that the Imperium is stupid for using massive infantry and armour forces in cases where nukes will be far more effective. Obviously, not every situation calls for nukes, but in a majority of situations, a nuking would make the Imperium's job a LOT easier.

You're conflating 'effective' and 'quick & easy,' which are two completely different concepts.

If I have dirty bathwater with a baby in it, and I need to clean another baby, it would be more effective to just throw the bath water and the baby out simultaneously, and begin washing the next baby. My task is to wash babies. I care not for anything that happens after I complete my task.

Forget nukes. Thermobarics is where its at. There is no way I'd take on a Riptide or Wraithknight fair and square. I'd use strategic weapons, but they are basically immune to tactical weapons. They passed the Ogre limit.

 Marmatag wrote:
You're conflating 'effective' and 'quick & easy,' which are two completely different concepts.

If I have dirty bathwater with a baby in it, and I need to clean another baby, it would be more effective to just throw the bath water and the baby out simultaneously, and begin washing the next baby. My task is to wash babies. I care not for anything that happens after I complete my task.

This is a false equivalency. Throwing a baby out with the bathwater vs. not throwing a baby out with the bathwater is in no way equivalent to expending significant amounts of money, life (and valuable tanks and guns, this is the Imperium) vs. nuking something and not having to waste all of that valuable manpower, weapons, ammunition, aircraft/tanks, and the risk of failing to contain the threat by waiting to mass your forces instead of nuking the threat immediately.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Forget nukes. Thermobarics is where its at. There is no way I'd take on a Riptide or Wraithknight fair and square. I'd use strategic weapons, but they are basically immune to tactical weapons. They passed the Ogre limit.

This is true. Why don't the Imperium use these, either?

It's far from perfect, in the various incarnations of the rules there has always been imbalance. I agree with many users here that there are issues with certain armies in this current incarnation of the rules...... actually that's unfair, there are ways to exploit and generally be unimaginative with lists and armies. I am fortunate enough to play with close friends and we leave cheese out of our games except to test a unit or tactic. Unbound lists can obviously be crazy so can't be taken into account.
If i were to criticise the current rules it would be to rebalance aspects like assaults, feel like assault units get a bad rap in a shooty rule set..... maybe I'm just bad at the game?
Rules aside, certain factions need a rebalance and their points costs revisiting.

 Verviedi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
You're conflating 'effective' and 'quick & easy,' which are two completely different concepts.

If I have dirty bathwater with a baby in it, and I need to clean another baby, it would be more effective to just throw the bath water and the baby out simultaneously, and begin washing the next baby. My task is to wash babies. I care not for anything that happens after I complete my task.

This is a false equivalency. Throwing a baby out with the bathwater vs. not throwing a baby out with the bathwater is in no way equivalent to expending significant amounts of money, life (and valuable tanks and guns, this is the Imperium) vs. nuking something and not having to waste all of that valuable manpower, weapons, ammunition, aircraft/tanks, and the risk of failing to contain the threat by waiting to mass your forces instead of nuking the threat immediately.

Nuking the threat comes with an additional cost that you're not seeing. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is analogous to nuking the crap out of a forgeworld that still has tremendous value because simply because it's easier and faster - the whole point of deploying ground troops in the first place was that the potential destruction was unacceptable.

Overall, I like it... but it is overly complex. Particularly, I hate special rules that only serve to give a Universal Special Rule. I also think that weapons profiles need to be simplified. Specialist weapons, pistols, and number of attacks are needlessly complex. Vehicles (flyers specifically) are could also stand to be simplified.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
You're conflating 'effective' and 'quick & easy,' which are two completely different concepts.

If I have dirty bathwater with a baby in it, and I need to clean another baby, it would be more effective to just throw the bath water and the baby out simultaneously, and begin washing the next baby. My task is to wash babies. I care not for anything that happens after I complete my task.

This is a false equivalency. Throwing a baby out with the bathwater vs. not throwing a baby out with the bathwater is in no way equivalent to expending significant amounts of money, life (and valuable tanks and guns, this is the Imperium) vs. nuking something and not having to waste all of that valuable manpower, weapons, ammunition, aircraft/tanks, and the risk of failing to contain the threat by waiting to mass your forces instead of nuking the threat immediately.

Nuking the threat comes with an additional cost that you're not seeing. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is analogous to nuking the crap out of a forgeworld that still has tremendous value because simply because it's easier and faster - the whole point of deploying ground troops in the first place was that the potential destruction was unacceptable.

That's why thermobarics. Most battles don't take place on a forgeworld. In fact, most of my games have a ton of RUINS.

 Verviedi wrote:

Spoiler:

 General Annoyance wrote:
I'm not - I thought you meant that everything else could be fought with aircraft and artillery. In the case of what you're saying, it could easily be a ship with its own capital weaponry that bombards the artillery unit or uses its regular guns on the approaching aircraft.

Oh, everything? No, some infantry and armour will always be needed to make sure everything's dead. Yes, nuking an area will destroy the vast majority of targets, and so will aerial and artillery bombardment, but it will never kill everything (a nuke, obviously, does not care about this rule) (Source: The Somme)

But I thought the point of this argument is that ground wars are unnecessary in 40k. Or am I missing the point?

No, the point of my argument is that the Imperium is stupid for using massive infantry and armour forces in cases where nukes will be far more effective. Obviously, not every situation calls for nukes, but in a majority of situations, a nuking would make the Imperium's job a LOT easier.

Sources:
Necropolis (in which a mass chaos infantry and tank force with no explicity anti-nuke technology and no aircraft is fought by... camping inside a fortress and shooting at it.(Seriously Dan Abnett, I love you, but those guys were in the middle of uninhabited salt flats. Why not just nuke them when the planet was explicitly stated to have nukes, (and one was ACTUALLY USED, but not on the Chaos forces!?)))

Titanicus (In which a massed Chaos force was discovered in a nice, compact, UNINHABITED area... and they sent incredibly expensive Titans to take it out, instead of just nuking it (keep in mind this is a mined-out, useless, desolate area of forge world))

I think I may have misunderstood your argument all this time - I was under the impression you thought that the wars across the Imperium could be fought only with nukes, artillery and aircraft. Apologies!

I'm in agreement that such weapons don't seem to be used enough when open ground battles are involved. Either GW doesn't properly disclose their use in the fluff, or hasn't disclosed why in their own eyes such weapons wouldn't work most of the time.

I'm just going to post the exact same thing Peregrine posted in this thread before.

Peregrine wrote:And, again, the planet itself will survive the use of nuclear weapons. Remember, there are strategic nuclear weapons and tactical nuclear weapons. Strategic weapons are the high-yield warheads designed to destroy entire cities, tactical nuclear weapons are smaller and aimed at destroying battlefield targets. An air burst tactical nuke over a company of infantry will kill all of them with a single shot while leaving the planet itself unharmed. On a planet like Armageddon, where the entire planet outside of the key strategic targets is empty wasteland, the Imperium should have won effortlessly with nuclear weapons. Any time the orks assembled a meaningful force they should have been targeted with tactical nuclear weapons and annihilated, with conventional air strikes and artillery to finish off any survivors. Mass human/xenos wave attacks do not work against modern weapons.

Also, please note. In all my previous arguments (if you bothered to read all of them) I specifically stated that in some situations, nukes were not necessary. You seem to lack understanding of the gap between "no nukes" and "full nuclear exterminatus".

One-shot super weapons have more value to the Imperium than hundreds of thousands of humans with tanks and guns.

That is the essence of 40k. The setting is not realistic on purpose.

 Matthew wrote:
I love how 40K is right now. Only problem I have is balance betweeb shooting and assault and balance between different armies, ptherwise I see no problems.
Change my view?

I couldn't help myself.

I hate 40k for a myriad of reasons.

You don't have to.

If you are enjoying the last thing you need is people telling you why you shouldn't enjoy it.

Have fun in your game, that is all ;-)

I recognize the inherent flaws in the system, but I houseruled every game I play to ensure my playgroup enjoys themselves.

So yes, for me 40k is fine. I have all the tools needed to level things out and my team is fine with what I've done to it

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
I recognize the inherent flaws in the system, but I houseruled every game I play to ensure my playgroup enjoys themselves.

So yes, for me 40k is fine. I have all the tools needed to level things out and my team is fine with what I've done to it

And this works fine, until someone insists on playing RAW with a tournament list. Players making non-official patches to a ruleset to shore it up does not excuse a shoddy core ruleset.

I like 40K overall but right now I feel it's missing some limitations on things that really discourage players. For example, super heavies and gargantuan creatures having game breaking mechanics if taken in small point games. There needs to be some limitations allowing those nice expensive models in the right environment but not allowing them to be taken at lower point levels where they can effectively nuke entire armies off the table in one turn. I really need 40K to be streamlined a bit so that I can get a decent game in in less than 4 hours. That's probably not a problem most players face but it's the main reason I don't play much anymore.

Due to the fact that all my friends find 40k too complex to understand, we often play the One-Page Warhammer pdf.

40k is not fine for me because I want to play a game that doesn't just feature 2% of the entire model range because the balance is so skewed that if you aren't playing that 2% and someone shows up that does, you're going to have a bad time.

The complexity doesn't bother me.

The bloated rules bother me.

The need to cross reference a rulebook every 10 minutes bothers me.

The "meta" bothers me.

 Verviedi wrote:

Spoiler:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
You're conflating 'effective' and 'quick & easy,' which are two completely different concepts.

If I have dirty bathwater with a baby in it, and I need to clean another baby, it would be more effective to just throw the bath water and the baby out simultaneously, and begin washing the next baby. My task is to wash babies. I care not for anything that happens after I complete my task.

This is a false equivalency. Throwing a baby out with the bathwater vs. not throwing a baby out with the bathwater is in no way equivalent to expending significant amounts of money, life (and valuable tanks and guns, this is the Imperium) vs. nuking something and not having to waste all of that valuable manpower, weapons, ammunition, aircraft/tanks, and the risk of failing to contain the threat by waiting to mass your forces instead of nuking the threat immediately.

Nuking the threat comes with an additional cost that you're not seeing. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is analogous to nuking the crap out of a forgeworld that still has tremendous value because simply because it's easier and faster - the whole point of deploying ground troops in the first place was that the potential destruction was unacceptable.

I'm just going to post the exact same thing Peregrine posted in this thread before.

Peregrine wrote:And, again, the planet itself will survive the use of nuclear weapons. Remember, there are strategic nuclear weapons and tactical nuclear weapons. Strategic weapons are the high-yield warheads designed to destroy entire cities, tactical nuclear weapons are smaller and aimed at destroying battlefield targets. An air burst tactical nuke over a company of infantry will kill all of them with a single shot while leaving the planet itself unharmed. On a planet like Armageddon, where the entire planet outside of the key strategic targets is empty wasteland, the Imperium should have won effortlessly with nuclear weapons. Any time the orks assembled a meaningful force they should have been targeted with tactical nuclear weapons and annihilated, with conventional air strikes and artillery to finish off any survivors. Mass human/xenos wave attacks do not work against modern weapons.

Also, please note. In all my previous arguments (if you bothered to read all of them) I specifically stated that in some situations, nukes were not necessary. You seem to lack understanding of the gap between "no nukes" and "full nuclear exterminatus".

Don't be combative; I read your posts. It's possible to read & understand your opinion, yet still disagree. This is obviously a touchy subject for you so i'll just bow out.

Touchy subject? No, it's the way that I write my arguments online. Looking over my post again, it was a bit dickish.

There is so much delusion in this thread it is sad.

Just because your army does not have the ability to counter every single other army out there does not make the game "broke".

If list building is hard because of all the formations, ok fine that's a valid excuse.

If your army is woefully out of date? (Sisters....csm got an awesome update) Fine, you probably have beef.

But the rest of you really need to buck up.

Some doozies in here:
"Assault does not work"
Assault armies work ALL THE TIME, between KDK, deathstars, and knights (And soon to be world eaters mwahahaha); that's a metric ton of close combat in the game.

"X army is cheesy"
No. You do not want to adapt to beat said army, OR you want your army to be able to beat everyone out there, that does not make the game "suck".

"Gunlines are too good"
BULL-CRAP. The issue 99% of you face is you want your super-duper-humoungous-awesome unit that cannot be killed. What you SHOULD do to beat gunlines is spread out, min squad up. Those gun lines can only shoot so many things before you hit them like a ton of bricks. Again DO something about it, don't try to out gun line a gun line army.


Yeessh, take a couple minutes to look at ITC results and it becomes clear there is no SINGLE "good" army, there are multitudes including ones many of you consider "bad".

/rant off

Go have fun guys, this is a fun game.

Some doozies in here:
"Assault does not work"
Assault armies work ALL THE TIME, between KDK, deathstars, and knights (And soon to be world eaters mwahahaha); that's a metric ton of close combat in the game.

That.. is not a metric ton of close combat, it tends towards very specific armies with either cheap assault that can easily reach combat (GSC) high fast strong units (Thunderwolves, deathstars) and Knights (Superheavies of course).

Eldar are the definition of too good. What are you talking about man?

I have specifically list tailored against Eldar, and I couldn't do anything about them, and that was with Space Wolves, one of the stronger armies in the game right now. In a tourney environment, they can be beat, but they need incredibly amounts of tailoring to do so, and in a casual environment, they have more good units than any other codex, and more overpowered units than any other codex.

" Again DO something about it, don't try to out gun line a gun line army. "

Amusingly, I've had more success shooting the Tau than trying to assault them.

" ITC results"

Not the best metric, I think.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
General army balance- If hearing your opponent say 'I play tau' seriously makes you regret signing up for the match, that's badly unbalanced.

To be fair, us Tau players have earned that cheese. For many years we had to cope with a very mediocre codex:

Only one of our Unique characters was competitive and his entire force lost its fluffy abilities if you played at under 1500 points.
The Hammerhead was pretty much the only beefy unit in the codex.
We had two HQ choices- one of which was only worth bringing to the table if you killed him for the martyrdom effect.

Our only real friend at that time was Forgeworld.

 sfshilo wrote:
ITC result

ITC is not 40k. Thank you for admitting that 40k is broken.

 Matthew wrote:
I love how 40K is right now. Only problem I have is balance betweeb shooting and assault and balance between different armies, ptherwise I see no problems.
Change my view?

I shall change you view. 40k is not fine for a competitive game, its about as balanced and stable as the Balkans, and easier to game than the U.S.A and Russia during the cold war. On the other hand if you are playing with GLORIOUS COMMUNIST COMRADES who play 40k for the fun of it (bringing fluffy armies, no WAAC) then it can be enjoyable, even if a suffer of chronic rules bloat.

 SDFarsight wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
General army balance- If hearing your opponent say 'I play tau' seriously makes you regret signing up for the match, that's badly unbalanced.

To be fair, us Tau players have earned that cheese. For many years we had to cope with a very mediocre codex:

Tau were only ever on the lower end of the spectrum for one edition in their existence, 5th. Theu were on the top or higher end of 3E, 4E, 6E and 7E. A whole lot of other armies have had it a whole lot worse for a whole lot more time

Sisters, CSM's, IG, Orks, Tyranids, etc.

 Matthew wrote:
I love how 40K is right now. Only problem I have is balance betweeb shooting and assault and balance between different armies, ptherwise I see no problems.
Change my view?

So besides two of the 4 phases of the game Shooting and assaulting. And Besides the huge balance issues between the factions you see no problems........

That's like saying "Besides the giant holes in the side of the boat and the rust everywhere this ship is pretty good."

Shooting Trumps Assault in every single situation that doesn't involve an invisible deathstar. There are a few good CC units, SW have most of them, and they are good because they have a lot of durability and choppy abilities teamed with a VERY low cost, but they still get swept off the table by good rates of Fire.


Faction balance at this point is a joke. An Eldar or Tau army can take there average units and without adding in the cheese (Stormsurge/riptide, Wraithknight/Scat Bikes) can easily win if not table most Ork/DE armies in the game.



I think if you are talking about the rules of the game I would tend to agree, there are a lot of good rules and they fit wel into the game, but the problem is that there are TO MANY! And they made it worse by combining special rules and calling it something new.

No, I would say that at this point in time 40K is fine to play for fun but at the competitive level its very lopsided and even in casual games its hard to figure out how to play because of the huge power disparity. I think the game is playable but in need of a fairly large overhaul.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Tau were only ever on the lower end of the spectrum for one edition in their existence, 5th. Theu were on the top or higher end of 3E, 4E, 6E and 7E. A whole lot of other armies have had it a whole lot worse for a whole lot more time

Sisters, CSM's, IG, Orks, Tyranids, etc.

Disagree. Tau were on the power to mid tier of power levels in every edition up to sixth.

Tau came about in third edition with a reasonably powered codex at thst time. It could certainly do its job, but it wasn't anywhere close to the power builds of the era.

Tau during fourth did ok during the first year or two. The birth of 'mech tau' was a thing (I was in on the ground floor with that one!) and they ceetainly held their own for a while, and even briefly shaped the meta with 'fish of fury' but it was very misleading. The power was illusory. Theirs was a codex that was defined exclusively by a single niche build and abusing skimmers moving fast and the IC rules of thst edition. It did not scale well (once you bought the 3 hammerheads, you were buying chaff), it aged very, very quickly during fourth and got left behind rapidly once the power builds defined by the chaos space marine codex of that era (Pete Haines iron warriors), holostone falcon eldar and various other builds stepped out and left its far, far behind. They were nowhere near the top of the pack, or even the middle, I'm afraid. Very much on a par (at best) with all the other codices you mention.

Tau during fifth were essentially an irrelevance. Very much bottom of the heap.

So that's tau on the top end for sixth and seventh, essentially.

Tau did very well in 3E and 4E, not Eldar invincifalcon well, but they were definitely top 5 in both editions between Eldar, Necrons, Chaos, and SM's. Tau were a very solid army then (I built my Tau army in 4E).

They certainly were better than Orks, IG, SW's, BA's (once transport rules nixed assaults from Rhinos), DA's, Tyranids (barring maybe a couple MC builds), Dark Eldar, Daemonhunters, and Witch Hunters.

They were even pretty ok for the first part of 5E when their disruption pods gave them "always on" 4+ saves on tanks before we started getting some of the more outlandish 5E stuff like 5pt psybolts on BS5 tl autocannons making them S8

Ultimately, Tau have only ever really had a single "bad" edition, and have been on the upper end of the power level in all the others they have existed in. They have, overall, been a very well treated army.

Deadnight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Tau were only ever on the lower end of the spectrum for one edition in their existence, 5th. Theu were on the top or higher end of 3E, 4E, 6E and 7E. A whole lot of other armies have had it a whole lot worse for a whole lot more time

Sisters, CSM's, IG, Orks, Tyranids, etc.

Disagree. Tau were on the power to mid tier of power levels in every edition up to sixth.

Tau came about in third edition with a reasonably powered codex at thst time. It could certainly do its job, but it wasn't anywhere close to the power builds of the era.

Tau during fourth did ok during the first year or two. The birth of 'mech tau' was a thing (I was in on the ground floor with that one!) and they ceetainly held their own for a while, and even briefly shaped the meta with 'fish of fury' but it was very misleading. The power was illusory. Theirs was a codex that was defined exclusively by a single niche build and abusing skimmers moving fast and the IC rules of thst edition. It did not scale well (once you bought the 3 hammerheads, you were buying chaff), it aged very, very quickly during fourth and got left behind rapidly once the power builds defined by the chaos space marine codex of that era (Pete Haines iron warriors), holostone falcon eldar and various other builds stepped out and left its far, far behind. They were nowhere near the top of the pack, or even the middle, I'm afraid. Very much on a par (at best) with all the other codices you mention.

Tau during fifth were essentially an irrelevance. Very much bottom of the heap.

So that's tau on the top end for sixth and seventh, essentially.

You explained it very well! Tau were very much the red-haired child of GW which was forgotten about almost as much as Dark Eldar with their ancient (2nd, 3rd ed?) codex. All the while the Spash Mareeeens were getting Chapter Codex after Chapter Codex. The only places the Tau were getting any love was in Dawn of War and Forgeworld. And since Forgeworld was new back then, not alot of people accepted their models. Now in 7th ed, we're getting so many supplements and super-heavies it feels practically decadent. "No I won't field a Tri-Tide, a Tau's job is to fire his Pulse rifle until he gets curb-stomped by a Guardsman in close-combat. That's the Tau way, son. None of this 'winning' malarkey...

Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out. And I'm not just talking about the big units- even simple but efficient units like the Tetra Skimmer were from Forgeworld.

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out.

Does past underpoweredness justify future overpoweredness?

 Pouncey wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out.

Does past underpoweredness justify future overpoweredness?

Not really, but it does make for an interesting change.

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out.

For one edition...

Again...not denying 5th wasnt great for Tau, but it was one edition. Tau were introduced in 3rd and did well. They got updated and were even better in 4th. 6E rocketed them to the top of the power charts and while not at the absolute top of the power pyramid in 7E they're not far off either.

Lets look at an army like IG that was only ever on the upper power curve for a single edition (5th), has actively *lost* units (some more than once, goodbye again Griffon), has dramatically more subpar units, and if you want to talk reliance on Forgeworld, well...then yes, lets talk IG


On the whole, Tau have been a very well treated and capable army, much moreso than most others.

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out.

Does past underpoweredness justify future overpoweredness?

Not really, but it does make for an interesting change.

Like playing World of Warcraft for a decade and WH40k for 15 years has taught me, buffs and nerfs come and go. The state of the game's balance of power is continually in flux, with every new release. So it's not worth caring whether your army is the most or least powerful, just pick your favorite character/faction to play and have the best fun you can.

I don't play competitively though. However, I assert that players who value victory highly enough to seriously compete at tournaments should be prepared to swap armies as needed to deal with the shifting power rankings, as it's just part of playing a game that gets regular updates and a necessary cost of playing at that high of a level. Would the game be best if all factions are roughly similarly powerful? Of course, and I support the game being balanced as best as the designers can make it, and should my own army become overpowered I will not argue with the necessary nerfs that follow later on. But it's just not reality, so you have to adapt to what the game actually is.

 Pouncey wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, their "down" time was pretty much just 5E. Outside of 5E, Tau have always been on the upper end of the power curve, They have never been a long downtrodden army and have historically done very well and received regular releases.

Regular releases like what exactly? For years we had to make do with sub-par units until the Riptides etc came out.

Does past underpoweredness justify future overpoweredness?

Not really, but it does make for an interesting change.

Like playing World of Warcraft for a decade and WH40k for 15 years has taught me, buffs and nerfs come and go. The state of the game's balance of power is continually in flux, with every new release. So it's not worth caring whether your army is the most or least powerful, just pick your favorite character/faction to play and have the best fun you can.

I don't play competitively though. However, I assert that players who value victory highly enough to seriously compete at tournaments should be prepared to swap armies as needed to deal with the shifting power rankings, as it's just part of playing a game that gets regular updates and a necessary cost of playing at that high of a level. Would the game be best if all factions are roughly similarly powerful? Of course, and I support the game being balanced as best as the designers can make it, and should my own army become overpowered I will not argue with the necessary nerfs that follow later on. But it's just not reality, so you have to adapt to what the game actually is.

Yup, and that's one reason why I'm playing as Orks even though I know that their codex isn't very competitive at the moment.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tau did very well in 3E and 4E, not Eldar invincifalcon well, but they were definitely top 5 in both editions between Eldar, Necrons, Chaos, and SM's. Tau were a very solid army then (I built my Tau army in 4E).

Eldar and chaos were far and away the superior codices during fourth. Space marines, and all variants bar space wolves were able to adapt really well. Necrons were a hard counter for tau (masses of mid strength high-ap dakka versus t4 3+save warriors that could get back up. Necrons had thst match up every time).

Tau were reasonably solid, in the early days. But by the end of fourth, all you ever saw at the competitive level was chaos and eldar everywhere. I was often the lone tau player at tourneys and believe me, I might a star well not have bothered. Like I said, tau did not scale well when compared to the other codices. Tau could compete reasonably well, if you played a top level game, and if you played at 1000pts. Once you had your hammerheads and your two IC suits, you were buying chaff. Tau got worse the higher the points value.

 Vaktathi wrote:

They certainly were better than Orks, IG, SW's, BA's (once transport rules nixed assaults from Rhinos), DA's, Tyranids (barring maybe a couple MC builds), Dark Eldar, Daemonhunters, and Witch Hunters.

Space wolves, being an overpriced assault army suffered in fourth. Blood angels were not too bad - the death co. Builds of doom from their third ed. codex were still disgusting as they were jump pack based, and the rest of the army left their rhinos at home. And switched from 'rhino rush' to the six man las/plas, and assault cannons on everything builds typical of most sm builds of fourth, which were pretty solid all rounders. Dark angels were the same. 6man las/plas, max devestators, flavour. If anything, dark angels basically copy pasted the vanilla sm approach. Sans chapter traits. Boring but effective.
Imperial guard were surprising in fourth. I take it you never faced the drop troop guard of doom army? Drop troops, iron discipline, close order drills, special weapon squads and veterans as your doctrines and with re-rolling deep strike rolls thanks to improved comms from your sentinels, you could drop fifty or sixty heavy and special weapons into your opponents army, and basically one turn their whole army before they could even get s shot in. It was up there with iron warriors.
Dark eldar were a glass cannon army that either won hard or lost hard. In a lot of ways, I miss it. Brilliant army.
Daemon hunters and witch hunters were strange codices, being pre-'allies' allies. I never really included them in the competitive rosters at the time. But sisters had some surprisingly effective builds. The miracles they could perform were useful, and they were one of the few (or only?) army that could ignore minor psychic powers, like th accursed slanneshi ones.
Orks and tyranids - yeah, I'll agree with you there. Orks still had their third ed. codex thst didn't even have a weapons chart. Shows you the love. Tyranids nidzilla builds were great fun, and very effective a short well.

So no, I wouldn't say they were 'certainly' better than the above armies. The marine variants (bar space wolves), guard and dark eldar could match and often exceed the tau, especially towards the end of the edition. Tyranids could give the tau great trouble, as what tau had in spaces (mass s5 ap5 dakka) wasn't terribly effective against competitive nidzilla lists. So that leaves them in s similar place to sisters, daemon hunters, space wolves and orks.

 Vaktathi wrote:

They were even pretty ok for the first part of 5E when their disruption pods gave them "always on" 4+ saves on tanks before we started getting some of the more outlandish 5E stuff like 5pt psybolts on BS5 tl autocannons making them S8

Their vehicles generally go to worse in the transition from fourth to fifth. The changes to skimmers moving and firing, defensive weapons and always hitting them on the rear armour put paid to disruption pods being a bit better. Tau lost their armoured fist in fifth. And to be fair, the only glancing hits for skimmers moving fast, and a re-roll on the one vehicle destroyed result on the table in fourth gave them some serious durability, far and away better to what they had in fifth.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Ultimately, Tau have only ever really had a single "bad" edition, and have been on the upper end of the power level in all the others they have existed in. They have, overall, been a very well treated army.

Again, no. It isn't beyond argument that the tau have been in the upper tiers since sixth but before then, they ranged from poor, to mediocre to lower middle of the road bar one period in early fourth, and even then, the reputation of fish of fury's bark was far far worse than it's actual bark, and even that fell far short of its bite. They were never in the upper end of the power curve I'm afraid. They could always be outmoved by most armies, outshot by most armies and outmeleed by anything.

Deadnight wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tau did very well in 3E and 4E, not Eldar invincifalcon well, but they were definitely top 5 in both editions between Eldar, Necrons, Chaos, and SM's. Tau were a very solid army then (I built my Tau army in 4E).

Eldar and chaos were far and away the superior codices during fourth. Space marines, and all variants bar space wolves were able to adapt really well. Necrons were a hard counter for tau (masses of mid strength high-ap dakka versus t4 3+save warriors that could get back up. Necrons had thst match up every time).

I think we're arguing degrees amongst the top 5 here, Eldar, Tau, SM's, Chaos and Necrons. We can argue where they place in that, but, at least in my experience, Tau were certainly in this group. I'm not saying that Tau were *the* best army of the period, but they were certainly on the upper end of the power curve, 4E was not a hard edition for them.

Tau were reasonably solid, in the early days. But by the end of fourth, all you ever saw at the competitive level was chaos and eldar everywhere.

Well, largely Eldar, by the end of 4th CSM's got the 2007 codex and plummeted like rocks if they weren't running around with Lash Princes.

I was often the lone tau player at tourneys and believe me, I might a star well not have bothered. Like I said, tau did not scale well when compared to the other codices. Tau could compete reasonably well, if you played a top level game, and if you played at 1000pts. Once you had your hammerheads and your two IC suits, you were buying chaff. Tau got worse the higher the points value.

They seemed to work just fine for me, they were a bit cookie cutter, but so were many other armies of the time. In a 2k game you'd see 6-12 crisis suits, 3 hammerheads or 6-9 broadsides, maybe a couple pirhanas, and firewarriors in devilfish to fill it out, and maybe some Pathfinders, and those armies placed very well at many events during 4th edition. My list was 10 crisis suits (including HQ), 3 Hammerheads, and 4 squads of fire warriors in devilfish, and while I only played a couple dozen 4E games with them, they only ever lost to Eldar, other Tau, a CSM infiltrate-oriented army a few times, and once to Necrons (I never beat Necrons with anything in 4E ).

Space wolves, being an overpriced assault army suffered in fourth. Blood angels were not too bad - the death co. Builds of doom from their third ed. codex were still disgusting as they were jump pack based, and the rest of the army left their rhinos at home. And switched from 'rhino rush' to the six man las/plas, and assault cannons on everything builds typical of most sm builds of fourth, which were pretty solid all rounders. Dark angels were the same. 6man las/plas, max devestators, flavour. If anything, dark angels basically copy pasted the vanilla sm approach. Sans chapter traits. Boring but effective.

All of which the basic SM codex did much better, the only reason to run the BA or DA books was to get things like Deathwing armies with terminators as troops and the like, and such armies really didn't work very well in 4th. SW's were just...wonky.

Imperial guard were surprising in fourth. I take it you never faced the drop troop guard of doom army? Drop troops, iron discipline, close order drills, special weapon squads and veterans as your doctrines and with re-rolling deep strike rolls thanks to improved comms from your sentinels, you could drop fifty or sixty heavy and special weapons into your opponents army, and basically one turn their whole army before they could even get s shot in. It was up there with iron warriors.

It was a niche build that worked very well...assuming everything went exactly as planned and nothing at all went wrong.

Drop troop armies were insanely variable, and never did particularly well on any sort of consistent basis, they were just the best build available to the codex. Reserves were more delayed (coming in on a 4+ on turn 2 and had no automatic arrival the way the game has now for turns 4+), control over reserves was much more limited (improved comms was 20pts for 1 reserve reroll per turn, and on a Sentinel that meant an AV10 open topped platform), mishaps were dramatically more punitive, as was Gets Hot (and most drop troop armies were built around massed plasma spam), the infantry died pretty much automatically if they failed to kill their target on arrival, and many missions and tournament packs didn't allow Deep Striking in every game (so if you played an Alpha level mission you ended up with a very short ranged walk-on infantry gunline). Such armies generally maxed out at around 40 special weapons (unless they were trying to go for flamer spam, but really they were all plasma spam) and few or zero heavy weapons (HW's were expensive back then and they couldn't shoot after deep striking).

If everything went perfectly, they were very good. The problem was that they had zero margin for error and error inevitably always reared its ugly head and the army would get hamstrung and annihilated with half its critical units off board coming in piecemeal to be destroyed in detail.

Anything mechanized was absolutely unplayable in 4th for IG (and really, for any non-skimmer army), and gunline infantry armies were both really punitively overcosted (as many MEQ armies could make equally capable gunlines with more resiliency and CC capability) and were absurdly vulnerable to 4E CC consolidation, while the Armored Company list was banned much of the time outright and hamstrung by mission rules half the time it was allowed (lol all your tanks have to start in reserve!) as well as the extremely punitive 4E rules for non-skimmer vehicles and transports.

Dark eldar were a glass cannon army that either won hard or lost hard. In a lot of ways, I miss it. Brilliant army.

They were an army that would eat MEQ's and Tyranid MC armies and died flailing in terrible ways to most anything else, and *especially* to Tau and their massed S5 they were terrible performers competitively. That theme generally still holds, though they're probably even less effective now than they were in 4E overall given the power bloat of 7th

Daemon hunters and witch hunters were strange codices, being pre-'allies' allies. I never really included them in the competitive rosters at the time.

that's not an unfair characterization but they were, at least nominally, built to be playable as distinct armies.

But sisters had some surprisingly effective builds. The miracles they could perform were useful, and they were one of the few (or only?) army that could ignore minor psychic powers, like th accursed slanneshi ones.

Aye, but it didn't lead to any sort of consistent or sustained competitive success. They were really good if they could sit in the 12" shooting pocket, but crumbled very quickly if outranged or brought into CC.

Orks and tyranids - yeah, I'll agree with you there. Orks still had their third ed. codex thst didn't even have a weapons chart. Shows you the love. Tyranids nidzilla builds were great fun, and very effective a short well.

The nidzilla builds could work (but could also get hamstrung by mission type), also infiltrating genestealers sometimes, they weren't awful but overall were a thoroughly middling army overall that relied a lot on certain mission types getting pulled.

So no, I wouldn't say they were 'certainly' better than the above armies. The marine variants (bar space wolves), guard and dark eldar could match and often exceed the tau

The marine variants weren't particularly good in 4E. BA's had a White Dwarf book to work from that was a cut-down bone-minimum SM codex with an FoC swap for Assault Marines and Rending given to Death Company, they were "mediocre" at best, DA's were similar in that they were largely just FoC swaps off a core SM list with fewer options. Neither did terribly well competitively. It just occurred to me that I forgot about the Black Templars, but I honestly cannot recall enough about them off the top of my head to comment, though I don't remember them being particularly outstanding or awful either way.

Neither Dark Eldar nor IG enjoyed anything near the capability or tournament results of the Tau, both armies were awful in 4E (barring DE getting to play against MEQ's) and were renknowned for being especially awful in that edition, especially IG, in fact I'd go so far as to say 4E was probably the worst edition for IG competitively. IG were *really* bad in 4E.

Tyranids could give the tau great trouble, as what tau had in spaces (mass s5 ap5 dakka) wasn't terribly effective against competitive nidzilla lists.

No, but crisis suit mounted missile pods and plasma rifles backed up by railguns and markerlights worked tremendously well against TMC's, and pulse rifles were notably more effective than bolters or lasguns.

So that leaves them in s similar place to sisters, daemon hunters, space wolves and orks.

I don't think this recollection would match most 4E GT standings. Just looking over some old threads on here and Warseer, the general concensus is that Tau were certainly a powerful army then, perhaps taking some thought to play, but absolutely not anywhere near the lower rungs of power.

. The changes to skimmers moving and firing, defensive weapons and always hitting them on the rear armour put paid to disruption pods being a bit better. Tau lost their armoured fist in fifth. And to be fair, the only glancing hits for skimmers moving fast, and a re-roll on the one vehicle destroyed result on the table in fourth gave them some serious durability, far and away better to what they had in fifth.

Sure, and in most ways I won't argue with you, though I'd argue that Skimmers were grossly overpowered in 4th (and most editions) while tracked tanks and walkers were hideously undercapable, with 5th mostly balancing them out and Tau simply never getting an update in the lifespan of that edition to rectify how close they were built to certain 4E rules. That said, the 4+ cover disruption pods did them pretty well through the first year or so of 5th when the only really updated army was vanilla Space Marines.

Again, no. It isn't beyond argument that the tau have been in the upper tiers since sixth but before then, they ranged from poor, to mediocre to lower middle of the road bar one period in early fourth, and even then, the reputation of fish of fury's bark was far far worse than it's actual bark, and even that fell far short of its bite. They were never in the upper end of the power curve I'm afraid. They could always be outmoved by most armies, outshot by most armies and outmeleed by anything.

Between skimmers that could ignore terrain for movement and fire as if fast coupled with lots of deep striking Jet infantry crisis/stealth suits and fast Pirhanas, mobility was never an issue for the Tau in 4E unless they built themselves around unmechanized Broadside gunlines. I certainly never felt it to be an issue with my Tau. I'd buy that fish-o-fury might be overhyped it wasn't the big fist of the codex, the crisis suits and HS units were.

They could be outmelee'd by everything but that's always been true, it's a fundamental hallmark of the army.

About the only armies that could outshoot them were some niche IG gunlines and MEQ builds, which then lacked either the resiliency or the mobility of the Tau, or both (and often relied on terrain being *very* sparse), with the exception of Eldar who I think everyone can agree was grossly overpowered.

Based on the OP opening comment.
If you ignore the fact the core rules fail to deliver the expected game play.And you ignore that GW have not done the hard work other companies do to try to deliver enough game balance for fun casual pick up games, the 40k rules are 'fine.'

In the same way a car without an engine or a steering wheel is fine, as long as you dont mind pushing it your self in a straight line....

People have fun playing 40k despite the rules GW write for the game, not because of them.

When you have to spam a certain unit to hope winning anything then I don't consider 40k to be fine.

I honestly miss the time when I started playing 40k back in the day. Everyone had starter sets with a few addons and it was fun.