When AoS dropped and bombed a lot of people kept playing 8th or went with the fan made "9th age" or chose another system altogether. Rumour has it that 40k 8th might be dropping this summer and if it does make some drastic changes and they displease you in whatever way what will you do?
1. Hold your nose and take up the new system anyway.
2. Continue playing 7th (or other older ed)
3. Sell off and depart to another system entirely
4. Found or follow a fan made alternative
5. Other
I'd go with 8th for a few reasons all of which revolve around everyone else moving on to 8th Edition:
(1) I know at least two of my mates who play 40K will be moving on to 8th, so it seems a bit silly for us to have keep using 7th in any capacity.
(2) Most (if not all( of the people at my FLGS's (particularly the managers) will be moving on to 8th Edition, so if I want to keep playing at those stores, I will need to know how to play 8th Edition and have access to my own version of the rule book.
(3) With the aforementioned in mind, I really don't see the need to confuse myself even more with 40K by trying to play more than one edition of the game.
I'd do the same thing I've been doing with 40k for years and have recently gotten over my frustration enough to start doing with AoS. Play it as written, and tweak it/write homebrew content as I find things that frustrate me.
They can look at the 5th edition formula, and make it better.
It could be much worse than 7th, it could be 6th. Imagine 7th, except nothing actually works properly and you're still in the FAQ desert so nothing got fixed.
AnomanderRake wrote: I'd do the same thing I've been doing with 40k for years and have recently gotten over my frustration enough to start doing with AoS. Play it as written, and tweak it/write homebrew content as I find things that frustrate me.
They can look at the 5th edition formula, and make it better.
It could be much worse than 7th, it could be 6th. Imagine 7th, except nothing actually works properly and you're still in the FAQ desert so nothing got fixed.
6th was better than 7th. Everything before formations and supplements was better. I hope they simplify the game.
Meh. I'd keep playing because I like the hobby and I like the models that GW makes (bar the dreaded Wulfen). Nothing short of squatting the Astartes is going to make me quit.
I've more or less lost interest in 40K. I've just started playing AoS. Probably the most 40K I'll play will be 30K games if I'm looking for a 40K game. I'm not really excited about a new edition, putting up my Orks would be sad but probably better than selling my army. If 8th edition is really close to AoS then I'll be happy to play that. Just hope both the new edition and new Ork codex are good.
GW is unique in that it could fix EVERYTHING that is wrong with the game atm and STILL manage to make 8th edition worse. Which is to say I'm going to get the rulebook and see what happens regardless of what people think.
I'm also hoping that shadow war is going to be a separate ruleset all of its own and a reasonably deep system that isn't confused as to what scale it wants to be. I'd like to play kill team sized games but we tried kill team and it was met with a resounding ...meh.
If both fail well....I guess I'll switch to make dioramas or so.
If 8th edition is anything close to AoS, then I'm definitely moving to WarmaHordes. I won't sell my models as PP just ain't on the same level as GW quality wise (and don't offer nearly as much conversion possibilities), but I won't be buying anything new from GW.
If 8th edition is disappointing and flawed but still feels like 40K, then I'll continue to support my Orks and DeatWatch armies but will probably start a Cryx side army too.
BTW, I don't think that 7th sucks, it's the best edition I've ever played imo. Unfortunately, it's barely playable because of the imbalance and the overabundance of formations. If 8th edition fix that, and makes the game a little bit faster (for example, by removing look out sir and challlenges), I'd be really happy with it. If it adds ''I go, You go'' activations or more interactions when it's your opponent turn, then it be a home run.
As long as they have some sort of actual skirmish/kill team whatever I'll play it. I believe 40ks biggest problems stem from a complete and utter lack of vision on just what type and scale of game it is. If they have a version or supplement dedicated to smaller scale games still and people are playing it I'll be down. Even if it's "better" I'm kinda done with the enormous 3+ hour games using thousands of dollars of minis at this point anyway.
Been doing nothing 40k except for killteam since I've come back to things.
If 8th sucks, I'll stick to skirmish stuff. Maybe see if any others as dissatisfied as I might be might want to try to get a group going with Necromunda/Inq28/Heralds of War.
Or just do what I did 5 years ago when 6th dropped. Give up on 40k entirely and check back in a few years. At least now I have Sigmar to stick around with.
If I don't like 8th than I'll play which ever version my opponent agrees to. Maybe 5th or even 2nd. 7th sucks hard. I've played fewer games this edition than anytime since I started back in 2nd. So it won't be my first choice unless we house rule the suck out of it.
It's make or break for me.
I've got a huge collection that I'll sell off if the new rules don't suit larger games or are as bad as they are currently.
I'll probably collect a few smaller armies for pick up games or tournament play.
Brutallica wrote: I will die inside if they go the warscroll and fixed dice roll route... :(
Spoiler:
Is it so terrible? 40k basically has a fixed die roll for shooting to hit, leadership (most of the time) and armour save at present. It does save on chart look ups at least.
Tbh knowing how the playerbase and "fans" on average are, I don't see other options than the new edition disappointing people, even if it was "better."
Some will be mad about their now powerful stuff not being powerful anymore, some about their now poor stuff remaining poor. Some won't like mechanic X, others hate Z. The point being you can never ever please everyone, and my empiric experience is that negativity is more common than positivity in the 40k communities on average. It's so common for players not seeing the bigger picture, and deciding how things are on very limited details.
You have people who declare that Roboute Guilliman is the most broken thing in the entire game because of his damage output. Turns out walking melee MC's really aren't that great at the moment, and everyone who knows anything agrees they aren't dominating the competitive scene. Anyhows, just an example of how "skewed" views can be.
You'll see. It won't succeed even if it was better, because it won't be allowed to do so.
Crimson Devil wrote: If I don't like 8th than I'll play which ever version my opponent agrees to. Maybe 5th or even 2nd. 7th sucks hard. I've played fewer games this edition than anytime since I started back in 2nd. So it won't be my first choice unless we house rule the suck out of it.
A refined 5th edition would basically be the best thing that could come out of 40k at this point without a complete Sigmar-style reboot of its systems.
I doubt it would be bad enough to have me quit for good if at all, since I don't have much time to play as is . But, if it did I might just get models just to paint and maybe give my little dudes a decent looking display to stand on on a shelf until things change enough.
The people I play most often have all agreed that if 8th sucks we are either going to stick to 7th or more likely go back to 5th which is when we all started.
I can't see myself leaving entirely, whatever they do with the rules. It's also still one of the most played systems in my area and I imagine it will continue to be, so I can always get a game if I want one.
If the rules are terrible or not to my taste I'll probably still play now and again but start playing other systems more often.
For the record I don't think it will be terrble, just a massive change.
Brutallica wrote: I will die inside if they go the warscroll and fixed dice roll route... :(
Spoiler:
Is it so terrible? 40k basically has a fixed die roll for shooting to hit, leadership (most of the time) and armour save at present. It does save on chart look ups at least.
I don't think it's terrible, I just dislike it. The fact that a guardsman could hit a bloodthirster as easily as a grot makes no sense to me. I don't have to look up to the charts all the time because there's a logic to them and you can deduce the roll needed easily. 40k is fairly simple at the moment, I don't think it would benefit from even less complexity. It is a bit bloated however, and the close combat to hit table needs tweaking.
I am AMAZED by how many people here are saying they wouldn't play because they're currently not really playing. It's hilarious that some people have such strong opinions without actually giving things a proper chance.
At the end of the day, I'm going to play 8th because that's going to be what the game is. If I don't like it enough, then I'll stop playing, but it'd have to be incredibly botched for that to happen. Plus, I think the recent string of releases has shown that GW is figuring out how to make things a bit more interesting with cool rules that work for casual players, and then letting the tourney players figure out the best combinations of them. Strength from Death is a ton of fun to play with, and the Cult Ambush is super-win for both fluff and play. I mean, I get to play with a HORDE army of Toughness THREE models, and it plays properly! Fantastic!
I look forward to 8th edition. 40k has been growing again in my region and I couldn't be happier for it.
I've played enough 7th edition to know two things:
1) I can stomach it, and it can be fun with good opponents.
2) It's a poorly designed, bloated mess.
I will try 8th edition, because even a switch to an AOS style game would be an improvement for me. I have too much invested in 40k to completely walk away, but after two years of very little playing, and only sporadic play now, it won't take much for me to focus solely on painting, and play other games.
So, while I'll give it a go, and I am really hopeful, I'm okay looking mostly at other games if it doesn't work out.
Hope people stop saying that 8th edition is coming until we have hard evidence in hand. The number of BS threads over in the News and Rumors section is staggering.
jreilly89 wrote: Hope people stop saying that 8th edition is coming until we have hard evidence in hand. The number of BS threads over in the News and Rumors section is staggering.
But people will always conjecture. Even before this particular rumour mill started gathering pace they were talking about 8th edition and what it could bring. I do however believe it's on the horizon though.
Brutallica wrote: I will die inside if they go the warscroll and fixed dice roll route... :(
Spoiler:
Is it so terrible? 40k basically has a fixed die roll for shooting to hit, leadership (most of the time) and armour save at present. It does save on chart look ups at least.
It its very terrible in my mind! And the reason is, loss of narrative. The guardsmen who killed nurgle terminator with 4's to hit and 6' to wound, will never happen. He will just be 4+ 4+ like eeeeveryone else against anyone else. And that kills the legendary tales and events that could potentially unfold. That just kills immersion so hard.
Its an easy system yes, but the price is all too high.
Yarium wrote: I am AMAZED by how many people here are saying they wouldn't play because they're currently not really playing. It's hilarious that some people have such strong opinions without actually giving things a proper chance.
You don't need to eat dog gak to know it won't taste nice.
Except for a few odd games, I sat out 7th edition until Traitor Legions arrived. Would have no problem doing that for 8th edition.
When AoS came on the scene, we had people playing old editions of WFB and using house rules. I imagine, if the rules leave something to be desired, something similar will happen for the first year or so.
But I can't see myself entirely walking away. Too many models.
My main gaming group plays 3rd ed. 40k, with a mix of miniatures from rogue trader to brand new, so numarines (if they're real) or 8th ed being bad wouldn't be too much skin off our noses.
Having said that, it'd obviously be preferable that the new ruleset is good and enjoyable. Some players in the local GW almost seem to find playing 7th games upsetting and the amount of bookkeeping involved has led to one or two slips which in turn led to accusations of cheating. So something more streamlined would be preferable imho. It doesn't have to be quite as simple as AoS, but there's legislation less complicated than the current 40k ruleset, there has to be a happy middle-ground.
Brutallica wrote: It its very terrible in my mind! And the reason is, loss of narrative. The guardsmen who killed nurgle terminator with 4's to hit and 6' to wound, will never happen. He will just be 4+ 4+ like eeeeveryone else against anyone else. And that kills the legendary tales and events that could potentially unfold. That just kills immersion so hard.
Its an easy system yes, but the price is all too high.
I like a lot of things about AoS, but like you I would be concerned about the fixed to-hit rolls in close combat. The charts aren't really that hard to memorize.
I was just had a thought that they could give certain people a "Weapon Master" ability with a number that modified enemy to-hit rolls. So say an ork normally hits on a 4+ but he's swinging at a Space Marine captain who has "Weapon Master 1" on his data slate so instead the ork boy hits on a 5+. This would only start coming into play on models that are currently WS 5 or higher, so they wouldn't have to put it on most normal data slates.
There's a lot of things from AoS that would be cool, but I think the coolest would be adopting the model of War Scrolls/Battle Tomes/General's Handbook. Individual units each get a Warscroll (data slate) with their rules that is available as a free download. Formation rules, special wargear, psychic powers and warlord traits would be in the Battle Tomes (codexes). The basic rules and points values for everything would be in the General's Handbook (BRB). This would let Games Workshop frequently update rules and adjust points costs without radical, sweeping changes.
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Blackie wrote: If it becomes an AOS set in the future, aka 30 models on the field with a few of them that are huge, I'll stop playing.
People play a lot of 2000 point games here. If I remember the numbers right, you can have an army of 300 goblins and still have 500 points for heroes, some special units like cavalry and artillery and a battalion. In AoS a unit of 60 grots can actually put out a decent amount of firepower.
I'm putting together a highly elite Iron Warriors army. It's going to be spamming Obliterators and Havocs and maybe a couple Daemon Engines. Throw in a LoW, and I think it could end up being thirty models with a few of them that are huge.
The Iron Warriors army isn't going to be effective, I just think it would be fun and I like the idea of 10,000 year old veterans being really elite. The grot swarm might actually be effective, I'm not sure. In AoS since you don't have to worry about spacing as much it would probably be a lot easier to move 300 grots and it would be to move 300 Guardsmen in 40k without worrying about them getting wrecked by templates.
Depends on how much it disappoints me. If it turns into full on AoS, I'm done until an edition comes out that fixes it again. If it's only a mild disappointment I'll stick in it and deal with the changes.
If 8th drops and it misses a lot of the problems the game has now or makes similar mistakes I am going to go all in on writing my own rule set. It's already mostly done. I will steal whats good from 8th and adjust as needed with my own mechanics.
@ OP: Option 2:
I have never played 7th and won´t touch 8th regardless of what GW comes up with. The inevitable new edition will just be enforced for the sake of change and nothing else. The rules won´t improve from a quality standpoint. They will just be different as in each edition before. And when they AoSify the rules...
Well, then 40K becomes a trainwreck like Fantasy.
Therefore I´ll stick with my favoured edition which is 2nd.
I'm actually moving away next year so if 8th bombs I might find some new hobbies (actually go outside!) but I definitely won't sell my models, just put them in storage. Of course, if there isn't much to do when I move, then 40k may call back to me as it has done before.
I voted other because I just don't know. I enjoy painting and building much more than playing ATM so that won't bother me.
I do still enjoy the game bloated mess as it may be. Unless you're trying to stay competitve cutting edge LVO it doesn't mater as much. I won't see a massive amount of the OP stuff without knowing about it in my local meta since not a lot of people play it that way.
>95% of you will either play 8th or drop out, just like >95% od everyone else has done for past edition changes. Yes, there's a few people who still play oldhammer, but within 6 months or less, it's going to be nigh impossible to find a game of 7th, just like it was nigh impossible to find a game of 6th 3 months after 7th came out, the same way it was nigh impossible to find a game of 5th 3 months after 8th came out...
Even if you do play 7th, or 5th or 2nd or whatever the "best edition eva" was to you, nobody cares since everyone else will have moved on to 8th or left, so you are now effectively irrelevant to the wider community. Your tactics input is going to be out of date, your lists aren't going to be relevant and your meta knowledge is going to be non-existant. If you don't play 8th, you have basically quit 40k for all intents and purposes to anyone outside your group.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone should blindly play 8th and not have their little bitch session about what they don't like and how it could have/should have been better, but the vast majority of people who think they won't succumb to playing 8th even if they don't like it just because it's the only way you'll get a game are kidding themselves.
It mostly depends on just how far 8th edition falls short of my enjoyment. Warhammer 40K is hardly my primary miniatures game, and I don't take the game serious at all since the rules are so rubbish. They would have really crank up the unnecessary complication (which I highly doubt) or make infantry sub-par units and focus on the big units (which I also doubt).
So I would probably still play it unless I found group that plays much older editions (I have only played 7th but 3rd-5th +/- modifications sounds like more my speed) or just Kill Team. Even then it would hardly be a common occurrence. Maybe a game or three a year just as an excuse to put my models on the table every now and again.
I'm sticking no matter what, personally I love 40k too much.
And it can't possibly be worse than it is now. Like even if the rules start to look more like AoS I'm cool (I hear from the manager of my local GW that the 8th Ed rules will only be on like eight pages, so that may be likely)
Crimson Devil wrote: If I don't like 8th than I'll play which ever version my opponent agrees to. Maybe 5th or even 2nd. 7th sucks hard. I've played fewer games this edition than anytime since I started back in 2nd. So it won't be my first choice unless we house rule the suck out of it.
A refined 5th edition would basically be the best thing that could come out of 40k at this point without a complete Sigmar-style reboot of its systems.
After 6th came out and now 7th for awhile, I HATE 5th ed. I would play 7th over 5th. It was such a stale game....
7th BRB rules are not bad, if you take out all the power creep the rules are so much more fun.
So the question is, do you guys hate the BRB rules for 7th, or all the formations/power creep that was added "After" 7th ed came out?
Also would you be fine with 7th is Formations were Apoc only?
Crimson Devil wrote: If I don't like 8th than I'll play which ever version my opponent agrees to. Maybe 5th or even 2nd. 7th sucks hard. I've played fewer games this edition than anytime since I started back in 2nd. So it won't be my first choice unless we house rule the suck out of it.
A refined 5th edition would basically be the best thing that could come out of 40k at this point without a complete Sigmar-style reboot of its systems.
After 6th came out and now 7th for awhile, I HATE 5th ed. I would play 7th over 5th. It was such a stale game....
7th BRB rules are not bad, if you take out all the power creep the rules are so much more fun.
So the question is, do you guys hate the BRB rules for 7th, or all the formations/power creep that was added "After" 7th ed came out?
Also would you be fine with 7th is Formations were Apoc only?
BRB rules do need some tweaks, but yes, my main disagreement with 7th is the formations, multiple CADs, unlimited allies, Lords of War, Super-heavies, gargantuan monstrous creatures, etc etc. All the stuff that used to be Apoc. The games of 7th that I've played without all that have been enjoyable, even with my old man memory trying to apply previous versions of rules. But I'm just a grumpy old man...
So long as I can play games, and use the IG I spent years accumulating, I don't mind which we play. Nobody is gonna come in my house and take my books away, so I'm not scared.
I'd be a bit upset if the lore took a nuke.
Crimson Devil wrote: I loathe the wound allocation rules, the psychic phase is obnoxious, and the formations are out of control.
So much this.
The wound allocation rules are the railroad-spike-in-head dumb for me. WTF were they thinking? Here, let's have a set of allocation rules that are fine at a skirmish level, but do not scale up in the slightest. Makes playing Orks or Nids even more of a masochistic experience.
1) make it so only infantry are obsec (nerfs battle company)
2) bikes no longer relentless (nerfs gravbikes/scatbikes)
3) psychic phase overhaul (nerf invis/summoning)
4) characters can only join units of same faction (nerfs superfriends builds)
tada, balance improved without needing drastic codex changes (would still do a new codex for those that haven't had the 7th ed treatment yet).
Crimson Devil wrote: If I don't like 8th than I'll play which ever version my opponent agrees to. Maybe 5th or even 2nd. 7th sucks hard. I've played fewer games this edition than anytime since I started back in 2nd. So it won't be my first choice unless we house rule the suck out of it.
A refined 5th edition would basically be the best thing that could come out of 40k at this point without a complete Sigmar-style reboot of its systems.
After 6th came out and now 7th for awhile, I HATE 5th ed. I would play 7th over 5th. It was such a stale game....
7th BRB rules are not bad, if you take out all the power creep the rules are so much more fun.
So the question is, do you guys hate the BRB rules for 7th, or all the formations/power creep that was added "After" 7th ed came out?
Also would you be fine with 7th is Formations were Apoc only?
Formations AND all that superheavy staff)
Also no random rolls on warlord traits, spells, splitfire for different weapon in same unit, separate cover save from armour save (like pick the hightest between invul, fnp or cover), nerf bikes and then we have a deal
Could be worse, you could get a new edition, that puts the rules on cards, only available with new models, or in an overly complex form in a book that may or may not come with rules for everything beyond a few units specifically repackaged for the new release.
You could end up with two or three flavours of marines, and everything else "coming soon!"
You could get a rules re-boot and GW pretending there are no existing players...
Assuming I keep playing, I'll go with whatever the group goes with. My concern is all they do is attempt to patch the system (which is all they have done since 3rd). I believe the rules are at a point now that they need a total rewrite.
And seriously, get rid of all the formations.
I think they need to go through every rule and ask 'what are we trying to achieve with this rule' and 'is there a better way we can achieve it'
This applies even more so with special rules. Grab all the special rules for all the formations, all the codex's, all the supplements and ask what are we trying to achieve with this rule, and can we create a generic (special) rule that will achieve this.
I know that when I started out (2nd ed) I found the game was more about the 'image' of what was taking place than what the rule said happened.
I also don't like that games are getting bigger (model count wise) sure, its cool to do huge games from time to time, but if they toned down the scale of the games they could add some extra detail (making the different phases more involved) - now, I don't want to pull right back to 2nd, games took too long for their size, but the idea of average toughness, average weapon skills, that annoys me. Pair off against who you are fighting.
I also don't think it would hurt to bring back +/- for range, weapon types, firing when moving etc.
I wouldn't object if they got rid of the instant death rule from double T weapons either, they make for far more dramatic moments when nothing is a sure thing.
I won't sell anything (or maybe the stuff bought for new projects that are not worth starting it any more) but won't get with the new edition either.
It depends on my local group, but it will be Warpath FireFight or switching completely to historical games (SAGA is already a thing, and Bolt Action has a chance to replace 40k)
The big problems with the 7th ed core rulebook are easy to identify. - The Army Comp system is a burning bag of poop that has been urinated on in an effort to put it out, but that attempt failed, and so now it is just extra smelly. - The Psychic phase was poorly designed, and is absurdly time consuming / Complicated. - The rules for Super Heavies and Strength D weren't well thought out, and don't function right. - The game doesn't scale right or really at all (Mostly due to army comp).
To fix the big problems, the easiest thing to do is bring back Apoc as a different way to play. Super Heavies, Formations, and Strength D are limited to Apoc. Apoc is unlimited Detachments. Normal 40K is 1 Detachment per 1,000 points.
That plus a rewrite of the psychic phase would go a long way to make the game scalable, and fun.
However, these were all problems evident from Day 1. Nobody read the 7th ed rulebook, and didn't immediately recognize that these are the problems. The Army Comp was so bad as to be functionally unplayable, and so everyone had to house rule it to even play a game. To make matters worse, every new release has essentially exacerbated the problems. It is clear that what I consider problems, the rules team would consider great successes. To them, this was the point of 7th to introduce these awful mechanics. I think we a fooling ourselves if we expect 8th to be a major improvement. I'm sure many marginal things will change, and some of them for the better, but a rules team this visionary / incompetent / Idiotic isn't going to turn out a set of rules that is significantly better than the current crop. You'd need a real shakeup on the rules team, and specifically at the management (Jervis) level.
Would I like GW to release a tight, fun, and playable 8th edition. You Bet. But I think that is entirely unrealistic. A much more realistic hope is that they release a rule-set so bad that we finally give up on them as rules writers, and switch over to a fan-made or alternative company rule set that is written by people that care about their product, have a consistent design philosophy, design and testing procedures that make some amount of sense, and have at least a limit degree of competence in rules design and technical writing.
My biggest fear for 8th is that it is a lateral move. Because 7th is in a terrible place right now. It is clearly not a game for me. I want a wargame that is scalable, and easy to play as a friendly pick-up game among a fairly large group of friends. 7th doesn't work for that. But it works well for Min/Max extreme power gamers. It works well for "I only play with people that aren't A-Holes" Garage hammer types. It works well for "Rules Don't Matter" extremely casual gamers, and it works well for "Let's have our game master house-rule everything for this campaign to make it work" narrative gamers. If you stitch those groups together you've got enough to keep a functional player base and avoid a mass exodus to better rules, but that leaves an awful lot of gamers like me who are pretty unhappy.
After years of painting and modeling and playing maybe a dozen or so games between 6th and 7th edition, I'm interested in returning to the local league if the next edition is different than the last two. I haven't kept up with and GW news for about 9 months or so, so I have a very vague sense of the direction WH40k is heading in. I've browsed a few sites and blogs to see if I could glean some info but nothing really concrete seems to be out there. Maybe someone here can offer some insight?
Is 8th edition being released this year? IS there any hope or expectation of parity between the armies? Will the formations still exist, and if so, essentially dictate the nature of (pickup/semi-competitive) games? Will the rules be completely overhauled or just minor tweaks?
I know these questions will irritate some of ya but I'm having trouble finding any relevant info online, and simply don't have the time to head into the flgs or GW to socialize right now. Working 60+ hours and six days a week so I just cant budget much else into my life atm. Thanks to anyone offering even the most general of infos. Really looking forward to some free time and hoping 40k can be part of it.
Given that there probably won't be a Sisters of Battle release, there's almost no way it wouldn't disappoint, so I'll probably treat it the same way as I have seventh.
Is 8th edition being released this year? IS there any hope or expectation of parity between the armies? Will the formations still exist, and if so, essentially dictate the nature of (pickup/semi-competitive) games? Will the rules be completely overhauled or just minor tweaks?
8th is coming this summer but nothing official from GW We don't know how the game will look like in 6 months, if all books are obsolete in June or not or if it is just an update.
the common guess/hint is that Formations and Campaign books will replace the standard CAD and Codex, rules will come with the boxes and 8th will be more focused on the narrative part (replay the battles described in the campaign books)
As far as I'm concerned, nothing can be as bad as 7th edition. Or maybe, it's not that 7th is bad, but the whole Formations, Detachments, and Unbound has gotten completely out of control. There are a few Psychic Powers that need an overhaul as they have broken the game (cough cough Invisibility cough). Things like the Psychic Phase in general is nice, and Overwatch is a great rule they brought back. The vehicle rules need to be gutted and completely re-written, or Monstrous Creatures will ALWAYS be better then any vehicle or walker. The melee to hit chart is a joke- WS 10 vs. WS 1 should not be a 3+/5+. It should be auto hit/auto miss at those levels. Challenges make no sense and have zero impact on the close combat. Rules bloat is everywhere- why so many different special rules for moving and shooting? Why Precision Shots and Precision Strikes when you have "Look Out, Sir!"? My favorite is the characters that gain Precision Strikes in melee when they are fighting a challenge.
At least there are not a bunch of "Gotcha!" style rules like other systems, but there are a lot of rules, and I see a lot of them being misplayed all the time. Every time I'm playing the game, I'm looking up a rule to prove it, or show my opponent something he didn't know, and that's a frustrating, annoying problem in 7th.
Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
Melissia wrote: Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
Yeah I agree with this. There is an issue with some factions not having too few (or none) formations or not very useful formations whilst other factions being spoiled for choice. The concept is great though.
7th is already such a disaster that it's basically killed play for me. If 8th were worse, I don't think it would any difference at this point, a dead scene can't be made any deader.
Between ramping up of unit power levels, formations, mix-n-match detachments, freebies, allies, and the scale issues, 40k really is just an awful game that's only playable if both players spend some time negotiating dozens of aspects and essentially re-writing the game themselves. Hard to see how an 8E could make it any worse, points values are already effectively meaningless, as are FoC restrictions, it's already early AoS but with even less balance.
Melissia wrote: Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
We didn't need formations to make the game fluffy. People had no problems doing that for years without formations, so lets not pretend that's what formations are about.
Guess I'll just keep the hobby on hiatus until we see exactly what happens with the game when 8th edition is released. Thanks for the feedback guys.
Melissia wrote: Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
Yeah I agree with this. There is an issue with some factions not having too few (or none) formations or not very useful formations whilst other factions being spoiled for choice. The concept is great though.
When I first read about formations I thought they were crazy, but they've grown on me. The FOC makes less and less sense to me. Counter-intuitively, I think the FOC makes more sense (fluff-wise) as a combined arms formation for apocalypse sized games than it does for normal sized games.
There are some broken formations and some factions have received better ones than others, but that doesn't mean the whole concept is bad.
I think it would be good if they had points costs assigned to formations like they do in AoS. I can also see having some sort of over-arching requirements that the entire army has to fit into, kind of like the FOC but less restrictive.
I'm already so used to my Orks and Tyranids being trash that them continuing to be bad won't even bother me. I have transcended the point of being able to grow any more embittered, I have ascended beyond the circle of reembitterization, accepted the four grumpy truths, walked the eightfold griping and finally reached IDGAFavana.
sand.zzz wrote: We didn't need formations to make the game fluffy.
No, but they helped and honestly aside from a few over-the-top nonsense ones, they've really helped make the game better.
I love the concept of formations. It could use work on executions, but it is a solid concept.
I agree that the concept is good. But yes, the execution is a thinly veiled sales tactic that has sacrificed game quality in an attempt to push product.
Melissia wrote: Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
What are you talking about? "give Players more freedom to play the game how they want" should be "Give players bonuses so long as they play the game exactly the way GW wants them to, and even let's GW write the bulk of their lists for them."
Melissia wrote: No, but they helped and honestly aside from a few over-the-top nonsense ones, they've really helped make the game better.
I love the concept of formations. It could use work on executions, but it is a solid concept.
I disagree pretty fundamentally with this. I can agree the execution of formations has been abysmal, and a few over-the-top formations are certainly causing a great deal of the frustration, but the core concepts of formations is deeply flawed from its conceptions.
Formations are about removing player choice in list building by offering them incentives to build the lists that GW thinks that they should run. It is about raising the financial cost of army variation, and limiting army diversity by limiting list diversity. I don't think we really want any of those things. I see where GW likes raising the cost of list diversity, but I don't like that much as it makes it harder to recruit and maintain new players, and I definitely don't like the limiting effect on the meta. In 6th ed, it was a Pejorative to say someone had used a "cookie cutter netlist". Formations have essentially taken that and made it part of the rules. "I played against a War Convocation". "I'm going to see a White Scars Battle Company". "He Ran some Scatbikes with a Riptide Wing". All of those are about the limited army diversity that is the natural outcome of Formations. I play alot of 40K, and I'd love a return to a more diverse meta, and realistically the way to accomplish that is to limit formations to Apoc, or just do away with them.
Melissia wrote: Formations and detachments are actually the best part of 7th as far as I'm concerned. The problem isn't formations and detachments, which give the player more freedom to play the game how they want and give more reason to play fluffy lists (as long as the formations are designed to be fluffy, and they usually are)... the problem is the game rules themselves are kinda fethed.
What are you talking about? "give Players more freedom to play the game how they want" should be "Give players bonuses so long as they play the game exactly the way GW wants them to, and even let's GW write the bulk of their lists for them."
Melissia wrote: No, but they helped and honestly aside from a few over-the-top nonsense ones, they've really helped make the game better.
I love the concept of formations. It could use work on executions, but it is a solid concept.
I disagree pretty fundamentally with this. I can agree the execution of formations has been abysmal, and a few over-the-top formations are certainly causing a great deal of the frustration, but the core concepts of formations is deeply flawed from its conceptions.
Formations are about removing player choice in list building by offering them incentives to build the lists that GW thinks that they should run. It is about raising the financial cost of army variation, and limiting army diversity by limiting list diversity. I don't think we really want any of those things. I see where GW likes raising the cost of list diversity, but I don't like that much as it makes it harder to recruit and maintain new players, and I definitely don't like the limiting effect on the meta. In 6th ed, it was a Pejorative to say someone had used a "cookie cutter netlist". Formations have essentially taken that and made it part of the rules. "I played against a War Convocation". "I'm going to see a White Scars Battle Company". "He Ran some Scatbikes with a Riptide Wing". All of those are about the limited army diversity that is the natural outcome of Formations. I play alot of 40K, and I'd love a return to a more diverse meta, and realistically the way to accomplish that is to limit formations to Apoc, or just do away with them.
I agree with ya. I had been pretty disenchanted with 40k's rules for a couple years, but when formations were introduced, I watched myself and about 80% of the players just lose interest. When I left the last tournament I saw was a bunch of unpainted or partially painted formation lists, and a bunch of players that cared little for fluff. So the fluff argument in favor of formations is pretty weak. The fluffy players I know, including myself, pretty much shun formation play.
tag8833 wrote: What are you talking about? "give Players more freedom to play the game how they want" should be "Give players bonuses so long as they play the game exactly the way GW wants them to, and even let's GW write the bulk of their lists for them."
No.
Formations allow for players to use units and create lists in ways that the traditional force organization chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast attack, 0-3 heavy support) did not, while still being more than the disorganized mess that Unbound is.
Your bitterness is irrelevant to my argument and I have no respect for it. I never said formations were perfect. In fact, I already mentioned they were poorly executed. But as they are, they add a lot of flexibility to players' lists over previous editions. It's like the only formation you know of is gladius or something. Except that's not actually how it works for most formations and that's NOT the only formation out there and honestly that's one of the ones that comes to mind when I mentioned "poor execution". Compare that to say, the emperor's talon recon company-- most people wouldn't bother to take sentinels, there's far better things to take in the fast attack slot. But taken in this formation, without taking up fast attack slots, and now they benefit from orders, and can nominate an enemy unit as preferred enemy for assassination? Suddenly, they're a lot more attractive-- still not top tier, but that's more because top tier is broke as feth than anything else. And they're attractive without having to screw around with adding another combined arms detachment / FoC
Melissia wrote: Formations allow for players to use units and create lists in ways that the traditional force organization chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast attack, 0-3 heavy support) did not, while still being more than the disorganized mess that Unbound is.
If that was the objective it wouldn't be formations you were extolling the virtues of, it would be alternative detachments like Real Space Raiders, or the Tyranid Hive Fleet Detachment. Those types of detachments allow for variations in the traditional force org without the restrictions on unit choice, or the limitations on army diversity. I really like Alternative detachments, and think we should get more of them.
Melissia wrote: Compare that to say, the emperor's talon recon company-- most people wouldn't bother to take sentinels, there's far better things to take in the fast attack slot. But taken in this formation, without taking up fast attack slots, and now they benefit from orders, and can nominate an enemy unit as preferred enemy for assassination? Suddenly, they're a lot more attractive-- still not top tier, but that's more because top tier is broke as feth than anything else. And they're attractive without having to screw around with adding another combined arms detachment / FoC
For what it is worth, I've actually played with the Sentinel formation, and against it a fair number of times.
But to your point that formations could theoretically make bad units good, and attractive to take, I would offer than a completely different approach might help more. What if they fixed the rules on the Sentinel, and pointed it appropriate to its abilities? Wouldn't that be an even better improvement than adding a formation?
What positive thing do formations bring to the game, that wouldn't be better accomplished by alternative detachments or fixing bad rules / points costs?
Melissia wrote: Formations allow for players to use units and create lists in ways that the traditional force organization chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast attack, 0-3 heavy support) did not, while still being more than the disorganized mess that Unbound is.
If that was the objective it wouldn't be formations you were extolling the virtues of
Yes, it is.
You can take formations alongside this. Or instead of it. Therefor, there are more options, no matter how angrily salty you are about gladius.
I'd love to see more "alternate deatchments." Possibly combined with something along the lines of chapter tactics for each army. Any mechanic that lets you theme your army around a certain playstyle, basically.
I'm okay with formations conceptually, but I'm not sure there's really much argument for using formations (which limit your choice of units and give bonuses to those units) instead of "alternate detachments."
If we define a formation as, "A detachment that lets you choose from a very limited list of units and gives you bonuses for using those units," then you'll generally end up with one of the following situations:
A. The units in the formation were already good to begin with, and now you've made them better thus making other options less appealing by comparison. See: Riptide Wing.
B. The units in the formation were well-balanced to begin with, and now you've boosted them up into the "too good" category.
C. The units in the formation were underpowered to begin with. Which, y'know, would ideally not be the case. I don't see much argument for using formations as a bandaid rather than just making units usable in their own right.
I think where alternate detachments/formations should shine is when they're used to make army concepts that normally aren't possible/viable possible/viable. For instance, I'd love to take a detachment that lets me field assault marines instead of scouts/tacticals to represent a chapter that favors jump packers to the exclusion of footslogging bolter marines. It wouldn't be especially powerful as an army, but it would be a nice, flavorful horizontal option.
I'd even be open to the idea of having detachments with clear drawbacks. Of course, you'd have to watch out for the trap that the 4th edition marine book's "custom chapter" rulers fell into where the drawbacks were easily avoidable. "I can take an extra heavy support if I don't take more than two fast attack? Awesome! I wasn't going to take three fast attacks anyway."
tag8833 wrote: What are you talking about? "give Players more freedom to play the game how they want" should be "Give players bonuses so long as they play the game exactly the way GW wants them to, and even let's GW write the bulk of their lists for them."
No.
Formations allow for players to use units and create lists in ways that the traditional force organization chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast attack, 0-3 heavy support) did not, while still being more than the disorganized mess that Unbound is.
While some of the possibilities formations offer can be cool, most are just used for power purposes. That "need" could have been addressed by simply creating different FoC's with different allowances or FoC swaps. This was done before with several armies and worked quite well in many older editions. That's how we got armies like Deathwing and Armored Companies. Formations were not needed for that.
The only thing formations do is add unnecessary bonuses into the mix and allow for far more spam opportunities than the old FoC system did.
tag8833 wrote: What are you talking about? "give Players more freedom to play the game how they want" should be "Give players bonuses so long as they play the game exactly the way GW wants them to, and even let's GW write the bulk of their lists for them."
No.
Formations allow for players to use units and create lists in ways that the traditional force organization chart (1-2 HQ, 2-6 troops, 0-3 elite, 0-3 fast attack, 0-3 heavy support) did not, while still being more than the disorganized mess that Unbound is.
While some of the possibilities formations offer can be cool, most are just used for power purposes. That "need" could have been addressed by simply creating different FoC's with different allowances or FoC swaps. This was done before with several armies and worked quite well in many older editions. That's how we got armies like Deathwing and Armored Companies. Formations were not needed for that.
The only thing formations do is add unnecessary bonuses into the mix and allow for far more spam opportunities than the old FoC system did.
To be fair, I've heard stories of things like Alaitocii ranger disruption being annoying, but I agree with you.
CADs and other force org charts are basically formations anyway; there are some restrictions (no more than 3 fast attacks per compulsory taking of 2 troops and a HQ) and some bonus for conforming to those restrictions (obsec on troops and re-roll on a warlord trait table). There isn't a spit of difference really.
Even with formations being options people still take CADs over them in competitive lists. Scat bikes are troops and in a CAD they have obsec.... Force Orgs allows a way to get forgeworld stuff into a list. Cutting out formations will do nothing for balance, just make army composition boring and samey samey again.
You didn't give the option for "Play 3rd Edition with my friends and brother" so I had to put "Other". And yes, it is pretty easy to manage to get games going in 3rd Ed. nowadays.
Just Tony wrote: You didn't give the option for "Play 3rd Edition with my friends and brother" so I had to put "Other". And yes, it is pretty easy to manage to get games going in 3rd Ed. nowadays.
Formations are fluff based barrels of fun, so long as you dont spam the really out there formations
In my opinion 5th edition was asinine in terms of flexibility, since most people i know just went bare min troops and spammed everything else.
That system is old and shows a mentality of nover giving up 'ye olde days'
While that all dandy and all i would rather have an active, changing format. With new ways to play the same things, rather than just 'generic list 1,2,3 ect.'
Expanding on the formations and adding more formation-detachments would be the great way to go.
People who ware still clinging to the old editions have to remember that you can only improve if you leave the past behind, learn from it but never live in it
Fafnir wrote: ...Except that most of the best 5th edition lists relied heavily on troops, since they were the only units in the game that could take objectives...
which always struck me as odd considering that in any battlefield scenario you would count everything, not just a specially made band of soldiers on the battlefield
SolarCross wrote: Cutting out formations will do nothing for balance, just make army composition boring and samey samey again.
Dumping formations would do quite alot for balance. They add a whole other variable which is essentially a multiplier of imbalance. They also do alot to encourage spam and min/maxing, aka styles of lists that exploit problems with balance.
Take a few notably unbalanced units. Riptides and Warp Spiders. They have points costs that aren't representative of their abilities. But if you add in Riptide Wing or Aspect Host, you've got a much more serious balance problem than you did before. Because the tax on spam is reduced, and the unbalanced units are made better. Take away those formations, and the units are more manageable, because they have fewer abilities, and are slightly harder to spam.
Formations aren't the root cause of balance problems, but they do exacerbate the problems somewhat.
SolarCross wrote: Cutting out formations will do nothing for balance, just make army composition boring and samey samey again.
Dumping formations would do quite alot for balance. They add a whole other variable which is essentially a multiplier of imbalance. They also do alot to encourage spam and min/maxing, aka styles of lists that exploit problems with balance.
Take a few notably unbalanced units. Riptides and Warp Spiders. They have points costs that aren't representative of their abilities. But if you add in Riptide Wing or Aspect Host, you've got a much more serious balance problem than you did before. Because the tax on spam is reduced, and the unbalanced units are made better. Take away those formations, and the units are more manageable, because they have fewer abilities, and are slightly harder to spam.
Formations aren't the root cause of balance problems, but they do exacerbate the problems somewhat.
But at the same time the weaker armies are made weaker for the same reasons
Formations in themselves are not bad, but they are being used to resolve balance issues that they simply cannot. Many of the formations take the form of combat multiplier. They have you take (x) unit in bulk and you gain a benefit. The issue with this is, if the unit that is required to be taken is terrible that formation isn't going to help you.
Multiply anything by 0 and you still get 0.
Until GW addresses the primary issue - (codex balance), formations are just like throwing a bandaid on a mortal wound. If a unit isn't worth its point cost, no amount of formation shenanigans is going to fix that. It has to be done at the codex level.
Fafnir wrote: ...Except that most of the best 5th edition lists relied heavily on troops, since they were the only units in the game that could take objectives...
And many of the troops had decent enough Mech Firepower options. Saw a ton of min troops in Las/Plas razors.
They need a core 1500pts skirmish game back. They need codex's/factions to be front and center within that core skirmish game. And all the silly crap pushed up into higher point levels. They need to address the massive disparity between mc's and evryone else, especially vehicles. They need walkers to either be immune from immobilized or simply half their move on the first immobilized. Super heavies and gmc's need to be banished to the land of wind and ghosts and or just upper point levels. Also, murder formations in cold blood and bury them in the sea.
Thought experiment: Imagine the latest battlefleet gothic video game, where currently you like have to pick a faction and play that faction. Now imagine an add on that takes that away and allows you to make fleets combining all factions ships. How could you possibly make faction play an incentive once that change has happened?
I just want faction play back, I want combines armed combat to be a thing. If the only way to get that is low points and an foc then sign me up for 5th.
Crablezworth wrote: Thought experiment: Imagine the latest battlefleet gothic video game, where currently you like have to pick a faction and play that faction. Now imagine an add on that takes that away and allows you to make fleets combining all factions ships. How could you possibly make faction play an incentive once that change has happened?
Not sure about the Battlefleet Gothic videogame, but they seem to have a decent way of doing it in AoS with their keywords and battalions.
For example they might give every Imperial unit the IoM keyword, and if every unit in your army has the IoM keyword you get a certain bonus and some choices go from "special" (Heavy Support, Fast Attack, Elites) to Troops. Furthermore, your primary detachment might require everyone to have a specific keyword, like Space Marines, and that would give a certain benefit and make an additional set of units Troops. They could go even further, and have certain detachments require a more specific keyword like White Scars. The more requirements the detachment has in terms of minimum size the bigger the rewards, so it would encourage players to run armies with matching keywords. Formations could also have keyword requirements that mean the entire army has to have a certain keyword.
So if you run straight White Scars you get a lot of keyword synergy bonuses and special formations. You could ally in Iron Hands and still get the Space Marines synergy bonuses and formations but lose the White Scars bonuses/formations. You could further throw in Saint Celestine and still have all of the IoM bonuses/formations but lose all the Space Marine bonuses/formations. You can ally in a Tau detachment but then you lose all keyword synergy and can't take any special snowflake stuff at all.
Crablezworth wrote: They need a core 1500pts skirmish game back. They need codex's/factions to be front and center within that core skirmish game. And all the silly crap pushed up into higher point levels. They need to address the massive disparity between mc's and evryone else, especially vehicles. They need walkers to either be immune from immobilized or simply half their move on the first immobilized. Super heavies and gmc's need to be banished to the land of wind and ghosts and or just upper point levels. Also, murder formations in cold blood and bury them in the sea.
Thought experiment: Imagine the latest battlefleet gothic video game, where currently you like have to pick a faction and play that faction. Now imagine an add on that takes that away and allows you to make fleets combining all factions ships. How could you possibly make faction play an incentive once that change has happened?
Battlefleet gothic unfortunately Isnt popular anymore because of the single factions everyone fall into; kinda like the same points range and restriction that 5th edition was. 5th edition was samey samey and there was no fluff based 'oooh' gameplay that 7th edition brought in, especially since formations bring the fluff onto the table
do i think their balanced? no not one bit
are they fun? hell yea
please dont go back to 5th edition, those rules be outdated, remnants of a time that should be forgotten. Instead improve upon the current system.
Never assume that nostalga is good enough to bring a gaming system to a massive rollback, because even the past has problems
I will continue to play. If 5th, 6th, 7th, or the newest edition becomes most popular in my area I will play that. I am not petty enough to quit playing over it.
conker249 wrote: I will continue to play. If 5th, 6th, 7th, or the newest edition becomes most popular in my area I will play that. I am not petty enough to quit playing over it.
Agency, independent thought and preference are the problem, clearly.
Preference is just a nice way of saying bigotry after-all.
Crablezworth wrote: They need a core 1500pts skirmish game back. They need codex's/factions to be front and center within that core skirmish game. And all the silly crap pushed up into higher point levels. They need to address the massive disparity between mc's and evryone else, especially vehicles. They need walkers to either be immune from immobilized or simply half their move on the first immobilized. Super heavies and gmc's need to be banished to the land of wind and ghosts and or just upper point levels. Also, murder formations in cold blood and bury them in the sea.
Thought experiment: Imagine the latest battlefleet gothic video game, where currently you like have to pick a faction and play that faction. Now imagine an add on that takes that away and allows you to make fleets combining all factions ships. How could you possibly make faction play an incentive once that change has happened?
Battlefleet gothic unfortunately Isnt popular anymore because of the single factions everyone fall into; kinda like the same points range and restriction that 5th edition was. 5th edition was samey samey and there was no fluff based 'oooh' gameplay that 7th edition brought in, especially since formations bring the fluff onto the table
do i think their balanced? no not one bit
are they fun? hell yea
please dont go back to 5th edition, those rules be outdated, remnants of a time that should be forgotten. Instead improve upon the current system.
Never assume that nostalga is good enough to bring a gaming system to a massive rollback, because even the past has problems
Chess, Risk, Stratego, and several other games would like to have a word with you. The problem isn't nostalgia vs. newest bells and whistles, the problem is overshooting when "fixing" a problem in the rules which then causes the next book to amp up to the point that the powercreep requires a new edition to handle all the bs, when going back and redoing the overpowered book would solve the issue. Playing 3rd has showed me that with a couple of codices being the exception, the game is solid. It was all the 4th Ed. cleaning up and further rules bloat and codex creep that really shuffed it.
mchammadad wrote: Never assume that nostalga is good enough to bring a gaming system to a massive rollback, because even the past has problems
Hi, have you seen Kickstarter? Within the past 5 years, we've had new editions launched for Ogre, Nuclear War, Vampire, Heroquest *cough*, Warzone, and more - all entirely out of nostalgia. Not to mention this weekend's box office winner being a remake of an old semi-CG Disney flick.
please dont go back to 5th edition, those rules be outdated, remnants of a time that should be forgotten. Instead improve upon the current system.
Never assume that nostalga is good enough to bring a gaming system to a massive rollback, because even the past has problems
You must be drinking some special kind of kool-aid, because 7th edition is the same system as 5th, just with a lot more bloat tacked on.
5th had its own problems that needed some serious addressing, namely wound allocation and vehicle rules, but it was a far better designed system than the hot mess we have now.
Crablezworth wrote: They need a core 1500pts skirmish game back. They need codex's/factions to be front and center within that core skirmish game. And all the silly crap pushed up into higher point levels. They need to address the massive disparity between mc's and evryone else, especially vehicles. They need walkers to either be immune from immobilized or simply half their move on the first immobilized. Super heavies and gmc's need to be banished to the land of wind and ghosts and or just upper point levels. Also, murder formations in cold blood and bury them in the sea.
Thought experiment: Imagine the latest battlefleet gothic video game, where currently you like have to pick a faction and play that faction. Now imagine an add on that takes that away and allows you to make fleets combining all factions ships. How could you possibly make faction play an incentive once that change has happened?
Battlefleet gothic unfortunately Isnt popular anymore because of the single factions everyone fall into; kinda like the same points range and restriction that 5th edition was. 5th edition was samey samey and there was no fluff based 'oooh' gameplay that 7th edition brought in, especially since formations bring the fluff onto the table
do i think their balanced? no not one bit
are they fun? hell yea
please dont go back to 5th edition, those rules be outdated, remnants of a time that should be forgotten. Instead improve upon the current system.
Never assume that nostalga is good enough to bring a gaming system to a massive rollback, because even the past has problems
The fact that fluff is mentioned and then nostalgia derided speaks to a cognitive dissonance of sorts. And really, I'm not suggesting ruining anyone's fun, merely segregating it to the fluffy table as it were. But really, if the only change in 8th was that sanity was restored under 1500pts and anything above it is still completely free for all mad crazy fluff salad, are you like afraid everyone will play 1500? That's some powerful nostalgia, just sayin
You must be drinking some special kind of kool-aid, because 7th edition is the same system as 5th, just with a lot more bloat tacked on.
5th had its own problems that needed some serious addressing, namely wound allocation and vehicle rules, but it was a far better designed system than the hot mess we have now.
Agreed, it wasn't perfect but it was a good starting point.
The game has all the hallmarks of the marketing team running roughshod over whatever human remains can collectively be called a design team. The ruleset bows to the release schedule and pushin plastic, and that's half the reason it sucks. Quality over quantity in the rule side of things would be a lovely change of pace for 8th. And we flat out know that the rules designers are just handed models and told to make lemonaid. So dare to dream I guess. They might destroy codex, or every unit will get a codex, neither would surprise at this point. Regardless of anyone's feelings on 5th, it proved you could have a skirmish game and a big silly fluff nutters dream (apoc) without either stepping on the other's toes. Now 7th is just apoc by any other name, 30k had no problem at last indexing crazy to a point level and percentage. The pieces are there for like minded individuals to put best efforts forth and try and find mutual enjoyment, but its way too hit and miss rock paper scissor coin flip dance dance revolution in the guise of pseudo dnd vapid story telling and narrative forging. Here's this weeks new toy releases, shiny. Golden land raiders to one and all.
skeptical design team member "won't it be weird to just have golden vehicles, some of which are over a decade old?" -evil corporate douchebag gives angry glare while secretly pressing a button under his desk-
Spoiler:
"What's that, actual artwork? We can't have that, too grim, too dark. Those design team boys tried to pull a fast one one on us. Quickly, photoshop over it with a larger product shot. I went to school for this."
(I'm aware the one on the left is the real box art)
I'm not trying to hate, gw employ some incredibly talented photographers. But man, its so much cheaper to have a staff photographer than commission actual works of art. I understand accuracy from a product shot perspective but god damn can it ever cheapen things a bit too much at times. Gimme more paintings and sketches, gimme grim dark.
-small red light blinks on wall- Jervis: "that's two independent thought alarms in one day, the interns are clearly over stimulated"
7th has had me basically just playing 30k and its not hard to decipher why. Factions. Even in a game where a good chunk of players are playin various flavors of power armour with a small twist, you still get better games and actual faction identity. Talk to someone playin 7th and its all "is four sources ok? how many formations are you running?" Just slit my wrists now. lol
Honestly, players who see eye to eye will always do what they want anyway, people who play more loose or open will do so accordingly whether the ruleset is tight, loose, focused or scatter brained. A lot of people in this thread will by their own admission essentially just "go with the flow" and play what other/the club gravitate towards. So ya, I wish we had army construction much more akin to 5th. I wish allies and all that new stuff was relegated at the very least to higher point levels to satisfy everyone. If 8th closer resembles 30k I'll be happier. But in all likelihood army construction will not be touched. The army construction is too perfectly gw, it puts up a facade of depth and what may apear complex from the outset but it's really just a way of somehow throwing rules out the window while making army construction more complicated. It's their entire design ethos boiled down to a spiteful donkey punch to the foc and a hateful spitful mockery the beautiful game that once was.
But really you can do whatever you want. And that's where jervis and the marketing team get along like peas and carrots. And that seems to honestly benefit the front line staff too, sellin stuff is hard if you gotta like know stuff about it. When you unbound the rules and go full apoc they (gw retail staff) don't really need to know much past "ello there fellow collector, fear not in deciding on what shiny new models to purchase this fine day, daddy jervis done designed dis here perfect system so dat any gamer er.. collector can do whatever they want with their collection and we the humble clerks don't rightly need to know much or something or nothing bout dem der plastic men in order to sell you lot really whatever comes out every saturday. In the marketing team we trust, in jervis we trust, all hail our avarice-soaked corporate overlords. Oh by the way chap, do you need any spray paint or glue with that purchase you're making 20+ year customer who I will spare no expense to condescend to. Pip pip cheerio, govna various other terrible cockne accent related commentary and so forth"
Just because anyone takes a side of bravely not playing 8th or playing 8th. Either way its most likely sunk cost fallacy mixed with morbid curiosity. At best. I'll take a peak at it, then again I'm that rare individual who would rubber neck a car crash.
Mayble it will get better, maybe it will continue down the rabbit hole of weekly dlc irrelevance, a rule set equivalent to painted rust. The bloat will eventually hide the rot, right?
Spoiler:
7the edition is just resting and besides, look at 7th ed's sweet new shoes!
Mitochondria wrote: So about half of you are going to continue to pay for abuse. Good to know...I guess.
^ I will refer you to the quote below:
Melissia wrote: Don't look down on people for their passion for the hobby.
Is it "Abuse"? Hell no! We have a game system that is so imbalanced that - in my opinion - unless you play casually (and thus don't give a feth about having the 'Best List You Can Have'), you're going to hate the system. I mean far out: I played a 1,500 Point list the other week that was not so bad on paper but was realistically gak. I played against a Sisters of Battle player who literally half-assed their 1,500 Points list as we were setting up the table with very little knowledge of their own codex and I still lost. We both had a really fun game (I especially had a fun game because it allowed me to help a friend further understand the rules, make it easy for them, and have fun with the hobby). And before you jump on the bandwagon to disagree with me and s*** on me, this is my perspective. If you're the exact opposite (i.e. competitive is glorious fun for you and casual games are toxic) or whatever, my point still stands.
Yes, we would all love balance, but if I can find the joy in a game with an Edition (7th) that so many members of the Dakka Dakka Community (including myself) considers horrendously imbalanced, then regardless of whether 8th Edition is better or worse, I guarantee players will be able to find the fun in it.
Do GW know what they're doing when it comes to rules? That is highly arguable depending on what standpoint you take, but does that make it abuse towards it's players? No. If you're buying into the hobby, it's not abuse. You take enjoyment from it and you get exactly what you pay for, whether you're paying them so you can build and create models, or add in the gaming element as well. The only "Abuse" that occurs is the abuse people inflict upon themselves. If you don't like the hobby or you don't think it's worth the money, then the only abuse I see occurring is when you still pay GW money for a hobby you don't enjoy.
Our group consensus at the moment is if 8th edition nullifies any of the codices, campaign books, etc we've acquired through 7th, we won't adopt the new system. And if they do away with points like they did with Age of Sigmar, we won't adopt the new system.
Other than those two things, we're trying to keep an open mind, but the move from 6th to 7th has left alot of us skeptical.
They had to send people to Adepticon to find out about the flaws in their own ruleset, they clearly are doing zero development (i.e. playtesting).
And this has been discussed to death across various threads with a vast array of topics. People still enjoy the game and people still pay GW money. I can say that I both enjoy the game and still buy stuff from GW. If playing the game and participating in these forums has taught me anything, it's this:
Find the niche within this hobby where you find both value and enjoyment, or find another hobby.
Hell, I wish GW wrote better rules. I wish they wrote better, more favourable rules for Orks so that my mate would have more fun with the models that he bought for himself as well as the ones myself and his mates bought for him. I wish for more favourable lore writing towards anything that isn't directly related to the Imperium, but myself and a number of my friends still find enjoyment in this hobby (both in modelling and in game-play). And I can't be a member of the only group that operates and thinks like this.
We can argue until kingdom come about the balance or otherwise of 40K in 7th Edition and what GW should do about it, but the simple fact is this: If you don't think 8th Edition is worth your time or money, the stop playing the game. If the game is all you were in for, then stop paying GW for more models. It's that simple.
I will play whatever is being played at my local hobby store, and I will like it.
I've enjoyed every edition in some form or another, I don't expect this to change. 40K has always had enough options to make for good matches, as long as you properly outfit your army and play with decent people.
Commissar Benny wrote: Formations in themselves are not bad, but they are being used to resolve balance issues that they simply cannot. Many of the formations take the form of combat multiplier. They have you take (x) unit in bulk and you gain a benefit. The issue with this is, if the unit that is required to be taken is terrible that formation isn't going to help you.
Multiply anything by 0 and you still get 0.
Until GW addresses the primary issue - (codex balance), formations are just like throwing a bandaid on a mortal wound. If a unit isn't worth its point cost, no amount of formation shenanigans is going to fix that. It has to be done at the codex level.
Formations aren't being used to resolve balance issues. Formations are being used to sell models. Riptide Wing solves which issue exactly? IG formations requiring you to buy tons of infantry kits or Leman Russ kits solve which issue? Formations exist to move product, let's not kid ourselves.
All the time an energy they've put into formations and the books they've been printed int, etc. could just have easily been spent on balancing strong/weak units. WH30k manages to offer bonuses and scripted lists without making the game nigh unplayable as 40k is. If the aim of formations were to offer variety and flexibility to the players, then the formations themselves wouldn't consist of 'buy six Riptides!' or 'get 500 points of free stuff', or whatever other incentives they have offered to nudge customers who want to win toward buying kits x, y, and z.
tldr: if formations had any benevolence at all behind them, they would, could, and probably should have been designed to improve gameplay. Which no one can honestly say they have done. It''s their game though, and they will be the ones living/.dying by their choices. In my personal; experience here in Arizona, far more people have left the game altogether than have embraced formation play. In fact, the community here barely exists anymore outside of the tournament weekends that occur every now and then.
We can argue until kingdom come about the balance or otherwise of 40K in 7th Edition and what GW should do about it, but the simple fact is this: If you don't think 8th Edition is worth your time or money, the stop playing the game. If the game is all you were in for, then stop paying GW for more models. It's that simple.
Why so black and white? Wouldn't touch 40k 7th ed again, still playing 40k though.
1) because I play at a GW store, and they won't allow anything but the most current edition/game to be played in their stores. For example, we cannot play WFB 8th Edition or End Times. We must play AoS (or one of the current boxed games) or nothing when it comes to Fantasy.
ServiceGames wrote: 1) because I play at a GW store, and they won't allow anything but the most current edition/game to be played in their stores. For example, we cannot play WFB 8th Edition or End Times. We must play AoS (or one of the current boxed games) or nothing when it comes to Fantasy.
SG
Yeah I think it would benefit them to loosen their grip a little there. People can still buy new kits to use with older systems. I have never heard a single person say that that is a good policy, but more than a few are turned off by it. I understand the logic behind this policy, but I'm not convinced the benefit of not allowing out of print products in store outweighs alienating the number of people that it does.
And like I said, people can still buy AoS kits to use with WHFB 8th edition. In fact, they might actually find allowing more choices in terms of rulesets attracts a bigger playerbase/customerbase. It just comes across as greedy and short sighted, and is a really odd way of self-promoting.
Honestly, I'd probably just follow whatever my friends do. My love of 40K was recently reignited by the background and models rather than the rules, so I'm just happy painting and playing Tyranids - the actual game mechanics are secondary at this point
. But, if it did I might just get models just to paint and maybe give my little dudes a decent looking display to stand on on a shelf until things change enough.
