Can be a victory or defeat.

My most one-sided battle to date involved my Drukhari (Kabal of the Obsidian Rose aircraft, Ravagers and warriors in transports) vs. mostly-infantry Dark Angels. I got to pick the deployment map, and I chose the one that allowed me to set my army as far away from the enemy as possible. My opponent got first turn, and the only thing he had with the range to hit me was his Land Raider's 4 lascannons, which he aimed at one of my aircraft. He got some bad rolls and did not inflict much damage. My army then surged forward and laid down a barrage of gunfire that took a pretty large bite out of his army. On his second turn, he deployed some deep-strikers and dealt wounds to some of my vehicles, but did not manage to finish one off. I kept shooting at him and disembarked a couple of squads of warriors to claim objectives or finish off some of his badly-battered squads in melee fighting.

When he conceded at the end of round 2, I had not lost a single model. No, not even one solitary warrior. Just some wounds to, like, three vehicles. I felt kind of bad, because he was a bit rusty and not too familiar with 8th edition. Also, even though most of the tactical advantages were on my side, he was genuinely unlucky with his rolls.

.

Two come to mind.

One was an Open War game. Mission was to kill the messenger, which was any model besides your Warlord.
My messenger is Epidemius, surrounded by Nurglings. His messenger was Joe Schmoe Kabalite Sergeant in a Raider.
Turn one, I deep strike three squads of Oblits (this was back when you could Deep Strike Turn One).
I blow up his Raider with the first squad's shooting. He conceded before I even picked up my dice to kill the messenger.

Two was a more normal game, where the Ravenguard supplement had just come out. About 1,000 points.
He had Destroyers, Wraiths, a DLord, and the Stormlord. I had Assault Centurions.
I got T1. I annihilate half the Destroyers with flamers and bolters, then charge everything. He Heroically Intervenes, bad idea. I annihilate everything except the Wraiths.
He has the Wraiths run away, and the rest of the game they run and hide. I stopped tracking objectives because, honestly, it didn't matter.

The first game of the edition that I played was also my best.

My opponent had some experience of 8th, not much, but a lot more than me.

Fairly informal game.

1x Errant, 1x IG Infantry Squad,

He brings 3x Fire Warrior squads, 1x Devilfish, 1x Broadside.

By the end of the game, he- more through my luck than my judgement- had been tabled.

I had lost two Guardsmen.

“And there was much rejoicing.”

EDIT:

People have (rightly) said that this seems off. That is correct. I played two games that day, and have confused them. It wasn’t a perfectly balanced game iirc, so the above list has been amended. It might still be wrong, but I don’t think so.

pre nerf RG.

I keep one units of termintor paladins in reservs, alongside draigo. deploy two termintors and a unit of strikes along side a Librarian in terminator armour. All units out of LoS behind a set of two buildings. My opponent deployed very few units, mostly eliminators and some scouts on objectives.

My opponent goes first. teleports in a big unit of centurions next to me, and swarms the objectives with scouts. Then he shots me and charges me with centurions and 2 scout dreads On my turn I try to back padle, trying to shot stuff and not get fully cleared. On his turn 2 he conslidates on objectives, scoring the second turn back to back. On my turn 2 the paladins come down alongside draigo. They have to face a mostly untouched RG army of 2000pts, alongside 2 other termintors in two separate units.

Another games, wasn't really a game. It was vs a flyer eldar list. I had no units to engage flyers, his bases were too big for me to capture any objective. Grinded me down over 6 turns, as this was the time I didn't know you can just admit losing and not play the game till the end.

Most one sided win Playing Spacemarines agaisnt orks with a stompa both index, wow I went first with a landraider and missle devs the land raider alone did 13 wounds and the missle devs put on another 5-6 wounds. Reracking with him going first he won but nowhere near as decisively.

Most one sided loss, both playing foot marines into guard armour spam.
Codex 1.0 and Codex 2.0 with Ultramarines suppliment, turns out guard just table marines too easily.

Quickest game: I brought the new GSC codex, going mono-cult, against Space Marines (before their new codex), and failed every charge out of deep strike, including rolling 1's for things like "a plan generation in the making" and 1's all around for charges (and yes, 1's on rerolls too). I had the first turn, so my opponent really just had 1 turn but killed my backfield stuff pretty much all turn 1, and so I needed that deep strike punch to make stuff happened and it didn't. Conceded the game then and there.

I think my worst game was playing an assualt-oriented Chaos army against a league opponent's triple broadside list. We had the long-deployment map and so even turboboosting my bikes I couldn't get anywhere close to him - he castled his entire army in about one square foot and was just handing out rerolls and overwatch for days. Not a lot of fun, and it actually put me off playing the game for a while. I'm much more interested in Maelstrom rather than ITC now.

 DalekCheese wrote:
I bring 2x Warglaives, 1x Errant, 1x IG Infantry Squad, 1x IG HWS.

He brings 2x Fire Warrior squads, 1x Devilfish, 1x Broadside.

If the Tau took all their most expensive options, they still wouldn't reach 500 points. Two Warglaives is 300 points, and if by Errant you mean a Knight Errant, that's another 400 points. The Imperial Guard are another 100+ points. Your army was two or three times as powerful. I have to ask, why on Earth would your opponent agree to that match?

Well, my most funny and fastest one was right at the edition drop.
Specifically, he deployed his entire army save one dreadnought into reserves, and the dreadnought hid out of LoS. I scouted some Dominions up, and just meltagunned it to death, thus ending the game. It was funny, we laughed about it, but it doesn't really count because technically his deployment was illegal.


My most actual miserably one-sided game was Grey Knights versus Chaos Space Marines, [pre RoTD, post CA2019]. We were playing Lockdown. I described this in the threat about CA2019 missions and their relative quality versus ITC. The basic gist of it is that I used Interceptors and Gate of Infinity and deep striking units to keep him zoned into his deployment and off the objectives for the first two turns of the game, and because of the disappearing objectives, including the only one he held, even though I suffered fairly massive casualties in proportion to those I inflicted and was going to be pushed back pretty quickly, it turned out there just weren't enough victory points remaining on the table for him to overcome the deficit he was looking at at the end of turn 2, and he threw in the towel.

My Khorne Demons vs Sw.
My dice wouldn't roll to hit, to wound, or to save. Just about anything you'd need to roll a dice for? Pretty much all I'd get were 1s & 2s. Makes for a pretty one sided game.
Somehow I drug this out until turn 4, claiming a few objective pts along the way & killing a mere 3 Wulfin, before being tabled.

Tau gun line, borkan, hammer and anvil deployment. If not that, then I'd say the one time I let my friend set up the table, which was basically a shooting gallery. Yes he also played Tau lol

Early in 8th when my LGS-mates were still sure that Primaris were a worse investment than minimarines, I took an infantry heavy Iron Hands list (Captain, Lieutenant, three Tac squads, a Dev squad, a ranged dread, and my Predator in it's only game this edition), he had five Leman Russ tanks, two with the Command Tank upgrade, and several basic Guardsmen squads. He got first turn, did the preliminary bombardment, and then rolled nothing below a 9 for Battle Cannon shots. I conceded before he rolled for the fifth Russ because I had 6 mini-marines left in total.

It colored my opinion of 8th just a tad.

Brought a 2000 point Chas Knight list to a game that I was lead to believe was going to be vs Imperial Knights. A fun little giant robot smash fight.

When I arrived and placed my army out all of a sudden I was facing an optimized Imperial Fist running the detachment that grants them mortal wounds on 6's.

He got first turn and before I even got a turn I was down to two bracketed Knights and we just called it there. So as bad of a game that it was at least it only lasted about 30 minutes.

The Newman wrote:
Early in 8th when my LGS-mates were still sure that Primaris were a worse investment than minimarines, I took an infantry heavy Iron Hands list (Captain, Lieutenant, three Tac squads, a Dev squad, a ranged dread, and my Predator in it's only game this edition), he had five Leman Russ tanks, two with the Command Tank upgrade, and several basic Guardsmen squads. He got first turn, did the preliminary bombardment, and then rolled nothing below a 9 for Battle Cannon shots. I conceded before he rolled for the fifth Russ because I had 6 mini-marines left in total.

It colored my opinion of 8th just a tad.

When 8th dropped a LR battle cannon couldn't get higher than 6 shots.

To be fair, early in 8th, Minimarines were better than Primaris save Hellblasters. It wasn't really until after a ton of rounds of buffs that Intercessors really came into their own.

My BA vs an IG player that wouldn't acknowledge that tripointing was a thing. I was tabled in 3 turns and lost by 20+ VPs.

Imperial Knight + Baneblade vs. CSM (Soulgrinder, Defiler, Maulerfiend and Chaos Sorcerer in terminator armor, as I recall).

This was at the start of 8th, index only. I’d never gotten to use my superheavies before and wanted to try them out. My son got to tailor-build his army knowing what he was facing. Personally, I had just finished painting the Knight, had the Armorcast Baneblade since I bought it back when the company first made them (before the swappable hulls). I was simply curious how’d they play, and 8E was something new to learn.

Though the CSM sorcerer badly damaged the Knight with psychic mortal wounds, the Baneblade never took any damage. My son would have probably destroyed the Knight at the least if he hadn’t decided to charge it the last round and remained back and hit it with another psychic attack (though he still would have died to the Baneblade).

My sort of optimized Tau list vs. my opponent's REALLY BAD Thousand Sons list. Seriously, he was running just a Vanguard detachment with 2 fully tricked-out units of Scarab Termies, 2 Helbrutes, 2 Chaos Predators (lol), a big unit of Spawn, and a Daemon Prince (might have been some other stuff I don't remember). My list had a selection of the various Tau suits, including a Riptide, Stormsurge, Y'vahra, and a couple of Commanders, plus drones and troops. It was a tournament so don't think I was just being mean to someone in a pick-up game or something. I got first turn and blew up BOTH Preds, one of the Helbrutes, plus most of the Spawn, and my shooting phase wasn't over. My opponent ragequit, didn't even stay for round 3 of the event, and I haven't seen him playing 40k since (he'd already been having a tough time with 8th edition despite my group's repeated attempts to help him make better lists).

 ZergSmasher wrote:
My sort of optimized Tau list vs. my opponent's REALLY BAD Thousand Sons list. Seriously, he was running just a Vanguard detachment with 2 fully tricked-out units of Scarab Termies, 2 Helbrutes, 2 Chaos Predators (lol), a big unit of Spawn, and a Daemon Prince (might have been some other stuff I don't remember). My list had a selection of the various Tau suits, including a Riptide, Stormsurge, Y'vahra, and a couple of Commanders, plus drones and troops. It was a tournament so don't think I was just being mean to someone in a pick-up game or something. I got first turn and blew up BOTH Preds, one of the Helbrutes, plus most of the Spawn, and my shooting phase wasn't over. My opponent ragequit, didn't even stay for round 3 of the event, and I haven't seen him playing 40k since (he'd already been having a tough time with 8th edition despite my group's repeated attempts to help him make better lists).

8th is rather merciless, imo. In some ways, even worse than previous editions.

I can't remember all the details, but I can think of four games that were basically first turn turkey shoots in my favor using my classic marines. Two vs. Nids, one vs. Khorne and one vs. Tzeentch. Mostly they are cases of opponents being unprepared and my rolls (and rerolls) were just singing.

There was another 3000 point game vs. an all Custodes list. I had skewed my list towards massed Lascannons kind of for fun, and it just wound up working really well against his list. Just one of those things.

I think my worst loss was when I tried out a ten Rhino list as an experiment against Castellan, loyal 32, Custodes soup in it's prime. The terrain was bad for tank rushing and I didn't play the game well either. Just a botched game overall on my part

Index orks vs dark eldar vehicle spam. Mek guns were mostly out on t1, -1 to hit neutered survivor, splinter spam averaging about 50 model a turn, i can't even charge most vehicles as either flying or top of terrain and the few that were on ground too far and bubblewrapped by vehicles in terrain.

I was left with shooting at transports(-1 to hit) with pistols. Good luck with that.

My Nids against friend's marines after the new codex, prior to Blood of Baal, a 1500 points battle.

I went with a shooty Jormungandr list and a devilgaunt bomb. Not competitive, fluffy choices, but the list had a synergy and a theme with shooty devilgant-heavy gribblies backed by Ignore Cover warlord, Tervigon buffing and respawning ablative wounds for devilgants and some support heavy guns.
He went with a mostly Primaris list made of intercessors, aggressors, 10 hellblasters and some eliminators, + hqs with Pedro. A friendly match, though I was aware that CFs were going to hurt even more than regular marines.

Round1:
He has stolen the initiative but only killed a Maleceptor in turn 1. The unit was designed as a distraction fex, so it did exactly what it was supposed to. Magic snipers pounded my warlord Neurothrope with magic LoS ignoring shooting, but it lived.
I moved forward in my turn and managed to get closer while remaining out of LoS with almost everything but the big guys. I took down some eliminators and hellblasters thanks to Ignore cover shooting, aggressors ignored my heavy weapons.

Round2:
He moved around a bit to see some targets but failed to do more than a bunch of wounds on some monsters. Gribblies managed to stay out of LoS. Magic snipers kept pounding my warlord Neurothrope with magic LoS ignoring shooting, but it survived again on a last wound.
Devilgant bombs and reserves came in, my other devilgant group moved up from behind the wall and was within range of its intended target.

My game plan was executed better than I could hope for. Everything got in a range nearly unscathed, all shooting buffs were layered properly, everything fired, devilgants twice, and a Broodlord and a Trygon charged their targets.

The results were somewhat underwhelming, dice were way under average, but I did kill some models. A trygon failing to do any real damage to Aggressors was...just typical.

Round3:
My army was now in the open. Surviving Crimson Fists casually dropped every Nid on the table and not in combat, then finished the job in the following combat.

He didn't even use any of the new stratagems and not all of his units even got to fire. His two units of Aggressors didn't shoot once.

Nids just imploded.

That was rough.

Just after 8th came out, his Tyranids vs my AdMec

Turn 1: He Deep Strikes his 2 Trygons close to my line with a unit of 20(?) Genestealers with each, a third unit of 20 shoots up the board thanks to the Swarmlord.

He charges in, Overwatch kills one or two and they proceed to kill and tie up around 80% of my entire force. He then uses the fight-twice to simply decimate whatever I had left.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

The Newman wrote:
Early in 8th when my LGS-mates were still sure that Primaris were a worse investment than minimarines, I took an infantry heavy Iron Hands list (Captain, Lieutenant, three Tac squads, a Dev squad, a ranged dread, and my Predator in it's only game this edition), he had five Leman Russ tanks, two with the Command Tank upgrade, and several basic Guardsmen squads. He got first turn, did the preliminary bombardment, and then rolled nothing below a 9 for Battle Cannon shots. I conceded before he rolled for the fifth Russ because I had 6 mini-marines left in total.

It colored my opinion of 8th just a tad.

When 8th dropped a LR battle cannon couldn't get higher than 6 shots.

To be fair, early in 8th, Minimarines were better than Primaris save Hellblasters. It wasn't really until after a ton of rounds of buffs that Intercessors really came into their own.

I didn't get into 8th until after the first round of Codexes dropped, I think Orks were still missing theirs when I started.

Not recently but my last game lasted roughly 45 minuets. I was trying out my Space Marines, a year ago. My opponent also had space Marines. This is prior to the current Sm codex. My Primaris pushed up my left flank while he tried to hold the center of his deployment zone with some combat squads with predator tanks to their right and razor backs to their left.. My repulsors, agressors and rerolls gutted him. Once the predators were gone it was easy picking too many shots against too few models all the way down.
I didn't really enjoy this game, my opponent had just been getting back into 8th and hadn't really played very many games. but I do think my list was a little too op for his list.

Some 7 months prior to that my orks rolled an Am army during a tournament in 2 turns, with the Index. His list was geared to worry about large models, Knights and monsters. He had too few infantry and was relying on a couple of transports and the old Commissar. sadly he moved the chimera caring his commissar as between two of my trukks full of shoota boys who got out mobbed up charged surrounded and destroyed the chimers slaying his war lord possibly. but my bombers and other boys had made it across the table and were stuck in to everything where he was weak and my shooting had crippled his tanks, he was out of position and stuck. I actually felt kinda bad because he seemed like a really cool person to game with. Truck boys were magnificent that day with only 1 loss.

It was a narrative "fun" game, (and my opponent did misuse aggressors) but Orks vs Deathwatch was a complete gak show.

I even got to respawn destroyed units but I never made it into Close Combat with anything.

Later on we found Agressors have a PAIR of gauntlets, not 2x.

This was also pre codex, so I was using an Index army. I havent played my Orks since.

Imperial Guard vs Necrons

He put all his catachan Russes around Straken and my Arcs kept fluffinf the rolls. At one point he rolled six damage against an arc and I managed to roll a six on the shield roll. Other than that but he just focussed down one unit at a time and we called it on turn three. I think my arcs only managed to do like 6 wounds to a russ over the course of those turns.

I remember one of my first few games when I just got a rampager knight and still learning the game. I had a 1k point learning game with a friend who brought iron hands with a repulsor executioner, a thunderfire cannon, a contemptor and some marines.

I managed to do a turn 1 charge into his executioner and took it out though i sustained some dmg from overwatch. Also some bit of chipping here and there in the shooting round.
On his turn 1 he unloaded most of his fire into the knight and finished it off with his smash captain. But the rampager decided to blow up and on the mortal wounds rolls took out the captain, librarian and the remaining marines around him but rolling all 5 and 6 of dmg.

turn 2 my daemon prince got the charge off the contemptor after having almost the whole army shoot at it and took it out.
We called it there since it was just a thunderfire cannon left parked at the edge of his deployment.

I came into this game expecting fully to have my ass handed to me but the dice gods decided otherwise.

for funzies and experimentation, when the at the time new IH supplement showed up i tested my mechanized R&H list against his IH.

I'd have needed atleast another 5 Chimeras and it's contents to even stand a fighting chance.

It was at that point i also retiered my R&H army for the forseeable future. To be fair though, R&H were in a gak place since the start of 8th whilest SM 2.0 + supplements are atm pinnacle point until they get dethroned inevitably, but i still feel like something like that should not happen.

Oh have I got a story for you. We played at a 2v2 2000p tournament (1000p per player). The table had a special rule, it was an attacker vs defender scenario. Attacker could recycle destroyed troop units for free from the table edge and do the same for all other units, with the exception of HQ and LoW, for command points. We got utterly destroyed. Our recycled units got destroyed. We played Grey Knights and Black Templars vs Blood Angels and Salamanders. We kept recycling every turn just to have our dudes blow up in the following turn and when the dust settled...

We lost 6000p worth of units. Out of our 2000p we lost 6000p. Never been tabled three times in a row before, so that was a new experience.

Just before the lockdown, I had a game against a World Eaters player who wanted to give his new toys from PA a try.

I wrote a toned-down ork vehicle list, putting more focus on melee so he would get to use his stuff, a Gorkanaut, rokkit koptas, a bunch of buggies, Da Red Gobbo, weird boyz without da jump and a pile of warbikers.
He had a daemon prince, helbrutes, a forgefiend, spawns, a land raider and two rhinos with zerkers, a soul grinder, cultists, a unit of red butcher terminators, Kharn and various support characters.

We tried the new Open War ideas from CA 2019 and got the deployment with no no-mans land inbetween. We also got two twists, one increasing all movement by 2" and charges by 1", and the other one giving everyone +1 attack. WE player was happy. He also used one of the cards to deep strike his land raider.

I was really scared at the prospect of getting hit by a WE army with +1 attack and extremely fast movement, so I deployed all my 60 gretchin as three rows of meat shields, and everything else at least 7" behind them so the zerkers couldn't get through to them.

To say the least... it worked. Too well. The WE murdered 55 out of 60 gretchin T1, as well as four warbikers dying to the daemon prince just flying over the screen. His entire army was standing out in the open 6-8" from my army.

He lost more than half of his army turn one (with the land raider and terminators stuck in deep strike) and was fully tabled by my turn 3, with me having lost nothing but the gretchin, two weird boyz and six warbikers.

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

 Jidmah wrote:
Just before the lockdown, I had a game against a World Eaters player who wanted to give his new toys from PA a try.

I wrote a toned-down ork vehicle list, putting more focus on melee so he would get to use his stuff, a Gorkanaut, rokkit koptas, a bunch of buggies, Da Red Gobbo, weird boyz without da jump and a pile of warbikers.
He had a daemon prince, helbrutes, a forgefiend, spawns, a land raider and two rhinos with zerkers, a soul grinder, cultists, a unit of red butcher terminators, Kharn and various support characters.

We tried the new Open War ideas from CA 2019 and got the deployment with no no-mans land inbetween. We also got two twists, one increasing all movement by 2" and charges by 1", and the other one giving everyone +1 attack. WE player was happy. He also used one of the cards to deep strike his land raider.

I was really scared at the prospect of getting hit by a WE army with +1 attack and extremely fast movement, so I deployed all my 60 gretchin as three rows of meat shields, and everything else at least 7" behind them so the zerkers couldn't get through to them.

To say the least... it worked. Too well. The WE murdered 55 out of 60 gretchin T1, as well as four warbikers dying to the daemon prince just flying over the screen. His entire army was standing out in the open 6-8" from my army.

He lost more than half of his army turn one (with the land raider and terminators stuck in deep strike) and was fully tabled by my turn 3, with me having lost nothing but the gretchin, two weird boyz and six warbikers.

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

that is the core issue.

Back when doctrines came out for marines we did a small game of like 1.5K and my opponent was running imp fists so no cover for me. he was maxing his CP so he ran a battalion with 3 squads of 10 marines a predator and a dreadnought and some other stuff..IIRC it's been a while. i was trying out a spearhead so i ran with 2X5 hellblasters (rapid fire rifles), venerable dreads, techmarine on bike/conversion beamer, captain, stalker and a storm eagle.

I won the roll to go first and he didn't seize so i obliterated his dread and predator turn 1 and then proceeded to take out most of his intercessors on turn 2, i think i lost like half my hellblasters and took a few vehicle wounds.

He wasn't aware of what hellblasters could do so the AP-4 2 damage chewed through his force pretty quick along with all the autocannons and lascannons. it was basically over on turn 2.


conversely i was on the receiving end of something similar in a 2k game against crimson fists where my opposition ran a large force of intercessors with stalker boltguns, a doredeo, and hellblasters.

that is the core issue.

Funny since GWs doctrine ERRATA specifically was to force marine players into CC because thats how they want you to play your marines.

after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Had a game early in 8th before the changes to T1 Deep Strike where my Blood Angels were playing against Dark Eldar. He went first but had nothing much to shoot at, then most of my army appeared via Deep Strike and I made literally every single 9" charge. Once the dust settled he had something like 2 damaged Ravagers and a wrapped unit of Kabalites left. I think he even failed his first Shadowfield save and lost his Archon to a random Death Company guy.

Not Online!!! wrote:
after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Go back and read the preface to the ERRATA they are specifically telling people how they MUST play their marines on the table in 8th because they did a poor job designing the new game mechanics.

particularly this point

Such armies also do not encourage players to collect the ‘typical’ combined arms force Space Marines are famed for. As a result, we are changing how the Combat Doctrines ability works so that your army must progress through all of the combat doctrines over the course of the battle

Who the hell are you to tell me how my space marines typically fight. Its my GD army and i will play it how i like. even in the lore each chapter/legion focuses on different combat doctrines not every marine is a black templar or a khornate berserker.

Whats next? gonna tell my guard they MUST be a gunline with lots of artillery and tanks if i want to bring a force with assault vehicles full of bullgryn for a melee themed army section? .

Its the classic "drive me close so i can hit them with my sword" joke, except GW are actually serious.

 aphyon wrote:

that is the core issue.

Funny since GWs doctrine ERRATA specifically was to force marine players into CC because thats how they want you to play your marines.

So, in your opinion, what did my opponent do wrong then?

 aphyon wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
after T3 no?

but marines are or should feel like a shock and awe army.

unlike orks or other more melee orientated factions.
which don't work...

Go back and read the preface to the ERRATA they are specifically telling people how they MUST play their marines on the table in 8th because they did a poor job designing the new game mechanics.

particularly this point

Such armies also do not encourage players to collect the ‘typical’ combined arms force Space Marines are famed for. As a result, we are changing how the Combat Doctrines ability works so that your army must progress through all of the combat doctrines over the course of the battle

Who the hell are you to tell me how my space marines typically fight. Its my GD army and i will play it how i like. even in the lore each chapter/legion focuses on different combat doctrines not every marine is a black templar or a khornate berserker.

Whats next? gonna tell my guard they MUST be a gunline with lots of artillery and tanks if i want to bring a force with assault vehicles full of bullgryn for a melee themed army section? .

Its the classic "drive me close so i can hit them with my sword" joke, except GW are actually serious.

Oh i totaly agree, but the issue is that GW honestly failed at designing doctrines or many factions and sub archetypes in rules and customizability.

Another exemple is daemonengine lists with the discordant suppossedly making them viable.
Yet the failure that the design has inherent (namely the aura) beeing tied to the discordant is a failure because of what the discordant is.
Gw failed quite heavily in design ruleswise and customizability in 8th on multiple cases.

SM beeing just the pinacle because their design in rules customizability failed so hard that it had to be stripped down.

 Jidmah wrote:
J
Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

So.... you shot him to death with a more melee focused Ork hoard??

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
J
Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

So.... you shot him to death with a more melee focused Ork hoard??

yep, somthing occuring quite often really.

If you can't ignore/ remove screens and have access to movement shenaningans, as world eaters don't do really, then your Melee buffs can be as insane as they want you will not see any light at the end of the proverbial gauntlet that is dakka atm.

Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

I was playing my Craftworld Ulthwe vs. Tau and we were playing a Maelstrom from CA2017. He won most of the roll-offs and then chose Hammer & Anvil deployment and put all of his stuff at the back of his deployment zone. This meant, even assuming I was going to deploy at the edge of mine, his opportunities to get in range with his weapons were severely limited since his tau list was mainly things like Ghostkeels, riptides and fire warriors. I of course, deployed most of my stuff outside of range and made no attempt to seize or even go first. Because of setting stuff so far back, he struggled to even claim some objectives in his first turn and did absolutely nothing to my army. In my first turn, with his being forced to come closer, I could move things like wave serpents into firing range and so some extreme range psychic powers, while my Fire Prisms shot far from the back and my Hemlock advanced 60"+ up the board with impunity. It's not like my first turn was especially devastating since I was mostly removing drones, but he had left large gaps in his lines allowing me to sneak a plane between units and also remove a lot of his markerlight support. His 2nd turn was him having to make a choice between dealing with tanky wave serpents or a hemlock all up in his face, with little to no markerlight support left and no velocity trackers on any of his suits. By the end of the 2nd turn the game was practically over. as with no drones, stuff started to die in droves and the leadership malus of the Hemlock was causing tons of fire warriors to run. He actually had plenty of units left on the board by the 3rd turn, but he just had no damage output that could really effect my vehicles.

I think with the way our lists had been set up I certainly had the advantage (and this was before Tau got massive points drops in CA2018) but his deployment decisions absolutely crippled any chance of the game being a contest. Like I said, because of where he chose to set up he even struggled to claim objectives whenever they came up in maelstrom cards. It really felt like he was used to playing his army as a static gunline and had no concept of objective-based play or playing vs. non-CC armies. Super weird game.

I think I didn't even lose a single model either. It's been about 2+ years so maybe one of the vehicles did end up dying in the end, but aside from that I can't recall anything of mine being removed.

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Heres the article for anyone that wants to read it:
[url]
https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-learn-from-your-mistakes/[/url]

I played a Maelstrom game with my Crimson Fists against Orks, shortly after the Ork codex was released (so pre-errata).

Turn one: The Orks mobbed up their Loota squads turn one a proceeded to shoot everything they could see off the table, while Da Jump propelled a mob into my lines. I kill some Gretchin and maul the jumping unit.

Turn two: Most of the rest of my army is killed by the Lootas. The few scraps I have achieve nothing.

Turn three: We have to call it because my opponent's turns took forever and the store is closing. I win because I actually managed to score some objectives.

 Galas wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Or, in other words, you must dedicate the majority of your army to shooting because melee can't impact the game before turn 3.
Which is exactly the same as "melee doesn't work".

I was using a pretty underwhelming chaos marine army although I thought my trump card would be Abaddon. I faced off against a Tyranid force pretty much exclusively consisting of monstrous creatures. Sadly by the time the dice allowed Abaddon to turn up (turn 4) he and his terminator bodyguard were pretty much all I had left

 Galas wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Shot, and counter-charged after he had to grind through a cheap screen which is impossible to get around.

If you read Nick Nanavaty article about whats a strategic mistake and whats a tactical mistake he explains how playing with a ork horde army agaisnt a tau castle of drones and riptides instead of charging everything turn 1 and dying to fire he spent three turns destroying drones with lootas and shooting and he only made charges on turn 3.

Meele is extremely potent in 8th. When you use it wisely, as a tool, and with a cold head. Too many people just charges blindly to kill some screens and then get shoot to shreds without acomplyshing anything. Or to be counter charged. I love word eaters, I play khorne in age of sigmar but in 8th meele is less about doing damage once you reach it and more about actually reaching it.

Heres the article for anyone that wants to read it:
[url]
https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-learn-from-your-mistakes/[/url]

but this more or less means that melee at best is a support thing, and not a valid tactic. Because 8 saw armies that had shot everything up as a valid tactic. saying that someone can start mucking up units on turn 3, when their main part of the army shot stuff up, doesn't really help much someone who plays a melee army. Or helps him in that way, that it tells him to not play a melee army.

also to get the turn 3 charges with mucking up, you still need good melee, resiliance to not get killed by return fire for 3 turns and speed. Some armies and a lot more units don't have those options. ton of the weaker armies when playing vs a good shoting army are dead on turn 3.

This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

 Galas wrote:
This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Second, outside of a few select exception, the amount of melee units that don't work vastly outnumber the ones that do.

You assuming that this is by design rather than by flawed rules is the only mistake here.

Yeah. If you want to require a combined arms approach, give my Nurgle Daemons guns.

 Jidmah wrote:

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

Counter story time:

I was playing Sisters of Battle against Orks for a competitive match in the days of the Beta Codex. I brought some Exorcists, some Seraphim and a bunch of BSS & Doms, plus a squad of Repentia. He had the shokk gun, a bunch of lootas and gretchin, and a lot of boyz.

We set up pretty much just outside of charge threat from each other, and stayed that way for the first turn while he dismantled my stuff and my own shooting killed a small number of boyz and grots. I was out of tanks by the end of turn 2. I moved up a bunch of units, baiting him into a bad charge, and then charge him and tore him to shreds with all my BSS and Doms and Seraphim, and then swept out with all his boyz dead and killed his Grots and Lootas with minimal further casualties, all of it in melee.

My shooting, from an ostensibly strong short-ranged shooting army, killed something like a couple dozen grots and a few boyz. My melee basically eradicated his army.


More seriously, this sounds like a your-opponent problem. Melee is very strong, particularly skirmishers and some hard-hitting resilient pressure "fire magnet" units. Mass Melee, rushing across the battlefield with your whole army without any real sense of strategy or tactics and just charging the first thing you find... is not. And shouldn't be. In fact, it shouldn't ever be even in a not-sci-fi game, because then it would just lead into a mass melee arms race. Close combat and close combat threat are already stupidly strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. If you want to require a combined arms approach, give my Nurgle Daemons guns.

They should have.

Daemons with daemon guns would have been so cool. Instead they're just like fantasy models standing around looking stupid and out of place and like someone's playing a completely different game.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Galas wrote:
This is 40k, not fantasy. Being a meele army doesnt mean you only use meele units. And if you use those they better have a way to get past screens, etc...

The problem is that people mistakes "Some meele units and lists don't work" with "Meele doesnt work in 8th".

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Second, outside of a few select exception, the amount of melee units that don't work vastly outnumber the ones that do.

And the amount of shooting units that work great in melee is astounding.



First off, only daemons don't have a core shooting troop, and only Orks and Tyranids after that have the option to have a melee core and can also have a shooting core. And Orks and Tyranids both have strong shooting options, more shooting options than melee options. And Daemons don't even have exclusively melee units, they have a few ranged shooting units to help them out

Oh wait, Horrors exist. But I'll be generous and assume you're mono-god or something.


Being a "melee army" isn't about not being able to shoot well or having an entirely melee army, it's about being able to have a melee battle-line with guns giving cover. Most other armies can't even do that, and only Daemons are actually shooting-weak if they want to field shooting units in support.

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

The Soul Grinder is a hybrid melee/shooting unit-and not a particularly good one.

Tzeentch has a decent amount of shooting, but still not as much as a Marine list or such.

Khorne does not get any psychic powers, and has Skull Cannons. But, even with maxed Grinders and Skull Cannons, you aren't a very shooty force.

Slaanesh and Nurgle have a small number of offensive powers, but really rely on Smite to do damage in the psychic phase. They also have some units with incidental shooting-Slaanesh Chariots with whips that have minuscule range, Plague Drones with 12" Deaths' Heads...

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Even with those insane buffs, melee simply doesn't work in 8th.

Counter story time:

I was playing Sisters of Battle against Orks for a competitive match in the days of the Beta Codex. I brought some Exorcists, some Seraphim and a bunch of BSS & Doms, plus a squad of Repentia. He had the shokk gun, a bunch of lootas and gretchin, and a lot of boyz.

We set up pretty much just outside of charge threat from each other, and stayed that way for the first turn while he dismantled my stuff and my own shooting killed a small number of boyz and grots. I was out of tanks by the end of turn 2. I moved up a bunch of units, baiting him into a bad charge, and then charge him and tore him to shreds with all my BSS and Doms and Seraphim, and then swept out with all his boyz dead and killed his Grots and Lootas with minimal further casualties, all of it in melee.

My shooting, from an ostensibly strong short-ranged shooting army, killed something like a couple dozen grots and a few boyz. My melee basically eradicated his army.


More seriously, this sounds like a your-opponent problem. Melee is very strong, particularly skirmishers and some hard-hitting resilient pressure "fire magnet" units. Mass Melee, rushing across the battlefield with your whole army without any real sense of strategy or tactics and just charging the first thing you find... is not. And shouldn't be. In fact, it shouldn't ever be even in a not-sci-fi game, because then it would just lead into a mass melee arms race. Close combat and close combat threat are already stupidly strong.

Your opponent lost because he charged with a melee army.

And the amount of shooting units that work great in melee is astounding.

Because they can shoot.

First off, only daemons don't have a core shooting troop, and only Orks and Tyranids after that have the option to have a melee core and can also have a shooting core. And Orks and Tyranids both have strong shooting options, more shooting options than melee options. And Daemons don't even have exclusively melee units, they have a few ranged shooting units to help them out

Nice goalpost moving to just troops.
Make list of all dedicated melee units across all codices and see how many of those are objectively worth playing.
Make a list of all melee army traits and see how many of those are objectively worth playing.

It is true that a shooting unit can assault to a great effect, as you keep bringing that up as a false analogy in every thread. But a unit dedicated to melee or even an army dedicated to melee is utter trash unless unless they as much as possible into shooting.

Being a "melee army" isn't about not being able to shoot well or having an entirely melee army, it's about being able to have a melee battle-line with guns giving cover.

Being a "melee army" in 8th mean bringing 1-5 melee units out of the 20-30 units that make up your army.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

First of all, 40k was clearly designed with the intent that certain armies are supposed to only use melee units.

Like what armies?

Any Daemon army besides Tzeentch.

As Daemons, shouldn't you also be relying heavily on magic? And as Khorne, don't you also have shooting units? Also, that Daemon Defiler thing?

The Soul Grinder is a hybrid melee/shooting unit-and not a particularly good one.

Tzeentch has a decent amount of shooting, but still not as much as a Marine list or such.

Khorne does not get any psychic powers, and has Skull Cannons. But, even with maxed Grinders and Skull Cannons, you aren't a very shooty force.

Slaanesh and Nurgle have a small number of offensive powers, but really rely on Smite to do damage in the psychic phase. They also have some units with incidental shooting-Slaanesh Chariots with whips that have minuscule range, Plague Drones with 12" Deaths' Heads...

And did GW design the book with the intent of only mono-building that codex? You're looking at a pretty niche case for mono-build demons. The next books up in terms of CC focus potential might be Nids, but they sure can bring a crapton of shooting, too.

Made a new thread to address this. Find it here.

Prior to IG nerf with pt increase on plasmaguns, turn 1 deepstrikes and rule of 3 restrictions - army composed of mostly 4x plasma scion CMS embarked in valkyries & deepstriking wiping out my entire army composed mostly of 2W bikes in 1 turn.

Prior to nerf, you could take any number of officer of fleet/commisar to meet the 'one per OFFICER' rule for command squad.

Practice game for my first tourney:

My wraithseer ynnari contingent and custom CWE (all the bells and whistles)vs triple KLOS... It was over after just 1 turn of shooting.

Really made me re-evaluate my choice of a hobby lol.

 skchsan wrote:
Prior to IG nerf with pt increase on plasmaguns, turn 1 deepstrikes and rule of 3 restrictions - army composed of mostly 4x plasma scion CMS embarked in valkyries & deepstriking wiping out my entire army composed mostly of 2W bikes in 1 turn.

Prior to nerf, you could take any number of officer of fleet/commisar to meet the 'one per OFFICER' rule for command squad.

At one point, you didn't even need to have a officer to command them, and just meet your HQ requirements and have a quadrillion plasma scion command squads deep striking in. I faced that one time, and it was pretty silly.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Prior to IG nerf with pt increase on plasmaguns, turn 1 deepstrikes and rule of 3 restrictions - army composed of mostly 4x plasma scion CMS embarked in valkyries & deepstriking wiping out my entire army composed mostly of 2W bikes in 1 turn.

Prior to nerf, you could take any number of officer of fleet/commisar to meet the 'one per OFFICER' rule for command squad.

At one point, you didn't even need to have a officer to command them, and just meet your HQ requirements and have a quadrillion plasma scion command squads deep striking in. I faced that one time, and it was pretty silly.

Right, and back then the first turn was almost guaranteed for the player who finished deploying first. And this army had 2-3 drops because all of his scions were starting the game embarked on squadron of valkyries.

 Argive wrote:
Practice game for my first tourney:

My wraithseer ynnari contingent and custom CWE (all the bells and whistles)vs triple KLOS... It was over after just 1 turn of shooting.

Really made me re-evaluate my choice of a hobby lol.

Lol goddam! I love the Lord of Skulls, I can't help it.

Someday. . . someday. . .

We tried a 2v2 game a little while back, the convoy one from Vigilus defiant. The idea was there was an ork caravan being guarded by drukhari for lulz, and they were being attacked by a combination of grey knights and mechanicus. Objective for us is get two of the four trukks across the map, objective for them is kill the trukks. My housemate was playing orks, this was his first game, and he was very excited about his strategy of boyz in trukks. Turn 1, neutron lasers mean 3 trukks gone, turn 2 deep striking grey knights kill the last one.
That was about 10 months ago, the orks have been collecting dust while my housemate works up to asking me to buy them.

Crackedgear wrote:
We tried a 2v2 game a little while back, the convoy one from Vigilus defiant. The idea was there was an ork caravan being guarded by drukhari for lulz, and they were being attacked by a combination of grey knights and mechanicus. Objective for us is get two of the four trukks across the map, objective for them is kill the trukks. My housemate was playing orks, this was his first game, and he was very excited about his strategy of boyz in trukks. Turn 1, neutron lasers mean 3 trukks gone, turn 2 deep striking grey knights kill the last one.
That was about 10 months ago, the orks have been collecting dust while my housemate works up to asking me to buy them.

I think part of it basically all of it may be the game you played. The narrative missions aren't exactly set for fun and fair play, and if you give an stupidly easy victory condition like "kill these 4 fairly fragile vehicles", then the result is going to be one sided and probably un-fun for at least one person involved if not everybody was there to tell a story with the toys.

I would definitely not recommend such a game for somebody's first game.


See if you can get them to play another game, play a matched scenario and go easy because new players rarely have a full mastery of the mechanics or a collection complete enough to build a good list. If you make enough "mistakes" they can capitalize on and feel good about themselves, (you don't have to throw the game, just enough that they feel accomplished like they succeeded something but also have room to grow), and they'll be much more likely to stick around.

Agree, the convoy mission is just terrible.

The whole mission is created around the assumption that it's difficult to destroy 500-700 points of vehicles before they move across the entire board.

Unless you generate armies at random or take some other measures to severely reduce firepower, even the most casual army should easily be able to do that. Anyone who build their army with handling tanks in mind will just win the convoy turn one.

It's been a while so I don't quite remember all of the units involved. In a tournament game hot on the heels of the Space Marine supplements, my Dark Angels took first turn, and considered going after objectives right away, because I wouldn't have been able to get in shooting range yet, but decided to hide instead, and basically give my opponent the middle of the table straight away. His Raven Guard were then pretty much able to jump on what felt like all of the objectives. He was also able to take out quite a few of my tacticals with some unit that could shoot without line-of-sight, I think Eliminators or something? Turn two I decided I had to get out and fight for some of those objectives. My deep striking terminators took out one unit and minced some wounds from an Invictor war suit; the rest of my shooting hit notihing but shadows and air. He then proceeded to shoot all but a captain and librarian from the board, which he then charged and wiped. Turn 2 tabling.

 Jidmah wrote:
Agree, the convoy mission is just terrible.

The whole mission is created around the assumption that it's difficult to destroy 500-700 points of vehicles before they move across the entire board.

Unless you generate armies at random or take some other measures to severely reduce firepower, even the most casual army should easily be able to do that. Anyone who build their army with handling tanks in mind will just win the convoy turn one.

Considering vehicles with that pricetag even need to be generally acounted for and killed efficently i find the convoy mission extremely , blind, in the sense that when there are vehicles now somwhat semi common that are in that points bracket alone how high is the chance that a convoy of lesser vehicles is going to survive it.

My worst game was Tau against my Slaanesh Daemons.

I'd brought a fun and fluffy list including Zarakynel (the super daemon, which is bad, I know), a keeper or two, some 'nettes, dp, all that jazz.

My opponent brought triptide Tau.

I got the first turn. Zarakynel died in overwatch, everyone else failed their charges or charged and killed something pointless like breacher teams or kroot that were screening.

So, being down to 1334 points in a 2000 point game after my own first turn, my opponent took his first turn...

and the rest is history.

earlier in 8th, practice for an event, event was 2k, practice was 1k, I bought the Kraken genestealer half of my list.

opponent conceded turn two after two of his baby knights were subjected to omnomnom... he had brought them forwards not realising just how flipping fast genestealers could get

he could probably have still won to be honest, he had killed quite a few of them but only had light infantry left and didn't fancy trying to shoot me down as I piled in

had another, objectives one where you win if you claim the enemy objective at the end of your turn. Custards v Death Guard, I got the objective on my first turn with some lucky rolls. that was that

I tend to either win very quickly.. or be wiped out

like deciding to see what Oooohesabadunhim could do in close combat.. it turns out he can do quite a bit, sadly I had no survivors to report back to HQ


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
Agree, the convoy mission is just terrible.

The whole mission is created around the assumption that it's difficult to destroy 500-700 points of vehicles before they move across the entire board.

Unless you generate armies at random or take some other measures to severely reduce firepower, even the most casual army should easily be able to do that. Anyone who build their army with handling tanks in mind will just win the convoy turn one.

I disagree under specific circumstances, such turkey shoot missions are very useful when teaching someone to play, you take the turkeys and let them shoot the ever living poo out of them

Yeah, but that was clearly not the intent when releasing a narrative mission as part of a campaign book, right?

I can't help wondering if this thread isn't an indirect response to the "Are most games over by turn 2?" thread having so many people insisting games aren't really decided until turn 4.

It's really hard to know. But I still say the answer is "too many are".

The Newman wrote:
I can't help wondering if this thread isn't an indirect response to the "Are most games over by turn 2?" thread having so many people insisting games aren't really decided until turn 4.

They're very different questions though.

This is asking for the extrema of our negative experiences, which of course we love to share.

The other one is asking if most of our games are severely negative experiences, which is not true.

I've had a couple of games that have gone really lopsided really fast, but the vast majority of my games do not do so.


I think the people saying T4 are probably pretty accurate, at least for the current ITC and Eternal War mission packs. It's structural to the missions and the way they're run and scored, not really to any sort of issues with army balance I think:
Under the current progressive scoring scheme, the late turns of the game are increasingly irrelevant as a lead can be built up from showing early aggression and board control that if you haven't come back/taken the lead already, a turn 6 comeback is unlikely to change the score, there aren't enough points on the table to score.
By the end of turn 3, all assets are on the board, so there's no dark horse from reserves to suddenly change the tide. If you're not able to assume the advantage with your reserves by then end of turn 4, you're unlikely to do so on turn 5 or 6; your force on-board is only going to get weaker.

Thus turn 4 is really your last opportunity to make a decisive play from behind. Turn 5 and 6 really just exist for said play to "pay off" and show whether your turn 4 play was actually enough to turn the game around.

I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

Not counting games when the fickle hand of the Open War deck produced something truly one-sided, my most one-sided defeat in competitive play was with my Dark Angels against Orks after their Codex dropped. He mobbed up two full mobs of Lootas into one, and by the end of turn 1 my Hellblasters and Black Knights were dead (pretty much half my army). I tried to scrape a couple of VPs, but the game was done.

On the other hand, I wiped out a Knight and Magnus on Turn 1 at a different tourney with pretty much the same list. He still tried to get some VPs, but he couldn't dig out of the hole.

In both cases we were banking on our Invul saves, and in both cases we paid for it!

The Newman wrote:
I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

I'm pretty sure that's why most tournament rules have clauses in the event of tabling/concession that the remaining player gets the full points possible. Sometimes this is more granular and stipulates they play the remaining turns out by themselves so that models actually have to move to objectives/deployment zones within the game time limit.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I can't help wondering if this thread isn't an indirect response to the "Are most games over by turn 2?" thread having so many people insisting games aren't really decided until turn 4.

They're very different questions though.

This is asking for the extrema of our negative experiences, which of course we love to share.

The other one is asking if most of our games are severely negative experiences, which is not true.

I've had a couple of games that have gone really lopsided really fast, but the vast majority of my games do not do so.


I think the people saying T4 are probably pretty accurate, at least for the current ITC and Eternal War mission packs. It's structural to the missions and the way they're run and scored, not really to any sort of issues with army balance I think:
Under the current progressive scoring scheme, the late turns of the game are increasingly irrelevant as a lead can be built up from showing early aggression and board control that if you haven't come back/taken the lead already, a turn 6 comeback is unlikely to change the score, there aren't enough points on the table to score.
By the end of turn 3, all assets are on the board, so there's no dark horse from reserves to suddenly change the tide. If you're not able to assume the advantage with your reserves by then end of turn 4, you're unlikely to do so on turn 5 or 6; your force on-board is only going to get weaker.

Thus turn 4 is really your last opportunity to make a decisive play from behind. Turn 5 and 6 really just exist for said play to "pay off" and show whether your turn 4 play was actually enough to turn the game around.

And that's why i only play oldschool style objectives when we are not doing kill each other(which tends to be 90% of games for quick play). it doesn't matter until the last turn, then you see who is holding the objectives. and random turn 6 or 7 could change the entire outcome. making playing beyond turn 2, 3, or 4 vital. so even an army that got mauled in an earlier turn still has a chance to pull off a win.

Mi most mismatched game was my friend's Death Guard vs. my Imperial Knights. I shredded him from range, and played keep away. The only things that could catch me couldn't put me down quickly enough and got roasted.

Really a boring game.

 DarkHound wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

I'm pretty sure that's why most tournament rules have clauses in the event of tabling/concession that the remaining player gets the full points possible. Sometimes this is more granular and stipulates they play the remaining turns out by themselves so that models actually have to move to objectives/deployment zones within the game time limit.

You missed the point, we specifically avoided doing that exact thing to discourage super-tuned/heavy alpha-strike lists. Table someone in the first couple of turns or shred them so badly they don't see a point in continuing and you only get 5-10 tournament points. Go the full five turns and you could wind up with 20+. It strongly encouraged building and playing more defensively instead of trying to walk out of turn one with an insurmountable advantage.

The Newman wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

I'm pretty sure that's why most tournament rules have clauses in the event of tabling/concession that the remaining player gets the full points possible. Sometimes this is more granular and stipulates they play the remaining turns out by themselves so that models actually have to move to objectives/deployment zones within the game time limit.

You missed the point, we specifically avoided doing that exact thing to discourage super-tuned/heavy alpha-strike lists. Table someone in the first couple of turns or shred them so badly they don't see a point in continuing and you only get 5-10 tournament points. Go the full five turns and you could wind up with 20+. It strongly encouraged building and playing more defensively instead of trying to walk out of turn one with an insurmountable advantage.

No.

We did something similar for a narrative campaign and all it encouraged was people conceding before the game started if they knew they were going to lose because the opponent got less points than if they'd fought a proper battle, meaning that the territory was taken over less quickly (we had points ratchet up per side until one side got a certain superiority level). It became common to duck games by surrendering over the discord before the game was even played, because that meant the opponent got fewer points.

The Newman wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

I'm pretty sure that's why most tournament rules have clauses in the event of tabling/concession that the remaining player gets the full points possible. Sometimes this is more granular and stipulates they play the remaining turns out by themselves so that models actually have to move to objectives/deployment zones within the game time limit.

You missed the point, we specifically avoided doing that exact thing to discourage super-tuned/heavy alpha-strike lists. Table someone in the first couple of turns or shred them so badly they don't see a point in continuing and you only get 5-10 tournament points. Go the full five turns and you could wind up with 20+. It strongly encouraged building and playing more defensively instead of trying to walk out of turn one with an insurmountable advantage.

So what you're saying is you purposely dragged the game out to 4+ turns. This doesn't show that typical games AREN'T decided by turn 2. You simply decided not to decide the battle by turn 2 by pulling your punches.

 aphyon wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I can't help wondering if this thread isn't an indirect response to the "Are most games over by turn 2?" thread having so many people insisting games aren't really decided until turn 4.

They're very different questions though.

This is asking for the extrema of our negative experiences, which of course we love to share.

The other one is asking if most of our games are severely negative experiences, which is not true.

I've had a couple of games that have gone really lopsided really fast, but the vast majority of my games do not do so.


I think the people saying T4 are probably pretty accurate, at least for the current ITC and Eternal War mission packs. It's structural to the missions and the way they're run and scored, not really to any sort of issues with army balance I think:
Under the current progressive scoring scheme, the late turns of the game are increasingly irrelevant as a lead can be built up from showing early aggression and board control that if you haven't come back/taken the lead already, a turn 6 comeback is unlikely to change the score, there aren't enough points on the table to score.
By the end of turn 3, all assets are on the board, so there's no dark horse from reserves to suddenly change the tide. If you're not able to assume the advantage with your reserves by then end of turn 4, you're unlikely to do so on turn 5 or 6; your force on-board is only going to get weaker.

Thus turn 4 is really your last opportunity to make a decisive play from behind. Turn 5 and 6 really just exist for said play to "pay off" and show whether your turn 4 play was actually enough to turn the game around.

And that's why i only play oldschool style objectives when we are not doing kill each other(which tends to be 90% of games for quick play). it doesn't matter until the last turn, then you see who is holding the objectives. and random turn 6 or 7 could change the entire outcome. making playing beyond turn 2, 3, or 4 vital. so even an army that got mauled in an earlier turn still has a chance to pull off a win.

Yeah, I'm increasingly less of a fan of the progressive scoring and more of a fan of "who holds the objectives at the end of the game" for this reason.

Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.


If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.

If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Yeah, that's why it was moved to progressive. I'm aware of that.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the trying to invent scoring systems that disincentiveizes destruction of enemy forces is a lost cause. First off, destruction of enemy forces is the fundamentally most critical aim of a wargame that allows objectives to be accomplished, and second off, if there's a problem with firepower being too cheap, then problem is that firepower is too cheap, not the scoring system.

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.


If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Which is why many of us promote healthier coverage of terrain as the solution. What this game desperately needs are cases where one would ask "what good is all this firepower if I won't be able to shoot at anything?"

When there are sufficient terrain to maneuver through, it can potentially change the dynamics in list building where you are forced to bring in multiple tactical elements into your list (forwards, mid field & back field elements), instead of focusing purely on heavy hitters.

Gunline works because they essentially have board wide presence (within their operating range of course) due to the sparsely placed terrain. You limit this ranged offense by populating the board enough so that they have limited 'corridors' they can effectively hold. Conversely, melee doesn't work precisely because of the magnitude of influence a single unit can exert in a given area. In short, there should be more places to hide than there are open areas for shoot outs.

Also, densely packed board gives you the opportunity to block out certain areas/force you to break formation for certain unit types. Our house rule is that terrains (other than scatter terrains) cannot be placed within 6" of another. This gives enough room for large oval based models to pass through in single-file, limiting the offensive output compared to if the said models all walked up side by side.

Of course, terrain isn't a panacea - all non-LOS 'artilleries' need some sort of penalty for shooting blind (i.e. this weapon can target enemies that are not visible to it. When targeting enemy that are not visible, this weapon suffers -1 to hit rolls.), but it's been working pretty well so far in our house games.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.

If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Yeah, that's why it was moved to progressive. I'm aware of that.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the trying to invent scoring systems that disincentiveizes destruction of enemy forces is a lost cause. First off, destruction of enemy forces is the fundamentally most critical aim of a wargame that allows objectives to be accomplished, and second off, if there's a problem with firepower being too cheap, then problem is that firepower is too cheap, not the scoring system.

Dead units can't score in any system. ITC made a workaround with the ruin thing, but not all battles take place in ruins.

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.


If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Which is why many of us promote healthier coverage of terrain as the solution. What this game desperately needs are cases where one would ask "what good is all this firepower if I won't be able to shoot at anything?"

When there are sufficient terrain to maneuver through, it can potentially change the dynamics in list building where you are forced to bring in multiple tactical elements into your list (forwards, mid field & back field elements), instead of focusing purely on heavy hitters.

Gunline works because they essentially have board wide presence (within their operating range of course) due to the sparsely placed terrain. You limit this ranged offense by populating the board enough so that they have limited 'corridors' they can effectively hold. Conversely, melee doesn't work precisely because of the magnitude of influence a single unit can exert in a given area. In short, there should be more places to hide than there are open areas for shoot outs.

Also, densely packed board gives you the opportunity to block out certain areas/force you to break formation for certain unit types. Our house rule is that terrains (other than scatter terrains) cannot be placed within 6" of another. This gives enough room for large oval based models to pass through in single-file, limiting the offensive output compared to if the said models all walked up side by side.

Of course, terrain isn't a panacea - all non-LOS 'artilleries' need some sort of penalty for shooting blind (i.e. this weapon can target enemies that are not visible to it. When targeting enemy that are not visible, this weapon suffers -1 to hit rolls.), but it's been working pretty well so far in our house games.

We found that too. Put enough terrain on the board and playing the game starts to get tactical.

Martel732 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.

If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Yeah, that's why it was moved to progressive. I'm aware of that.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the trying to invent scoring systems that disincentiveizes destruction of enemy forces is a lost cause. First off, destruction of enemy forces is the fundamentally most critical aim of a wargame that allows objectives to be accomplished, and second off, if there's a problem with firepower being too cheap, then problem is that firepower is too cheap, not the scoring system.

Dead units can't score in any system. ITC made a workaround with the ruin thing, but not all battles take place in ruins.

Yeah, uh, that's how wargames work. That's kind of the point. Blow enough of the enemy to bits to let you claim more objectives than them.

The question is whether you build to be able to move to and claim objectives at all, and that basically comes down to whether you can expect to completely eliminate them.


I'm also just increasingly not seeing a problem. By and large, most gunlines cannot table an enemy, period, this edition. Characters and LoS get in the way, and shooting units have poor board control. It's high mobility or fast aggressive forces that can table the enemy, which are coincidentally also the ones that would expect to win on either form of objective scoring.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Practice game for my first tourney:

My wraithseer ynnari contingent and custom CWE (all the bells and whistles)vs triple KLOS... It was over after just 1 turn of shooting.

Really made me re-evaluate my choice of a hobby lol.

Lol goddam! I love the Lord of Skulls, I can't help it.

Someday. . . someday. . .

1 isin't so much of a problem I think... But 3? with a disco lord? And an MOP? And a demon prince for further buffs? yieks...

Never degrades BS... can very easily have bs2+ with 2+ /4++/6+++ T8 26 wounds.. And pumps out all of the shots all re-rollable with deamon forge at 48".
And of course its soo bloody big it sees all around the battlefield and forms a physcial wall so the disco lord can just sit behind it.

Like they just delete whatever you point it at and then takes a whole armies firepower and as long as it has 1 wound it just does it all again. The pinnacle of unintended rules interaction IMO.
If you get dawn of war deployment like I did its just like over..

There was that time I didn’t turn up because anxiety took a run up at my Nads?

That was a one sided outcome. And I don’t begrudge it!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There was that time I didn’t turn up because anxiety took a run up at my Nads?

That was a one sided outcome. And I don’t begrudge it!

You been on the juice ?

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.


If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Well you are welcome to try, but that also mean i have all game to do it back to you and also play an actual game beyond turn 2....and you seem to forget that those random turn 6s and 7s change the game dynamic from wins to loses and ties more often than not with end objective scoring

We found that too. Put enough terrain on the board and playing the game starts to get tactical.

Yes it did make the game very tactical in 3rd-7th, not so much with 8th. since terrain has almost no effect on the game (unless it is a huge solid blocking LOS item). a +1 to armor is negligible as is not risking dangerous or difficult terrain that hampers movement. coupled with how fast many units can move now.

It was a tournament, pre codex orks. I faced 3 knights and Magnus, that was it, 4 models. My army was some tankbustas in trukks, a battle wagon with big shootas, 50 orks, some killa kans and 3 rokkit buggies. The deployment was corner to corner. The terrain had a base in the middle that blocked vehicle movement but not line of sight. Since my rokkits were limited to 24 inch range I had to drive around the terrain/walk after the trukks were blown. I think i did in total 12 wounds to a knight and 4 wounds to magnus no kills. Da jumping boys did not help.

In the end i retreated some surivors to my corner just to camp out the rest of that very one sided match.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

The Newman wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I think if anything it highlights the difference between scenario play and straight kill-em-all games, and what a well designed tournament pack can add.

We threw a couple of events with a carefully designed scenario pack and afterward "tournament practice" meant trying to not win a game before turn 3, because you'd win the game but lose out on tournament points if you won too quickly.

A straight kill-em-all can be decided before either army is even deployed, tournament play can change what constitutes a win by enough to make the game worth playing anyway.

I'm pretty sure that's why most tournament rules have clauses in the event of tabling/concession that the remaining player gets the full points possible. Sometimes this is more granular and stipulates they play the remaining turns out by themselves so that models actually have to move to objectives/deployment zones within the game time limit.

You missed the point, we specifically avoided doing that exact thing to discourage super-tuned/heavy alpha-strike lists. Table someone in the first couple of turns or shred them so badly they don't see a point in continuing and you only get 5-10 tournament points. Go the full five turns and you could wind up with 20+. It strongly encouraged building and playing more defensively instead of trying to walk out of turn one with an insurmountable advantage.

No.

We did something similar for a narrative campaign and all it encouraged was people conceding before the game started if they knew they were going to lose because the opponent got less points than if they'd fought a proper battle, meaning that the territory was taken over less quickly (we had points ratchet up per side until one side got a certain superiority level). It became common to duck games by surrendering over the discord before the game was even played, because that meant the opponent got fewer points.

Doing that in my circles would get you quick & public dis-invite for attempting to ruin everyones fun. How many pts the other guy did/didn't get would no longer be of any concern of yours.

I think my most one-sided game was in a doubles tournament we were running at the club, I ended up paired with someone I knew was the most casual of the cas - back in the days when marines were awful and conscripts were OP, and he ran like all sniper scouts with camo cloaks plus Telion as troops, vanvets with 1 guy of each melee loadout, a jump pack captain and chaplain, and 1 of each weapon devastators and that was basically it.

So I made it my goal to win 1 game and pulled out my most crazy competitive gak, which was taking all my vostroyans and running them all as two monstrous conscript blobs, plus mortar teams and some barebones battlecannon russes.

We ended up winning that whole tournament, and a couple of the games were just unbearably silly with the Orders system allowing conscripts to just hose people off the board and sprint onto objectives and a bunch of crazy crap.

My very first game of 8th edition was also my most one-sided. I played an imperial guard list with a stormlord packed to the brim with 18 lascannon heavy weapon teams (and maxed sponsons), with Yarrick standing outside of it and a whole bunch of infantry squads surrounding it.

The other player used Tyranids including genestealers, and a mix of big nasties.

I proceeded to bog down the genestealers with overwatch and bodies on the first turn and then shot every threat off the board with the insane amounts of lascannons and vulcan megabolter fire. He conceded at the end of round 2.

 aphyon wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Both systems have tons of problems. Killing power can dominate either system.


If scoring is at the end, I have all game to table you.

Well you are welcome to try, but that also mean i have all game to do it back to you and also play an actual game beyond turn 2....and you seem to forget that those random turn 6s and 7s change the game dynamic from wins to loses and ties more often than not with end objective scoring

We found that too. Put enough terrain on the board and playing the game starts to get tactical.

Yes it did make the game very tactical in 3rd-7th, not so much with 8th. since terrain has almost no effect on the game (unless it is a huge solid blocking LOS item). a +1 to armor is negligible as is not risking dangerous or difficult terrain that hampers movement. coupled with how fast many units can move now.

I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

For me it was probably a game with my Salamanders against Knights. As in, I got tabled in turn 2 or three, I believe. Honestly, I never really stood a chance. That however was massively faciliated due to a misunderstanding on my part. It was the first time I played with my current group, to which I was invited by friend of mine telling me that we would play a few games. Turns out, we were playing a tournament and a more fluffbunny-SM list (mind you, that was back in 2018, so no supplements) that consisted mainly of units I liked/had paint on stood no chance to a couple knights
It was all good though. Also, it is not as if I am a good player, like, at all^^

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

To be fair, SOME cover should be able to be affected by AP.

A minimal change to make cover a bit more meaningful might be that cover adds +1 to your save AND reduces the AP of incoming attacks by 1, to a minimum of 0. Still doesn't help Harlequins or Daemons, and still benefits Marines more than Guardsmen or Orks, but hey, it's an idea.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

To be fair, SOME cover should be able to be affected by AP.

A minimal change to make cover a bit more meaningful might be that cover adds +1 to your save AND reduces the AP of incoming attacks by 1, to a minimum of 0. Still doesn't help Harlequins or Daemons, and still benefits Marines more than Guardsmen or Orks, but hey, it's an idea.

To be fair a lot of the issue is excessive AP and GW failing to understand the values was in AP1 and 2 now with armies that are imune to it, the game feels even more wonky.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

Which just prove the point and historical fact that GW had it right before and all they did, like they do in every edition change, is take good rules that were fine and throw them away.


I could list core rules through the last 5 editions that should have been in EVERY version of the game. but usually only existed in one or a few.

Ice_can wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

To be fair, SOME cover should be able to be affected by AP.

A minimal change to make cover a bit more meaningful might be that cover adds +1 to your save AND reduces the AP of incoming attacks by 1, to a minimum of 0. Still doesn't help Harlequins or Daemons, and still benefits Marines more than Guardsmen or Orks, but hey, it's an idea.

To be fair a lot of the issue is excessive AP and GW failing to understand the values was in AP1 and 2 now with armies that are imune to it, the game feels even more wonky.

A lot of flaws can be chalked up to "GW is not very competent."

Not everything-even good designers make mistakes, and no game is perfect. But still-GW makes a lot of mistakes.

 aphyon wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

Which just prove the point and historical fact that GW had it right before and all they did, like they do in every edition change, is take good rules that were fine and throw them away.


I could list core rules through the last 5 editions that should have been in EVERY version of the game. but usually only existed in one or a few.

Agreed. Their are lots of old rules I wish were kept, but the old ap/armour save and cover save systems are at the top of my personal list.

Agreed. Their are lots of old rules I wish were kept, but the old ap/armour save and cover save systems are at the top of my personal list.

I am right there with you on that. it's why i am teaching new players who only know 8th to play older editions with some house rules that put back in the best of the core rules. i actually want the terrain to be a real effect on the game. it adds so much more to the experience. i have had many good times even using mysterious terrain rules from 6th, even when i am on the receiving end of them.

Don't even get me started on the hot mess that importing fantasy dice pools/phases for psychic abilities into 6th/7th was, when a base LD check and straight forward "use it in the proper phase" worked just fine in the previous editions.

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

What it should represent should not hinder the game from being good. If not being able to represent 19th century napoleonic standoff meant the game being more balanced and not decided at list building (i.e. whoever brought the most biggest, baddest and meanest guns capable of turn 1 army wipe), I would more than welcome such change.

Our house currently employs about 25-40% terrain coverage, with at minimum 1 medium LOS (6"×4") and two scatters per 2'x2' squares. Even at 50% coverage the board is not too crowded (with terrain). Also, another added benefit of heavy terrain presence is that it acts as a deterrent for people who play 200 boyz army where its just not that fun to play against.

Cities of death game with concealed deployment.

I place all three of my maulerfiends on one side of the map to charge up the field (It's a gutter run game so I have to get to his board edge to win). All of his tanks end up deployed on the same side within 18" and I have first turn. took out 2 tanks and roughed up a third, he scratched me back a bit but upon learning in my turn they would get a wound back, bringing the 2 most damaged back to their highest attack profile, he called it there.

My dark angels vs custodes bike spam with loyal 32. I think I killed about 6 guardsmen.

Start of 8th, My Space Wolves vs Tau, i had lots of Wulfen and Thundercav, everything died in his shooting phase or when chargeing, only the Deepstrike Arjac Rockfist made it in with chargeing through a building for no overwatch. Then he fell back killed him too. Game over start turn 3 i killed 2 squads of firewarriors..

Not much have changed since then, thats why i feel the battle is allready lost bigtime when they said 9th is basicly just refined 8th (not to mention they had ZERO sell points for assault armies in their 9 good things video, with 9" charge range i dont care for outflank reserves, because i know alot of expensive units is just gonna stand there eating bullets as they have done for 3 years). So...yeah another solid handfull of years with fallback, and gunlines... What a kick in the nuts for elite melee armies (and now also horde melee armies) with the extra extra buffs for Leman Russ.

Im not even sure what to do at this point, i have Non-Shootmaris Space Wolves army (5000 points) and World Eaters+Khorne Daemons (7000 points), and none of them work and probably never will .

m not even sure what to do at this point, i have Non-Shootmaris Space Wolves army (5000 points) and World Eaters+Khorne Daemons (7000 points), and none of them work and probably never will

You have many options. Aside from playing other better game systems, to keep enjoying your 40K game experience play a previous edition you like better rather it be skirmish 2nd ed or one of the army style games that were 3rd-7th.

the good news is those editions will never again be FAQ'd into oblivion. they will never invalidate any of your minis or their capabilities and since they are effectively complete you will have everything available to play them all the time.


I just gifted a 3.5 chaos codex to a buddy of mine who plays a dedicated khorne army. once the pandemic lockdown lets us get back to gaming at the FLGS we are going to use it to play in core 5th edition with a few house rules (read the best rules from the compatible editions 3-7) and i think he will have a much more enjoyable experience playing an assault army that actually can do what it is designed to do on TT with less overall dakka in the number of shots being fired, the comparable drop in the number of wounds and ridiculous re-rolls as well as terrain that directly effects the game.

 aphyon wrote:

m not even sure what to do at this point, i have Non-Shootmaris Space Wolves army (5000 points) and World Eaters+Khorne Daemons (7000 points), and none of them work and probably never will

You have many options. Aside from playing other better game systems, to keep enjoying your 40K game experience play a previous edition you like better rather it be skirmish 2nd ed or one of the army style games that were 3rd-7th.

the good news is those editions will never again be FAQ'd into oblivion. they will never invalidate any of your minis or their capabilities and since they are effectively complete you will have everything available to play them all the time.


I just gifted a 3.5 chaos codex to a buddy of mine who plays a dedicated khorne army. once the pandemic lockdown lets us get back to gaming at the FLGS we are going to use it to play in core 5th edition with a few house rules (read the best rules from the compatible editions 3-7) and i think he will have a much more enjoyable experience playing an assault army that actually can do what it is designed to do on TT with less overall dakka in the number of shots being fired, the comparable drop in the number of wounds and ridiculous re-rolls as well as terrain that directly effects the game.

I like what you are saying.

Do you have a document with what you have made? (dont worry i dont care for spelling errors or anything), i really just want to enjoy my favorite armies/models and their lore, and it seems like you got a good headstart on how to do exactly just that or atleast inspiration.

(sorry for offtopic folks)

 Brutallica wrote:
Start of 8th, My Space Wolves vs Tau, i had lots of Wulfen and Thundercav, everything died in his shooting phase or when chargeing, only the Deepstrike Arjac Rockfist made it in with chargeing through a building for no overwatch. Then he fell back killed him too. Game over start turn 3 i killed 2 squads of firewarriors..

Not much have changed since then, thats why i feel the battle is allready lost bigtime when they said 9th is basicly just refined 8th (not to mention they had ZERO sell points for assault armies in their 9 good things video, with 9" charge range i dont care for outflank reserves, because i know alot of expensive units is just gonna stand there eating bullets as they have done for 3 years). So...yeah another solid handfull of years with fallback, and gunlines... What a kick in the nuts for elite melee armies (and now also horde melee armies) with the extra extra buffs for Leman Russ.

Im not even sure what to do at this point, i have Non-Shootmaris Space Wolves army (5000 points) and World Eaters+Khorne Daemons (7000 points), and none of them work and probably never will .

Assault does work in 8th it's just very janky and takes a lot of micromanagement of rules jank to make it work, it's shortend to wrap and trap but it does work, though with the nee terrain rules I suspect that getting across the board is supposed to be way easier.

 Brutallica wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

m not even sure what to do at this point, i have Non-Shootmaris Space Wolves army (5000 points) and World Eaters+Khorne Daemons (7000 points), and none of them work and probably never will

You have many options. Aside from playing other better game systems, to keep enjoying your 40K game experience play a previous edition you like better rather it be skirmish 2nd ed or one of the army style games that were 3rd-7th.

the good news is those editions will never again be FAQ'd into oblivion. they will never invalidate any of your minis or their capabilities and since they are effectively complete you will have everything available to play them all the time.


I just gifted a 3.5 chaos codex to a buddy of mine who plays a dedicated khorne army. once the pandemic lockdown lets us get back to gaming at the FLGS we are going to use it to play in core 5th edition with a few house rules (read the best rules from the compatible editions 3-7) and i think he will have a much more enjoyable experience playing an assault army that actually can do what it is designed to do on TT with less overall dakka in the number of shots being fired, the comparable drop in the number of wounds and ridiculous re-rolls as well as terrain that directly effects the game.

I like what you are saying.

Do you have a document with what you have made? (dont worry i dont care for spelling errors or anything), i really just want to enjoy my favorite armies/models and their lore, and it seems like you got a good headstart on how to do exactly just that or atleast inspiration.

(sorry for offtopic folks)

I'll PM you shortly

1000pt game on a 4x4 table Index SoB vs. Guard. Celestine killed 600points of his army by herself.


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 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 aphyon wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

The Newman wrote:
I said *enough terrain*. Huge LoS blocking items and ruins everywhere, to the point that getting LoS is a challenge and tanks don't have many lines of advance.

The game should not require massive amounts of terrain to function. It's meant to represent everything from cramped city-fights (like what you're describing) to clashes on open battlefields.

No, the game shouldn't require loads of terrain, it just needs good terrain rules. Like maybe actual cover saves that aren't affected by ap....

Which just prove the point and historical fact that GW had it right before and all they did, like they do in every edition change, is take good rules that were fine and throw them away.


I could list core rules through the last 5 editions that should have been in EVERY version of the game. but usually only existed in one or a few.

Agreed. Their are lots of old rules I wish were kept, but the old ap/armour save and cover save systems are at the top of my personal list.

The old cover rules were gak too, don't kid yourself. They just seem fine now because you're not dealing with 2+++ rerolling ghostkeels and stuff.

The old armor system was a MASSIVE STEAMING PILE. There were only 3 realistic levels of armor penetration: Does pierce SM armor, doesn't pierce SM armor, and instant kill. The current system is much better.

I agree that they need a new cover system but lets not rose tint the past.

The problem with the current system is that AP is progressively less effective, yet progressively more expensive.

The old cover rules were gak too, don't kid yourself. They just seem fine now because you're not dealing with 2+++ rerolling ghostkeels and stuff.

The old armor system was a MASSIVE STEAMING PILE. There were only 3 realistic levels of armor penetration: Does pierce SM armor, doesn't pierce SM armor, and instant kill. The current system is much better.

I agree that they need a new cover system but lets not rose tint the past.

Having played 40K since 3rd and a host of other systems that use various armor and cover mechanics i have to say i 100% disagree with everything you said. the current system is a steaming pile of garbage.


Part of the tactics of actual tabletop play is knowing what units/weapons to use it which fight, and best use of the various cover available. with AV rating from 10-14 you are able to do damage with weapons from strength 4-10 dependent on the target AV.

Don't even get me started on the garbage that is the re-roll bubbles of 8th. the only real save re-roll that existed in 3rd-5th was the eldar psyker ability "fortune" that could only target one unit for one turn. that means you have at most 2 farseers giving save re-roll to 2 units.

When it comes to hard fixed saves VS the imported fantasy armor reduction (anybody remember the base 1+ save?) saves, since you take the best save available the all or nothing approach was far easier to track and remember with cover once again becoming an integral part of tabletop tactics.

8th is a terrible edition for the depth needed in a 28mm army game. it works fine with epic scale because it is simplified enough to keep the game moving for such a large number of units

 aphyon wrote:
Part of the tactics of actual tabletop play is knowing what units/weapons to use it which fight, and best use of the various cover available. with AV rating from 10-14 you are able to do damage with weapons from strength 4-10 dependent on the target AV.

That's pretty misleading. AV10 was pretty rare, mostly reserved for vehicles' rear armor. That means that vehicles were actually immune to small arms fire. Therefore 5th edition skewed extremely heavily toward mechanized lists, every infantry unit in a transport. A walking infantry unit couldn't fire further than 12" (old Rapid Fire only got max distance standing still, Heavy weapons couldn't fire unless the entire unit stood still) so had no board presence.

You ended up taking anti-tank weapons in every possible option. Even then there was no way to force a vehicle to die. You rolled on a D6 table where 1-2 dealt no damage, and a "wound" (penetration) roll equal to the AV was a glancing hit that had -2 on the table. For that reason, your only hope was to roll on the damage table as much as possible. Autocannons were king for de-meching armies, and Meltaguns were the default special weapon.

To be clear, it's not that you had to know which option was the best to apply in a situation, it's that there were no options. Some weapons could deal damage, most could not.

I guess I should also point out that infantry hordes didn't really exist. They were bad even against other lists that defaulted to so much anti-tank. They were slow across the board, had no range, and no durability. Plus it's unimaginably tedious to play minding the 2" spacing for a hundred models, since most lists had blast templates and flamers even incidentally. Hull-mounted flamers were 5 point choice that covered that weakness. Orks played 1500 points composed of 2 giant Nob Biker units with Lootas spam, Tyranids played Nidzilla, IG played Mech.

If you're thinking "well, what about assault armies?" Yeah. Exactly. They weren't super relevant because everybody was in transports. The situation was basically the same now as it was back then: you take a lot of shooting anti-tank and hope you crack enough transports.

Don't even get me started on the garbage that is the re-roll bubbles of 8th. the only real save re-roll that existed in 3rd-5th was the eldar psyker ability "fortune" that could only target one unit for one turn. that means you have at most 2 farseers giving save re-roll to 2 units.

That's true, there were very little synergies between units at all. In fact, most commanders actually didn't do anything including fight in close combat. Any stray Powerfist ignored armor and instantly killed the commander (and every close combat unit took a Powerfist on the sergeant for this very reason). Mostly you took psykers or Chaplains or such just to have some semblance of utility. It's not that we didn't want re-roll bubbles and utility auras; we took them at literally every opportunity.

When it comes to hard fixed saves VS the imported fantasy armor reduction (anybody remember the base 1+ save?) saves, since you take the best save available the all or nothing approach was far easier to track and remember with cover once again becoming an integral part of tabletop tactics.

Yeah, I remember literally every unit having a 4+ cover save at all times, which could not be mitigated or reduced. It was actually kind of the Achilles heel of any heavy infantry armies. They invested all these points into a 3+ armor save, where an Ork with his 6+ actually gets a 4+ for free. It also meant that armor penetration was an irrelevant mechanic. Basically it came down to: ranged weapons needed high volume of fire to beat cover saves, and close combat weapons had a blanket "ignores armor saves" property.


Man I'm way off topic.

In 5th the ork kan wall was very much a highly competitive horde army for games up to 1500 points.

That's pretty misleading. AV10 was pretty rare,

land speeders, war walkers, sentinels, trukks, chimera sides..not as rare as you think

That means that vehicles were actually immune to small arms fire.

As they should be! the entire point of an armored vehicle is to protect it (and its occupants) against small arms fire, especially for IFVs and transports. WWI tanks were dead meat to cannons because they were specifically designed with protection against small arms(specifically the machinegun) in mind in the begining.

Therefore 5th edition skewed extremely heavily toward mechanized lists, every infantry unit in a transport. A walking infantry unit couldn't fire further than 12" (old Rapid Fire only got max distance standing still, Heavy weapons couldn't fire unless the entire unit stood still) so had no board presence.

2 points
1 movement-not true. cav and beasts moved 6 but assaulted 12 and many units also had fleet. they could move, then run and then charge.
2.heavy and rapid fire weapons-this is why i am a supporter of house ruling in the better rules form other editions to make 5th better, IE snap fire for heavy weapons and maintaining max range with rapid fire weapons while moving but only getting the double shot at half range from 6th/7th

You ended up taking anti-tank weapons in every possible option.

So proper tactical options like a real army force has used since the second world war.

Even then there was no way to force a vehicle to die.

It is a game of tactics and chance built into dice rolls. there is always a way to kill a vehicle. keep in mind they only had effectively 1 wound and monsterous creature out-performed them in every way.

You rolled on a D6 table where 1-2 dealt no damage,

Except that it did-to the crew- it kept the tanks form moving and/or shooting

and a "wound" (penetration) roll equal to the AV was a glancing hit that had -2 on the table. For that reason, your only hope was to roll on the damage table as much as possible.

Yes and you could kill through cumulative damage or instant kill with a pen hit....you are just proving my point that it was a better system. far more realistic and immersive feeling than a trooper taking out a main battle tank with his side arm.

To be clear, it's not that you had to know which option was the best to apply in a situation, it's that there were no options. Some weapons could deal damage, most could not.

Actually there were many more options, to the point where armies had an entire armory to choose from. it is more accurate to say some weapons could do damage to everything including the hardest things (usually with less shots..a las cannon killed everything equally well, it just only had 1 chance to do it) while others designed to kill smaller squishy things could not hurt the harder things. again there were lots of options based on the units role and the targets they were optimized to fight.

I guess I should also point out that infantry hordes didn't really exist.

The hell they didn't tyranids and horde imperial guard were some of the hardest armies to face in 5th. both could bring in massive numbers of cheap infantry, some of which could flank or come back on the table after dying and still afford to bring in big units and heavy weapons. if you worried about the latter you often got tar-pitted and shut down by the hordes.

If you're thinking "well, what about assault armies?" Yeah. Exactly. They weren't super relevant because everybody was in transports. The situation was basically the same now as it was back then: you take a lot of shooting anti-tank and hope you crack enough transports.

Wow...no.... assault armies were hell to face because they could get to you and not be shot off the table at the end of turn 2 by the stupid amount of shooting in 8th. they also didn't stubb their toes on open ground when they were only 4" away from an enemy unit via the stupid random charge range mechanic.

most commanders actually didn't do anything including fight in close combat. Any stray Powerfist ignored armor and instantly killed the commander (and every close combat unit took a Powerfist on the sergeant for this very reason). Mostly you took psykers or Chaplains or such just to have some semblance of utility. It's not that we didn't want re-roll bubbles and utility auras; we took them at literally every opportunity

Your memory is a bit fuzzy, most named characters and even options for home made ones had the ability to get invul saves, be eternal warriors, had massively better stats in CC and provided army wide buffs on performance (not just a re-roll bubble).

Yeah, I remember literally every unit having a 4+ cover save at all times, which could not be mitigated or reduced. It was actually kind of the Achilles heel of any heavy infantry armies. They invested all these points into a 3+ armor save, where an Ork with his 6+ actually gets a 4+ for free. It also meant that armor penetration was an irrelevant mechanic. Basically it came down to: ranged weapons needed high volume of fire to beat cover saves, and close combat weapons had a blanket "ignores armor saves" property.

Actually cover saves ranged from a 3+ to a 6+ without special modifiers. their were alot of different types of terrain to match up to those stats, your description sounds a bit more based on the terrain you choose to use and not whats available. hard cover combined with blocking LOS, dangerous and difficult terrain (as well as mysterious which i enjoy) actually made using terrain have a very tactical effect on the game.

Again proving that it was a better system.

In 5th the ork kan wall was very much a highly competitive horde army for games up to 1500 points.

Well it didn't hurt that the grots in those Kans could actually hit things they shot at.

I remember how hard it was to face an infantry list a buddy ran that all had cybork bodies...nobs and boys with a 5++ just could not kill them.

Just last monday, I played a 1000 point game against a friend on Tabletop Simulator. He said he would be playing Black Templars and I told him I'd go CSM. I took two dakka Leviathan dreads buffed by a Chaos Lord, excepting to play against Black Tide. He ended up bringing a big squad of terminators in a land raider instead. I seized the initiative, popped the Land Raider turn 1 and the game was over. He conceded turn 2.

Overall not much fun for either of us, I felt pretty bad. His list was pretty bad though.


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 aphyon wrote:


Because of these better mechanics most games of 5th were never one sided at the end of turn 2.

Absolute nostalgia filled BS. 5th edition is my favorite edition, and in fact the edition in which I started playing 40K, but you're peddling BS. The fact that Leafblower lists even hit the meta competitively is proof that your assertion is silly.

Absolute nostalgia filled BS. 5th edition is my favorite edition, and in fact the edition in which I started playing 40K, but you're peddling BS. The fact that Leafblower lists even hit the meta competitively is proof that your assertion is silly.

I never said it was a perfect edition. there were many rules used in 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th that should have been in 5th, and are in our current house rules version that we still play. however looking at one gimmick list among the many that existed in each edition (iron warrior oblit/defiler spam in 3rd/unkillable eldar tank armies in 4th, lash prince armies etc...however players could find a way to break the game) doesn't change the fact the overall mechanics of 5th are still better than the way 8th has turned out.


One sided battles still did happen but not the the extent and speed that they do currently. most often it was a game where you were either hoping you got or didn't get that extra random turn past 5 since it changed the outcome of the game drastically. An example of that was a good friends super powerful eldar corsair list with hornets, warp hunters, some of the fighters, dire avengers and occasionally wraithguard. many times i fought him to a draw(often to my suprise) even though his army was chock full of S8 AP2 weapons and eldar shinanigans

I don't know how much you played of each edition but i played alot more than some. in 3rd and part of 4th i was single and was at the game store fridays and saturdays (and sometimes slept in my car to game from one day to the next for more game time) as of 2008 i became a store volunteer employee. i now limit my time to one day a week but it is usually 12+ hours for that day.

Up until 6th ed dropped 40K was literally the core of my gaming hobby aside from battletech. in that span i had full armies for -dark angels standard, ravenwing, deathwing, sisters, nids, tau and salamanders. i do not consider it nostalgia at all since i am still active with 5th ed. but rather a long catalog of continued experience and comparison with other editions.


8th is for lack of a better explanation an entirely different game to play than everything previous(like the switch from 2nd to 3rd). with some good ideas but overall a terrible edition by comparison given things like the subject of this discussion where you can have a TT tactical wargame that now depends more on list building combos like a magic deck than it does on what actions you take on the TT where games end up being decided in 2 turns and certain army types like melee oriented lists do not function effectively.

On the up side at least it isn't as bad as 6th, even GW figured that out and killed that edition after about a year.

I'm looking forward to this thread being retired and replaced with the "Share your most one-sided game in 9th" thread that will inevitably pop up.

The Newman wrote:
I'm looking forward to this thread being retired and replaced with the "Share your most one-sided game in 9th" thread that will inevitably pop up.

From bits and pieces going around about increased hits from blast weapons, no stacked to hit penalties, more command points, it'll be interesting to see if we get a 'turn one, shot them off the board' reply or if GW have some changes still up their sleeves for that.

The one that comes most to my mind is playing space marine all primaris earlier in 8th against my friends Tau. I go first turn and despite my very best efforts I roll so extremely poorly I literally no damage to important targets through the shield drones, and kill so very few field drones that my entire shooting did nothing to his army. It was the second worst rolling game I've ever had. I conceded at the end of my own turn 1 shooting before my opponent even had to fire a single shot.

We had a really good laugh about it and set up a different game with different armies and then had a really fun orks versus IG game though so that's good at least.

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
The one that comes most to my mind is playing space marine all primaris earlier in 8th against my friends Tau. I go first turn and despite my very best efforts I roll so extremely poorly I literally no damage to important targets through the shield drones, and kill so very few field drones that my entire shooting did nothing to his army. It was the second worst rolling game I've ever had. I conceded at the end of my own turn 1 shooting before my opponent even had to fire a single shot.

We had a really good laugh about it and set up a different game with different armies and then had a really fun orks versus IG game though so that's good at least.

We've had quite a few games where player 2 conceded without taking their first turn and several where player 1 conceded after player 2's first turn, but I don't think we've ever had player 1 concede before player 2 got to take their first turn.

We have had a few times where two guys were just hanging out instead of playing because one declined the game rather playing into the nonsense the other guy brought down. Does that count as a pre-game concession?

The Newman wrote:

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
The one that comes most to my mind is playing space marine all primaris earlier in 8th against my friends Tau. I go first turn and despite my very best efforts I roll so extremely poorly I literally no damage to important targets through the shield drones, and kill so very few field drones that my entire shooting did nothing to his army. It was the second worst rolling game I've ever had. I conceded at the end of my own turn 1 shooting before my opponent even had to fire a single shot.

We had a really good laugh about it and set up a different game with different armies and then had a really fun orks versus IG game though so that's good at least.

We've had quite a few games where player 2 conceded without taking their first turn and several where player 1 conceded after player 2's first turn, but I don't think we've ever had player 1 concede before player 2 got to take their first turn.

We have had a few times where two guys were just hanging out instead of playing because one declined the game rather playing into the nonsense the other guy brought down. Does that count as a pre-game concession?

I conceded after my own first turn once; the Invictor had just come out and my opponent was trying out three of them, and I called the game after my Custodes army didn't manage to kill any of the three of them he'd parked in front of my front lines.