I am getting back into 40k, so is 9th ed any good?
I first jumped in when 7th ed was current but didn't quite get to the point of actually gaming when 7th was upstaged by 8th. I was nonplussed about buying more books so I sort of lost interest a bit since. So now 9th has been out for a bit I am torn between trying to make some use of my old 7th ed books by playing some retro hammer or getting down with what is hip with the kids now, that being 9th.
9th, so far I have found to be probably the best edition since 5th. The emphasis on objective games has lead to a lot of games that were closer, or even pulling from behind since it's not all about killing. I've really been enjoying it so far.
If you are going to play 9th, I'd start by removing everything you know about 7th, because almost none of it is going to apply. It's a very drastic rework of the core system, and stuff like Vehicle armor doesn't exisit anymore.
I think you'll really enjoy it once you start getting a few games under your belt. One thing I liked is that there are diffrent missions and board sizes for the size of the games now. Playing a few combat patrol games at 500 points is a pretty great way to get the hang of the rules.
Crusade also seems to be a pretty big hit locally, so if you enjoy narrative that aspect is around for you too.
So yeah, 9th is a lot of fun and you should start playing it (Safely of course) as soon as you can!
Sasori wrote: 9th, so far I have found to be probably the best edition since 5th. The emphasis on objective games has lead to a lot of games that were closer, or even pulling from behind since it's not all about killing. I've really been enjoying it so far.
If you are going to play 9th, I'd start by removing everything you know about 7th, because almost none of it is going to apply. It's a very drastic rework of the core system, and stuff like Vehicle armor doesn't exisit anymore.
I think you'll really enjoy it once you start getting a few games under your belt. One thing I liked is that there are diffrent missions and board sizes for the size of the games now. Playing a few combat patrol games at 500 points is a pretty great way to get the hang of the rules.
Crusade also seems to be a pretty big hit locally, so if you enjoy narrative that aspect is around for you too.
So yeah, 9th is a lot of fun and you should start playing it (Safely of course) as soon as you can!
9th in many ways built and improved on 8th. 8th looking back seems like the public beta test for 9th ed.
GW has an official tournament packet again, which is actually rather good, in the Chapter Approved 2020. I have been playing those mission a lot over the last few months and I have found them to be really good.
Also in 9th GW added a new narrative system in Crusade. It has some RPG style mechanics as your gain experience and upgrades for your units. All the codexs released in 9th ed will have army unique crusade rules. The missions for crusade are also rather fun.
You're going to get a lot of different responses to this question. I'll share mine...
Personally, I think 40K was "best" back in 5th edition. It was not as complex or fussy as 7th edition, but not as sanitized (and as oddly bloated) as 9th edition is.
FWIW, 8th and 9th edition is a HUGE change from the trajectory the game was on for nearly 20-years (3rd edition to 7th edition). Some people like the new direction more, but others don't. The core rules are admittedly more simple now (especially in comparison to 7th), but much of the gameplay depth that I enjoyed has been removed and replaced with things that I don't enjoy as much. For example:
- Removed vehicle armor facings and vehicle damage tables. Vehicles are just normal units with toughness and lots of wounds now.
- Morale greatly simplified, and failing morale tests just removes models instead of causing fallback moves, regroup moves, etc.
- Shooting is much more lethal, with individual models able to fire individual weapons at whatever they want. There are less interesting choices and tradeoffs to make now.
- While the rules are simpler, the game is now bloated with rules for stratagems and a whole command point resource system, a ridiculous number of units and weapon types.
- The 9th edition missions are pretty good seeming, except for a rather significant first player advantage (which has plagued all of 8th and 9th to varying degrees).
All in all, 9th edition gameplay feels less about the choices and tactics you employ on the battlefield. Instead, your success seems to be even more about how well you built your army roster and how well you can remember and use dozens of stratagems over the course of the game. It's not what I want out of the game.
So.... my group has gone back to playing a heavily modified version of 5th edition (ProHammer, see the signature) which we've made compatible with all codexes from 3rd-7th edition. Players can use what they want and the modified rules makes it all work together. You can get a 5th edition book used for cheap, and still use your 7th edition codexes that you have and go to town.
I hope it sticks around for a bit longer than the last few editions. As it is I am bit glad I skipped 8th edition given it did not last any longer than 7th did.
SolarCross wrote: I hope it sticks around for a bit longer than the last few editions. As it is I am bit glad I skipped 8th edition given it did not last any longer than 7th did.
Honestly - that's another reason why my group went back to playing 5th. 5th edition is "done" and complete. And with our rules letting us use all codexes from 3rd-7th edition, we don't have the frustration of getting all invested in the latest edition just for it to be rendered obsolete and have to buy a mountain of rulebooks all over again in two years. Which you will likely have to do if trying to keep up with the latest. Plenty of people clearly enjoy being on the bleeding edge, but I simply don't play enough for it to be worth trying to keep up.
In response to earlier posts, the 9th edition missions are, with a few tweaks, pretty darn good. They can also be adapted and use with earlier editions of the game with minimal adjustment needed. So that, in itself, is not a reason to get invested in 9th edition entirely. Just a thought...
Mezmorki wrote: You're going to get a lot of different responses to this question. I'll share mine...
Personally, I think 40K was "best" back in 5th edition. It was not as complex or fussy as 7th edition, but not as sanitized (and as oddly bloated) as 9th edition is.
FWIW, 8th and 9th edition is a HUGE change from the trajectory the game was on for nearly 20-years (3rd edition to 7th edition). Some people like the new direction more, but others don't. The core rules are admittedly more simple now (especially in comparison to 7th), but much of the gameplay depth that I enjoyed has been removed and replaced with things that I don't enjoy as much. For example:
- Removed vehicle armor facings and vehicle damage tables. Vehicles are just normal units with toughness and lots of wounds now.
- Morale greatly simplified, and failing morale tests just removes models instead of causing fallback moves, regroup moves, etc.
- Shooting is much more lethal, with individual models able to fire individual weapons at whatever they want. There are less interesting choices and tradeoffs to make now.
- While the rules are simpler, the game is now bloated with rules for stratagems and a whole command point resource system, a ridiculous number of units and weapon types.
- The 9th edition missions are pretty good seeming, except for a rather significant first player advantage (which has plagued all of 8th and 9th to varying degrees).
All in all, 9th edition gameplay feels less about the choices and tactics you employ on the battlefield. Instead, your success seems to be even more about how well you built your army roster and how well you can remember and use dozens of stratagems over the course of the game. It's not what I want out of the game.
So.... my group has gone back to playing a heavily modified version of 5th edition (ProHammer, see the signature) which we've made compatible with all codexes from 3rd-7th edition. Players can use what they want and the modified rules makes it all work together. You can get a 5th edition book used for cheap, and still use your 7th edition codexes that you have and go to town.
I will have to check that out, that sounds really good. I actually deal in old warhammer books on ebay ( https://solarcrossgames.co.uk/dosh/ebaystorepage - shameles self-promotion sorry) so I actually have access to all the old books already. The challenge for me is finding someone to play with I think, that's the only reason I am really looking at 9th. I guess in general people tend to play whatever is current and of course you have to play something current in a GW store. (Although they are all shut now because of lockdown, lol).
SolarCross wrote: I hope it sticks around for a bit longer than the last few editions. As it is I am bit glad I skipped 8th edition given it did not last any longer than 7th did.
I do as well, 9th so far seems solid enough that it does not need a revamp from the core rules anytime soon. If they make some adjustments in the next CA2021 GT pack for the missions/secondaries that should be all they really need.
That being said, new edition launches are big money, but I'd really like if it stuck around for more than 4 years.
Yeah, playing older editions has it's issues with finding willing players. It's usually local GW store policy whether they allow older editions to be played or not. My local store said they don't care, so long as all the models are citadel miniatures and the right codex books are used. House rules are fine with them (but not all stores will be this way).
Finding players is the bigger issue. If you're looking to bring someone else into the hobby and get them going - you could of course see if they are willing to try an older edition that you already have the stuff for and are more familiar with. Bringing in new players and starting with an older version is probably easier than trying to convince an existing player invested in 9th to go back in time.
Mezmorki wrote: Yeah, playing older editions has it's issues with finding willing players. It's usually local GW store policy whether they allow older editions to be played or not. My local store said they don't care, so long as all the models are citadel miniatures and the right codex books are used. House rules are fine with them (but not all stores will be this way).
Finding players is the bigger issue. If you're looking to bring someone else into the hobby and get them going - you could of course see if they are willing to try an older edition that you already have the stuff for and are more familiar with. Bringing in new players and starting with an older version is probably easier than trying to convince an existing player invested in 9th to go back in time.
I've printed off Prohammer and will look it over as I read 5th ed. I know lots of vets say 5th was the best but even though I have it in stock I have yet to read it or play it.
The best chance of cultivating a new player would be to get my son and / or wife into it. So far they are being a bit stubborn. They will coo and marvel at my paint jobs but any attempt to get them to throw some dice around with me is met with apathy and bewilderment.
My best hope for getting into the gaming side of things will be GW stores and the local club I fear. Neither are active now because of lockdowns and even then I fear it will be 9th or nothing.
The ProHammer rules are in a fairly constant state of minor tweaking and adjusting, but I did just finish making a bunch of changes yesterday that I want to leave in place for a while for more testing. You printed it at a good moment
My group has been playing games using Tabletop Simulator (amazing!) to play games virtually due to the Pandemic. We're actually playing more than we were before hand since it's so easy, we can save our games and come back to them, etc. Pretty amazing - although no substitute for the real game and hand painted mini's.
I taught the game to my nephews this summer (10 and 12 years old) using ProHammer and they had a good time. Although one of them asked for Indomitus for XMAS so they might be getting pulled into the new edition! But they can always use the new miniatures with the older rules.
I've been tempted to maybe make a ProHammer version that uses 9th edition as a base - so that you can use the new style codexes and stats and options but with someone more similar to the older rules in terms of gameplay. But that's a longer term project!
For ProHammer 2.0, I want to fill in the gaps in the ruleset so that it can stand completely alone and doesn't need to reference earlier rulebooks at all. It'll get there eventually.
I really like 9th so far. I'm just annoyed at the sheer amount of erratas and other stuff that you need, beyond the basic rulebook and a codex. We're pretty early into the edition for the rules to already be such a mess.
Mezmorki wrote: The ProHammer rules are in a fairly constant state of minor tweaking and adjusting, but I did just finish making a bunch of changes yesterday that I want to leave in place for a while for more testing. You printed it at a good moment
My group has been playing games using Tabletop Simulator (amazing!) to play games virtually due to the Pandemic. We're actually playing more than we were before hand since it's so easy, we can save our games and come back to them, etc. Pretty amazing - although no substitute for the real game and hand painted mini's.
I taught the game to my nephews this summer (10 and 12 years old) using ProHammer and they had a good time. Although one of them asked for Indomitus for XMAS so they might be getting pulled into the new edition! But they can always use the new miniatures with the older rules.
I've been tempted to maybe make a ProHammer version that uses 9th edition as a base - so that you can use the new style codexes and stats and options but with someone more similar to the older rules in terms of gameplay. But that's a longer term project!
For ProHammer 2.0, I want to fill in the gaps in the ruleset so that it can stand completely alone and doesn't need to reference earlier rulebooks at all. It'll get there eventually.
I have entertained the idea of doing a "patch" for 7th edition which would aim to fix its balance issues and do up some datasheets for the newer releases. I do feel weirdly attached to that edition given I never really had a chance to play it. And as you say old editions are not in flux the way new editions are, and after years of field testing by the community the issues are sort of well known. Then again I am not sure I could justify spending the time doing that given monetising the labour would be iffy with GW jealously guarding their IP.
The other thing I thought I might do is to write a new game from scratch that can use the same models. That way there is a saleable IP at the end of the work.
If 9th is good though then maybe I should just go with that and save myself the trouble.
SolarCross wrote: ...I have entertained the idea of doing a "patch" for 7th edition which would aim to fix its balance issues and do up some datasheets for the newer releases. I do feel weirdly attached to that edition given I never really had a chance to play it. And as you say old editions are not in flux the way new editions are, and after years of field testing by the community the issues are sort of well known. Then again I am not sure I could justify spending the time doing that given monetising the labour would be iffy with GW jealously guarding their IP...
That's closer to a description of my homebrew rewrite (link in signature) than Mezmorki's.
As to 9th generally it's fine if you're a tournament player, or don't mind spam lists, or don't mind having to netlist to play even basic pick-up games, but I really dislike it due to the emphasis on tournament play and the masses of bloat GW constructed to make up for the fact that they pulled all the interesting gameplay out of the core rules.
A few of the other posts have mentioned Crusade; this is the 40k that I've been waiting for since 1989; it is the only way I play.
If you like the idea of starting with a small force of just a few units, and growing your army organically through game play, nothing else will come close to what Crusade has to offer.
If, on the other hand, you just want to build a 2k army and play, any of the older editions will probably do just as well, and some people who play this way do prefer older rule sets.
For Crusaders, 9th ed is a must. For others, it's a choice.
SolarCross wrote: I am getting back into 40k, so is 9th ed any good?
I first jumped in when 7th ed was current but didn't quite get to the point of actually gaming when 7th was upstaged by 8th. I was nonplussed about buying more books so I sort of lost interest a bit since. So now 9th has been out for a bit I am torn between trying to make some use of my old 7th ed books by playing some retro hammer or getting down with what is hip with the kids now, that being 9th.
Yes. It’s super fun. This forum is salty as feth, but yes, 9th is fun.
SolarCross wrote: ...I have entertained the idea of doing a "patch" for 7th edition which would aim to fix its balance issues and do up some datasheets for the newer releases. I do feel weirdly attached to that edition given I never really had a chance to play it. And as you say old editions are not in flux the way new editions are, and after years of field testing by the community the issues are sort of well known. Then again I am not sure I could justify spending the time doing that given monetising the labour would be iffy with GW jealously guarding their IP...
That's closer to a description of my homebrew rewrite (link in signature) than Mezmorki's.
As to 9th generally it's fine if you're a tournament player, or don't mind spam lists, or don't mind having to netlist to play even basic pick-up games, but I really dislike it due to the emphasis on tournament play and the masses of bloat GW constructed to make up for the fact that they pulled all the interesting gameplay out of the core rules.
I guess that is GW responding to the long running bellyaching from the community about "balance". A competitive game does want to be balanced, but the trick is that balance gets harder the more complex the game is. It becomes a combinatoric problem that is virtually insoluble. Only really simple and symmetrical games have a chance of being balanced. Games like chess, go or backgammon but even then after thousands of years of rigorous playtesting and statistical analysis it turns out white has a slight advantage over black in chess and black has a slight advantage over white in go... so..
In fairness to GW I don't think they really wanted to write balanced rules, they wanted a "fun" game based on drama and silliness rather than hard nosed gamey competition. 40k shouldn't even be properly considered a game at all given 28mm is just a stupidly huge scale for a wargame with tanks as game pieces. Really at 28mm scale 40k is more of a beauty pageant for hobby skills or some sort of LARP but with models. But the ThatGuys among us didn't understand that.
I don't really care about competitive playing. I play go, and that is a proper game for competitive gaming. I want to play 40k for the narrative, the goofying around and showing off my hobby skills.
If 10th is a major departure, I'd stick with 9th. I like the core format of the game... maybe some points tweaks here and there but that's true of every edition.
Its the best version of the game I've played... it's not a tactically deep game but it's a fun way to spend some time with friends.
I like what they've changed and their apparent direction. Just hard to buy back in when such core updates have been shifted to the codex/campaign book releases.
Editions only having a three year life and we're burning at least one waiting out the plague is really holding me back on dropping the hundreds on paper it would take to get up and running.
Skip 9th. The way GW wrote the 9e missions Tau are nigh-unplayable and likely going to remain so unless GW changes so much about the new Codex they're unrecognizable, which is unlikely given their established pattern of barely touching statlines and trying to fix everything with stratagems.
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SolarCross wrote: ...I don't really care about competitive playing. I play go, and that is a proper game for competitive gaming. I want to play 40k for the narrative, the goofying around and showing off my hobby skills.
Skip 9th and go to Oldhammer. There is no narrative (Space Marines with knives can and will kill a tank by stabbing it because the right people shouted at them), if you goof around you will get tabled in a turn (the lethality of the game makes "durability" more about avoiding LOS than anything else), the army rules are set up to make conversions pointless ("no option in the box? no rules!"), and the line of sight rules are set up to punish people who try ("My antenna can see the tip of your spear, I can shoot you!").
I'd say 8th felt good in the start, got kind of wonky later down the road.
I haven't even played 9th yet, my last game was back in February of this year around my birthday. Has been a sad year for this old vet. By the time I play again I'll feel like a noob, which is interesting as I haven't felt that way for a long time with warhammer.
It looks ok though ? I think some of the changes really kinda function oddly until more armies have their codex on hand which unless you are a marine ? Lord knows when that will be.
Skip 9th and go to Oldhammer. There is no narrative (Space Marines with knives can and will kill a tank by stabbing it because the right people shouted at them), if you goof around you will get tabled in a turn (the lethality of the game makes "durability" more about avoiding LOS than anything else), the army rules are set up to make conversions pointless ("no option in the box? no rules!"), and the line of sight rules are set up to punish people who try ("My antenna can see the tip of your spear, I can shoot you!").
That was one of the things that put me off about 8th was when I heard that options which did not have models got scrubbed. I really like conversions. Honestly that is a deal breaker.
I’ve just started Tau in 9th. Using the “Tau” Chapter Tactic (overwatch on 5’s) coupled with Fireblades giving an extra shot at close range... keeping units packed together to bump your overwatch is working pretty well for me. Take Darkstrider and you can fall back and shoot with Infantry. It’s more Firewarrior heavy than I might like, but it’s not unwinable. I’m finding 9th to be rewarding to the mid-range shooting that Tau do well.
Regarding conversions and the like... if you’re playing oldhammer, you’re playing with like minded individuals. It might be just as easy to request permission to use your converted models like “Legend” models, or as the closest rules-valid model instead.
Keep in mind, you don’t need to get on the treadmill. If you like the game at a given state you don’t have to keep buying new rules, etc. You can also perhaps find used copies on your local buy and sell.
Nothing wrong with Oldhammer. No given edition has ever been perfect, and you can build an excellent game with like minded people that are willing to work together to “fix” problems in older editions.
I personally enjoy 9th, and would suggest it as an excellent base game. I’d say it would be easier to tweak points and rules for 9th, to make an excellent game, than it would be to rework older editions.
greatbigtree wrote: ...Regarding conversions and the like... if you’re playing oldhammer, you’re playing with like minded individuals. It might be just as easy to request permission to use your converted models like “Legend” models, or as the closest rules-valid model instead...
I find this is much easier, both in writing the rules and in convincing other people to let you use them, in a pre-stratagem environment where you can worry only about the performance of your unit rather than trying to figure out how the support stack of stratagems and auras works (particularly when you need to be able to read every book to figure out whether your stratagem interaction is going to be OP or pointless) and whether your homebrew rules will break them because of some interaction you'd never heard of.
Just a point but don't forget with Corona many people have not gamed or have not gamed as much. So there's a lot more armchair theory floating around about 9th edition than normal by this stage in a release. Heck GW was messed up and we lacked a single 9th edition codex for over a month after the core book landed.
I also enjoy 9th massively and it's the best edition so far, with 5th being a close second. And I must say I was really skeptical about 9th at first, but with quite a few games under my belt now, both in real and TTS, I don't want to play in any other way.
If you haven't played 40k before, there is no reason to start another edition than 9th - older editions have different aspects that people (rightfully) miss today, but you also can't deny that the quality of the ruleset itself, the balance between armies, the balance between units within an army and the support from GW was much, much worse in older editions.
No, 9th is not good. It's simply not as bad as 7th or 8th, which is a bar so low even the Mariana Trench would consider it overkill.
40k isn't a wargame anymore, it's a TCG, where the game is decided at the deckbuilding stage, except the price gouging is done by the company rather than the secondary market.
The sad part is GW actually did manage to make a good game, namely Apocalypse, but left it to wither and die because I guess the beancounters didn't like giving datasheets for free rather than making you spend £50 for a handful of datasheets ala suppliments.
Add to that the insane escalation of needless rules since 8th Indexhammer (seriously, Marines have like 37 different layers of rules and buffs you need to parse at any time), and GW's insistence on the paper codex release paradigm where one army will rule the roost for years while others are a total joke.
Indexhammer 8th had such potential. A logical streamlining of the rules, but the constant need to codex creep and the utterly idiotic introduction of Primaris Marines to make the IP Lawyers happy after the Dog and Pony show that was the Chapter House lawsuits has destroyed that potential.
Not Online!!! wrote: The TCGification is indeed an issue Brian, just because you don't agree with the language chosen doesn't mean he hasn't some points.
Most TCGs I've played would be insulted by GW's low standards for rules and balance. They can't hide their shoddy rules behind their models.
Considering what old wargaming veterans on this forum expect from a wargame, I would say that 40k has stopped being a wargame a long time ago. To me, it has turned into a rather decent board game.
Not Online!!! wrote: The TCGification is indeed an issue Brian, just because you don't agree with the language chosen doesn't mean he hasn't some points.
Most TCGs I've played would be insulted by GW's low standards for rules and balance. They can't hide their shoddy rules behind their models.
Absolutely hence why i stated the frankly insultingly low standard of GW's rules. Whilest i personally would prefer stratagems going the way of the dodo, i can accept their existence, what i can't though is the frankly bad standards in regards to general rules writing. Frankly GW could learn a lot from some TCG's.
Considering what old wargaming veterans on this forum expect from a wargame, I would say that 40k has stopped being a wargame a long time ago. To me, it has turned into a rather decent board game.
Perfectly fine assessment, doesn't change the fact that the roots still permeate though and that some of the older rulessets might offer some aleviation of issues of the game, f.e. killyness and interactivity beyond just killing or getting killed. Alas, the maindraw imo is the universe and it is indeed a bit of a shame how gw treated APO or Killteam for that matter..
I haven't played ninth edition yet due to the current restrictions but having watched numerous battle reports on youtube and from what I've read of the games new focus on missions I'm really looking forward to it.
And whilst those complaining certainly have a point, ie. it's never really been balanced, and the codex release schedule can certainly leave some armies lagging behind, it's fun to play nonetheless.
Hehe i see Mez beat me to the punch, he and i have much the same idea. mine was far simpler with only 15 imported rules into 5th from the other editions, but he has done some fantastic looking layouts.
9th is an entirely different game if you played before 8th. some people love it, some of us don't see it as 40k any more than AOS is WHFBs.
If you want to look more into the old editions, including the set up our FLGS uses, i have a topic for it here
I guess I will see about picking up the main rules on ebay but I will hold off from buying any codices for now. The fact that 9th seems to be fairly well thought of compared with some previous editions makes it worth a look. In the end I will probably just try to play 7th with a view to making a patch for it, since I have the books and it is just the most familiar edition to me. I don't think it is as bad as some people say.
In the long run though I think I am make my own rule set from scratch. No edition of 40k is really that good and I have had enough fresh and neat ideas over the years that I do think I could knock something really superior together if I focused down on it. I would be looking to sell it eventually so I will have to keep it generic and free from GW's IP. But what I could do is include a faction builder rule set that would allow people to create a balanced "codex" suitable for adapting a given IP to the rules.
SolarCross wrote: I guess I will see about picking up the main rules on ebay but I will hold off from buying any codices for now. The fact that 9th seems to be fairly well thought of compared with some previous editions makes it worth a look. In the end I will probably just try to play 7th with a view to making a patch for it, since I have the books and it is just the most familiar edition to me. I don't think it is as bad as some people say.
In the long run though I think I am make my own rule set from scratch. No edition of 40k is really that good and I have had enough fresh and neat ideas over the years that I do think I could knock something really superior together if I focused down on it. I would be looking to sell it eventually so I will have to keep it generic and free from GW's IP. But what I could do is include a faction builder rule set that would allow people to create a balanced "codex" suitable for adapting a given IP to the rules.
I wouldn't waste your time, I seriously doubt anyone will pay for a homebrewed version of the rules, and the problem with them is always finding someone who's willing to use them, even when they're free.
But obviously your free to do as you please and good luck if you try.
SolarCross wrote: I guess I will see about picking up the main rules on ebay but I will hold off from buying any codices for now. The fact that 9th seems to be fairly well thought of compared with some previous editions makes it worth a look. In the end I will probably just try to play 7th with a view to making a patch for it, since I have the books and it is just the most familiar edition to me. I don't think it is as bad as some people say.
In the long run though I think I am make my own rule set from scratch. No edition of 40k is really that good and I have had enough fresh and neat ideas over the years that I do think I could knock something really superior together if I focused down on it. I would be looking to sell it eventually so I will have to keep it generic and free from GW's IP. But what I could do is include a faction builder rule set that would allow people to create a balanced "codex" suitable for adapting a given IP to the rules.
I wouldn't waste your time, I seriously doubt anyone will pay for a homebrewed version of the rules, and the problem with them is always finding someone who's willing to use them, even when they're free.
But obviously your free to do as you please and good luck if you try.
I am not talking about a homebrew version of the rules. I am talking about a fresh and original rule set for a sci fi wargame which could be used to play in the 40k or Star Wars universe or whatever the player likes. Like Gurps but a wargame not an RPG. When I say pay I am not talking massively expensive like GW. The beta would be a free pdf. Then when it was refined enough to stand the ages it might be a £1 pdf. Then if that sold well enough maybe a kickstarter could see a softback or hardback for the price of a normal book, £10 ish. I am just one dude, not a massive corp I don't need to sell dozens of different hardbacks every few years to the same crowd of mugs.
There is a wargaming world outside GW's walled garden, check it out sometime.
Skip 9th and go to Oldhammer. There is no narrative (Space Marines with knives can and will kill a tank by stabbing it because the right people shouted at them), if you goof around you will get tabled in a turn (the lethality of the game makes "durability" more about avoiding LOS than anything else), the army rules are set up to make conversions pointless ("no option in the box? no rules!"), and the line of sight rules are set up to punish people who try ("My antenna can see the tip of your spear, I can shoot you!").
That was one of the things that put me off about 8th was when I heard that options which did not have models got scrubbed. I really like conversions. Honestly that is a deal breaker.
You can most definitely play with conversions, there is nothing against that. Some of my favorite armies to play against have been lovingly and painstakingly converted. The main difference now is that Datasheets are only produced for options that exist on models now (Some small exceptions apply) which is both a good and a bad thing.
40k as a game is fun to play in 9th edition. You aren't going to be really agonizing over things, but clever plays and gambits are possible. The game isn't deep, per se, but it is fun and there's as much play and counter play as you and your opponent are clever.
The rules are often needlessly complex... I still don't feel like strategems needed to be part of the game instead of just baked in / limited use abilities... and the layers of stacked rules feel like a tremendous waste of time when a +1/-1 to a stat or ability would likely have done the trick.
But the gameplay is fun, and engaging, the entire game. I wouldn't call it a wargame... and that's ok for me because the game is fun to play, whatever one wishes to categorize it as.
If you want to play a game of 40k, and you want to be able to play pickup games with strangers, 9th edition is the best edition for that, hands down. If you want to play with like minded friends, I'd say 9th edition is the best base-rules to build off of, if you want to tweak things.
The things I might tweak?
Points are the easiest thing for friends to tweak. Your group can probably agree that a given unit is weak for its cost, so drop the points a bit on it and play a couple of games, tweak again if necessary. No need to fiddle with rules, just change the value and take more / less stuff to compensate.
Get rid of "Chapter Tactics" and similar rules. It's an extra layer that most things don't actually need to play. It's fluffier to take units appropriate to a given play style, than to then add specific buffs that make those units "extra awesome" when you take them together.
Lastly, take a look at strategems. If you're tweaking rules, I'd suggest looking at the strategems you use *every single time* and then bake in a points cost for them. Rerolling charge distance... your CC unit of doom is going to do that *every single time* so add 20% to the points and just make it part of their rules.
greatbigtree wrote: ...If you want to play a game of 40k, and you want to be able to play pickup games with strangers, 9th edition is the best edition for that, hands down. If you want to play with like minded friends, I'd say 9th edition is the best base-rules to build off of, if you want to tweak things...
I disagree almost completely here. 9th is the easiest game to find a pick-up game for, yes, but in my experience of 40k it's also the easiest edition in which to get accidentally steamrolled because you bought the wrong minis, which makes it terrible for playing pick-up games. I also find the card-game elements render it much harder to modify than pre-stratagem editions without breaking everything in half.
greatbigtree wrote: ...If you want to play a game of 40k, and you want to be able to play pickup games with strangers, 9th edition is the best edition for that, hands down. If you want to play with like minded friends, I'd say 9th edition is the best base-rules to build off of, if you want to tweak things...
I disagree almost completely here. 9th is the easiest game to find a pick-up game for, yes, but in my experience of 40k it's also the easiest edition in which to get accidentally steamrolled because you bought the wrong minis, which makes it terrible for playing pick-up games. I also find the card-game elements render it much harder to modify than pre-stratagem editions without breaking everything in half.
I'd say the 9th Edition works for pick-up games if you decide to ditch CP and stratagems altogether.
greatbigtree wrote: ...If you want to play a game of 40k, and you want to be able to play pickup games with strangers, 9th edition is the best edition for that, hands down. If you want to play with like minded friends, I'd say 9th edition is the best base-rules to build off of, if you want to tweak things...
I disagree almost completely here. 9th is the easiest game to find a pick-up game for, yes, but in my experience of 40k it's also the easiest edition in which to get accidentally steamrolled because you bought the wrong minis, which makes it terrible for playing pick-up games. I also find the card-game elements render it much harder to modify than pre-stratagem editions without breaking everything in half.
I'd say the 9th Edition works for pick-up games if you decide to ditch CP and stratagems altogether.
If you ditch the whole card-game support-stack mechanism 9th makes for really, really dull pick-up games. There's barely any maneuver, barely any decision-making, everything is a ball of math that's efficient against too many targets, spam lists still beat all-comers lists, GW's propensity for trying to "fix" armies with the card game means that some armies just don't work, and the damage inflation is so out of control that the first player still has a huge advantage. If you're going to depart from the "tournament-standard must-be-hyper-competitive" mindset pre-stratagem editions are much more fun.
9th has a lot of promise. It takes 8th edition, tightens up some of the rules and adds a much more meaningful cover system (the lack of which was one of the biggest gripes about 8th). The missions also make a huge change to how the game plays and the game now has a much heavier objective focus rather than just being about killing everything.
For me editions of 40K tend to be made or broken by the codex balance. 8th was better than most but they still didn't manage to get it nailed down in my opinion. With the only 9th edition codexes available at the moment being necrons and various flavours of marines it is pretty hard to judge how that is going to pan out at this stage. Supposedly they wrote all the codexes at once so hopefully they should be well balanced and not vulnerable to arbitrary changes in design philosophy part way through the edition.
9th is looking pretty hopeful but I've been disappointed in the past. In any case my opinion was that 7th was the worst and most unbalanced edition of the game ever so I'd recommend 9th over it hands down. Just be aware that some of the 8th edition codexes haven't translated that well to 9th (Tau have been rightly mentioned).
As compared to other Warhammer editions or to modern game design?
Yeah, because 9th, what ever someone feels it is good or bad, is a lot better then 8th for example.
In the end it always breaks apart on the questions of. Is your army day good in current edition and how much do you like to paint. If you really like painting a lot, then how good or bad 9th is doesn't matter that much. If you do care about playing the game though, and your army is bad now, and gets updated in 18+ months from now, then maybe returning now is not a good idea.
Unknown_Lifeform wrote: 9th has a lot of promise. It takes 8th edition, tightens up some of the rules and adds a much more meaningful cover system (the lack of which was one of the biggest gripes about 8th)...
...Which is set up to punish large units (18W+ can't claim area-terrain LOS block, vehicles/monsters get no benefit from cover other than LOS block) and makes it much, much easier for the very few move-shoot-move capable units in the game (Tallarn tank officers, Eldar infantry) to shoot you without giving you any chance to interact with them.
...The missions also make a huge change to how the game plays and the game now has a much heavier objective focus rather than just being about killing everything...
...Which are all king-of-the-hill sit-in-the-middle missions set up to punish armies that can't engage effectively in melee, either because they don't have any (Tau), or because their melee has been left behind by stat creep (Eldar), or if you don't want to be forced to buy the one model in your Codex that lets you play the game (Guard w/o Bullgryn).
...In any case my opinion was that 7th was the worst and most unbalanced edition of the game ever so I'd recommend 9th over it hands down...
You can fix 7th to the point where it's way more usable than 9th with a few quick patches (CAD only, 30k D rule, 30k LoW limit, 6e Skyfire, 30k Invisibility, allied ICs can't join units, field allowance limit on a few problem units (scatterbikes, for instance)). If you wanted to fix 9th to the same degree you'd have to a) rewrite the statlines on almost everything to address the out-of-control damage creep, b) burn the whole stratagem system down and start over to do something about the perverse incentives and combo-out phenomenon that utterly borks any attempt to balance statlines, c) rewrite the whole psychic system to account for the fact that there are all-psykers armies...
9th unmodified is less out of control than 7th unmodified, but making 7th way better than 9th is trivial and improving 9th at all requires burning it down and starting over.
Most balance can be fixed just by tweaking the point costs. And balance only matters at all in a "competitive play style" which I would argue hardly makes any sense at all for a game like 40k. You might as well play chess for the artistic outlet, or play darts down the pub in order to develop washboard abs. It's just not that kind of game.
I am completely fine with 7th being exploitable by WAACman because I will probably never play him more than once. If I tried to be WAAC man myself while trying to get my wargame-shy wife or son to play, then they will run a mile and never play again. My only hope of getting them to play is to persistently assure them "it doesn't matter who wins, it's just for the fun and the spectacle." lol.
Tyran wrote: And yet it was not fixed and 7th was so bad it came pretty close to actually killing 40k.
It is nice to think about hypotheticals, but no one is going to play your hypothetical game.
I mean, sure, if everyone thinks in terms of "it's definitely more important to play the competitive tournament-standard than to have fun or use models I like", then sure, everyone will stick to 9th. I'm making noise about oldhammer/homebrew material because I want to tell the people who are frustrated with the general consumer-unfriendliness of GW's rules people that there is an alternative, and I want people looking to start or come back to 40k to know what they're getting into.
I honestly think 9th is worse for friendly pick-up games than 7th. Even in the days of scatterbikes and D-weapons 7e games never ended with someone getting tabled on turn 2 or 3 for me, and 8e/9e routinely ends with someone getting tabled on turn 2 or 3. I had a game of 8th I scooped top of turn one without having the chance to do anything at all because my opponent was running an artillery-spam Guard list that wiped three quarters of my army on the alpha-strike.
Tyran wrote: And yet it was not fixed and 7th was so bad it came pretty close to actually killing 40k.
It is nice to think about hypotheticals, but no one is going to play your hypothetical game.
GW never intended it to be a competitive game. It makes no sense at all for it to be competitive. So why should they bother with balance? Up until 8th they kept trying to tell you all to "forge the narrative", "have fun", etc. They were telling you this hobby is fundamentally an artistic pursuit, it isn't poker or chess. A balanced game is one with identical starting game states. In 40k terms that would be mirror lists. If you have a demi-company with a given load out then your opponent should have the same. Moreover the random element should be removed, because chance muddies strategy. Think about the absurdity of playing competitive snakes and ladders, lol.
I was regularly tabled in turn one or two in 7th, even before all the supplement and formation nonsense started. Absolutely nothing in 9th is as far apart as the top codices in 7th were from the bottom ones.
Tyran wrote: And yet it was not fixed and 7th was so bad it came pretty close to actually killing 40k.
It is nice to think about hypotheticals, but no one is going to play your hypothetical game.
GW never intended it to be a competitive game. It makes no sense at all for it to be competitive. So why should they bother with balance? Up until 8th they kept trying to tell you all to "forge the narrative", "have fun", etc. They were telling you this hobby is fundamentally an artistic pursuit, it isn't poker or chess. A balanced game is one with identical starting game states. In 40k terms that would be mirror lists. If you have a demi-company with a given load out then your opponent should have the same. Moreover the random element should be removed, because chance muddies strategy. Think about the absurdity of playing competitive snakes and ladders, lol.
What a load of BS. The horrible balance of 7th did nothing to competitive play, but ruined regular games. Some armies were so powerful, players couldn't bring them anymore. Some other were so horrible, you would auto-lose when trying to bring them. You cannot put the blame on players for creating such a gakky game as 7th was, especially for casual players.
Competitive card games are also based on chance, by the way. It's also a well know fact that a healthy balance benefits both top level and casual play. You simply have no clue what you are talking about.
Jidmah wrote: I was regularly tabled in turn one or two in 7th, even before all the supplement and formation nonsense started. Absolutely nothing in 9th is as far apart as the top codices in 7th were from the bottom ones...
Imagine, for the moment, that my subjective experience of seeing people get tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 8th-9th and your subjective experience of seeing people getting tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 7th are both based on actual practical experience and are well-tested.
That suggests to me that 8th/9th are just as bad as 7th from a balance standpoint, only different Codexes are at the unrecoverable bottom of the heap this time. Which doesn't say much for the basic ideal form of a tabletop wargame, in which we all get to bring models we like, throw down, and have a good time.
I mean, sure, if everyone thinks in terms of "it's definitely more important to play the competitive tournament-standard than to have fun or use models I like", then sure, everyone will stick to 9th. I'm making noise about oldhammer/homebrew material because I want to tell the people who are frustrated with the general consumer-unfriendliness of GW's rules people that there is an alternative, and I want people looking to start or come back to 40k to know what they're getting into.
It is more about the terms "9th edition is a game that actually exist". Oldhammer/homebrew require having a very close-knit gaming group that is willing to compromise and experiment without the direction of a standardized rule-set. Sure that is possible, but also very hard and rare. It also means such groups are mostly closed ecosystems that are unlikely to interact with players outside that group, like new and returning players.
SolarCross wrote: ...I have entertained the idea of doing a "patch" for 7th edition which would aim to fix its balance issues and do up some datasheets for the newer releases. I do feel weirdly attached to that edition given I never really had a chance to play it. And as you say old editions are not in flux the way new editions are, and after years of field testing by the community the issues are sort of well known. Then again I am not sure I could justify spending the time doing that given monetising the labour would be iffy with GW jealously guarding their IP...
That's closer to a description of my homebrew rewrite (link in signature) than Mezmorki's.
As to 9th generally it's fine if you're a tournament player, or don't mind spam lists, or don't mind having to netlist to play even basic pick-up games, but I really dislike it due to the emphasis on tournament play and the masses of bloat GW constructed to make up for the fact that they pulled all the interesting gameplay out of the core rules.
I guess that is GW responding to the long running bellyaching from the community about "balance". A competitive game does want to be balanced, but the trick is that balance gets harder the more complex the game is. It becomes a combinatoric problem that is virtually insoluble. Only really simple and symmetrical games have a chance of being balanced. Games like chess, go or backgammon but even then after thousands of years of rigorous playtesting and statistical analysis it turns out white has a slight advantage over black in chess and black has a slight advantage over white in go... so..
In fairness to GW I don't think they really wanted to write balanced rules, they wanted a "fun" game based on drama and silliness rather than hard nosed gamey competition. 40k shouldn't even be properly considered a game at all given 28mm is just a stupidly huge scale for a wargame with tanks as game pieces. Really at 28mm scale 40k is more of a beauty pageant for hobby skills or some sort of LARP but with models. But the ThatGuys among us didn't understand that.
I don't really care about competitive playing. I play go, and that is a proper game for competitive gaming. I want to play 40k for the narrative, the goofying around and showing off my hobby skills.
So.... if you kept everything exactly the same but shrunk it down to 10mm or 15mm scale you'd then say 40k is a game?
If you enlarged your Go set to 3' pieces etc would it no longer qualify as a game?
I'm sorry, but I find your idea that scale determines whats a game to be sillier than 40ks current terrain rules.
I mean, sure, if everyone thinks in terms of "it's definitely more important to play the competitive tournament-standard than to have fun or use models I like", then sure, everyone will stick to 9th. I'm making noise about oldhammer/homebrew material because I want to tell the people who are frustrated with the general consumer-unfriendliness of GW's rules people that there is an alternative, and I want people looking to start or come back to 40k to know what they're getting into.
It is more about the terms "9th edition is a game that actually exist". Oldhammer/homebrew require having a very close-knit gaming group that is willing to compromise and experiment without the direction of a standardized rule-set. Sure that is possible, but also very hard and rare. It also means such groups are mostly closed ecosystems that are unlikely to interact with players outside that group, like new and returning players.
Which is where posting standardized Oldhammer projects like the one in my signature and outreach on forums comes into the mix.
So.... if you kept everything exactly the same but shrunk it down to 10mm or 15mm scale you'd then say 40k is a game?
If you enlarged your Go set to 3' pieces etc would it no longer qualify as a game?
I'm sorry, but I find your idea that scale determines whats a game to be sillier than 40ks current terrain rules.
I will clarify my point.
A pure game piece just has to communicate its game identity and something of its game state which usually comes from its position on the board. It does not have to be as large as a shoebox, cost £50 unbuilt and require dozens of hours of exquisite paint work to make it pretty.
Now wargames, any wargame is not an abstract game like chess they are more like simulations. So looks matter somewhat but a simulation should simulate and for a tabletop wargame that should mean having a model scale that is not too distorted from the table ground scale. For that 6mm is closest, with 10mm and 15mm being fairly reasonable distortions. So 28mm is too big on that count. But more than that 28mm makes the game more expensive and logistically more awkward. The ONLY benefit to 28mm is that it makes a nice big canvas for painters to freehand tattoos and freckles and whatever else.
Tyran wrote: And yet it was not fixed and 7th was so bad it came pretty close to actually killing 40k.
It is nice to think about hypotheticals, but no one is going to play your hypothetical game.
GW never intended it to be a competitive game. It makes no sense at all for it to be competitive. So why should they bother with balance? Up until 8th they kept trying to tell you all to "forge the narrative", "have fun", etc. They were telling you this hobby is fundamentally an artistic pursuit, it isn't poker or chess. A balanced game is one with identical starting game states. In 40k terms that would be mirror lists. If you have a demi-company with a given load out then your opponent should have the same. Moreover the random element should be removed, because chance muddies strategy. Think about the absurdity of playing competitive snakes and ladders, lol.
1. 6th was the edition that came close to killing the game. even GW realized they dropped the ball killing the edition after 14 months, up until formation spam started killing the game 7th was actually far more popular than 6th. it lasted almost the full 4 year normal edition run that became the GW standard as of 4th.
2. the competitive side of the game is GWs fault for pushing official tourneys back the days of rougue traders and grand tournaments (between 3rd and 4th ed). one can only imagine that the push for larger armies and comp play helped sales. but you are correct. armies originally were not meant to be balanced for that scene. they had in-built flaws you could exploit on the table for a more "in the universe" feel because thats how the armies were supposed to behave. you see much of that in the 3rd, 4th and for some specific codexes 5th ed where the factions had specific design and build restrictions that made them both viable and also lore based. one has to only look at the 3.5 chaos codex or the index astartes books (that did much the same for loyalist space marines). the guard doctrines in the 4th ed codex that made each sub faction operate differently rather it was steel legion, catachan, mordians etc... it is a game so there is a winner or a looser(or sometimes a tie) but the "getting there" was the most important and fun part.
AnomanderRake wrote:
Jidmah wrote: I was regularly tabled in turn one or two in 7th, even before all the supplement and formation nonsense started. Absolutely nothing in 9th is as far apart as the top codices in 7th were from the bottom ones...
Imagine, for the moment, that my subjective experience of seeing people get tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 8th-9th and your subjective experience of seeing people getting tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 7th are both based on actual practical experience and are well-tested.
That suggests to me that 8th/9th are just as bad as 7th from a balance standpoint, only different Codexes are at the unrecoverable bottom of the heap this time. Which doesn't say much for the basic ideal form of a tabletop wargame, in which we all get to bring models we like, throw down, and have a good time.
We so do miss Andy Chambers being at the helm of GW game design don't we? one has to only look at the other stuff he has done since he left to see what could have been.-
DUST, dropfleet commander, bolt action etc...
Jidmah wrote: I was regularly tabled in turn one or two in 7th, even before all the supplement and formation nonsense started. Absolutely nothing in 9th is as far apart as the top codices in 7th were from the bottom ones...
Imagine, for the moment, that my subjective experience of seeing people get tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 8th-9th and your subjective experience of seeing people getting tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 7th are both based on actual practical experience and are well-tested.
That suggests to me that 8th/9th are just as bad as 7th from a balance standpoint, only different Codexes are at the unrecoverable bottom of the heap this time. Which doesn't say much for the basic ideal form of a tabletop wargame, in which we all get to bring models we like, throw down, and have a good time.
Except there are thousands of recorded game which easily prove your claims wrong.
Jidmah wrote: I was regularly tabled in turn one or two in 7th, even before all the supplement and formation nonsense started. Absolutely nothing in 9th is as far apart as the top codices in 7th were from the bottom ones...
Imagine, for the moment, that my subjective experience of seeing people get tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 8th-9th and your subjective experience of seeing people getting tabled on turn 1-3 all the time in 7th are both based on actual practical experience and are well-tested.
That suggests to me that 8th/9th are just as bad as 7th from a balance standpoint, only different Codexes are at the unrecoverable bottom of the heap this time. Which doesn't say much for the basic ideal form of a tabletop wargame, in which we all get to bring models we like, throw down, and have a good time.
Except there are thousands of recorded game which easily prove your claims wrong.
Thousands of recorded tournament games played by competitive people. The tournament balance of 9th is fine. The pick-up game balance is garbage.
To be a tournament player I have to a) play spam lists, b) only play the Codexes that aren't garbage, c) buy models based on their rules, d) play unfluffy, bizarre, and counterintuitive things to maximize the impact of my stratagems, and e) buy a new army every six months because my last one got nerfed into unplayability in a tournament setting or someone else came out that hard-counters me into not working anymore or GW rewrote the missions and my army can no longer play. If you're prepared to do all of those things 9e is great. If you're not 9e is terrible.
If you are getting tabled within two turns and people with dozens of games on record aren't, despite losing every single game they have recorded, you are either actively working towards losing that fast or making up stuff.
"Competitive gamers ruin the game" is just a mantra repeated by players who do not want to put effort into the game but still expect to win regularly by pure luck.
No edition has ever allowed you to just toss random crap on the table and win games.
Generally speaking I have to agree. I doubt 9th is as bad as could be said. There has always been what works with a tournament and what is fun to actually play. Most tournament lists are very crap looking, but win. I say most as I've seen from high placing yet very cool looking lists over the years.
Where I'd say I dislike 40k is the models losing flavor to then place it into a stratagem, I think that kinda sucks. Thought it sucked in 8th, still think it sucks now. Feels less like quality model rules and more like death to " Gotcha " moments. Probably just me being old but I'd be more happy to less or no strats and more interesting model rules.
Yeah, this can easily be proven wrong by looking at winning lists. This might have been the case in 7th and parts of 8th, but not in 9th.
b) only play the Codexes that aren't garbage
Well, in a balanced environment that competitive players strive for, that would be none. Currently roughly 2-3 codices can be considered "garbage", I doubt that you will find any edition where you had a "garbage tier" as small as this. Oh, and this is also easily proven wrong by data. All codices are played in great number, the least played one is chaos knights - a fairly powerful codex, judging from its win rates. It's also worth noting that pretty much every other codex has already placed in the top 3 of a major event more than once.
c) buy models based on their rules
I'm fairly sure that no one who had Thrakka in September bought him because of his rules
d) play unfluffy, bizarre, and counterintuitive things to maximize the impact of my stratagems
Please do point out unfluffy, bizarre and counterintuitive thing that is currently run in tournaments? Is it slanesh daemons racing across the battlefield at unreal speeds and tearing up anything they can? Is Thrakka leading a horde of skarboyz into battle? Harlequins just playing everything in their codex? Heck, the marine lists don't even have enough in common to ask a snarky question about them
e) buy a new army every six months because my last one got nerfed into unplayability in a tournament setting or someone else came out that hard-counters me into not working anymore or GW rewrote the missions and my army can no longer play.
Ah, there we have it. Your army can still play it just can't win as often as it did. The nerfs GW has swung around during 8th had little, if any, impact on casual gaming unless you happened to play Grey Knights. And that is the whole truth behind that hatred for competitive gaming. You want to win, you bought into cheese and spammed it, and when the wheel moved on you got left out in the rain.
Many codices have a wide array of viable units slightly below the "I want to win a tournament" tier today, unlike in the past. You will have no problems building a decent army out of a decent collection if you know what you are doing.
If you're prepared to do all of those things 9e is great. If you're not 9e is terrible.
There is no need to do "all those things" because that's not how the real world works. No one but the top few percent of the competitive scene does that. Most people like their army, just go over to the "why did you start your army" thread and see for yourself. Even more people simply can't afford or have the time to regularly buy and paint new armies.
Look, you clearly don't even know how tournament games work these days, so how about you stop talking about things you don't understand? Irrational hatred for tournament players is nothing but you blindly believing old GW's lies who were trying to push the blame for their own failures onto players. It just happens that competitive gaming magnifies the problems a game has, because shoddy balance and badly written rules can be used as tools to win games. A well written game can handle both casual garage gaming and tournaments. And 9th does that better than any edition ever has.
Jidmah wrote: If you are getting tabled within two turns and people with dozens of games on record aren't, despite losing every single game they have recorded, you are either actively working towards losing that fast or making up stuff...
I'm not getting tabled within two turns by actively working towards doing that. I'm getting tabled within two turns and tabling other people within two turns using the same list.
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Jidmah wrote: ...Look, you clearly don't even know how tournament games work these days, so how about you stop talking about things you don't understand?
Irrational hatred for tournament players is nothing but you blindly believing old GW's lies who were trying to push the blame for their own failures onto players. It just happens that competitive gaming magnifies the problems a game has, because shoddy balance and badly written rules can be used as tools to win games.
A well written game can handle both casual garage gaming and tournaments. And 9th does that better than any edition ever has.
I do not have the time or the interest to go do an exhaustive analysis of what wins tournaments. I do have the time and the interest to go buy minis I like, bring them to a game store, attempt to play a pick-up game, get tabled in two turns, ask a more experienced player to critique my list or gameplay, get told repeatedly "yeah, all these models are garbage, you need to go spend hundreds of dollars on a netlist or you can't play", quit in a huff, and then spend time having arguments with people like you who are convinced that since they're doing fine everyone else is either lying or incompetent because there's no conceivable way someone else might honestly like an edition you didn't like better than the current one.
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Jidmah wrote: ...Ah, there we have it. Your army can still play it just can't win as often as it did. The nerfs GW has swung around during 8th had little, if any, impact on casual gaming unless you happened to play Grey Knights.
And that is the whole truth behind that hatred for competitive gaming. You want to win, you bought into cheese and spammed it, and when the wheel moved on you got left out in the rain.
Many codices have a wide array of viable units slightly below the "I want to win a tournament" tier today, unlike in the past. You will have no problems building a decent army out of a decent collection if you know what you are doing...
I do not buy flavour-of-the-month cheese armies. I have never bought an army because it was cheese. I have never bought an army when it was cheese.
The problem with your assertion here is that whether or not there are a lot of viable units in the Codex has nothing to do with whether a given collection of minis is any good. I have a huge Alpha Legion army of infantry, Terminators, vehicles, Raptors, and 30k units. I do not have any Possessed, Daemon Engines, Plaguebearers, Daemon Princes, or any of the $40 single character blisters which have the support stack or stratagem interaction to not be crap. If I want to play 9e and not get tabled in two turns I need to shelve nearly the whole thing and go buy a bunch of new models, which is what I'm complaining about here.
If your definition of "a decent collection" is "maximum field allowance of every single unit in the Codex", then sure.
d) play unfluffy, bizarre, and counterintuitive things to maximize the impact of my stratagems
Please do point out unfluffy, bizarre and counterintuitive thing that is currently run in tournaments?
Is it slanesh daemons racing across the battlefield at unreal speeds and tearing up anything they can?
Is Thrakka leading a horde of skarboyz into battle?
Harlequins just playing everything in their codex?
Heck, the marine lists don't even have enough in common to ask a snarky question about them ...
Yet again: I DO NOT CARE what's run in tournaments. I care whether I run into something like the White Scars Infiltrators who had multiple to-wound bonuses (this was before the to-wound bonus stacking nerf), exploding attacks, all the rerolls, AP -lots, and D2 who get to kill a Knight by stabbing it with knives because my opponent went through and stacked four different character auras and a couple of stratagems into a stupid combo that lets them do something ridiculous.
Can you provide that lists that are doing this? I'm quite curious.
This has not been mine, or my local areas experience in 9th at all. Getting tabled on turn 2 is not something that is happening. I'd double check that you are using the correct amount of terrain and following the rules for the terrain. The new terrain rules are pretty explicitly designed to blunt alpha strikes and prevent this sort of situation from occurring.
Sasori wrote: Can you provide that lists that are doing this? I'm quite curious.
This has not been mine, or my local areas experience in 9th at all. Getting tabled on turn 2 is not something that is happening. I'd double check that you are using the correct amount of terrain and following the rules for the terrain. The new terrain rules are pretty explicitly designed to blunt alpha strikes and prevent this sort of situation from occurring.
Can't give you specifics, Battlescribe doesn't store things after the army book gets updated. I haven't played my Deathwatch under the new Codex because I'm still not convinced they're any better than just playing with no Chapter Tactics. The terrain rules don't help my Custodes, I don't have the Terminators or Sentinel Guard to play the netlists, and the Coronuses I use to avoid getting alpha-striked have 18W and can be seen through anything. My Mechanicum/Knights and Eldar are screwed by the fact that I've got a lot of FW models that GW isn't interested in supporting or seeing used, so if I want to play either of them I do have to go buy a new army. My CSM are infantry/mechanized and don't have the Cult units/Daemon Engines/Daemons/characters GW is interested in supporting since they're Alpha Legion, and last time I tried to put them on the table my opponent had a Russ with a relic battlecannon that got to delete a unit a turn if I poked an antenna out of cover anywhere.
We're using the right amount of terrain, but the damage creep means the instant any model I own enters line of sight it dies, so it doesn't help much.
Secondary point here: I've got five armies, in the 5,000pts+ range, and all of them are so crap I need to go buy a new one if I want to have any chance of not just getting steamrolled in 9e. I'm aware I have a larger proportion of FW units than is average, but have I magically found the secret formula for picking all the worst books/worst units in every book? Or is the range of usable minis actually really narrow?
Jidmah wrote: If you are getting tabled within two turns and people with dozens of games on record aren't, despite losing every single game they have recorded, you are either actively working towards losing that fast or making up stuff...
I'm not getting tabled within two turns by actively working towards doing that. I'm getting tabled within two turns and tabling other people within two turns using the same list.
Yeah, no. Sorry, but I'm going to call BS on that. You are playing Alpha Legion infantry, which is extremely difficult to get rid of, let alone in two turns. It's also weird that you can't provide lists for this, both because battlescribe doesn't toss out lists between data updates and there hasn't been a data update to begin with. At the very least you should be able to write a rough list from memory that can both table and be tabled within two turns.
I do not have the time or the interest to go do an exhaustive analysis of what wins tournaments. I do have the time and the interest to go buy minis I like, bring them to a game store, attempt to play a pick-up game, get tabled in two turns, ask a more experienced player to critique my list or gameplay, get told repeatedly "yeah, all these models are garbage, you need to go spend hundreds of dollars on a netlist or you can't play", quit in a huff, and then spend time having arguments with people like you who are convinced that since they're doing fine everyone else is either lying or incompetent because there's no conceivable way someone else might honestly like an edition you didn't like better than the current one.
You have weird interests. This isn't about liking. Your story simply doesn't match up. That is not how the game works. The only reason why I can see you getting tabled in two turns with an army that is as durable as alpha legion infantry is because there is indeed an extreme gap in player skill or because rules are being played wrong. In either case you would be having the same issues in any edition. One of my regular opponents is an all-infantry everyone-looks-like-alpharius player and the only way I'm even remotely getting close to tabling him in the first two turns is when he makes grave playing mistakes and brings a weak list. You need none of the things you listed to do well with alpha legion.
The worst part is that you apparently believe this TFG telling you that all your models suck, and then blame it on GW and competitive players. I suggest trying to look at the general operating the army to this kind of disaster first.
If your definition of "a decent collection" is "maximum field allowance of every single unit in the Codex", then sure.
You don't need 3 of everything to build an army that doesn't suck. For most jobs, there are two or three units that can do them, for codices like CSM, orks or eldar there are even more. Don't have three predators? Bring a predator, a helbrute and a vindicator instead. You don't have enough anti-tank units to kill a single LRBT? You don't have a decent collection.
I also would like to point out that with 9th the hammer of sunderance is no longer legal for tournament play. And yes, that relic cannon was a major PITA.
Yet again: I DO NOT CARE what's run in tournaments.
So, why are you running your mouth about people playing in tournaments then? If you don't care, keep quiet.
I care whether I run into something like the White Scars Infiltrators who had multiple to-wound bonuses (this was before the to-wound bonus stacking nerf), exploding attacks, all the rerolls, AP -lots, and D2 who get to kill a Knight by stabbing it with knives because my opponent went through and stacked four different character auras and a couple of stratagems into a stupid combo that lets them do something ridiculous.
Exactly my point. That was 8th. This thread is about 9th.
If playing with what you want was never a good idea, and GW put focus on tournament play since 3ed , then it is more then 20 years focusing on on the gaming aspect on the game. You can't say that w40k isn't focused on it, if GW has focused on it for that long. Or rather you can, but if you do you are wrong.
Play with what you want is only a thing in w40k, when it comes with a ton of "ifs" . You can do it if your opponent play specific lists and armies, only if you play specific factions and builds, only if the core rule set doesn't invalidate your army etc etc.
So, why are you running your mouth about people playing in tournaments then? If you don't care, keep quiet.
That is a thing I don't get also. I know why I am interested in getting a good set of rules, but it goes over my head, why people who claim to play in casual bring what you want enviroments, call out of deep going army nerfs or out right bans of units. I just can't get it, how someone who claims to play only with his friends at home in one thread, asks for powerful rules for his faction in another, and calls out of squating of armies in ain't liking , and playing, in the third.
If someone is so casual, and so painting or converting focused, why does he care what is good and what is bad? if their friends are so good, then why not follow an advice those casual players give others, make your friends let you have +1W or +1T or ever else you want. If it is suppose to work as an advice for people playing in unfriendly places, why shouldn't it work in friendly ones?
Yet again: I DO NOT CARE what's run in tournaments.
Then don't make posts about what's run in them my man.
And maybe stop deluding yourself into thinking that editions before ninth and eighth didn't have terrible dogshit units that if you took against units that weren't terrible and dogshit would put you at a disadvantage.
So, why are you running your mouth about people playing in tournaments then? If you don't care, keep quiet.
That is a thing I don't get also. I know why I am interested in getting a good set of rules, but it goes over my head, why people who claim to play in casual bring what you want enviroments, call out of deep going army nerfs or out right bans of units. I just can't get it, how someone who claims to play only with his friends at home in one thread, asks for powerful rules for his faction in another, and calls out of squating of armies in ain't liking , and playing, in the third.
If someone is so casual, and so painting or converting focused, why does he care what is good and what is bad? if their friends are so good, then why not follow an advice those casual players give others, make your friends let you have +1W or +1T or ever else you want. If it is suppose to work as an advice for people playing in unfriendly places, why shouldn't it work in friendly ones?
Poor OP. “Is 9th fun?” they ask, unknowingly waking the Salt Demons.
“It’s not a game!”
“In making my own ruleset!”
“God tournament minmaxers suck!”
“It’s impossible to use 9th for pickup games!”
All this and other straight up bad takes and side spats to boot. Yep, there’s that salt I was on about. Honestly people, what did any of the above actually add to the thread and the OP’s question? Some of you have fought these fights to thread lock before. Why again?
Jidmah wrote: ...The worst part is that you apparently believe this TFG telling you that all your models suck, and then blame it on GW and competitive players. I suggest trying to look at the general operating the army to this kind of disaster first...
You're sitting here telling me that tournament winrates prove me wrong and that a given Codex is capable of having fun in 9th because there is a netlist that works. What makes you any different?
If your definition of "a decent collection" is "maximum field allowance of every single unit in the Codex", then sure.
You don't need 3 of everything to build an army that doesn't suck. For most jobs, there are two or three units that can do them, for codices like CSM, orks or eldar there are even more. Don't have three predators? Bring a predator, a helbrute and a vindicator instead.
You don't have enough anti-tank units to kill a single LRBT? You don't have a decent collection.
When it's a Tallarn tank commander using the new LOS-block terrain to casually walk into LOS, fire, and out of LOS without giving you a chance to interact with him it doesn't matter how much firepower you brought.
Yet again: I DO NOT CARE what's run in tournaments.
So, why are you running your mouth about people playing in tournaments then? If you don't care, keep quiet.
I'm not talking about tournaments. I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You're the one who keeps telling me that I'm talking out my ass because of the tournament winrates.
I care whether I run into something like the White Scars Infiltrators who had multiple to-wound bonuses (this was before the to-wound bonus stacking nerf), exploding attacks, all the rerolls, AP -lots, and D2 who get to kill a Knight by stabbing it with knives because my opponent went through and stacked four different character auras and a couple of stratagems into a stupid combo that lets them do something ridiculous.
Exactly my point. That was 8th. This thread is about 9th.
And...9th doesn't have stupid combos that rely on stacking two or three stratagems and a couple of character buffs to turn knives into efficient AT weapons?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnnyHell wrote: Poor OP. “Is 9th fun?” they ask, unknowingly waking the Salt Demons.
“It’s not a game!”
“In making my own ruleset!”
“God tournament minmaxers suck!”
“It’s impossible to use 9th for pickup games!”
All this and other straight up bad takes and side spats to boot. Yep, there’s that salt I was on about. Honestly people, what did any of the above actually add to the thread and the OP’s question? Some of you have fought these fights to thread lock before. Why again?
We were asked a question. We're attempting to give honest answers. If someone comes to this thread wondering "hey, what's up with 9th?" and they find a shiny roses and rainbows utterly saltless land of praise for the glory of GW, and then they go out and buy minis, and then have a bad experience of it, would the lack of salt here have...helped them in any way?
Yet again: I DO NOT CARE what's run in tournaments.
Then don't make posts about what's run in them my man.
And maybe stop deluding yourself into thinking that editions before ninth and eighth didn't have terrible dogshit units that if you took against units that weren't terrible and dogshit would put you at a disadvantage.
I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You lot keep trying to drag us back to tournament winrates.
Editions before 8th and 9th absolutely had terrible dogshit units that weren't worth taking. You'll notice in my signature I'm not advocating going back and playing unmodified 7th, I'm rewriting a mix of 4th-7th rules to fix some of the problems with it. The problem I have here is with people who claim that 8th/9th are a massive improvement when in my experience they're just as bad as 7th for exactly the same reasons.
Jidmah wrote: ...The worst part is that you apparently believe this TFG telling you that all your models suck, and then blame it on GW and competitive players. I suggest trying to look at the general operating the army to this kind of disaster first...
You're sitting here telling me that tournament winrates prove me wrong and that a given Codex is capable of having fun in 9th because there is a netlist that works. What makes you any different?
Since you clearly don't get subtle hints: The difference is that he told you that you lose because you haven't bought a netlist, while I told you that you simply suck at the game and would lose even if you had the netlist.
When it's a Tallarn tank commander using the new LOS-block terrain to casually walk into LOS, fire, and out of LOS without giving you a chance to interact with him it doesn't matter how much firepower you brought.
Then you move and shoot it anyways. If it goes over 5" it loses grinding advance, and all you need to do is see one piece of hull past the ruin in able to shoot it. Or you have a mobile unit tie it down, you do have raptors, don't you? You know, do tactics, don't rely on list writing and dice to carry you to a win.
I'm not talking about tournaments. I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You're the one who keeps telling me that I'm talking out my ass because of the tournament winrates.
To be a tournament player I have to a) play spam lists, b) only play the Codexes that aren't garbage, c) buy models based on their rules, d) play unfluffy, bizarre, and counterintuitive things to maximize the impact of my stratagems, and e) buy a new army every six months because my last one got nerfed into unplayability in a tournament setting or someone else came out that hard-counters me into not working anymore or GW rewrote the missions and my army can no longer play. If you're prepared to do all of those things 9e is great. If you're not 9e is terrible.
You keep making up arguments to claim that tournaments are something completely different from pick-up games. They are not. A good portion of the people going to tournaments do so with armies which are no different from those you face when you walk into stores, and these are part of the data that proves you wrong.
And...9th doesn't have stupid combos that rely on stacking two or three stratagems and a couple of character buffs to turn knives into efficient AT weapons?
Not any that I'm aware of, considering how stacking these kind of things was a problem that was specifically addressed by both 9th edition's core rules and the new Codex: Space Marines.
I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You lot keep trying to drag us back to tournament winrates.
What makes you think that tournament and practice games are different from pick-up games? This is a serious question.
Editions before 8th and 9th absolutely had terrible dogshit units that weren't worth taking. You'll notice in my signature I'm not advocating going back and playing unmodified 7th, I'm rewriting a mix of 4th-7th rules to fix some of the problems with it. The problem I have here is with people who claim that 8th/9th are a massive improvement when in my experience they're just as bad as 7th for exactly the same reasons.
I'm sorry, but with you failing to understand why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of a game, I'd say the chances are rather slim that your variant is going to better than any of the things GW does.
Jidmah wrote: ...The worst part is that you apparently believe this TFG telling you that all your models suck, and then blame it on GW and competitive players. I suggest trying to look at the general operating the army to this kind of disaster first...
You're sitting here telling me that tournament winrates prove me wrong and that a given Codex is capable of having fun in 9th because there is a netlist that works. What makes you any different?
Since you clearly don't get subtle hints: The difference is that he told you that you lose because you haven't bought a netlist, while I told you that you simply suck at the game and would lose even if you had the netlist.
Great! That make you feel better?
I'm not talking about tournaments. I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You're the one who keeps telling me that I'm talking out my ass because of the tournament winrates.
To be a tournament player I have to a) play spam lists, b) only play the Codexes that aren't garbage, c) buy models based on their rules, d) play unfluffy, bizarre, and counterintuitive things to maximize the impact of my stratagems, and e) buy a new army every six months because my last one got nerfed into unplayability in a tournament setting or someone else came out that hard-counters me into not working anymore or GW rewrote the missions and my army can no longer play. If you're prepared to do all of those things 9e is great. If you're not 9e is terrible.
You keep making up arguments to claim that tournaments are something completely different from pick-up games. They are not. A good portion of the people going to tournaments do so with armies which are no different from those you face when you walk into stores, and these are part of the data that proves you wrong.
I'm trying to talk about pick-up games. You lot keep trying to drag us back to tournament winrates.
What makes you think that tournament and practice games are different from pick-up games? This is a serious question.
That is exactly the problem. 9th is trying to be about tournaments. If I use minis I like that don't happen to be good enough to feature in the copy-paste netlist then I get to be tabled in two turns and walk away from the table thinking "what was the point of that, then?"
Editions before 8th and 9th absolutely had terrible dogshit units that weren't worth taking. You'll notice in my signature I'm not advocating going back and playing unmodified 7th, I'm rewriting a mix of 4th-7th rules to fix some of the problems with it. The problem I have here is with people who claim that 8th/9th are a massive improvement when in my experience they're just as bad as 7th for exactly the same reasons.
I'm sorry, but with you failing to understand why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of a game, I'd say the chances are rather slim that your variant is going to better than any of the things GW does.
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Competitive players have ruined 9th edition. 9th edition isn't letting me table opponents with minimal effort and competitive players playtested it. Bad!
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with the dudes you play against, and try to get a nice casual game going on that isn't full of your average space marine army.
Something like this: "Hey look, I know I'm playing Alpha Legion CSM and knights but I'm after a nice casual game, I swears it, please don't place spacemarines or necrons. Or if you are don't touch them in melee with your filthy kniveses. Thanks!"
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with the dudes you play against, and try to get a nice casual game going on that isn't full of your average space marine army.
Something like this: "Hey look, I know I'm playing Alpha Legion CSM and knights but I'm after a nice casual game, I swears it, please don't place spacemarines or necrons. Or if you are don't touch them in melee with your filthy kniveses. Thanks!"
Doesn't work. What one player thinks is a soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist can and will still table another soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist in 2-3 turns because the statlines are so badly out of whack that playing the game like a tournament player is the only way to make it work.
This is not through any malice or attempts to cheese the soft-noncompetitive-non-tournament-netlist paradigm, this is by accident.
Yeah, what Eonfuzz said. You failed to provide any reasoning about why the data doesn't matter, you can't provide any of your lists which regularly table people and get tabled in turn 2, and you keep referring to netlists run by tournament players without actually being able to provide any or knowing anything about tournaments. We're done here.
If you care about educating yourself about what 9th actual state and problems are, I suggest you give this a read: https://www.goonhammer.com/the-october-2020-40k-meta-review/ Pay extra attention to the part where they are describing the nature and origin of their data. There even is a follow-up to that article if you want to know more.
Eonfuzz wrote: Competitive players have ruined 9th edition. 9th edition isn't letting me table opponents with minimal effort and competitive players playtested it. Bad!...
Don't misunderstand here: If you are a tournament player and don't mind prioritizing rules over models or playing the same king-of-the-hill knockoff Steamroller scenarios over and over again 9th is great and probably is the best edition ever. The breadth of stuff at the top tournament tables is as great as it's ever been, and the stratagem card-combo game makes for a much more engaging competitive environment than earlier editions.
If, however, you want to play nonstandard/narrative missions, use minis you like instead of the ones with the best rules, do any homebrewing, or just sort of throw models down on the table and have a good time without worrying too much about it, 9th is as bad as the game has ever been.
I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with the dudes you play against, and try to get a nice casual game going on that isn't full of your average space marine army.
Something like this: "Hey look, I know I'm playing Alpha Legion CSM and knights but I'm after a nice casual game, I swears it, please don't place spacemarines or necrons. Or if you are don't touch them in melee with your filthy kniveses. Thanks!"
Doesn't work. What one player thinks is a soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist can and will still table another soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist in 2-3 turns because the statlines are so badly out of whack that playing the game like a tournament player is the only way to make it work.
This is not through any malice or attempts to cheese the soft-noncompetitive-non-tournament-netlist paradigm, this is by accident.
Sounds like you're gatekeeping casual games. Take a step back and reconsider how *you* play.
Just like you want to play with your collection, they want to play with theirs. And who here is god enough to say anyone's fun is wrong.
Honestly, the way you're referencing net lists and tournament lists and non-casual lists it really comes across as if you've drunk too much of the Dakka forum coolaid. Not everything that's good is a netlist. Don't forget that GW has actively attempted to make collecting the space marine card game be simple and easy.
Eonfuzz wrote: Competitive players have ruined 9th edition. 9th edition isn't letting me table opponents with minimal effort and competitive players playtested it. Bad!...
Don't misunderstand here: If you are a tournament player and don't mind prioritizing rules over models or playing the same king-of-the-hill knockoff Steamroller scenarios over and over again 9th is great and probably is the best edition ever. The breadth of stuff at the top tournament tables is as great as it's ever been, and the stratagem card-combo game makes for a much more engaging competitive environment than earlier editions.
If, however, you want to play nonstandard/narrative missions, use minis you like instead of the ones with the best rules, do any homebrewing, or just sort of throw models down on the table and have a good time without worrying too much about it, 9th is as bad as the game has ever been.
I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
If you want to do nonstandard / narrative in the first place why even worry about rules? Why even play a "board game". Go do an RPG instead, something like Dark Heresy or that other space marine one.
Without rules you're basically just mashing models together and making pew pew sounds. With rules you can't exactly maintain a narrative or nonstandard play.
Jidmah wrote: Yeah, what Eonfuzz said. You failed to provide any reasoning about why the data doesn't matter, you can't provide any of your lists which regularly table people and get tabled in turn 2, and you keep referring to netlists run by tournament players without actually being able to provide any or knowing anything about tournaments. We're done here.
If you care about educating yourself about what 9th actual state and problems are, I suggest you give this a read: https://www.goonhammer.com/the-october-2020-40k-meta-review/ Pay extra attention to the part where they are describing the nature and origin of their data. There even is a follow-up to that article if you want to know more.
The state of the tournament meta. The state of people playing the most competitive things in the game against the most competitive things in the game in controlled knockoff-Steamroller scenarios.
This tells me nothing about anyone who chooses to play lists/minis that aren't good enough to take to a tournament or who play any other scenarios, which tells me nothing about the state of casual gameplay.
As I said the state of tournaments is great and if you like that kind of standardized meta-conscious gameplay 9th is fabulous. Everyone I know who's a tournament player loves it. All the old Warmachine folks are having a great time. If you don't want to play the standardized meta-conscious tournament approach to the game, by, say, trying to play Crusade, or trying to set up narrative missions, or just sort of throw minis down on the table and attempt to have a good time, my experience of 9th is that it's terrible. You can continue to throw tournament statistics at me but if you can't find a dataset that isn't based solely on people playing the tournament missions in tournaments I don't know how you have any more standing to judge the state of casual play than I have to judge the state of competitive play.
AnomanderRake wrote: I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
It's hilarious that you make assumptions about how I play games.
I'm "being an ass" because you are spreading baseless and badly informed opinions that do not match observed reality, and I'm calling you out on that. There are plenty of people in this thread, for example Mezmorki, that give good reasons why they prefer playing an older edition, and that's fine. You, however, are the one yelling about how 9th is terrible for anyone but tournament players with absolutely nothing of substance to back that up.
Congratulations, you have failed at reading as much as the first section, despite me explicitly pointing it out. Now stop talking about things you are unable to understand.
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with the dudes you play against, and try to get a nice casual game going on that isn't full of your average space marine army.
Something like this: "Hey look, I know I'm playing Alpha Legion CSM and knights but I'm after a nice casual game, I swears it, please don't place spacemarines or necrons. Or if you are don't touch them in melee with your filthy kniveses. Thanks!"
Doesn't work. What one player thinks is a soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist can and will still table another soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist in 2-3 turns because the statlines are so badly out of whack that playing the game like a tournament player is the only way to make it work.
This is not through any malice or attempts to cheese the soft-noncompetitive-non-tournament-netlist paradigm, this is by accident.
Sounds like you're gatekeeping casual games. Take a step back and reconsider how *you* play.
Just like you want to play with your collection, they want to play with theirs. And who here is god enough to say anyone's fun is wrong.
Honestly, the way you're referencing net lists and tournament lists and non-casual lists it really comes across as if you've drunk too much of the Dakka forum coolaid. Not everything that's good is a netlist. Don't forget that GW has actively attempted to make collecting the space marine card game be simple and easy.
I think the objective measure of fun is close games. Nobody likes getting stomped, nobody likes rolling over someone without any challenge. We want games that come down to the wire in the last turn or two, not games that are decided during list-building or in the first turn or two and then we're all left thinking "what was the point of putting models on the table?"
I'd love to be able to bring minis I like, and have the other guy bring minis he likes, and then sit down and roll dice and have a close game, but because of how the skewed damage/durability balance is and because of how wildly unevenly the card-game has been distributed across armies I don't see that happening. I see games ending in two or three turns because someone's too killed to continue or because someone's got an insurmountable lead in the mission. I'm not attempting to gatekeep casual games, I'm pointing out that because of the way 9th is written we can totally still play casual games, they're just going to be one-sided stomps.
Eonfuzz wrote: Competitive players have ruined 9th edition. 9th edition isn't letting me table opponents with minimal effort and competitive players playtested it. Bad!...
Don't misunderstand here: If you are a tournament player and don't mind prioritizing rules over models or playing the same king-of-the-hill knockoff Steamroller scenarios over and over again 9th is great and probably is the best edition ever. The breadth of stuff at the top tournament tables is as great as it's ever been, and the stratagem card-combo game makes for a much more engaging competitive environment than earlier editions.
If, however, you want to play nonstandard/narrative missions, use minis you like instead of the ones with the best rules, do any homebrewing, or just sort of throw models down on the table and have a good time without worrying too much about it, 9th is as bad as the game has ever been.
I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
If you want to do nonstandard / narrative in the first place why even worry about rules? Why even play a "board game". Go do an RPG instead, something like Dark Heresy or that other space marine one.
Without rules you're basically just mashing models together and making pew pew sounds. With rules you can't exactly maintain a narrative or nonstandard play.
Warhammer is not the game you're looking for.
EXACTLY. I don't know why it's taken us so long to get back to the point here. 9e Warhammer is not the game I'm looking for. I started buying minis in 4e when it was the game I was looking for, and then GW pulled the rug out from under me and decided they'd rather be building knockoff Warmachine instead, which is why I'm rebuilding the game from back when it was the game I was looking for instead of playing 9th. If knockoff Warmachine is the game you're looking for play 9th. If it isn't, play something else. Which is the point of this whole thread.
AnomanderRake wrote: I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
It's hilarious that you make assumptions about how I play games.
I'm "being an ass" because you are spreading baseless and badly informed opinions that do not match observed reality, and I'm calling you out on that.
There are plenty of people in this thread, for example Mezmorki, that give good reasons why they prefer playing an older edition, and that's fine.
You, however, are the one yelling about how 9th is terrible for anyone but tournament players with absolutely nothing of substance to back that up...
What do you want from me? My lack of having fun in 9th is obviously disproved by your tournament-meta statistics, there's no way according to that spreadsheet anyone could possibly not be having fun with 9th. Do you need me to quantify my fun for you? I rate my experience of having fun in 9th as -5 out of 7. Does that help?
goonhammer wrote:ITC Battles app data includes a mix of tournament/event games and non-tournament games, but overall gives us data on 6,088 player-reported games of 9th edition, of which 1,093 took place at tournaments or events.
Congratulations, you have failed at reading as much as the first section, despite me explicitly pointing it out. Now stop talking about things you are unable to understand.
What did I miss? The part where they gathered data from three different tournament-reporting datasets? Does that make it less of a tournament-results report?
goonhammer wrote:ITC Battles app data includes a mix of tournament/event games and non-tournament games, but overall gives us data on 6,088 player-reported games of 9th edition, of which 1,093 took place at tournaments or events.
If the aforementioned 5,995 non-tournament/event games aren't playing tournament netlists using the knockoff-Steamroller scenarios why are they included in a statistical analysis of the aforementioned knockoff-Steamroller scenarios? Do they define it later in the article as "tournament practice" to disguise the fact that they're corrupting their pure competitive tournament data with people who play narrative games on the record?
But you wouldn't know, you have thoroughly proven that you clearly have no notable experience whatsoever with this edition and are just running your mouth based on your experience with 8th.
You not knowing about crusade despite claiming to be a narrative player really says it all.
Jidmah wrote: Because that's the default way to play 9th?...
And if you want to play 9th the default way it's great. It's built for that. If you don't because, for instance, you bought into GW's marketing spiel about forging the narrative and crusade missions and whatnot and thought "hey, let's have a creative fun time!", it's pretty bad.
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Jidmah wrote: ...You not knowing about crusade despite claiming to be a narrative player really says it all.
I know plenty about Crusade. I've tried to play Crusade. It's terrible. (Level-ups have a wildly disproportionate effect on armies with more expensive units, if you don't keep up with the tournament meta to build your Crusade roster you'll still build a list that'll get accidentally tabled a lot, and if you don't min/max for the missions you'll run into missions you can't play.)
How many games? Which army? What exactly was terrible? How much experience did your most experienced unit gather? What unit was it? What agenda was the worst one?
Jidmah wrote: How many games? Which army? What exactly was terrible? How much experience did your most experienced unit gather? What unit was it?
Or did you forget all that as well?
How 'bout you? Do you have a statistically-significant dataset of fully detailed battle reports proving that you can play Crusade games without getting tabled in two turns? Is it normal where you come from to write down a specific battle report of every game you ever play in case you need to win an argument on the Internet about whether your subjective experience of Warhammer is "right"? Can your battle reports prove to me that you're not an ass the way you're expecting mine to somehow overcome your preconception that I'm an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing?
(Deathwatch, largely mechanized, 3 games, 2 vs. Guard and 1 vs. Necrons, nobody was playing a tuned tournament list of any kind, spent most of the time hiding in a corner because I didn't have expendable suicide models to do the mission and anything that poked its nose into LOS died immediately.)
I've played meme lists where I ran Mortarion, Magnus, and three greater daemons (including a Bloodthirster) as my only non-Nurgling units in the entire game against a Space Marine list that featured a fething Repulsor Executioner as well as one of the flyers, a shooty dreadnought, and plenty of general Space Marine heavy dakka. I also lost the roll off and went second. I didn't get tabled turn 2 and won that game, though by turn five or so he was tabled and my army consisted of a full health Magnus, Mortarion with one wound, and a few nurgling bases. Neither of us ran very optimized lists and the game was crazy fun.
How 'bout you? Do you have a statistically-significant dataset of fully detailed battle reports proving that you can play Crusade games without getting tabled in two turns? Is it normal where you come from to write down a specific battle report of every game you ever play in case you need to win an argument on the Internet about whether your subjective experience of Warhammer is "right"? Can your battle reports prove to me that you're not an ass the way you're expecting mine to somehow overcome your preconception that I'm an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing?
(Deathwatch, largely mechanized, 3 games, 2 vs. Guard and 1 vs. Necrons, nobody was playing a tuned tournament list of any kind, spent most of the time hiding in a corner because I didn't have expendable suicide models to do the mission and anything that poked its nose into LOS died immediately.)
Secondary point here: I've got five armies, in the 5,000pts+ range, and all of them are so crap I need to go buy a new one if I want to have any chance of not just getting steamrolled in 9e. I'm aware I have a larger proportion of FW units than is average, but have I magically found the secret formula for picking all the worst books/worst units in every book? Or is the range of usable minis actually really narrow?
Well, if you'd like an answer to that, you're going to have to list an inventory of your stuff.....
Ideally all 5 armies. But start with just one.
(BTW, I find it hard to believe that in 25k pts worth of stuff you can't come up with even one or two decent enough lists.)
And you'll have to answer a few questions.
1) Do you play with the same general group of players?
2) Do you know what they use?
3) Do you know how they play?
4) What size & types of games do you play?
5) Yes yes, you're only using stuff you like. That's fine, I do that as well. But 5k pts is alot of "stuff you like". Are you open to/able to switching things up depending upon wich player & wich army you're facing?
6) These pick-up games, do you ever bother to discuss any of the details with the other player before hand?
Considering how you have to write those things down to play a crusade anyways, I assumed this data should be readily available, right?
Anyways, I have been playing games regularly since 9th dropped in my fairly laid back gaming group. Lots of good players with collections similar to yours, but you rarely see choices used more than once or twice and definitely nothing anywhere near tournament material unless it's an army that doesn't really have choice, like harlequins.
Tablings have become incredibly rare after people have found their way around 9th, and if they do happen, it's usually in turn 4 or 5. Even then, they are usually caused by exceptionally good/bad rolls or someone intentionally disregarding any safety measures to run down the field (usually accompanied by "WAAAGH!" or "Blood for the Blood God!" cheers).
The most important part is that our results match the observations goonhammer has done based on their data, armies they list as strong feel strong in our games, and armies in the "garbage tier" like TS or tau actually do lose more than they win in our games as well.
Also, "largely mechanized deathwatch" at 50 PL? By any chance were you primarily running oldmarines (likely since you are running DW)? We might have found your problem right there. In that case, the new codex might actually have quite some heavy impact on the viability of your army.
In any case, hiding in a corner is quite a horrible tactic in 9th, and actually has lead to an early tabling of one of our sisters players. The sole fact that you have to do that in the first place indicates that you are lacking terrain to me. Make sure to put that 25% terrain GW suggest on the board and have dense or obscuring terrain in the middle to reduce shooting.
In my experience neither necrons nor guard are particularly killy opponents in 9th, and I'm running silly things like infiltrating harbinger pox walkers and ork walker mobs.
In my experience neither necrons nor guard are particularly killy opponents in 9th, and I'm running silly things like infiltrating harbinger pox walkers and ork walker mobs.
I think my opponents would disagree with you on the Necrons not being very killy.
There's two of us running Necrons in our Crusade. I'm very shooty. The other guy is alot more melee (I think. All I hear from others is how they got sliced up in melee.). We've killed alot of stuff.
My own favorite unit is Tomb Blades.
Fast, tough, 3+, 5++ saves (depends on options selected), reanimation, living metal, each model kicks out between base 4-6 str.5 shots with decent range & ok AP both increased by them being Mephrits, comes in units of 3-9..... 9 of these things throwing 6 dice each.... Things die.
And that's before any bonus hits for Tesla, CP getting spent or they earn Crusade upgrades.
Their only downsides are:
1) each shot is only D1
2) I'm neutral on the model. I don't dislike them (if I did, I wouldn't play them no matter what they could do), but they could probably look better. I've got a few ideas on that, but not enough time to re-craft them atm. Maybe after the holidays.....
My 2nd favorite are Deathmarks.
And I've gotten very good work out of my Doom & Night Scythes.
I'm not saying that necrons can't kill stuff, but compared to other armies like marines, spikey marines or eldar which can easily shoot just as well and still hold their own in combat, they simply don't feel that threatening.
I've only had one game against the new codex so far, so take that with a grain of salt.
My club was mostly AOS for a bit, but 9th edition has got us all excited, and we've been playing more 40k than before (granted, not in large groups as we used to).
We are mostly excited though for the older books to be updated. One of the guys has Grey Knights and Orks army he is struggling with, but they were built for ITC 8th edition kill/hold more missions, which doesn't translate as well to 9th.
I've played a couple games against the new marines, which I've enjoyed, and one game against the new Necrons, and I was completely blown out of the water. I definitely need to play more games against the Necrons, as they are a power house, and those necron warriors are immensely hard to shift. But, it could just be the shock from my first game against them lol.
I do play Space Wolves, as my second army, but I'm looking forward to my Harlequins getting their 9th edition book.
While I'm sure you folks like the prospect of taking someone who doesn't like 9e and helping them build a game-winning list so they can have fun with it I think it isn't particularly helpful. While we got tied up with whether my claims about the balance are or aren't supported by tournament winrates I wasn't able to then bring up the list of other gripes I personally have with the system, namely: the use of card-game combos to patch poorly-written datasheets, the math errors dating back to the 8e Indexes in how damage/wounds and AP/saves were assigned that make generalist weapons too good against everything and vehicles/monsters in general too squishy, the overuse of perfectly-reliable reserves/deepstrike to counter the excess lethality with ways to guarantee barely-interactable alpha-strikes, pretty much everything about how psykers are written, the increased irrelevance of maneuver in the face of king-of-the-hill missions/no vehicle facings/shrunken tables/vastly inflated move speeds, the design team's lack of interest in making FW units interact with the game properly, the general slowdown of needing to roll hit/hit reroll/wound/wound reroll/save/damage on large numbers of attacks (particularly against units with an FNP, against which you then need to roll damage/FNP one attack at a time), anything to do with mortal wounds, and the massive bloat that's resulted from needing to give every army slightly different versions of every USR.
Yes, most of these date back to 8th, but 9th hasn't improved any of them and has made several worse.
One thing is clear short lived editions does split up the gaming fan base quite a bit. They should probably look at keeping 9th (whatever its faults or virtues) a decently long time before chucking it out and starting again. A 2 year shelf life is just brutally short.
When I release my rule set, it will be guaranteed (or your money back) to be the current edition for at least 10 years.
The actual missions play better, but the "pre-game balance our armies for fun" conversation is even more important in 9th than it was 8th. EC vs Salamanders was miserable due to power balance, but EC vs Dank Eldar was a lot of fun. The edition is a lot closer to good if you ignore the horrendous point imbalances. The armies that are weak due to edition changes could be fixed with a few minor but impactful changes like JSJ for Tau. Rebalancing strategem costs for factions that were expected to have "plenty of CP" when they were written would go a long ways too.
It's pure marketing now. 3rd actually lasted the longest out of the army game version of 40K i think it was 6 years, then they got on this 4 year rotation to get all the books released and them BAM they release a new edtion and start it all over again. it seemed to take about 4 years for 4th, 5th, and 7th. 6th is the special child lasting only 14 months before GW killed it with the fixed version of 7th (which they then killed with formation spam). i thnk the much heralded "final edition" known as 8th was about 3 years.
Pretty sad all around when you consider that classic battletech has basically had the same rule set with only a few minor optional changes to some charts for going on something like 30 years.
and no matter which era you play (compared to say 30K, old editions or 9th in 40K) the same rule set is used in all of them. only the gear/equipment changes to represent the tech level.
In a way it is even shorter than 2 years because the BRB is only half of the rules, the rest are in the respective codex for your army. So for most people they are playing with an old codex, possibly out of whack with the new edition, and then if an updated codex is released playing with a codex that will be out of whack in a much shorter time than 2 years.
Mezmorki wrote: You're going to get a lot of different responses to this question. I'll share mine...
Personally, I think 40K was "best" back in 5th edition. It was not as complex or fussy as 7th edition, but not as sanitized (and as oddly bloated) as 9th edition is.
FWIW, 8th and 9th edition is a HUGE change from the trajectory the game was on for nearly 20-years (3rd edition to 7th edition). Some people like the new direction more, but others don't. The core rules are admittedly more simple now (especially in comparison to 7th), but much of the gameplay depth that I enjoyed has been removed and replaced with things that I don't enjoy as much. For example:
- Removed vehicle armor facings and vehicle damage tables. Vehicles are just normal units with toughness and lots of wounds now.
- Morale greatly simplified, and failing morale tests just removes models instead of causing fallback moves, regroup moves, etc.
- Shooting is much more lethal, with individual models able to fire individual weapons at whatever they want. There are less interesting choices and tradeoffs to make now.
- While the rules are simpler, the game is now bloated with rules for stratagems and a whole command point resource system, a ridiculous number of units and weapon types.
- The 9th edition missions are pretty good seeming, except for a rather significant first player advantage (which has plagued all of 8th and 9th to varying degrees).
All in all, 9th edition gameplay feels less about the choices and tactics you employ on the battlefield. Instead, your success seems to be even more about how well you built your army roster and how well you can remember and use dozens of stratagems over the course of the game. It's not what I want out of the game.
So.... my group has gone back to playing a heavily modified version of 5th edition (ProHammer, see the signature) which we've made compatible with all codexes from 3rd-7th edition. Players can use what they want and the modified rules makes it all work together. You can get a 5th edition book used for cheap, and still use your 7th edition codexes that you have and go to town.
Exalted.
If I were buying in now, I would start with RT and 2nd Ed books eBay style, and then add from there.
After some study you should be in a better position to judge 9th.
Hasbro ification is my word for it. Turning a war game into a CCG board game.
SolarCross wrote: I am getting back into 40k, so is 9th ed any good?
I first jumped in when 7th ed was current but didn't quite get to the point of actually gaming when 7th was upstaged by 8th. I was nonplussed about buying more books so I sort of lost interest a bit since. So now 9th has been out for a bit I am torn between trying to make some use of my old 7th ed books by playing some retro hammer or getting down with what is hip with the kids now, that being 9th.
Forget 9th and do your retro hammer thing with the Battle Bible which you can get for free from the interwebz by using google-fu.
I have no issues with 9th - but the game does work better at smaller points. 40k has always been like this. 1500-1750 work far better than 2k+
I seem to remember a lot of bellyaching about 7th was how big an army had to be to include all the formations. If one actually reads the book it says:
"It is worth noting that games with LARGER points limits, say 2000-3000 points, can take the better part of an afternoon to play, while games of 1000-1500 points can usually completed in a few hours."
GW is effectively saying 1000 to 1500 is what they expect for a typical or causal game which I would say carries the implication that 500 ish is appropriate for a small game.
Formations came into being to allow small games that could be something a bit different from a HQ + 2 troops every time. The super-formations, like the gladius, just sort of exist for those special occasions when vets with big collections could throw down like an apocalypse game. They are not for a typical play.
I have no issues with 9th - but the game does work better at smaller points. 40k has always been like this. 1500-1750 work far better than 2k+
One thing I have really liked about 9th, was that they broke up tablesize and missions for diffrent game sizes. I found this helped quite a bit for lower points.
I think GW at a game design crossroads where they have realized that alternating activation (kill team) and smaller armies (combat patrol) is a more efficient and less onerous system to get people actually rolling dice and are struggling to manage this data with the history of how warhammer is played (2000points and four hours).
I have no issues with 9th - but the game does work better at smaller points. 40k has always been like this. 1500-1750 work far better than 2k+
I seem to remember a lot of bellyaching about 7th was how big an army had to be to include all the formations. If one actually reads the book it says:
"It is worth noting that games with LARGER points limits, say 2000-3000 points, can take the better part of an afternoon to play, while games of 1000-1500 points can usually completed in a few hours."
GW is effectively saying 1000 to 1500 is what they expect for a typical or causal game which I would say carries the implication that 500 ish is appropriate for a small game.
Formations came into being to allow small games that could be something a bit different from a HQ + 2 troops every time. The super-formations, like the gladius, just sort of exist for those special occasions when vets with big collections could throw down like an apocalypse game. They are not for a typical play.
That's not really a good indicator. 1,500 was the number that was most often found in the UK between 3rd/4th while in the US it was 1,750 then 1,850 the 4th ed rulebook also had quite a section on different sized games-kill teams, combat patrols (250 point games) , anything 2,500+ was considered apocalypse level after 5th dropped and the FOC went right out the window. 2k was the max limit they had set for the old FOC to work. it also had a lot to do with how familiar people were with the game. from 3rd through 5th even with the points change my games usually lasted between 1-1/2 to 2 hours even with the increase in points because of how the game mechanics worked and how well i got to know my army/rules.
With our local hybrid 5th ed games at 2K we still can wrap it all up in about 2 hours or less and we regularly get done with 6 or 7 turns in the time it takes the people at the tables playing 9th to get through 2 or 3 turns. 40K was always seen as the "faster & simpler" game that you played when you didn't want to get to deep in the woods with games that had far more complex rules like battletech, infinity, B5 wars (did a huge narn VS centari fleet battle one time that took 12 hours) etc...
In 5th there were 1500, 1750, 1850, 2000 and 2500 point games. I remember well, because there was a discussion here on dakka about certain ork builds not scaling well to certain point levels because they ran out of slots or units to take. Kan wall, for example, was a powerful 1500 points build that stopped working at 1750, while you couldn't play battlewagon bash with less than 1850 because you couldn't fit in the fourth battlewagon without dropping essential support.
Jidmah wrote: In 5th there were 1500, 1750, 1850, 2000 and 2500 point games. I remember well, because there was a discussion here on dakka about certain ork builds not scaling well to certain point levels because they ran out of slots or units to take. Kan wall, for example, was a powerful 1500 points build that stopped working at 1750, while you couldn't play battlewagon bash with less than 1850 because you couldn't fit in the fourth battlewagon without dropping essential support.
It's true. In 5th there wasn't a unique universal standard like the current 2000 points format.
In my area 1500 points was the most common format for both casual and competitive games. I mostly played wagon bash at 1500 but with 3 BWs: worked well since a single KFF was enough to cover all of them, and in fact the 3 wagon list was one of the most powerful and common 1500 points lists in early 5th edition.
I know I'm late to the party, but had to mention this:
What a load of BS. The horrible balance of 7th did nothing to competitive play ...
I don't think I've ever seen a more incorrect statement on Dakka. With respect Jidmah - you have to have been pretty out of touch with the competitive scene to say that. 7th damaged the competitive scene so badly that it nearly killed it in the states. It is literally the thing that gave rise to the ITC as, without an independent body organizing and policing that trash pile of a rule set, there would literally have been no one left to put tournaments on. 7th very nearly killed competitive 40k in the U.S.
As far as whether 9th is good or not? I've been fortunate to play a lot of socially distanced garage hammer. We have a group of about 20 people and have broken in to groups of 4 and each play regular games and have a semi-regular Zoom session with everyone to talk about it. We've had literally several hundred games so far, so my two cents is at least coming from someone who's really played it.
Pros: 1. Terrain is much better than it was in 8th. It is still a little sloppy and needs some clean-up and a few more FAQs, but they 100% did a much better job of making the terrain mean something in this edition.
2. The missions are generally much better than they used to be. I would recommend the Grand Tournament missions over those in the BRB, but over-all they are more fun to play, and they did a good job of shifting the emphasis away from just "kill everything". If you're a narrative player especially, some of the missions really lend themselves well to that style of play.
3. Crusade (admittedly some will have this in the cons, but the nice thing is, if you aren't into it, it can be completely ignored). They have given us a pretty cool way to build an army and experience it as it gets better and bigger. It's a lot of book keeping, and there are things that can make for unfun games if you aren't in the right mind set, but it's over all a pretty cool system.
4. Some will disagree with me here, but I at least feel like CC is in better shape now than it was in 8th., and if you like mid-board action, 9th has that in excellent supply.
Cons: 1. The missions have a strong first turn bias. The tournament stats we have back this up, as do the win rates in my own group. Going first gives you an advantage in turn 1 and turn 5, and you can actually completely eliminate player 2's chance to score on turn 5 with no ability for them to counter play. This needs fixed.
2. The missions do get old after a bit. The mission design is much better, but it's still just mostly some variation of "get your dudes to the spot" which can lead to a lot of fairly predictable "samey" games. Mosh-pitting is also a thing.
3. Game length - Similar to when they said "8th was the fastest playing version of 40k ever" and it turned out not to be - they also promised us a more streamlined "even faster than 8th" game for 9th. This has also not panned out. The key things causing games to take longer were stuck in the core mechanics, and they've only doubled down on those, so games of 9th generally take about the same amount of time. Sometimes slightly faster, sometimes slightly longer, but over-all, it is 100% NOT the "faster game" we were promised.
4. Still a pretty glaring difference in design approach between Marines and Necrons. Crons got a lot better but that's only by virtue of having been so amazingly bad in 8th, and this edition has essentially outright broken Tau, GSC and DE. The promise that "8th ed books would be 100% compatible" really didn't pan out (not that I expected it to), as these armies are all borderline unplayable.
Neither good nor bad:
1.Some will tell you that "movement really matters now". It doesn't. Not like those people think it does. With the smaller board size and the speed of most units, there's no longer really a question of "can I get to the right spot". Pretty much every unit in almost every army can get where it needs to be without question, and the pre-set objectives means you generally know which units are going where, so there's not really a lot of in-depth maneuver like you might be led to believe. I think a lot of folks here are just used to playing gunlines and aren't used to seeing things move at all. What really matters is timing. They've done a somewhat decent job of making you time things correctly.
2. The game feels really good at 1000-1250pts. It feels really bad at anything much bigger than that, and 500pts is still a total crap shoot. You have to have a conversation before playing a 500pt game as there's a wild amount of variance in what certain armies can bring.
So is it fun? Yeah, it's not bad. We were staring to really dislike it so we gave it a break until the new books started coming out. It does feel better with the new books, so that's a good sign, and there's a lot of potential here. It's really going to depend on what they do with the codexes honestly. It all hinges on that, but as editions go, it's decent enough.
Tycho wrote: I know I'm late to the party, but had to mention this:
What a load of BS. The horrible balance of 7th did nothing to competitive play ...
I don't think I've ever seen a more incorrect statement on Dakka. With respect Jidmah - you have to have been pretty out of touch with the competitive scene to say that. 7th damaged the competitive scene so badly that it nearly killed it in the states. It is literally the thing that gave rise to the ITC as, without an independent body organizing and policing that trash pile of a rule set, there would literally have been no one left to put tournaments on. 7th very nearly killed competitive 40k in the U.S.
ITC was a thing way before 7th, and it's fairly safe to say that 7th killed gameplay independent of the level of competitiveness. There was a huge GW store near here, which used to have 20 full sized tables to play on - when I commented about GW downsizing them to just 7 tables, one of the employees told me that GW didn't meddle too much with them because their numbers were great, but during 7th they had 4-5 tables in use at most (including LotR and AoS), so they decided to move the store to a smaller place which was just a qarter of the rent. My own group basically died with shortly after the release of the eldar codex, there were two games in all of 7th afterwards.
Tycho wrote: I know I'm late to the party, but had to mention this:
What a load of BS. The horrible balance of 7th did nothing to competitive play ...
I don't think I've ever seen a more incorrect statement on Dakka. With respect Jidmah - you have to have been pretty out of touch with the competitive scene to say that. 7th damaged the competitive scene so badly that it nearly killed it in the states. It is literally the thing that gave rise to the ITC as, without an independent body organizing and policing that trash pile of a rule set, there would literally have been no one left to put tournaments on. 7th very nearly killed competitive 40k in the U.S.
ITC was a thing way before 7th, and it's fairly safe to say that 7th killed gameplay independent of the level of competitiveness. There was a huge GW store near here, which used to have 20 full sized tables to play on - when I commented about GW downsizing them to just 7 tables, one of the employees told me that GW didn't meddle too much with them because their numbers were great, but during 7th they had 4-5 tables in use at most (including LotR and AoS), so they decided to move the store to a smaller place which was just a qarter of the rent. My own group basically died with shortly after the release of the eldar codex, there were two games in all of 7th afterwards.
ITC was indeed before something allready in existence, but 7th did hike it's popularity, mostly because it offered a better experience then mainline GW did for 7th , atleast for competitive inclined players in the states.
Both positions can be true, that comp really took off in the states with ITC and people migrating to it because it offered a better experience aswell as in some regions where the alternative didn't exist that people just stopped.
Granted , it seems that in europe or atleast in the german language sphere 7th did lead to a breakdown in regards to player population, and over here it never really recovered. Otoh we now got more differing gamessystems and by extension a healthier scene overall.
That has a lot to do with the local scene 6th pretty much was dead at our FLGS after the first month. most people switched to infinity, malafaux, warmachine and the like. when 7th dropped games started picking up again for 40K.
3. Game length - Similar to when they said "8th was the fastest playing version of 40k ever" and it turned out not to be - they also promised us a more streamlined "even faster than 8th" game for 9th. This has also not panned out. The key things causing games to take longer were stuck in the core mechanics, and they've only doubled down on those, so games of 9th generally take about the same amount of time. Sometimes slightly faster, sometimes slightly longer, but over-all, it is 100% NOT the "faster game" we were promised.
this is a problem since 6th for the same reason, GW does not understand what game mechanics are time consuming and which are not and they are focus on the wrong ones
kodos wrote: this is a problem since 6th for the same reason, GW does not understand what game mechanics are time consuming and which are not and they are focus on the wrong ones
This times a million.
I will celebrate the day when I no longer need to make pick up a model and move it 120 times in a single turn because a mob of boyz charged. That's 360 times for a horde army, plus another 60 if you decide to fight twice. Just for having troops use their primary damaging ability.
Is it really too hard to just change melee so that up to X models can fight if two units are touching after a charge move?
No reason not to. I mean, there's nothing in the design of 40k that requires it only be played a certain way. The miniatures are rules-agnostic. I'm absolutely loving the Apocalypse unit trays, so I should try it sometime...
Is it really too hard to just change melee so that up to X models can fight if two units are touching after a charge move?
Maybe it is like the gaming industry, that thinks that if getting 100% completed takes you 360hours of doing the same 3-4 things over and over again you are going to be stuned by the quality of the game, and to make the game even better you just need more time gates.
I mean if a normal game is 2000pts, and you have to paint it, or you practicaly lose every game. Then the time investment in to the game, the long game mechanics is going to be so extensive that anyone who doesn't quit right at the start is going to be fooling himself in to eternity that GW fix to the things they don't like is just around the corner. I mean if they wait 8-12 years, what is another 3-6 months wait time, and stuff like 5 hour games seem practicaly trivial in comperation.
So, my nephews that I've been playing ProHammer with are getting the Indomitus box for xmas from their parents - and no doubt this will push me to play games of 9th edition with them
I'm about a few things raised here that others might be able to shed some light on.
(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?
(2) Morale in 8th / 9th seems to be a big weak point. I wonder about just replacing the whole morale phase with a more traditional/classic approach, where units actually break and fall back, need to re-group, etc. I wonder if some of the issues with mission objectives being to melee focused is that you can't force units to actually fallback and have to move off of an objective.
Mezmorki wrote: So, my nephews that I've been playing ProHammer with are getting the Indomitus box for xmas from their parents - and no doubt this will push me to play games of 9th edition with them
I'm about a few things raised here that others might be able to shed some light on.
(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?
(2) Morale in 8th / 9th seems to be a big weak point. I wonder about just replacing the whole morale phase with a more traditional/classic approach, where units actually break and fall back, need to re-group, etc. I wonder if some of the issues with mission objectives being to melee focused is that you can't force units to actually fallback and have to move off of an objective.
1) I would primarily chalk up 1 to the reduction of the effectiveness of cover saves combined with the new AP system. 8th style cover was significantly less effective in most circumstances and SIGNIFICANTLY harder to claim than the previous cover paradigm of how people actually played 7th and earlier cover (i.e., everything was Ruins, the most powerful cover type). 9th takes a babystep in the right direction with more easily claimed model-by-model cover and the addition of dense cover allowing you to have both +1sv and -1 to hit, but for a lot of units that's still significantly worse than the 4+ cover save or 3+ if you went to ground that you used to get from cover. Also 9th took a step back in basically removing anything but infantry and beasts from being able to interact with most cover on the board.
The new AP system makes some difference but I'm not actually convinced it's that much, as primarily in 7th and ealier you'd rarely be choosing to shoot a weapon with a worse AP than the model's cover save unless you had a good chance of just overwhelming by weight of fire.
My first impressions going directly from 7th to 8th was that I hated terrain, overall light infantry and light vehicles felt tougher, and heavy infantry and heavy vehicles felt much weaker. You were much more likely to be able to successfully harm, say, a land raider with a lascannon (3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 5+ armor save vs D6 damage) in 8th+ than in 7th- (3+ to hit, 5 to glance, 6 to pen) though admittedly if you DID get that pen it was possible to just one-hit-KO the whole tank all at once, which led to the 7th- problem of heavy vehicles going from indestructible to "oops, it's gone" in one shot.
2) I don't think that would alter things much tbh. What I'd really love to see is a split Suppressed/Pinned/Broken mechanic whereby failing a morale test is easier, but if you fail only by a little bit you are merely suppressed and suffer a lethality penalty (but otherwise act normally), if you are pinned you are basically 'stunned' for a turn and must go to ground, and if you are Broken you actually fall back and have to rally in subsequent turns (if you are merely pinned or suppressed you recover automatically)
The reason I say morale fails in 9th is because the function of morale in a wargame is to give a player ways to impede enemy units without simply destroying them. That's the point: to allow the models to stay on the table to maybe be useful later, but to have them be ineffective temporarily, which allows reducing lethality without making it frustrating as all hell to just fling fire into something and not kill it.
A split mechanic like that would allow morale to apply to everything in the game (including heavy units - we DESPERATELY need a system whereby heavy units can be impeded but not destroyed by lighter firepower) and it would allow more mechanical levers for design than simple morale immunity. For example, ATSKNF could be immunity to Broken state, but not immunity to Suppression or Pinnning. Various "Bezerk" units could go on an uncontrolled rampage when Broken, attacking the closest unit friend or foe, rather than running away. Necron Self-Preservation Protocols could grant immunity to suppression, but still allow Pinning and Broken to occur in extreme circumstances when the unit must preserve itself as best it can in preparation for phase-out (which could occur in the case of a failed Rally test when the unit is broken). Just a few examples.
The other thing that morale could 100% use is an easier to track trigger point than the current 'track how many casualties have been removed from every unit on the board this turn'.
(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?
AP on every weapon in a game where there are often over 150 models per side, which makes normal stats worse point wise then chaff stats, and defensive stats have to be bordering or crossing in to the OP territory to be a valid option to take.
higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now
kodos wrote: higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now
With a few exceptions like some of the new primaris stuff I haven't really found this all that true. Even the big bugbear throughout most of 8th, the FRFSRF infantry squad was only 37 lasgun shots at 12" compared to 30 lasgun shots in the previous edition (when IIRC your sarge could take a lasgun and FRFSRF added +1 shot rather than making you Rapid Fire 2)
Mostly the difference just comes from new cover, new AP and strats, which are heavily slanted towards offense over defense for sure.
Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.
E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3).
The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.
E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.
Tyran wrote: The AP change is in general is a good thing.
Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.
E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3)
The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.
E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.
The opposite was true though for vehicles. Heavy units were less vulnerable to dedicated antitank and more vulnerable to midstrength weapon spam in 7th. Its precisely why that edition was the Scatter Laser Edition - 4 glances and you're dead for most vehicles, no saves nothing.
Tyran wrote: The AP change is in general is a good thing.
Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.
E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3)
The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.
E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.
The opposite was true though for vehicles. Heavy units were less vulnerable to dedicated antitank and more vulnerable to midstrength weapon spam in 7th. Its precisely why that edition was the Scatter Laser Edition - 4 glances and you're dead for most vehicles, no saves nothing.
Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).
But generally agreed. Hullpoints, AKA wounds-but-for-tanks, were bad for the game. So GW decided the problem was that Vehicles needed to act more like MCs with ... wounds-for-vehicles.
kodos wrote: higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now
With a few exceptions like some of the new primaris stuff I haven't really found this all that true. Even the big bugbear throughout most of 8th, the FRFSRF infantry squad was only 37 lasgun shots at 12" compared to 30 lasgun shots in the previous edition (when IIRC your sarge could take a lasgun and FRFSRF added +1 shot rather than making you Rapid Fire 2)
Mostly the difference just comes from new cover, new AP and strats, which are heavily slanted towards offense over defense for sure.
like Boltgun being 1 shot at 24" if stationary or 2 shots at 12" (18" including movement) with no charge possible after, Twin-Linked being just a re-roll no D2+ weapons at all etc
it is not just the new Primaris stuff but moving + shooting at max range, Damage values and increasing the number of shots in addition to re-rolls changed a lot
which was needed to compensate for the high-Wound Monster/Tanks, yet the output was not increased on the specific Anti-Tank weapons (1 shot D6 Damage is less effective than 2 shots 2 Damage)
BertBert wrote: Did any weapons get an increased D value so far in 9th?
Incubi glaives so far. Macharius Vanquishers went from 1d6 damage to 9 flat, regular Russ vanquishers went from 6 to 3+d3. Just off the top of my head in 10 seconds.
Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).
But a lot to fear from haywire and grav.
But generally agreed. Hullpoints, AKA wounds-but-for-tanks, were bad for the game. So GW decided the problem was that Vehicles needed to act more like MCs with ... wounds-for-vehicles.
Having a type of unit that uses an entirely different ruleset from the rest of the game is usually considered bad design.
GW always struggled to balance vehicles, with some editions (like 5th) making them to strong, while others making them to weak.
It seems to me that you could implement a set of house-rules in 40K such that when you're in cover, you can do one of two things:
(1) Take the hit on your armor as normal, with cover providing a bonus on your armor save.
OR
(2) Take the hit on the cover, which would be an unmodified flat save depending on the strength of the cover. 6+ for soft cover (woods, vegetation, etc) and 5+ for hard cover (ruins, rocks, etc). Could have a 4+ for fortifications and more defensible stuff. Or maybe 5+/4+/3+ if you want to give more durability to units. This, couple with changing morale and allowing actual fallback moves and regrouping would seem to do a ton to reduce the lethality of the game.
Having a type of unit that uses an entirely different ruleset from the rest of the game is usually considered bad design.
GW always struggled to balance vehicles, with some editions (like 5th) making them to strong, while others making them to weak.
GW's issue IMHO was that they always swung the pendulum too far when they made a change. Vehicles were too strong in 5th, so instead of changing the damage table incrementally, they added Hull Points that ensured a vehicle died after X glancing or penetrating hits, then vehicles were too weak. Before that in 4th edition, vehicles were again too weak in general because a 4+ on the penetrating hit table blew them up, and you had ordinance and high AP and open-topped vehicles making it even more likely to get a 4+. 5th edition would've been fine, if they just tweaked the damage table result a little bit. But GW rarely does that, they always swing too far in the opposite direction and never get to a happy median.
To your first point - I reject that having different types of units use different rules is bad design. Vehicles are fundamentally VERY different than an infantry unit. Why shouldn't the rules reflect that?
I'm also thinking about how to account for vehicle facing and damage rolls in 9th edition again. Maybe something where the toughness of the vehicle is lower when in the rear arc or side arc. Or maybe a bonus to the wound roll? Gotta think about what that would look like.
Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).
But a lot to fear from haywire and grav.
Yes, and from heavy antitank weapons as well; it is good that these vehicles have counters. Grav as implemented in Horus Heresy is healthier for the game though; the 40k grav was pretty bad and was entirely a consequence of 7th iirc (may have been 6th).
But generally agreed. Hullpoints, AKA wounds-but-for-tanks, were bad for the game. So GW decided the problem was that Vehicles needed to act more like MCs with ... wounds-for-vehicles.
Having a type of unit that uses an entirely different ruleset from the rest of the game is usually considered bad design.
Every other wargame that covers ground combat has different rules for vehicles than infantry that I can think of.
Tyran wrote: GW always struggled to balance vehicles, with some editions (like 5th) making them to strong, while others making them to weak.
GW being gak at game design doesn't make the entire concept of handling vehicles like vehicles meritless.
Heavy anti-tank weapons were worthless in 7th unless they had D strength.
And very few wargames are as asymmetric as 40k. When some factions can spam their entire army in metal boxes (like Guard) and others don't have a single vehicle (Tyranids), having entirely different rule-sets causes an unnecessary schism that is prone to imbalance.
40k has always been Hella lethal. You used to get free 4++ saves for standing in grass though... Even back in those days you could get an ignore cover death star and just blow every unit away. Plus D weapons. I spammed the heck outta d weapons in 7th man. Those could go right through invune saves.
Tyran wrote: Heavy anti-tank weapons were worthless in 7th unless they had D strength.
As someone who plays 30k, which is basically modern 7th, I can assure you this is a consequence of badly-written codexes, rather than a consequence of the core rules.
Tyran wrote: And very few wargames are as asymmetric as 40k. When some factions can spam their entire army in metal boxes (like Guard) and others don't have a single vehicle (Tyranids), having entirely different rule-sets causes an unnecessary schism that is prone to imbalance.
But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.
But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.
Somewhat, although is not just different bits of gear, but unit types with massive rule differences. If an unit type is simply not accessible to entire factions while easily accessible to others, then that unit type is going to have large impact on inter-faction balance.
8th consolidation of Monsters and Vehicles under the same basic rules was IMHO an improvement. The actual rules could have been written better, but they are finally on the same playing field.
But in the end the intreduction of stuff like the castellan made most vehicles not usable.
What was used were LoS artilery, Flyers which played a game of their own in 8th, and at the very end of 8th stuff that got boosted to high heaven thanks to 9th ed rules synergy in 8th ed.
But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.
Somewhat, although is not just different bits of gear, but unit types with massive rule differences. If an unit type is simply not accessible to entire factions while easily accessible to others, then that unit type is going to have large impact on inter-faction balance.
8th consolidation of Monsters and Vehicles under the same basic rules was IMHO an improvement. The actual rules could have been written better, but they are finally on the same playing field.
I'm not really concerned with having the argument you're trying to have; I've generally refuted your original claim that vehicles being treated differently to everything else was bad game design.
As for the proper balance between Vehicles and MCs, they were fine in 4th edition and most of 5th for example (and are fine in 30k). They weren't nearly as drastically cocked up as they were in 6th-7th, nor were the vehicle rules as shoddy at making vehicles vehicular as 8th and 9th.
I'm not really concerned with having the argument you're trying to have; I've generally refuted your original claim that vehicles being treated differently to everything else was bad game design.
As for the proper balance between Vehicles and MCs, they were fine in 4th edition and most of 5th for example (and are fine in 30k). They weren't nearly as drastically cocked up as they were in 6th-7th, nor were the vehicle rules as shoddy at making vehicles vehicular as 8th and 9th.
Fair enough, similarly I have no interest to returning to the pre-8th paradigm.
With vehicle damage in particular, GW first modified the damage threshold so that vehicles were only exploded on 6s instead of 5s, while having positive damage modifiers start at AP 2 instead of 1. This made vehicles more vulnerable to glancing rather than penetrating hits.
For 7th...GW then modified the damage table so vehicles exploded on 7s before modification. The end result was that where a Zoanthrope at the start of 6th could one-shot a vehicle via Penetration on a 4+, said Zoanthrope now needed a 6 at the start of 7th (due to having Warp Lance "brilliantly" reduced from AP 1 to 2), while it was now impossible for a Tyrannofex to destroy even a Rhino in a single turn (two non-AP 2 shots, versus 3 Hull Points), much less a Land Raider. There was a reason that Tyranids were locked into Brainleech Devourers.
Meanwhile, Grav became a weapon to mulch through "everything" since most vehicles had 3 HP, and a 6 vs an already-Immobilized vehicle meant doing 2 HP. "Superheavies" were the exception, since they explicitly ignored any damage result that was not an Explodes.
Perhaps, rather than modifying the vehicle damage chart to make "explodes" an increasingly distant possibility, they could have increased the HP of vehicles, and replaced any instance of "instant death/explodes" with "does an extra D3 wounds/HP of damage", such that the pendulum would give an actual purpose to 'high-strength antitank', versus massed S6/7.
Of course, GW then went for the 8th ed approach/9th ed approach where we now get arguments over whether Heavy Bolters are reasonable effective vs Land Raiders compared to Lascannons...
Alright, so after feeling like I got ProHammer into a good spot, I'm now wondering about how to incorporate the core ideas and spirit of ProHammer into a re-worked 9th edition. This would be basically be driven by the idea building on and tweaking the 9th edition core rules in a way that changes the gameplay without needing to make specific changes to entries in the codex books.
Here's my laundry list of things to think about as modifications to 9th to make it feel a bit more like OldHammer and also reduce the lethality of the game a bit:
* Re-do morale phase - broken units would instead fallback X" with a chance to regroup later on. Certain types of abilities/stratagems that affect current morale losses might need global adjustments to how they work.
* Add in additional morale elements/mechanisms (adapt from ProHammer). E.G, suppression / hail of fire for forced pinning tests.
* Adjust terrain and cover save handling. Consider adding in dedicated cover saves as a choice instead of using the cover save modifier. Refine terrain rules more.
* Allow vehicles / monstrous creatures to benefit from cover again if decently obscured.
* Incorporate vehicle facings (vehicles harder to wound from the front? easier to wound from the back?
* Re-implement vehicle weapon firing arcs again, e.g. LoS from each weapon barrel
* Add back in uncertainty to reserve rolls (no automatic entry for reserves)
* Add back in uncertainty to deepstrike (bring back scatter dice?)
* Reduce variability of charges and/or used fixed charge distance based on unit type.
* Re-do shooting target selection per ProHammer (no automatic split fire, use declared fire, ProHammer would allocation process for faster rolling)
* Add in ProHammer reaction fire to charges and close range shooting attacks instead of current overwatch fire (in ProHammer, taking reaction fire is almost as strong as a full normal shooting attack, but it means you don't get to shoot on your next turn - it's a way of breaking down the shooting and approximating alternative activations a bit).
Mezmorki wrote: ...This would be basically be driven by the idea building on and tweaking the 9th edition core rules in a way that changes the gameplay without needing to make specific changes to entries in the codex books...
I'm skeptical. Without addressing stratagem bloat, special rule bloat, or poorly-considered statline decisions all you'll be able to do is add bloat to 9th that way.
I mean, if you want to play a more battle-ier game, just pick up another game? 40k is easy, for the most part. It's not a simulation. It's an abstract of an insane future where people wear giant boxing gloves to literally smash faces with... while 100 foot tall robots shoot beams of plasma (The heat of a sun) on a planet that somehow doesn't vaporize the weapon firing it.
And actual Daemons exist, and can be demonstrably proven to exist. And Souls are *known* to exist. And running at someone with a Chainsaw is a viable strategy for a large portion of the galaxy.
40k's "reality" is divorced from our own. Trying to real-ify it takes away from that.
greatbigtree wrote: I mean, if you want to play a more battle-ier game, just pick up another game? 40k is easy, for the most part. It's not a simulation. It's an abstract of an insane future where people wear giant boxing gloves to literally smash faces with... while 100 foot tall robots shoot beams of plasma (The heat of a sun) on a planet that somehow doesn't vaporize the weapon firing it.
And actual Daemons exist, and can be demonstrably proven to exist. And Souls are *known* to exist. And running at someone with a Chainsaw is a viable strategy for a large portion of the galaxy.
40k's "reality" is divorced from our own. Trying to real-ify it takes away from that.
40k still has a reality though, and that reality can be simulated, however different from our own it is.
In fact, it is precisely because it is so different that I would like to see it more reified on the tabletop. I know how our reality works. I want to learn more about 40k's reality, including the rules and laws that govern tank design, daemonic manifestation, and why punching people with a giant glove is a good war-winning move. That's a fascinating world.
greatbigtree wrote: ...40k's "reality" is divorced from our own. Trying to real-ify it takes away from that.
I don't think rolling back to older editions is trying to "real-ify" 40k so much as try to justify the existence of a bunch of stuff that makes no sense in the 9e rules. Heavy armour is pointless because you can and will chew it to death with machine guns, rifles are pointless because there are armies entirely composed of invincible multi-wound superpeople, maneuver is pointless because the only positional variable that the rules care about is how far away from each other you are, range is pointless because we're playing king of the hill on a shrunken table, dedicated AT weapons are pointless because intermediate-stat spam does the same thing, single-shot weapons are pointless because blasts perform better against all targets...
"Why don't we bring back armour facings?" is less about making 40k "realistic" and more about asking "could we do a thing that makes maneuver and fast AT more relevant?" Things like the Land Speeder, Piranha, and Vyper are effectively pointless in 40k right now because the entire purpose in using them over slower, tougher platforms was to get side/rear shots, but now that there are no side/rear shots there's no reason to take them.
greatbigtree wrote: 40k's "reality" is divorced from our own. Trying to real-ify it takes away from that.
Well, given that almost all of the above rule suggestions are literally just lifted from older editions of 40K, I fail to see how they would inherently break the intended experience of the game.
AnomanderRake wrote: I'm skeptical. Without addressing stratagem bloat, special rule bloat, or poorly-considered statline decisions all you'll be able to do is add bloat to 9th that way.
This is my main concern. Adding on some of this stuff in 5th edition / ProHammer was less likely to break something because of the lack of the things you mention.
Still, I think most of the above rules could be woven in without too much pain.
AnomanderRake wrote: I'm skeptical. Without addressing stratagem bloat, special rule bloat, or poorly-considered statline decisions all you'll be able to do is add bloat to 9th that way.
This is my main concern. Adding on some of this stuff in 5th edition / ProHammer was less likely to break something because of the lack of the things you mention.
Still, I think most of the above rules could be woven in without too much pain.
You could weave them into the core rules, sure. If you didn't then sit down with all the Codexes and all the stratagems and try and work out how all of that interacts with your core rules changes I think you'd end up breaking a lot of things.
One of the things I really dislike about 9e is that it's such an interconnected system built on layers and layers of buffs that it makes itself really hard to do anything other than play tournament-standard games with everything completely as-written with.
I am aware that most of the ideas are lifted from earlier editions.
I believe the current design focus is to give people a “heroic action game” whereas previous design space had tried to be a closer-to-reality Battle game.
Things like having LoS based on weapon locations, firing arcs, and different AV for different facings were attempts to increase the “reality” factor for the game. The current design is moving away from that, in favour of being a little more loosey goosey with exact measurements and other details. Currently, “wouldn’t it be cool if...” takes priority over “that isn’t directly translateable, so no...”.
40k alternates between abstraction and extreme granularity. The same game that says that "vehicle facings are too complex" does not have any issue with differentiating between a Bolter, a Bolt Rifle, a Heavy Bolt Rifle...
After a certain point, one appreciates how 3rd-5th called a "Power Weapon" a "Power Weapon".
greatbigtree wrote: I am aware that most of the ideas are lifted from earlier editions.
I believe the current design focus is to give people a “heroic action game” whereas previous design space had tried to be a closer-to-reality Battle game.
Things like having LoS based on weapon locations, firing arcs, and different AV for different facings were attempts to increase the “reality” factor for the game. The current design is moving away from that, in favour of being a little more loosey goosey with exact measurements and other details. Currently, “wouldn’t it be cool if...” takes priority over “that isn’t directly translateable, so no...”.
More high fantasy, less nitty gritty.
Are people complaining because of the loss of the "nitty gritty realism" or because of the push towards "find the most efficient general-purpose gun and spam it"?
Slightly perplexed. We spent the last few pages complaining about the nuances of all the stuff we don't like about the current edition, but then scoff at the suggestion of changing any of it because it's not in alignment with the direction the game seems to be going.
Of course it's not in alignment! That's the whole point of suggestion changes.
On a more pragmatic note, and maybe this needs to be its own thread, I'd like to discuss some changes to 9th and where specifically such changes might fail or breakdown given the particulars of 9th edition.
greatbigtree wrote: I am aware that most of the ideas are lifted from earlier editions.
I believe the current design focus is to give people a “heroic action game” whereas previous design space had tried to be a closer-to-reality Battle game.
Things like having LoS based on weapon locations, firing arcs, and different AV for different facings were attempts to increase the “reality” factor for the game. The current design is moving away from that, in favour of being a little more loosey goosey with exact measurements and other details. Currently, “wouldn’t it be cool if...” takes priority over “that isn’t directly translateable, so no...”.
More high fantasy, less nitty gritty.
problem here is the same with the playtime, they do it on the wrong side
removing any details of the game that can be seen as player interaction while everything that is player-game interaction (including list building) is expanded with unecessary details
seeing it as to complicated to talk with the opponent but digging in books and rules to get all options for your army is fine
Random thought, which I haven't seen brought up before.... but is part of the lethality question (especially with respect to vehicle) a function of how the wound chart was changed in 8th?
People talk about land raiders dying to heavy bolters. S5 vs. T8 wounds on 5+ in 8th/9th, whereas before it would've been a 6+, which is a 50% reduction in likelihood of successfully wounding. I think this applies in probably other areas as well where a 2-point mismatch between Strength and Toughness usually is no different than the 1-point mismatch, whereas before it was.
I guess you could say the above cuts both ways, as S6 and S7 weapons would previously wound MEQ's easier (on a 2+), whereas now that strength wounds only on a 3+.
This change to the wound chart was pretty massive and underexamined IMHO with respect to its impact on balance.
Obviously, in the old armor value days, a S5 bolter had literally no way to penetrate 14 armor. But if the concern is that higher toughness models are dying too quickly - maybe the old wound chart needs to be brought back. It's a more granular approach.
EDIT:
To put it in 9E terms:
Is the Strength 2 points (or more) HIGHER than the Toughness? 2+
Is the Strength 1 point HIGHER than the Toughness? 3+
Is the Strength EQUAL to the Toughness? 4+
Is the Strength 1 point LOWER than the Toughness? 5+
Is the Strength 2 or 3 points LOWER than the Toughness 6+
Is the Strength 4 points (or more) LOWER than the Toughness? Impossible to wound.
Greatly increased wound totals for monsters/vehicles with an accompanying increase in AT damage characteristics would help alleviate the "one gun/hammer fits all" issue.
Mezmorki wrote: ...But if the concern is that higher toughness models are dying too quickly - maybe the old wound chart needs to be brought back. It's a more granular approach...
The problem is more to do with how damage/wounds were assigned than S/T. GW gave vehicles/monsters too few wounds and made D2/Dd3 too cheap/spammable in the 8e Indexes, and has yet to try and correct that, to the point that they're now having to introduce special rules (Dreadnaughts and -1D to incoming attacks) to correct for the fact that they made spamming mid-power weapons the most efficient solution to the vast majority of targets.
Just as a sanity check I math-hammered out heavy bolters vs. lascannons assuming BS 3+ shooting at a land raider. Lo and behold, the heavy bolter is just slightly better statistically speaking. Crazy. Of course the heavy bolters are also cheaper.
Tyran wrote: My personal proposition is make -1D standard to Monster and Vehicle keywords, with the trade off that you have +1 to hit against such target.
I've been toying with an idea also where vehicles benefit from a +1 to their toughness from the front and -1 to their toughness in the back.
To merge the ideas, maybe they just get -1D to attacks in their front and side?
Tyran wrote: My personal proposition is make -1D standard to Monster and Vehicle keywords, with the trade off that you have +1 to hit against such target.
I've been toying with an idea also where vehicles benefit from a +1 to their toughness from the front and -1 to their toughness in the back.
To merge the ideas, maybe they just get -1D to attacks in their front and side?
I toyed with this in one of my homebrew fix editions, and found it made everything unnecessarily complicated by comparison to giving vehicles different T on different faces and burning down and rebuilding the damage/wounds stats on everything. Also known as rolling back to pre-8e.
Tyran wrote: My personal proposition is make -1D standard to Monster and Vehicle keywords, with the trade off that you have +1 to hit against such target.
I've been toying with an idea also where vehicles benefit from a +1 to their toughness from the front and -1 to their toughness in the back.
To merge the ideas, maybe they just get -1D to attacks in their front and side?
The issue with facings is that they work well on imperial boxes, as boxes have well defined sides. The issue is that everyone else doesn't have boxes for vehicles/monsters.
Tyran wrote: My personal proposition is make -1D standard to Monster and Vehicle keywords, with the trade off that you have +1 to hit against such target.
I've been toying with an idea also where vehicles benefit from a +1 to their toughness from the front and -1 to their toughness in the back.
To merge the ideas, maybe they just get -1D to attacks in their front and side?
The issue with facings is that they work well on imperial boxes, as boxes have well defined sides. The issue is that everyone else doesn't have boxes for vehicles/monsters.
It works great for circle bases, less great for oval bases. If you're looking for a simpler way to add facings back to the game that's easier to eyeball for oval bases you might also consider Flames of War arcs; draw a line across the front of your vehicle perpendicular to its direction of movement, and attacks originating from behind that get some kind of bonus.
The issue with facings is that they work well on imperial boxes, as boxes have well defined sides. The issue is that everyone else doesn't have boxes for vehicles/monsters.
I see no issue. Ork vehicles are sturdy and tough and proper shaped. Other factions vehicles are flimsy and weak and wouldn't be getting the bonus to T.
In 5th it felt like half my game time was sunk into arguing the facings of trukks, battlewagons and wave serpents.
The speed freeks game has gubbins made of paper you can put onto the buggies' bases to determine facing - without something like this for every vehicle in the game, facings are not an option for me.
Mezmorki wrote: Just as a sanity check I math-hammered out heavy bolters vs. lascannons assuming BS 3+ shooting at a land raider. Lo and behold, the heavy bolter is just slightly better statistically speaking. Crazy. Of course the heavy bolters are also cheaper.
May I ask how you got that math?
Heavy bolter: 3 shots. BS 3+: 2 hits. S5 vs T8, 5+ to wound: 0.67 wounds. AP -1 vs Sv 2+, 3+ to save: 0.22 failed wounds. 2 Damage: 0.44 damage suffered.
Lascannon: 1 shot. BS 3+: 0.67 hits. S9 vs T8, 3+ to wound, 0.44 wounds. AP -3 vs Sv 2+, 5+ to save: 0.30 failed wounds. D6 Damage, average 3.5: 1.04 damage suffered.
1.04/0.44 = 2.33
The lascannon is 2.33 times better than a heavy bolter against Land Raiders.
Karol wrote: then just give each vehicles a base and mark it in 4 places and now it has 4 sides.
So, what base would you suggest for a battlewagon with deff rolla?
a rectangular one
PS: we used simple sheets of paper/plasticcard cut to the size of the tank during 5th
no argument needed which side is it as it was clear from the start and if the vehicle exploded you removed it but kept the "base" on the table to mark the crater
simple and effecitve and worked with all kind of vehicles or conversions (some people needed to get used to see a rectangular base unter the flight stand of a skimmer, but after they saw the benefit it was no problem at all)
Facings, fire arcs, templates.... all things that I'm glad they're gone!!!!! They just were what re-rolls are now, things that only slow down the game and don't provide any real interesting mechanic to the game.
Putting bases under very large vehicles like a BW with rolla is impractical, it would be a pain to move that model. Very large bases were good for Warhammer Fantasy, that almost had no scenery, not for 40k.
Karol wrote: then just give each vehicles a base and mark it in 4 places and now it has 4 sides.
So, what base would you suggest for a battlewagon with deff rolla?
a rectangular one
PS: we used simple sheets of paper/plasticcard cut to the size of the tank during 5th
no argument needed which side is it as it was clear from the start and if the vehicle exploded you removed it but kept the "base" on the table to mark the crater
simple and effecitve and worked with all kind of vehicles or conversions (some people needed to get used to see a rectangular base unter the flight stand of a skimmer, but after they saw the benefit it was no problem at all)
That's probably a good solution, but 5th also created its own mess with being able to shoot any another facing than the one you were in if you could see it among other issues. My favorite example of this would be hitting rear armor of a battlewagon while standing in front of it by shooting the exhaust pipe in the rear (which can be seen from the front)
In essence, I wouldn't mind facings if there is a 100% watertight rule set behind it with zero room for interpretation and clearly defined facings for every vehicle, especially oddballs like eldar skimmers, defilers or battlewagons. If there is any reason to discuss what facing a model is shooting whatsoever, I prefer them to never come back - they added little to nothing to my games anyways.
There's a difference between facings or templates and re-rolls.
Facing, templates allow for player decisions and choices (do I reveal my vulnerable back to attack my optimal target, do I bunch up behind cover or spread out of cover and many more) So these things add GAMEPLAY.
Re-rolls just happen and have to be done, no player input required. Just like consulting tables or shuffling decks they add tedious UPKEEP.
Players should want maximum gameplay for minimum upkeep. Unless they want their game move from being a game to being a show for them to observe passively.
Karol wrote: then just give each vehicles a base and mark it in 4 places and now it has 4 sides.
So, what base would you suggest for a battlewagon with deff rolla?
a rectangular one
PS: we used simple sheets of paper/plasticcard cut to the size of the tank during 5th
no argument needed which side is it as it was clear from the start and if the vehicle exploded you removed it but kept the "base" on the table to mark the crater
simple and effecitve and worked with all kind of vehicles or conversions (some people needed to get used to see a rectangular base unter the flight stand of a skimmer, but after they saw the benefit it was no problem at all)
That's probably a good solution, but 5th also created its own mess with being able to shoot any another facing than the one you were in if you could see it among other issues. My favorite example of this would be hitting rear armor of a battlewagon while standing in front of it by shooting the exhaust pipe in the rear (which can be seen from the front)
In essence, I wouldn't mind facings if there is a 100% watertight rule set behind it with zero room for interpretation and clearly defined facings for every vehicle, especially oddballs like eldar skimmers, defilers or battlewagons. If there is any reason to discuss what facing a model is shooting whatsoever, I prefer them to never come back - they added little to nothing to my games anyways.
TBF if anyone pulled that with "well ackshually" i'd just shake his hand and go.
Because the rule is in typicall GW fashion well intended but utter nonsense in practice (and i seriously doubt firing through a vehicle was RAI). Further it's one thing if you sit at a corner f.e and see the left side of a vehicle and front compared to shooting through a Battlewagon to the exhaust pipe.
Simply put GW should've released an addendum to the rule that disallowed to shoot through a vehicle to hit the opposing side and implemented a baseline system as to what counts as side, front , etc. f.e. by adding in schematic for the vehicle in question in the box. Or better rulebook. But that would've been actual work to be done and we can't have that.
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Cyel wrote: There's a difference between facings or templates and re-rolls.
Facing, templates allow for player decisions and choices (do I reveal my vulnerable back to attack my optimal target, do I bunch up behind cover or spread out of cover and many more) So these things add GAMEPLAY.
Re-rolls just happen and have to be done, no player input required. Just like consulting tables or shuffling decks they add tedious UPKEEP.
Players should want maximum gameplay for minimum upkeep. Unless they want their game move from being a game to being a show for them to observe passively.
Not Online!!! wrote: TBF if anyone pulled that with "well ackshually" i'd just shake his hand and go.
Because the rule is in typicall GW fashion well intended but utter nonsense in practice (and i seriously doubt firing through a vehicle was RAI). Further it's one thing if you sit at a corner f.e and see the left side of a vehicle and front compared to shooting through a Battlewagon to the exhaust pipe.
This is how the rule was played in our area. Because that is what the rule said - and the fluff justification was that the squad was making a more difficult shot(there was a penalty) to hit vulnerable parts.
Simply put GW should've released an addendum to the rule that disallowed to shoot through a vehicle to hit the opposing side and implemented a baseline system as to what counts as side, front , etc. f.e. by adding in schematic for the vehicle in question in the box. Or better rulebook. But that would've been actual work to be done and we can't have that.
There also is the issue with the battlewagon being highly modular, so a you would need at least 5-6 diagrams to catch all builds.
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Crispy78 wrote: You clearly never experienced the joy of dropping your melta raptors in behind your mate's brand new land raider and popping it with a single shot...
You also clearly didn't either.
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Cyel wrote: There's a difference between facings or templates and re-rolls.
Facing, templates allow for player decisions and choices (do I reveal my vulnerable back to attack my optimal target, do I bunch up behind cover or spread out of cover and many more) So these things add GAMEPLAY.
That wasn't a choice. You bunched up, you lost. Spacing out all my orks 2" was a mandatory part of the game that wasted a lot of my time. At best it was a noob trap that veteran players could exploit to curb-stomp people for easy victories.
Cyel wrote: There's a difference between facings or templates and re-rolls.
Facing, templates allow for player decisions and choices (do I reveal my vulnerable back to attack my optimal target, do I bunch up behind cover or spread out of cover and many more) So these things add GAMEPLAY.
Re-rolls just happen and have to be done, no player input required. Just like consulting tables or shuffling decks they add tedious UPKEEP.
Players should want maximum gameplay for minimum upkeep. Unless they want their game move from being a game to being a show for them to observe passively.
Not really, it's the illusion of choices.
Putting the single dude with a flamer in the front row when it needed to be there wasn't gameplay, it was the only way to play it from the moment you decided to include a flamer dude in your unit: you screened it since it had the chance to fire. I don't see any tactical decisions in that. And now that casualties are removed by player's choice you could also keep the flamer guy in the front without any problem. Rolling a D3 or D6 (or multiple of them) is faster than counting the models under a blast/temeplate
Facings and arcs were impractical mechanics that only nerfed vehicles to the point that vehicles that were designed to fire and transport models were trash, so were gunboats with short ranged heavy weapons; you basically only saw pure transports, immobile gunboats or some vehicles that had assault/rapid fire weapons, no fire arcs and a single AV value, like Venoms. Those mechanics also slowed down the game due to discussions, so did blasts.
Vehicles mechanics are immensely more interacting now, simplified rules can be good. The problems they may have are all codexes related, not rules related. It's definitely the best edition ever for vehicles and I've never enjoyed mine like I do now.
That's probably a good solution, but 5th also created its own mess with being able to shoot any another facing than the one you were in if you could see it among other issues. My favorite example of this would be hitting rear armor of a battlewagon while standing in front of it by shooting the exhaust pipe in the rear (which can be seen from the front)
that's the most idiotic argument i could see anybody making. if you tried you would quickly run out of people to play with.
it is also contrary to the actual written rules and example picture given of the bisected vehicle. granted in most cases where the vehicles are curved like eldar the side AV is the same as the front.
So lets look at the vehicle in question with and without the roller
the shape of the hull is clearly rectangular so using the base diagram
If you are in the front arc you can only shoot the front no matter what odd piece is sticking out of the back (much like being able to see the side sponsons on the pred in the diagram from the front doesn't mean you get a side shot), it is much like the rule discounting wings, banner poles weapon bits etc... from being used to target models behind LOS blocking cover.
Blackie wrote: Putting bases under very large vehicles like a BW with rolla is impractical, it would be a pain to move that model. Very large bases were good for Warhammer Fantasy, that almost had no scenery, not for 40k.
You know, you can cut that base to only slightly bigger than the model it goes under.... Like just enough so that you can see it. A few MM extra will work. And here's an idea will blow your mind - You can even magnetize it so that it moves right with the model & can be removed to become the crater!
So if moving the model is a pain? It must be a user error.
The rear compartment of of a battlewagon isn't rectangular at all though?
The rule I'm referring to cared about which arcs you could *see* though. By blocking sight to the facing you are in with terrain, a rhino or chimera, you could basically shoot rear armor from the front.
If you care enough, you can probably dig up one of those 10+ page threads in YMDC about why exhaust pipe can be shot in 5th. It was also unclear whether a deff rolla was part of the hull, which - depending on which way that argument went - might or might not change the size of the front arc.
It's not just the exhaust pipe. If you build the wagon like you see in my avatar, the turret was in the rear arc as well.
Simply put GW should've released an addendum to the rule that disallowed to shoot through a vehicle to hit the opposing side and implemented a baseline system as to what counts as side, front , etc. f.e. by adding in schematic for the vehicle in question in the box. Or better rulebook. But that would've been actual work to be done and we can't have that.
you know this was the time were GW said "our game is perfect therefore we neither need a FAQ no an Errata and everything is written as we mean it (RAW=RAI)"
Simply put GW should've released an addendum to the rule that disallowed to shoot through a vehicle to hit the opposing side and implemented a baseline system as to what counts as side, front , etc. f.e. by adding in schematic for the vehicle in question in the box. Or better rulebook. But that would've been actual work to be done and we can't have that.
you know this was the time were GW said "our game is perfect therefore we neither need a FAQ no an Errata and everything is written as we mean it (RAW=RAI)"
Yes, it's about the only attestable improvement GW had since Kirby went to the 7 circles of hell.-
The quality overall though still hasn't improved.
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Jidmah wrote: The rear compartment of of a battlewagon isn't rectangular at all though?
The rule I'm referring to cared about which arcs you could *see* though. By blocking sight to the facing you are in with terrain, a rhino or chimera, you could basically shoot rear armor from the front.
If you care enough, you can probably dig up one of those 10+ page threads in YMDC about why exhaust pipe can be shot in 5th. It was also unclear whether a deff rolla was part of the hull, which - depending on which way that argument went - might or might not change the size of the front arc.
It's not just the exhaust pipe. If you build the wagon like you see in my avatar, the turret was in the rear arc as well.
Then you abstract the wagon into 2 d realm. That is no issue if you handle the thing correctly as are eldar vehicles which you'd also handle that way.
Jidmah wrote: The rear compartment of of a battlewagon isn't rectangular at all though?
The rule I'm referring to cared about which arcs you could *see* though. By blocking sight to the facing you are in with terrain, a rhino or chimera, you could basically shoot rear armor from the front.
.
True LoS is one of the worse ideas had for its game. Only two worse are skirmish style stats and rules for a 200+model games and the no interaction turns for players. All the terrain problems in 8th came from the fact that we had true LoS, which ment any cloak, banner or dynamic model was a downgrad option for any army to play with.
But speaking of bases and different front, side, backs. What if GW did make them different. What if an ork vehicle had a huge front like all of the base counting as the models front aside for the back line. On the flip side something like an eldar skimer could have only sides armour all around. While an imperial Lego tank would have a distinct front, side and back. It could synergise with unit anti tank rules, maybe some units would do more damge to front, side or back. Maybe pumping 6 shots in to the back of a warwagon could be very effective, but at the front not so much. this would enhance the need for melta/lascanon like weapons would would always be good at damaging tanks, but if you got them in to the right position. They would be outright deadly.
Not Online!!! wrote: That is no issue if you handle the thing correctly as are eldar vehicles which you'd also handle that way.
It clearly was an issue, and one of the prime reasons, if not the only one, why people are happy that armor facings went away. I don't have the patience to type out all the possible interpretations of "rear" for battlewagons or wave serpents, but from hundreds of games and dozens of arguments on this topic, I can tell you that there is no one correct way to define the arcs of either vehicle.
Not Online!!! wrote: That is no issue if you handle the thing correctly as are eldar vehicles which you'd also handle that way.
It clearly was an issue, and one of the prime reasons, if not the only one, why people are happy that armor facings went away. I don't have the patience to type out all the possible interpretations of "rear" for battlewagons or wave serpents, but from hundreds of games and dozens of arguments on this topic, I can tell you that there is no one correct way to define the arcs of either vehicle.
Then i loathe to say it , but the onus of fault still lies between gw and your playing group.
And not the ruleconcept, now instead we got a lackluster System further disadvantaging whole unit classes ontop of a frankly idotically concived wounds Chart.
If you care enough, you can probably dig up one of those 10+ page threads in YMDC about why exhaust pipe can be shot in 5th.
Again, as when 5th was the current edition you try that GAK at my FLGS and you will quickly find nobody will want to play you.
Peer pressure is not a replacement for good rules.
And the whole criticism remains true if you replace exhaust pipe with "rear turret", which explicitly were valid things to be shot.
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Not Online!!! wrote: Then i loathe to say it , but the onus of fault still lies between gw and your playing group.
My playing groups at that time were my friends, another group of people I knew from various parties/mtg games and the people playing at one of the three GW stores and two FLGS with tables in my area.
There was no consensus on any of these models, in none of those groups. You *had* to clarify these kind of things, among many others, before the game or it would turn into a gak-show as soon as the situation came up.
I think the luxury of always playing with the same handful of like-minded people has blinded you guys for the glaring issues 5th and its codices had.
If you were in a facing you couldn't see in 5th and got shot at, you didn't hit the facing you could see - you instead hit the facing you were in, AND the tank got a 3+ save instead of a 4+ for cover.
There's actually a really clear example in the book featuring a Rhino vs. Fire Dragons, one in which they can see the front armor (but only half so a 4+ Obscured save) and one in which they can see the side armor only but were in the front (so they shot the front armor but because the entire facing was obscured it got a 3+ Obscured save).
If they could only see the pipe on the back of a battlewagon but were in the front, your battlewagon got a 3+ Cover Save and the benefit of its front armor, unlike now where it gets nothing.
If you care enough, you can probably dig up one of those 10+ page threads in YMDC about why exhaust pipe can be shot in 5th.
This might very well in allowed per the RAW, but it runs so against the spirit of game I'm rather mortified (although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised) that people would interpret them this way and be cool with going along with it. I call it a bastardization of the rules.
We always just took a look what you can see of a vehicle and drew LoW towards the center of what was visible. That's what facing you hit. For vehicles where the facing weren't that clear, (a) a lot of times front and side armor wasn't different so it didn't matter anyway, (b) pretty easy to imagine a rectangle at the outer bounds of the hull. Draw diagonals through it and use that to determine facing, (c) if it's still unclear, use the golden rule and have players roll off, with the winner deciding. That last one is a rule for a reason.
Also a good way of implementing facing is just to have a top-down schematic of the tank on its datasheet and highlight the parts of the hull that are different AVs.
E.G. a Wave Serpent top down might look like:
Spoiler:
Where Green is AV12, Yellow is AV11, and Red is AV10 (yes I know historically yellow would be AV12 but bear with me).
Then, the default rules for determining facing would be to pick the closest point of the hull to the firing model and use that "facing".
Ah, so your vehicle got a 3+ cover save, but they could hit the facing they can see. Now, the question is, why does the front of an exhaust pipe count as rear armor? I think my group always got it wrong then. (Also worth noting in 9th edition you'd still get nothing whatsoever and they can still shoot your exhaust pipe so I'm not sure what's better now).
Unit1126PLL wrote: your battlewagon got a 3+ Cover Save and the benefit of its front armor, unlike now where it gets nothing.
My battlewagon already had a 4+ cover save 99% of the time and 3+ didn't matter when something like a shuriken cannon, assault cannon or multi laser could destroy the BW because it was hitting on AV10.
Right now the same battlewagon has a 4+ save, the same 5+ to ignore their shots (T7 vs S6), and doesn't have a 50% chance to die every time you fail a save.
Unit1126PLL wrote: your battlewagon got a 3+ Cover Save and the benefit of its front armor, unlike now where it gets nothing.
My battlewagon already had a 4+ cover save 99% of the time and 3+ didn't matter when something like a shuriken cannon, assault cannon or multi laser could destroy the BW because it was hitting on AV10.
Right now the same battlewagon has a 4+ save, the same 5+ to ignore their shots (T7 vs S6), and doesn't have a 50% chance to die every time you fail a save.
It doesn't have a 50% chance to die every time you failed a save in 5th, either, considering penetrating hits only killed on a 5+ iirc and glances on a 6.
Also, I still contest that the front of your exhaust pipe is still front armor, considering they're in the front arc and they can see the tank. Just because the pipe is placed on the rear doesn't mean it's rear armor. It's like saying you're hitting a Wave Serpent in the rear when you can only see the turret, because the turret's on the back of the tank...
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also a good way of implementing facing is just to have a top-down schematic of the tank on its datasheet and highlight the parts of the hull that are different AVs.
E.G. a Wave Serpent top down might look like:
Spoiler:
Where Green is AV12, Yellow is AV11, and Red is AV10 (yes I know historically yellow would be AV12 but bear with me).
Then, the default rules for determining facing would be to pick the closest point of the hull to the firing model and use that "facing".
Assuming those diagrams exist for every single vehicle, that would be an acceptable option. Measuring closest part to something like a defiler or a kopta might be a PITA though.
Ah, so your vehicle got a 3+ cover save, but they could hit the facing they can see. Now, the question is, why does the front of an exhaust pipe count as rear armor? I think my group always got it wrong then. (Also worth noting in 9th edition you'd still get nothing whatsoever and they can still shoot your exhaust pipe so I'm not sure what's better now).
Further up on this page is the LRBT diagram from the same page. Essentially, any part of the vehicle that was in the rear quadrant of the model was "rear facing".
There also was the hilarious interaction when people declared the deff rolla to not be hull, but a weapon. An eldar or a guardsmen standing right in front of it (suicide melta) would then be too small to see past the deff rolla and therefore was unable to shoot the BW's hull.
5th could have been a lot better if GW was as good at writing rules as they are now.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: It doesn't have a 50% chance to die every time you failed a save in 5th, either, considering penetrating hits only killed on a 5+ iirc and glances on a 6.
Open topped, and immobilize was the same as wrecked from an ork's perspective, plus two "weapon destroyed" results also were an immobilize So glances "killed" on 5+, pens on a 3+, melta on a 2+.
Losing 4 battlewagons before they moved was not uncommon if my KFF rolls failed me.
Also, I still contest that the front of your exhaust pipe is still front armor, considering they're in the front arc and they can see the tank. Just because the pipe is placed on the rear doesn't mean it's rear armor. It's like saying you're hitting a Wave Serpent in the rear when you can only see the turret, because the turret's on the back of the tank...
For shooting a vehicle normally, this is correct. If the arc you are in is blocked though, you can shoot any arc you can see. The exhaust pipe is part of the rear arc, as is the eldar turret in your example.
Man, all these talks about useless vehicle facings and armor values need to die finally and can possibly resurrected once GW feels about releasing a 40K between Kill Team and 1000points max with not more than 3 vehicles per side, no superheavies and facings for all units not just vehicles for arbitrary reasons. 40K today is far too big for that fiddly nonsense and people had to learn that the hard way in 6th and 7th Edition were being a vehicle was a classification that let you know: this unit is super squishy, has very clumsy movement and can never shoot all the weapons you pay for.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Also a good way of implementing facing is just to have a top-down schematic of the tank on its datasheet and highlight the parts of the hull that are different AVs.
E.G. a Wave Serpent top down might look like:
Spoiler:
Where Green is AV12, Yellow is AV11, and Red is AV10 (yes I know historically yellow would be AV12 but bear with me).
Then, the default rules for determining facing would be to pick the closest point of the hull to the firing model and use that "facing".
Assuming those diagrams exist for every single vehicle, that would be an acceptable option. Measuring closest part to something like a defiler or a kopta might be a PITA though.
Ah, so your vehicle got a 3+ cover save, but they could hit the facing they can see. Now, the question is, why does the front of an exhaust pipe count as rear armor? I think my group always got it wrong then. (Also worth noting in 9th edition you'd still get nothing whatsoever and they can still shoot your exhaust pipe so I'm not sure what's better now).
Further up on this page is the LRBT diagram from the same page. Essentially, any part of the vehicle that was in the rear quadrant of the model was "rear facing". There also was the hilarious interaction when people declared the deff rolla to not be hull, but a weapon. An eldar or a guardsmen standing right in front of it (suicide melta) would then be too small to see past the deff rolla and therefore was unable to shoot the BW's hull. 5th could have been a lot better if GW was as good at writing rules as they are now.
You parsed facing differently than I did. It has nothing to do with what part of the vehicle is where, and everything to do with where the model shooting the vehicle is standing. When shooting at something sticking up out of the vehicle, you shot based on the facing you were standing in. In fact, I would argue that's the only way to parse it. If you can only see the turret of a Leman Russ, what facing are you in? The turret is dead center. What about a Baneblade whose turret you can see? The turret is back behind the center of the vehicle, but also slightly offset to one side IIRC... it becomes a mess if you don't parse facing as "the place the model is standing relative to the target" when shooting at sticky-uppy bits.
But yeah, even so, GW's shoddy writing doesn't make the whole concept of armor facing irrelevant. And yes, that top-down thing should exist for every vehicle in the game if you want to implement facing. It only makes sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jidmah wrote: For shooting a vehicle normally, this is correct. If the arc you are in is blocked though, you can shoot any arc you can see. The exhaust pipe is part of the rear arc, as is the eldar turret in your example.
If you're in front of the tank and can see the front of the pipe (or the turret) then you can see the front arc of the tank. To say that the specific location of the pipe or turret is relevant is a That Way Lies Madness scenario, given how many sticky uppy bits a person could potentially see.
These posts prove to the OP that "Yes, 9th is good". I have been playing since 4th, and this streamlined edition is great to get back into the game. Once you get back in, will your interest last for long ? It is no longer a wargame IMO (and most opinions here in this thread froim what I understand), it takes slightly less time to play and the core mecanics are EZ to learn, especially for someone who played 40k, even if that was a long time ago.
If you like, or think you might like, strategy in a "semi wargame, semi MTG card like game, with (much) better balance than prior editions", with great models, the lore you love, etc. then go for it (I like 9th a lot, but I am really unsure whether I will still like it after 50+ games).
BUT, if you want to get back into the wargame (vehicule facings, monsters being different from vehicules, etc.) you remember, then I suggest you borrow an army for your first games. Because you might find this version a bit shallow in terms of the importance of manoeuvering
Jidmah wrote: For shooting a vehicle normally, this is correct. If the arc you are in is blocked though, you can shoot any arc you can see. The exhaust pipe is part of the rear arc, as is the eldar turret in your example.
If you're in front of the tank and can see the front of the pipe (or the turret) then you can see the front arc of the tank.
If that were the case, what would have been the point of the 3+ rule? It clearly assumed that you can see facings others than the one you are in.
Jidmah wrote: For shooting a vehicle normally, this is correct. If the arc you are in is blocked though, you can shoot any arc you can see. The exhaust pipe is part of the rear arc, as is the eldar turret in your example.
If you're in front of the tank and can see the front of the pipe (or the turret) then you can see the front arc of the tank.
If that were the case, what would have been the point of the 3+ rule? It clearly assumed that you can see facings others than the one you are in.
Well, look at the example they provide. The Fire Dragons aren't looking at sticky uppy bits - they're looking straight at the side armor of the tank. However, they're standing in the front. So a situation where your battlewagon (or wave serpent) was behind a 50" high wall, but tilted slightly to one side so that someone could see the side sticking out from behind it. Not where your battlewagon (or wave serpent) was behind a 4" high wall but the enemy could see the turret so they shot your rear armor. That's just silly.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
I don't agree with your interpretation, and I think it's pretty clear why. In the case where you can see multiple areas of the tank that are sticking up (e.g. turret and exhaust pipe, like a close-topped turreted BW), who gets to pick which one is shot? Hint: it doesn't matter, because if they can see the front of the tank, they can see the front of the tank - even if its the turret, which may be mounted off to one side or slightly to the rear or some other weird thing.
I mean heck, look at the front of this battlewagon:
Spoiler:
Would you claim that a model shooting that forward shoota turret is hitting the side armor (if the front of the tank up to the turret was covered by a wall) just because it's mounted to the side?
This is what irks me about armor facing discussions. People are like "they're bad and started arguments!" - well, clearly, if you are trying to start an argument. It's like me claiming the color of the sky is controversial just because I am willing to argue that it's red.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
Your group doesn't sound it like it would have been a lot of fun to play against in previous editions, because those are some really... interesting... interpretations of the rules for armor facings. And sure, you can shout about "that's what they intended because that's how it's written!" as much as you want, and I'll still disagree with you.
For what it's worth, I still much prefer armor facings vs the current rules, wherein my Battlewagon can shoot an enemy Leman Russ if I can draw a straight line between, say, the previously mentioned rear exhaust, and a single link of track on the rear of the Leman Russ even if no other parts of either vehicle are visible to each other. You want to get silly with rules? That's some silly rules writing.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
Your group doesn't sound it like it would have been a lot of fun to play against in previous editions, because those are some really... interesting... interpretations of the rules for armor facings. And sure, you can shout about "that's what they intended because that's how it's written!" as much as you want, and I'll still disagree with you.
"Well, your group sucked" is just the same as your group agreeing that GW's rules were so bad that you had to house-rule them. And as pointed out, my group was essentially two groups and five stores in cities in this area.
For what it's worth, I still much prefer armor facings vs the current rules, wherein my Battlewagon can shoot an enemy Leman Russ if I can draw a straight line between, say, the previously mentioned rear exhaust, and a single link of track on the rear of the Leman Russ even if no other parts of either vehicle are visible to each other. You want to get silly with rules? That's some silly rules writing.
This was possible in 5th as well. Open topped allowed passengers could track LoS from any part of the hull, exhausts were hull, as were tracks.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
I don't agree with your interpretation, and I think it's pretty clear why. In the case where you can see multiple areas of the tank that are sticking up (e.g. turret and exhaust pipe, like a close-topped turreted BW), who gets to pick which one is shot? Hint: it doesn't matter, because if they can see the front of the tank, they can see the front of the tank - even if its the turret, which may be mounted off to one side or slightly to the rear or some other weird thing.
This is the official diagram in 5th edition's ruleset: According to that picture, anything in the triangle that says "rear armor" is rear armor. If I can see any part of the hull in that triangle and no part of the hull in the "front armor" triangle, I can shoot rear armor from the front. Unlikely for a LRBT, but GW clearly didn't think about xenos vehicles at the time of writing that.
This is my battlewagon I played in 5th edition (you can tell from the boarding planks), with a random turret because I can't find its original one:
Spoiler:
Those three pictures (and more) are just a couple of valid interpretations for the firing arks. If I gave this picture to 50 dakkanauts, I'd bet I'd have dozens of different firing arcs drawn in.
This is what irks me about armor facing discussions. People are like "they're bad and started arguments!" - well, clearly, if you are trying to start an argument. It's like me claiming the color of the sky is controversial just because I am willing to argue that it's red.
You must have missed the part where I was the one playing those battlewagons. These were arguments players started while playing me. My 5th edition codex still has a list with 20+ questions written in its cover, which I had to clarify before every game, just to prevent the avoidable arguments. My main stake in this mess was not having arguments, no more, no less. It also clearly is starting an argument between us right now, and if that isn't evidence enough, I don't know what is.
FWIW, I would never interpret that Arc diagram to be about what physical parts of the vehicle fall within what arc. That diagram is an overlay showing facing and what zone a shooting model falls within.
My mind is blown that anyone would interpret that diagram in the manner you are.
EDIT:
What we've also done, is that I have a 360-degree protractor. Line it up turned 45-degrees to the orientation of the vehicle. You'll get nice 90-degree arcs for each facing.
Heck, IIRC you can even use the old translucent blast template markers to do the same thing. Of course the game doesn't have those anymore either!
Tyran wrote: Well the thread was immediately derailed by the "9th sucks, play 5th" crowd.
Well... since we're doing a lot of creative interpretation, I think the OP's question could be interpreted as whether or not 9th is any good "relative to X" Relative to the 7th edition they are somewhat familiar with? Relative to older editions? Even a simple list of pro's and con's is going to be relative to something else, whether an older version of 40K or a totally different game.
FWIW, I think earlier comments did a decent job of summarizing the pro's and con's of 9th.
SolarCross wrote: I am getting back into 40k, so is 9th ed any good?
I first jumped in when 7th ed was current but didn't quite get to the point of actually gaming when 7th was upstaged by 8th. I was nonplussed about buying more books so I sort of lost interest a bit since. So now 9th has been out for a bit I am torn between trying to make some use of my old 7th ed books by playing some retro hammer or getting down with what is hip with the kids now, that being 9th.
Due to the Pandemic, I have not played a single game of 9th ed yet. It's 8th ed with a few tweaks that really affect army building, and I did enjoy 8th. I see no reason why I wouldn't like 9th.
Tyran wrote: Well the thread was immediately derailed by the "9th sucks, play 5th" crowd.
Well... since we're doing a lot of creative interpretation, I think the OP's question could be interpreted as whether or not 9th is any good "relative to X" Relative to the 7th edition they are somewhat familiar with? Relative to older editions? Even a simple list of pro's and con's is going to be relative to something else, whether an older version of 40K or a totally different game.
FWIW, I think earlier comments did a decent job of summarizing the pro's and con's of 9th.
On the other hand, if they wanted to play 5th, they would be playing 5th. They should already be familiar with it and thus not need you to sell it to them.
Moreover, "relative to X" is not helpful if X is also up to interpretation, because then you are not only debating about 9th or 9th compared to X, but also about X.
I know two playing groups and five stores who did read it that way. YMDC did as well.
know 3 clubs several tournaments were internet arguments were not a thing
there were discussions with the Eldar Skimmers because of the round front, yet a rectangular sheet of paper solved that issue very fast
but the DeffRoller was never an argument on any event or club game and if it was with your stores/groups I guess they tried to play a pure non-house ruled version of the game wer such arguments had a chance to be talked about
Only if they could find opponents, which is nontrivial and takes a bit more effort than just "coming back to 40k."
That is more an argument for not trying to sell them 5th. I mean, either they can find 5th edition games, thus they don't need this thread to sell them 5th, or they cannot, thus it doesn't matter how much this thread tries to sell them 5th.
Either way, trying to sell them 5th is not only derailing a thread that is asking about 9th, but also that is not needed and arguably irrelevant.
Dysartes wrote: ...you did notice the OP taking part in the discussion of older editions earlier in the thread, right?
This discussion is not as OT as you seem to want to make it, Tyran.
At the very least, all this talk about facings and how they were interpreted is OT.
That is You Make Da Call sub-forum material.
The thread asked "is 9th any good?" and people started popping up to say "no, play older editions, they're better," and then some folks who like 9th started challenging that assertion based on an argument about vehicle facings. I think "is 5th actually easier to play than 9th?" is a valid area of inquiry for a thread about whether 9th is any good.
The thread asked "is 9th any good?" and people started popping up to say "no, play older editions, they're better," and then some folks who like 9th started challenging that assertion based on an argument about vehicle facings. I think "is 5th actually easier to play than 9th?" is a valid area of inquiry for a thread about whether 9th is any good.
Perhaps, but getting into an interpretation debate about 5th edition rules is outside that area, because then the thread is no longer about 9th edition at all.
Either way, trying to sell them 5th is not only derailing a thread that is asking about 9th, but also that is not needed and arguably irrelevant.
I asked about 9th but as I say in the OP that question is in the context of deciding which edition to focus on. I am open to being sold on 5th. If I go with an older edition it would probably be 7th but there is no harm in hearing more about 5th.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
Your group doesn't sound it like it would have been a lot of fun to play against in previous editions, because those are some really... interesting... interpretations of the rules for armor facings. And sure, you can shout about "that's what they intended because that's how it's written!" as much as you want, and I'll still disagree with you.
For what it's worth, I still much prefer armor facings vs the current rules, wherein my Battlewagon can shoot an enemy Leman Russ if I can draw a straight line between, say, the previously mentioned rear exhaust, and a single link of track on the rear of the Leman Russ even if no other parts of either vehicle are visible to each other. You want to get silly with rules? That's some silly rules writing.
Either way, trying to sell them 5th is not only derailing a thread that is asking about 9th, but also that is not needed and arguably irrelevant.
I asked about 9th but as I say in the OP that question is in the context of deciding which edition to focus on. I am open to being sold on 5th. If I go with an older edition it would probably be 7th but there is no harm in hearing more about 5th.
I might recommend looking at the history and it’s development. With eBay and a hundred dollars, you could probably own the most important books for most, depending on how many armies you are collecting.
I might recommend looking at the history and it’s development. With eBay and a hundred dollars, you could probably own the most important books for most, depending on how many armies you are collecting.
Actually I have a side hustle dealing in old warhammer books, so at any given time I already have a ton of the older books to look at. Affording the time to actually read them is another matter, but I have a lot physically at hand already.
Either way, trying to sell them 5th is not only derailing a thread that is asking about 9th, but also that is not needed and arguably irrelevant.
I asked about 9th but as I say in the OP that question is in the context of deciding which edition to focus on. I am open to being sold on 5th. If I go with an older edition it would probably be 7th but there is no harm in hearing more about 5th.
Fair enough.
But now that I have your attention, do you have an idea of the state of 40k gaming on your community?
If it is big, small, what editions they play, if it is centralized on a store or it is spread across multiple ones, do they play a lot in garages and/or houses, etc.
Either way, trying to sell them 5th is not only derailing a thread that is asking about 9th, but also that is not needed and arguably irrelevant.
I asked about 9th but as I say in the OP that question is in the context of deciding which edition to focus on. I am open to being sold on 5th. If I go with an older edition it would probably be 7th but there is no harm in hearing more about 5th.
Fair enough.
But now that I have your attention, do you have an idea of the state of 40k gaming on your community?
If it is big, small, what editions they play, if it is centralized on a store or it is spread across multiple ones, do they play a lot in garages and/or houses, etc.
Not much of an idea yet. There is a store at the second nearest town to me, so presumably 9th and Kill Team will be a doddle for games there. Although I don't really want to play there. I emailed the only club that I know of in the county asking after what they play, specifically asking if 7th was on the menu still. The reply was that they played a lot of horus heresy, but they have gone quiet since then. I am not interested in HH because it is just marines fighting marines and I am filthy xeno.
I could play at home because I have a bit of space but I am in very rural location so it might be a pain for other players to find me. I have a wife and son I would like recruit into the hobby but so far they are not really interested.
One thing I will say is that the rules for 9th (and 8th) edition are much more concisely and precisely written. Overall, this means reading the core rules is significantly faster and easier to understand. And rule disputes/questions appear to be a bit less as far as the core rules are concerned.
What's interesting, is that I don't think that older editions couldn't have been more concise too. There was a lot of fluff and preamble setting up the justification for why rules were written as they were, which added a lot of extraneous information to wade through.
The next evolution of ProHammer to properly re-write the rules in style of 9th edition, and I suspect it wouldn't be too much longer than the 9th edition rules when I'm done.
Mezmorki wrote: One thing I will say is that the rules for 9th (and 8th) edition are much more concisely and precisely written.
disagree here, looking at the current superdoctrines/doctrine interaction from Codex SM and new Supplements, this is a mess and are far from clear (there is an intention what GW might want those rules to be but the rules text says something different)
they try harder than before but the result is not really better
I was referring to just the core rules. I think when you layer in all the stuff from the codexes, in aggregate, it's a more complex game and inevitably that complexity and the ensuing interactions can lead to complications.
Mezmorki wrote: I was referring to just the core rules. I think when you layer in all the stuff from the codexes, in aggregate, it's a more complex game and inevitably that complexity and the ensuing interactions can lead to complications.
I don't think it's a reasonable comparison. GW "cleaned up" the core rules for 8th/9th by taking a whole bunch of rules (unit types, USRs, vehicles degrading as they take damage, etc.) and offloaded them into a bunch of slight variations on the same thing in the Codexes. The core rules are "cleaner" in the same way as the cartoon small child who "cleans up" their room by shoving everything into the closet and praying nobody opens the door.
I understand perfectly why massive amounts of data are relevant to analyzing the state of the game. I dispute your claim that tournament winrate data is the only data that matters, and that I cannot possibly not be having fun because the tournament winrates prove that this is the bestest 40k ever. If you don't want to play the copy-paste netlists, or the combo-driven cardgame, or the king-of-the-hill knockoff-Steamroller scenarios, the tournament winrates are not relevant.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with the dudes you play against, and try to get a nice casual game going on that isn't full of your average space marine army.
Something like this: "Hey look, I know I'm playing Alpha Legion CSM and knights but I'm after a nice casual game, I swears it, please don't place spacemarines or necrons. Or if you are don't touch them in melee with your filthy kniveses. Thanks!"
Doesn't work. What one player thinks is a soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist can and will still table another soft noncompetitive non-tournament-netlist in 2-3 turns because the statlines are so badly out of whack that playing the game like a tournament player is the only way to make it work.
This is not through any malice or attempts to cheese the soft-noncompetitive-non-tournament-netlist paradigm, this is by accident.
Sounds like you're gatekeeping casual games. Take a step back and reconsider how *you* play.
Just like you want to play with your collection, they want to play with theirs. And who here is god enough to say anyone's fun is wrong.
Honestly, the way you're referencing net lists and tournament lists and non-casual lists it really comes across as if you've drunk too much of the Dakka forum coolaid. Not everything that's good is a netlist. Don't forget that GW has actively attempted to make collecting the space marine card game be simple and easy.
Eonfuzz wrote: Competitive players have ruined 9th edition. 9th edition isn't letting me table opponents with minimal effort and competitive players playtested it. Bad!...
Don't misunderstand here: If you are a tournament player and don't mind prioritizing rules over models or playing the same king-of-the-hill knockoff Steamroller scenarios over and over again 9th is great and probably is the best edition ever. The breadth of stuff at the top tournament tables is as great as it's ever been, and the stratagem card-combo game makes for a much more engaging competitive environment than earlier editions.
If, however, you want to play nonstandard/narrative missions, use minis you like instead of the ones with the best rules, do any homebrewing, or just sort of throw models down on the table and have a good time without worrying too much about it, 9th is as bad as the game has ever been.
I don't blame tournament players for "ruining" 9th. I do blame Jidmah for being an ass about people who might want to play the game differently than he does, but what matters is that 9th could be great or it could be terrible depending on how you want to play. There's more to the hobby than the competitive tournament mindset, and if you like other stuff more than the competitive tournament mindset you might want to consider not trying to play 9th.
If you want to do nonstandard / narrative in the first place why even worry about rules? Why even play a "board game". Go do an RPG instead, something like Dark Heresy or that other space marine one.
Without rules you're basically just mashing models together and making pew pew sounds. With rules you can't exactly maintain a narrative or nonstandard play.
Warhammer is not the game you're looking for.
So it's either play 40k-the-Gathering or play with plastic green army men as far as you're concerned? It's not hard to understand that there used to be some semblence of an engaging middle ground with a bit more depth and a little less breadth that a lot of people still prefer. The issue with competative play being pushed by GW itself is whereas before all kinds of play could coexist in a casual pick-up environment, now only one can. Honestly this game's been going consistently downhill since late 5th, and it becomes quite frustrating when any protest against this deterioration is met with a childish "Don't play then!", as if lots of money and time hasn't been invested into this hobby only for the rug to be pulled out from underneath people. I've even seen criticism in this thread of people unilaterally withdrawing to make their own editions, as if they're having a temper tantrum and not trying to salvage their hobby from what it currently is.
Jidmah wrote: I never said it wasn't. But that's what the rules said
well this came never up in 5th for me, not in the club nor at tournaments and I know no one who read the rules that way
the topic took off while i was at work before i could respond to this-
That is because to justify his argument you have to ignore several rules in the book
1.bases, in several locations it quite specifically tells you that vehicle models without bases use the hull as their base, then it goes on to clarify that all measurements are measured to the base/hull for movement and shooting
2. then it tells you that the direction the firing unit is firing FROM is the side/facing that gets hit. even in the example of the super save extreme angle shot the facing is based on the base/hull not on other bits on the model that my be mounted on different sides
3. In the point in question- all seeing the turret or an exhaust stack does it gives you LOS to be able to shoot the battle wagon. the shots are resolved against the models "base"-as in the side of the base/hull facing the firing model is shooting into, as there is no extreme angled view of the "base" rule #2 takes precedent. so seeing the turret/stack etc still resolves the shots against the front armor facing of the battle wagon because it is the facing of the base side they are on.
5th edition is actually better written than he is giving it credit for by selectively ignoring the combination of all the related rules.
"He" posted a screenshot of the rule explicitly saying that you interpretation #3 is absolutely wrong. Isn't it funny that people claiming Xth is the best edition ever are always playing the rules wrong or have made significant amendments to them? Clearly being unable to properly parse rules is a major requirement for the enjoyment of older editions.
The only real argument against the interpretation that was played here is what Mezmorki wrote, and essentially boils down to the only thing actually defining what a facing is being a very vague picture of a LRBT.
And once more, for those people who mistake ad hominem attacks against player groups as rules arguments: This interpretation was played across multiple groups and stores in my area, and was taught that way to me and my friends starting at the same time by a group of ~10 RT veterans. As a MtG player at that time, visiting multiple stores to play different people and playing in multiple groups for games was normal to me, so I played all kinds of players. Little did I know that GWs inferior rules-writing simply didn't support that, as every game had to be preceded by an interview to reach a consensus on dozens of loopholes and broken rules. I've done less to apply (and get) a job.
People who just played with a fixed group of players who had a common understanding of the rules simply fail to understand how privileged they were.
As it so happens i have been playing since 3rd at 2 different store where i have had literally hundreds of different opponents (that happens when you have 2 nearby military bases with players moving in and out) over more than a decade and NEVER has anybody tried to play the rules in the way you describe, nobody has ever even tried to bring up that point of view in the 5 editions that had similar rules.
I play with a somewhat fixed group NOW because i have to with covid restrictions forcing us to do invitation only small groups. prior to that you never knew who would show up at the FLGS outside the regulars and since i play multiple different games (10) we had a lot of cross platform play with various players.
"He" posted a screenshot of the rule explicitly saying that you interpretation #3 is absolutely wrong.
I just pulled out my BRB and read all the relevant rules. i am not wrong.
.BRB P3-bases/measuring distances
.BRB P56-vehicle sides & measuring from base/hull
.BRB P60-shooting at vehicles-you can only shoot at vehicles if you can see the hull/base or turret (no the stacks actually don't count but most players allowed it for fun play/LOS rules)
.BRB P60-vehicle facing based on hull/base -Note the turret does not count it has no facings as it is not the hull/base of the vehicle (it is even clearly in the diagram that the hull/base is all that matters)
.BRB P62 Angled shot special save cover rule special may take the shot against the FACING they can see. the HULL/BASE is the facing
It's not my fault you played with a "privileged" group that was playing the rules wrong or made significant amendments to them.
Can we drop the snide remarks, or are we on the level of puberty again?
It can also be a translation error which isn't even unlikely and has also lead to MTG f.e. determining rules language dominance, in order to avoid it after some issues with a chinese translation lead to it beeing played in tourneys to get more efficieny out of some cards.
And knowing full well the "great" translation work in regards to 40k ...... Let's just say that it isn't as unlikely as it should be...
I'm dropping this discussion. There is no rational discussion to be had here, just people trying to justify emotional attachment to an edition they enjoy and vehemently deflecting any and all criticism to "their" edition. Staying polite while doing so also seems to be optional.
Enjoying something imperfect is fine. Not everything you enjoy has to be absolutely flawless and superior to everything else. That's why I enjoy 9th
Not Online!!! wrote: Can we drop the snide remarks, or are we on the level of puberty again?
It can also be a translation error which isn't even unlikely and has also lead to MTG f.e. determining rules language dominance, in order to avoid it after some issues with a chinese translation lead to it beeing played in tourneys to get more efficieny out of some cards.
And knowing full well the "great" translation work in regards to 40k ...... Let's just say that it isn't as unlikely as it should be...
yes and no, 5th was the last Edition were the German Editors corrected mistakes made with the englisch original if they were known
it just became an issue if the FAQ writers decided to make thinks different for reasons (we don't make mistakes so no matter how stupid it is, was is written is true and not a mistake)
we have seen arguments in 5th based on the englisch rules that were not there in the german version and the rules were a not written very clear, as fluff texts and rules were mixed up making things more compicated
but silly arguements like being able to shoot the back from the front were never ever a thing
and as I said above using rectangular bases to make facings obvious to everyone solves other probelems as well as the vehicle now has a "base" and any shananingens with "hull = base" are gone as well
Jidmah wrote: I'm dropping this discussion. There is no rational discussion to be had here, just people trying to justify emotional attachment to an edition they enjoy and vehemently deflecting any and all criticism to "their" edition. Staying polite while doing so also seems to be optional.
difficult, as you come up with problems of an Edition that were a local thing and not more
5th had issues, but there was a wildley accepted tournament FAQ/Errate which solved the ones with the wording
there were tournament scenarios replacing the issues with the RB ones
there were house rules, like accepting bases for all vehicles to solve other problems
the main issue with 5th edition were Codex imbalance with the later books that were overpowered and weak at the same time (as the OP units had no official models and not everyone wanted to use 3rd party items or if there were none, build stuff on their own)
and the problem with wound allocation that shooting more weapons resulted in less casualties as there were wound groups but no weapons groups (something that could have been solved easily)
the main advantage was that for some armies it was the last Edition were they feeled "right" playing them
Jidmah wrote: "He" posted a screenshot of the rule explicitly saying that you interpretation #3 is absolutely wrong.
Isn't it funny that people claiming Xth is the best edition ever are always playing the rules wrong or have made significant amendments to them?
Clearly being unable to properly parse rules is a major requirement for the enjoyment of older editions.
The only real argument against the interpretation that was played here is what Mezmorki wrote, and essentially boils down to the only thing actually defining what a facing is being a very vague picture of a LRBT.
You know why that pic only vaguely looks like a LRBT?
Spoiler:
Because it's a Space Marine Predator.
Jidmah wrote: And once more, for those people who mistake ad hominem attacks against player groups as rules arguments: This interpretation was played across multiple groups and stores in my area, and was taught that way to me and my friends starting at the same time by a group of ~10 RT veterans.
As a MtG player at that time, visiting multiple stores to play different people and playing in multiple groups for games was normal to me, so I played all kinds of players.
Little did I know that GWs inferior rules-writing simply didn't support that, as every game had to be preceded by an interview to reach a consensus on dozens of loopholes and broken rules. I've done less to apply (and get) a job.
Oooh, the good old Appeal to Authority argument.... Has it ever dawned on you though that maybe, just maybe, those ~10 RT vets were wrong? And taught you wrong?
I mean my last post on the topic of Jidmah was outright ignored, so I thought he'd given up. I see he was just ignoring it because it was inconvenient for his argument...
Or rather, he addressed it with spurious nonsense that didn't really answer my questions and instead simply brought up new points. (Sorry, were we discussing the facing of vertical bits of the tanks such as turrets, or the myriad ways armor facings could be drawn?).
Jidmah wrote: This is the official diagram in 5th edition's ruleset: According to that picture, anything in the triangle that says "rear armor" is rear armor. If I can see any part of the hull in that triangle and no part of the hull in the "front armor" triangle, I can shoot rear armor from the front. Unlikely for a LRBT, but GW clearly didn't think about xenos vehicles at the time of writing that.
This is where you're wrong. Because the facing is concerned with the position of the firing model, not the target model.
Otherwise, in the 5th edition diagram, what facing is that predator's turret in, assuming I can only see the turret? And do try to directly answer my question this time instead of dodging it.
I am not sure how many xeno vehicles are really affected by facing ambiguity. Surely facings only matter where they actually have different values. Somebody mentioned the wave serpent, in 7th ed it is 10,12,12 so with side and front facings being the same it hardly matters that the funny forward facing wings do not create a nice box shape and the back is flat enough. Dark eldar skiffs are 10 all round etc.
Tyran wrote: Well, if it is the same anyway, then why we want facings in the first place?
This is like saying "well, if most Marine models are T4, why do we even need Toughness anyways?" while ignoring all the other ways in which it was effectively used and ignoring corollary mechanics (in the case of AV, offering immunity to different weapon systems depending on where those weapon systems maneuvered relative to the target. Even if two sides were the same, the rear was different for most vehicles.
SolarCross wrote: I am not sure how many xeno vehicles are really affected by facing ambiguity. Surely facings only matter where they actually have different values. Somebody mentioned the wave serpent, in 7th ed it is 10,12,12 so with side and front facings being the same it hardly matters that the funny forward facing wings do not create a nice box shape and the back is flat enough. Dark eldar skiffs are 10 all round etc.
Eldar (of all stripes) and Necrons had the same FA and SA for all their vehicles. With Orks, their vehicles were notably rectangular with the Battlewagon being such a stretch limo that it was painfully easy to get side-armor shots on it. In theory, Tau should have been the spoiler since their vehicles were unusual in shape while having different front and side values (even the Piranha speeder!). However, Hammerheads & Skyrays tended to castle in a corner anyway, Piranhas tended to be fielded in squadrons, and nobody ever used the Flyers.
Tyran wrote: Well, if it is the same anyway, then why we want facings in the first place?
They are not ALL the same.
Facings with different resilience is a nice concept that simulates some tactical considerations present in real warfare, particularly tank warfare. The actual way it is implemented in 40k might be up for some criticism but as a game element it is a really nice thing to have.
SolarCross wrote: I am not sure how many xeno vehicles are really affected by facing ambiguity. Surely facings only matter where they actually have different values. Somebody mentioned the wave serpent, in 7th ed it is 10,12,12 so with side and front facings being the same it hardly matters that the funny forward facing wings do not create a nice box shape and the back is flat enough. Dark eldar skiffs are 10 all round etc.
Eldar (of all stripes) and Necrons had the same FA and SA for all their vehicles. With Orks, their vehicles were notably rectangular with the Battlewagon being such a stretch limo that it was painfully easy to get side-armor shots on it. In theory, Tau should have been the spoiler since their vehicles were unusual in shape while having different front and side values (even the Piranha speeder!). However, Hammerheads & Skyrays tended to castle in a corner anyway, Piranhas tended to be fielded in squadrons, and nobody ever used the Flyers.
Though do keep in mind that some of this is GW's design approach where they write an interesting mechanic (things like AA weapons and leadership) and then construct stats that make it irrelevant (most AA weapons couldn't engage the 12/12/10 flyers they kept writing, everyone got to be rerollable stubborn Ld10 or unsweepable or Fearless). Left to their own devices GW wrote very few vehicles with different armour in every facing, especially towards the end (off the top of my head in 7th that'd be the Leman Russ, Devilfish/Hammerhead chassis, Predator/Vindicator chassis, and Battlewaggon), while Forge World wrote loads (Contemptor Dread, Deredeo Dread, Baneblade chassis, Fellblade chassis, Sicaran, Karcinos, Krios, Malcador chassis, Macharius chassis, Minotaur, Brass Scorpion, Warhound, Decimator, Blight Drone, Blood Slaughterer, Battle Fortress, Ork Killtanks, Grot Mega-tank, Manta).
Tyran wrote: Well, if it is the same anyway, then why we want facings in the first place?
They are not ALL the same.
Facings with different resilience is a nice concept that simulates some tactical considerations present in real warfare, particularly tank warfare. The actual way it is implemented in 40k might be up for some criticism but as a game element it is a really nice thing to have.
Yeah try telling a guard player that AV facing wasn't important on his chimeras (12/10/10) but then again it was a box so the base/hull was really easy to segregate.
As for tau vehicles the hammerhead front end makes a nice big flat facing making front/side easy to figure out. but it only really matters on a heavy tank (hammerhead/skyray) since the transports are all the same as eldar being the same front/side AV (12)
This is where you're wrong. Because the facing is concerned with the position of the firing model, not the target model.
Unit1126PLL
I brought that up to and referenced the BRB rules page for it.
MagicJuggler
The only piranha that i know of that had different armor values was the FW TX 42 heavy variant with the cockpit cowl givinig it AV 11 in the front similar to the FW landspeeder tempest variant.
This was a big deal because you were no longer afraid of basic bolter fire spam from the front.
<devolves into this forum’s 4723rd discussion of armour facings, which are not a thing in 9th>
Dakka. Dakka never changes.
If you actually read the topic he said how is 9th....compared to the older edition he is used to playing, the OP also referred to older editions in his own discussion points. it is a valid part of the topic.
Nurglitch wrote: Yes, pinning, falling back, stunning, and shaking vehicles were some great breaks on the whole 'overwhelming firepower' thing that was going on.
They made sense with the rate of fire of older editions. Now rate of fire is massively superior and with more lethality around the last thing we need is the abiltiy to invalidate enemy units in addition to casualties.
Now rate of fire is massivelybrokenand with more lethalitythan is reasonable
There fixed it for ya.
Considering a heavy bolter or assault cannon once were the pinnacle of dakka per weapon, and now 4 shot weaponry isn't even rare anymore, not even going into the nonsense that is the reaper chaincannon....
Ya i tend to agree.
BaconCatBug wrote: I remember the hubbub/outrage when the Punisher Gatling first canon came out. A Heavy 20 weapon? What is this nonsense!
Well , at the time it atleast wasn't usefull as reliable AT.. unlike now where it actually can damage tanks...
which is also some great improvement of the lack of AV in combination with the Greatly majestic wounding table that has no issues whatsoever.
aphyon wrote: i remember when the vulcan mega bolter was heavy 10-twin linked S6 AP4 rending
The saving grace of the punisher cannon is that it was only S5 and AP-
Still find it dubious that i can get a 40 shot BS 3 + tank and consider it "bad" ...
Goes however to show how important AP-1 /-2 and D2+ are in the moment... i wonder why
/S
BaconCatBug wrote: I remember the hubbub/outrage when the Punisher Gatling first canon came out. A Heavy 20 weapon? What is this nonsense!
Well , at the time it atleast wasn't usefull as reliable AT.. unlike now where it actually can damage tanks...
A leman russ punisher utilizing grinding advance does 2 damage to a vehicle, hardly what I would call reliable.
Unless I missed something, the best you can do is with a punisher is a tank commander tank ace (-1 AP) issuing orders to himself (why is that even a thing?) moving at have speed to do ~5 damage to a vehicle.
That might sound like a lot, but a battle cannon is still better at killing thanks than that, as are many of the other actual anti-tank turret weapons.
BaconCatBug wrote: I remember the hubbub/outrage when the Punisher Gatling first canon came out. A Heavy 20 weapon? What is this nonsense!
Well , at the time it atleast wasn't usefull as reliable AT.. unlike now where it actually can damage tanks...
A leman russ punisher utilizing grinding advance does 2 damage to a vehicle, hardly what I would call reliable.
Unless I missed something, the best you can do is with a punisher is a tank commander tank ace (-1 AP) issuing orders to himself (why is that even a thing?) moving at have speed to do ~5 damage to a vehicle.
That might sound like a lot, but a battle cannon is still better at killing thanks than that, as are many of the other actual anti-tank turret weapons.
Yeah i meant the later which is now partially fixed, the core issue is still though that i can just do 5 damage to a pred, or other leman russ, whereas before i couldn't.
But that is mostly a wounding table and lack of AV statistic issue...
BaconCatBug wrote: I remember the hubbub/outrage when the Punisher Gatling first canon came out. A Heavy 20 weapon? What is this nonsense!
Well , at the time it atleast wasn't usefull as reliable AT.. unlike now where it actually can damage tanks...
A leman russ punisher utilizing grinding advance does 2 damage to a vehicle, hardly what I would call reliable.
Unless I missed something, the best you can do is with a punisher is a tank commander tank ace (-1 AP) issuing orders to himself (why is that even a thing?)
Orders will probably be linked to "core" once the new Codex comes around.
The feel with tank warfare, I mean real tank warfare, is very much a game of all or nothing. Either your shell can penetrate or not. If it penetrated then that is game over for the target tank, even just the shrapnel will shred the crew and without crew it is just an over-sized paperweight. If the shell couldn't penetrate then chances are it would do nothing to degrade the operational value of the target. Just read any testimony of WW2 tank battles, that's how it went. If your tank was outclassed by the opposing tank, your best chance was to get around the back of it, because the economy of warfare dictated emphasising the armour on the front over rear.
The 40k rules for facings, AV and vehicle damage table looks like was written to recreate that.
with 40k based more in WW1 than WW2, and Anti-Tank weapons were less effective
penetration hits with non-exploding ammo (or those with too high penetration), if not hitting any vital module or crew member did no real damage (and could went thru the tank doing nothing)
yet non penetration hits still could cause damage inside to the crew as an explosion on the outside was not fully absorbed by the armour or let metal bolts come off at high speed
penetration hits with non-exploding ammo (or those with too high penetration), if not hitting any vital module or crew member did no real damage (and could went thru the tank doing nothing)
This is a common misconception, British testing showed the spalling pattern from an inert penetrator was barely distinguishable from that of one with a small bursting charge. Hence they never used such bursting charges, and indeed sometimes removed and filled in the charges from American ammunition.
I've put a lot of thought into this sort of anti-tank dynamic (if my above comment didn't make it clear, this is a section of nerdery I'm passionate about). This sort of one-shot one-kill dynamic works very well in historical games. However, I don't think it's feasible in 40k.
In WW2, better anti-tank weapons were more powerful.
Whereas in 40k it's the same guns, just more of them. A Predator Annihilator carries the same lascannon as a tactical squad, just 4x as many.
That means the same anti-tank dynamic of one-shot one-kill doesn't quite fit. As much as I dislike the idea, the current implementation of just high toughness/lots of wounds actually does fit the game's anti-tank better.
To me, the problem then is that the game needs a redux.
Back in the day, a Predator Annihilator was a comparatively light vehicle. The actual tank the Imperium preferred to use when engaging enemy armor (that isn't a superheavy) is a Vanquisher, which acted more like a modern, long-barreled tank with fantastic armor penetration and high damage.
Think of it as a long-range ordnance meltagun that could swap ammunition types.
Of course, GW left this paradigm behind for... reasons? IDFK. So the Vanquisher became more like the Sherman Firefly (in that it couldn't fire HE) and the game as a whole lost the Ordnance Penetrating Hits table, which nerfed its destructive capability.
Finally, we get to today, where it's a shoddy lascannon.
The Vanquisher is actually a pretty good example of how GW's ability to model tank warfare in 40k went from actually pretty okay to downright awful.
kodos wrote: with 40k based more in WW1 than WW2, and Anti-Tank weapons were less effective
penetration hits with non-exploding ammo (or those with too high penetration), if not hitting any vital module or crew member did no real damage (and could went thru the tank doing nothing)
yet non penetration hits still could cause damage inside to the crew as an explosion on the outside was not fully absorbed by the armour or let metal bolts come off at high speed
40k isn't based more on WW1, that is literal nonsense. 40k is a pot-porri of plagarism for anything cool that ever existed in history or fiction. WW1 in the mix, but so is WW2, so is the Crusades, the Scramble for Africa, Roman Legions, Samurai Japan, Manga Japan, Lord of the Rings, Starship Troopers, Predator, Dune, Lovecraft etc.. GW's influence dragnet pretty much scoops up everything.
But for Space Marines the premium long range anti-tank was always 4xlascannons. Be that a Predator Annihilator, Devastators, or a Landraider.
For Eldar it was Bright Lances, etc. Even for Imperial Guard it was mostly lascannon HWTs.
Tau were about the only exception who went to railguns rather than multiple lascannon-type weapons.
Short range melta is.obviously a thing, more analogous to panzerfausts et al though and filling its own place in the anti-tamk meta.
The Vanquisher is just one unit in one army.
It doesn't define the anti-tank meta of the game, nor should it.
penetration hits with non-exploding ammo (or those with too high penetration), if not hitting any vital module or crew member did no real damage (and could went thru the tank doing nothing)
This is a common misconception, British testing showed the spalling pattern from an inert penetrator was barely distinguishable from that of one with a small bursting charge. Hence they never used such bursting charges, and indeed sometimes removed and filled in the charges from American ammunition.
it was the main reason why German soldier wore armour inside the tank and why the went away from using bolts to fix armour
and this effect was used against tanks in WW2 as the UK found out that their surface exploding ammo, developed against bunkers, was also highly effective against tanks as well
HESH was used until the ~1970s wre armour design changed into composite armour which made it less effective
so yes, you can knock out a tank by killing the crew or damaging the interior without penetrating the armour
I've put a lot of thought into this sort of anti-tank dynamic (if my above comment didn't make it clear, this is a section of nerdery I'm passionate about). This sort of one-shot one-kill dynamic works very well in historical games. However, I don't think it's feasible in 40k.
In WW2, better anti-tank weapons were more powerful.
Whereas in 40k it's the same guns, just more of them. A Predator Annihilator carries the same lascannon as a tactical squad, just 4x as many.
That means the same anti-tank dynamic of one-shot one-kill doesn't quite fit. As much as I dislike the idea, the current implementation of just high toughness/lots of wounds actually does fit the game's anti-tank better.
the advantage of the current version is that there is no difference between a monster and a tank any more and why a laser cannon why the very same model killed by the same weapon because in one Codex GW decided it is a vehicle and in the next it is a monstrous creature
the problem with weapons being all the same no matter who carries them is a different one (as there should be differences in range and power)
the other problem is, what is a tank in 40k, as a Leman Russ is clear, a Phantom Lord not so much, Sentinel, Dreadnought, a Predator with Deamon Engine or a Carnifex? (I mean if a Dreadnought or Deamon Engine is a vehicle, a Carnifex should be one as well)
so the overall solution would be have a damage table for everything large enough and still use Health Points for all of them
a tank hit by enough shots were each single non did not enough damage to kill it, is still out of service
while the lucky hit killed it with one shot (and this would be the same no matter if a Leman Russ or Carnifex)
could be either a table to roll on, or just "exploding" dice that each 6 to wound doubles the damage caused
and make the larger Anti-Tank guns cause a fixed damage value or go with multiple D3s, like a Marine carried Laser causes 2D3 damage, a Predator Laser Cannon is 2 shots 3D3 damage
kodos wrote: with 40k based more in WW1 than WW2, and Anti-Tank weapons were less effective
penetration hits with non-exploding ammo (or those with too high penetration), if not hitting any vital module or crew member did no real damage (and could went thru the tank doing nothing)
yet non penetration hits still could cause damage inside to the crew as an explosion on the outside was not fully absorbed by the armour or let metal bolts come off at high speed
40k isn't based more on WW1, that is literal nonsense. 40k is a pot-porri of plagarism for anything cool that ever existed in history or fiction. WW1 in the mix, but so is WW2, so is the Crusades, the Scramble for Africa, Roman Legions, Samurai Japan, Manga Japan, Lord of the Rings, Starship Troopers, Dune, Lovecraft etc.. GW's influence dragnet pretty much scoops up everything.
well the rules were written to resample WW1 style battles, might be that the Background is much cooler because it is everything you wrote, but this does not change the fact for what the rules were written for (same as Battlefleet Gothic was written with WW1 naval battles in mind)
and as long as GW does not go for a full reset but keeps parts of the legacy rules for whatever reason there will be problems
well the rules were written to resample WW1 style battles, might be that the Background is much cooler because it is everything you wrote, but this does not change the fact for what the rules were written for (same as Battlefleet Gothic was written with WW1 naval battles in mind)
and as long as GW does not go for a full reset but keeps parts of the legacy rules for whatever reason there will be problems
Except no, obviously no. Just back up that little piece of personal mythology with something please. You can start by explaining the rules for personal challenges in terms of WW1 trench warfare. After that explain the psychic phase.
kirotheavenger wrote: But for Space Marines the premium long range anti-tank was always 4xlascannons. Be that a Predator Annihilator, Devastators, or a Landraider. For Eldar it was Bright Lances, etc. Even for Imperial Guard it was mostly lascannon HWTs. Tau were about the only exception who went to railguns rather than multiple lascannon-type weapons.
Short range melta is.obviously a thing, more analogous to panzerfausts et al though and filling its own place in the anti-tamk meta.
The Vanquisher is just one unit in one army. It doesn't define the anti-tank meta of the game, nor should it.
Space Marines are about the only one that's correct.
Eldar it was Fire Prisms, which were Strength 9 Lance IIRC, about equal to the Vanquisher in terms of penetrating and destroying heavy armor (AV14) but much worse against lower armor values (funny, that, different weapons being categorized against different targets). On balance it was small blast, though, I think. Furthermore, you could link fire, bringing them up to Strength 10, AP1. Much like the Vanquisher, they could also change fire modes between High Explosive (dispersed) and anti-tank (the Lance mode).
Imperial Guard were the army that had the vanquisher and Tau also had single-shot heavy AT weapons as you point out.
I understand, GW invented in their rules a completely new type of combat form that was never seen before without any kind of inspiration from the real world because exists "psychic phase"
so any discussion is pointless because of this little detail, that GW took over "Magic" from their fantasy game into a 15mm WW2 game to resample a WW1 themed skirmish games, everything the rules do is perfectly fine and there should be made no chances is it won't work in this world were a psychic phase exists any more
get it, I guess it is also this psychic phase that makes weapons mounted on the side of the hull, magically fire thru the tank on the other side
the rules are perfectly re-creating this world that was made without any inspiration of real life combat at all (because the psychic phase)
40k is not world war 1 themed except for Imperial forces. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate a failure in understanding of what the other races in 40k even do.
In what ways is the Eldar army designed to meet a World War 1 aesthetic, play style, or... anything?
I think it is the satire of the ultimate futility of war that makes it about a WWI-style of warfare where your ability to gun down the other guy first is of paramount importance.
I understand, GW invented in their rules a completely new type of combat form that was never seen before without any kind of inspiration from the real world because exists "psychic phase"
so any discussion is pointless because of this little detail, that GW took over "Magic" from their fantasy game into a 15mm WW2 game to resample a WW1 themed skirmish games, everything the rules do is perfectly fine and there should be made no chances is it won't work in this world were a psychic phase exists any more
get it, I guess it is also this psychic phase that makes weapons mounted on the side of the hull, magically fire thru the tank on the other side
the rules are perfectly re-creating this world that was made without any inspiration of real life combat at all (because the psychic phase)
WW1 wasn't a skirmish game though. It was massed infantry pushes and artillery barrages. Tanks did not even appear until the late game, they were few and mostly used for attacking infantry.
You have literally zero reason for imagining that GW derived its vehicle rules referencing WW1 (the infantry & artillery trench war) over WW2 which even today is still the war that defined tank battles, especially on the eastern front. Arguably mech infantry fighting wasn't even much of a feature of WW2 being a thing more for the cold war era.
You have no reason, so maybe you should not pick this hill to die on?
and we saw the end of multi-heavy weaponed tanks before WW2 or in the early days
while having an effective anti-infantry weapon was standard
and 40k does not come close to WW2 tank warfare just because you could take many of them in your list
to get that way, tank would need to be much faster than infantry while distance and facings would matter while tank mounted guns would be able to destroy other tanks (and tank like monsters) with one shot while infantry weapons would be useless unless to get very close to the tank
Unit1126PLL wrote: 40k is not world war 1 themed except for Imperial forces. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate a failure in understanding of what the other races in 40k even do.
In what ways is the Eldar army designed to meet a World War 1 aesthetic, play style, or... anything?
not aesthetic but warfare, "large" formation that stand up in opposite of each other and clash
there are armies that are more themed after modern combat, Harlequin in highly mobile 5 model units with support
kodos wrote: and we saw the end of multi-heavy weaponed tanks before WW2 or in the early days while having an effective anti-infantry weapon was standard
Again, a very Imperial perspective. Eldar tanks, just as an example, have a shuriken cannon/twin catapult (M2 or M240) or two and a single large weapon (e.g. Wave Serpent, Fire Prism, Falcon, Scorpion, Cobra...)
kodos wrote: and 40k does not come close to WW2 tank warfare just because you could take many of them in your list
No, it doesn't, which is part of the problem we're illustrating.
kodos wrote: to get that way, tank would need to be much faster than infantry while distance and facings would matter while tank mounted guns would be able to destroy other tanks (and tank like monsters) with one shot while infantry weapons would be useless unless to get very close to the tank
So literally how Eldar worked in 40k (24" move max on their MBTs with high probability single-shot kill main armaments and different armor facings that were immune to small arms, while the infantry could move max 12" in a turn and other infantry could only move 6) The game you are describing is how 40k was until 8th edition.
Unit1126PLL wrote: 40k is not world war 1 themed except for Imperial forces. To suggest otherwise is to demonstrate a failure in understanding of what the other races in 40k even do. In what ways is the Eldar army designed to meet a World War 1 aesthetic, play style, or... anything?
not aesthetic but warfare, "large" formation that stand up in opposite of each other and clash
In what war HASN'T this happened in? Major company-size or larger armor battles have happened as recently as the war in Ukraine and Syria.
kodos wrote: [
could be either a table to roll on, or just "exploding" dice that each 6 to wound doubles the damage caused
and make the larger Anti-Tank guns cause a fixed damage value or go with multiple D3s, like a Marine carried Laser causes 2D3 damage, a Predator Laser Cannon is 2 shots 3D3 damage
It seems you agree that the current system is essentially correct, tanks have multiple wounds, and AT weapons deal multiple damage.
I think the exact implementation of this is pretty bad though, and again I think we're agreed on that - a Plasmagun is almost as good of an anti-tank weapon as a lascannon atm for Christ's sake.
Plus I miss all the extra stuff like facings, tank shocks, and rams. I also agree, monstrous creatures and walkers should be essentially the same.
But, I don't think the 5th ed armour system was that great for 40k, after careful consideration.
kodos wrote: and we saw the end of multi-heavy weaponed tanks before WW2 or in the early days
while having an effective anti-infantry weapon was standard
and 40k does not come close to WW2 tank warfare just because you could take many of them in your list
to get that way, tank would need to be much faster than infantry while distance and facings would matter while tank mounted guns would be able to destroy other tanks (and tank like monsters) with one shot while infantry weapons would be useless unless to get very close to the tank
You are mistaking the rule of cool for a simulation. Multi-weapons look cool, so GW plasters everything in multi-weapons because that's cool. That is not a simulation of WW1 tank craft, sorry but it isn't.
Oh and the reason tanks (also aircraft) are SLOW in 40k is because at 28mm scale even a large tabletop is not even as big as a football pitch at scale. Again this is nothing to do with simulating ww1 tactics because in WW1 they had artillery pieces with ranges in excess of hundreds of miles... If your IG Basilisk had accurate WW1 rules than its game range would be in excess of a hundred feet and you would need a tabletop at least that wide. Good luck with that.
Also the whole "festooned with multiple weapons" nonsense is mostly Imperial tanks anyways.
Even Tyranid MBT analogues typically stick to one or two secondaries and a primary.
Tau are like that.
Crons are like that (mostly. The DDA's gauss flayer arrays are weird).
CWE are like that
Orks can or cannot be like that, but if you want to go with the "festooned with weapons" look, there's obvious reasons for it.
Drukhari vehicles vary like Ork vehicles do, but tend to have one big gun with no secondaries (Reaper) (Reaver being the exception) or infantry transports with man portable systems.
For 9th edition - were one to make some global house rules that didn't require stat line changes in the codex (acknowledging that such global changes would affect the relative value of units differently) - what changes might be made?
I wonder about brining back the old wound chart, which would make lower strength weapons less effective versus tighter toughness (or outright impossible to kill).
Could you approximate facing again by giving a +1 or -1 to your wound roll if attacking in the rear versus the front arc of the vehicle. Or perhaps a damage bonus when attacking the rear?
Is the overall balance concern that vehicles are too weak overall right now? Or is it just that they are too weak versus non-AT weaponry?
I also wonder about bringing back cover saves and the like for vehicles and monstrous creates - which seems like it should be a thing if the cover is sufficiently sized.
Just for fun, how would this be as a scenario for recreating a WW1 battle in 40k?
Each side takes a list comprising entirely of troops and aegis defence lines, enough to fill the entire deployment zone. Like a Green Tide or something.
In addition each side gets a number of off-map barrages it can throw down on the enemy deployment zone for the first 6 turns. Casualties from the barrages are kept secret. Then on turn 7 the players roll to seize the initiative. Whoever wins the roll can choose to "go over the top" which means leaving his deployment zone and advancing towards the enemy deployment zone or not depending on how lucky he thinks he has been with his barrages.
VP is awarded for making it to the enemy deployment zone. If no one actually goes over the top then whoever has the most soldiers left over from the barrages wins.
kodos wrote: [
could be either a table to roll on, or just "exploding" dice that each 6 to wound doubles the damage caused
and make the larger Anti-Tank guns cause a fixed damage value or go with multiple D3s, like a Marine carried Laser causes 2D3 damage, a Predator Laser Cannon is 2 shots 3D3 damage
It seems you agree that the current system is essentially correct, tanks have multiple wounds, and AT weapons deal multiple damage.
I think the exact implementation of this is pretty bad though, and again I think we're agreed on that - a Plasmagun is almost as good of an anti-tank weapon as a lascannon atm for Christ's sake.
Plus I miss all the extra stuff like facings, tank shocks, and rams. I also agree, monstrous creatures and walkers should be essentially the same.
But, I don't think the 5th ed armour system was that great for 40k, after careful consideration.
I think the problem now is that weapons with more shots are as good or better against tanks as dedicated anti-tank guns
having AT guns doing more and constant damage while increasing HP of vehicles would help
going with higher Strength and Toughness for AT weapons and tanks/monsters would be the better solution as the high strength won't make that much difference for softer targets (while the higher damage would) and everything else would be still useable but not as effective while without losing on heavy infantry
well, if you think the german anti-infantry tank was the only thing around than yes
the only thing that came later were flame-tanks
the other things a modern classifications, as WW2 had no MBT either (and Self-propelled Artillery is a problematic designation as all the guns mounted on tanks were called artillery by that time and the difference between SPA, TD and MBT was not there, as light, medium and heavy tank was used)
but as you also think that WW1 was just that one battle there in France and nothing else
